Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Geoff and Mitch "Do The Work": Sean Payton, Aaron Donald, Over/Unders

Episode Date: September 1, 2026

Geoff and Mitch are back to talk Aaron Donald's return and the Rams travel plans for the Australia game in Week 1. Then, Geoff addresses Sean Payton chiming in on Twitter about his Bo Nix comments, and the guys get to some popular over/unders for the NFL season. 

It is Tuesday, September 1st. I'm Jeff Schwartz. That's Mitch Schwartz. This is a Schwartz football show. We are back. We are ready to go. It is one day closer to start the national football season.

Mitch, we start next week. Wednesday, right? We got a Wednesday game. We got a Thursday game. And obviously the full slate of games after that for week one. So much you get into, buddy. How are you as an ex-player now? Do you get excited for the season like you did as a former player?

Like, you still have that sense of like it's coming up soon? I get more excited because I'm. I don't have to be out there playing. For people that don't know, Jeff and I used to text each other Sunday mornings before games being like, oh, this sucks. Why am I doing this?

Or at least I did, because I hated game day. So it's a very different excitement for me now. Like I love watching football. I love the start of the season. I do think talking about like a Wednesday game and then a Thursday game.

And then like I do, I'm starting to get a little burnt out on like the four or five days a week of the NFL, especially as a good. towards the holidays and towards the end of the year. So I almost wonder if they're kind of reaching a limit there, even though it seems like it's not slowing down. But I am very excited to get into it.

And yeah, I mean, this week is a little bit of like a slow week because there's not really much going on. The roster stuff is all mostly finalized. But how are you feeling? I'm good. I'm excited. I mean, look, I do college football as well. So we've called football starting Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.

There might be a Monday game. There has been the past. I'm going to Eugene Oregon this weekend with the kids and family as well to go watch Oregon play Boise State. So I'm full in it for this week. I got my bare bets tomorrow. We got to put in our wagers in for this week. So we are like full steam ahead. Before what are your thoughts on week zero?

Because I feel like the labeling of week zero is like the stupidest thing. If you're playing football, that's the first week of football. It's not week zero. Well, good news, Mitch. They decided that no longer week zero will be called. in the future. It's week one from now on. They decided after this year that this is it for week zero. And what's funny is like the week zero slate wasn't bad this year.

We had the, the Bill Belichick game, the ugly 1510 game. USC got to play, which is a rarity to have a top 25 team play. In front of a massive audience. Massive audience. Okay. Look, I got, I'm like a USC homer now for having this take. Mitch. For those who missed it, USC plays San Jose State.

It was at 12 o'clock local time. It was 100 degrees outside. our fearless leader, Gay Goodwin, was there with his family. He is a true USC fan now. So he was there, but maybe no one else was there. Him and his closest 2,000 friends were there. And people ripped USC for this. And USC should not have answered it.

They put out a statement, all this stuff. Here's the thing, guys. No one accuses USC fans of being the best fans in the country. So who cares? Right? It's not like Alabama fans didn't show up or Texas fans didn't show up. It's 12 o'clock on a Saturday. They're playing San Jose State.

100 degrees outside. No one's showing up to that game. Mitch, it's such a non-story. It's fun to make fun of USC. I get that. But to me, it's such a non-story, man. It's like, this is a Southern California sports fan. Well, the other thing is growing up,

we didn't start school until after Labor Day. So you still have families like on vacation that not everyone's in town. So it's not just like it's L.A. and it's August and, you know, it's hot or whatever the weather is. But like, you also probably have people that aren't in town because they're getting last vacations before school starts. So yeah, this kind of stuff. it's, if it's, you know, a rivalry game, if it's Oregon game and you're not getting sellouts,

like then you've got something to talk about. But not a good look for them. It's fun to pile on, but is it worrisome? Is it a sign of the downturn of USC? I don't think so. The sign of downturn of the USC will when Oregon goes there, it wins by four touchdowns in about a month. That'll be the starter of a downturn. Speaking about Los Angeles football, Mitch, the Rams welcomed back Aaron Donald, which we all felt was going to happen at some point. he's back this year, $20 million deal, up to $30 with incentives. Look, when Miles Garrett signed, I think we all agreed and thought group think on this one, he was going to come back.

It makes a ton of sense for him to come back just because he's got a chance to win another championship. He missed all a training camp. Of course, he still looks like he's in really good shape. I guess first and foremost, do you think Aaron Donald will be good coming back after nearly three years away? I would say good, yes. The last member we have of him is that, He slipped a little bit and he wasn't peak Aaron Donald.

And then you went and looked at the advanced stats and he was still number one in like pass rush win rate and like all the other metrics. So he's coming from at best of the NFL elite player level. So if he slips, you know, 30 percent that probably still nuts out to a good defensive tackle. It's just he was so, so amazing that he has such a long way to go to be, you know, just a mere mortal. So I think he'll be at least good. the first month will look a little bit rough maybe. But it's going to be fun to watch. And to your point, I mean, we've all seen the videos.

He keeps himself in insane shape. So like the strength and the cardio and all that has been there. Now playing football is just a totally different ball game. Like you show up to the first day of training camp and you pass the conditioning test and it's really easy. You're in great shape. But there's nothing that gets you ready for even an hour and a half practice like playing football. So as much as he has been in shape and kept up on his cardio, I think that's what he's been doing the past couple months is getting more into football shape.

But even so, like if you're not in practice, if you're not going against actual other humans trying to push you chasing the quarterback, like there is an adjustment period. So my guess is he's probably more of a maybe situational guy early on. It would be really funny if you could figure out a way to time up when teams are going to run gap schemes, put them on the backside three tech. He's a situational center backblock and tackle hinge beater because that's like one of his true skills in life. But yeah, I think he'll be at least good, if not better.

I'll give it a couple weeks to kind of see what he looks like getting up to speed and what the conditioning is like. But I'm not expecting him to be a top 3D tackle, but I am expecting him to be maybe top 15, top 18 defensive tackle. Bringing up his run defense is always funny because do you remember there's the ESPN analytics. What I always have him is like a more run defender. and you're like, no, no. I mean, does he take chances, right? Does he back door? Does he do those things that, you know,

not always gap sound? Absolutely. But he's not a poor run defender the way that he was labeled at times during his career. So Mitch, I think, and I said this at the time, my Twitter at Jeff Schwartz, if the Rams get 75% Aaron Donald, this is a home run for them. I mean, how are you blocking on a defensive line if you put Miles Garrett over the left tackle and Aaron Donald over the,

the left guard or the center. Like, how are you blocking that? You have to devote so many resources to just blocking those two ties. Someone's going to run free. I mean, and then you have the secondary that the Rams do. When they're all healthy together and all playing it at 100% for Garrett, 75% for Aaron Donald, what's the plan to stop them? I don't know.

So the thing is that obviously with Garrett, you can scheme and chip help. There's an element to tackle. help that's a little bit easier to scheme in when you can just align guys outside of the tackle to kind of hit the defensive end as he's first getting off the line of scrimmage. It's a little bit harder to say, hey, we're going to get tackle help by sliding that way or having the guard available to him. That's a less realistic version of past protection help that I think a lot of people assume is what happens.

But you can't do that, especially on third downs when you're running six-man protections with the running back involved because the first thing you have to do is figure out what the defense is doing and be ready to pick up any blitz. So you can't just send a line in a direction at the expense of the entire blitz pickup because, again, third and eight, third and 12, like you're not going to necessarily be hot for the receivers or you're going to want, you know, routes that are more developing. So tackle help a little bit easier. Guard help is trickier because, again, you can't just slide that way.

you can tell the center, hey, we're going to stick to the rules of the protection, but the second, they're not bringing anybody. Like, you're going back to Donald, which is what a lot of teams do. You've seen running backs get snuggled up into like the A&B gaps, almost like, you know, at double A blitz. You've seen tight ends kind of go there to help out. But no, it's going to be incredibly challenging. That's, I think, the most fun thing to see is it could be like an extremely dominant four-man rush,

in which case, like, great, have two guys on either side of line of scrimmage, you know, chip both defensive ends. Hopefully, Garrett's one of those guys you're chipping. And then Donald's on the inside. I maybe, you know, solidify the inside three on two. But then they're going to blitz. Then they're going to do all these other things.

Then they're going to throw some cover zero. Then they're going to drop guys. Then, you know, Garrett's going to line up over the center or over the guard. And Donald's going to go out to the, like, the volume of things they can do. And that's not even talking about the other defense alignment, who were pretty high quality players as well. So I'm not entirely sure how I would go into a game plan

and fully feel like I'm comfortable blocking. I don't know if you have any different thoughts, but like the thought from an O-line perspective to be able to go up against two elite guys who one interior, one exterior, it's almost impossible to help out your linemen. So, I mean, my first thought would be go empty and throw it quickly, but the Rams wouldn't have got those secondary pieces for a reason, right?

So now it's hard to do that. If you have Trent McDuffie and Jalen Watson head up on wide receivers, you go to your third, fourth, fifth. And if you don't throw the ball quickly enough, you know, you get sacked immediately. I mean, the answer is going to be you hope to win on first and second down, which makes third down short, right? And you try to get the ball out quickly. You imagine that way. If you're in a situation we have to pass the ball a lot, I think you just screwed against the Rams. And that was the problem last year they had on defense.

They went ahead and fixed that very quickly. You mentioned us texting each other before games, and we certainly did that. I actually text my wife today. She's upset about work. And I said, is the checking and clear this week? So I did, which I used to text you every now and then. But like, I remember when I was before my first game, I ever dressed in 2009 as a second year player, I was talking to Jordan Gross, our left tackle. He was, he was more like you.

Like he was dreading the games and whatnot. I'm like, I live for the games. Like, this is what like I really want to do. Like, practice is what it is, but playing the games. And that game, buddy, we got freaking smoked. Eagles came out and smoked us. It was the first time anyone, Jim Johnson was the decoridator,

had taken the defensive ends and walked him up in the A gap. And so we didn't have a plan for that yet. That had not been done in the NFL yet. So Trent Cole was like over the center and the A gap. And we just slid like we would and he just came in and murdered the running back as much as possible.

And that game, the whole second half was his pass protection. And after the game, Jordan was like, see, this is why I don't like this. And ever since then, I have been on the boat of like, the more past protecting you have to do, the crumbier it is, right?

And so if you are the Rams or you're playing the Rams, you have to avoid pass protection as much as possible. Everyone is healthy. And that includes winning on first down, winning on second down, screens, plaques, all the things you would expect for them to do. Also, playing good defense to not be down 14 points at the beginning of the fourth quarter and the need to pass. Like, that's the other thing.

There can be elite defenses, and this is what makes Miles the season so incredible last year, having all the sacks. He wasn't on a team with a lot of leads. Correct. So this is, again, comboing like a full spectrum of what a team can look like, it could get nuts, man. Like, it could get legitimately, like, crazy.

If that offense is rolling, if they stay healthy, if they're scoring points, and you turn the page on the fourth quarter and you got a bunch of fire breathers coming at you. I mean, good luck. On that turf, too, the home turf compared to grass too, which does make a difference in the past rush. I thought Donald would sign after week one.

The reason I thought that was because the Rams traveled to Australia, and the Rams are doing a quick turnaround. They're flying in. They're there for 24 hours and they fly back. They're doing a typical turnaround that we would have on a regular game day. If you play on a Sunday, you fly in Saturday, Saturday afternoon, you get to the hotel about four, you have a couple hours off, you meet, you have a snack, you go to dinner, you wake up and play football and you fly home.

That's what the Rams are doing with Australia. The Niners are going now, like they're flying there very, very soon. They're going to spend the whole week there, Mitch. I will still be surprised if Aaron Donald plays brand new. that long of a flight. I'm actually semi-concerned about Miles Garrett. He has swelling in his knee. Now you're going to take a 17-hour flight, was it?

17-hour flight to Australia with knee swelling. That knee's going to swell up a lot more. Do you think the Rams are doing the right thing going out 24 hours before the game? So I do think they're playing into one of kind of the sleep things, the sleep theory. We actually had someone come to talk to us in Cleveland because I think maybe my last year or the last couple years. we transition going to the West Coast. Like we would just kind of fly in. They wanted us to stay on our body clock,

like close the curtains at 5 p.m. when you're off on the West Coast and pretend it was nighttime and go to bed at the same time. So ideally you could wake up at like, you know, 7 a.m. Cleveland time, but it's 4 a.m. LA time. And then your body temperature gets higher up to temperature, like all this stuff, right? I think one of the key things is that every day you're there,

you get more acclimated to the time zone. and then that's however many days that it takes to undo being on that time zone. So if you go to Australia and whatever it is, say it's 11 hours ahead, I don't actually know. Maybe you can look that up. But if you get acclimated to that, it could take upwards of two weeks to undo you being used to that time zone. And so they're basically, I'm not going to say admitting defeat, but they're saying like, we're going to play this game, but not at the expense of what our body clocks could be and what they will be for the rest of the year. we're just going to kind of power through it, try to get through it, be in the best shape that we can,

and then get back home and stay on West Coast time. So I think that's the theory of it. It sounds like from what McVey has said publicly that he hasn't even fully explained what he's doing to his guys yet, and then the why behind it, and then he will share a little bit of that with us. So I would assume that's the rationale is just the less you can get acclimated to such a drastically different time zone, the easier it is once you're back to just kind of feel like you never left that you don't have the jet lag and you're not then waking up at weird hours throughout the day or throughout the night because again we've learned like sleep is one of the best things for you kind of resets the brain

resets the body you know all those things um so yeah it'll be it'll be interesting i mean i don't know if you've checked the line and if anything's really changed as the news of travel schedules has come out because i'd know i'm sure stuff has changed based on donald but um or i know their Super Bowl odds have changed a little bit. Yeah, the Super Bowl has changed a lot really when they, you know, when they got Garrett, it drummed from like 800 down to 600. I think it's still three and a half for this game. I could give it a look.

I got you talking gambling already. We're going to convert you. You don't have to gamble. I'll do the gambling. We'll convert you. It's still three and a half here on Thursday, week one, by the way, Seattle and New England play Wednesday. That's three and a half as well. And then on Thursday, Niners, Rams, and obviously full day Sunday.

a game. They're done with the doubleheader on Mondays, right? They're done with those now, so we'll have one Monday game. Oh, yeah, Chiefs Broncos on Monday, okay? Just Broncos, yeah. Chiefs Broncos Monday. I know Broncos fans love me. We'll talk about the Broncos here. In a second here, Mitch, you know, we just had cut down day in the NFL. So the rosters go from 90 to 53. It used to be a process where it went 90 to 80, then like one year was 90 to 75, and 75 to 53. They just ask everyone all at once, like get it done. And I got to say, Mitch, I don't care

about cut day. I used to sort of care. I thought it mattered. It didn't matter at all. Like, it's, it's, if you're a fan of a team

and you're a hardcore fan, it is fun for you to play general manager, right? Like, the chiefs for example. As a poll. Oh my God. We got rid of this guy

who played three games for us last season. How could we do that? You know, if you're Tampa Bay, you know, the pass-washed. He led the preseason in sacks. Oh my God.

but like guys these guys aren't making differences in Super Bowls very very rarely are they and it's just a shuffling the back end of rosters maybe you go somewhere else and stick on I got cut once I went to practice squad this time you got cut one time I went to practice squad but Mitch man I I just have cared less and less

maybe it's because I don't know as many of the back end roster as I used to because it's just difficult to pay attention to all the guys in the NFL But do you care at all about this? I find myself just like I read the news and I don't know. It's like guys are getting cut. Yeah, it's interesting to go back and track, you know, especially obviously I'm closest to the chiefs. Like all the guys that the fan base was really excited about in training camp and that like he should make the 53 over this guy.

And then you kind of track it and like either gets cut. And then he doesn't get picked up, which means he's not that impressive because the 31 other teams don't prioritize that guy over. who's on their roster. And then they usually just don't have that big of an impact on the team long term. Like it sucks to say, but if you are, you know, 52nd, 53rd, 54th, 55th, the chances are you're not going to play a ton. You'll be special teams guy. You would have to be elevated based on injury to kind of get into a spot.

If you're in that role because you don't have the athletic traits to be a starter or more in the rotation, you're not going to game those traits. Like, unfortunately, your athleticism is going to get better. You're not going to get quicker. You're not going to get demonstrably stronger on the field. So if it's an athletic limitation that makes you kind of bottom of the roster guy, like, yeah, it's great for those guys to get their opportunity and to play a little bit and maybe be, you know, again, a special teamer. But they're not going to have an impact on your roster in the playoffs or really be a guy that you can rely on. And so that's where it's like doesn't really matter a ton to your point.

Now, if it's the super athletic guy that like can't figure it out and he's trying to learn all that stuff, like I get those guys being let go and like, oh, man, we could have used him as like a punt returner, a kick returner or a gadget guy on offense and he'll kind of grow into a more full-time role. Like I get the hype on a guy. I get the hoping, the wishfulness. But yeah, in general, it's just, it's this sounds bad. because a lot of guys are getting cut. But it's fun to see who makes rosters and who doesn't.

It's interesting to kind of see what teams prioritize, you know, positional-wise. It's interesting to see a team claim seven guys. Yeah. They basically make their 53 and then they say only 46 of you are actually good enough. We're going to bring seven new guys in. So those are the things that I am more interested in, like kind of what roster composition, like which teams keep four quarterbacks, which teams keep 10 offense alignment,

which teams keep four running backs. Like that stuff is, I think, more interesting to me than like the nitty gritty of this person made it versus that. So the worst part about cut day is what you just mentioned, which is that you initially make a 53-man roster and you call your friends and family. And then the next day they make a bunch of waiver claim. So if you get released, I think it's under three years of service time,

you head to waivers. And then teams can claim players based off of a waiver priority off the standings from last season. So the worst teams can claim more. guys and the teams from Lano, Seattle's not going to get many waiver claims. And those guys immediately get added to your roster. They're not practice squad guys. And so you have to release players off your roster to then bring those guys

in. And it depends where you are. Like I remember in 2013, my first year in Kansas City, the Chiefs were two and 14 the year before. I think Andy Reed and John Dorsey claimed nine guys on the waivers. Yeah, it was an insane amount. Yeah. And it's because they just don't like the roster that they inherited essentially, right? And so they just want to get rid of everyone and bring new guys in. And, and, and bring new guys in. I think we saw

Dolphins claim seven so far, I think it is in this cycle. And the dolphins, Jeff Halfley, their head coach said the other day, this year's not about wins and losses. It's about development. Wild statement from a head coach.

That is like G6, first time college coach who's like 90 guys entering from the portal. Who's like, hey, guys, you know what? We're just trying to develop guys this year.

Dolphins are under three and a half wins, Mitch, right now. Their schedule is, Raiders week one and they play the Jets twice. Okay. So that's their three like winnable games. If they lose the Raiders week one, there's absolutely chance to go 0 and 17. Their roster is horrendous.

Now they have, they have HN, ACHN, right? Not ETN, ACHN. I forget which one we're changing the name for. They have actual ACHN. Actual ACHN. Like he's good enough to, I think, win him a game or two. Like he can just get the ball, break a couple tackles and you just get a win. They're not going to O in 17.

But there's a two and 15 is very much on the table for the, Dolphins team. When your coach says that, and you've been on bad teams, I've been on bad teams. I never coach said that before. That's not good. No, like I said, that's wild. I mean, it's not saying that like we don't care about the wins and losses. It's just like in admitting that like we're probably not going to win a lot of games.

And so we're just going to like play football through it and we'll see what ends up happening. Yeah, it's hard to go under three and a half because it's just that feels like so. little wins, like especially with how variable teams are year to year. And the quarterback is exciting. Everyone was like incredibly bum for him that they ended up trading Waddle and just like depleting the roster even more.

But like you could dream on Willis and what he's going to end up being. You've got A. Chan. I think the O-Lion overall is way better than it's been in years past. And you've seen left tackle, you know, progress. A new addition at left guard, first rounder. One of the best centers, not the best guy right now in the NFL.

So, like, they've got talent at, like, three of those positions that are very good to have talent at. But then you go to a receiver in the defense. And that's where the old cliff dive comes into place. So I think four teams, two teams kept four quarterbacks, even though the Browns put Dylan Gabriel on to injured reserve. So it's the Browns of Steelers. You know what they say, Mitch? If you have four quarterbacks, you have none. And Vikings.

I think Vikings kept four. Well, I think McCarthy's going to injured reserve, isn't he? Like, isn't that the plan? I thought he was going to be traded. He might still be traded. There's just no chance I think he makes on the roster this year, right? They probably have to keep him somewhere. So this gets into my Kevin O'Connell.

Now, this is not a discussion about him specifically. It's a discussion about media perception because everything we've heard is he's the quarterback guru and he's awesome, fix him darn old, you know, the clip of organizations failing quarterbacks. So that was kind of like the rep that he had. And then they take McCarthy, whether he wants to claim him or not, or is Quessie, and he screwed up.

But McCarthy has been as big of a bust and it's just complete nobody, when healthy even, on the field as anybody. So I find it hard to believe that a guy who's that good at developing quarterbacks and offenses and all those things could have that spectacular of a bust of a fifth overall pick. And so that's where I feel like, again, we don't have to get into like a long discussion, but I just find it funny when, like, media narratives get put out there. So if Kevin O'Connell is as good as everyone's saying that he is,

then the McCarthy bust is that much worse than people are even giving you credit for because he did land on the right spot and he was with the right coach. And I know last year the O line was injured and not as effective as maybe the year before, but like it's just, it's kind of crazy to think about it in those terms that like you went to a potential top five spot for a quarterback to land and you flamed out that spectacularly. Or the flip side is true. Maybe, you know, KFC isn't quite as good. He was one of our assistants in Cleveland one of those years,

and I do really like him personally. He was great to have on staff. So I'm going to go with spectacular flameout for the quarterback. It's very Josh Rosen-esque. I mean, that's the comp for McCarthy feels like right now. Just, you know, your team just has done with you. And I think the rest of the NFL, he's not going to get a chance, I don't think,

to really ever be a starter again. It's just, unfortunately, is never going to happen for his career. It is kind of crazy, Mitch, that 23 Michigan championship, team, there's like no pros on that team still, like in the NFL. Like that's a team that just won without. A bunch of guys drafted, as far as like the guy still on rosters and contributing to NFL, that number seems to be very, very low. The Pittsburgh thing with the four quarterbacks, I don't know, Matt.

I just, you got to make your mind up. Aaron Rogers would be fine this year, in my opinion. Like, you know, he'll be a middle road quarterback. But the three of their backups, I think he'll be fine. I think he'll be middle. You don't think so? his like when it's right and he's you know making good passes like it's still as nice as it's ever been he obviously doesn't have the athleticism or you know necessarily the arm that he had when he was 28 but like

he can still put the ball where he wants it most of the time um i just think over the course of a season and the duration of it like it just didn't look as good as being a middle i think if you went down the list of quarterbacks i think you'd have him lower than you realized if you were like actually listing him So I think that's more like high 20s-ish, maybe. But I think, you know, if you got into the numbers as well, he was a more bottom-tier quarterback based on those than I think we realized. Because, again, the good is still really good.

And we obviously remember, like, possibly the best throw over the football ball time. So we're never going to undo those memories. It's just the mobility, the limitations. I mean, potentially the offensive lines can be better, protect him more. You'd like to think McCarthy can do a better job than Arthur Smith. Yeah. It's a good point about Roger. I think you're right about that.

It's probably not the 15th best. It's probably closer like 22. But there are moments he looks like 15. Which is technically like a bottom third quarterback. That's the crazy thing because like 22 doesn't sound bad, but that's technically like the top of bottom third. So it's more of a semantics thing on how you want to label it. But that is an offense that, you know,

theoretically if he can get to 17, 16, 15, they've got a couple guys at receiver. Oline could be better. We like, you know, the head coach has always had a lot of success. So something to dream on there for Pittsburgh fans. Speaking about head coaches, Mitch, Sean Payton tweeted at me the other day. We were in the middle of recording, I think, when he tweeted at me somewhere around there last episodes. I didn't really get my full thoughts out. I was on first things first.

I said that a bunch of things about the question was, will Bow Nix be better or worse this season? And I said, given the parameters, I will choose worse. And then I went on to say, I think he is what. he is at this moment. He looks sort of the same guy he was in college. And then I misspoke and I said that he needs to do a better job pushing ball down the field. What I wanted to say was he needed to do a better job of being accurate down the field, which like all numbers back up. I didn't say that. And then went on to praise Sean Payne for designing an offense that fits Bo Nix and that he gets the most out of Bo Nix. So look, PFF throws over 20 yards.

deep passing, 20 plus yards passing, right? Adjusting complete percentage for Bo Nix is 17. 17th ranked. I understand. I get it. He has a lot of touchdowns thrown the ball deep. Good. That's very good.

Okay. If I go now to adjust this to intermediate, right? 10 to 19 yards passing. Bono Nix's adjusted percentage is 29th in the National Football League. Like, these are real criticisms about it. If you just want to go not adjusted, just regular completion minutes. 33, well, this is, I got to adjust this a little bit. Like 50% of attempts essentially, right?

Put him like right where most of starters are at. He's complete percentage. You know, he's, I don't know, in the 25th. Like, whatever numbers you want to use, doesn't throw the ball between the hashes all that well. Like, I didn't say anything that was wild. And Sean Payne accused me of essentially not putting in the work. He said, we can tell who does the worker who doesn't.

And then went further on after their game. the other day to say that I don't watch Bo Nix film. I will be fair, Mitch. I'm not grinding Bo Nix film. Hand up there. Not doing that every play. Because I went to Oregon, I should be critical of another Oregon player. And the end it was saying, I don't even know who that is anyways.

All right, Coach. It seems a pretty sensitive response to something I said that was pretty mild, Mitch. Well, you did kind of fat finger yourself there. and you said the wrong thing. And unfortunately, the little bit of discrepancy between what you wanted to say, accuracy and needs to push it down the field, there was a nice juicy stat for everybody to hold on to,

which was most touchdowns over 20 yards. Now, my counter to that, and what I told you privately, but in 2017, the year the Chiefs drafted Patrick McHomohms and Alex Smith was still on the roster and played the whole year, Alex was by far the best downfield passer in the NFL. And not just completed touchdowns,

downs over 20 yards like accuracy you know efficiency like all that stuff Alex was a fantastic downfield passer that year his motto I think was fuck it like just screw it let's just throw the ball let's just take the shots that I haven't taken in my career now having Tyreek and some of the other guys and obviously helps but that was kind of his motto after the 2017 season I do not think broncos fans would have said that they were afraid of Alex Smith throwing the ball deep down the field just because he did well on counting or advanced stats in that field. That's, I think, what we're kind of talking about here with Nix is that you can find stats to support the fact that he had the most touchdowns over 20 yards. But then you look at the accuracy and you look at the

advanced stats and they're middle of the pack or worse, which means that that is a Sean Payton victory, not a Bo Nix victory. Now, the difference, I mean, Knicks does have a pretty strong arm. He can chuck it. So you like to think that guys who can throw the ball that far and have that many touchdowns doing it are great at it. But as we've learned, like there's an efficiency to it. And the thing you also didn't just mention is how often he's throwing at or behind the line of scrimmage, which is 20%, I believe. So like I think when you go and get a guy like Waddle, that's part of the equation, especially coming off of what Miami was able to do in the middle parts of the field over the past few years, is finding a guy who's elite at that that can get open, can get separation. you start getting the quarterback to have more open windows that he can throw to,

and then he gets more comfortable at that, and then he gets more comfortable throwing into the tighter windows over those parts of the field, and maybe gets a little more accurate because he's got the confidence to do it. So I think we have reason to be, even as like, you know, obviously Chiefs fans and stuff, like Broncos' offense could be really, really good. I think the biggest thing that people aren't talking about is Sean Payton giving up play calling duties. I think that is by far the biggest difference in the offense, potentially even offsetting the Waddle edition.

But that just seems like something that is getting a little bit lost over this year when you're talking about Denver's offense and the addition of Waddle. Do you think that's a worse outcome for the offense getting rid of his play calling or you think it's going to improve the offense? Oh, it's worse. Yeah. Dude, he's over the last 20, 25 years, either it depends on what you want to say. He is at worst a top three play caller over the last 20, 25 years.

You could argue two. I mean, over the last 10 years, you could argue four if you want to throw like Kyle in there. But he is elite at that. You hire Sean Payton not to be the CEO of the team and to just be like the rah-rah guy who sets. You know, you don't hire him to be like the Dan Campbell. Right. You hire him to be a genius offensive mind who designs plays and calls them at the right time

and banks off of 25 years of doing it at a high level. So I understand the desire to keep, I think it was what Davis Webb as, you know, to promote him to OC to give him play calling duty so he didn't get poached. But I just, you're giving it to a guy who's never done it before and you're taking away theoretically the best thing that the head coach does. So how can you not be like pessimistic about that? It's on my radar. It's on my radar that maybe that's the reason why he responded quite the way he did.

was just trying to find a way to just support his guy, a little salty that someone talked about the offense in not the most positive way. I don't know. I had some, again, some Broncos fans who listened to it and text me. They're like, what, you didn't say anything that was crazy disrespectful. By the way, I pulled up the Alex Smith numbers for 2017. He attempted 62 deep passes.

He was numbering in the NFL and completion percentage ahead of Tom Brady. Drew Brees, Matt Stafford, Russell Wilson, who attempted 91 that season. He was an insane year from him. Yeah. I mean, his adjusts complete percentage was even better. You know, that includes, you know, taking out some of the drops,

but it was ahead of Breeze. Josh McCown played quarterback that year for the Jets, but, you know, Tom Brady had 80 deep pass attempts, and he was, he threw for more yards, more completion percentage, more touchdowns. And so, again, no one would accuse Alex Smith of being the best quarterback in the NFL deep passing. I think if you said, hey, man,

like, you couldn't even make the case that he was inaccurate, right? The thing about Bo Nix is that, like, there are numbers out there. And the idea is that we're talking about, you know, the topic, and this is the thing about doing TV, right?

Like, the topic at hand was, will he be better or worse? And you have to answer that. I don't think he's going to be better. I don't think it's going to be better. Like, those are my two options. I chose worse. Oh, well, I guess I won't get a Sean Payton,

a Christmas card. I won't give a shout out. I did get some nice. You think he might get you a hundred. Monica card. And Mike, yeah, I'll wait for that from Denver if it shows up. You get eight crazy nights of coal? I did get some nice text messages from people in Denver media.

That was very nice to you guys. And some messages from people that said they defended me in their podcast. I do appreciate that as well on this topic. All right, that's enough of Sean Payton. We're done with that. And we're going to hit some win totals here. I'm going to make you pick a side over under for some of these teams. We're going to end with a couple fun stories to end the podcast and laugh a little bit here.

a Chiefs, 10-a-half wins for the Chiefs this season. They have perpetually won 10 games until last season. It don't happen last season. Where do you have the Chiefs? As you're over under 10-half wins? I have him like right out there. I would say over slightly, just taking the 11. Give me two weeks to watch what the offense looks like in real action in the regular season.

You know, Andy Reid, obviously, a historically private, you know, person who doesn't, like, share what he's going to do. He doesn't let stuff, you know, get out in the reports. I don't think as much as the chiefs have been under center. He's going to let anything out of the bag in the preseason. So if the offense has truly adapted and is this new age blend of, again, he's classically trained West Coast offense, which is all under center, the entire passing game, the entire run game, all the concepts that he then turned into spread shotgun. So if you go back in time and you start doing more of that stuff. Mix with some of the more new age, kind of outside

zone, hard play action, mixed with some of what Eric B. enemy is bringing from Chicago and the Ben Johnson. There's a vision where 13 and 4 is like not even a question. Just the offense is rolling, O-Lines going downhill, Kenneth Walker,

toad in the rock, 18 carries, 120 a game. He's going to be huge in the screen game, getting back to kind of his roots in the screen. And the defense, I think, is going to be better early on than people think and only going to improve as the season progresses given how young they are. But like

the D-line is definitely better than last year. Defensive backs could be better by the end of the season. So I think there's a reason to be optimistic and to say you know, to over combine with just like the inherent trust in that ecosystem. The flipside

is in the first two games if it just is all the same stuff under center, but it's dull and the O-line is inefficient and the run game isn't there. and the play actions just kind of look like throwing stuff at the wall. Then it's like panic mode. All right, this is going to be seven and ten, eight and nine, which is crazy to say with Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes.

But like the offense, unfortunately, like needs huge rejuvenation. That scheme and the scheme match with the lack of ability on the outside was just stagnant over the last year or two. So I think the first couple of weeks are going to be really instrumental. But as of right now, I'm going to have to take that over. Is Josh Simmons playing yes or no? that's such a big key for them this season. The left tackle who's out with a back injury.

I hate hearing like just back issue. They don't have enough. I mean, they can. Okay, the way to put it is that for whatever reason, Chief's O line injuries are like disproportionately harmful to them compared to other teams, it seems like. There are plenty of other teams that have guys get hurt, especially the tackle position.

and like not the lane Johnson on off stats but like a lot of teams have guys get hurt and they're still okay especially since the chiefs haven't had elite guys at the position so it's not like losing possibly the best right tackle of all time and having to replace them in lane Johnson like Donovan Smith getting injured or you know a Josh Simmons in a rookie year like those aren't the things that should tank an offense but historically they kind of have for whatever reason so as of right now I'm going to say yes he's going to end up playing I wish I knew more and wish, you know, everything wasn't quite so secretive about that, as I talked about with that staff. So, but I would have to say yes, as of now, and he's shown when he's on the field, he is pretty productive and pretty valuable. So that is another piece of it. I know this next team is Group Think, but I think I like the Cowboys over more than any wager this year for a win total, Mitch. Look, there's only a handful of NFL teams, right?

So when we spend the whole off season talking about the NFL, you're going to have some group think. And it's not hard to like the Cowboys, right? Think about what Dak Prescott has done when he's been healthy. It's one a ton of football games. They have, if not, the second best wide receiving group in the NFL, number one, depends on how you think Higgins and Chase are compared to Lamb and Pickens. They have a good offensive line. They have a running back who had 1,300 yards I think it was last year, even though I don't think he's like a dynamic guy. he rushes for a lot, that's a product of their, of their offensive line.

But look at their defense. Look out from this year to last year. These are new guys. Kenny Clark, Quinn Williams, Rashon Gary, D. Winters, overshone his back. Remember, he missed like 13 games last season, right? That had Kobe Durant and Caleb Downs. And they drafted Malachi Lawrence and L.T. Overton.

And they brought in Von Miller. Like, give me a 12th ranked defense at that group. and the Cowboys are winning over 10 games. So to me, the Cowboys, I know it's a group thing. I get it. It's a Cowboys, I'll be burned on this. I don't care. Cowboys over nine and a half wins,

my favorite win total, Mitch. Am I wrong? No, because also if it was that group thinky, then they would adjust the line. Like, if everyone was on it and putting the money on it, then the line would be 10 and a half or 11 or 11 and a half. So there's still a reason that the people

who are the best at setting the lines have, I think it did jump from eight and a half to nine and a half this off season, but still, you would think, you know, 11 and 6 with a top five offense and a top 12 defense, that's like the minimum that you would expect in terms of one loss. And you even talk about the coach that everyone was kind of crapping on when they hired him and has turned out to be really good. The only thing that gives me doubt is that they traded for Broderick Jones and are potentially putting him in a right tackle competition, which is insane to me because I've watched him play

football the last few years. And he shouldn't be because he has a starting offensive tackle right now, let alone to trade for him after training camp and talk about him potentially pushing Taryn Steele for a starting job.

So that was a little bit surprising. But other than that, I mean, everything you pointed out has a ton of validity. I don't think Washington is going to be that good. So there's, you know, a couple of wins there. And, you know, I'm not necessarily sure that the Eagles are going to be that great

like we talked about. So I think you could definitely get some wins in the division as well. Super Bowl participants Seattle is it 10.5. New England is it 9.5 or 10 a half? Who's more likely to go over their win total this season? Seattle. I don't think that one's that difficult to say. Even though they're playing in the tough division, I just think they're a much, much better team. In New England, I think everyone's kind of talked about the schedule, reverting a little bit and a little bit of uncertainty over maybe the offensive line and everyone wants to see Will Campbell.

and is he going to stick a tackle? He's going to have to move inside. I think low mood, who they drafted are going to end up being tackle. But I think Seattle is just a much better team. So I'm going to have to go with that. All right. Bears over nine and a half.

I think their defense might be the worst in the NFL this season, it was close to being the worst last season. And I just don't think what happened last season. And I think Caleb Williams would be better this year. But Mitch, I go under the Bears. I don't, if you can't play defense, you can't win every game on offense. I mean,

the Bengals have done this try this for years now, right? Mitch, I'm under Bears 9.5. I'm over. The Bengals have tried this. They haven't had Ben Johnson as their coach. And I think he's just, again, I don't have to go and think legitimately,

like, is he already a top five coach in the NFL? Probably, is he top three? I don't know. Five offense? I think yes, right? Head coach, I don't, I guess I don't really know, but offensively easily, right, top five. offensive easily. I'm saying as a head coach.

I think he's already established himself that someone who's that psychotic and neurotic and detail oriented, he's not just going to not be that as the head coach. That is going to be pervasive to everything that he does. He's going to be, guys don't like that during practice

when your coach is on you and every little thing is being observed and you're feeling like, oh, I'm not doing enough, but like it seems like he gets results and he does it in the right way. And so I just think he's a tremendous coach. I think if that offense is top five, top eight, I would assume it's better than that. But like,

if that offense is as good as we think, then the defense doesn't have to be great. And if they're 31st, I still think that's a 10 and 7 team. Especially with kind of Minnesota uncertainty, Detroit, a little bit of uncertainty there. Green Bay, I feel like we're still, you know, that whole division could go, you know,

in any direction, 6 and 11 to, you know, 12 and 5. So you're looking at potentially a lot of wins there. And so, I just, I think there's way more reason for optimism, despite what we think the defense is going to be. Any last win totals you have in your head? Any teams you love or hate for their season so we can get those on the record here? I still think, what, Houston's still blown in a nine and a half there? Yeah.

Houston's a nine and a half. That's over for me. That one's easy, too. Yeah, it's over. I have Houston Super Bowl to win the Super Bowl 16 to 1. I took it, Mitch. It's not going to think. 60, 6.

No, 16, 16. Okay. I was like 60. I'm going to get into gambling. It's not, I know. It's not because I think they're going to win. It's because I think that if you just can convince yourself that Stroud plays more consistent football, they have a defense that win Super Bowl's a Super Bowl caliber defense.

They improve their offensive line, even though it's not, it's still a, they want to get better running back. They have weapons, like they have a good coach. They have playoff experience. Has it gone well, I get it. But man, if Stroud, it's just a bet on Stroud, man. All this is a bet on Stroud. Well, it's a bet on Stroud. And most guys that have his rookie year,

they don't regress into being like unrostrable by the end of year four if the season doesn't go the way that we kind of think it will in terms of like just being a little bit better and more consistent. So there's that that's theoretically still in him as a quarterback. The other thing is defensively. they have so many good players that they can probably absorb an injury or two. Obviously, guys are going to get hurt and you can't rely on health. But like the way they're designed at every single level, having studs and depth,

they can absorb some injury stuff throughout the course of the year. So as long as they don't get too ravaged and have, you know, season ending, that's going to be a top unit. Like the Green Bay defense last year, once Parsons gets hurt, like falls off a cliff. I don't think as devastating as a Will Anderson injury would be like, you still have Daniel Hunter. You still have Jayvon Clowny. You still have an interior that's going to put in work and defend the run and get some pass rushability.

So they're just so well-rounded that that's going to be a top-through unit, I think, regardless, unless they had like a catastrophic run, like one of these Lions years. So, yeah, I think that combined with Stroud being better, which I assume he's going to be, puts them in a position to play well. And then you get to January and you get to early February. That is not the team you want to see coming to your doorstack. Like just point blank. That is not the team that you want to play. Because they will beat the crap out of you and they will pull you over and over. And it's not going to be fun.

So, yeah, I do think those are pretty good odds. So when I was on the radio every day, we did a segment called Savard or Stupid. We ended the show with like three fun stories or two, two or three. We're going to end the show today with these three stories, Mitch, okay? We're going to have fun with this. One is not really serious, but two of them are really funny. So I'm sure people saw by now, but the 49ers did not have a player on their roster name DeJohn Love. He was a player, a citizen, a person who defrauded multiple women out of about a million dollars claiming to be a professional football player for the Niners.

He took photos from himself working out with Niners gear on. He took photos of himself in his car with Niners gear on. He even left a voice memo, Mitch, I heard about him clearing the waiver. process and he had to clear emotional, physical, and mental waiver process. He only could one of the three. So he's not on a roster anymore. I don't know what it was. But man, the Sean Love here, do you think he get away with it?

Like, what do you think was going to happen here? So the thing I don't know is, is this someone who, like, convinced himself of this reality or, like, does he know that, like, he's playing a part in a scammer? Because the video seemed he does a really good job. I think he's trying to defraud women by being a night. There's a video of him running on the beach and you're like, dude, that's so funny.

And he's doing like sled poles. He's doing like VMO pulls, but he's not doing them correctly. Because he doesn't have VMOs or muscles. Yes. It's like in like a Lambo. I'll say the thing about the story. It's awesome.

It's hilarious. More info keeps coming out. More screenshots, more videos. It has enlightened me to like what. athlete DMs and all that. Like, I don't know that world. But it seems like a lot of stuff goes on in DMs and a lot of, you know, back and forth and all that.

Like, it's wild that he was able to scam people out of 1.3 million. But it's just like it was a whole other galaxy that I'm familiar with. But it's been pretty fun to catch up on because, like, obviously we know we can spot stuff. But like, there are some of these women that were onto him. And then he would try to throw it back in their face and stuff. So like, it's crazy he got away with it as long as he did. And yeah, for someone like that, is it just, you just are so into it that you just don't think you're going to get caught because I just don't know how you can keep doing that over and over and just feel like nothing's ever going to go wrong. I've thought about the thing, like the thing about fraud, like you're eventually going to get caught.

You know, like that's my thing. It's like you're eventually, you just can't, you can't perpetuate forever. Obviously, he felt like he could do this forever. But unbelievable story. So I would say Savage on him for this. All right, Mitch. You know, last year on the show, we ban Kurt Herb Street's dog, Pete. And I met Pete in the radio row.

Nice enough dog, but like, enough of the Pete stuff, okay? We're not enough of it. And I'm not, my German Shepherd is laying right here, okay? Like, I'm not anti-dog. Don't look at him. He'll come up and say hi to me. Mitch has dogs. Like, we're not, we love dogs.

We love pets. It's a little much. And now Herbie is doing more media, which, yes, he never did in the past, but he's doing it. He made a comment saying, this is how he got. got four boys. We said on Bustin with the boys with Luan and Compton. My wife was a gymnast. When we were done with what we've done,

she heard the male sperm would go faster, so she would do a handstand, go up on the bed, and we're four for four. You have two girls, Mitch. Have you thought about doing this for the next try to get a boy with the third try? This falls under the, not everyone needs to be on,

Well, not everyone needs a microphone, but obviously he's one of the, you know, premier people on TV. Podcast equipment should cost more money. That's the line. And guests should be a lot more. It's just, we just don't need to, we don't need to talk about stuff like this. We don't care. It's disgusting. Now it's going to become a story because then people start talking about it.

Now we're going to talk about it. And then people are going to talk about us talking about it. Yeah, I'm as discussed it by this story as I am with the dog stuff. So I'm hoping both of those. go away as quickly as possible because I'm just, the dog thing was nuts that one of his dogs died and he just replaced him like the next week, like nothing happened. Just freaking next man up, your family dog. That is insane to me.

Yeah. He did replace the dog immediately, right? Yes. He did. He next man up the dog. But it was like, there was the first dog that everyone fell in love with. And then he just like slid another dog right after. And I was like, okay, there's something weird going on here.

Uh, it, in the dog goes everywhere. Like, do you think the dog, like, seeing people are okay with the dog being everywhere? I think he's got enough zeros and commas in his paychecks that, um, that question doesn't need to be asked or answered. Like the, the dog, it's radio row was just running amok. There was no, like, no handler. There just was walking anywhere I wanted. And look, it was a cute dog. Don't be wrong.

But like, it just was, and he was doing an interview for someone just was walking everywhere. It's walking everywhere. All right. Last thing here. Memphis head coach, who's been a successful head coach, had a great win this weekend. After the game,

he said, we don't play music at practice, we don't do ice cream trucks, we don't do fun things. Mitch, is this a coach with a long-term strategy that will win? He's been a winner if you don't embrace sort of

the way that players like to be coached now. No. I think that's something we saw with Sabin in his last few years, is how much he changed from kind of being the Belichick Parcells, like you're just kind of an ass at all times into migrating towards having to be a little more sympathetic towards the current, you know, generational players, which hate being that guy, current generational players.

But like, it is a little bit different than it used to. You can't, you know, run a ship the same way. Like, we've all heard the stories of 28 days in a row of training camp of two days, all that stuff. Like, it's just, it's different now. Guys react differently. So, no, I think you have to find a happy medium between being authoritarian and being a hardass and getting guys to buy into the culture and the work, but also allowing them to have their fun.

And if you're so strictly against it that nothing can get in the way, like I just, it feels like that's not a long-term plan of success. I play music at my daughter's softball practice, the 10 U. girls, throw in some Morgan Wallin they want, some, they want some pop music, some, they did Zara Larson the other day. Like, it's fun. Just like, and when I have to do instruction, I just turn it off, Mitch.

Like, if we're hitting or we're like doing a scrimmage, like, yeah, let's put some music on. Like, let's enjoy it ourselves. They don't have to be so uptight. So look, and Charles has a very good coach. He will get a powerful head coaching job very quickly. He's a very good coach. But I was just curious if that strategy will work in the long term here.

All right. Any last words? I will say one quick thing is in college, I don't know how it was for you, but like we would have our meeting. and like position meetings and stuff. And you would just go and go and go. You wouldn't really get breaks and all right, meetings over.

And then you go to the NFL and like every 20 minutes you're getting a break and like see you in five. I was like, oh my God, this is insane. But like you learned that that's kind of what you need. Like you can't be, you know, just go, go, go, like straight ahead all the time and be super serious. So like it is important to take breaks, you know, if you're working all the time, all that stuff.

So yeah, I don't know how you were. if you had the same thing. But I remember like, hey, we get a break. That's cool. I get to just like unplug for five minutes and go talk to my friends and make fun of things. Like it's nice getting breaks. It's nice, you know, laughing with friends. That's nice having a little bit of downtime.

So in college, I definitely remember having no downtime. I mean, we had double days. But we would practice at like 10 o'clock. We'd be done at 12.30. We'd eat lunch. We then go back to the locker and grab our wet knee braces. That was the worst. Our wet knee braces.

and our pants and our leg pads, go in the old line room and sleep until the coach woke us up and then put that gross, that gross knee brace back on us during meetings and we just go and put our pads on and go practice at 4.30. Like, that was...

Dude, our online coach told us that if you took a nap in the middle of the day, it was basically like the new day started and it was only one practice per day. We also... You had doubles? There were no doubles. Yeah, we did.

We had, I think usually five were scheduled for training camp. Okay. Tedford would always take one of those and the second practice. He'd let us go to the movie theater. I think one of the years was playing out of the apes. And you can imagine what that was like. But, no, that was, it was fun. Like, you knew that one of these practices would get canceled.

But, like, even, so we did two fun things every training camp. We did a water park afternoon. And we had a double day that got canceled. into a one practice in the morning and a movie in the afternoon. And like, that was great. Like, yeah, it wasn't ideal, all that stuff? No, but like those are kind of the fun things that you build in, even if they're kind of planned and you know that it's going to happen.

So I unfortunately played with almost no coaches that did any of that. I put with John Fox who wouldn't be ever do that. Annie Reid, who no chance and Tom Coughlin. So I played like, no chance. Okay. But, but in Minnesota, Leslie Fraser, was our coach, okay? And Leslie Frazier is,

I love playing for Coach Fraser, very quiet, very reserved, very religious, right? That's, that's, that's, Leslie Frazier. He took us to see a movie, Mitch, and the movie was Ted, okay? Oh. And it's not the right movie for Coach Frazier, who would never see the regular.

I had just had groin surgery, and I could not laugh or it hurt. It was not, it was not the most fun for me. The team loved it. I think Coach Frazier was mortified for the entire two hours to go see. Ted as someone.

It was like a Theodore Roosevelt documentary? I don't know what he thought it was, but I mean, it's not like, you know, Mancato has a bunch of movie theaters with showing all the movies. Maybe, I don't know. That's awesome. I can't imagine he enjoyed sitting there watching Ted. I hope you guys enjoyed this show. We enjoyed doing it, the Schwartz football show.

Please rate review, subscribe. Share it with your friends and family. And we'll be back next week for sure. We might do one Friday this week, Mitch. We'll see it's not NFL season quite yet. I'm going to get Mitch into gambling. We're going to do it. If it's my goal this year, do a Friday show with Mitch.

We talk about all the NFL numbers. But we'll be back later this week or again next week as we get into the National Football League season. Take care, everyone. Have a great weekend.