Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Geoff and Mitch on the Preseason, CTE Study and Deshaun Watson | Schwartz Football Show

Episode Date: August 27, 2026

Geoff is back with his brother, Mitchell Schwartz all season for the new Schwartz Football Show! With years of NFL playing experience, no duo knows more about the NFL (or each other) than two brothers who have seen it all.Today's episode starts with a conversation about the Browns naming Deshaun Watson the starting QB despite being outplayed by Shedeur Sanders. Then, reactions to the latest study about CTE in NFL players, and how Mitch and Geoff feel about it as former players aware of the possibility of living with the effects of head injuries.Finally, Mitch and Geoff talk about whether Patrick Mahomes can expect to succeed with no preseason playing time, whether John Harbaugh can save the Giants, and if the Chargers latest offensive line injuries will doom Justin Herbert to another season of "What If."

It is Thursday, August 27th. I am Jeff Schwartz alongside Mitchell Schwartz. We finally got him, guys. A Schwartz football show we're doing, we've talked about this for years now. We finally got my brother on the show. We've re-titles Schwartz Football Show. We're very excited to launch this

and continue to talk about football in a way that makes everyone smarter. Thank you for Odyssey, who's partnering with us during this journey. It's going to be me and Mitch, a lot of the shows. We're going to work in some Matt and some Gabe and some other guests along the way. Mitch, thank you so much.

I'm excited to talk to you, football season. How are we doing, buddy? I'm doing good. Yeah, I'm excited to be here, excited to talk to some football. Everyone's favorite preseason football. But at least we're a little further into the preseason. We can talk, you know, what's real, what's not, some of the major storylines. And I think everyone's kind of excited that the opening week is really close. It is really close. And we'll talk about some preseason narratives, sort of what we look for

in the preseason maybe as analysts now and former players, of course, as usual. we'll talk about some new study that came out about football league, about NFL players, and then we'll do some overrunners to end the show. But let's start off with a decision made in Cleveland between Deshaun Watson and Sugar and Sanders. Obviously, Watson got the job, and about 40 hours beforehand, Mitch, he was booed endlessly by Browns fans. I thought that might sway the decision.

But I've argued all along that he was always getting the job. You look at the way the Browns talked about Deshaun Watson, the reps he was given in training camp, the reps he was given in joint practices. the first reps he got in a preseason game. And then they put Sanders in with the ones in the preseason. He didn't play with the ones. None of the ones played. Deshaun wants to have to play with the ones as well.

Just from like an overarching perspective here, it felt like this was always his job to have no matter what happened. Do you think this was a serious quarterback competition? I'd like to think so because the last time that we saw him playing football, he was the worst quarterback in the NFL. And then he got injured multiple times and has come back. So I don't really understand. This whole thing's confusing.

I mean, obviously, I was in Cleveland for four years. I played through a lot of different quarterbacks, 10 quarterbacks and four seasons, seeing real game action. But I just, I don't understand it. I really don't get it. I've been trying to think through, like, what are the legitimate reasons that this is happening?

Because, again, DeShan gives you nothing. Like, he's shown that on the field. I was vocal about the personal side of things and how awful the whole situation felt when they traded for him and gave him the massive contract. Cleveland fans at the time were mostly in favor of the Sean Watson because he was the new quarterback and what he had done on the field. And Houston was promising and exciting for something Cleveland had had in a very long time.

And he has shown that when he got on the field, he's just gotten progressively worse. And then he's gotten more injured and more ineffective. And so I just don't think he gives you anything from a football perspective And so where does this lead you? Like is he a marginally better quarterback than Straduroor right now? I don't know that you can argue that. What Munkin is saying is like, well, we thought he'd give us the best chance to move the football and go on the road and all this stuff.

Like Chador can't lead a silent cadence or that he's incapable of like playing on the road, which makes no sense at all. So then you get to like not conspiracy theories, but like what is going on? Do the ownership and GM like hate him so much? that they're like putting him out there despite him, given the comments from last week, that doesn't really make sense to me either. So that doesn't make sense. Are they just giving up on this season

and saying, we're going to put the guy out there that's going to give us the worst chance of winning so we can get better picks than this giant quarterback class that everyone's talking about in 27? Maybe that has some validity. But like what kind of job security do you have to have as the GM

to do in the season? We've seen people in truth through GMs pretty easily. So just like, is it as simple as Tom Monkin really believes that Deshaun is the better quarterback right now and gives him a better chance on the road the next couple weeks? Maybe. I mean, he's been pretty honest, pretty upfront with everything he said since he's taking the job. So overall, it just doesn't make a lot of sense because he just doesn't seem like the better guy.

And you know this. If two guys are even or close enough to being even, you take the younger guy. You take the guy that's going to have upside, you're going to have promise. You know, the biggest knock I've seen from all these QB people on. Chador is that he's a little bit slow processing and things don't happen as quick as you'd like, which also, as a side note, it's kind of weird that you would expect the son of one of the best football players of all time who grew up around football would be like a quick mental processor compared to some contemporaries. But either way, like, how do you get better? How do you process quicker?

You play more and there's room to grow. So from like every single angle, this makes no sense, especially after Deshaun said what he said last week. And like, again, having been there and how awesome the fans are in terms of the support in terms of how much they love the team and go watch the games when you're terrible and it's 40 degrees and the winds hallowing off the lake like this point they just deserve so much better yeah it seems very clear that there was not a competition and Watson was just going to be given a job and i do wonder Mitch this stuff we don't get to see right maybe mentally he's ahead of sanders with the offense and monkey just trust him a little bit more to run the offense, and that certainly plays a role in a coach wanting to play a player over someone

else. And Sanders is late with the ball. That's like his biggest knock. And to your point, you get better by getting more reps. But isn't the number one problem here, Deshaun Watson is a terrible human, and he's going to get booed nonstop in Cleveland? And that's the problem, right? The problem with all this is he's never showed any remorse at all for anything that happened in his personal life. And so fans can handle bad play. You get, look, I've been booed before. I'm sure you've been booed before. It happens, right? You get booed. But a lot of times there's not like a hatred behind it. There's a hatred for Dershawn Watson, the person in Cleveland. Now, to be fair, if Watson was really good, they cheer. Like, we know that, right? So him not playing well. They cheered him early on.

Yes. Him not playing well, plus being a terrible human ends up to where you're at now. If you're a player in that locker room, we know who the better quarterbacks are, right? And I've been this spot before where they played a younger kid who wasn't good enough to play yet. It really sucks. Add on the fact that you might not like Deshaun Watson as a person, like I liked at least the quarterbacks I played with. If you're a player in that locker, it can't be a good feeling, right? Because you know who's better. And then you don't want to get booed just because your quarterback and someone no one likes. No, it's not a good feeling. You're right. The players always know. So this is where you want to take it back to the Viking.

and the J.G. McCarthy stuff, like, you almost have to do something at the expense of the other, right? So are you going to lose the team for the expense of the quarterback or are you going to lose the quarterback at the expense of the team? I don't know what they feel in the situation. You know, we're not there. I haven't really been as included in with Cleveland reports, and I don't think the players are going to be,

you know, no one's come out and really said, like, no, Shador is better. He deserves it. But, yeah, if you're putting a guy out there who is worse and who the team feels is worse, like you're going to lose that team really quickly. And again, for someone like Monkin who feels like he's been really authentic, it feels like he just kind of goes with his heart and says what's on his mind,

this, if it is his decision, this has to be what he's feeling. And so I don't think he's going to, like, lose the locker room over that if that's his feeling because I would imagine he's kind of clued in with some of the other guys there, some of the leaders. But from the player perspective, like, I was in Cleveland and we drafted Johnny. and we had other quarterbacks go out there and we had guys get booed in the first drive of a game because there's an incomplete pass on a third and eight and the team is wanting to see Johnny Mansell.

Like that sucks. Like the quarterback doesn't deserve that. I understand the fans being excited and happy for the new guy. But yeah, it's not a great feeling when you go out there. You kind of know, I mean, he's going to get booed probably from the very first time he walks on the field. We only got booed when we, you know, have to announce or can convert.

So yeah, it's just not a great situation for the players to be in. And again, that's something that, whether it's the coach, the GM, whoever else, they're putting that on the players. Now, maybe the goal is Sean plays so bad the first two weeks that it's just like obviously you make the switch. The door is kind of the savior-ish. That third game in the year, he gets the home start and you just ride with him the rest of the season.

Maybe that's kind of the plan too. But no, it's you're doing. Obviously, the quarterback is somewhat disservice if he feels like that that's the way the fan base is going to treat him. And then you're also doing everyone else at the service on that offense, especially, because they're going to go out there. They're going to be part of the unit that's being booed. It's not going to be fun. They're not going to get cheered for the way they deserve.

So, yeah, like, it's a bad situation from like every single angle. It's just, it's baffling. Yeah, I don't buy this theory that they're running them out there for the first two games in the season, only to put standards in a week three. that's even a dumber decision I think they're playing. I think he could help them win football games. At some point Sanders will play. Mitch, okay,

obviously a 17-game schedule. Who starts more games this year for the Browns? Watson, Sanders, or Dylan Gabriel? Is that third option a trick question? No, it's got to be Sanders. I mean, you got to pump them up if there's any like over-dumbers on the three of them. Gabriel was a third round pick.

To your point, if this was like a farce, quarterback competition. He wasn't even part of the farst quarterback competition. No. He was so bad that he just wasn't even part of it. So yeah, what was a pretty bad pick last year and a guy that you were obviously familiar with coming out of college

was just, you know, non-existent in this quote-unquote quarterback battle. Yeah, I guess Gabriel's going to start the last season game for the Browns and decided I was seeing where Watson and Sanders stand. My favorite quarterback battle of this camp, though, has been to a tongue of a low. He

lost the quarterback battle against himself. There's only going to be against himself. Michael Penick said has been hurt. So he lost a quarterback battle with himself, which I think is the first time. It's actually insane. It's like the fact that they're putting stuff out there bashing him this early. Like, how bad must have been? The report said it was impossible name in the starter.

He's not even playing. Like, what do you mean it's impossible? I mean, there's no one else is playing against him. He's competing against himself because Pennix has been hurt now. Pennix obviously back in there. So I also just to, just to, jump in, I don't know exactly when Pennix got injured, but like Mahomes has been doing all 11-11-11 stuff. He just hasn't really been cleared for live action.

Yeah. So Pennix wasn't even cleared for that. So how's Pennix can get clearance for 11-on-11? And then like two weeks later be cleared for live action already. So that timeline doesn't make a ton of sense either. It's going to be a very tight time one to go from having cleared for full contact, having playing week one. You know, look, Mahomes and all these guys guys guys get.

that are these superstars, their ability to overcome injuries when they're superpowers. And we'll talk more about Mahomes in a little bit. But that's just a big part of it, right? Like, they take longer. Penn X also has injured his knee before, right? So maybe it takes a little bit longer to recover when you've injured your knee the first time. But that's enough Falcons talk because we're not talking about Falcons so much longer than this. All right.

There was a report that came out yesterday, Mitch, that said that one in four NFL players have CTE. And obviously, you can only test for this after a. player has passed away. So one of four NFL players who have died between 2016 and 2021 had CET. And I think that's not really a surprise to any of us. We've talked about this in our careers a lot. But I'll just, I'll just note this, Mitch. When I first came in the NFL 2008, there was no talk about head injuries whatsoever. Guys played through concussions. You know, the idea was obviously if you're going to lose your spot, you want to continue to play, and guys fought through it. And so I will, I will admit that when I played in that era of football, maybe guys did not know that CTE was a possibility.

We started seeing players that unfortunately were suffering from CTE, but it wasn't really talked about the way it is now. If you're a player now, you know the risk of playing football, right? And the risk, obviously, is you might get CETE. My opinion has always been this. There's no science behind this. Obviously, you can't test if someone passed away. And they're going to find a way I imagine tests beforehand. I think we all have it, Mitch.

it just depends on what degree you have it and at what level it degenerates and what you can do for your brain and continue to just push your mental maybe a poor way to say it when you're done playing. Too many guys just do nothing when they're done playing. I think their brain

just sort of rots away. Again, it's all my opinion, no science behind it. But I'm not surprised by this test and I think a lot of players have accepted that this could be their fate one day. Well, I do agree with that last point. I will say I am surprised by the sheer volume,

and you talk about one and four. The data is actually much worse than that. It was one and four, but only like a quarter of the players got tested. So of that group of, say, like, 800, I think only like 200 tested. And of the 200, it was, I think, 91% of them had some level of CTE.

So if you want to talk about guys that got tested that end up having it, that's 90%. So then you look at, you know, the other, let's say, 600, 650 guys that didn't get tested, are they the ones that weren't as worried about it because they didn't think that it was an issue for them, possibly, but you'd have to imagine those guys have that. And I would agree, I mean, that to me, the biggest CTE takeaway that I've felt for a while is that having it doesn't doom you. It doesn't, you know, make your life terrible. It doesn't mean you're going to harm yourself or harm others. I know there

are different stages of it. I believe up to either four or five so you can have kind of lower level stages. I don't know that it makes you symptomatic. I don't know that it makes you angry or bitter or all these things. I think it works in conjunction with other stuff. And so, yeah, it's scary. It's not great. The fact that you might have it. What I'm hoping for out of this is that it turns the tide a little bit on the narrative because I feel like the narrative is you have CTE, you're screwed, and you know, you're going to have a lot of these issues, I would like to turn that narrative a little bit into, yeah, we might have it. It doesn't mean it's going to be symptomatic. It doesn't mean it's going to be worrisome.

And to your point, I mean, the NFLPA has been pushing out a lot of, a lot of emails in the last week or the last few days in response to this. There are a lot of things you can do to help get better over time. You know, you can invest in yourself in therapy and some of the other brain stuff. To your point, you know, keeping your brain sharp where that's doing possible. or reading or all these other things, obviously as time advances and there's more studies and there's more knowledge of that, you'd like to think there'll be some things that will be better in 30 years in terms of care. But yeah, I mean, just having it is scary.

That's honestly so, I mean, I've talked to you about this, but so people know, like, as former players, you can get this total body scan for the NFLPA and the NFL. That's what they offer us every five years. It's like a two and a half day thing. You get brain MRIs, you get your whole body looked up. And it's an awesome thing that is offered to us. And the thing that made me not want to do it for a while is the brain scan.

Like I didn't want to get the brain scan to know like, hey, your brain's deteriorating or things you're looking bad. Like I'm the kind of person that would get that and worry about that. And they're like, oh man, every time I forget something, like, well, that's because of football. Well, I ended up doing it earlier this year. Luckily, all the brain scans came back pretty good. But the flip side is not knowing and not being proactive and not having a chance. Like everything that we've seen is our bodies in general are elastic and the more we work them, the better they get.

Like, you know when you got in the league, like you got injured, oh, we'll rest it, we'll ice it, we'll elevate it. Well, no, everything about recovery now is push your body, work harder, like do stuff. Guys get ankle injuries and they're, you know, all of a sudden doing like ankle pumps and mobility things right at all. way where before it was just like, well, let's just, I'll sit until the swelling goes down. And so, but I think that's also, again, not scientific, but I think that's how our brains work. And so the more we can challenge ourselves do stuff to make it better, then the outcomes will be obviously better in the long term. So that's where I'm hoping kind of a long-witted answer. Like, the awareness is scary. It sucks to know that there might be something wrong.

I think we all knew that I'm not going to have the greatest health outcomes compared to the rest of population, but doesn't mean that it's going to be the worst-case scenario, and there's a lot of stuff that we can do along the way to make our lives better and to help and share with others as well. You made a lot of good points there. I'm sure a bunch of NFL players are listening to me right now and listening to us talk about this, but we do not take advantage of the benefits we have. In this instance, you mentioned the mind and body, which I need to do.

You've been begging me to do that after you went, but also there's benefits that we have as players in cities that you live in, right? If you live in NFL City, you have a certain amount of mind. you can spend per year on rehab services, right, to rehab your body, but also I would imagine you'll keep rehabbing your brain, you know, and also for mental health services unlimited. So, you know, you're able to continue to work that muscle as well. And it's unfortunate that, you know, players are passing and they do have CT, but I think your point is very well taken that it doesn't mean your life is ruined if you have CT.

It definitely can be, but it doesn't mean it has to be ruined. Pat McAfee said today that NFL players should have lifetime insurance and look, I love that Pat. We all would love that. The way I've been explained is that it's just too damn expensive, Mitch, to insure every NFL player. Now, MLB, I believe, you play 10 years,

you get insured for life. 10 years, the NFL is a very small percent of guys. I think only a thousand guys have ever played eight years. I think I was told one time. Obviously, that number will go down. That's a low. That's what I was told once by when I retired.

Like only 1,000 guys have played eight years. It doesn't feel very low, but it doesn't, who knows? But the point is like, yes, a lot of time shirts will be great. It's great to call this, but I wish former players in the media and also current players would talk about this more often than when it comes out or nine and a half years into a shooting, you know, in the summer four training camp.

Like we as players have to be more proactive, in my opinion, to get some of these benefits if we want it. Well, so, I mean, if we want to go into, like the business side of it a little bit. So it's interesting in negotiations. We, you know, bargain a percentage of the revenue that gets allocated towards the players versus the owners. And then we also have to bargain with the owners how we want to pay ourselves with that

revenue. So we decide how much we want to go towards benefits, how much we want to go towards, you know, the cap, how much of the cap we want to go towards that rookie pool that, you know, pays guys who are playing the most but earn the least. So it's interesting that we get our money. but then we also have to collect the Libby bargain, how we spend that money. So the lifetime insurance, I think, would come from that pool that we already get. So we would be choosing to spend our money on lifetime insurance for ourselves instead of putting

that money into the salary cap to pay players that are currently playing. So that's always kind of like the push pull. It's not like, hey, we're going to give us something to get an extra 2% a year from the owners so that back and pay for lifetime insurance. Like, I don't think that that's something that we would bargain for. came from the owner's trunk, it would probably come from our chunk or maybe a certain blend of those two. And at that point, again, are we going to want to pay ourselves lifetime insurance or do we want to kind of pay the guys that are currently playing? We do get five years fully covered

health insurance. Mine ends literally in like four days and I got to figure out to do after that. But like we do have good benefits. We do have a lot of resources. I think again, there's a little bit of an idea that we don't have the best benefits and we don't have the best, you know, kind of resources from the player perspective. Yeah, I hope you figured out the insurance part of it. Cobra just kicks in automatically. So you don't like lose the insurance. I think it just kicks in, which we did that for a little bit of time.

We don't have to discuss it now. We figured out. Part of it is just, I mean, if people are interested, like part of it is it's hard. We have three major, like, health brands in Kansas City and we use all three of them. and there's not many options to get us covered that like qualify for all of those when it's going through the marketplace and not through an employer. So it's we have a couple different plans now. There's one for like me and Brooke and then there's one for the kids that we're kind of also on because that's a PPO. So essentially the would have been nice to say in the NFL's one.

It's crazy expensive. It's also crazy good. We're kind of piecing it together otherwise saving some money. But then like again, flip side is I have a ton of money. in a health reimbursement account that I can start using to pay down or to pay for all this insurance. So again, like another benefit that we have that people don't talk about. And I did. That's what I used for like a year.

And we realized COBRA was too expensive for how little we used doctors. So we just wonder my wife's plan who works in the hospital system. Nonetheless. All right. Let's get back to some football stuff here, Mitch. The preseason week three finishes tonight, tomorrow and Saturday. I love watching football as much as it's on. but I do kind of

the schedule's odd right there used to be a very uniform schedule of the preseason there were no day games and now games they're playing Miami at 4 o'clock

which is wild or 1 o'clock games they used to only be night games because it's hot as shit during the day and play some of these games in August

but nonetheless you're here playing some preseason games tonight tomorrow and Saturday look I'll tell you my quite simply

to me it's about a box or it's about red flags. So if it's just as expected, I'm checking the box. If it's one's versus twos and the one stink, it's a red flag. So like the Tennessee Titans offense, red flag, okay? You know, the Ty Simpson playing well in game one. Check the box. First round pick, play Chief's backups. I think that we get way too hyped up on what happens in the precepts, like up.

We don't do enough down. I use the opportunity in the preseason to really confirm my biases against teams, which is probably not great. Eagles offense, I'm talking about you. How do you just generally view the preseason before we get into some of these topics here? Yeah, I don't get into it as much

from like that holistic perspective of what a team looks like. I mean, if you look at like the Chiefs, obviously I watch them the most. The last couple preseason is like amazing when Mahomes is on the field. You know, gets the one or two drives, marks down the field, explosive plays, run game looks great.

I haven't really seen that on the field the way it looked in the preseason in terms of checking the box or looking better than expected against ones v1. So I don't use it as much from like the scheme perspective because again you also don't know like what you're really trying to accomplish. Obviously Tennessee new coordinator, new staff, all that stuff. Like yeah, you're trying to look as good as possible. But also you're kind of just seeing what you guys can handle in a game such a you're seeing what cam war is going to be comfortable with you're seeing what your new receiver is going to do against other competition like there's so many things that is kind of like a test run that isn't necessarily indicative of like this is how it's going to be once the season starts so i like it a little less from like that perspective because again like i think the chiefs have lost like eight preseason games in a row and you know two seasons ago went like 15 and two like it just the the results don't necessarily matter that much but

So I look at more from the player perspective, like, are you seeing what you want to see? I think in general, you obviously get excited about the good stuff. If it's good stuff, you want to either make sure that it's like traits that are applicable when the competition either gets better or that it's flashing against guys who are, you know, ones. If it's bad, that doesn't look great. again, it's easy to go into chief stuff. But like, Armason Thomas is like incredible. And didn't go against, you know, Tristan Wirth's last week,

but the guys he did go against, he showed elite traits, burst, change the direction, awareness, like things that will translate against better players. Will it look as good if that was Tristan Wirth's and Get a Key? Like, no, obviously not. But it's stuff that should transfer to playing against better players because it's traits, it's awareness, it's, you know, productivity.

Look at a guy like Peter Woods, who was camp pipe, all this stuff, like played against the Rams, had a terrible game. But in that terrible game, he was playing three tech. They ran duo at him 12 times. They ran seven nakeds away from him. And he had like no pass rush reps. And the few that he did, like showed some get off, but there wasn't really much to do. So it's like, from that perspective, why does it look bad?

Does it look bad because you look slow, you look unathletic? It doesn't look bad because you're going against a guy who, is better than you. So I think you probably do take more from like the bad than you do from the good. And if the guys are playing good on an individual level, you want to make sure that it's stuff that's going to translate. And you know this better than anybody too. There are guys who look fantastic in practice.

There are guys who when they get on scout team, we call them like saboteurs. But they look great. They can like, as for us really well. They beat offensive tackles because like everything they do is. so different and weird, but they get on the field and they look awful. And like, this sounds bad. From the player perspective, you feel really good when I got on the field looks terrible because you're like, I know that this isn't going to work and I know that like I'm doing

the right stuff. So that's where like you kind of have to figure out what's going to be applicable and what's not. And so when you look at guys who are flashing for doing good stuff, that's what you want to see. And then from like the skill player perspective, like it's go time for running back. So let's see what you got. Like from the O-line perspective, let's see what your physicality is like.

Let's see what your finish is like. Those are the kind of things you're looking for. Like the last three seconds of the film, who's still playing, who's still finishing, you know, defense, who's flying in, who's making tackles, who's getting involved late. Because, like, yeah, guys are fighting for their lives and fighting for their spots on the roster. But for the most part, it's hard to, like, play super hard in this role and then make a team and then not start playing hard. Like, what a guy puts on film is probably going to be what he does if he makes a team. And so you're looking at, you know, the physical toughness, the mental toughness, and that's the stuff that's going to translate as well.

That's a good point about the effort, right? I mean, you can't really teach effort and guys that give that effort off and get rewarded by making a roster and the effort leads to a lot of play down. And the future, also too, look, to be fair, different draft slots have to do a little bit better in the preseason, right? Like if you're drafted higher on, you have the ability to sort of coast maybe early on, if you're not, you don't have the opportunity. You only get a couple of plays, maybe, too.

And now it's different now because less starters play. But you know, you're only going to get a handful of plays if you're a later round pick on Dr. Frasjean. You better make that work. You better be ready to play. Well, yeah. And again, you know this. We're talking to everybody else.

Like, where you drafted carries with you your entire career. That sucks. Like if you're a fifth, six, seventh rounder, you have to like so outperform your draft slot. And whether that's just like you better than you were. Or you get lucky, you get on the field, you get to be a starter. Like these first second rounders, man, they get a lot of leash. You get a lot of leeway.

Yeah, so it's something that, like, you see every preseason. The younger guys are the less drafted guys, the free agents. Like, they have to way outperform to prove themselves. And then that's how the NFL works the rest of their career. They continually have to prove themselves. So, yeah, they're put in a pretty bad position. And I will say as you're watching this last week, I mean, to your point, the four preseason games was so much cleaner because week four, no starters played. And all the games were at the same time, same day because they timed it up with like cut day.

Now some starters are playing, some starters are not. This third game, like our team is going to favor it. I'm not sure. But coaches are very real with players. They tell you, hey, not everyone's going to make the team, obviously. We love all the work that you guys have given us this training camp. remember like you're still fighting for a spot in our roster and you're fighting for a spot on 31 other rosters so go out there play your best you're still auditioning you still have something to play for even if you feel like you know you're the four string whatever like go out and flash as a gunner on special teams go out and flash as a you know guy blocking on kick return like there's still so much for everyone to play for and that's where these you know third games that historically might not have been the greatest to watch it becomes is really fun to see, you know, like who's fighting for their own lives,

who's fighting for their careers and for shine on some other rosters as well. I think you always know, like, if you're a older player playing in the last preseason game, the second half, you're probably not making the roster. So it's probably not likely to make it if that's what point of your. I've been in that position before. In my career, you're like, oh, I'm playing the fourth quarter of the second preseason game. Probably not good.

So I know you knew that. when you were older. When you were younger, did you, like, know that in the same way that you knew, like, in Detroit that it was over? No, so, like, in, when I was with Kansas City in my fifth year, sixth year, I played a lot in the precinct because we had injuries.

But Andy Reed told me, he came up to me, so the third preseason game, the starters play, right? That used to be the thing. And you typically get the first half of maybe one drive out of half time, depending on... Yeah, they always tell you into the third quarter. Right, and it depends on if you get the ball or not, just sort of depending on where your reps were at. Well, in that, in that third

pre-season game, Mitch. Eric Fisher got hurt. No, John Ossema, our right guard got hurt on the first drive of the game. So I went in and played right guard the whole first half. And I'm like, okay, sweet, I'll sit the second half when the twos go in. Nope. I played right tackle the entire second half. And we went into overtime.

I think I played 70 plays in a pre-season game. So, yeah, that was like on a Saturday or Sunday that we'd come back and play Thursday because that used to be Thursday was the last day of preseason typically. And coach recounting him was like, hey, man, just letting you know, like, we're hurt. like you got to play a lot in this fourth game. I'm like, okay. But then I kind of thought it was on the roster, right? If he's asking me to play, I didn't play three quarters of the fourth game.

Like, you're on the roster. When I was in Detroit in my ninth year, I was, I played the first preseason game. Then the second one, my coach, Olin coach told me I wasn't going to play because my foot was still messed up. I should have retired. But that's beside the point. My uncle was kind of just jacked up. We only had a couple of days, like five days between games. when the schedule started changing.

And the third preseason game, I was scheduled to play the second half with the twos. And we go into halftime, and Ron Prince or Oline coach goes, hey, man, just let you know, like, you're down the second half. And I was like, this is not good. And so we got on the, we got on the field.

And I was like, coach, am I being cut tomorrow? He's like, yeah, probably. Doesn't look good. But like, so. But when you're a rookie, you're in Carolina, and you're a seventh rounder, six round, or whatever. like what are you thinking in pre-season's game three and four? I'm thinking just survive.

Like I played game one and then I didn't play game two in game three. And I had gotten word from our agents that they were likely to put me on practice squad. So like you're not going to play in game three, which I was third or anyways. And in fourth game, they told me, hey, you're not playing in the fourth game. We're at Pittsburgh. They're trying to hide you and they don't want you to play. And I only played one drive. I played the last drive of that game.

Which funny enough is like a good thing if you don't play in the last game, which most people don't really realize. Yes. So the idea is that obviously that you have to be released to go on practice squad. And so if they release you for 24 hours, the less film you have, the less likely you'll be picked up. And so they, now I did get a call from another team to go on their practice squad, but I stayed with Carolina instead.

But that was like ended up being a good to sit out that final game if you're a young guy. So, you know, it sort of depends. on where you are in your career, but I definitely felt that way later in my career. I sort of knew the rhyme and reason for that. All right, Mitch, a couple sort of narratives, thoughts about the preseason that we'll get into now as we head into the record season. Patrick Mahomes did not play or will not play this preseason. He's itching to play.

That's his routine. Any concern for you about Mahomes not playing this preseason? I don't think from like getting ready or timing of the offense kind of thing. I mean, he's, I think, legitimately taken every single rep this training camp, which is pretty nuts. Again, we've seen in previous preseason, like, it looks very crisp, you know, very good when he's on the field. That hasn't always translated to the regular season. The concerning thing to me is what's the O-line going to look like? You know, been having some injuries.

Obviously, the past, you know, a few years where the Chiefs don't play as well, typically O-line injuries have been the catalyst for that. And so you're looking at, is he going to play week one? Is that against Denver? Is Denver's front four good? Yes. Are there great rushers on the edge who threaten with speed and can counter inside? Yes. So that's where you kind of worry about like what's it going to look like week one.

And again, every other position can get on the field and in practice can kind of simulate physicality. Like if you're an o-linman, you're coming back from injury, like it's mostly the same in practice if you're in pads. It's not going to be that different from a game. If you're a receiver, like, you can get on the field, get jammed up by DBs, catch a ball, tuck it, have guys kind of thud you, running backs, you know, all those things. Quarterback doesn't get touched at all. So it's legitimately the first time that, like, he gets tackled going to be in week one against Denver. I think that would be the thing from the physical side that's maybe the most worrisome is,

what's that going to feel like? How much is he going to trust the leg? How much is he going to trust the maneuverability? Is it going to be a little bit more of a pocket passer role early on before he starts running too much? In practice, leading up to that, if he's going to go, like, are they going to have someone they trust, like, quasi-tackle him or thud him up or, like, do some other things so he can feel bodies on his legs? I don't know. I mean, I was thinking about that. Like, what would you do with that?

Would you have, you know, him take a tackle or two in practice or just kind of simulate it? Or just literally, here you go. Yeah, here's Denver. Your left tackle's been here for two weeks. Your right guard's been her for three weeks. Oval offensive decals have him. Like, great. Go have fun.

Yeah, I would have played him and just let him feel something, Mitch. That's what I would have done. I don't want him to get hit, but if he gets hit, he gets hit. Well, I don't think what they're said is that the doctor, I guess, has like a nine-month thing, and the nine months is, like, week one. So I don't know that, like, he's cleared from the medical perspective to be on the field. at least that's kind of what like he and coach reed made it sound like this past week so if the doctors are saying he can't be out there like then you don't really have that

opportunity which i guess theoretically you can always override them but um you know tend to trust the doctors um so i think that's that's look the thing about getting hit to when you've been hurt and like that first tweak of your body you're like is that am i hurt again like what is that feeling like so um i probably would have played him a drive or two uh but you really don't play your quarterback in the preseason if your offense line's not healthy either. And I will say Josh Schimmons stuff, Mitch, don't love it. I don't love hearing just like back. We'll see how it goes. Trey should be fine, but the Josh Schimmons stuff, we missed part of last season as well. And obviously we hope he's healthy this year. All right. I think charting quarterback completions

and interceptions in training camp is a waste of everyone's time. Interceptions happen in training camp. There's a rhyme or reason for them sometimes. I do think some are bad. Like, that's all true, right? But until we see the practice film, how do you know, I, Mitch, do not put any stock into Jalen Hertz

throwing interceptions in training camp? I think that's what you want, like especially from a guy who's being asked to do something different, maybe is being asked to throw over the middle more to, you know, get under center, they're begging handoff, turn his hips around, fire. You want guys to test the boundaries.

You want them to be unafraid of failing. You want them to see what they can get away with what they can't, especially against a great defense that's going up again. So, yeah, I mean, we've kind of seen a pushback from different people that say that you have to give guys the freedom to fail. You have to let them test their boundaries, test their limits. Same thing in O-line-1-1s. Just the outcome does not really matter.

You don't know what guys are working on. You don't know what they're going against. So yeah, that's just like an over It's just a bad outcome of pre-season To be charting practices and all those things Games maybe you can take a little bit more away from it But also like depending on who the quarterback is So say Tyson's and right

He's with like flirting between the twos and the threes He might throw an interception because he read the defense correctly And he threw it to the right guy But the third string linebacker was in the wrong spot And it was supposed to be, you know, cover three And this guy wasn't supposed to be there He threw it, but the guy was wrong But made a good play because he was wrong.

Like we don't know those things either. There's so much variability in practice Based on what the offense is doing, based on a guy testing his limits, based on what the defense is doing. So to your point, yeah, it's incredibly dumb to look into any sort of preseason charting. Let's just, can we stop doing that as society, please?

Can I throw my Eagles take on you, Mitch? I'm curious what you think about this. So there's a couple offenses this year with brand new coordinators in whom in Philly. And I just think that's not going to work out very well in Philly. I haven't made like a Philly not make the playoffs later yet, but I'm getting close to doing it. So I know the starters did not play, but they also had Tanner McGee and Andy Dalton play. They had two third down completion through the first seven quarters of preseason.

They had two first downs, the first 55 minutes of the first preseason game. That has to matter a little bit, right? Like you should be able to get first downs in the preseason. even your is that am I reading too much into like a new coordinator not being able to have its offense function very well in the preseason?

I think that's pretty bad. Yeah, it's not great. You know, we don't want to read like too much into it. I wouldn't say that like that's a reason to run to the hills and to do all these other things.

And even last year like everyone hated the offensive coordinator said it was terrible, but like this ended up being pretty okay. Um, so I think the biggest thing is, you know, Jalen, obviously, like, there are iterations of the under center offenses. Obviously, the further you get away from like a Shanahan and McVeigh and kind of their immediate disciples, the further, you know, you get from the true creativity.

That's where, you know, you don't want to just hire guys because they're part of the tree that aren't the guys that were like integral to designing the offense for all those, like, you know, co-tree, like all these head coaches that are offensive coordinators, They're the ones doing the play designs. They're the one calling the plays. So just hiring the quarterbacks coach because he was part of it and he was an OC in title doesn't really make it. So that guy is going to be qualified. And so that's what you worry about in Philly based on what we've seen in the first couple weeks.

Is it a guy who's too far down the stream that it's more just like this is all the stuff I was taught, but I'm not innovating within that. And the other part of it is like the Jalen Hertz offense that was being run is no. longer, you know, probably a quote unquote easy offense to run in the NFL. Five, six years ago, when he was healthier, when he was more agile, when it was more read option, mixed with RPO, mixed with elite align, mixed with elite guys on the edge. Yeah, that's all good because the scheme was more innovative. The scheme matched up with the personnel. They all were able to do it.

But you got a guy who's been injured who is not as effective or quick running the ball, so that threat's being taken away. RPO's in general, way less effective than the. were, you know, five eight years ago, loses the guy in the perimeter who's kind of a man-beater, doesn't throw over the middle, doesn't get under center, doesn't run play action. So you almost are putting the onus,

ideally on him as a make or break year, like is this the guy that can be our quarterback long-term if he can't handle the shift in offense in the NFL? But hopefully the guy you hired to lead that chip is someone who's well-versed enough to just, like, be creative in the offense he's building. So that's where I think your point is, like, Are we going to know at the end of the year, was it a bad OC choice or was it a bad, you know, quarterback and personnel choice?

You'd hope you would have one of those be the right answer so you can negate the other. But right now it kind of seems like the tandem isn't going so well. And yeah, this is just like abysmal stats. It doesn't really matter what level of football, what guys are out there. Like, you should be able to just throw guys on the field, call some plays and like have some level of success. That is so far below the line of expected that it, It is worrisome. And last thing on this, I know that the Rams are not the Eagles in the situation,

but they ran three plays against the Chiefs in the first preseasoning game. They ran inside zone duo, and they ran 18 boots and move the ball, right? So, like, the idea that you can't move the ball in the preseason is silly to me. Again, that's also supposed to be the easy version of offense right now. Correct. Like the under center stuff, the run game, the play action. And that's supposed to be the new, like, quote unquote, easy. So if the quote unquote easy stuff isn't working for any of your guys against any of the competition you're playing, yeah, something feels like it's not clicking.

Absolutely. All right, Mitch, a couple more things here. Mike McDaniel's new offense is going to make Justin Herbert an MVP. Are you on the Justin Herbert hype train this year with Mike McDaniel? I am. At least I was until the injury started piling up again. you'd like to have your left tackle healthy you'd like to have a center that you signed

who's going to be a really good player and now his offense is a little different maybe than some of the traditional kind of shanninghan styles but McKinney was always a run coordinator having a center it could be on you know or towards the play side of an outside

zone block a shade and not require help and not require a guard to have to like bump him or nudge him to make that block is like a huge part of the offense that's why Kyle Shanahan signed Alex Mack when he went to Atlanta because having a center that can reach a shade and outside zone doesn't give a penetration, doesn't get wheeled, is able to do that,

like can make or break an outside zone scheme. So you hire a guy that's kind of capable of that can be a catalyst for it. Obviously Brewer in Miami, one of the ascending top centers in the NFL, a little bit smaller, maybe not reaching noses quite like Alex did. But having a guy that can be the linchman of the offense, you lose that. Tackles already kind of hurt, not sure what's happening there.

Other tackles coming back from what seemed like a pretty devastating injury. You're not quite sure how effective all it is going to be. So a month ago, I was saying Herbert is going to be the MVP. I had no reservations about that.

I wasn't like qualifying it. I was just like, yep, he's going to win MVP. But right now, I've taken that down a couple notches because of the injuries. Now the Chargers O-line is, I don't know,

maybe still equal to or better than what Miami was working with the last couple of years. Herbert, much better than Tua. I think we all know that. So there's still room for optimism, but it's kind of a bummer to see because it would have been nice to, like, see the whole thing unleashed. Because Herbert in that offense with a good O line with a couple weapons, the running game, like that was going to be a lot of fun. It was.

And unfortunately, you know, the charge of it's, the center has hurt. The inside guys just look bad again. They're going to play in the preseason, funnel, pleasing the starters are also seeing at them. Does it feel like we have more injuries this preseason than ever before?

I know we say this every year, it feels like, but it does feel like there's a ton of injuries this year, Mitch. I'll say, we say this every year, and you go back and you look and injury rates are pretty similar. I don't know what this year's look like. I will say way more injuries

in joint practices this year. That's my takeaway. Can't really say why. I'm not sure, but it does feel like the joint practice was a way for teams to get the work without the injury risk of the preseason. And now it feels like the joint practice is the injury risk, and that to me has shifted. I am anti-joint practice. I think I'm done with them.

Are you in the same boat? Yeah. Is that a serious question? No, joint practice does suck. No one likes them. Again, they're getting less safe, it seems like. And it further gets us away from playing real football, which I think you need to play real football to get prepared.

Like, again, I'm not saying the Andy Remeth is like the best way, but he doesn't do joint practices. He plays guys in the preseason. And you can simulate the stress, the physicality, a lot of the stuff, the competitiveness, and a joint practice against another team, you know, over a couple days. But those teams are typically then not playing guys in the preseason, which I don't agree with.

So I'd rather just kind of keep things more similar in a practice and play guys in the preseason as opposed to doing joint practices and not playing them. I'm with you there. There's a lot of hype around the Giants. Do you buy the John Harbaugh giant's hype train we're seeing? No. My hot take is I don't think Harbaugh has been that great of a coach.

If you go back and look at, aside from the Flacco miracle run, like there was i think a six-year stretch he only made the playoffs once like you go back and look at all this stuff there was a lot of years that were not very successful and then he got lamar obviously i'm not going to say lucked into lamar but again took a tight end over him at the end of the first and then took him lamar has been a fantastic great week season quarterback and they have for the most part underperformed in the postseason um so i no i don't think he's one of the top coaches i think he's been i don't know if i don't know if overrated is the right word, but I think he's had a lot less success when you go back

and look at stuff than you would have realized since that 2012 Super Bowl run. And if if Blackthaw doesn't catch fire, if Paul Kruger doesn't have like five and a half sacks and four games, if they don't win that Super Bowl, he's probably fired in 2016, 2017. That Super Bowl kind of carried him

through a very rough stretch than most coaches would get fired from until they got Lamar, and then they've underperforming the postseason for five or six years. So no, I I don't think that he's that great of a coach. I'm not buying the hype. Now the Giants D-line might just be so good,

but it kind of overcomes things, and maybe Jackson Dart stays healthy, and the O-line's a little better. But, no, I don't think he's a coach that's going to transform an organization. I just don't see that. All right. Well, end with this.

Do you have a favorite team to maybe win more games than they're projected? Arizona I just got to win three So like I like Dallas over 10 Over 9 a half wins I think Dallas is going to win at least 10 games And win the division

Like is their team like that for you Yeah I mean Dallas is a good one Because they even get the Dallas boost In those numbers So the fact that it's only 9 and a half Makes you think that they're like A non-Dalice 8 and a half Which doesn't make a ton of sense

Especially if Washington isn't doing what we think And that division If Phillies is bad maybe we talked about earlier. I really like Houston, man. I think Stroud's going to be better. I think we're a couple of years removed from the whole him Big Dog and Caleb Williams

and him kind of going on a media tour after his first year and kind of being more established. And I'd like to think going into this year, there's going to be, he doesn't have to be like the ascending quarterback or the guy. Now, you never know how contract situations kind of mess with guys. it sounds like they're at an impasse

I don't think the $70 million number is necessarily correct but guys can take contract stuff the wrong way and it negatively affects performance but I think that defense is so good I don't think Strata is going to be as bad as postseason games so if he can get them to like a 12th to 16th best offense

and they're going to be best defense or top three I don't know if you have the Texans over number there in front of you but I think it could be really good. And on the flip side is people are super high in Jacksonville. You know, Indy was really good for the first half of last year. Everyone's saying Dana Jones is healthy looks good. Maybe the division is pushing that number down. But I would say Houston for having as much hype as they already do. I still think that they can have like a 14 and 3, 15 and 2, like dominant season.

So Houston is my like dark horse Super Bowl team. It's probably one way to put it. When you think of head coach, defense, and it's only a Stroud. If Stroud just can improve his game, they have all the makings of a championship team. Is there a team that you think is going to stink? Some of the Giants, maybe, it's going to stink who people think might be much better this season. Stink is tough.

I mean, the flip side is Jacksonville. I feel like they're getting a ton of kind of publicity that coming out the second half of last season. And I don't know. it's just tough to look into halves of seasons and think that like the momentum is going to carry because like I mean you were one of the first ones to write that momentum article 10 years ago that's it's not real and momentum is confidence but like momentum coming off of a football season eight months ago with a totally different team does not matter um and again like yeah you could

say it was a new coach and they kind of like got better as a year progressed but if you flip that and they had started hot and then you know crater at the end of the year we'd all be saying things more negative. So I think there's people saying that Jacksonville is going to win the South and they're going to be this top team and you're looking at the second half of last year taking that as what the season was and then describing

some sort of progression to them. I will say the team that I can't figure out of Cincinnati because I see both sides of that coin. I can see the 13 and 4 and I can see the 7 and 10 and I'm not really sure which direction I want to

choose on that, but like that's one that I thought about for both those categories, but like I don't feel strong enough to choose in any direction, but it doesn't really feel like they're a 9 and 18. It feels like they're either like really good or going to have a really disappointing year and it's going to get blown up. I think it just matters, right, like how well the defense plays and it borrows healthy and then they can end up, you know, but I'm with you on just like over the overhyped teams. All right, Mitch, we have finished our show. People yelling at me in my comments about saying Bonix needs to complete more passes down the field this season to be a better quarterback.

It's like nothing that is incorrect, but Bronco fans are very, very angry Mitch. I said Bo Nix needs to complete more passes down the field to be a better quarterback. Blast for me, Mitch. Do Broncos fans know where you went to college? But do Broncos fans know that we have numbers on this stuff? Like, he did not complete a lot of passes down the field this season. Like, we have numbers. He completed like 30% of passes behind the line of scrimmage last season.

Sorry, 19%. It's also okay to be a third-year quarterback that's taken his team to the championship came and lost because he was injured and have rooms to grow, have room to grow. Like, that's not a bad place to be either. You don't have to be the best quarterback right away. No flaws in, like, perfect. Like, there's always room to grow. Always room to grow.

And I hope you guys enjoyed the show. We're back on Tuesdays and Fridays and maybe Sundays. We'll figure out throughout the year. Hope you guys enjoyed the first sports football show. We'll talk to you guys next week. Have a great weekend, everyone. Take care.