Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Have The Chargers Taken Over The Afc West Burrows Boo Boo Cowboys Are Fun 2 0 Teams To Trust

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Former NFL lineman Geoff Schwartz and co-host Gabe Goodwin dive into the biggest NFL storylines after Week 3. The Chargers offense finally clicks with Justin Herbert, while the Chiefs’ offensive woes raise real concerns. The guys also react to Joe Burrow’s season-ending injury, debate the Cowboys’ ceiling with Dak Prescott, and analyze which 2-0 teams are for real. Plus, a look at college football’s biggest surprises — from Arch Manning’s struggles at Texas to whether Clemson and Dabo are cooked. If you’re looking for NFL betting insight, smart analysis, and CFB breakdowns, this episode has it all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Right now, almost all content in the world is made by two sets of brothers. Just saying. Yeah, we tried to make it three sets of brothers, but Mitch, Mitch didn't want to participate. Hey, Mitch, this seat's yours whenever you want it, buddy. Hello, welcome with Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you. Today's episode, Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you. It's presented by Draft Kings. Draft Kings, the crown is yours.

It is Tuesday, September 16th. I am Jeff Schwartz, alongside. Gabe Goodwin, we're going to cover the National Football League. Every game has been played, including two on Monday night. We'll talk a lot of college football, because the college storylines as we get into week four in college football are abundant. There's a lot of storylines in college football. Coaches being fired, maybe other coaches being fired or kind of the time is passing them.

We'll talk at all. But a good week, Gabe, for your favorite football team, San Diego Superchargers might be the best team in the AFC West. Well, currently they are the best team in the AFC West. And look, I test, which includes a head-to-head against the Chiefs, they look better than your Chiefs, which we don't often say, and certainly we haven't thought less, even when the Chiefs have started slow, you and I have been doing this a few years.

We've always said, yeah, okay, just wait. It doesn't feel that way. If you watch TV on Monday, nobody thinks the Chiefs are okay, Jeff. Are you here to tell us the Chiefs are okay, or should we start talking about Chargers? Well, I'll do a quick Chargers take, and then it will go to the Chiefs, because I think Chargers deserve their credit. The thing that I've noticed most about the Chargers this season, Gabe, that I just didn't expect, is that this offense is now run through Justin Herbert, not the other way around, where for years, it's offense been run through the offensive line, which really hasn't been as good. And then the run game, right? That's been the thing Charger has done for so many years.

Now this offense is fully Justin Herbert, like betting over props for these running backs on the Chargers. is a waste of everyone's time now. Through two weeks, it could always change. But very clearly, they came out last night through the ball seven. He scrambled one time, but seven straight passes were called to start the game. And then they passed the ball more and more. And, you know, I think Hampton and Naji Harris ended up with maybe like 12 carries total. It was just not what they did.

Against Kansas City, if you recall, in Brazil, it was Eisen and Kurt Warner were on the game. they kept talking about like wow they're they're passing the ball again they're past the ball again and i think what we're seeing too is uh a maturity in jester herbert's game now that he is being allowed to be the office by the way it was eight carries for each so 16 carries total an 11 point win which is not a lot for when you've been winning for notice yeah yes for for for most of the game and so what i've noticed so far defense is good calil mac we have to show that how many times replay review. Come on. Like, we've going to show that many times. Herdes itself, obviously,

big blow for them. But what I notice is Herbert's in such control that offense game, which he's had the ability to do for all these years. And very clearly, Jim Harbaugh and Greg Roman have told him, buddy, you're the offense. Go be the offense. Kaleel Mack,

we're just saying bye for now. What, wouldn't when they, I mean, they've played a great defensive game. Darwin James was a star. Still look great. Max, The biggest name on that defense. Do we think that defense holds up without him for a while? Yeah, it should be fine because they do a good job collective.

I'll tell you what, this is under the radar guy. Jamarie Caldwell is one of your defense alignment. He's from Oregon. Do you got his first sack last night? Like a nose tackle that no one really pays. Dude is a baller, man. He's one of those guys that you're going to see throughout the season play better and better and better. And those type of guys that they're drafting that are not under the radar guys,

but again, Oregon's defense last year had all these stars on it. and the nose tackle might have been the most important guy last season. And that's how of draft pick the charges are adding to their team. They weathered the storm, by the way, of the Slater Joe Alt thing, right? Where Slater gets hurt, they move Alt. They weather the storm there. But again, more than anything else, Herbert's using his legs, his athleticism. He's throwing guys open.

Like, I know the drops that were a problem over the years, but when guys are wide open, they tend not to drop the ball as much. Guys tend to be a little more wide open in this offense. So I've just been super impressed with the way they've operated so far through two games. they really are breaking the tendency we've seen over the years to just not let Herbert be the guy. They're letting him be the guy. It's paying dividends.

Well, having two, I don't know if this is the right term, you can make me smarter. But having two guys who feel like safe possession receivers in McConkey and Allen, one faster than the other. And also, as fast as he used to be. Yeah. Having Quentin as the actual, like,

deep threat burner type that we waited for, you know, like all of a sudden you go, well, no wonder he can throw. These guys can all catch the ball. Well, I think what's important, Gabe, is that they're putting them in positions of success, right? So they're having Quinn Johnson just run the routes he's good at. You go deep, dude. Like, that's your thing. You run deep routes. You know, McConkey, you're your middle intermediate and Alan, you're sort of running those to your point, Gabe. He doesn't move as well anymore, so we're going to make you run the routes that that basically take less striding, right? Like, you're going to make you're good route runner.

You're a veteran. We're going to make sure that you just sort of run the routes that work for your skill set now. And they do, right? Like he's a good route runner. They're leaning into that now. Johnson, you run deep. McConkey, you're intermediate. And so they're just game planning really well for the players they have on the roster right now.

Okay, great. So let's go over to the other side here. I'm concerned for you and all the chiefs fans who listen to this show. that the greatest thing the Chiefs might do this year is some episode of New Heights. That feels like the peak of the mountaintop. And I got to say, I'm not trying to make something out of nothing.

This really was strange. Travis and a couple other guys pulling up in these shirts saying free Rishi. Have you seen these shirts, Jeff? Yeah. Kind of, you know, listen, you know these guys, maybe even would consider some of them your friend.

I don't know. This feels like a knucklehead move. move. And, you know, the guy's on a what, a six-game suspension for a real reason. I don't get this. This isn't like he got suspended for something that nobody thinks he should have been suspended for. Like, what's the play here if, you know, what are you hoping for with that? It's odd for a team like the Chiefs to do something like that. The players would do that. That's not what they've done over the years. I mean, he very clearly did something very serious. He pled guilty to a couple felonies, if I, if I'm correct, he's going to serve, I believe,

jail time on the weekends after the season is over. So it's a, it's a, and to be fair, if he was not an athlete, I don't know if he got that treatment, Gabe. He might be in jail much longer. So, yeah, it's, it's surprising to see the chiefs do that. And look, where the chiefs are out right now is interesting, Gabe. You know, they, they built an offense essentially around having Rishi Rice and Xavier Worthy there, and both guys are not there.

And now they've sort of elevated. players to wide receiver three to one, four to two, and Kelsey obviously is not the same player that he used to be. And their margin of error is just so small right now. And the things that have worked for them in the past, basically Mahomes making magic, if a guy drops a pass or they don't connect on the one play they're open on, it just goes to shit. They don't have enough weapons right now, enough offense to make it if they don't do the right things every single play. And last season, the year before that, they just made all the right plays all the time. And through two games they're not. You could argue that's just regression to the mean,

right? They won all those one score games last year game. This year they're not. That's certainly fair. But the margin of error for them right now is so small because they're just not good at the moment. Offensively, right? Defensively, they're fine. But offensively, like, if I were to list you the guys right now, skill position-wise, that are playing for them, right? Hollywood Brown, Thornton, Kelsey, Gray, the running backs. I'm not even sure who's the third or fourth, Judea Smith-Schuster is a third wide receiver right now. That's a bottom five, and it might be 32 in the NFL, skill position room right now.

And I think it's fair to say that when Rishi Rice and Worthy come back, let's judge the chief's offense then. But right now, it's just not functioning at a high level. And then to make matters worse, in my opinion, Gabe, is, okay, let's say your past game is struggling. Well, you can run the ball too, right? That's an option. But the teams have never committed themselves to running the football.

There's never have. I think the run game, I've complained about it for years on social media, is boring and stale. And they have two backs who could break as many tackles as me and you can on NFL Sunday right now. They break zero tackles. So you're getting four yards, five yards. There's no threat for an explosive run. There's no threat for those backs to really be in any sort of position to make a defense hurt.

And so they can't even rely on the run game to make things better for them. And that's a failure, in my opinion, from the front office. They needed a back now for a couple of years who has some juice. And Pacheco's fine. He has no long, you know, he got hurt last year. He's never been a sort of deep threat type of running back or explosive threat running back. If the hole's wide open, he can get through the whole, sure, game. He doesn't make a lot of guys missing.

Cream Hunt just runs in a straight line and falls down whenever someone touches them. So, like, all these issues have been covered up. by Mahomes doing great things. And Travis Kelsey making the catch at the end. He didn't make the catch. And that's the end of the chief's basically success on offense in that game. So again, I will reserve judgment until they get their wide receivers back. If I told you, Gabe, that the Chargers didn't have Ladd-McConkey and didn't have Keene Allen.

You'd probably be like, ah, shit, we're in trouble. They can run the football, though, right? If the Eagles didn't have Devonte Smith and A.J. Brown, J.L. Hertz, would not be the same quarterback, right? So it's fair to just get the chiefs, those guys back. But I just don't like the way the offense looks right now. It just looks kind of boring and stale. They had one drive in that game where they looked like a legitimate, like, any of read type offense.

And it was the drive that Kelsey eventually dropped the pass. That was a really impressive drive. They were going to take the lead. And again, people said, well, they were one drop away from winning. Well, not really. There were 10 minutes left. But the fact is, like, they don't have the margin of error right now to make that up. Yeah.

So making it to week six or whatever and still sort of being in the hunt. Yeah. Seems a little tricky. It does. You know, with the chargers atop the division and probably not going anywhere for a little while. I don't think we need to talk about the Broncos or Raiders, frankly, that much. I think Gino kind of turned back into Gino. They look like a team that could steal games, but they don't look like an actually competitive team to me.

So let me, we touched on the Eagles for a second. So let's just make a quick statement on this point. Jeff, I nominate Tush Push complaints for the band list on this show. I'm at the point now where I think I'm just like Tush Push and General's band. I might just mute the word on social media. I just don't care anymore. Like, so you guys banned Florida? We can't talk about Florida on the show?

I think it was the University of Florida. The football team. Ah, okay, got it. So, like, the thing is, Gabe, a couple things, right? The Eagle should keep doing it until the NFL stops them. It's that simple, right? If they're going to jump off sides and no one's going to call it, keep jumping off sides. I, as a player, do not care.

If they're not going to call it, keep doing it. And look, the thing about calling the off sides is quite simply. I think it's just hard to do, Gabe. Like, look, we're not going to call. calling off sides in slow motion upon replay, right? You're calling it. There's two officials down, basically, that look down the line of scrimmage. There's a couple umpires, right? The, the white hat that are looking from behind of both sides of line scrimmages. I think the referees are afraid to call off sides, because if it's not a false start, then you have screwed

the Eagles, correct? Like most false starts are very easy to tell. The guy moves before the ball snap. Everyone's all huddled together. They're all bunched up, and they're just afraid to officiate that play that way. There's no neutral zone of fractions. We debunk that last week. That's not a thing that happens. You could be off sides, which they did call him the Bengals. Like the right guard for the Bengals was legitimately, his head was in front of the center. That is off sides of the offense. They called that this week. That's not the Eagles problem. And I think from Dean Blandino, I don't know if you heard listening to Game, Gabe, like he was so exacerbated about this play. I think that's where the NFL is right now where it's getting banned the sausage. The Eagles have one more

year left to do it. The rest of this season, it's 100% being banned. No one can officiate it. And people are tired of it. It's not the Eagles fault. They're very good at it. And they should continue to run it. But I think the NFL is going to say enough is enough this offseason. This play is done. But that's it. We're done talking about it on the ban topic list as of right now. That's it. Yeah, great. The NFL can wait till March. We're doing it in September. No more no more touch push complaints or discourse of any kind. Let's shift to the other big story in the NFL. obviously Joe Burrow, two-time comeback player of the year. Award-winning Joe Burrow will be out for it.

They say about three months, which means he could theoretically come back in December to give him a playoff push, which, by the way, might happen because apparently Jake Browning is no different than Joe Burrow when you put him in a Zach Taylor offense. He can also put up a bunch of points. I'm confused by that. I don't understand why the supposed, you know, next thing

at the quarterback position in the NFL doesn't really drop off much to some guy who was drafted in the late rounds who no one saw coming. Please explain to me why there isn't more of a difference between Joe Burrow and a backup. Well, he threw three interceptions. I mean, we have, I think we have Trevor Lawrence on the band list as well. Like that, that was a Jaguars failed more than anything else. Actually, quickly, they went for the fourth and five, up three, about the seven yard line. I love that call. Score touchdown. Games over. absolutely love it. The math is correct on that. They just didn't execute what happens. But Liam Cohen, I think, made the right decision there.

Back to the borough thing. I don't know why they have good wide receivers, essentially. Jake Browning finds the ball to the wide receivers. It's like not, it's not a hard concept to figure out. The thing about the Bengals, and I've said this for, look, I'm not, I'm not saying anything that's new here. They have just not invested the offensive line game like they should. It's that simple. When Joe Burrow came after his first year, I believe it was said, I don't care about Sacks. That was a red flag for me, buddy, because Sacks being hits, you want to avoid getting hit if you're a quarterback.

And the Bengals have just built this offense around good wide receivers, great wide receivers, and a shitty offensive line. Like, it's just, they got a guy starting for them who Bengals fans believe is their best offensive guard, their best interior offensive linemen, who they signed three weeks ago. That's not great, right? Like, you sound like off the street three weeks ago is your best offensive alignment right now. That's not good.

And they failed to protect Joe Burrow in the way they should. And they are, they're seeing what happens. I mean, I saw, you know, Bengals playing yesterday to tweet out, like, he'll win comeback player of the year for the third time next season. Three times already.

He's eligible for comeback player of the year. Some are the offensive lines fault. Some are not. I think it's a philosophy of, like, I'm okay getting hit. I don't think you should be okay getting hit. And I know people will talk about they should have to Penaise,

I mean, I said at the time they should have. You can put the graphic back up, Hank, if you want, that I'm sure people have shared yesterday. Maybe it's too early to pour dirt on the grave here, more dirt on the grave. But like, every turn they have chosen basically anyone but the offensive line to improve. Yeah, yeah, they drafted MIMs great.

But they just haven't put the resources in, Gabe, and they failed to develop guys, and we're seeing the result of that. It's really sad. I love watching Joe Burrow play, but worth the point. He's not coming back this year, by the way. It's just that is not. I don't think that.

It's not going to happen. One thing that would be good as a football public is to actually classify a turf toe injury as it is. Turf toe sounds mild. This is not mild, Gabe. He tore ligaments and possibly tendons and muscles and all that stuff on his big toe and potentially in the bottom of his foot, he broke bones on the bottom of his big toe, most likely he's having surgery. Like, it's a major injury. I dislocated my right big toe.

I want to play for the Giants. You don't realize how important that toe is to you lose function of it. And there's no reason to rush him back at all. I don't think he's going to play at all this season. So the Bengals are in a bad place right now with their quarterback being hurt again. Agreed. They would seem to be in a bad place. However, Jake Browning, I'm going to call up a stat. that Hank turned me on to. Jake Browning has had, you know, about a quarter of the snaps in the last couple of years. Basically, Jake Browning runs the plays that Zach Taylor makes famous. Joe Burrow does Joe Burrow things, which is why the Bengals offense, granted, the picks come

because the lesser quarterback is throwing the ball, but the ball still moves because he's throwing screens, he's spreading the ball in a way that the coach is asking for, and the coach is apparently a boy genius, whereas Burrow doesn't want to do some of those things and just sort of takes control. Is it possible that just a system guy doing the thing the genius, you know, offense coach came up with could be slightly more effective? Could they hang around? Well, look, if you have the weapons they have and get the ball out quickly, you can hang around for a little bit. The thing is Joe Burrow makes special plays and close games that Jake Brown is just not going to make, in my opinion. They got bailed out. Look, that passed interference

on Travis Hunter was bullshit. And that doesn't happen, the Bengals don't win that game. Like, that's, I mean, that's a big part of, of the result in that game

was that, uh, the, the, the, the, the DPI and Hunter sort of stalled out, um,

not stalled out, gave him life, I should say, that really shouldn't have been their game. So that, that's part of it as well. Like, if we don't talk about Jake Browning in this way,

if they don't call that pass interference. That was fourth down, I believe. Yeah, I think you're right. Uh, all right. There's some Andrew Luck comps to make in terms of just amount of hits he's taken

and how a good and promising young career could get cut short if he just can't stay healthy. We'll wait a year or two before we go burrow luck, true comparison, but it is worrisome. So let's talk about another former comeback player of the year. I know this was a topic that you were very excited to talk about repeatedly. Doc Prescott with the crazy, crazy win. currently has the second best odds on draft kings behind Christian McCaffrey as the comeback player of this year. So do we like that bet? A, do we believe in the Cowboys? B, was that one of the crazier games you've seen in a while and is Russell Wilson back?

I don't know. Give me any answers you want. So I might propose banning talk a comeback player of the year as well. So two things. One, I bet on Dak Prescott. when he came back a couple years ago and then joe burrow played out of his mind for the last month the award i lost that year then uh was it last year or two years ago when i bet on the guy that died and came back to play football yeah he didn't win he didn't win comeback player the year seemed like a saved bet yeah he didn't want come they had old man joe flacco who just like was retired inside to unretire when he come back i don't know what he came back from when he come back from

kid carpool decided like he didn't want to do that anymore and wanted to play what did he come back from guy died in the field. Came back from death is, I think, pretty important, Gabe. That definition comeback player of the year. So I don't play this market anymore. I just don't. No, no point. I will tell you if you want to play a market on

draftings right now, I can pull the number up for you. The market I would play is probably is a mecca for offensive rookie of the year. You look at right now, you look at you know, O'Marnhampton has done nothing.

far judges had nothing so far you're not going to end up having any you know cam war's not going to win enough games in my opinion to sort of get this award so right here off offensive rookie of the year uh he's plus 450 it's not the best number unfortunately Tyler warren's the favorite but again I don't know how how good the culture going to be for a while but uh careful don't go further on that topic that's banned we are forgot yeah uh a mecca abuka four and a half to one would would be a if you want to make a wager on a future right now. I might take a bonus bet. You should use a quick note.

If you have a bonus bet, okay, you should use the bonus bet on, on like plus money awards, like stuff like this. Don't use bonus bets on like minus 1,500 WMBA favorites. Use it on a mecca book. Use it on some award you want. Like you should use the bonus bet to make yourself a lot more money.

That's how you should play those, by the way, FYI. Your advice is to bet on football. instead of huge favorites in the WNBA? Is that what you just told the football audience? Okay, huge favorite in baseball tonight. There's got to be a minus $250,300 favorite. Don't use your bonus bet on that. Actually, it's not.

I'm looking right now. The brewers are almost a minus 300 against the Angels right now. So like don't use it on the brewers tonight. Yeah. So you've taken us several steps away. I was trying to talk about, you know, the easiest team in the history of sports to talk about. And now you have me down at WNBA and an MLB.

Wormhole. Can we please go back to speaking about the Cowboys? I do have to two WBA wagers I made today, but we don't have to do that. I believe it. The algorithm is listening, Jeff. Cowboys. Cowboys. Look, very clearly, when DAC is healthy, the offense is really good. It's been all the entire career game, right? It's hard to find many years when Dak Prescott was totally healthy and the offense stunk. You add in, obviously, pick-ins with lamb, and the offensive line is young. and hungry and playing well.

The running back situation is fine. They're running the ball well because the offense line is good. But all DAC has done, Gabe, his entire career is play well in offense. Now, is he the best quarterback ever? No, but the offense have always played well. And their defense stinks. So you get these incredible games. Think about it.

The Giants scored 37 on them. And the Eagles scored 24, essentially, before the game just, you know, grind to a hole before the weather delay. So that's a lot of points in two weeks to allow. They can't rest the passer. Shocking, they don't have Michael Parsons. But I think we're going to see these games every week for Dallas, like overs, a ton of points,

ton of scoring, excitement. And then when you have a kicker who can make a 64-yard field goal with ease, that allows you to come back in a game like that. All you got to do is get, what, 35 yards from the touchback. Actually, the touchback's only going to 35 now. If you return the ball to 30, you need to get just 30 yards, 25 yards, to get in a position for a long field goal.

Just find a way to talk about kickers twice. Two ways to reference to the... I don't think they're banned, though. I don't think they're banned. No, just the one in Baltimore. Yeah, I don't want to hear about Aubrey and his great leg. I don't care. I actually think Gabe in this situation,

Aubrey's interesting because he is so good. It's actually like interesting to talk about him being so good. Yeah, it's not, though, because if you are talking about a team and you're saying they might be good because of their kicker, then that's a tell. It allows them to score more points. It allows them to score more points.

Okay, that's a tell. I'm not sure if the Cowboys are real. But I'm also not sure about a bunch of two and O teams. There's 10 right now in the league. And I don't know which of them are good. I can think of three that are definitely good. And a few more, including the charges who are probably good. So I want to go to a few of these after the break.

We have to get a break in here for the audio listeners. Video listeners just watch us nod for a second. Okay. We're back. I nod at for a second, Gabe. All right, let's hit these two and O teams. Okay, can we just agree the Eagles, Packers, and Bills are all very good? Yes.

Okay, great. We saved some time. Let's go through some other two and O teams that might be very good. I'm going to say, give me one word, but then expand on that because that would be boring. Give me one word on the two and O Rams. Expected. Okay. Look, we were high in the Rams,

before the season started. And then Matt Stafford's back, I think, threw everyone off the Rams. And he's been fine and they look good. Like he didn't play all preseason, struggle a little bit, week one. Look good against Tennessee. So I think this is expected. Expected and to continue or? Yes, yes.

Okay. So they feel like a probable division winner, certainly wild card type team. I mean, right now it's, I get McVeigh and Stafford or I get Shanahan and Mack Jones. or I get Jonathan Gannon in Arizona. So I'll take the Rams. All righty. This is a fun team. I'm happy to move these guys up and just find a way to talk about them every single week at this point.

Bucks. Consistent. They are what they are, man. Every game, Baker's battling his ass off. Their physical team, they know what they are on defense. Pretty, pretty gritty win last night as we record this on Tuesday. They're just predictable, man. They are what they are.

Can I ask you something as a former lineman, pretty level-headed guy? When you see your quarterback go down, look injured, then pop up and immediately talk shit to the other team. Does that help you? Well, yeah, but it depends on the guy. Eli Manning would never do that, but Baker, that's who Baker is.

I think you like when your quarterback does that. Just be yourself, man, and that's what Baker is. Yeah. Are you on board with the obvious push to try to convince us all that Eli Manning is some sort of comedic genius? Are you in on that? I consume none of the Manning content, so I don't know what to tell you. Okay. Yeah, right now, almost all content in the world is made by two sets of brothers.

Just saying. Yeah, we tried to make it three sets of brothers, but Mitch didn't want to participate. it. Hey, Mitch, this seat's yours whenever you want it, buddy. All right, one word for this team, you kind of just gave it away. Cardinals, 2 and O.

No, I just don't care. Indifferent. No, indifferent, yeah. I don't know, man. Good. I just, sorry Cardinals fans. If you listen to this, you call me an asshole, I don't really care.

I just, I don't find them interesting. Not yet. Maybe at some point, I mean, I see people like the film guys tweet out their defense is, playing fast and doing fun things. Gabe, look, I cover college football full-time. I cover the NFL full-time. Most people don't do that, right?

And I cover it, by the way, like X&Os and then also the gambling side of it. I can only care about a certain number of teams before they actually matter. If that makes sense. That's the truth of it. And you mentioned earlier about the algorithm and the Cowboys, like there are certain teams

I have to cover because they're popular. You have to know them. You have to know the top six teams in the NFL, the top eight teams NFL, the top 12 teams of college football. Like I just don't have the time to like be all in Arizona. It's all I have to be. And so I will get there. If they start six and two game, I will, I'll be caught up in Arizona. But beating the Panthers barely being up and the Panthers scored 19 straight points in a row, essentially.

I think it was 19 straight points in a row. Maybe 16 points in a row. And beating the Saints by seven. Like I'm just not there yet with Arizona. fully with you but that tells me there's an opportunity here right we're trying to help people make some smart picks i think the public is with you is it possible that we should be going the other way on them uh not yeah other way like bet they're team total under something like that no should i mean i think people are not paying attention and won't pay attention until it's too

late could we get on them early are they possibly kind of good you're telling me you don't think they're good but you're also telling me you aren't really sure So should we just put a little something on there in case they actually are good? Okay, so the case for if they're actually good, where's that right now? It's Jonathan Gannon's 10 to 1 now for Coach of the Year. That's how you do it. If they're really that good, that's how you make money on the Cardinals. No, we're not going to, I'm not doing that.

I'm not going to be only in the Cardinals and then have them look like they do the end of the season. We're not doing that. Okay. All right, great. Let's stay in their division. Talk about a team that we've habitually just always talked about and taken seriously. And I'm starting to wonder if maybe we don't have to do that anymore. They are the least healthy team I've ever seen.

They are one trainer away from being a dynasty. What do we make of the 2-0-9ers without a quarterback? Well, so they played the Saints who Steak. That's worth talking about. I'll tell you what, man, so many people were so excited. for it to make this like the Niners won in Mac Jones eight years ago. They wanted him. He's going to play well all of a sudden.

He was fine. The Niners just better than the Saints. I don't know what to, they won by five. I mean, since we're driving to go ahead and take the lead. Now wasn't close. They got sacked a couple times and that was end of the game. So he was fine. Whatever, man.

I'm not, you beat the Saints. We'll see what you do against better teams. But we talk about this year. Their schedule is super easy, man. So they, have opportunity to continue to win. I just find the Mac Jones thing. Like, I just, yeah.

Let's see what he plays like in three or four weeks if he's still starting. I don't think we ever need to talk about them again as far as I'm concerned. And they screwed me and my pick him. So I don't like it. I was, my friend and I always make picks. We were just quickly like, all right,

Saints, prideful city, playing a team with like no healthy players. Let's just get it. And of course that burned us. Okay. We circled all the way back around to another 2-0 team that we started the conversation with just real quickly on the Chargers.

We really didn't hit Omar Ian Hampton. First round draft pick, obviously relevant to fantasy people like me. Bumbles in kind of an important spot. They get away with it. Like, are we worried? Is coach just going to basically like tell this guy to go screw the rest of the season?

I mean, no. You're going to need him. But there's going to be, I mean, Harbaugh's, look, I got eight carries last night. wasn't a ton, Senator Najee Harris. The rotation is more than I thought it would be,

quite honestly. But you can't make those mistakes. So we'll see what happens next week. I don't really know what Harvard was going to do with them. You played a bunch of years in the league. You saw the coverage of the league. Thinking about this on the fly,

help me out. I feel like I get tricked every single preseason. Every year, I get tricked by the, apparently everyone loves the way this guy looks with the second.

team in preseason or he's really stealing a lot of snaps from this guy or hey they moved him up to the first team and he looked great with the starting quarterback. I fall for that nonsense every single offseason. And then lo and behold, Jaden Blue, Omari and Hampton, like they just don't do anything. And this happens all the time with rookies or new signies. Do players on the teams fall for that or are you in on the propaganda? No, no, because you know the regulations is nothing like the preseason. So you don't really, you're like, oh, cool. He's starting fast.

And then the regular season starts and it's just different. It's just different, man. Every season is not the same speed. There's film study now. Like, it's just a different animal in the regular season. But do coaches or PR people or someone come up to you veterans? And like, hey, man, when, uh, when a Garofalo walks by, make sure you hype up Jaden Blue.

Let's make sure the whole national media is in love with this guy. No, no, no. But also, you know this. You're a producer, man. You've been on these major TV shows. Like, what are you going to talk about in August? You've got to find the cool rookie to talk about is doing cool stuff on the field on a preseason game.

Yeah, I know, but you've got to have somebody inside the organization who actually claims they think he's going to be good and not even be on the roster the first two weeks of the year later. I don't pick that you're any of that preseason stuff. You know that. Yeah, okay. Well, there's two other two and O teams that other shows would talk about, but we hit one in the Bengals,

and the other is on the band list. They play in a place where Russell Palooza is going to be soon. That looked interesting. We can talk about Russell Palozo when the time comes. We're not talking about the football team that plays in that city. So let's switch to the bad teams.

I'm talking about a city known for college basketball, a city that houses a Big Ten championship, but not a city where we talk about the NFL team. Oh, that team, okay, yeah. Great steak and shrimp cocktail. Yeah, well, spicy. It does clear the nostrils a little bit. Yeah, it's delicious.

All right. Bad teams or what we think are bad teams. Oh, and two, please save time here. Jets, done, right? How about this? I'm looking at the list right now. I'll tell you the two teams that I would have a little bit of faith in otherwise. We'll skip the rest of them because we would go along. I want to get to college football.

Great. So the chiefs obviously, yes, and the Texans. The other teams, I just think, are good. Jets aren't good. Dolphins aren't good. Browns, obviously, Titans, Giants, Panthers, Bears, Bears, and Saints. I would say Texans and Chiefs because they have the quarterback. The Texans problem is it's too much getting to now.

Maybe we'll do it in a different time. But schematically offensively, something's still not there with Stroud and the protection unit in the offense. There's something missing still. It's a problem. But the defense is really good. And so they'll be in a lot of games. They're playing a bad division.

So those are two teams that the most. Maybe maybe the bear. No, I can't do the Bears. So that's it. Texans and Chiefs. There we go. Yeah, the first of the Monday night football games, bucks Texans,

felt like a preview of that like Saturday wild card round that probably this year will be on like Disney Plus or something. Yeah. Like they'll put it in some weird place. It's the game that Cousin'Sall calls the Shaky's game, right? Like if you listen to that podcast, that's a Shaky's a Shaky's game. I didn't know that, but yes, that's exactly right. They called the Shaky's game for something.

like do a thing where they went to Shakey's for the first game on Saturday for years. It's on at like 10 in the morning on a Saturday when you didn't even know there was NFL games on and it's always behind the paywall. It's always the AFC South team every single time. Yeah, exactly. Okay, we're all on the same page about those teams. Yes, yes. All right, quick, this will transition us to college football, but I'm going to kind of be a jerk about it. Who is more like cryptocurrency, Mike McDaniel or Arch Manning?

Oh, geez. Do you, do you, by way, do you have any? I'm so I have no I have just no there's this I don't want this huge crypto scandal happening right now with it's ridiculous I Yeah, I have no crypto. I think I think I'm behind on it game. I think it probably made sense to like get in years ago But I don't I don't have no crypto nothing Mike McDaniel feels a bit like crypto. I feel like if you got in at the right time and then you got out at the right time you made money This guy, the quote this week, I mean, granted, he was, he lost, he was kind of trying to give people something at a press conference. He's sort of rambling.

He looks out of sync with his normal personality. But he says to win games, you have to win the game, not lose the game. And I mean, obviously this got clenched and shared. Yeah. So this is something I've said for years, by the way. And this is, this is the way I, a lot of teams lose games, but are the win games. That's what he's trying to say, right? Where they made a ton of mistakes and they lost the game.

They didn't go out to win the game. Can I ask one? This is a very dumb crypto question. I'm sure we get shit on for this game. So like you have all this money, right? In this like crypto account, do people like you obviously in liquidated it to cash and use it to buy stuff? Like that's the way it works essentially? I'm never since I keep like, you have all this crypto.

I have all this money save them. Do you ever use the money? Like is it like a savings soccer account? I'm so confused, man. I'm not. I don't know anything about it. I refuse to learn. My neighbor's like, he's like, Schwartz, put 50 bucks in Bitcoin every single week.

I'm like, do you ever take the money out? He goes, no, no, I just leave it in there. I get it. So it's like the stock market, I guess. You just leave your money in there, take it out at some point in life. I don't know. I'm so confused sometimes. Very dumb question.

I get it. Well, I'm sure someone can get in your mentions and explain it to you. It's not like every reply to every tweet ever doesn't include some sort of promotion of crypto. We're not going to try to make people smarter on crypto. No. Oh, I'm sure, I'm sure Hank, I'm sure Hank has a lot of, uh, um, oh yeah, I shouldn't ask for this in my mentions. You're right, Hank. I actually don't want people to ask me about, to text me on crypto. You're going down to dark to it. Dark pat. Let's take, let's take a break, Gabe. We'll, we'll, we'll, we'll take a break. Uh, video stay, stay here. Audio back in a second.

All right. During the break, I decided, do not tweet me about crypto. I just, I have too much on my mind. I don't really, I just don't want to get a Gabe. Is that, is that a problem? Am I being obtuse. No, I think you're saving yourself a lot of hassle. Let's not talk about crypto. Okay, ban list. Go ahead. Crypto on the ban list. You didn't answer the real important part of the question I just set up, which is what's going on with Arch Manning? Danny Connell says his confidence is shot. I actually think Dan you made some decent points. What do you think? Yeah, you don't look good. So there is a JTL Sullivan is a QB school. I like JTL. watching his videos.

I'll just give him a free shout out. He has one on Arch. I have not watched yet. It's in my like to-do list for when I'm probably flying tomorrow. It doesn't, from what I've seen of him play, obviously I watched a lot of the San Jose State game a couple weeks ago as I had Texas. It's just nothing's in rhythm, game. Like nothing looks like it should with a quarterback who has that much talent.

And I know they have new offensive alignment and some new weapons, but it doesn't look like a confident offense right now. He's not hitting guys in stride. He's not looking and finding the open wide receiver. The offense has no full. Look, they played Utep this weekend. They were 0 and 9 on third down to start the game. Like, that's not good, Gabe.

So I think it's easy to say that his confidence is shot. Yeah. I thought earlier in the week, Steve Sarkesian gave a very snotty, obnoxious answer to a reporter who asked, maybe he didn't word it perfectly, but basically asked like, hey, what's wrong with Arch's arm? He keeps wincing when he throws.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And Sark gave this really rude answer. And was like, what do you look like when you go to the bathroom and like got some chuckles in the room? I thought he was just being pointlessly making fun of a young reporter to not have to answer the real question, which is something's wrong. Like, what is it, man? Yeah.

Well, is it like the idea where, you know, when a pitcher or a tennis player kind of grunts as they swing or throw a piece? pitch. Maybe that's the idea. But that doesn't happen to football very much, right? So clearly something's off with arch right now. And Texas just doesn't look like they should early on. It's not a great sign for the rest of their schedule. No. Okay. You know who also doesn't look like they should? Or I don't even know if they should. Who we once thought they were Clemson. Is Davo cooked? Okay. Probably. I mean, we've talked about this for a couple of years now, right? So here's actually something important about college football,

but I'm going to change this offseason, Gabe, and I've started to do a little bit of it. So one thing that we do to preview a team in upcoming season, we look at returning production, right? Guys, coming back from last season that helped you produce, right, whether it was snaps or stats, whatever it was. Like they played last year,

they're back again the next season, and it's often a barometer at the top of the list for which teams might be good to start season. Actually, what I'm not going to change is the bottom of the list, teams that return no production, they do stink to start the season. Like, that's a real thing. The top of the production was a lot of,

was Clemson, I think number one in the country, an offensive returning production. You don't think like Illinois, they returned their entire offensive line, their quarterback, their offense line has not played really well. The thing with returning production game is there's almost, there's basically two ways to look at it, right? Three.

Super young team. that just got lucky in a given year where a lot of young guys played and then they're playing the next season. That's rare. That's rare. That's rare. The ones that happen more often are this, right? Everyone comes back to win a championship. Ohio State did that last year.

Two years ago, Washington did that. Michigan has done that. I'm hoping my ducks this offseason can convince guys to stay there for a little bit longer. It's like we have all these pro guys. With NIL now, we can afford to keep guys around. We're chasing the championship. The other returning production for older teams is they're just not good enough to go to the NFL game.

And so they just stick around a little bit longer, one more year. And that's not all of Clemson, but does feel like that's a lot of the returning production offensively. It's like just dudes that are good college players, not pro guys, not really dynamic enough to change games. They all came back and the offense just looks like poo because honestly, a lot of times those older guys that are just sticking around the program, the coach is going to play them because they trust them, but they're not better than the young guys. So that's where they're at, I think. They're just not as good as we thought.

We got fooled by this returning production. I'll give you one more example. Oklahoma State last season had the oldest offense in the country. They were 0 and 9 in conference play last season. So I'm sort of off returning production. I think it does not matter offensively anymore. Defensively, there's still room for debate on that one. So that's my takeaway.

It's like this returning production thing, the reason why we hyped up Clemson is probably not the best way to evaluate teams moving forward. That's one of the smartest things I've heard in a long time. I'm being sincere. I now need to look at the whole of football with that

lens. And I guess it's a perfect. Yeah, college football. It's a perfect segue then for me to ask, well, right, so Miami? Like, what do I? I don't know either to take them seriously or not, and now that you told me all that, I'm wondering. They're really good. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah. No, no, they're legit. And they, but they didn't have a ton of return in production. Like they brought their quarterback, transfer quarterback. Yeah. They're youngest skill position players. And they brought in five new secondary pieces where they are good. And why I love Miami right now is they built themselves the way you have to build to win championships.

They got young, four and five star, offensive defensive linemen who have matured Gabe and are now kicking ass. That's the way it works to win. to build champions. I believe their center is a transfer guy. They four their offense alignment are all guys that have drafted, not draft developed, I keep using that term, but recruited and developed.

And then you look at their defense, their passers, might be the best in the country, just overall. It's again, guys that they brought in, developed, and you need the backbone of your team has to be those guys.

You need those guys that are like, you know, that bleed like your school, right, that have been in the weight program, and been with the strength coach and been with the coaches for years and get their chance to play

that have just been waiting, waiting to play. And their ability to just have those guys and they're all just sort of taking off at the same time, dude, is very impressive. And they're legitimately good. Like they, I think right now

are the best team in the country. At the moment, Ohio State's up there, obviously, but they're playing some Muggo football and I credit them for building the right way, in my opinion. So they go to Tallahassee in two weeks, which will be the game that everyone pays attention to that week, I assume. If they get through that week, then we just have to elevate them to the scariest team in the country.

That's what you're saying. I think so, yeah. Well, again, like the things they do well, rush the passer and block for the quarterback and run the football. Like those things carry every week. All right. One of Miami's wins, obviously, over Notre Dame, then they take a buy week. Then they lose again. So Notre Dame is 0 and 2.

But they're Notre Dame, so we're told we have to take them seriously. Yeah. I have to admit, Trojans have them in a few weeks. I'm a little nervous, even though I shouldn't be. What's going on with the South Bend there? What are we dealing with in Notre Dame? Well, just bad luck? Well, I mean, USC, no one likes USC.

It's why they're not ranked game? It's very, it's very clear. But we're technically where, yeah, technically they are ranked, but keep going on. Oh, they're, oh, good. Oh, good. Okay, good for you guys. Focus on Notre Dame, man. This is, this is interesting because this is sort of where, So you have the AP voters. And again, the AP voters, I mean, one of them came out the other day and was like,

LOL, no one cares. Like those people shouldn't be voting in my opinion. You should find the people that I know they're sports writers only. Like, I can't vote for it. You can't vote for it. I get it. But they're actually paying attention. I understand some of the flaws of the poll basically saying that like, you know,

it comes out early Sunday morning. If you cover a team, which everyone does and most everyone does, who votes on this, it's hard to pay attention. but not really. Just look at the scores, man. Like, how hard is it to know the score of the game and the result? So, Nerdame. So there's the AP and coaches pull.

And then there's like everyone has their power rankings, right? Like people that gamble for living make power rankings. They rate the teams one through 136. Noroname is still like 10, Gabe. And those people don't take into, you know, again, they don't take into the results are not part of their power rankings. It's just, it's efficiency numbers. It's all those things.

Like they don't really take into the end. win-loss record is not part of power-ranking. I know it's hard to identify that, but just the way it is. And I think people are still looking at their power rankings. They're thinking about the losses, three-point loss of the road to Miami, one-point loss to A&M in a weird game where, you know, fourth and 15, A&M scores with a backup tight end or really the blocking tight end. And I think people are also bracing for the fact that Notre Dame,

if they finish 10 and 2, they win 10 games in a row game, they're going to playoff. They don't play a ton of ranked teams left. One of them will probably be your Trojans. in a couple of weeks. And I think they're one of the best 25 teams gave in the country still being 0-2. They're the first 0-2 team that still be ranked in the AP top 25 as well.

So I would, I'm, I get why they're ranked. I get what people are upset about it, but I think they're still a good team. Yeah. Okay. So you referenced one of those sort of expected ranking type stats. And I don't have it right in front of me, Hank. sort of just has these bookmarked at all times. He just looks at them whenever he has a spare minute.

You like to make fun of the Trojans, but they are actually much higher ranked on those like dork rankings than they are in the actual rankings. So they're better than Notre Dame according to the dorks. Okay, well, FPI is the one that is the worst one of all time. It's ESPN's thing, Gabe. It's such a bad, it's so bad. It gets mocked every year.

They're the one who has USC very high. Sorry to bring that up. FPI is a joke. They have Oregon 1. Oregon's not the best team of the country. Like, come on. So I will say SB Plus has USC 9. So there you go.

They're top 10 team. How do you just know that? I pulled it up right here in front of me. Honestly, estimate for me right now. How many tabs are open on your desktop? I have Zoom open because we're doing this. And I have a rundown and I have Draft Kings open. and I have the SP Plus.

That's it. Four things. You got it up that quick? I already have it up. I was looking at stuff before we did the show. So it's a spreadsheet. I have Bill Kohnla, I have a spreadsheet.

I have a list of like five teams I want to wager on this week and I was doing some research before we would get the start of the show. So like I was, I had it pulled up already. Look at this. And now Hank has it.

Okay. So I'm the only one who doesn't just have this one queued up at all times. FPI's dumb. Okay. So like SP Plus has USC third on offense efficiency 35 on defense

you've also played the three teams USC's played ranked 129 117 and 78 so just played they played nobody we don't actually need to talk about USC if you're watching right now there's a team right above USC that I think would be more

interesting to talk about my takeaway from Georgia Tennessee was canceled kickers that's obvious what was your takeaway from that game one thing I love about college football, different than the NFL, is they showed a video, not video, but they showed on TV,

that kicker for Tennessee for like five minutes straight. Like the camera was like literally in his face for five minutes straight. In the NFL, they don't do that ever. Cairns runs on the field, tries his kick. It's got to be miserable as a college kicker to have that camera in your face the entire time you're warming up.

And then, of course, he missed. He made the one in overtime. Look, I think very clearly, like Gabe, like, that Georgia is a champion caliber team for a reason. They go on the road, they get down early. Actually, I think this is the same format we're going to see when Oregon plays Penn State in a couple weeks. Oregon's going to get down early and try to battle their way back. And Penn State, man, I mean, so Georgia, like just, they've won many different ways over the years.

Low scoring games, high score games, come from behind, lead from in front. And they just resilient, man. That's why they win championships. That's my takeaway. Georgia just resilience can be, it shows each and every week. week and shows why they're a team that will be in the playoff and will be a team that we have to contend with to win championships. Yeah, it also, I think validates their decision to move on from a previous, like, Heisman contender, championship type quarterback. The guy with what a, what a perfect

football name, Gunner Stockton. Gunner Stockton. He's not as good as Carson Beck, but he's good enough. And I think Beck was just getting too much money and they were like, you could go to Miami instead. Okay. And one thing I want to, one thing I want to, one thing I want to, want to say, Gabe, about the money thing, like, it's, it's, I keep, I said this and it's like, it's, needs to be repeated like a thousand times. A lot of teams, Georgia, Ohio State, Oregon, like, teams that paying play in Miami, like, they're not paying the most for every single player. Like, Georgia had set a budget for Carson Beck, he's too expensive, you're out of here, you know, like, that's the way it works. And I think people think all these people just paid the,

Miami might pay the most for Carson Beck. It doesn't mean they're paying the most for every other player. It's not the way it works. Players are going to places where, they want to get developed and where they think they have a chance to start and play and win and showcase themselves for the NFL and the facilities and coaching staff and whatnot. No one's going for the most money. There are some players that absolutely do do that. And sometimes it happens to be both the situation, your goal situation and the money. But Georgia just didn't want to pay Carson Beck as much as Miami did.

So they're like, okay, see it later. If Carson Beck would have taken a million dollars, that's $2 million, he'd still be in Georgia. But so like the team set limits, I want they're willing to pay players. you think maybe also Carson Beck was thinking about his NFL future and thought it'd be a little bit more fun to play against NC State and Louisville and not get destroyed. He also was dating someone who went to Miami. So that also might play a role in decision at that time. I'm not suggesting anything, but I'm guessing he's probably dating some people who go to a lot of schools. Well, at the time, he was dating someone that went to Miami and like that might influence his decision.

That's definitely more of a topic for like, you know, our gender. D producers who probably follow those things more than more than you do? You mean comedians turn political commentators who are dating the sisters of quarterbacks of ACC or SECT? I don't, we can't keep up. Good job Theo Vaughn and the guy from Vanderbilt. We don't know what the story's about. I just don't care.

I know what it is. I just don't care. So I get, I have things in my brain that I would have to care about like SP Plus and trying to figure out my five wagers for the week, Gabe. What a bad, what I had bad, some bad beats this week. It's very frustrating. Well, all right. Bad beat for the band list.

Let's just recap for those who pay close attention around here. Who are we not talking about ever again? Tush, push discourse and cryptocurrency make the list today. It's a pretty long list already, Jeff. So out of all these things that are on the list, the one that I think, for someone I keep, like the dog, Peter keeps being shown every week an aggressive amount. It is a lot, Gabe.

I love my dog. I post about my dog talking about it. Isn't it a lot? It's a lot, man. That's why it went on the band list. And I believe, again, I don't mean to slander the dog. I believe he goes by Peter. I think the dog has a full first name, not a nickname first name.

I actually like dogs with human names. I'm big fan of that. But if you choose, let's double check this. But if you choose to name your dog Peter instead of Pete, that's like a huge human human name choice. Peter the dog. Pete is like, that's fine. Pete, Pity, that's a dog.

Peter. I mean, he probably comes to Pete or Peter, I would imagine. I don't think they listen to their full name whether you're calling them. So actually, I have to go get my dog from the vet. He's a, he's a, the poor guy's the vet.

Another ear infection, Gabe. Oh, just poor guy. He needs ear infections. It's a German Shepherd thing. I'm sorry to hear. I hope your dog is. No, he's fine. So we have to sedate him to clean his ears.

He won't let us clean his ears unless he's sedated. So it just kind of sucks. Poor guy. Sedate him at the vet, I assume. You don't try to sedate your dog at home. That's why he's at the vet. Yeah, okay. Yeah, sorry.

To clean his ears and maybe my ears have been logged up. Some leaving medicine. So, all right. That does it for today. Crypto bros, don't come at me, please. Come at Gabe. I'll tell you his Twitter. Hello.

Come at Gabe. All right, we'll be back on Thursday for our gambling episode. I think we did our usual week two, belly flop. But we'll bounce back in week three. Anything else, Gabe? Any last words here? No, it was a fun week of football. I look forward to seeing you next week.

I will be watching football, same as you, starting Thursday. You, by the way, going the late, the 8 p.m. local kickoff for USC, Michigan State. I want a full report back on an 8 p.m. kickoff in Los Angeles. Bringing a whole bunch of kids, too. So pray for me. Okay. Are you going to like say the whole game if it's close with the kids? What we thank you for asking. God help you if you're still listening to this show. I said to my wife that she needed to coordinate with some of the other moms who were bringing the kids.

We need multiple cars with people on deck to be the early drivers. I said I would like to reserve I am a last guy home driver. I'll take whichever kids, whoever it is, I'll be that guy, you know, and I'll moderate my intake as a result. But I don't want to be the guy who has to leave like a one-score game in the, you know, at halftime just because somebody, other person's kid is melting down. I don't remember, I think my dad, when UCLA, you know, 730 games as a kid, I think we just stayed the whole time. I don't really remember leaving early for night games, but I mean, it's so long ago. That's why you made the NFL, Jeff, because you had, you were.

This is even later than usual. This is like a, this is not, this game was not going to end to 1130. Yeah. You don't live, and you don't live close to the Coliseum. No, no,

I don't. This one's late, you know, in Hawaii. This is a late game. So. Yeah. Yeah,

well, you know, we'll see how it goes. USC Michigan State. Not, it would have been a Rose Bowl game decade ago, but here we are.

There we are. All right, guys. We'll talk to you guys Thursday. Take care, everyone. Thank you.