Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - HelmetGate, Baker's Bravado & McVay's Genius

Episode Date: August 20, 2019

Subscribe now for 40% off: theathletic.com/smarterthanyou Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Welcome to the Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you podcast for me. I'm Jeff Schwartz. Eight years National Football League makes you a smarter football fan. I go against the conventional wisdom that you might find on social media, your favorite blog, whatever you find your football news. I will tell you what you actually need to know with that news. The first two shows, this is the first one, the later one this week, are for athletic subscribers only. So thank you for subscribing and listening to the podcast.

This is the way this thing works. One of my producers today, it's Gabe Goodwin, will fire takes at me that you might hear on any of those platforms, and I'll tell you why that's wrong, what you need to take from that information, and how you can be a smarter football fan. So today we have Antonio Brown, Helmetgate, which just will not stop. I'll discuss that. Baker Mayfield again, continued to run his mouth.

Sean McVay had a great little segment where he talked football, but how much did he actually tell you guys? Zeke Elliott as well. We'll talk about NFL preseason week three. All right, Gabe Goodwin, take us away. Oh, it is nice to be with you jeff schwartz i'm feeling dangerous today just get ready you should yes uh okay so helmet gate continues on monday night antonio brown filed another grievance with the league this is his yeah don't laugh this is his hail mary attempt to get to play with his helmet that he has played with apparently since he was a child the same literal helmet we'll get into that in a minute uh but he and his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, are really pushing back here. He has not been at practice in days.

We'll see if that changes Tuesday or Wednesday. But this is not looking good. And a lot of fans, if you go on Twitter, are calling him selfish, saying he's crazy, saying he never wanted to play in the first place. Jeff, be sympathetic to Antonio. This helmet thing is just weird, frankly. Like, what's going on in this dude's head? What are we missing? This can't be as simple as it sounds.

It is weird. Dude, wear the helmet the NFL has told you to wear, right? So what happens is they had a helmet that they ruled was too old for him to wear. Him and 31 other players, or 30 other players, I should say, last year. The Game of Grace period. Those players, Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady, Jason Wynn. We heard Joe Staley last night of the 49ers. They've all switched their helmets.

Have they liked it? Probably not. They mentioned they would rather wear their old helmets, but they understand that the NFL and the NFL PA working together have come up with safety standards for helmets and have decided that the model they were wearing was no longer allowed. The NFL, in my opinion, screwed up a little bit here with Antonio Brown telling him he could find a

newer model helmet to wear. If it passed the safety test, we found a couple, they did not pass the safety test. They told him, dude, where the new helmet, like everyone else is doing.

So now his new grievance, basically saying that the new model helmet, which had not passed safety requirements should be allowed. He should be allowed to have a grace period for, you know, the one-year grace period that they allowed last year for his new helmet. Dude, it's not happening. It did not pass safety test, all right?

If they allow you to do this, then everyone in the NFL is allowed to have a helmet that does not pass safety test for an entire year. And then next year, they can wear a different year helmet that doesn't pass safety test. Again, another great sprint. It's not happening. The NFL and the NFLPA are allowed to make up the guidelines that revolve around player safety and equipment.

They've made up their mind. You have to wear the new helmet or that's it. And I understand superstition, right? I get it. I played for a while. I'm superstitious. I put my clothes on the same way before games. I wore them at the same time. And I get it. I played it for a while. I'm superstitious. I put my clothes on the same way before games. I wore them at the same time, and I get it, man.

But sometimes you have to accept the new rules. You could have started wearing this helmet in March and April and gotten used to it and not complained about it. You're actually making it worse now by waiting to wear the helmet until right now. And the reason why people really in the Raiders building, Mike Mayock, the GM, came out and spoke this week. The reason why. They are now speaking out about this.

Is because it's gone past the cute stage. Here's the bottom line. He's upset about the helmet issue. We have supported that. We appreciate that. Okay. But we've at this point. We've pretty much exhausted.

All avenues of relief. So from our perspective. It's time for him to be all in. We're all out. It's gone past the, okay, he's pissed off. He threatened to retire, blah, blah, blah, blah. Early in training camp, whatever. Like now you're preparing for the season. It's week three of the preseason.

You're game planning. You have three weeks until your first game. Like now, now it's's no longer now you're hurting the team by not being there so dude put on your new helmet get to work and start preparing for the season so okay let me just give him the benefit of the doubt and say he's not a diva he's not superstitious and weird that this is genuinely a concern of his and i'm not sure that i believe that but it doesn't really matter what I think. Like, is this odd to have played with literally the same helmet for a decade?

Like, how complicated is this for a guy? Could it really be impacting his vision the way he claims? Or is he just jockeying for something and making a situation and this is the scapegoat? I'm surprised he's worn a helmet this long without it being any issue. Look, people have said that he doesn't want to be in training camp and this is the scapegoat. I don't really believe in that because training camp now is easy. There's no two days. Veterans don't play in the preseason. Veterans get off days.

I think his feet are fine. He showed up last week to their game to the you know to the cardinals game uh and and dressed and warmed up and he looked fine he put a video out yesterday on instagram where he was fine um where he's running i just think that he doesn't want to wear this new helmet and the vision thing is look i i believe him that that this might affect his vision but again like part of being a professional and part of being part of the league in the union is that you have to abide by their rules. And they've made this rule up and you have to adapt to it.

Again, instead of trying to be trying to make this work, he's trying to find a reason for not to work. And it's going to end up hurting him because he has less time to practice in the new helmet. And look, I don't really know if the helmet messes up with vision. I would think it really doesn't. You know, they're not like cutting off the vision of the helmets. They're just making a newer model. And I don't know the exact reason why it would cut off vision. You don't hear Tom Brady or Rogers complaining about or Jason Wynn complaining about not being able to see. I think he's just being a little bit nuts here. And for whatever reason, this is really a sticking point for him. And he needs to just get

over it, dude. You're being an adult. Everyone else is fine with it. You need to be fine with it now and move on and play. Last question on this. He's obviously one of the best receivers in the game when he wants to play. But the team he played for for years where he was setting records basically just let him walk. They didn't get much back for him. So are the Raiders just thirsty?

Like, should they have seen the signs here and known this guy wasn't going to be worth it? Like, is this was this all predictable to you? Or is this a bit of a surprise even to Mayock and Gruden and team at the Raiders? Okay, so we know he's had some instabilities the last couple of years, right? We're just talking his attitude and some of the things he's done at Pittsburgh. And you have to believe what you see. And this is a big problem in the NFL where organizations think they can fix people and fix players, whether it's, whether it's technique on the field or whether it's off field issues,

really only one place. And that's new England sometimes has been able to do that. And they do that because veterans come in who haven't won and understand if you want to win, you're going to follow what bill Belichick does because he has won. Now he's proven that obviously he's one of the greatest coaches if not the greatest of all time so two guys buy in so oakland trades for him and they either don't expect there to be some this issue which which you don't look they don't expect this to be a problem this is such

this is so random and so ordinary but you know the drama that has come out of this, that drama part should be expected because he was that way in Pittsburgh. He did not show up to play after not practicing all week. In a week 17 must-win game for the Steelers. Like, that should be a huge red flag for you. It should be a huge red flag. The Steelers only traded a third, you know, got a third and a fifth back and have $21 million in dead cap space to trade this player. Like it should, those should all have been warning signs.

All right. Well, I predict he ends up in a new England and wins a ring with them. And this all works out well for him. And we're laughing about it one day. Okay. So here we are topic number two of the brand new show. And you know what? Um, we're diving right into this. We're going to a sensitive place, Jeff. Anyone who follows you on Twitter knows that you are easily triggered by Baker Mayfield. Everything the guy does

seems like it bothers you. He is being interviewed, it seems, every other day. Today's latest is with GQ. I guess he did the interview a little while ago, but it's out now. It's another profile on Baker. And in it, for reasons I can't quite explain interview a little while ago, but it's out now. It's another profile on Baker.

And in it, for reasons I can't quite explain, my boy Baker says, quote, I cannot believe the Giants took Daniel Jones. Blows my mind. And he goes on to comment on how he wasn't a winner in college. This is a profile about Baker and the Browns, mind you. But as an aside, he takes shots at the Giants and another young quarterback. I love it. I think the swag is part of the deal with baker i am betting heavy on the browns i will be there week two when they play the jets i'm maybe even gonna root for my boy baker instead of my team

the jets i'm all in but you keep on pouring water on this dude and keep on telling browns fans they got nothing to hope for maybe i'm misquotingoting you, but dude, like what? Why? Why do you have such a problem with this? Just be quiet and do your work. All right. Just be quiet. Do your work. We have seen the model for quarterback in this league. The model that works is just do your business. Go about your work. Be quiet and win football games stop doing interviews where you're bashing daniel jones and talking about wins and talking about kong coward and talking about all these haters and blah blah just just do your just do your job buddy just go about your job you have you have earned nothing in the nfl yet well wait a minute nothing in the nfl yet just

just just be quiet and work Just be quiet and work. Just be quiet and work. But he set a rookie touchdown record. He won six games with a team that hadn't won six games in, like, I don't know, a decade. He's got a team rallying around him. And he says, like, he says he thinks his job is to make these guys believe they can win. Like, he understands that it's a bit of an act. Right.

Do that in the locker room. You don't have to do that in the media. Do it in the locker room where everyone else does it. But these dudes are on Twitter. They're reading the stuff that he's saying. This is hyping them up, no? What does talking about Daniel Jones have to do with the Browns winning football games? Well, that one was weird.

I can't quite defend that. What does college wins have to do with winning football games in the NFL? Tim Tebow was 35-6 in college pal mahomes was 13 and 16 jared goff was 14 and 23 like ken dorsey i saw someone tweet he was like 36 and 2 in college dude go about worry about the cleveland browns stop worrying about colin coward and the haters and dan Jones and where you're drafted and what college wins and also worry about the Cleveland Browns. Worry about making sure your team is ready to play the Titans in week one. You're ready for everything that's going to be thrown at you. You're ready to make a jump in year two of your career. Worry about that. Stop worrying about everything else. Worry about

everything else in the NFL does not work. He's now putting a target on his back, a bigger target than he needs, in my opinion, as of right now. And we'll see how he handles it because it's going to come in in week one with the Titans defense. But hold on. See, that's another thing that I think people always give this take and you played. So you can tell me if this is real or not. Like, is that true? Do you really put a target on your back? Like, does anyone really care? What? Yes? Yes.

Well, their job is to hit the quarterback. Obviously, look, obviously we want to do our jobs at a high level and we study during the week and we prepare during the week and we're ready to go. But we're humans, right? So at times you lose a little bit of focus, whether it's in a walkthrough, whether it's during whether it's during practice even during a game right like you just lose focus for a second it happens to all of us you know the best players it doesn't happen

really ever but you know we're humans right we naturally doze off especially nowadays when guys you know want to be in their phones 24 7 which is kind of natural right just natural um but when you're playing a guy like baker if you you're on defense, you're not going to have those problems that week. You're going to focus in on every little detail. You're going to make sure that you have him down pat because you want to shut him up. And this is a little bit of example. It's a little bit different than this exact thing, but I think it's where this makes sense

for you. I have a personal example. So I know this is a child-friendly program, i will not use the exact word but we're playing a defensive lineman in 2013 and one of the players on our offense line knew him and he did not like him and he knew that if we got after him every play and we called him a bad word every single play that he would wilt under that so we made sure at every single play that one of us gave him a little shove a little extra love tap a little hit and we called him that word every single play every single play i did it the center did it the left tackle did it every single play and it messed with him he instead of worrying about the game he's talking about

us and barking at us and not playing as well. So that's an example of just taking it a little bit further because you have that mark on your back. Like, for example, everyone gives the Patriots their best shot. They want to knock off the champions. That's why we see sometimes some of these upsets where, for the last year, like the Vikings get blown out by the Bills. They don't take them seriously.

So you lull to sleep a little bit because we're humans. And so I think that's not going to happen. They're going to get the best shot of every single team. Do you think week one, Mike Rabel, playing the NFL forever, do you not think he's tired of hearing Baker talk and he wants to come in that week

and just smash him in the mouth to shut him up? Of course he does. And he wants to come in that week and just smash him in the mouth to shut him up. Of course he does. And he's telling his team that the entire week or weeks preparing for Cleveland and that little extra juice, man, it means something. And so he's inviting us on himself. And I think he knows he is,

but he also hasn't shown that he can do it over a full season, obviously with everyone gunning for him last year, no pressure. No one's gonna for the, no one's gone for the Browns and against the best teams. He didn't play very well. So congratulations. You beat five non-playoff teams to end the season you beat the panthers with cam nuna noodle arm and the falcons who were who were in the you know in the dumps you beat the bangles twice congratulations on that on that accomplishment like dude just calm just just quiet yourself and worry about the cleveland browns he's dude he's

coming for us now you just put a target on our back he went Browns. Dude, he's coming for us now. You just put a target on our back. He went after Cal Heard. Now he's going to come after Schwartz. You know how great it would be if Baker Mayfield tweeted out this podcast? Please, please tweet out the podcast and be angry at me. I would love that. But don't – I mean, honestly, seriously.

If you're saying – I think the Browns go 9-7 this year. I want to make that point very clear. And I think Baker's a good quarterback. I think it's good, but he's, he's an earned the right to talk shit about Daniel Jones and the giants yet. But, but isn't it, you're saying that that will make other guys want to hit him extra. And doesn't everything in his career suggest that he likes it when guys get in his ear

and say that nasty word, or when they give him the extra shot after the whistle, like that's what he's going for. That what gets him playing harder right but that but oftentimes when that happens though guys do things they shouldn't do they they they you know they throw that pass that's a little bit too hot a little bit too long a little bit too hard it gets tipped up in the air for an interception they you know they try to and cam noon has had this problem and ron rivera's tried to reel it back, and he has where he wants that extra yard, right? Because it fires up Cam to run the football,

and he gets concussed. And Baker Mayfield's running, and he's trying to make that extra yard and do whatever, and dude just whacks him in the helmet out for a week because he's concussed. That little stuff, it's little stuff right there.

Couple examples where during the year, you just try to do too much because you want to talk and you want to be confident. I'm all for the ego and the confidence. Every quarterback in the NFL is confident, has an ego. I have an ego, obviously.

I'm doing a show that says I'm smarter than everybody else. I mean, you have to have an ego to be successful in all walks of life, in my opinion. But it's a matter of how you harness that ego and how you act knowing that you might be better than anyone else and knowing kind of your place within your job, your business, or within your life. And so he doesn't know that quite yet. And the NFL has a remarkable way of humbling you if you think you've arrived.

Well, three of his first five are primetime games, so we're all going to get to see him get humbled in front of millions if it doesn't go so well. But I, for one, will be rooting for Baker. Of course you would. Be sure to check out The Athletic's all-new slate of NFL and college football podcasts with a full debut on August 27th on The Athletic's app and website.

They've got shows on a ton of NFL and college football teams. I'll be listening to my Oregon Ducks show. The point is, check out the podcast section of the app and the website. You can find yourself a few more shows to help you be a more informed football fan this season. All right, you guys got it? Good. Now back to the show. All right, moving on to the other guy that people cannot help but talk about. Coach Sean McVay is, of course, a media fascination.

You know, he brought his team to the Super Bowl. He's young, he's good looking, he's cool. He sounds a lot like John Gruden. NFL Network caught him doing what was basically Frank Caliendo doing John Gruden, doing Tony Romo broadcast. So basically McVay is out there calling plays in real time while he's supposed to be doing a live interview. And I mean, it sounded like fluent football. I've never heard some of the words he used, but he was calling plays as they were coming.

It blew my mind. It blew almost everyone's mind. I follow on Twitter. It was freaking awesome. Stutter action. Great job by Dakota Allen right there man what safety match coverage for us great job by darius williams man he just keeps showing up all right looks like we're gonna get a hold from oboe though a little buzz structure for us top it down troy reader getting 11 hats to

the ball good job right there that's good though force it back inside. Good job right there. The best part about this is that he said almost nothing. Nothing. Come on. And it was a must. So here's what he said. He said that we have a three deep, four underneath coverage. So one high safety look. Everyone, I mean, just that's what it is, right?

He said that get back on track down. So I think he was referring to it was first and 10, and the offense, the Cowboys offense, wanted to get a positive play, and the linebacker came down and made a great play when the guard pulled, which he said. Guard pulls, linebacker shoots, that's their job. He said they're playing a split safety match coverage,

so they're playing basically two-man. I mean, it's not, you can just watch the film and see that. It's not otherworldly. He's doing it in real time. Well, he's – because he's watching his defense. This is his team. He tried to call it a Cowboys play and he was wrong. Again, this is not disparaging McVay.

I think he's awesome. Then he says, I hope we run a buzz coverage, which they did not do. They ran the match coverage again. What's a buzz coverage? Well, let me explain this. This is what – I'll tell you what the best part is of this whole thing. So buzz coverage is three buzz. It's the same as really the first thing he said, three deep, four underneath.

The best thing he did, in my opinion, the coolest thing that I saw from this whole thing, was that he was basically calling the defense. And so most offensive coaches, in my opinion, aren't calling a defense ever. And so he wanted a specific defense play. He was on the headset with the crew. So he yelled to one of his coaches, hey, Joe, play buzz coverage. So buzz coverage is cover three, the safety buzzing down, front side. So I guess for me, that was the coolest part of it,

was that hearing him call the defense out and want a specific thing. Because a lot of offensive coaches don't actually do that in my opinion um so otherwise i he just really gave nothing like there's things you could just watch the film oh yeah it's a 3d buzz coverage he wasn't giving out state secrets so so if we put a microphone on most coaches in the nfl in that type of situation are we hearing the same thing like you've stood on a sideline thousands of times i don't think i've ever heard that well i don't i don't think he would actually say that in his headset he's just explaining what's happening and i think by the way i think more people should do that i need more teams i'm i am all in on teams giving behind the scenes looks to

what's happening so like the chiefs have a series called the franchise. The Colts this year had a whole series about scouting where they went through, you know, from like January 1st all the way through the draft process. We've seen, you know, the Eagles, by the way, are fantastic about showing film and breaking down stuff. We've seen more behind the scenes stuff from a bunch of places. I mean, Cleveland has a show as well. Like I am all for this because the little bit of thing that he just said in that thing,

which is almost nothing to NFL people, gives fans so much excitement to feel like they're in the know. Oh, yeah. And what's happening is with these teams giving out these little nuggets of information, again, it's relatively nothing if you're in the building. Like, you watch, like, I watch a franchise. I watch a Colts thing. I watch the Browns. I watch it all.

I love it. They're giving away almost nothing, but it feels like a lot and that is what i think draws fans in is it sounds complicated which it is but it's really not to nfl people and more people in the nfl should stop being afraid of being honest about what's happening and sharing little bits of information i think we've seen with younger coaches now, younger GMs, they're more willing to talk about what's happening on the field. Kyle Shanahan with the Niners is good about this. McVay's obviously been good about this.

It's that they're not worried so much about keeping everything a state secret. So I like that this sort of stuff is out there. I just, you know, McVay wasn't saying much of anything. Well, okay. But I think anyone who pressed play on this podcast is there for the geekiest,

most complicated football talk they can find. And I'm with you. We all want more of it. And even if we don't know what the hell we're hearing, we love it. You know, what's interesting about what you said is that there's a fine line. This is what I think I do really well.

I'm going to brag right now a little bit. Is that there's a fine line between being too nerdy and being not nerdy enough and because you have to understand that when people are consuming football you know they they want to hear bits and pieces of what's really happening but it's really hard to actually understand if i just start throwing a bunch of technical terms at you like i like i put videos on my twitter at jeff schwartz i try to make them as concise as and people say wow i didn't realize all this was happening on one single play so there's a lot so i think that if you're coming here you're learning what's what's happening but i'm but in a little bit of terms you that you that you can take back to your friends but i'm not going to make it

so x and o's because that that loses people like There's a fine line between that. I think Sean McVay did a good job in that clip of giving people what they want. You heard Buzz and split safety match and coming downhill and that type of stuff. But again, it's little terms that you can look up. You can look up cover three Buzz and go and find a video and clips about it. But he's not giving away state secrets.

All right, Spider-Y banana away state secrets. All right. Spider wide banana moving on, moving on. We couldn't finish a show without talking about the Cowboys and Ezekiel Elliott, who of course is still waiting on that new contract. Problem is, uh, they let a fourth round rookie named Tony Pollard get in the game.

He rushed for 42 yards on five carries. Twitter went insane. it's Zeke's done. Tony Pollard get in the game. He rushed for 42 yards on five carries. Twitter went insane. Zeke's done. Tony Pollard is, of course, the new running back. That seems silly, except that one of the reporters who had some time with Jerry Jones asked him if he was obviously kidding, but he asked him if, you know, Tony Pollard was the best negotiating tool Jerry Jones had. And Jerry took a long pause and joked, Zeke, who? if Tony Pollard was the best negotiating tool Jerry Jones had,

and Jerry took a long pause and joked, Zeke who? And then most people's clip cuts off there, but then Jerry repeatedly said he was kidding, he was kidding, he's just having fun. He tried to make sure that nobody took it the wrong way. Well, too late. It got back to Zeke and his agent,

who said that they thought it was disrespectful. I guess they're still holding on. Where are we with this? And are people overreacting a bit to Tony Pollard going five for 42 against, I don't even know whether it's first or fifth team out there, but what do you make of all this? So this is funny. I saw this clip last night or two days ago, whatever it was. Um, you know, Zeke's agent and him felt disrespected by this. I thought it was kind of funny. Um, look, they're obviously at an impasse and we've talked about this.

If you follow me on Twitter or, you know, now obviously joining the, the, the podcast to hear more about this. Um, look, Dak Prescott is who they're going to try to sign first. You know, Dak is a quarterback. He's more valuable than Zeke. And if you hear Jerry talk, he's really never said anything negative about Dak because he knows that Dak's his guy. Now, I don't think Dak is elite, but I think the Cowboys are kind of stuck in this situation

that they kind of have to pay him. And he's a great leader. He's never been in trouble. The guys really like him. And he's won. He's won games. He's 32 and 16 and has two playoff appearances. And they win with him.

Amari Cooper's got to be paid, in my opinion. Amari Cooper is more valuable to what Dak does. And we saw when he got in the game last year. I think they were 7-1 in the regular season with Amari. Dak's numbers jumped way up. Success rate on third down jumped way up. He was a better quarterback. But with Zeke, it's really interesting.

So even though I talk about this running back value thing, where it's kind of shown that having an elite running back might not be the best at team building, that you need a run game, but not that elite guy. But Zeke, Gabe, Zeke does so much in that offense for the Cowboys. He does the most of any running back for any offense in the NFL. But we had this guy, Tony Pollard, come in and look good in the preseason. Now, the preseason is mostly lies, mostly,

but I think you can take away individual performances. And Tony Pollard, he's done better than anyone else in the preseason. And at that position, I think it's easier to say, wow, he actually, his running skills can translate to the regular season. Different than playing quarterback in the preseason or other positions um so i don't know if this helps the cowboys it will help the cowboys if he continues this in weeks one two and three if they don't if zeke doesn't come back um but the cowboys in my opinion are pretty firmly set on a number for zeke a number for dac and a number for amari and they might not be willing to budge. Remember, Zeke has two years left on his contract.

He's got to come back at some point this year to get, you know, to have his free agency year start counting. Otherwise, it just keeps rolling over. And he's got to – Tony, this is helping the Cowboys a little bit, but you have to wait until the regular season to see if it's really helping. But the signs are there that maybe we found someone. We've seen this year after Alvin Kamara. We saw Phillip Lindsay last year of the Broncos, right?

An undrafted kid. Teams are getting by with running backs who, quote-unquote, are not elite, not high draft picks. So is Pollard the guy? I think he's showing signs of it, but I can't tell you until we watch him play the Giants, the Redskins, the Dolphins, their first three opponents this year.

Yeah, but I mean, you just said a few of them. Like, I'd say there are far more examples of elite running back goes down or sits out and the next guy up goes for 100 yards five games in a row. Like, anyone who plays fantasy knows about John Connor like Alfred Morris averaged more yards per carry for the Cowboys a couple years ago someone named Rod Smith gave him 120 something last year like I don't know man it seems like the exception is the

rule but but Zeke is really Zeke is Zeke is um I think legit with um his his pass catching and screen ability if you look at at the cowboys offense and their ability to run screens they're the second best nfl outside the chiefs um and zeke is a big reason for that and so can these other guys do that can pauler do that can can alfred morris who's back there now can they pass zeke's a great pass protector so there's other things besides just their actual stats that play into because you want who's back there now, can they pass? Zeke's a great pass protector. So there's other things besides just their actual stats that play into, because you want a running back nowadays, now, not 10 years ago or eight years ago, five years ago, really, that can play three downs. So it used to be that you had, you know, I played with Adrian Peterson in 2012.

He had 2,000 yards that year. He played on first and second down. If it was third and long, he was out. They brought in Toby Gearhart. That's not the way backs are anymore. You're playing on third down now as. If it was third and long, he was out. They brought in Toby Gearhart. That's not the way backs are anymore. You're playing on third down now as a running back, third and long, because you're now part of the pass game. And so they take a little bit more value because of what else they can do

besides the rushing stats. And so we don't know if Pollard can do that quite yet. It's the preseason. We don't know yet. So there's a part of his game that we will not find out about until the Bulls start flying against the Giants 4-15 the first NFL Sunday of the year.

Hey y'all, just as a reminder if you missed it earlier, the Athletic app and the website has a full slate of college football and NFL podcasts for you to listen to. I'll be listening to the Oregon Ducks, my favorite college football team, and you can listen to any team that you love on the app or the website all right well you mentioned that pre-season maybe only kind of matters and week three we're always

told this is the real this is the one that counts oh if you're gonna pay attention pay attention to week three this is when the first teamers get going this is when you can get a real look at how good your team is jeff i mean i've bought that my whole life i never watch until week three and then i'm like okay i've made up my mind about every team is that all nonsense or is week three truly a time when we can learn about who's gonna win some games this year who's gonna play well this year? Well, no, it's mostly lies. The third preseason game is the one where you game plan. So we've seen some issues so far, like pass protection, right, with picking up pressures.

Well, that should go away this week because you're actually – you're preparing, you're game planning, you're getting a sense of what's happening. You'll have some players that get to play against better competition because the ones might play a little bit more. But we've seen more and more, whether it's Sean McVay of the Rams or Matt Nagy of the Bears, they just don't play their starters. They just don't care. So we're seeing less and less of importance of the third game. It used to be the dress rehearsal where you game plan all week and your starters play a half and they play the first drive of the second half to

get used to coming out of halftime, adjustments and there wasn't much to take away just Christmas you know are we tackling well or is our offense moving the ball well we've seen so many times Gabe where a team goes 0-4 in the preseason goes 13-3 or the team goes 4-0 you know the Lions go 0-16 in the regular season so there's not much to take away just like a little bit a little bit tiny bits here and there but you should enjoy the football you should bet on it which is should always bet on football it's fantastic and um and by the way we will have uh betting segments on thursdays of this podcast so pay attention to that we'll have you college in the nfl um and so there's little things you can take away just kind of efficiency

you know how are guys you know playing against better competition let's say that your backup left tackles in he's played well this preseason but he hasn't faced a one yet and now he's playing against the ones how does he do has a wide receiver do playing against a starting corner just a little individual matchups here and there but pretty much not taking away nothing from it well i'll be betting it i i'm i've had a i've had an amazing preseason so far. I almost might stop gambling for the regular season because my preseason has been so good. I'm afraid to tell you what my record is in the preseason.

It's almost unbelievable. Yeah. If your wife listens to this podcast, you probably don't want to put out how much you've been betting on preseason weeks one and two. I wouldn't make that public. Well, you're assuming that she's listening to the podcast. I'm actually assuming she's not. That's a big assumption there, Gabe. All right, welcome back.

We're going to play a game at the end of every single show. Today's game is over-unders. We'll let our producer, my producer, Gabe Goodwin, lead us off for over under in any topic. It doesn't have to be football this season. Well, we're going to start with football and we're going to start with something you got a little worked up about earlier. So I'm going to take it right here. Over under 30 and a half touchdown passes for you guessed it.

Baker Mayfield, 30 and a half. I mean, over, but I mean, Baker Mayfield. 30 and a half. I mean, over, but I mean, okay. What? I would say over, right? I don't really understand why 30 passes like the cutoff for being good or not. I would think that a guy who throws 31 or more touchdowns has done a pretty good job. I mean, Cousins had 30 touchdowns last year. I mean, you're talking about pouring a cold bucket of reality on my steaming hot takes.

This is you've just doused me, Jeff. Matt Ryan at 35. He had a good year last year, though. I mean, his team didn't play. Yeah. Ben at 34 last year. Didn't make the playoffs. Like, what's the goal?

Just to throw a bunch of touchdowns? The goal is to win nine or ten games and throw a bunch of touchdowns in the process make you taste it touchdowns i mean sure you can throw a lot of touchdowns that doesn't okay um there are a lot a lot of touchdowns last year um there the year before there were only three guys who had over 30 touchdowns um so if it was 2017, that probably puts him in the top class. But, I mean, 30 is probably about right. I don't think – he had 27 last year. But what if he throws 17 interceptions? I mean, that's more important to me than how many touchdowns he throws, especially in a passing league now where there's the highest percent

of touchdowns in the preseason through the first two weeks are by passing, like by far in NFL history. There's a lot of passing now. All right. Well, I mean, I didn't ask you over under on how many interceptions he would throw, but it seems like you think that number's high. He still had 14 last year,

which put him fifth in the NFL in only 13 games. So just something to look at. All right, Baker fans, it's at Jeff Schwartz on Twitter. Please. Number two here. This will be close to your home. Wins for the Oregon Oregon ducks this season. We're going to set it at eight and a half. Where are you over under?

Well, eight and a half is a very generous number and I will take the over on eight and a half. Um, yeah, I mean, I, that's, I think there go at least nine wins. They're very good. They have the best offensive line in the country, which is near and dear to my heart. 153 starts on that offensive line. Their quarterback, Justin Herbert, uh, will probably be the number offensive line in the country, which is near and dear to my heart. 153 starts on that offensive line. Their quarterback, Justin Herbert, will probably be the number one pick on the draft this year. They've continued to build up that defense. They have a new defensive coordinator. They got the best recruit in the country last year playing defensive end for them. The problem they're going to have, same as last year, is that their wide receivers hopefully will be able to catch the ball and contribute. But three of their guys are already hurt in camp,

including the one who is Michael Pittman, the best wide receiver of the group, is hurt right now. And that's going to be an issue for them. I still think they win over, excuse me, Michael Pittman, not Michael Pittman. Michael Pittman's at USC. And they're starting to get nine wins, though. Their schedule's really tough. They've got to play on the road. They play all but week one in Dallas, Washington.

They're at Washington, and they're at USC and at Stanford. But I think they win nine games. Okay. Wow. I mean, that's a tough opener to play an SEC team week one. That could take the wind out of your sails.

And then, yeah, all the toughest teams they'll play basically are on the road. But okay, we'll mark you down for nine or more. That's a nice bet, Jeff. Next one up. People you will block as a result of this show on Twitter this season. Zuri, one of our producers, said it at 10. Do we think we're going gonna hit the over or the under on 10 blocked twitter followers well now that i know where it's at i can block or not block a

certain number and win the bet that's um oh geez for this show specifically how many well i would say under 10 for this i don't i don't i don't block very often even though I've done more of it lately. If you're just going to routinely disagree with me time and time again, I'm not having you clog up my mind. I'm not even muting you. I'm just going to block you. You don't deserve to look at my tweets anymore. And I would say under 10. I think this podcast is going to bring a lot of discussion, hopefully.

But I think you would understand what I'm saying in this setting. And if you disagree, it's okay to disagree with me. But you can't just tweet me 15 times the same thing over and over again. You're going to get blocked. But I still think that we have smart listeners that listen to this show. Yeah. And they understand what I'm saying. They can process it.

They can disagree respectfully. So I'll go under 10. I think you're right. I think people keep it clean. They can fire at you disagree respectfully. So I go under 10. I think you're right. I think people keep it clean. They can fire at you. You love a little back and forth. I think you'll be fine. I go the under.

All right, Jeff, this will shed a little light on your life or maybe technically lack thereof. Jeff, how many movies will you see during this football season? The over under is set at half. So this is movies like new movies in the theater uh i will even allow you to say you know netflix or an hbo or streaming well any full movie can you make it through one this number is too low then we had discussed possibly making this for actual movie theaters if this was a movie theater number it'd be under i'm not seeing movies movie this football season. I haven't been to the theaters in years.

I don't have time. I've got two young kids. I'm busy. My wife doesn't like movies, so that's part of it too. She doesn't like the theater, I should say. I will travel a bunch. I'll probably watch like 10 new movies. Oh, okay.

Like on a flight, you're saying? Yeah, on a flight. Oh. But I will not actually go to a theater. Okay. Well, you got your head down, man. You got all day Saturday and all day Sunday and then Monday and Thursday nights and occasionally Friday nights. I mean, you got a lot of football to watch.

Dude, when we get to November, we have Maction every night of the week, basically. We have football every night of the week for the entire month of November. That's what's important. I'm not going to see movies. Get out of here. All right. We're going to try to wrap up these shows with a couple of the people who follow the rules who just send you some interesting thoughts on Twitter.

So I'll call someone out who has already done that. But guys who are listening, at Jeff Schwartz, hit him up. Disagree as much as you want. Keep it clean, please. But we'll try to feature some good tweets on the show at the end of the show on Tuesdays and Thursdays. So here's one we found that is interesting. It's probably relevant to our first topic with Antonio Brown. This comes from Dr. Robert 433 at 4 million for peace.

That's his handle. All right. Well, here we go. Dr. Robert wants to know, have you ever pulled a diva aside and asked him to tone it down? I mean, I pulled you aside a couple times and been like, yo, dude,

you need to tone it down a little bit. I'm not that guy he's talking about. No, I've never. I mean, I'll tell you what. I've told offense alignment to tone it down. I'm not quite sure that counts as divas, but I've told like younger players like, dude, you got to change. Like, you're not going to win. You're not going to be successful in the NFL with this attitude and the way you practice and the way you prepare.

So I think I have done that, just not to the extent of Antonio Brown. But as a veteran, I think it's our job to make sure that guys are preparing because in the end, in the end, we want to win football games. If we win football games, people get paid. We're happy. We set our families up for life. And like, that's the goal.

So I, if I need to pull a guy aside to tell him to kind of get in line and follow what we're doing to help us win, then I'm going to do it. But just not receivers. No, offensive linemen and receivers. We don't, we don't always hang out very often. Let me ask you a real question.

I'm not trying to embarrass the class of offensive linemen out there, but if you had pulled aside a guy like Antonio Brown, is there a chance that he doesn't know your full name? Or it's like, wait, who are you again? No, no, I think he would know my name. If I was in the huddle with him, I hope he would know my name. I think that an average fan doesn't realize

how much guys know and like each other. I mean, of course he would know who you are, but I just wonder, in general, do all 53 guys know exactly who everyone is? Can they have an elevator conversation with each other? No. Okay, that's interesting. Yeah.

Well, that's it for the first episode of the Jeff Schwartz is Smarter Than You podcast. I'm glad you're able to follow along with us. Hope you enjoyed it. This episode was special to Athletic subscribers. So again, I appreciate you following along and have a little bit of fun. Our next show will be Thursday and then the following week we'll get back to a little normal schedule. Tuesdays will be available on iTunes while Thursday continues to remain on the Athletic app and the website. All right, everyone. Take care. Until next time.