Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Dan Campbells Lions Mike Evans For Hall Of Fame Chiefs Dynasty Talk

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Geoff Schwartz and Gabe Goodwin break down a jam-packed weekend across the NFL and college football. They open with Detroit’s dominant win over Tampa Bay and why Dan Campbell deserves more credit, debate whether Mike Evans belongs among the all-time great wideouts, and discuss Kansas City’s resurgence while Denver confuses everyone. Then it’s Drake Maye’s quiet MVP buzz, Jonathan Taylor’s case for hardware, and why the Jets might as well move to London. College fans get deep dives on Indiana’s shocking Big Ten run, UCLA’s new offense, and SEC power rankings. They even detour to baseball to marvel at Shohei Ohtani’s once-in-a-century performance. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to Jeff Schwartz to Smarry. Josh Swarton, you've been right. Draftings, The Crown is yours. Today is Tuesday, October 21st. I am Jeff Schwartz alongside Gabe Goodwin and Gabe. We've made it. It's NBA preview season. Oh, wait, we're not doing that in this show.

We're talking all football in this show, Gabe, all the time. NFL, college football. I want to see your reaction to that. I want to see if you were paying attention so early in the A.m. on the West Coast. I'm paying attention, Jeff. What got my attention was in our little script here. It said it was January 14th. thought that feels off.

I should read closer. So no, you didn't fool me with your NBA hijinks. It did feel off. I mean, that's the time of year when Oregon was still playing football and USC would be off. So I know that's kind of weird for you to feel that way about that date. But we'll talk about college football in a little bit, Gabe. Time we get to National Football League football time. Let's talk about the Lions.

Okay. So they beat the box 24 to 9 and Monday Night Football, the one we watched. The interesting thing about this game, though, is they have. had no secondary players, no starters. This was like five dudes coming off the bench. It seemed like Baker's going to pick them apart. And they hold Baker in check, not the MVP any longer. And they do enough on offense. And the lions are pretty impressive. And this was a meaningful win. How did the defense become the story in Detroit? That was the only side of the ball. We were like, yeah, that doesn't work. Well, the played really well. It's so funny, all week,

we discussed this game on various times. I was on. We discussed with Matt. And we had Tampa Bay. They were like, what, why this line makes no sense? Why is Tampa getting five and a point? And they weren't the right side of the entire game. The Lions defense, dude, they played so fast. That's one thing I noticed. They play very fast and fearless. And look, you shouldn't play any slower because you have worse players, right? Play fast and they forced turnovers and they were hounding Baker-Mayfield. Really, the pass rush got to Mayfield a bunch. That was a big plus for the Lions. The noise, and I'm not sure I consider Ford Field to be exceptionally low, excuse me, loud play's game, but Baker Mayfield was clearly dealing with the noise issue.

And the bucks just looked out of sorts. You know, we talked about preview in this game. We said, what's easier to play with? No wide receivers. And oddly enough, Tampa did have Mike Evans and Abuka play. Or no secondary. I said no wide receivers, right? We saw Ted Johnson two weeks ago.

We saw Shepard. We saw the other Johnson, and they were fine. Cade on as well. And, you know, then I do wonder for Tampa Bay, like, playing Mike Evans clearly wasn't 100%. and they got hurt again. Abuko sort of came alive in the second half, but I do wonder if playing those guys,

Abuka again was fine, but playing Evans, probably rushing back too soon, kind of messed with the flow of the offense. But again, Credits and Lions, man, they played fast, they played physical.

They forced those turnovers, right? Had it fumble in interception, back-to-back plays. There's Tampa sort of trying to score before the end of the first half, I think it was. And give credits of Lions, man.

They balled out. Good win for them, right? Because, you know, you play the Chiefs, doesn't go very well. You play a red-hot, Bucks team and you shut them down. It was a big win for the lines.

Yeah, and the offensive lines seemed like a big part of it. Jemir Gibbs had 200 and some odd rush yards. And I saw some clips of Penae Sewell just like moving people around and then running his ass off downfield. He did miss the line. He didn't miss the block though. He missed the block. That's true.

Yeah. Back in the day when you used to be able to throw in those guys, cut him, you would just dive full. I had a coach with the chiefs. Any heck, still there. His son was the Bucks right tackle last night. he said on screens are in space that we get a minus if we don't try to cut

the defender because we're so large and we just throw our bodies in the way they're probably going to move out of the way and cause some space for the runner well the line's offense line is good for a couple reasons their offense line coach is great Hank Freley is fantastic but two they've also just spent the resources right

they have a first round left tackle they have a first round right tackle you know a glass now was third round pick, I want to say, for them. He left and came back for them. Ratledge's second round pick, I believe, this year.

It's like they've spent the resources on the offensive line game. Like, that's important. Look, Penae Soel's a no-brainer, right? I mean, you look at his college tape. Yeah, Routledge was second round pick, and then Mahogany was a

sixth round pick. So they, you know, they spent the resources there, and they've done a good job building them around. So that's what it is, right? It's the resources and the offensive line coach. And what they do best in my mind, Gabe, is they are very versatile. They are, their ability to do different blocks and different schemes makes them really hard to scout. A lot of times, you know, offensive lines are good at one thing, maybe two. it's what you have time to practice.

So you're an outside zone team, your inside zone team. You're a power gap type team. The lines do everything. And that's credit to their offensive line coach and credit to the players that are able to do and learn different techniques with limited practice time. So you can't really pin down the lines to one thing they do. Obviously, adding Gibbs, who had a great long run,

Montgomery, who's a very tough runner, it makes it very difficult to game plan this offense. Okay. Well, I was led to believe this offseason that they were cooked because they lost all their coordinators and no one could possibly bring the magic back. And Hank had an interesting take that I'll relay. Basically, new blood.

Like, sometimes, I'll say it this way. In an office place, you know, we do creative stuff for a living. Like, sometimes you just need new brains, even if maybe they aren't as accomplished as the brains who you once had. Like, a show can improve by just bringing in some new producers who've done things differently. Is that maybe what's happening here? Why were we so sure they were going to crumble because Ben Johnson left?

Good point. I think it's time to get credit to Dan Campbell. I think Dan Campbell has far more input in the offense than we gave him credit for with Ben Johnson because they switch offensive coordinators. Week one was a little bit tough. That was a tough spot, right? You go to Green Bay.

They just got Michael Parsons. Like, he just didn't play very well. And since then the offense has looked exactly like it did last season. And the one constant is Dan Campbell, right? He's the one constant. And that leads me to believe that he has a bigger say in the offense that we've given him credit for previously. And I know that we, you know, the biting the kneecaps and his big meathead and his,

what, eight espresso shots a day that he has, like, he just has this persona of, I'm a head coach and I'm a, you know, I'm a big tough guy. And I'm not in charge of anything, but making sure our team is tough and ready to play. But Gabe, I think he does a lot more for the offense that we give him credit for. And when you have an offense that looks the same with a new coordinator, Right? Like the Eagles, for example, are struggling on offense. Now, last week they broke out a little bit because guess what? The little bit A.J. Brown works out pretty well.

But the offense looks a little bit different, right, with a new coordinator. It looks the same in Detroit. So to me it's about Dan Campbell and his ability to really have an input in this offense more than give him credit for. Okay. I think we can clip that out and make some people in Detroit pretty happy with that take. Let me ask you this. Other side of the ball, you mentioned Mike Evans. He comes back.

We all assume this is his last season. he comes back maybe a week too early, gets injured again. The reason that's relevant is because he is, you know, doing something incredible, going for a thousand yards receiving basically every year for over a decade. So off the top of your dome, and I wrote a few names down,

I'd like to hear top five wide receivers of this generation, and I'm defining this generation as roughly since Calvin Johnson. Okay. Well, Calvin Johnson, obviously. I'm saying Calvin Johnson is better, but let's go start after him or after, you know, his prime. And you've got choices like Antonio Brown, D'Andre Hopkins, A.J. Green, Tyreek Hill, Julio Jones, Larry Fitzgerald, DeVonze Adams. Wasn't Larry Fitzgerald drafted like at the same time as him?

Okay. Take Larry Fitzgerald out. He just lasted forever. Remove him. Okay. I mean, Antonio Brown, for his goofy his his post career, he might be the best of them all. In this in this in this list obviously Julio Jones is on there Devante Adams. I like your list.

Hopkins is is is is good Tyreek Hill. But isn't Mike Evans maybe better than all of them? That's the point. Like so it's not like he had a good quarterback that whole time. So here's a question, right? So like this is a really interesting question. We're going to get into the idea of this is going to happen a lot as we move forward because we there's more passing right. is we're going to get into an era where we have quarterbacks and wide receivers

have a ton of stats that I'm not sure are as good as previous generations. And here's, so here's sort of my test. And I look this up just to make sure. So like I typically go by, and this is the Frank Gore first Hall of Fame argument that I was sort of against Frank Gore in the Hall of Fame was like he gets credit for longevity and for putting up numbers. But was he ever top three in his position? Was he ever top five in his position?

So Mike Evans had made two second team all pros in 16 and 23. And I mean, so I think Mike Evans is made six Pro Bowls. He's probably going to go in the Hall of Fame. He's going to end up with possibly, you know, top, I think top 10 for receiving and top 10 for touchdowns, like something like that game, but he's that good of a player. But was to your point, like you make this list, like would you have taken Antonio Brown over him? Yes, right? Devante Adams, you would take Mike Evan, do Antonio Brown?

Dude, Antonio Brown is prime buddy. I wouldn't, I wouldn't have. I would have taken Mike Evans at the exact same time that Antonio Brown looked great. I still probably would have taken Mike Evan. He's enormous. Dude, he can run every route. He's like, you can't tackle the dude.

He's always open. I don't think of him and drops going hand in hand. And he did all this with, let me just remind people. Yes, Tom Brady's in there. But Josh McCown, Mike Glennon, James when the ball was just flying all over the field, he couldn't even see. Remember, that was before James realized he couldn't see. Ryan Fitzpatrick, Blaine Gabbert, you know, like Baker Mayfield's the second best

quarterback you ever played with. Like, it's unbelievable. The guy's just been open and catching the ball and healthy for over a decade, and we act like he's Frank Gore, and he's not. He's, maybe you can argue Antonio Brown, but like, we have to remember everything else. he get with Antonio Brown. Antonio Brown had, I think, like, 400 less yards in his career than Mike Evans. And you get none of the nonsense with Mike Evans.

I don't remember a single bad thing about him. That's the thing about Evans, though. Like, you have to add in the fact that he wins the Walter Payne Man the year award for the bucks. Like, you add in all those things off the field. Yeah, look, he's going to be a Hall of Famer. I think people have to sort of accept that that's the case, even though, again, it's the question of, like, was he ever top?

read for sustained period tough. I mean, that's my Frank Gore thing. I was like, Frank Gore made like one, one old pro team in his 20 years. Like I know only two running backs to make the all pro every year. But I just,

I just, I sort of view, and this is why I was like pro Tony Buccelli, Torell Davis getting the Hall of Fame. Like, if you're the best player your position for multiple years in a row

and injuries cut you short, I mean, I get it. You might, you know, you might not, you know, B is longevity as someone else and that matters, obviously, but if you're the,

if Tony Buccelli was the best left tackle game when four other Hall of Famers were playing, it's pretty remarkable. So that thing about some of the stack guys is I'm curious to see like where we are on, like his Stafford's going to be an interesting one because is Matt, Stafford's incredible.

I think he's actually underrated now. He's going to have a ton of passing records are close to that, but is he a Hall of Famer? with the quarterback he's playing with now. Yeah, that one's a harder one. We'll have to come back to that when they are in the news a little bit more. Without Puka being healthy,

I don't know what Stafford can. Well, they're playing with it. Beat the shit on Jacksonville, though. Geez. Well, okay. Congratulations on beating the hell out of Jacksonville. Let's talk about a team that is relevant in the AFC, not Jacksonville, your chiefs.

I watched, it always happens, but I watched us go through seven weeks from like the chiefs are cooked to, maybe the chiefs, I don't know, to the chiefs are obviously the best team in the league. Anyone who says otherwise is a moron who doesn't watch football. Yes, they do look a lot better. But why are we going, like guaranteeing them another Super Bowl run

after five weeks ago saying, I don't know if they're going to do it? Why is that happening so quickly? Well, I think I told you that we had to wait to see the offense together and hold. That was the first game they just played with Rashid Rice, were the Hollywood Brown and Travis Kelsey altogether. And they're out there left tackle. Now, luckily for them, Jalen Moore stepped in, and they paid him to be their starting left tackle

and just didn't work out that way. So they're a hole on offense, man. And they look incredible now. They have everyone in place. The offensive creativity has come back, the conference has come back. And now you have players like Kelsey go to the fourth options, wherever he should be, the point of his career.

And defensively, they're still issuing rushing the passer, but Spax has figured out, again, figured it out. Now the Raiders stink. The Raiders had three first downs. Pretty remarkable. She said 30, I think, or 31 first downs. The Raiders are absolutely horrific. But there's a reason why we always, with the Chiefs, like when they struggle, it's like just kind of wait until they figure it out. And they figure it out. I thought they figured out sooner than I imagine. Now, they play Monday night against the commanders who were super beat up right now, so they should go to five and three. And then, you know, they have a tough schedule because

They're the first place schedule. But the rest of the division, too, part of it's the rest of the vision, right? The Raiders are horrific. The charters don't look good anymore. The Broncos, whatever, they won, but they're five and two, but like no one believes in the Broncos. And that's why there's exciting about Kansas City. Also, because they're going to win the division and get a home playoff game again. Okay, wait, you just said something.

I'm going to skip ahead. Nobody believes in the Broncos. Okay. I don't believe in the Broncos. I think a lot of people believe in the Broncos. And I think that comeback this weekend made people go, wait, wait a second, I have to pay attention to the Broncos. What the hell was that? I don't believe in them because they call plays like they're terrified of Bonix.

And for three quarters, they call the most boring conservative game I've seen for a supposed genius in Sean Payton. I question whether they practiced this week game. It was so bad. And then of course it's like, now we have to try to win the game. Let's go to use our good plays right now, according to Draft Kings. Now again, these fluctuate a lot.

AFC West Division Futures, Kansas City minus 130, Broncos plus 200. So we're buying the Chiefs to win the division here. It comes down again, I think DeBonex, and there's just a lack of trust in his ability to do everything you have to do

to win consistently at that position. And Sean Payne calls plays like he's terrified of Boenick's messing it up. And so that's why I think there's a lot of confidence in the Chiefs that are getting right right now. There's still two games with Denver left on the Chief's schedule and they get one of them off a buy. And Andy Reid is incredibly good off a buy.

So I think that's why we're all in Kansas City. Okay. Well, the rest of that schedule that you teased, it includes the commanders next week with a Monday night game against Jane Daniels, who's questionable, whose mom doesn't like the RG3 comparisons, by the way, cut it out for all of you who are comparing it. I did see that. We can just, well, RG3 is a Fox employee. I love, I love RG3. So we continue, we should continue

to have his takes out there as much as possible. Who else on earth would we compare him to, though? Like, what is she upset about? That's the most obvious comparison in the history of football. Uh, I just think she doesn't want her son compared to someone who got hurt. Like, that feels, that feels normal. Yeah, but that's just the concern we all had was, I think that guy's going to get hurt. Yeah. And what's interesting is I covered Jane Daniels as a freshman Arizona State and he was 175 pounds. And we asked him, Edwards that at the time. He's like, he's like, no, he's, we're going to run our offense. And they did. He never was hurt in college game. That's why it's interesting. He's so hurt now because

that wasn't a problem of his in, in, in, in college. So, um, but did RG3 say like other things about his, his work ethic? What are other things that he said? But what the fact that he didn't get hurt playing against like, Pac 12 defenses a few years? ago is nice. But like I don't get hurt if I play knockout against 40 year olds at a bachelor party, something I did this weekend. You know when I get hurt? Knockout.

Nice. Yeah. That's my point is we couldn't even move well enough to play like a real two on two game. We had to play a goofy version of basketball. You know when I get hurt is if I try to go play with guys in their 20s were good at basketball. That's when I get hurt. That's what happens.

If you play in the NFL, you get hurt. I stopped playing basketball. I'm just not worth it. I can't, can you imagine getting hurt in the basketball. Fast. No, not going to happen. I can. It happened. I couldn't do anything for months because of it. Speaking of hurt, let's go back to football. Do the Chiefs, now that they've been corrected and are clearly the everybody's Super Bowl favorite,

because they're five and three or whatever, do their, what is it, four and three? Sorry, do they need a running back? Are those guys okay? Do we trade for a running back here if you're Kansas City? There's a nice market for pretty big names. But Alvin Camaro look nice and a. I'd rather trade. for a pass rusher, but we'll see. I think that the Smith kid they drafted,

they've sort of given him a little more carries every week. He's the guy they need to rely on a little bit more to run the football. The problem is this is the issue with young running backs is they've got to pass protect, right? Gabe, you can't just have them in the game to only run the football. Teams will figure that out.

So these young guys have issues in pass protection, and that's what keeps him off the field. So if Smith can figure out that part of his game, where to go, who to block in pass protection, I think he'll become the guy. I'd love to trade for a pass rusher, whether it's Trey Hendrickson who's a little beat up right now, whether it's Cam Jordan from the Saints.

The Saints are awful right now. Supposedly Cam doesn't really want to be traded, but I think those are the guys you would target. Okay. Well, we'll watch that. Let's give him a W next week, and then I think that stretch of games for a while there gets real ugly, and I'm not sure we're giving them, you know, 13 wins.

I don't think we are either. The Coltrich, well, they're probably the onesie, which is crazy to. say out loud. Well, it's especially crazy because I need to remind you that the team you just said was the very first and most consistent band thing on our band list. So thank you

for bringing it up. Hank, number two on there after Jordan Hudson is the team you just said. So we're not talking about them even though they're six and one. We will talk about their running back. It could be an MVP. And I'm going to save us some time here and say, we don't need to talk about anything really

happening in the NFC East except Jeff. Is it time? to bet the Cowboys to win the division, could it possibly happen? Maybe. No. So we have Cowboys over win total, which is fantastic. That looks pretty good. Yeah. Dax's been fantastic, which I think we predicted happening.

But I don't think they're winning division. I think the Eagles are just, they're just better. They're going to win the division. Okay. All right. Cori nor a friend of Draft Kings, the commander is still ahead of the Cowboys for division odds. Feels crazy to me, but okay, they know better than I do. Maybe, or that's where they're getting the money.

So I still like the Eagles to finish that division number one. And you want to take our break now? Are we done with commanders? Because it feels like our production staff would like some commanders discussion. The only other commanders discussion we would have is me forcing you to take a 2024 quarterback redraft again like I do every week. I think Drake, I think Drake May is might be ahead. I don't know, Gabe. I don't know.

He's playing well. he's playing well I mean you don't want that answer because your hated Patriots might be good at quarterback again I don't want that answer at all but that's what we call in the business a good tease because he's coming up next

all right video viewers don't go anywhere audio viewers will be right back all right Gabe we're back some quick hitters then we'll get into some college football where we'll talk about some craziness some chaos and control ball let's do our quick hitters real quick okay you just brought it up

Drake May starting to quietly get some MVP talk. I don't like it. I don't like seeing the Patriots play this well. Drake May is up to fourth best MVP odds now. It's Mahomes, Allen, Mayfield, Drake May. Dude, their schedule is such a joke.

They're going to finish with 11 wins that they play this way. Like, there's a legitimate chance they win the division, which is wild. But their schedule is, is pretty, I'm going to pull up right now. They got the best. Browns, Falcons, they put the Falcons at home.

The Falcons are much different home in a way. The Falcons are not as good on the road. Then they go to Tampa, the Jets, then the Bengals, Giants, and then they have Bill's Ravens. That'll tell us a lot about them near the end of the year. And then Jets and Dolphins, they're going to be a favor in all these games except maybe Tampa Bay, they're probably not a favorite in Tampa Bay. Put Buffalo at home at Baltimore. So three of these games will be underdog.

The rest of them, they should be a favorite. They should, in my opinion, whether they're playing win most of those games. So, yeah, look, the talent was there for Drake May. He needed reps. He got the reps last season. And now he's reaping the benefit of playing with a competent coach, competent offensive coordinator. He doesn't have the wide receivers.

Still not there. But he's making the throws. He's making the big time throws, he's moving the pocket. I mean, it's very impressive, Gabe. He's doing really, really well. Yeah, I think that I don't like saying this either. I think that we as members of the media, people who talk about football,

just absolutely brain farted on Mike Vrable. And, you know, because he got the Titans to a place where we were like, man, maybe they're good and then they didn't do anything in the postseason. We then just accepted that, yeah, maybe that guy's not that good. He's obviously an excellent coach. Yeah.

Well, I think the issue with Vrable was that, like, people, he just reached like a limit in Tennessee. and couldn't break through and people kept praising him for not getting past that point and maybe other coaches don't get that that praise for getting there. That's my only guess

and very clearly can coach. I just think a lot of people didn't think that with the Patriots' offensive setup, offensive line wide receivers, that they would be as good this quickly. So that's, I think, what a lot of people were pushing back on. Because a lot of times the off-season winner,

the best coach of the higher is not the best coach of the higher, the cycle, I should say, right? that a lot of times is the last guy we think is going to be the best coach of the cycle. So I think a lot of people were right to sort of think that it would take more time to look this good. But amen, credit New England. They're doing a great job. Okay.

My weekly reminder that you could bet Jonathan Taylor as MVP if you want to, another three touchdown game for him on the team that is six and one that we don't speak about. I've been asking about this every week. And every week his case gets better and better. I don't know if the values there in your mind, Jeff, but Jonathan Taylor MVP, do we start to think about putting some money on that? No.

So here's my point for running back. I think I was running back. Is that you have to do something extraordinary to win that award at running back. So the last running backs that have won, Agent Peterson had nine yards short of Eric Dickerson's record. And then the other two were 2,000 yard season with Sean Alexander. And then L.T. broke the rushing touchdown record in 05, I believe.

John Taylor is not near any of those yet. So, like, that's, I just, they're not, they just have shown over these. They're not giving into running backs unless you do something where you break records. And right now he's not breaking records at the moment. If he gets there, sure, but I don't know if he's going to get there. Okay, and all I'm saying, and we can save a little time here because I feel like I keep saying this, is I'm not talking about whether his season will actually be better than any of those guys. It's circumstance. You just told me you think the Colts are going to be the one seed.

If they are, we know they're not getting the MVP is not going to be their quarterback. That would also then mean that even if Patrick Mahomes keeps having nice games, nobody's going to give it to him in a year where he doesn't even his best year. Josh Allen would have had to not meet expectations. Baker is going to slide quickly as soon as he has two losses in a row. I don't know anyone else who's emerging in this conversation. It's no one on the Eagles. Lamar fell apart. If Mahomes goes for 4,800 yards and has 45 touchdowns or 30, he's going to get awarded.

But in stipulation here, he isn't a 13-win quarterback this. year. You believe that. So I'm saying if the Colts are 15 and they're two and Jonathan Taylor has a zillion yards and 30 touchdowns. It's right now 60 to 1, gone to their MVP. No, we're here. Offensive player the year is far more likely. He's the favorite. He's even money right now. I'm just saying if we're looking for something to just have some fun rooting for down the stretch here, it could be him for MVP. You know what's not fun, Jeff? Good, yes. I know from experience.

Being a Jets fan. So I'm here to give you a take that I want your honest reaction to. The Jets should be moved to London permanent. Did you see that? Nobody would care except the people who really care. And then guess what? Fine. Go to London.

Like care about them there. Did you see the, um, that little, the Jets, the kid, they interviewed. about the Jets after the game. He said, I hate my team. I was born into this, but I hate this team. I didn't, but that's what I'm avoiding with my kids. They will not be Jets fans.

And that is sad, but they, wasn't there, wasn't their owner like a, like a special envoy to like the, yes, he was. Yeah, whatever he, whatever that is worse. That had nothing to do with who his buddy in the White House was. Oh, we're doing politics? No, we'll say that from Matt. Matt, Matt, we say that for Matt. I try to make one joke an episode where he laughs hysterically about some political thing I say.

Yeah, look, no one would even notice, I don't think, if he was gone. Like, the Jets would be, oh, they're in London now. They're just, they're so bad. You know, after the game, they bench Justin Fields. And Aaron Glenn got to the podium was like, I don't know what I'm doing at a quarterback. I'm going to call people who have had this problem. before and figure out what I'm doing if I'm benching fields or not.

Why do we think Fields is terrible? It's been terrible his entire career. Bench him and move it along. Why do you have this allegiance to him? I don't understand. I have no idea. And you know how Aaron Glenn could figure out, tap into some experience

of what it's like to play on a team who can't figure out who their quarterback is? He could just look at his own damn career with the Jets. It's not like that was just a locked-in decision every single year of his career. I mean, he was there for like some test of Erdy Pennington type years. But come on, man.

Like, we know what it's like to not have a good quarterback. This team needs to be burnt down and rebuilt. I'm sorry for Aaron Glenn that this was his shot. But it, this is ridiculous. It, it, people are trying to compare Aaron Glenn and Dan Campbell's first season. I just don't see it. You know, Dan Campbell as a coach is just, we know now, right? obviously very dynamic as a coach.

I don't see that with Aaron Glenn. I know people are holding out. He's doing the funny dance on the sideline. And I want to repeat is worth pointing out. Big Cat, Dan Katz made this point, Gabe, that the Capri Pants wearing coaches, 0 and 7 Jets, 1 and 6 Dolphins. We did the dish to Capri Pants.

Thank you for that segue. Why is Mike McDaniel still a head coach in the NFL? I don't know. It's a good question. The argument that I've heard is essentially what else are they going to do? Like, who are they going to have coached the team? My point was like anyone other than Mike McDaniel? She coach the team?

You know, the weather this weekend in Cleveland was bad, right? We know that. And like every time the dolphins playing a bad weather game, their coach looks the most miserable of them all on the sideline. And there's something you can have that. I remember Coughlin, when they went to play the Packers in the playoffs, he had those red cheeks, but he looked like fiery. Like he was like, F this cold.

McDaniels looked like he just hates life every time it's not perfect weather. And I just like, I look at him, I'm like, can you like, I know they're getting their ass kicked. Sure, I get it. But like, can you like sort of pretend this isn't bothering you? And they just can't play unless it's ideal perfect conditions. Theory. This little feud he's creating with his quarterback.

guy. What feud? Tua stinks. But they seemingly loved and trusted each other not long ago. Even during really scary health stuff with Tua, it seemed like Mike had his back. That's part of when we kind of fell in love with the guy. And now they're feuding pretty openly. Is it possible that Mike was like, uh-oh, I know the boss, let's call it the owner in this case. I know somebody up top doesn't like our quarterback. We got to run him out of town. I'll be the guy who helps run him out of town, that's how I save my job. You're off his politics. Possibly, but I don't know if it's that deep with him.

Okay, it's probably not. Micah Parsons, speaking of not deep, says that when the Packers got stuck on the tarmac, they had major delays trying to get to Arizona. They played a bunch of cards on the plane and they had some camaraderie and maybe that helped them. And they want to close closer than it should have been game. Is playing cards on the team playing a good thing? You've done that.

I actually buy this. I think camaraderie and team building is much tougher now for a couple of reasons. One is you spend less time with each other, right? You come in later in the off season now. You have less time at training camp. Nights are shorter now. You have more days off. And you have technology.

And look, I'm addicted to my phone. You see every week my whatever screen time. We're all addicted to our phones. And when I came in the NFL, we didn't have them. We had phones. We had Blackberries. You know, like we weren't on our phones all day. We hung out together.

And the one thing that I tell, every time I go to O-Line Masterminds in the summer, I say the same thing every year. One thing that helped me as a player, I think it's super important, was we watched film together as an offensive line. We didn't have the capability to go home and watch film. They gave us, like, CDs we could put in, like, my PlayStation 2, Gabe, and watch film if I wanted to. But who wants to watch film that way?

That was not a, the terrible way to watch film. So we watched film together, and we had camaraderie together. offensive line room. We ate breakfast in the morning together and watched film. We stayed after practice or after meetings for a couple minutes whenever it was and ate lunch together and watch film. Like we spent all our time together watching film and hanging out and all the time in the locker room with double days like in training camp. We just spent together doing stupid shit to entertain ourselves, but you build up that camaraderie. And at night in the hotel, we weren't on our phones. We went and played cars together. We all joined as offensive line

in one person's room. We read the, our office line coach wrote us notes, like two pages of notes. He had a thick New England accent, and one of her office alignment would read the notes in his accent, and we played cards for two hours on Saturday night. It was the most fun ever, man.

I think camaraderie is going away because of all the distractions now, and it's not a good or bad thing. That's just the reality of it, right, Gabe? So you have to sit alone on a plane. You know the plane does not get good cell reception. As soon as you step in that, too, but just goes away.

And you're sitting there just playing cards, hanging out, talking life, talking shop. Like, I do think that matters. And I agree with Parsons. They probably haven't done that in a very long time. And I would not be surprised if that was a very positive thing for them moving forward. I almost got a little teary there, Jeff. I was a surprisingly poignant point you made. I was trying to be a wise ass.

But yeah, I buy it. I just think that that, I feel like. I straddled that sort of line in my career of like obviously double days to not double days, but like just the change and the shift of like how we did stuff. You're going to have iPad to watch film on. I got to watch it with everyone else. That was the only way I was to do that. So I just saw that shift.

And so I can understand now where that camaraderie is being lost because guys are not spending all that time together. So I've had some bad plane delays though. And they're not fun to send that plane. I'm sure we've got plane delays obviously. but when you're doing it like on a charter and your time is sort of limited and you're trying to, it's just, it's not very fun. No.

Well, from everything you just told me, I have a guess now that Indiana football, they put the iPads away. And those dudes are playing a lot of cards. They are playing some football, man. Now they have actual money to wager. These NAL men, they have actual, they can wager some money on these, these card games got out of hand sometimes. They are. They are. aggressive very quickly who authorized two money at football games no one wants this we've watched

football Thursday Friday all day Saturday all day Sunday I need a tiny bit of a break like I was out after the first game like I just I can't I can't make it to one o'clock in the morning on Monday after I've stayed up Thursday Friday Saturday and I know it's not a problem for West Coast folks but like who authorized this game? actually wants this. No, I can tell you who definitely did not authorize it, Rob Manfred, because he had a game seven going on. I mean, I took a peek at that one, George Springer, Toronto Hero now, reminiscent of the Batista

home run. I said there's some Joe Carter comparisons. A little early for that, right? World Series, you know, ALCS. I just, I'm a big Blue Jay fan this week as the Dodgers, the super team. Hopefully can be defeated. I doubt it, Gabe. That's my World Series preview.

I doubt it. The Dodgers are too good. I don't think this is the show for it, but I truly cannot think of an athlete who had a better one-game performance than Shohei did in game. I don't think that exists. This can be the podcast for it.

I don't think we've seen that ever before. To have 10 strikeouts and three home runs. Not only that, Gabe, one of the home runs left the stadium. Yes, that's correct. The thing about Dodgers Stadium is, you know, they have, obviously, they have like five dead. X outside, you know, behind home play. It goes up like five levels.

But then outfield, there's a pavilion. It's all just, well, it's basically one pavilion, right? And, you know, it's, balls leaving the pavilion are very rare. It happened to, I don't know, 10 times last 30 years. It doesn't happen. And in a playoff game, his second home run of the night went 470 feet over the pavilion. And then he hit a third home run later in the game and struck out 10.

I think the most impressive thing he did in that stretch, by the way. So he struck out the side to start the game. And, you know, when pitchers used to hit, they would bat ninth. So, you know, you come in, you settle down. And maybe you hit the end of the first inning. Very rare, obviously, you come back out, you pitch and you hit. He had to strike out the side, rush in, put on his gear because he has to protect his right shoulder. I mean, right elbow, his bat's left.

He throws right-handed. So he put his gear on, put his stuff on, get to the plate, warm up swings, boom, home run. Unbelievable athlete. I mean, I wish he wasn't a Dodger. so I could root for him a little bit more because he's also just like a nice human, it seems like. I don't know, he bows and shakes everyone's hands. It's super nice.

And it was an incredible display of athleticism and skill we did the other night. And I think it's not hyperbole to say that was the single best baseball performance we've ever seen a game. I don't really, people will say, and the thing about baseball, it's so funny a game, they'll be like, in 1905,

curly Joe Johnson. I don't care. I don't care what happened in 1905. Only sport that does that. in the modern era of baseball, in sport maybe, that was the single best performance you ever seen in the game.

I can't argue with it. So for the football, Hardo's here, what is that like doing on a football field? Oh, geez. It would be like, it would be of Travis Hunter,

who the Jaguars are wasting right now by not deciding what position is going to play, had like two interceptions and three touchdowns in a game in the Super Bowl. Right. Or a.C championship game. You'd be like, what the heck?

did we just watch. That's what it would be like. There's no quarterback comparison. I mean, unless, geez, I mean, could Lamar Jackson throw for 350 and rush for 200 in Super Bowl? I mean, that's like the equivalent of that, I think. I don't even know. It'd have to be the best game ever by a quarterback in a Super Bowl or a conference

championship game. And we've had good ones, but not the best. I mean, that's the best equivalent to football I can put it. Yeah, it would be like, I think it'd be like, if Devin Hester had had like a pick six also in the Super Bowl and then caught like five first downs, you know? So kick return, pick six, and a bunch of first downs. Right, even that probably wouldn't be enough.

He'd have to score like three touchdowns. I don't even know. There's no football equivalent to what Otani did. And mind you, he had not been playing well into this point. The doctors were still in a position to sweep the Brewers. Now he's playing better from the plate. He's been pitching fine. He was kind of a slumping on the plate.

And Freeman, I think, was slumping. And, like, the Dodgers team is so deep. The, the issue is with the Dodgers. I don't care about the super team, super talent. I don't care about that. It's the fact that they deferred this money, right? Like, that's the problem baseball has to fix, is that they're paying Otani like $2 million a season, Gabe.

And a bunch of other players on the team have deferred money to later. That's what's, quote, quote, broken about baseball. I don't care there's no salary cap. If you want to be poor, be poor. If you want to be expensive, spend your money, be expensive, spend your money. But the fact that the Dodgers deferring all this money to later allows them to build a Superdeep. I'm shocked owners allow this to happen, Gabe, that they allow in the CBA to defer money.

It was taken out, I think, and put back in. But, like, I don't, that part I don't get. I don't get why owners would allow another team to basically pay their players nothing now. And keep their money, by the way, make more money while that happens, and then pay them out later. And Otani took no, I believe he took no interest. So he just got to interest-free loan. to build championships. Yeah.

Well, listen, Jeff, I think we took a nice detour to talk about the greatest baseball player on the planet. Now we're into bookkeeping and, you know, I don't think that's what people are here for. Let's go. Well, I want to talk about Indiana's top players

and the fact that this program has completely like blown us all away. So let's cover them and the rest of college football on the other side of a break. We got a few minutes left for that. All right, game. We're back.

Let's do some college football. Wild weekend, man. Chaos around. Ranked teams on the road losing. Ranked teams like Miami losing at home. Who's the best team is? I have no idea. But we have a couple of the top that are good.

And one of them is the Indiana Hoosiers who came off that big Oregon win and dominated Michigan State. Yeah. I mean, and I've seen Michigan State up close. They aren't special. But Indiana was clearly the better team. And the quarterback is now getting talk,

you know, draft talk. Like, what's going on here? It was the coach for the first few weeks. Now we're talking about the quarterback. I guess the defense can play a bit too. What do you like most about Indiana? Because it's time to start taking them really, really seriously. Well, it's what I said after they played Oregon is that when you watch the film of Indiana,

they just play really well as a group game. And you can see they believe in what they're doing and they play fast and they play physical. And the Mendoza discussion for the NFL is different. than maybe the Heisman discussion. Because their offense is not a complicated offense. It is mostly runs between the tackles. A lot of RPO, right? You fake that run or you put the ball in the back's belly.

The safeties come up. You throw behind the safeties, the linebackers. The linebackers come up. You throw behind the linebackers. Simple concept like that. And then a ton of outside the number throws where these wide receivers are really good, running comebacks, running goes,

running back shoulders. And then a couple shot plays, right? You, your, your, your, your pass, guy goes deeper in the little field. It's not coming office. But what they do is they execute it at a very, very high level. Mendoza's decision-making is fantastic. He doesn't make the wrong decision. And then defensively, again, like, it's a collection of everyone doing the thing they have to do to win that rep.

They don't have guys up front that are going to traditionally win one-on-one pass rush all the time. But the way they move and their effort, you add in the Blitz package and boom, they're able to attack Dante more six times, right? Gabe, like, it's an impressive group of belief of how they play. And so that to me is what I see. Give Mendoza credit. Give Sidney credit.

I think the decontator, it's not Fisher, that's their linebacker. Give a decoinator credit. They just play a brand of football that carries each and every week and they believe in what they do. Yeah, and now their schedule, well, UCLA and New Highs,

are on something. I don't know how to explain what's going on. I will give you a preview right now. I think Indiana is going to smoke UCLA this weekend. I think so too. That might be my best bet of the week. It's that early game issue that, you know. Well, actually, the Bruins played okay in the early game when they went to Michigan State,

but Michigan State is atrocious. But I think that it's just a combination of the Bruins have not played Indiana this season. They've, this three game stretcher on, which is great. great for the Bruins. It's a dead Penn State, Michigan State is terrible, and then they squeaked by against Maryland. This is a much different beast for them this weekend, on the road, 12 new kickoff, big new kickoff being there.

So we'll get to that game on our show on Thursday with Matt. And their rivalry game to close this season is probably the easiest game they're going to play of the remaining five, which means they get like to actually think about the Big Ten championship and whatever their future holds. I thought you're talking about UCLA's rivalry game to end this season. I was like, I agree.

He's the easiest game we're going to play all season. We're back to Indiana. I'm sorry, okay. All right. Well, I was definitely talking about Indiana and not UCLA. We clearly, well, although, you know, what the hell's going on with New Heisel? Is there something at UCLA that we should think about?

I was trying to get a shot at USC there. Yeah, you didn't fall for it. We'll get there, man. That's in there. Don't worry. I just think New Heisle has waited for this opportunity, Gabe. He's obviously, his dad was a good coach, is a good coach, new offense really well. He waited for his opportunity. And he got it. He had a plan for what

the offense need to be with Nico. And Nico's very talented. No one has doubted Nico's talent. They just didn't get it out of them the first couple weeks of season. And now offensively, they're getting that best out. Now, again, to be fair, the more film that gets out there, the worst they're playing on offense, right? Penn State game was the best they looked. Michigan State, not as good. Maryland, not as good. Now you go play Indiana.

So, like, it's, now it's time for the adjustments, right? Like, what does New Hazel have for a second and third pitch? And, again, this weekend's going to be hard. They're going to be tough. But I think New He has just waited for his opportunity. It's almost like reverse nepotism. Like, he didn't get the opportunity to a lot of, a lot of coaches. I mean, he's been a position coach for a long time now.

Think about all the coaches with, well, names that you know how quickly they move up in the rankings, not the rankings, move up in the coaching ranks. And he didn't. He just waited his time and he got it. Yeah. Well, so do you just parlay that into like go get the bigger job and find out if you can actually hang or try to build something at UCLA?

I think he wants to stay, but the question who the head coach is going to be at UCLA. I mean, does he want to keep New Heisel? I would depend on the higher. If it's a defensive coach, maybe. Offensive coach, probably not. Yeah, okay. Left shift gears. It was a big weekend in the SEC as well. And it's starting to clarify, you know, like who's what with some bigger ranked games. I have my own sort of guesses, but I want to know from you who is the actual sort of top five power rankings in the SEC now that we've seen them start to play tougher games. Alabama won. Yeah. Alabama's one. Great job. I mean, they just played four straight games, like tough games. and didn't flinch at all.

Agreed, but this is where it's very hard. Now the neck, give me two and three and four. That's where I think there's a lot of. I think I think A&M is two for now. I mean, they're four and O in conference. You have to do that. They haven't played the schedule. They're at LSU this weekend.

They have Missouri. They end with Texas. So like, they'll know what they're made. But right now they're probably two. Georgia's, for me, Georgia's three. They're not the team they've been, Gabe. Right? They're nothing that they've been, but they're the killer instinct they have to win these games

and the ability to just play your game, grind it out, do as necessary. They deserve credit for that, right? They grind it out and win in Tennessee. They grind out the old miss win. It's not pretty. It's not what George has been, but they've figured out a way to win football games. And so they're three for me. I think Vanney's got to be four, man.

I don't know. The way they're playing right now, Maybe that's too high for them. I think Old Miss is probably five right now. That feels like the top, it's hard. Tennessee. Yeah, you left out, Oklahoma. Yeah, Oklahoma.

Tennessee, Texas. Well, Texas is, they don't, no one cares about Texas. I'm with you on that. So Bama, A&M, Georgia, Vandy, Old Miss, Tennessee, something like. Missouri's got a big game this weekend. They play Vandy, right? Yeah, and then they play A&M.

So we'll know more about a couple of these teams next couple of weeks, Gabe. But I feel very comfortable with Bama being one and A&M 2 for now on Georgia 3. Okay. Brian Kelly, have any ties to Penn State? Any, uh, I don't know, man. What?

I don't know what's going on with some of these coaches and some of these places, but. This is going to be an all-time coaching carousel. Because remember, Nick's statement left Alabama, and we had like seven dominoes for one coaching higher. We're going to have Florida's open now, Penn State's open, LSU might open, Florida State might open, Auburn's surely going to open. It's just this domino effect of just like going down the list of Wisconsin might open. it's going to be an all-time coaching cycle

and we're going to have a lot of names that you didn't know are going to get some of these jobs and you're going to have to find out who they are pretty quickly. Okay, well then I have to ask this then after I saw the Napier news. So he's, Franklin gets to keep about 50 million under certain conditions. He has to like be looking for a job. I don't know, whatever.

It's got some conditions. Napier, it seems, just gets to keep about 20 million. million dollars. And I'm starting to wonder, Jeff, I'm not trying to pile on these guys, but isn't there a point in a season when you know, this isn't looking good, where it's almost now like worth it to get fired? You know, like winning would actually be bad because- What funny is Florida actually won their game on Saturday. Okay, well, fine. So I'm looking at the math less than the scores of some of these games. Like, why are these contracts written this way?

It incentivizes a coach to just go like, well, hell, I could make all this money just sitting at home and work on the next job. Well, but coaches, they're not like that, though. Like, you know these guys. They're trying to win at all cost and they're never trying to lose. And it's embarrassing to have a job like Florida and not be able to get it done, right? And whatnot. So, no, I don't think they're trying to lose game. I don't think they think that way at all.

I don't, I don't think even James Franklin or Billy Napier is like, there's not a role. relief like that they got fired. I don't think there really is at all. These guys spend every waking hour thinking about football and now they don't. And I think it's a very odd feeling for them to have to be at home and not have a football job. And it's why these guys do it for life. It's why rarely does a coach, like Bill Cower, right, just like decides to, I'm done,

I'm just done. I'm never going back. No one does that. It's so rare, Gabe, to not do that. Think about the coaches that have said they're doing that and then immediately regretted and go back into coaching all, like, I, you know, It's just the way it is. And so I get your point.

And the reason why these contracts are so expensive is there's an arms race, first of all. And then the buyouts get so much to try to keep your coach there that ends up costing you on the back end with having to pay these coaches out. So, I mean, it's going to cost. They estimate $100 million if they have to buy out Mike Norvell, his staff, and then hire a new coach at Florida State, which is insane amount of money. Yeah. It's all insane. And so one of the teams that has a guy who's just obsessed with thinking about football, which was probably how he comes up with these crazy trick plays that nobody needs to run

that lead to fumbles that cost of the game is Lincoln Riley. But I don't need to hear you crap all over USC for the two remaining minutes we have in this show. I'll admit it. Notre Dame deserved to stay in the rankings. Their run game is insane. And I now believe, after watching those running backs go, that they absolutely, absolutely can contend for a title, even with a weird look and start to the season. So we have this topic on Bear Betts. Go to some other podcasts if you would like. But first, you should rate review and subscribe to this one and also subscribe on YouTube.

Before you do any of that. We had this discussion yesterday, a game. Name the teams you would back to win a championship over Notre Dame right now. Ohio State, Alabama, Miami? I know they beat Miami, but the different Notre Dame teams, now. Yeah. Oregon.

Would you back Oregon over Notre Dame at the moment? Would you back Indiana over Notre Dame at the moment? I know we just

said all these nice things about them, but no. Like, that's the list. So yeah, Notre Dame is certainly, and then that game they should have won by 20.

I mean, that car interception was just horrendous. They missed a field goal. I don't know what they were doing there. The Riley thing, man, the trick play was dumb.

But the fourth down play calls were terrible too. Noor name sniff those out immediately. I don't I just I don't I don't get I don't get him man like legitimately we all agree offensive genius like his play calls sometimes like holy what is he called this a great play call and then those big moments that tiny little play sheet of his doesn't have an answer and it's I imagine it's frustrating for you as a fan last last last you last call for a thing let's be very clear USC wants to cancel the name series because they're getting your asses.

kicked. It's that simple. If they're winning 10 years in a row, they keep the series going, but they're getting their ass kicked. And that's why they want the series to end, Gabe, but I don't like it. I think the series should continue. It's what college football is about. And I hope they continue to do this for 50 years now. I don't hear Gabe anymore. Did he disconnect?

Gabe, Gabe's out. And he closed his computer screen. So I can't hear Gabe anymore. So we can't hear Gabe answer. This is actually perfect. This is perfect for Gabe. We can't hear Gabe even answer this. All I know, is all the USC media people. USC's put the word out.

All the media members right now are just talking about the cancer in the series that put the word out. Not on this show, not this media member. USC has to keep playing Notre Dame. That's it for today's show. We'll be back on next Tuesday with Gabe, but Thursday with Matt,

we'll preview all the games. We had a better week this week. We're starting to maybe get in a groove here as we figure out what to do on our gambling. Thank you to draft Kings as usual. We'll be back on Thursday, guys. Take care, everybody.