Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Free Agency is Changing, How Not to Build a Team, and CFP Madness

Episode Date: March 22, 2023

Geoff is back with Gabe to discuss how NFL free agency is changing to give teams and players more flexibility, and the boys discuss whether it's worth drafting a quarterback if the rest of your roster is terrible (*cough* Texans). Plus, would an expanded CFP come close to matching the excitement of March Madness? Probably not, but it's fun to think about!Be sure to rate, comment, and follow the pod for a new episode each week during the offseason.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's wednesday march 22nd i'm jeff schwartz alongside gabe goodwin this jeff schwartz is smarting you powered by me and game it's us too welcome back everyone lots of nfl free agency talk to get into things have changed in the nfl deals are different now we'll talk about that we'll wrap in some college basketball talk as well been a great march madness so far we'll do some over-unders talk about college culture ball playoff. We'll do it all. Gabe, how are you, buddy? I'm good. But Jeff, you know, you're smarter than me. I'm punchier than you. I'm in one of those moods today. This could get a little spicy. I just want to warn you. Is that because former intern Hank just dug right in your ribs before we started the show? No. Maybe his best joke in two years I've been working with Hank.

You think Hank gets under my skin? No, I wantank to go back to work this whole time we're recording hank here's what i need you to do write all the other scripts for all the other shows we do go do that while this is happening so that i'm not asking you for the updates all right are you in a bad mood because the the rain in los angeles got you down doesn't rain very often in la you just feel sad today i think that's it jeff it's it's been pouring buckets for weeks. My little league team can't get on the field. USC's pro day is all screwed up. They're going to be playing on wet turf. I don't like it. Are you the little league coach? Yeah, man. Best in the biz. Okay. So I've been filling in on the weekends to help my kids' baseball teams. It's been a ton

of fun. If I didn't work at night, I would totally coach. It's been so much much fun my daughter flamed me the other day that i was filling in it during her scrimmage machine pitch i don't get the point of the machine pitch league but that's another podcast for another day and i was playing second base game and um i i fielded a couple good ones and then a ball came to me and again i hit off my glove and dribbled away and my daughter turns to me and goes she's like daddy you need to play like you played football oh yeah just just flame me in front of all the other kids i don't even know what that means just flame i guess she means at the highest level right she wants you to perform like a professional i guess so i've just it's one error man it happens what you can do about it well i don't think an error should be happening in a machine-pitched seven-year-old Little League game for you, buddy. I get the

glove down, you know? It just bounced off my glove. I was trying to make a fancy play, but I made the other ones, though. It's nice to be on the field, though. It's nice to beat your kids, do a little coaching. I need to come to LA and watch you coach a game one time. It's great. We're the Mets, by the way. I am a Mets fan. Behind the scenes jerks. I am a Mets fan. I'm staying that way, even though I get frustrated with them. Jeff, let me ask you this. Did you ever get to play up the middle when you were coming up, or did they always stick you at first base or something? So I was a pitcher, first base, third base, and then in high school,

I actually played some outfield put right field um a little bit right field you were like adam dunn but they'd also put you on the mound every now and then no pitching was my number one thing i did yeah okay and pitching at first base i was very good at first base very good pitcher i just couldn't hit i couldn't hit at all if i could hit i might have played baseball i always wanted to play baseball I just was never really good enough like I I was a good pitcher but I only threw 90 miles an hour like the top very top I could throw if I threw like 94 95 maybe I would have played college baseball but I always thought I'd play baseball football was just there like I started playing in high school I was just big

I started getting good in my junior year and that was my path. But I always thought I played baseball until my senior year in high school. I always thought that was my path. Okay. It's so weird how you just like accidentally fell into an eight-year NFL career. And that's why you get to tell us what's really going on in the league that we all love. It's the offseason. And it's been a weird one, I think, Jeff, so far, because free agency,

you know, it's been active and there's been some fun names to talk about here and there. But for the most part, I don't know. I mean, me and Hank and Sam behind the scenes, we've all been wondering what's going on with like one year deals. We're used to seeing these big three, four year deals are going to change the shape of someone's life and the future of a team. And instead, it's like, I don't know. This guy's kind of good. Let's give him a year. What's going on with that? Yeah.

So there's a shift in free agency. It's, it seems kind of very obvious throw quarterbacks out of it because they don't ever get to free agency, but contracts in general now in the NFL are much shorter. There are shorter contracts. And I think the reason why is players and teams want flexibility now. They view their rosters as like one, two, three-year windows, no longer this five, six, seven-year window. And so like you want the flexibility now to be able to say, well, that didn't work out.

You're off our roster now as a free agent or vice versa. If you're a player, oh, that worked out. Okay. Well, let me find my next big payday. I don't want to be stuck on this roster getting X amount of money. I should be making more as the cap continues to go up. Even a deal like a Laramie Tunsil deal, it's a three-year deal. How many times have we seen the top offensive linemen get only a three-year deal. It's $25 million a year. It's the best deal for an offensive lineman. But that deal used to be six years, $175 million. Now it's three years, 75. And it's for that reason, right?

The Texans are saying, look, we'll pay you. But in a couple of years, maybe we don't want to pay you anymore. And then Laramie's like, great. Well, if I play well for two or three years and we still stink, I want to get out of there. Well, now I'm 30 years old and I can get out of this on a back and go to a better team and now you guys can get rid of me and start over left tackle if you want to I think teams want that flexibility now of being able to churn their roster every two or three years but but to give teams now value keeping their own players a lot more than ever before. And so you're finding there's just not a lot of impactful players in free agency anymore.

They're either getting re-signed by the current team or traded. How many players in free agency have we seen over the last few years really, truly make outside of quarterback, outside of Tom Brady, right? I mean, that's that's an outlier but you're like man like that guy like really he made that team a Super Bowl champion trades yes absolutely trades right the Von Miller trade the Odell trade yeah those work for the Rams great but like how many of these I think I don't you Joe Tooney for the Chiefs great for agent signing like he's all pro like that was great but how many of these guys, I'd argue Joe Tooney for the Chiefs, great for agent signing, like he's all pro, like that was great.

But like how many of these guys you're like, it's draft picks, right? It's re-signing your own guys. It's trades. The combination of all these things are why players and teams are both in saying like, look, you know what? We'll do some big deals. But for the most part, we want this flexibility, man. We want to say, okay, we're done with you. You're done with us let's move

it along and let's get to the next deal that's what i think's happening in the nfl right now it feels that's what's happening in the nfl because after that day one and that was that first day of tampering period gabe orlando brown's deal was the only one that's been really any significance i mean there's been guys that i thought like would get bigger deals isaac samalu the eagles right guard, three years, 24 million. I mean, four years ago, that deal was five years, 70 million.

I mean, it's like, it's a different, different world now. I also think teams are really looking a lot more injury history now than ever before. I'm not saying that they didn't beforehand, but I think there's just more data available now on injury history and how that plays a role of future performance and so teams are saying well you've been hurt before i don't want to pay you as much anymore in the past i don't think that was like i got paid as an injury guy i mean i was injured a lot my first six years the

giants still paid me a lot of money and guess what i got hurt again with the giants but you know like again injuries are a lot of luck it was bad luck with the giants it wasn't like i wasn't prepared or you know it just i got hurt our data shows that players who get hurt get hurt again a lot you know i think that's a part of it as well teams are looking at guys saying well yeah you've been hurt i i don't know even lamar jackson's going through this as well i think they're like you know what you haven't finished the last two years buddy i'm gonna pay you all this money and you can't finish the season so i think all these reasons are why we're seeing a much different style of fritchie than ever before and while they're still players right now they're signing they're signing

one-year deals two-year deals three-year deals but also even in these deals you know there are they're one-year deals even the quarterback deals i mean the jimmy grappolo deals virtually one-year deals, two-year deals, three-year deals. But also, even in these deals, they're one-year deals. Even in the quarterback deals. I mean, the Jimmy Garoppolo deal is virtually a one-year deal. The Derek Carr deal is a two-year deal. I mean, these deals within the deal are really much, much shorter. Again, I think the teams really value the flexibility of being able to get in and out of deals now and really change what they do very quickly. Yeah. Okay. and really change what they do very quickly. Yeah, okay. Well, then let's drill into one team specifically

that surprises me, that I feel like there have been more people going than coming on the Eagles. The Eagles looked to me as the season ended like the league's new hot pick. They appear to be the best team in the NFC. They appear to have a young roster with real talent, coach people like. So why is CJ Gardner-Johnson leaving Philly,

apparently passing on a longer-term deal, to go to the Lions? Why is that happening? Why does it feel like the Eagles aren't getting the benefit of the doubt right now? Well, their defense coordinator left, obviously. There's a possibility that the new defense coordinator doesn't mesh with some of the players and their skill set that's possible as well okay um but you know but gardner johnson's interesting because he could be in this boat of and i know there's some players dealing with this now okay the eagles are offering me a three-year deal the money's not really good i kind of would rather do a one-year deal better

myself and make more money after the next season and i like that as a player i did that as a player it worked once it did not work well work did not work the first time worked the second time and so i i really think that um that's uh what players are deciding now they're trying to bet on themselves and they're saying yeah i just don't want to be stuck in this three-year deal when the team has all this control. I want to have more control. And so I'll do a one-year deal. The Eagles, by the way,

they brought Slay back eventually, right? And they have a bunch of draft picks and they're going to be fine. The Hargrave deal is expensive. They say, look, man, we don't want to pay you that much money. There's also this thought game that, I'm interested if you think this way in the media,

because you've been on the end of networks and kind of inside networks. Do you look at someone like Javon Hargrave, right? Who's the pass rusher for the Eagles, the defensive lineman. If the Eagles say like, yeah, we really don't want to sign you. Like, we don't want to pay you that much money.

If you're like another team, do you look at that as a negative on that player? In the media world, like, let's say that, you know, I work for a company and they just don't want to pay me as much as I think I want. Does the other company look at that and like, why don't they pay that guy? And I think that happens in public for agency too.

Like, you know, you're like, well, why, why did the Eagles pay Gardner Johnson? Like, that's kind of odd. Like, you don't want to go with the Eagles. We're not going to give you a big deal. We'll give you a one-year deal and kind of figure out what happened from there. I think some of that happens sometimes, too,

where they're like, well, why didn't you re-sign with your own team? That makes no sense. If they don't want you, if that good team doesn't want you, why do I want you? Yeah. And then the Hart gives a bad example

because the Niners signed him to a bunch of money. But that general idea of, like, the Chiefs, wait, McCall Harmon, the Chiefs didn't want you. Why not? Why am I going to pay you a bunch of money? Like, again, using various examples here. I think that's part of for industry as well.

And maybe what's happening with some of these deals, maybe it's happening with Gardner Johnson. Like you're really good last season for Philly. Some people had you as the best part of your position. And the Eagles don't want you after Super Bowl run? They don't want to pay you $12, $15 million a year? Well, why is that? I'm not going to pay you that much money either. They don't want to pay you that. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that's just human nature, probably true of our industry. We'll use a big name that everybody knows. This is not like any inside knowledge here. But if steven a smith espn was like nah good luck man it's been a nice run but like we don't really think you're worth

it any longer i would i would have to imagine the networks who previously would have been would have loved to have steven you know help their ratings would be like wait what's is is there something wrong here is he not working hard anymore is he is he difficult behind the scenes like those would be the questions people would have to ask if espn just didn't care anymore um yeah so i'm with you on the logic i just it seems hard with a young player like that and as hot as the eagles seem to be it seems hard to believe that they couldn't keep the culture going and you know we always find out years later that some of the guys on winning teams weren't beloved you know that even the franchise wasn't like thrilled to have them but they won so they kept it in house you know that's been the case with the chiefs even yeah i mean i think the

best one is the for that it's like the steelers right that yeah tom was able to somehow keep like with brown and levy on bell like right the winning going with some personalities. The Eagles, again, they've drafted well. They still have two first-round draft picks. And again, they lost a pass rusher, and they lost a corner, and they lost a linebacker, right? I mean, those are positions I think you can find yourself adding in the draft. I feel like they feel that it's not worth spending all that money on those guys. We can add those another way. All right. well, let's talk about the draft then. So the teams at the top of the draft right now, who we assume are looking at quarterbacks,

will go after them and then immediately have no one to throw the ball to. So Ian Hartzitz, who we've mentioned on this show before, he says the Panthers and Texans poised to surround the NFL's top two picks with quite possibly the two worst pass catcher groups in the league. And I feel like that's sort of become

the narrative in the last few days. So what do you think of that take? Because we had a nice discussion behind the scenes about what is the right order for a rebuild? We would agree these teams need to rebuild. So do you get a system in place with an offensive coordinator and build an

offensive line and then slot the franchise quarterback into a pretty well-built system or do you get a quarterback and build it around him or do you get a bunch of weapons and say don't you want to come here free agent quarterback it's kind of a lot of different ways you can do this what do you think the right way is i mean ideally you would have like a good team that had a bad year at quarterback and that has a good roster and you're able to draft that guy into a good roster. I mean, we saw like the extreme example of Pat Mahomes, right?

I mean, you drafted him into a good roster. Or even Dak Prescott. You dropped him into that Cowboys with the best offensive line in the NFL and with Zeke Elliott and with the weapons they had at wide receiver and Hall of Fame tight end Jason Witten who was still playing at a decently high level. Like all those things, you'd rather have that.

I mean, I think that's not even like a question, right? How you would rather do that. But you have to – Let's imagine you're crappier than that. You're the Texans or the Panthers who just suck. It depends where you are in this. Like I can make the case for the Texans. I can make the case. I. I can make the case for the Texans. I can make the case.

I think I can make the case that if you don't have one of these quarterbacks as one of your highest rated guys on the board, that you either trade out of that spot or you draft somebody else and wait for next season because next season's quarterbacks are better. I can make that argument, Gabe.

You move back or you draft Will Anderson or Jalen Carter, build your defense up. You spend your next pick on a wide receiver or tight end, and you just have this kind of core of young players for next season. But it's hard to do that. If you're D'Amico Ryan's brand-new head coach, you want to win now. You don't want to spend one season going two and 15 or three and 14. Like that's the hard part about it.

Selling the rebuild again to a brand new coach. And so you try to get the quarterback in the system, get them there for a year and then build around him. I mean, ideally you, you want to have people in place to help that young quarterback. Because look, as soon as you have a window, right? We talk about all the time, trying to win in that window between basically year one and year four before you pay the quarterback really almost sometimes a year one to year three before you pay that quarterback all that money and even so that that money might not take effect until year four or five but it's really year two and three right

Gabe you're trying to hit that year two and three window where you're paying your rookie quarterback so much less money than he's actually worth in that rookie contract and you're able to add pieces around him that you don't get to really have when your quarterback's taking up 17 percent of your salary cap so year one you would hope that you have people in place to make that transition a little smoother but year two you hit the ground running instead of year two being like, I mean, like Trevor Lawrence's example, right? Year one, complete train wreck. Year two felt like it should have been how year one went, right? Where you just kind of just, you had pieces around him

and he'd get better throughout the season and you head into quote unquote year two feeling good about it. Now you're heading into year three. And after the season game, you got to pay Trevor Lawrence. Yeah. So you lost a year by being poor. And that's not the proper way to do it. The Bears, I think, kind of did it sort of the way that you don't want to do it,

which is poor last year. But look, they went fully into this year, right? So they corrected the issue, got Phil some weapons, draft off with them at nine, make it happen. But the Panthers, Texansans they'll find their guys i also think it's easier to find wide receivers and tight ends and running backs than is quarterback like if you're the panthers do you pass up on a quarterback because you don't have a wide receiver no if you think richardson is a strategic guy you take him we touched on this on the show we've talked talked about it more offline. So let me bring this conversation back up.

Well, in what scenario do we think the Panthers just did all that to not draft a quarterback? Or to draft the kid from Florida? Like, why would they go to such effort to draft somebody who they could have waited for? Yeah, it's probably going to be Stroud or Young, I'd imagine. They must feel like they know who the Texans are taking or they would have not bothered to go up ahead of them. Yeah, I would imagine it's Young or Stroud. I don't think it's Richardson, probably not.

Well, don't you think also, I mean, the Texans, granted, it's all new people, but the culture of that place is still haunted by the fact that in their very first chance, they went and got a quarterback who everyone agreed was pretty great and then nearly got him killed. And we still point to, you know, David Carr as the example of what happens when you draft your franchise quarterback and have, you know, high school guys blocking for him. Yeah.

You'd think they would have learned something from you're often in this position to draft a quarterback because you stink as a roster so it's hard just to say like we'll be a be have a better roster than draft it doesn't happen that oftentimes that's fair you're in this spot because you have a crummy roster so like again ideally in the perfect world you plan ahead for this right yeah the chiefs the packers even the coming look the colts kind of lucked into it right luck right yeah you have a quarterback get hurt and you have a good roster and you add andrew luck like you there are situations where that has happened but that's why again it and to me it's prudent to plan a year or two ahead in this situation

yeah is and teams often don't do that yeah i guess with the texans i should also be fair they kind of thought they had their guy they had every reason to believe they had their guy and they could be in the fine-tuning part where they're starting to become competitive in the afc by now except it turns out they were helping their guy be allegedly be a total creep and uh set themselves back dramatically because of it so absolutely all right well it's march madness so let's sort of touch on the tournament while talking about football here um it was fun to watch fairly dickinson beat purdue uh you have been this this you know arch opponent to the idea that a broader field of teams, the little guy could beat the big guy. You just it's Georgia or Alabama for you every single year. I've always advocated for, yeah,

on a good day, though, you never know. So let's pretend this March that we can go back in time to January and play out a 12 team tournament with college football the way it would have laid out. And I want you to really tell me for sure you don't think we could have seen some upsets and had a little bit more fun than just watching Georgia blow the doors off. All right? Okay. All right. So we've given Georgia the one seed, right?

We're giving Michigan the two. We're giving TCU reluctantly the three, and Ohio State will go ahead and give them the four. That makes Alabama this unbelievably dominant potential five seed, and they're playing, we think, Washington as a 12. You can quibble with these rankings if you'd like, so keep this matchup in mind. The 5-12 is Alabama-Washington. The 11-6 will be Penn State-Tennessee. Two good teams who were in contention most of the season. Almost won their conferences. 10 is USC-Clemson.

Up until the last week of the year, those were playoff contenders. And then Kansas State-Utah in the 9-8. That is the most boring possible game of all time. That's like most of the 9-8 games in the actual tournament this year. So let's just play these out for the sake of it. Give me quickly. Alabama-Washington, we're going to just – that's Alabama, right? Yeah, Washington, top of nosebleed, correct.

Okay. So they're going to draw Ohio State. We'll come back to them. Penn State-Tennessee. I don't know how to handicap this State. We'll come back to them. Penn State, Tennessee. I don't know how to handicap this one. Well, this is the thing. So this is why this is the one situation where you have upsets. So Tennessee's quarterback gets hurt, right?

So their quarterback, hey, Hooker was out. So I would be okay picking Penn State here. Me too. So let's advance Penn State. They're going to get TCU next. USC, Clemson. Don't be a jerk. What does that mean?

Just be honest. What do you think happens in that game? I mean, USC couldn't tackle Tulane. Are they tackling anyone on Clemson? Fair. Devil's Advocate. They were up three scores against Tulane and just got lazy and stupid. And it was a meaningless bowl.

They should have played better. They should have played better. Clemson's defensive line. So I will go with Clemson this game. Okay. I figured you would. They're going to get Michigan. Kansas State, Utah.

Whatever. You love Utah so effing much. Of course you will. So Utah against Georgia. You're going to be tempted. All right. So now we're looking at Bama versus Ohio State. That's obviously more interesting than anything else that we saw.

What do you like in that? Well, yeah, but is the upset Alabama beating Ohio State in this game? Well, that would have been what – yeah, I guess so, right? Sure. It's like when North Carolina has an eight seed and makes it to the final four. It's still North Carolina. For fun, let's go Ohio State here. Oh, you're going Ohio State pulling the upset against Alabama.

Who would be favorite of that game? Alabama, you think? I would have assumed by at least a field goal. Yeah. Okay. But okay. You want to go Ohio State with the upset? Sure.

They'd look pretty good in the playoff. Why not? All right. So now we're looking at Penn State who pulled pulled a major up step against TCU, who probably didn't really actually belong if we're being honest. Yeah, TCU is better than Penn State. They'll beat Penn State. TCU is better than Penn State.

Okay. Yeah. Fine. So TCU continues. Clemson versus Michigan. This will be a fun game. I mean, on paper, Michigan's better, but Clemson, I think Clemson might beat them. For fun, let's say Clemson does beat them.

Okay, let's say Clemson. But Gabe, this is not FDU beating Purdue. This is Clemson. This is like they won the championship three years ago or something. Buddy, you know, it's like end of March. What the hell do you want from me, okay? I don't know. I'm just telling you.

Hey, how about this? Instead of doing this, do you want to just speculate about aaron rogers again should we do that for 40 minutes like every other effing show on tv this is this is by the way this exercise is my exact point about the playoff okay is that you end up with the same teams winning it every year just in a different way you get to it we're trying to test your theory. Georgia, Clemson, Ohio State, and TCU. This is the scientific method, Jeff. I'm sorry. This is how you prove your theory, all right?

Okay, Georgia beats Utah. Georgia beats Utah. I think you think that's close. You love Cam Rising, so you're tempted to go with Utah. Why? Like I went to Utah. You're just upset because utah beat us over and over again all right so now we've got georgia over utah so we've it's chalk

on that end but michigan lost to clemson's we've got a seven seed in there granted they would have been a pre-season top four but fine you had tcu advancing over penn state so they're they're there and you gave ohio State a win over Alabama. And I guess to the point of the big guys getting knocked off, it doesn't really make any difference. So you're saying the only real change would have been that maybe somehow or another Michigan fell out. Or one of these. Yes. All right.

So now Clemson is sitting there on the line where Michigan should have been. So they're going to draw TCU. Who do you like? I think TCU is a more complete team than Clemson. So TCU makes the final now, and then Georgia, Ohio State, we kind of know. So we're right back where we would have been. This was a fun 15 minutes. Thanks for that.

Yeah, okay. The thing about basketball is that different styles of play can matter so much in that one 40 minute game right i mean you look at the way fdu was playing against you know purdue and you have six minutes where purdue just doesn't make a basket fdu out hustles them they are physical them they can't miss and you get a little tight they're just different sports all right but then how about this let me punch holes in this a little bit. I'm now I'm being serious. I hear your greater point. I think I agree.

But don't you think that the guy who's got to wait two years to see some field before he becomes a first or second round pick at Alabama goes to Washington or Tennessee or Kansas State if that he knows he has a shot at a playoff like don't don't you think that tier of player goes to the transfer portal and becomes the best player on some other team yeah so i'm kind of curious about the expanded playoff helping any of these teams right i mean the the argument for expanding the playoff and part of it has been well it's more exposure for everyone right it'll help everyone recruiting your playoff team and part of it has been, well, it's more exposure for everyone, right? It'll help everyone in recruiting. It's like, oh, you're a playoff team. Possibly, Gabe, I don't know, maybe. I mean, Texas A&M doesn't win anything,

and they're in the top 10 in recruiting every year, right? Texas, what do they win? They're in the top of recruiting every year. I don't know if it terribly matters to some kids. Now, transfer portal, maybe, but part of the reason you go to Alabama game is because you sit for two years and you play one year

and you get drafted in the first round. That didn't happen to other schools. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I want to argue with you, but I think the model has been shown. I guess it's just, it seems it has to make some difference. You can't just, it's not like expanding it.

Tripling the field would have no ripple effect. Maybe it's not the effect that I'm proposing, or maybe it's less of an effect than I would like. But it just seems to me it's going to have to get more competitive. I really do think, though, that NIL has has changed recruiting and it will make things more competitive because alabama's and that's why i think nick saban is so not against it but he keeps kind of like talking about it talking to his boosters about it because you are seeing you are seeing um you know a little kind of a change and you know players going to different places because they're getting

more money there's a change game now whether we see it actually change the champion i don't know but tcu is an example tcu hit the portal hard had a coaching change like they're the example of what you want usc right hit the portal hard had a coaching change as well. It's coming back a little bit parity with the portal, but you're not going to get the college basketball tournament parity. And look, in the end though, look at the teams that are

playing or will play in the Elite Eight in college basketball. A lot of the big programs. It's not like a surprise who's going to be left in the in the end right i mean when you narrow this all down you're gonna end up with a lot of one two three and four seeds okay but then let me ask you the last question on this to try to have one more serious football point two-thirds of the teams we just talked about played in some bowl where the star players had to ask themselves is it worth me

playing in this game right and i'm not yeah trying to rewrite history and say different teams with one different game but like that was the choice facing anyone looking to their future i don't think utah anyone on utah no matter who they might be, that tight end, Kincaid or whatever his name is, that guy's not sitting out a playoff game the way he might have considered sitting out a bowl game. So I am generally with you. However, Kenny Pickett sat out Pittsburgh's Fiesta Bowl two years ago. I was shocked. That's a New Year's Six bowl game. That's a big bowl game. And Kenny Pickett was like,

yeah, I'm not playing that. I don't know, man. I don't know. If you're the 12 seed and you're playing, let's say you're playing Georgia. Let's say like for some odd reason, let's say Georgia got upset

in the SEC championship game and they weren't in the top four. Are you playing that game to just to lose like i would like to agree with you gabe that it forces players to basically play their bowl games their playoff games but i don't know man i i didn't want to still see players sit out yeah well i hope you're wrong and and then washington's a good example because that's a team you watched a lot closer than almost anyone else but their quarterback's pretty damn exciting and if he balled out against an sec powerhouse and and you know took him to the final buzzer maybe even won a game i think that has to change his future well so he played in the bowl game but here's it's also worth mentioning too, like, for Washington,

this is their first time, a brand new coach, like, this is their first time being in a big bowl game in quite a few years. It's kind of, I think it depends on where your program's at.

Like, if you play in a bunch of bowl games, maybe you don't feel the playoff is as exciting for you, right, the 12th seed.

Versus where Washington, like, they're playing Texas, they're in Alamo Bowl, they had a really good season, and all the guys were returning to all play in the bowl game

If Michael Penix was leaving I would imagine he wouldn't play Against Texas in the bowl game, but he wasn't He was coming back to school So those are all decisions that are part of this process Alright Jeff, guess what time it is Over under time And when we do that

You know what, we're not even going to take a break Who cares, let's just get right to it. I was going to say, let's take a quick break and come back, but we don't need to take a quick break. Let's just get right into our over under game. And now we've we've eaten up about 30 minutes o'clock without saying this guy's name. We're talking about this team. But now I think we have to as members of the media over under 40 percent chance the Jets

just get tired of Aaron Rodgers and all the BS that comes with him and bail on this whole silly idea and just find some other guy to play quarterback what are the odds over under 40 i think jets fans are over 40 the problem is they're kind of stuck they don't know there's no other options right this is gonna drag out till september dude absolutely they gotta move they gotta move on it's absolutely it's gonna drag out at least past in my opinion past the draft do you sign up for this this is your circus he'll be on mcafee again tomorrow probably dragging dragging the the packers again complaining about the media and the made-up sources and you know whatever i mean it's what you so it's what you want jets the price of championships i guess sort maybe price of wild card weekend being the team they bury on Saturday on wildcard weekend

to lose by two touchdowns to the Bills. This is the price for that? Yes, it is. Okay, great. I mean, I got nothing left to say about this guy other than that I think he's addicted to these conversations. And he knows that if he just does try to go be a good teammate and win a bunch of games with the jets and does so quietly that no one cares about him

and he doesn't want that. So I think this is inevitable. Meanwhile, another guy who loves attention, but I, for some reason, I'm a buyer instead of a seller. Uh,

Cam Newton over under one nfl team will be interested in cam newton after his quote-unquote pro day under no teams no um man i'll tell you what social media is good for a lot of things one of them is hyping up quarterbacks that just aren't as good as we think they are anymore. Cam is not a good quarterback anymore, guys. It's okay to say that. He was really good at some point. Not anymore. And guess what, guys?

If he could win someone football games, he'd be on someone's team right now, okay? The thing that I hated most about the Colin Kaepernick discussion years ago was when anyone would sign as a quarterback, any quarterback it was. Gabe Goodwin is signed by the Jets to be their third string quarterback. People are like, Colin Kaepernick's better than him. Yeah, no shit he is, but they're not up for the same job, right? Colin Kaepernick's not up for backup third string quarterback job. Colin Kaepernick rightfully wanted a shot at being a starter.

Cam Newton's not up to be the quarterback of the Texans. The Texans don't want that. They don't want Cam Newton as their quarterback. They want Davis Mills or Bryce Young. The idea that so-and-so team, Cam's better than their quarterback, he might be better than them. But did you ever think that they don't want to pay Cam Newton $17 million a year to be their quarterback? The Bucs want Baker Mayfield at $8 million a year.

That's what they want this season. They don't want to spend more money on a quarterback. They already spent a ton of money on Tom Brady. They're transitioning out of Tom Brady to something else. And so, yeah, Cam Noon, Gabe, is better than some quarterbacks in the NFL that get an opportunity to play this season. But he's not really up for those positions because he's better than some quarterbacks in the NFL that get opportunity to play this season but he's not really up for those positions because he's better than those guys and I wouldn't if I were Cam I wouldn't pay for eight million dollars either this season so like that's the thing that always

frustrates me is like we talk about these these subjects with quarterbacks guys is like they're not up for these positions you know people ask me sometimes like why do you call games I'm like I'm out for those positions I'm going to tell you i'm not qualified to get that job cam's not qualified or overqualified in other ways since to get a backup job somewhere else he's not gonna do that job right he's not up for that job i'm not up to call nfl games at the moment like so stop doing this social media we're like we said oh cam's better than so yeah no shit he's better than davis mills but the texans don't want him. There's no purpose in Cam Newton being the Texas quarterback. They either want to be bad for one more year and draft Caleb Williams, or they want to draft a quarterback in two months.

I hate how we do this, Gabe. It frustrates the shit out of me, man. Yeah, I like how it frustrates you. My most favorite mood for you is frustrated. It's so dumb. It's like a dumb way to talk about sports. Yeah. All right, I got an idea.

so dumb it's like a dumb way to talk about sports yeah all right i got an idea over under uh five percent chance i see cam newton in a usfl game while jeff schwartz is doing the color commentary i am working on that hopefully that happens okay give me that give me that that'd be funny that um you think cam do you think camel cares enough about football still to go play it at a at a lower level league for a hundred grand whatever the pitt's going to play for the Pittsburgh Maulers. God, he could play any position he wants in that league. He'd be the best player in that league. Off of the tackle, cornerback, safety, linebacker, it didn't matter. No, he shouldn't do that.

That'd be really funny, though, wouldn't it? Oh, my God. I'd watch. I'd watch. I'd watch. I'd not watch any XFL. I just can't do it. I'll watch USFL.

The USFL, to me, again, I appreciate that they don't start right after football season. They have a little bit of leeway. You're going to feel I'm going to want some football again in a couple of weeks. Sure. That's when USFL starts. Yeah, yeah. They're a nice restaurant. They make you wait a little longer than you wanted for the food.

Tastes that much better when it arrives. Absolutely, yeah. Yeah. All right. they make you wait a little longer than you wanted for the food tastes that much better when it arrives absolutely yeah yeah all right i i can't figure out for the life of me how the hell this topic got into the rundown but here goes over under six touchdowns by adam thielen on the uh super bowl contending carolina panthers i think hank sometimes like this is like a he must be on the fantasy team or something, or a dynasty team. What, four years ago? I don't know.

Can we just move on to the next topic? Yes. Yeah. Over under 25% chance Princeton beats Creighton in the Sweet 16 to reach the Elite Eight. I'd be honest with you, Gabe. I've watched exactly zero minutes of Creighton playing basketball. I'm not sure. I didn't watch him play any of their two games so far in the tournament. I have not

the slightest idea of who Crain, the Blue Jays, that's all I know about them. I've watched Princeton play. They're long. They're athletic. They play big. They score a bunch of points. But I, this is when typically Cinderella'serella's die on thursday

and friday through 16 week so i would say that crane wins this game pretty handily they're favored by 10 they're a lot of points yeah i i would say that the bummer about princeton being the cinderella team is i don't know that princeton is the kind of place i need to like root for as an underdog when these kids lose this weekend're going to go off and make six figures the day afterwards at some bank somewhere. You know, like these kids are going to be just fine. This isn't the end of their dream. This is the beginning of their dream.

If they're at Princeton. A good buddy of mine who lives in Charlotte grew up in Princeton and I went to visit him when I was uh playing for the giants and i drove through campus you have to kind of drive through campus get the other side of campus i'm sure you've been there as well and i have yeah i just like felt smarter for a 30 seconds just driving through campus you pass over the river there's like the rowing club very ivy league you're like wow this is i feel smarter campus. I definitely didn't belong on campus. And then just continued on my day.

They have that sandwich shop right there, that sandwich shop everyone loves at Princeton. We're in the main drag. Your big takeaway from Princeton's campus was about a sandwich shop. Yeah, what else? I mean, I'm just saying, you weren't worried about the science or the libraries.

I just drove through it one time to get to, and then i got a snowstorm it was a bad day at newark airport nonetheless i mean who has a good day newark airport no one ever does i actually prefer newark to the others these days um by the way kudos to sam sam who owned it sam was the one who gave us the adam phelan suggestion sam must be the one who had him on his fantasy team three years ago sam must be the guy who still gives a shit what happens to Adam Thielen. Only thing I know about Adam Thielen is the guy requests the tiniest pads in history. It looks like he's not even wearing pads. If Cam Newton went out there with no pads on under his jersey, he would look bigger

and broader than Adam Thielen with pads on. Yeah. I mean, Thielen with pads on. Yeah. I mean, Thielen did say the Panthers are close to winning the Super Bowl. They have no quarterback, but sure. Would it be nice if one player one time was like, yeah, we're probably going to suck. Oh, no. I came here because the money was better than anywhere else. I like Charlotte.

I like Frank Reich. That's just why I came here. Yeah, that's it. All right. Over under 40% chance. We keep asking you this and now i want to just zero in on it because we're getting a little bit of information about lebron now 40 chance the lakers make the play-in tournament we're back down to play in tournament man that they lost the rockets who are tanking and they lost the mavericks when like davis just shit down his pants, right? The last

game. Their schedule is brutal, right? They got the Suns. They got a Houston game. They got Minnesota, Chicago. Let me see. How many back-to-backs here? Because you know no one's going to play.

There's one back-to-back, so we know Anthony Davis is not playing that game. I'll still say yes, but I don't feel great about it. What's the, I haven't heard the LeBron update. What's the LeBron update? Darvin Ham said he could be back sometime this season. Oh,

okay. All right. Good. Well, thanks coach. My guess is that they're using all of this time to figure out the rotation and how to, and how to ask a little bit less of LeBron. And then they're using all of this time to figure out the rotation and had it and had it ask a little bit less of lebron and then they're just they're just gonna have to ride him as far as he

can take them when the playoffs start so i don't know they play minnesota which is one of the teams above them they gotta win that game they put the bulls twice they're the 10 seed in the east i mean they don't they have some some games are very winnable games um but that's every game in the nba regular season is winnable yeah if you luck out and the other team that night doesn't give a shit which is 50 50 how do you not play in a back-to-back i i get that you're playing the rockets and you maybe don't need Anthony Davis. But like, why would you, like you're trying to make the playoffs, right? Like that should be an easy win.

Like go out there, play half the game, get up 20 points and just chill the back half of the game. Am I crazy for thinking that? No, I don't think you're crazy. It's like you guys dropped a game to a bad basketball team and you might miss the playoffs because of it. Here's an idea. I'm thinking about this on the fly jeff let's solve let's solve some problems with professional sports specifically the nba let's make contracts prorated to minutes or games played with obvious exceptions

for the team declares you unhealthy unable to play due to injury or or otherwise and that's a specific designation that has to be given and then you're paid you know certain amount three quarters your normal rate or whatever to just be there it's not your fault you got hurt you didn't want to get hurt you're not getting all your money but you're getting a lot of your money but if you're healthy enough to play and don't you get docked why isn't that the way it works well they wouldn't agree to that i mean that'd be great but wow i mean there's not gonna agree to that well i mean it would it would add a whole new dynamic to coaching and running a team if we had to consider the fact that there's no reason this guy can't play why isn't he playing oh because we don't care well that's not good enough then

you're gonna care because this game you're losing out on 150 000 i'm with you i'm with you but it's never gonna happen that way all right well speaking of which let's talk about the world baseball classic which has been fun for everyone and for all the haters out there and doubters out there. It's been... Except Mets fans. Yeah, well, except for Mets fans, but we'll get to that. So it concludes on Tuesday night, so people will probably be listening after we've already seen Japan and the USA. But I would say overwhelmingly more dramatic than people expected.

It's been incredible. The question is, will it continue when you consider the fact that yes, Edwin Diaz is now out for the year, Altuve's hurt. Like we lost some big stars because of this. Do you think that that will impact the tournament's future? Over under 50% chance. There's a little Jersey in you right there. I like it.

Tournament. What'd I say? Tournament. You said tournament. You went Jersey. Tournament? You went Jersey on me there just very quickly. I'm not from Jersey. I'm not even from Jersey. New York. You went New York. Jersey, New York. Tournament. You went Jersey on me there just very quickly. I'm not even from Jersey.

New York. You went New York. Jersey, New York. Tournament? How do you say it? Say the word. Tournament. Tournament.

We're saying the same thing. No, you went a little bit New York on that. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. My radio producer is from Jersey, New York. I always confuse you guys. It's the same thing, basically.

So it has been great baseball, by the way. It's been way more fun than the regular season like if this was what baseball is just wbc regular season would be incredible um i mean last night's game between mexico and japan was incredible the by the men of fans that miami had for both sides for both japan and mexico like the the crowd reactions the crowd shots, the player reactions. There's always that one guy on Twitter. He used to work at Deadspin

who has the audio broadcast in the different languages. So you get the Japanese call last night. We got the Spanish call last night. Tim Burke. Tim Burke, yeah. Dude, great. So good. I mean, and Otani has been incredible.

Like all the best players are playing their best. Trey Turner out of his mind, that grand slam the other night. I think that three-run home run the next game as well. It's been some really fun baseball. But if you're an owner, there is no chance you let your best players play in this next time. Right, Gabe? Can you imagine if the Chiefs let Pat Mahomes play in this and he got hurt? I mean, that's the equivalent of Edwin Diaz getting hurt, right?

The best player in his best position on his team in this sport. I guess maybe Pat Mahomes is not the best example. That would be like Otani getting hurt, I guess. But like who would be the equivalent of Pat Mahomes? I mean, it's a quarterback getting hurt essentially, right? Like your best player on your favorite team getting hurt in an exhibition game out for the season your owner would be like nope not doing that the final site seven o'clock can't wait to watch it usa japan should be good i think it's a little

bit short-sighted to to view it the way you're describing it and i agree that that is how owners would look at it but you got to do things that that grow the game and people's interest in your star players and of course there's the chance that something like what happened edwin diaz can happen but you gotta you gotta take that risk i think because you're not in a position where unless you have mike trout and and Shohei Otani, most of these guys are still kind of like unfamiliar to people outside of the town that their stars in. And I think you need moments like this, just like March Madness. We got to discover who all these kids are.

This is the chance. So I think the owners would have more to market, easier time selling, you know, tickets and all the other stuff that comes with it. If we knew who more of their star players were and we had more reason to root for them, which is why I think fantasy is good for the NFL. I'm not the first person to think this. Yeah. You know? Um, no, I understand that, that part of it. How many more people are you bringing into the sport with WBC? I don't know if it's necessarily more people. I think it's passion, right?

So I think if you have spent the last couple of weeks watching WBC and getting yourself excited about Trey Turner, and you're in the market for maybe going to a Dodgers game or buying a New Jersey this year, and you just saw what he did, you're like, you're motivated.

That's one more chance while you're sitting there with your kid to go on amazon and buy something or to say yeah we should go to a game this year except hank hank is not motivated to watch straight turner play um at dodger stadium i agree with you i think the best part about this for baseball is the social media moments have been incredible um i was on the Phillies now. Yeah, that's how much Gabe and I pay attention to. Well, that's kind of my point. Like, how the... I don't even know that Trey Turner is on the Phillies going into this.

I legit had no idea. The only way I would have known is if I paid closer attention during the WBC. I don't watch a ton of baseball until baseball starts. I would have no idea. No idea. I did see a tweet today that, you know, the walk-off last night was the most impressions, most retweeted tweet for, like, Fox's baseball account. So, like, it's getting people to watch, at least on social media, to watch the sport.

I mean, that's important i think uh the call i think was burkhart last night it was so good too man oh it was great yeah but also it's just it's like it matters to people like the olympics because you root for your country if you find out hey holy shit you know like i i don't know like let's say you're you got italian grandparents and you're like oh look at this i didn't really i mean i texted you actually jock peterson's on israel yeah yeah yeah i have described him as a guy with a punchable face multiple times but now i'm like you know what i gotta like jock peterson my wbc hat showed up my israeli team hat the day after they got perfect gamed and i I was like, oh,

can I tweet this out that I got my hat or am I going to be shamed because I got perfect gamed against? But it didn't count because it was only a seven inning perfect game. It was a run rule perfect game. By the way, I don't think that's the nasty thing people will tweet back at you when you post your Israel hat. I don't think it's going to be about baseball.

That's fair, actually. Good call. That would have been a bad yeah god people get oh i had to block some people on instagram for some of their comments you're right yeah oh yeah not not good um i hadn't thought about that i'm glad i didn't post that in general geez yeah you've been welcoming some real real nasty crap and yeah um dude i i did not get the w WBC hat. There's really had four years ago and I was super bummed and I saw it pop up like they had my size. I was like, yes,

I so happy. I got it. It's so cool, dude. The Israeli flag on the side and the star David in the front. Um, super awesome, super awesome.

So, uh, I'll be watching tonight. I'll be, it's on during my radio show. Uh, and, uh,

I'll be excited to watch USA, Japan. I'll also be watching. And Jeff, I got an idea to bring the whole show full circle. We started out talking about your baseball career. How about if you apply yourself and try to play for Team Israel? They could use a light-hitting first baseman who can't field ground balls at his daughter's game. They could use a guy like you over at first base they can't get any worse to be fair i did feel the other balls and then in my son's practice i did throw a bunch of guys out from shortstop um

so yeah okay so israel if you're listening jeff schwartz is ready to play i'm ready put me in coach i'm ready to play the usa hat it's Put me in coach. I'm ready to play. The USA hat is not great. I don't like it. Do you like it? It's okay. I'm looking at it right now. Don't care for it.

Could be better. I like Great Britain's uniforms. They sucked so bad that I liked them. The Dutch hat is pretty good. The crown on it. The Dutch. They fielded a team? Yeah.

They had one upset. I'm looking at the hats right now. The Israeli hat is awesome so and there and with the Israeli WBC hat how awesome it is go team USA tonight all right guys thank you for

listening please rate review and subscribe we'll be back next week more NFL talk as usual we'll throw some college basketball in there possibly we'll see if Gabe can get me to

say if any upset can happen with Clemson Alabama in the final four of collegeusterball. We'll do that again next week. Take care, everyone.