Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Geoff Answers Your Mailbag Questions

Episode Date: July 7, 2023

Geoff is back this week alongside Intern Producer Hank to answer listener-submitted NFL and CFB questions. If there's anything you've been wondering about the upcoming season that Geoff didn't get to, feel free to hit him anywhere on social media to ask!As always, be sure to rate, comment, and follow the pod if you enjoyed the episode. You can find Geoff's live shows on his Twitter, @geoffschwartz.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's Thursday, July 6th. I'm Jeff Schwartz. Alongside myself, it's just me. This is Jeff Schwartz, a smarter than you. And we're doing a little bit of a mailbag episode now as we get in the middle of the summer. You know, football news a little bit down right now. It's kind of nice to have a little quiet period. NFL, obviously, slow news right now. College football, a little slow news. Getting to training camp very soon.

Want to keep you guys involved here. We've asked you over the last couple of weeks for mailbag questions. you send them to my website shortsnfl.com twitter instagram i need to start doing facebook again i think i think hank i've been told facebook like it drives it you know if you post your articles on there like my fox sports stuff people people listen to it read it i should say not listen to it on Facebook. And maybe I'll start posting. I do have a fan page on there, like a professional business account, but I don't know my password, I don't think, for Facebook. So maybe we'll get to Facebook one day.

But we have 10 questions from all you listeners. Thank you for sending these in. As usual, you can rate, review, and subscribe. We really love getting your feedback on the podcast. Producer Hank is here today. He gets to talk. You know, Hank, I did a podcast with Nick recently, and he gets to talk now too.

And he used to be on this podcast. He started out non-talking, and we had a discussion about when you were going to be allowed to co-host a show, and you made it much quicker than I thought you would. Yeah. I mean, Jeff, first off, thank you for the opportunity. I promise to not let you down.

Hopefully we will see. If I do though, Gabe and Matt are both out this week. So hopefully they won't hear. I mean, to be fair, I think your Texas education got you to be able to read questions off a document. I think we'll find out in a few minutes. Yeah. I was about to say, we will put that to the test because I wouldn't be so sure.

Can we dive in? You ready to go? Yes, let's do it. All right. So the first one comes from Cole. He wants to know what's the issue with NFL players gambling on themselves to win? I think it should be allowed. Why the pushback? Yeah. So we saw last week, I think it was maybe even two weeks ago now. I get the days confused as we kind of get to the summer months here, is the NFL handed out punishments for players involved with some gambling, right? And namely Isaiah Rogers, we talked about on the Colts, and he wagered on his own team. He wagered on a running back on his team. They didn't mention the running back to be under his yard total.

He wagered $1,000 on that. He's going to lose his career for this. It's really silly for him to do this. And the pushback that we see every so often is, why can't NFL players bet in their own games? And Jonathan Jones, the Patriots cornerback, even asked this question. And what's funny is, this is a question obviously asked by someone who never wagers because you just wouldn't say that if you wager because wagering on your own games right and and even just wagering yourself to win on the

money line right straight up as a new england patriot jones wants to wager on himself to win a game first and foremost you're already getting paid to play in that game and to win that game and i don't really see the need as a as a player to wager more money on that. I just mentioned losing that game would be terrible. But more seriously on this, it's insider trading, right? This is what it is. If I told you that it was allowed within a company that you were allowed to dump stock or buy stock because you knew something was happening inside your company, people would say, that guy should be in jail.

Well, they'll apply in the NFL locker room, right? If you're the Patriots, we'll use them as an example, and Mac Jones for the week is questionable or doubtful with an injury, you know as a player if he's playing or not. You see him in the facility. You see him in the training room. You see him at practice. Remember, practice is only open for 10 minutes.

So once the practice is closed, you can can go play this happened with me one time i'm obviously at a smaller scale than a quarterback but i was gonna come back and for some reason my o-line coach didn't want the other team we were playing the cowboys to know and the open part of practice where the media was in there hank i i didn't practice like my coach wouldn't let me it was the weirdest thing ever. It was some of the stuff with the Giants. And I'm really enjoying my time there. It was odd.

But I didn't practice with the open media session. I would practice as soon as the media left. So you would know this type of information. It's insider trading. You can't have that happen. That to me is the number one reason why you shouldn't let players wager on themselves in football games. Number two, and this is a little bit darker,

but if you're a player and you're down big after a couple of losses, after you wagered on your team, in that third game, that fourth game, are you doing a little bit extra on the field to make sure you win? Are you going to try to injure players? Are you going to do something you shouldn't be

doing because no one plays to injure anybody are you injuring players are you taking cheap shots to get players out of the game to help yourself win your wager hey i think too many things um can go wrong when you allow players to wager on themselves to win a football game and the pushback that i also hear is well the nfl is hypocritical because they have a sponsorship with any of these gambling companies okay great the players see some of that it's in the collective bargaining agreement they see some of that profit in their salaries but just because the nfl has a has a beer sponsor should players be allowed to be drunk in the facility? No.

So the NFL has determined, rightfully, the players shouldn't gamble on their game they're playing in. It feels like a totally reasonable take, Hank. I don't know if you gamble. I certainly do. And I don't know why players are just so focused on gambling while you're playing. Like just, I didn't do it when I played, obviously. It wasn't allowed nationally like it is now.

But I just didn't do it. The fascination with this seems really off for me. And I'm glad the NFL goes hard on players who gamble on their own team. I mean, if I do ever gamble, it's just as a way to kind of enjoy football games, a little something on the side. I think playing in a football game seems like the most best way to enjoy it. It does. I just couldn't imagine. Again, the only thing that's fun about what is fun about football, but the only thing that's fun during the season is winning.

It's all you're there to do is win. The whole building is so much happier, merrier when you win. It just is like it's fun to win winning is fun and again you're you're sad and depressed when you're when you lose the whole building is the whole staff is and then to check your bank account or your your gambling account realize you lost money again oh screw that man just don't gamble on nfl it's not a hard rule it's not a hard rule just listen to the rules follow the rules yeah I like it all right you ready to move on to the next one yeah let's do it okay this one's from Zach uh he wants to know training camp is coming soon what are NFL players doing this time of year to prepare yeah July 4th always feels like it's the first time that you

really start thinking about training camp as a player because you're pretty close to going um it has always felt that way that training camp was you know you knew was coming obviously after you left the off-season program but then when you hit fourth of july and you look at the reporting dates of teams right so you know they're typically around this year july 25th for all for all veterans unless you're in the Hall of Fame game and you go much earlier. Now, rookies get to report seven days earlier if you want. So, for example, I'm looking at it right now. The Ravens have the rookies in July 18th, and their veterans July 25th.

So, you're 20-ish days out, right? 21 days out from 4th of July there. My math is completely wrong there. No, that's right. Yeah, that's right. And so you start kind of thinking about training camp and thinking about preparing intensely even more than you have.

July 4th typically is the kind of last day. Hank, you're going to eat a little bit too much. Maybe drink a little bit too much as you prepare. But you're just now, if you're a veteran player, you know exactly where your body should be at this point of your training. You're going to have another one or two really tough weeks of training. And then you're going to taper that down. You might even start tapering next week.

And the week before training camp, you really don't do very much. Guys like me that had to make their weight for training camp that struggle with that, this is like the time you buckle in. You start really cutting calories, and you're making sure that you're able to be in shape. But if you're a rookie right now, your head's just spinning because you've been going for so many months now straight. You're worried about reporting day.

That's, again, July 18th for the Niners. It's coming up very, very soon for those rookies. That's all your concern is right now, is July 4th is sort of your last day to get a little crazy. We're going to dial back and eat correctly, and your lifting should be near completion. You should be in the best physical shape that you're going to be in with another hard week of training.

Taper back down, get ready for training camp. It's not very complicated, but it really starts feeling like football as a player once July 4th comes and goes. As a fan, I mean, I don't know. It feels like we're getting closer, but, you know, we're still six weeks away from the first preseason game. What about, like, the mental preparation right now?

Do rookies have playbooks already? So with the iPads now, I think they do. But I don't know if you're allowed to take your iPad home in the summer. I don't think you're allowed to. But you have a notebook. And I actually still keep notebooks next to me, next to my desk. I still have one I play, but I just kept doing it. I just take notes in this thing and write reminders down and stuff.

So you have your notebook with you. You can bring home and look at your plays. But I think it's okay to take a break from that when you're not in the facility during the offseason. Because what's going to happen is from day one of training camp, you're going to reinstall the offense or defense. So you install the offense in the offseason program once to start the offseason program.

You might do it again for actual OTAs when you're on the field. You do it again for minicamp, and you do it again for the start of training camp. So this is probably the fourth time you're going to hear the same exact install to start training camp. So you should feel pretty good if you're a veteran player. If you're a rookie, you're just freaking out because you're just young and don't know what's happening.

But mentally, I think you just take a break from the playbook right now uh you train you sleep you rest you recover and then you get ready for you know for camp and and uh it's not even it's not even i hate being the old guy i mean it's hard but it's not what it used to be you just you kind of just get ready for it and you know you're going to be away for three or four weeks, and the season starts. Yeah. Everybody's soft now. We know, Jeff.

Let's go on to question three. This one's from Gable. He wants to know who the highest profile college football coach will be to be fired during or after this season. Oh, okay. Fired during or after this season. So I'm thinking the Pac-12 is not going to have any, I don't think. The SEC probably doesn't have anyone that I can think of, right?

Because obviously Alabama Georgia is not firing anyone right now. LSU's a solid right now. The Big 12, right? You're not going to have, I guess the the sec could be jimbo right yeah that was the only thing that came to mind for me but i think his contract is enormous though yeah but dude you're from you're in texas you have that oil money down there buddy you can just find some strike some oil again and pay him out and be done with it um the big 10 i mean i mean i guess that penn state has like a 6-6 year,

which they're not going to have with Drew Allard, quarterback, maybe. Obviously, I think Brian Day's not going anywhere. Harbaugh's not going anywhere. What about like Mel Tucker? If Michigan State's bad, could he get fired? Yeah, but you run the same thing with the money, right? You're going to owe him $60 million. Is it worth? The one thing I always say when you fire someone right is when you fire someone you

have to hire someone better so if you're michigan state and you can pay a lot of money right mel's making what nine nine and a half if you fire him if you fire him which is fine it's your prerogative to do so who are you getting in who's a better coach? That's my question. And there's plenty of choices, I think, that are good coaches. But you have to make sure when you fire a coach, you can hire someone better. Oh, Steve Sarkeesian. Oh, no.

Never mind. I actually said something really nice about Texas. I was on Colin Coward yesterday. He asked me about Texas and USC and how they both have hyped this year. And he said, who do you buy more? And I said, Texas. And the reason I said is because Sark has been recruiting in the trenches.

O-line and D-line. And USC does not do that as well as Texas does. So I give you Texas a compliment. When Sark got to campus, I think Texas had 15 scholarship wide receivers and eight scholarship offensive linemen. And that was like the day one he walked in, he was like, that's going to change. And think he's stuck with that in his first three or four

years recruiting they have a top five pick and left tackle in two years he'll be in the top five all right next up dude is awesome okay next up this one comes from under siege um he wants to know which year three quarterback besides trevor lawrence is going to take the biggest leap this year and i listed out the options for you. I'm going to rattle them off. We got Mac Jones, Justin Fields, Zach Wilson, Trey Lance, Davis Mills, Kyle Trask. Then we get to the long shots, Ian Book, Kellen Mond,

and then my dark horse, Sam Ellinger. Okay. So, well, Zach Wilson's not going to play. Davis Mills is not going to play. So those guys, you throw those guys out. Ian Book's not going to play, right? He ain't going to play. And then the other two don't matter, Calum Munson and Ellinger.

So the question really becomes, is it Trey Lance or Justin Fields or Mac Jones? I think Mac Jones will be what he was his rookie season with a real competent coach, right? So like, is he going to have the biggest jump in year three? I would say he gets back to what he was his rookie season with a real competent coach, right? So, like, is he going to have the biggest jump in year three? But I would say he gets back to what he was year one. That doesn't feel like it's saying. I mean, year one, he completed 67% of his passes for 3,800 yards,

22 touchdowns. Not bad for a first season, right? They have a competent offensive coordinator now in Bill O'Brien. They really have, like, he can coach. He can coach. Bad general manager. Really bad general manager, but can really coach. And so you know you have Mac Jones, I think, returning to that.

So to me, that doesn't qualify for that, this question. So it's Fields or Trey Lance. Look, if Trey Lance is healthy and starting, every quarterback plays well in that offense. But I don't know if he's going to be playing, right? There's just really nothing to show me that he's gonna play much this season um maybe but Brock Purdy I think they I think they would actually prefer Trey Lance won the job than they would but um I don't really think that he has I think that he's not just not going to win that job um so it has to be justin fields to me i'm looking at he got one vote for mvp last season fields did he finished tied for

10th with like seven other players um was not a first place vote but he got some sort of vote i think for for uh for it was tiered this year they used to just give you one vote. Now you vote for one through five. It has to be Fields. We saw last year that Fields could be a playmaker with his legs. When the Bears finally decided to let him use his legs, he turned into a different playmaker. And there were times last year,

some throws where you're like, oh, okay, I see you. Now in year three, they've improved the offensive line. They've improved the weapons around him. He has to make that jump now or he's not their guy. If he doesn't make the jump in year three, he's just not your franchise quarterback. And so to me, it almost has to be Fields in this group

if the Bears want to have any success. Yeah, I like it. All right, we can go the next one this one comes from producer nick he wants to know who your surprise team in the nfl would be this season and he wants to know why it's not the dolphins well oh the dolphins a surprise team i mean they were a playoff team last year right that that what does surprise team mean to you let's let's change it let's go surprise contender i think a team that is like you know of playing in late december that you're like hold on a second well i think that team was also the carolina panthers last year it might be the carolina panthers again this season um their roster is really good uh for being a team that i think no one really realizes it's good they. They have good defense, like a legit defense.

And they have a defensive coordinator in Evro who was with the Broncos last season who turned down an opportunity to interview for that job. Or excuse me, did he turn down an opportunity, I think, to be the interim coach? Or was he the interim coach at the time? He turned down an opportunity to really get that job because I think he realized it was going to be an issue,

you know, being the coach there. No, let's take it back. I'm fumbling a lot. I think he, yeah, he passed on the interim position when Nate Hackett was fired because it was such a dumpster fire last year. But his defense was really good.

And I think you look at the players they have with, obviously, Brian Burns, with J.C. Horn. they added Vaughn Belaframe. They're going to be really good on defense. Derek Brown is there as well, good on defense. Offensively, they have an offensive line with the potential to be pretty good eventually, right? You look at Icky and T. Moden and the drafted Chandler Zavala this year with Bradley.

But they got a chance to be good. Offensive weapons, a little question mark there. They have guys with potential that have obviously played a couple years that can be a little bit better in this offense. And they drafted a real quarterback in Bryce Young. For a long time, they haven't had a real quarterback there. And if Bryce Young can stay healthy in that division to me it's the panthers the dolphins don't feel a surprise to me they're going to be really good if two is healthy they're going to

give me a playoff team again that to me is not to me it's not a surprise so give me the panthers here okay um uh do you think the dolphins could be better than just a playoff team like uh nick has them coming out of the afc winning the AFC? yeah okay I mean the Chiefs have hosted every AFC championship game for the last five years and the only team that seems to beat them is the Bengals I don't know

it's wild when you think about the Chiefs' success they've played in five straight AFC championship games they've hosted all five they've lost two of the five in overtime by a field goal. Excuse me. They lost the first time the Patriots scored a touchdown. Bengals beat them by a field goal. They've won two or three Super Bowls.

They played it. I mean, yeah, the Dolphins can certainly do it. Are they hosting the Chiefs this year? Are they the one seed? Are they the two seed? What are they doing? So you got to prove to me that it's the Bengals are the ones that I think can beat the Chiefs this year? Are they the one seed? Are they the two seed? What are they doing? So you got to prove to me that to me that it's the Bengals

are the ones that I think can beat the Chiefs this year and be in the Super Bowl again second time in three years. Not the Dolphins. Yeah. All right. Let's keep it rolling.

We got this one coming from Burger Man. Burger Man once says from a fellow Pac-12 fan what's your take on the future of the conference? Oh, I don't know, man. My port conference is getting destroyed.

If you look, Hank, you're a college football fan, obviously. Yeah. Are you a regional college football fan or a national college football fan? I'm going to say national, but I focus definitely better on the East Coast and then Texas, where I live now. Well, you're a Longhorn fan. I mean, aren't you like, so you mostly view the sport through the lens of Longhorns, right?

Yeah, sure. Yeah. If you view the sport as regional, like I have at times, and I worked for Pac-12 Radio for five years. So I definitely look at the sport in that job through that lens. My parents are Bruin alums. I went to Oregon. All of what's happening now is

terrible, right? Because you're basically, the Pac-12 is being destroyed. UCLA and USC are leaving. Oregon and Washington, I think if the Big Ten were to call them, they would leave immediately. I don't buy Colorado and Arizona going to the Big 12. I think the Big 12 is hopeful that happens. But remember, the decision makers in all of this are the presidents, not the athletic directors. And the Pac-12 presidents, A, are risk adverse. We saw that during COVID, right? They're like, we're not playing football right now. We're not doing that. Other conferences were like, oh, go ahead. Be my guest. Make it happen, right? There's a lot of prestige of being in the Pac-12 conference on the academic side. And I understand that maybe the biggest, the loudest voices of your fan base, of your campus

are boosters on the football side. But the athletic budget represents a small budget for the president. And to just pack up and leave a conference for probably not a lot of difference in money between what the Pac-12 is going to get and the Big 12 is going to get seems like a decision especially for Arizona they're not going to make they've been in the Pac-12 I think since 1978 I just don't see them leaving for a couple million dollar difference in a TV deal. If it's $15 million difference, sure. But not for five or seven.

So to me, the Pac-12 stays together as long as Oregon or Washington remain in the Pac-12 conference. Again, when the Big Ten comes calling, they're out of here. They're going to get a TV deal. There's a lot of questions with this TV deal I just don't get. Like, how can Arizona and Colorado, are the two rumored schools to leave the Pac-12, get a full share of the Big 12, so $31.6 million? But they're not worth that money in the Pac-12.

If there was a tv deal together with oregon and washington at the top that would drag the tv deal higher i would imagine it's it doesn't make sense to me um and so regionally again very tough to swallow nationally I mean, awesome. You have a schedule now where you have USC-Michigan, UCLA-Ohio State. You have UCLA and Penn State, USC and Nebraska, USC against Michigan State. You have all these great matchups. You're going to have Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma, Georgia. You have all these.

LSU obviously will play one of those. You have an incredibly awesome amount of good football games coming. So nationally, Hank, I think it's been great for college football, but regionally it kind of stinks. So I think the Pac been great for college football. But regionally, it kind of stinks. So I think the Pac-12 is going to stay alive for now, but not seven years from now, eight years from now. I don't know, man. It won't be the same, I'll tell you that.

I don't know if Oregon or Washington will be there. Yeah. I mean, I got a taste of the SEC atmosphere when I was up in my satellite watching the Alabama-Texas game last year. And I am very excited for the realignment. But you do kind of feel for the smaller schools are the ones who get left behind in the Big 12 and the Pac-12. Just like as a fan, the uncertainty, you know, like not knowing where it's going. I think that's where it's probably toughest. it's going i think that's where it's probably toughest um and we got a question for one of those fans right now nate b wants to know how much of an impact deon sanders will have in year one um well obviously i mean they're going to be better they're the worst team in college football last season power five um they got i made so much money betting against colorado last year just fading them all season they were so bad i they lost games like, they weren't even competitive.

49-7, 52-10. They got their asses kicked. So talent-wise, this team is really good. There's question marks they have, right? So if you look at their two deep right now, there's 44 players, right? 11 offense, 11 defense times two, right? And all those guys, the reason you look at two deeps

is because that's who's going to play, right? Backups do play. I believe they have four returning starters. Hank, that's it. So you have to get transfer portal players and freshmen in a new program all aligned at once and as quick as possible. That's hard to do.

It's going to be hard to do. Also, a lot of transfer players transfer And as quick as possible. That's hard to do. It's going to be hard to do. Also, a lot of transfer players transfer expecting to start. What happens when 17 transfers don't start? What's the mood like in the locker room with a bunch of those guys that came to play Colorado? I like the staff Dion put together. I think it was smart to bring in some former head coaches to be part of your staff. I like the moves he made there. I like his recruiting. I like all of what he's saying. I like his honesty. I like that he does sort of seem like a tough coach, like a tough on the

field coach, which I like. I like all those things about him. Their schedule this year is absolutely brutal it's tcu nebraska colorado state oregon usc i mean good luck good luck so their win total is three and a half this year um i would i would think it's a three or four wins that's probably about it okay so they'll get a little better, but that might just be regression. We can't necessarily say. Well, no, but to me it's about how do you position yourself for 2024? Like if you build a good base this year and you get to 2024, you should be in that kind of bull range, you know, over eight win type of team. I think you could get there.

All right. Well, I mean, I'm rooting for him. I like the underdogs for sure. We got another question. This one's from BeMoreBray. He points out that the Ravens have been one of the most injured teams in recent years, but they always win their preseason games. Brandon wants to know if there's any chance we'll see the Ravens take it easy this offseason.

The best preseason team to bet on, by far. They've won, what, they've covered some insane number of games. They've won a certain number of games in a row. Harbaugh's not going to change. I don't think the injuries have to do with preseason play. Most coaches don't change things like that. To me, it's bad luck. You have bad luck.

I'm going to bet them in the preseason again, though. Oh, they're good. They're a good preseason team, man. You know, the reason why I think they're a good preseason team, they're good on special teams as a team. But more importantly, in the preseason, there's not much game planning happening, right? You're game planning maybe the second game now

because of the new three-game schedule. The day before the game, you might do a little bit of practice like, oh, we're playing the Commanders. Let's just kind of like, here's what their base stuff they do. That's it. Just like you run your base rules and you just go after it. So you don't ever see an offense like Baltimore's in your own training camp. you show up to the game and here's this offense you've practiced zero against you've game plan zero against and they're just hammering you with this run game with all this different

looks you're just not ready for it that's why i think they're so good in the preseason yeah so but you don't think there's any any relation between how good they are in the preseason and injuries they have during the year or during training camp? I don't think so. I mean, they don't it I mean, compared to what we used to have, we used to practice, and I really don't think so. No. Okay, well then maybe the injury luck will

turn. If it does, then they're a good bet to win the division. You think over the Bengals? Yeah, I mean, they were in the playoffs last year with Tyler Huntley playing half a season. Oh, Pro Bowl or Tyler Huntley. Sorry, Pro Bowl, Tyler Huntley. That's some respect on his name. Yeah, no, that's fine.

You're right, you're right. Okay, this one comes from Joey. He wants to know if any NFL player is going to get a Deshaun Watson-style fully guaranteed Supermax contract, or is that something that will never happen again? Like the Supermax, like all these NBA contracts coming out right now

yeah yeah exactly um a couple things on on this um i i lean toward no and i'll give you the reasons why um one is that if you're a quarterback of the caliber of the sean watson you essentially have a virtually guaranteed deal and let me explain why, right? So Mahomes signed a 10-year deal for $450 million, okay? Is Patrick Mahomes getting cut any time between now and the time the 10-year deal is up? No, sir. The answer is no.

He's never getting cut. Now, can they ask to rework his deal to lower it? I guess they could at some point. But he's never getting cut. So he doesn't need, he doesn't need to have guaranteed money to the max $450 million because he knows that he will always be on the roster until he's done playing football, until he decides, I don't want to play for Kansas City anymore. He'll always be on the roster. Okay?

He'll always do that. So he has virtually his entire contract guaranteed. So that's one thing why I don't think players are pushing for that. And Mahomes has said, and so has Travis Kelsey, sort of. Both have said, like, yeah, I know we take a little bit less money because I want to win. And I want to keep this team together. I want to stay in Kansas City. So those two guys aren't doing it.

Patrick Mahomes is the best option to do it right now. And he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to fight for that. And I get it. I get it. As much as I want players to get full guaranteed contracts. Then number two, the owners just aren't going to do it. There's this funding rule where you have to put the guaranteed money into an escrow account to hold it there. And the reason that that was the case is many, many years ago, players would sign these deals and owners didn't have money and they couldn't pay the players as much. They couldn't pay the players on time. So they forced NFL owners to put the money in escrow

to make sure that they had it to pay the players. The thing now, Hank, is that that's not a problem anymore. Every owner is a billionaire, except Mark Davis, probably. They have the money to pay these players. And they claim the funding rule is the reason why they don't pay teams fully guaranteed deals, or players fully guaranteed. Because if you do that, I can't put $400 million in an escrow account. Well, now you can.

And you certainly can do that for most of the owners. So those are two reasons why I just don't think it's going to happen. There's not a need for it for the most part. And owners just aren't going to do it. They just don't want to do it. They don't want to set that precedent of making it happen either. They're legit angry at the Browns for this. They're not happy about it. Do you think there'll be any sort of retaliation against the Browns among front offices that people won't trade with them, whatever? No, you always try to get better.

But the Browns, too, might regret it. I mean, they're going to regret it maybe at some point, paying them all this money, too, this guaranteed money. They just can't get out of the deal ever. Yeah, yeah. All right, this last one, this is from a longtime listener, first-time caller. His name's Dave Groberg,

and he wants to know when the commanders will be good. So I played for the Lions in a preseason in 2016. And we were in our second preseason game. We were at home. It was our first preseason game of the season at home, second overall. We had a three and out in the first drive hank and it sounded like boos were coming from the crowd i turned to someone who'd been there a while i was like are they booing us he goes yeah welcome to detroit and i think when you have a culture of

losing for a long period of time it's really hard to break that especially when you have an owner that was daniel snyder for so many years now you have a new owner and then they say oh i think it's final i don't know they're still doing paperwork on it that should lift the weight off the franchise and i think you're gonna start getting the better vibes you need to start winning a lot of games um there's something to be not man i tell you like playing for the giants and then going to lions it's there's a different vibe in the air right we weren't terribly good with new york but and and i think that when you have good ownership and and and a good foundation

it's a better start than having bad ownership bad vibes uh this this this losing period for so many years at washington washington obviously they threw in you know rg3 or they had a couple of years of success every now and then so the firing not the firing the um i guess they basically fired daniel snyder got him out got him out to paint that's the first step in being good again. Now you need a quarterback, a long-term quarterback. And they're too good to tank for Caleb Williams, so I don't know what they're going to do quarterback. But new ownership will be helpful, and a new quarterback will definitely get them in the right direction.

How was that answer? I thought that was a good one. I was kind of hoping you would say, like, you know, this year. But it's probably. No, you have. The problem is you have the fourth best quarterback in your division probably. Like who's your starter this year? Sam Howell. And I think Jacoby Brissett is probably going to start some games too.

So you're the fourth worst quarterback in your division. It's hard to be a playoff team when you do that. Yeah. I mean, my thing with the with the commanders or the football team whatever they've been called for so long has been like there's always been other problems to fix outside of the football of it it's like yeah we need a better offensive line but we also need to stop you know you know committing crimes and having the dea radar practice facility you know like we need those things those holes to be plugged first so now

that hopefully there's been some turnover in the front office, we can start focusing on like building that winning culture. But, you know, I mean, you would know better than I would how long that takes. It's pretty difficult for me to be optimistic that it will be soon. I guess the question is like what happens to Ron Rivera if they don't make the playoffs? I think he's probably out. Yeah. I think Ron's a really good coach.

He's just in a bad situation. And they put him in this spot too where he was the team spokesperson for so long. It sucked for Ron. I feel bad he was put in that situation. But once you get that figured out, you hire a coach,

it's going to be a few more years, I think. You need a quarterback though. You need a quarterback, Hank. You need that first and foremost. Maybe they could draft Quinn Ewers. I mean, I would love that. I'm not sure how great it'll be in the NFL, but I'd love him rooting for him. I think the kid

I have my eye on is Drake May. He'll probably go two though to Caleb. Yeah, but you're not going to be bad enough. You have to trade up to get to two. Last time we traded up to two, it almost worked out. So it was the RG for 10 games. I thought it was, you know, I thought we had our Hall of Fame. I thought you traded a four for that. No, it was Andrew Luck one for 10 games i thought it was you know i thought we had our hall of fame i thought

you traded a four for that no it was andrew luck one rg3 too oh no you almost had it almost so close the washington commander story so close in the last 25 years yeah i mean that was that one season of football was the first time in my life i like had fun watching football games i was we even went to a game. We went to see RG3 play in Philly. I was 12 years old. Someone threw a big gulp at me. And I was like, this is awesome.

You make me feel old. We played the Vikings. We played in FedEx Field in Washington that year. That was the game RG3 had that 75-yard touchdown run to win the game. That was one of the loudest moments I've ever experienced in any stadium. I mean, the fans, I remember looking at the crowd

and they were like, I've never seen just grown men as happy as that moment. Because I think to your point, that felt like, it's our dude. We got him. He's our guy. And then Helody N dinata broke him in

half but it's absolutely destroyed his name that i mean the first off that that vikings run is matt and i have both have that in our top five dc sports moments ever we've done that list a couple times it's always in there really what what's what's uh what's one through five what's here i can fill it out um i know that there's um even more than winning the stanley cup evangeline kuznetsov scoring the goal to beat the the penguins in in game seven in the second round that year in 2018 of the stanley cup and then doing this bird celebration that was a beautiful moment then howie kendrick off the foul pole in the in the world series that one was incredible like winning and i was in college in texas surrounded by astros. That one was incredible. And I was in college in Texas

surrounded by Astros fans. That one was fantastic. The RG3 run is the greatest Washington football memory I have. And then there's two Wizards ones up there that rounded out. There's John Wall hitting the three to win game six,

send the series back to Boston, and then jumping up on the scorer's table doing like, this is my city. then paul pierce i called game just because i've i've said that line probably a million times since that he banked in a shot at the buzzer to win a playoff game and the reporter went over and said paul paul did you call bank and he was like no i called game that's that that line wait he was on the cap the uh the bullets yeah the bullets he was on the Bullets? Yeah, not the Bullets. He was on the Zards. I think he was there for a year, maybe two.

But it was like 16, 17, the last time we had a team that was fun to watch. The Zards are like, they have something in Jordan at the end. You're going to get LeBron at the end? You and Bronny and LeBron in the nation's capital? I would love that. I think LeBron at the end? You and Bronny and LeBron in the nation's capital? I would love that. I think LeBron James. LeBron James, if you hear this, how's this for a challenge? Michael Jordan couldn't win a championship on the Wizards.

Could you? Let's see you come to D.C. and do what MJ couldn't. That's what I want. I'm watching that goal right now that you mentioned. I like the little... What celebration is that? Penguin celebration? What are we doing? celebration is that it's the bird he's so his it's his daughter's favorite she came up with it she was like two or three at the time i think and so he always did that for his daughter and that was better that was better than actually winning the

cup if you look up i think it's like we were like the 76ers the caps it was like six of eight years we lost in the second round. Three of those years, I think we lost to the Penguins. And all three times we lost to the Penguins, they went on to win the cup that year. I'd have to double check the numbers on that, but I believe that was how it shook out. So when we finally beat the Penguins,

it was like, oh, that's it. After that, it felt like a breeze. I get that. When we beat USC in 2007, and that felt like, okay,'re like over the hump now like we got usc like we're a different program we were a different program ever since then all right that's it 10 questions thank you guys for sending them in really appreciate the interaction um as usual you can just fire them away at me at jeff schwartz on social media, Instagram, and Twitter. I have a website. As I mentioned, SchwartzNFL.com. Those emails get sent straight to my email account.

So if you send in a question there, I get them. We compile them. We get a mailback episode. You can rate, review, subscribe. We always appreciate that. We're back, I believe, next week, right? Gabe, Matt, someone's back in town. They're actually going to work next week.

So we'll be back next week with more football talk as we prepare for the season. We've set our schedule, by the way, for our wagering previews. They'll come in August. I think we broke even last year by the end of the season, maybe a little bit under last year. But lifetime, we're up about $9,000. So we'll take that.

All right, everyone, have a great week. Talk to you guys next week. you