Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Injuries Run Rampant & Dallas Needs Miracles

Episode Date: September 22, 2020

Injuries are rampant across the NFL, Dallas might not be the team we think it is, and we saw the future of the NFL on display at quarterback this weekend. Plus, we'll discuss how a Pac-12 vote on its season might fare out. 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.

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Reduced speeds after 20 gigabits of usage per line. Most reliable based on root metrics. UL's report. Results vary. Non-endorsement. It's Tuesday, September 22nd. Injuries are rampant across the NFL. Dallas looks like they aren't the team we thought they'd be.

The Pac-12 is voting on whether or not they'll play football this season. We saw the future of the NFL on display throughout the entire Week 2 slate. I'm Jeff Schwartz alongside Gabe Gill, and this is Jeff Schwartz of Smarter Than You. Welcoming back in. Oh man, it feels great to have football back. Week 2, a wonky Week 2. Week 2 is always crazy. Gabe is live from London, growing a long English beard it looks like. Growing it very long in a little dungeon it appears.

But glad you made it this week. Gabe, how are you, buddy? I'm good. I'm in what's called a she-shed, Jeff. I don't know if that's a British term or just a thing my mother-in-law says, but this is a she-shed. Maybe we'll go with thing your mother-in-law says. So, dude, we have so much to get to.

This is going to be a fabulous show. We're going to try to hit a lot of the topics that are relevant in the NFL. Of course, I'm going to try to make you a little smarter along the way. If you go to my Twitter, by the way, at Jeff Schwartz, I continue to put out videos as I see fit, depending on what I see. There was a great one I had from the other night, the last play of the Patriots-Seahawks game. It's a little thing.

No one else noticed it. Actually, one person who played in the NFL did text me and noticed it, but nonetheless, it's not noticed. So go to my Twitter page. I put up these videos. I think you'll really, really enjoy that. I just want to give a shout out to other things I do as well. All right, Gabe, lead us off, buddy. Well, I'm glad you brought that up. That's going to come up a bunch while we go through this, because part of the way that I know what to talk to you about is by, you know, following you along on Twitter. And you do put out a ton of great stuff.

And that video will be in topic number two. So hold tight for that. Let's start with a bit of a downer. I got a lot of gray in my beard because of the Jets. But other people probably got some gray in their beard from all the horrible injuries we saw this weekend. Saquon Barkley could be done for the season with an ACL tear. Christian McCaffrey out for four to six weeks, it looks like, with an ankle. Drew Locke had a shoulder. Devontae Adams had a hammy. A dozen

other guys hurt almost every other part of the human anatomy, and I would just say, and I don't mean to make a joke of it, but I would just say that every single player you've ever heard of on the 49ers is now injured, and unfortunately, a few of them look pretty serious. So, Jeff, this could all be a coincidence. Or, like many, including The Ringer, are summing it up, this could be because the effects of a COVID-19 shortened offseason and no preseason are causing a lot of injuries. We've seen things like this in the past. You've talked about it a bit. This isn't a total surprise.

Or is it just a coincidence? Make us smarter here. So this is something that I think I've said first all along. From the beginning of this game, I have said that injuries are my number one concern for the season. I've explained it. I'll even explain it again for you guys that have not listened to the show before. Welcome aboard if you haven't listened. Or maybe you need a refresher course.

There's nothing quite like playing football. Obviously, there's games to play, but just the practice itself. And what practice can do for you, especially when you're in pads, is you're not tackling to the ground, but you're making physical contact, right? When you make the physical contact, your body tends to be in weird positions. So your body gets used to absorbing that force in those weird positions, okay? And you build up kind of, you know, we say this a lot in the offensive line community, you build up those calluses, right?

Those calluses. So if you're a lifter, right, and you lift a lot, the first week you start lifting again, your fingers are kind of beat up, right? But as soon as you build those calluses up on your fingers, you can, you know, you can hold the bar without much issue. Same thing with your body. If you prepare your body in the way that is best to prepare for football, you should limit injuries. And without an off-season in the facility doing football,

and with a shortened training camp, this is always going to lead to injuries. The question I always get asked, this is a fair question, is, well, aren't the guys working out on their own? They are. They are. But nothing equates to practicing football full speed. And you get close to that in practice, obviously. You are going full speed. You're just not tackling. And we look at ACLs. Six ACLs yesterday.

Saquon Barkley, Cortland Sutton, Nick Bosa, Solomon Thomas, Tavon Young, and Bruce Irvin. That's at least so far the six that we know of. Two of those are the Niners you mentioned. And there's some issue with the MetLife turf. I'm not quite sure what that problem is. It's new turf, and maybe there's some concerns there. But ACL injuries obviously can happen

from when you get hit in weird spots, of course. But if you have like a strong quad, it really does prevent your knee from moving in a way where you get hurt. And I'm not at all accusing any of those six players of not preparing for the season. I'm sure all of them worked out and did the right thing. But just, again, the idea of not, you know,

not having those weird body positions, not just being as strong as you normally would because you weren't doing football activities, that's a concern. And we're going to see this, and we're going to see it the rest of the season. We got through week one okay, actually. I mean, week one was, you know, it was okay.

I mean, I was actually fairly happy. I thought this week, by the way, the sloppy play that I thought we'd get in week one kind of returned into week two. And the injuries were a huge problem. It was a huge problem. And no one watches the NFL for backups. Let's be fair, right? No one watches it for backups.

Now, luckily, we're at a point now, knock on wood, we're outside of Drew Locke. Quarterbacks are okay right now. A lot of us watch for quarterbacks. That's good. I'm glad that we're still doing that and we can still watch those guys. Also, we say next man up, all right?

That's a mantra in the NFL. Guy gets hurt, next man comes in. It's kind of easier said than done. Done, I should say. Easier said than done. I think Dan Quinn said this today. I'm trying to find the quote. Maybe it was Mike Nolan.

I think Mike Nolan said this today. He's the Falcons defensive coordinator. He said, next man up is Gray Nol, but the next man up is typically a backup. And there's a reason why he's a backup. So it's not like you're, you're, you're not getting,

you know, excuse me. He's the, he's a defensive coordinator. I should say for the Cowboys, he was on the Falcons. And he did say that it was like the injuries, man.

Like here it is right here. I found the quote, the next man up is a nice thing to live by, but there's a reason that someone is a starter. Someone has a backup backups can develop into starters, but no one prefers to develop such players over time. So next man up, it's a great mantra and it's made my career. I first got to play because Jeff Ota got hurt and I got to go in. Even in Kansas City, John Osamowa got hurt. I got to go in. I played well. They kept me in the lineup. It does benefit the player that's next up, but

that player also has to be good, right? And I think that with a lack of preseason again, these young players aren't taking a lot of reps. And so, Gabe, I'm worried that we're going to go down this path where, and this is always the case for the Super Bowl, the healthiest team wins. It's very true. The Chiefs last year were extremely healthy, right, when they won. So were the Niners. There really is going to be a battle of attrition. That just the team that's left standing after 17 weeks of football, 16 games, and that has all the best players on their team still available, they're going to be the favorite to win the whole thing. Okay, well, so let's talk about that a little bit. How far into the season do you think things normalize a little bit? And the,

the guys have had the kind of contact that you're describing that their bodies are in the shape and maybe a little less worn out, frankly. Like, when do we think we can take a deep breath and it'll just go back to, it's a violent game and freakish things happen, you know, four weeks,

six weeks. When does it start to get real? Good question. I would say that when we look at the NFL, we should always look at month chunks, right? First month, second, not first month. Basically, yes. First four games, next four games,

next four games, next four games. Four chunks. That's the way we look at it in the NFL as players. We look at quarters. Basically, like we take the first four games, the first quarter ball. And trends in the NFL typically go by the month because it takes a couple weeks for people to adjust and then you bring out something new um and then by the end of the season you go back to what you did earlier

in the season it just kind of everything goes in a cycle so I would say a month a month is a good barometer of how if your team is playing well so we're going to overreact of course because everyone else does to some teams that are oh they2 and 2-0 and 1-1. But really, a month, Gabe, is a good time to check in with your preseason predictions, your MVP choice, injuries, how your team's playing, what the schedule looks like. Then obviously after eight games, halfway point, do the same exact thing. So I would say the first four weeks, we look at that, take a pause there, and then we'll see how it goes the next four weeks. The first four weeks, we look at that, take a pause there, and then we'll see how it goes the next four weeks.

All right. And so do you think that coaches are looking to work their guys harder during the week or not as hard? Like make up for lost time and put a little beating on these guys so they're more game ready? Or give them an even longer ramp to get ready by that month in? I think they're going to do things like they just have been doing them. Usually I don't think they're going to change at all what they're doing. Um, I think that the idea that, um, I just, I don't, I don't think they're going to just put on pads

and start hitting now. Okay. And then fun idea that's come up, you know, well, fun is maybe the wrong word, but controversial idea that could be fun in some circles to talk about load management do you you know take a few reps away from star players do you pull guys earlier in games do you spell guys in different ways well look load management obviously did not work for the clippers very well did it so um i don't think we're gonna have a loaded man we saw like i mean a little bit that with jimmy g yesterday right the game was close maybe jimmy g plays on a high ankle sprain but it wasn't and so they took him out of halftime I don't think we're going to have a loaded man. We saw a little bit of that with Jimmy G yesterday. The game was close. Maybe Jimmy G plays on a high ankle sprain, but it wasn't.

And so they took him out at halftime. Sorry, obviously, that wasn't a dig at you. It was just a good example of that. Well, I don't think that some of the guys that didn't play yesterday didn't play because of the Jets team that they were playing. I have a feeling that a couple guys could have suited up were they playing the Seahawks. That's obviously extremely possible um so it uh it it's gonna be a month till we figure it out and this is something that probably it probably really is it it's gonna be a while it's it's gonna be a bad

year game it's just gonna be there'll be a lot of injuries i wish i could tell you like that that that it would be better, that we'll know after four weeks. I just think we might know more after four weeks, but it's going to be bad.

I mean, look, we even have, even Christian McCaffrey's out for four weeks, right? I mean, we're seeing a ton of guys getting hurt. McCaffrey and Saquon are your one and two pick

in almost every fantasy league out there. I don't want to forget their humanity, but let's talk about that for a second. That affects a lot of leagues, and it's going to affect a lot of bets. You place a few bets every week. I think about it too.

Is there any big-picture betting advice we can get from understanding that injuries are going to be a big part of the first quarter this season? I think that we've seen through two weeks, we talked about this on our gambling show on the first Thursday, is we've seen a lot of points scored. I think we're going to see a lot more points continue to be scored, especially with a lot of defenders getting hurt now. We have not seen a lot of wide receivers get hurt. Obviously, no quarterbacks. If the quarterbacks are healthy, man, they're about to light up these injured defensive lines, these secondaries. I think we just see more and more points.

Okay. So, lean overs. You've been talking about that for a couple weeks. Which I hate because I do not like betting overs. But I feel like that's – I'm looking ahead even to next week already. I mean, excuse me, not to next week, to this week. And when we were –

and we're getting into the second, like Seattle, Dallas. I mean, each team's going to score 30 points. Yeah. Well, that's our segue. I was say both side both teams basically got the over in the uh dallas atlanta game obviously ended up a little better for dallas than atlanta so just in case everyone missed it i think the the story most people are talking about about that cowboys win dax amazing comeback huge stats great game one of the best games of the week. The crazy onside kick recovery. And then of course the Falcons being the biggest choke artists in

NFL history. Can I say that at this point? They had a 99.9% chance of winning at some point in this game. That was even better odds than the infamous 28 and three in the Superbowl. This feels like a story though, that actually could be about something else. I see a Cowboys team that isn't very good. I see a Cowboys team that was down 20 to nothing in the first quarter, that was still down 15 with five minutes to play. They gave up 39 points, okay? Somehow won, but gave up 39, even in a terrible division with an extra wild card spot. I am not taking the Cowboys seriously as a contender. And I think most people right now are with me.

So the Cowboys are interesting game because you know, I was, I was high on them. We built Barnwell on bill Barnwell loved, uh, love the Cowboys as well. And I was, I was,

he kind of persuaded me to like them a little bit more, but I looked at their roster and was like, it was like, man, they're there. And their roster is talented. But here's the thing game is we were supposed to see a more disciplined Cowboys team with Mike McCarthy.

We were supposed to see a team that did not make mistakes. We're supposed to see a team now, they are aggressive, but are they the right type of aggressive? Just being aggressive to be aggressive is not, in my opinion, the best way to approach being a coach, right? You have to understand the situation, what you're doing. Look, you fail on one fake punt. Why would you go forward or get another fake punt?

Typically, you don't have that many fake punts up for that week. And normally, if you won, you blew the first one. The guy was open. You just blew it, if you want, I mean, you blew the first one. Guy was open. Like, there was, you just blew it. You might say, like, all right, we blew it. Like, let's not do that again. But they just ran another one. It got stuffed anyways.

I, the fumbles were bad. The end of game situation, you know, yes, they got lucky at the end there, but their end of game situation, right? They throw the ball into Falcon's territory. They're in field goal range. And they just run the ball twice and kick a long field goal. Like go for it. That's what Jason Garrett would do.

Go for a touchdown. Keep trying to score. Keep trying to make plays. End of the Chiefs game yesterday. Excuse me. I keep saying yesterday. Two days ago. I know we filmed this on Monday, but two days ago.

Look, the Chiefs ended that game. They're still trying to score and score and score. Yes, they kicked a long field goal to win, but they weren't, like, trying to get a field goal, right? They're trying to score a touchdown. Keep trying to score a touchdown. So, I think they're just not well coached right now. And I know it's a new coach with a new system,

and I do say that it does take time for that, but I feel like you got rid of Garrett to to get more discipline and you still haven't got that yet no i mean no not if your team's given up 39 points to it a team that you know may go winless this season i mean the falcons are they stink um i i'm just you know i want to come back to something you were telling us two three weeks weeks before the season when, when we were still living very much in the, is it going to happen and how will COVID affect the season? You know, you told us to think about injuries, but you also told us to I don't know, teams with new coaches where they haven't had the chance to work with the team and install what they want, you know, put their discipline in place. They're going to have problems. We didn't think that would be the case with a veteran like McCarthy, but it sounds like you're telling me it's still the problem there. Well, look,

I thought all along that veteran teams, veteran coaches would do fantastic. And look around the NFL, right? Ravens, unstoppable right now. They're playing great. Chiefs had a poor game, but they're still very well coached, and they won in the end, right? They won in the end. Buffalo Bills, I'm going to have to eat some crow maybe on Josh Allen eventually. I'm not going to do it on today's podcast.

Well-coached team, we know that. Mike Vrabel and the Titans, well-coached team. Pete Carroll, well-coached team. Even, look, the Patriots, I know they lost the game, but they were right there with the Seahawks, well-coached team, right? All the teams that are well-coached with returning quarterbacks. Now, Cam is the outlier in that, obviously. The Packers, Aaron Rodgers, Matt LaFleur, returning coach,

veteran quarterback, players like the coach. So we're seeing this continued success of those type of teams. The Cowboys obviously need time. And I'll tell you this, Gabe. I've confirmed this. I know it's to be true. It takes eight to ten weeks for a new offense to get rolling with a new coach. That's how long it takes.

But the problem is that we're seeing other sloppiness, like the fumbles, like clock management issues, like weird amounts of aggressiveness or not being aggressive that trouble me outside of just that, you know, that takes time to,

you know, to get the offense going. But I will say, they score a bunch of points without Teron Smith. That's a huge plus. They've never done that before. They've always had trouble without their left tackle in the game. So there is some positive there.

Am I mistaken or is Dak Prescott somehow went from like the greatest to everyone's crapping all over him to now all of a sudden you're not allowed to say a bad word about Dak. Dak is you know hall of famer in in the making right now and every time he has a good game even if he is terrible for three quarters if he ends the game well with some big stats we immediately vault him back to like top three quarterback in the league status and it just happened again this week. like why do we have to like Dak so much what what is it about the media that they're obsessed with Dak Prescott he's a nice player he's probably a top 15 quarterback but why do we have to pretend like he's the best quarterback in the league every five weeks when he has a good game uh I mean the

Cowboys man the Cowboys always drive narratives and I with you. I think he's a good quarterback. I'm not sure he's a great quarterback. But part of it is because he still doesn't have a contract yet. And I think that's, you know, until he gets a contract from someone, the discussion is always going to be, is he the guy? So every week we're going to have a discussion. Is he the guy? Is he not the guy?

Is he the guy? Is he not the guy? If he were assigned to a long-term contract, Gabe, that would turn to, I don't know who our attention would turn to as far as Carson Wentz, maybe back again. Yeah. I don't know. Sam Darnold.

I don't know who would turn our attention to like, is that the guy or not the guy they need to give him? It wouldn't be Sam Darnold. Don't do you. I feel like you're trolling when you even pretend you think it could be him. That's ridiculous. You're just on,

on tank for tank for Trevor Watts right now. I'm so i sadly yeah so i i just um i uh i think that's why america's team which our buddy dave damashek would not argue would argue to me would argue they're not america's team anymore um but america's team and i haven't paid dac yet that's why everyone talks about him each and every week yeah dave does the thing and And I think I helped him sway him towards the bills last year. He sort of renamed somebody America's team each year because he doesn't think it's fair the Cowboys get that status. So the bills were America's team last

year. I think that that was pretty fitting. People were pretty hot on them. I'm just going to say to him through this show, I think right now it feels like the Arizona Cardinals are this year's America's team. So let's move in that direction right now, because for anyone who was watching Red Zone yesterday afternoon, you got one hell of an exciting set of games. There's only three games going at once, but we got pretty much every quarterback we think we'll have for the rest of time. You know, the real game changers were out.

So we had Kyler cutting up Washington. We had lamar beating up on deshaun we had uh pat leading a comeback with the chiefs and all of that was just warm up for russell wilson previously mentioned going against cam newton russ had five touchdowns was like a career day for him cam was awesome frankly and they were one play away as you alluded to with your breakdown they're one play away from actually winning that game so seattle wins uh russell looks like the mvp and i'm just wondering like are we done even debating it can we just now say you have to run to win in this league yesterday afternoon was the best example yet okay the question becomes uh of running or mobile quarterback right i think that you have to have a mobile quarterback that that is now the

thing it is in that's what it is now but you're also only getting those from college right you're not getting pocket quarterbacks more look at justin herbert yesterday who played for the chargers dude can run he. He knocked out a Chiefs defensive player, a linebacker. Yeah, that was weird. Not even trying to do it. He just was like, curled in a ball and knocked the guy out. Joe Burrow can move.

Obviously, Kyler Murray can move in his second year. Josh Allen can move. Wilson, Mahomes, we know obviously Lamar Jaskin can do it. Even Aaron Rodgers. Aaron Rodgers is a very mobile quarterback. Mobility is the name of the game. Running the ball, not the name of the game. Passing the ball with mobility is 100% the name of the game.

Josh Allen's proven me wrong because he's obviously been throwing the ball a lot better lately. But it's all about mobility. But I will reiterate again, that's what you're getting from college now. Look at the players, the top three quarterbacks so far for next year's class. Trevor Lawrence can run. Justin Fields can run. Trey Lance, again, I feel like that name is always fake. It's not from North Coast.

He can run as well. That's what you're getting from college now. It only makes sense that you're going to get that in the NFL. Okay. And we've sort of hit on this at times, you know, every few weeks over the last couple seasons. But it seemed to me like a bit of a turning point now, because now I understand the difference between mobility and running. But I'm actually seeing guys who are running better than running backs. And that seems like what what's making the difference. And I'm thinking about Kyler specifically.

He looks to me like a faster Russell Wilson. He looks to me like a faster Russell Wilson. And if he is the future, like that exact balance of run and pass, then I don't see how anyone can ever stop that. Well, the reason why quarterback runs are hard to defend in general, we have to eliminate, I think we have to take away the scrambling part of it because scrambling, obviously, there's many reasons for that. If you rush out of your lanes, boom, boom right especially there's a coverage called two man where you're playing two high safeties and your man coverage no one's spying the quarterback no

one's looking at the quarterback so if you just you kind of have outbreaking routes your quarterback just runs right the middle of field we saw that with joe burrows touchdown on week one um we saw that with pat mahomes had to convert a long third of 20 yesterday. That's different than the running game with the quarterback. When you incorporate the quarterback in the running game, you actually get extra blockers, right? Normally that running back. Now, the running back can be a decoy, decoy or a blocker.

It's an extra guy, an extra blocker. It's great when you have extra blockers in the run game that aren't, no one on defense is accounting for the running back to be a blocker. They're accounting for the offensive line tight end to be blockers, not the single running back. And when you do these zone reads, you get to pick and choose when you run the football. You only run the ball if you're a quarterback.

If the look says run the football, right? You're not just like running into terrible looks. Now, obviously the Patriots last play of the game was rough but normally Gabe you're just running into looks that only work for you and when you stretch and when you run these quarterback runs typically there's some lateral movement with it right so you have a jet motion or or someone going right across you and you have this backfield action guys crossing and so what what it does for the linebackers it gives them what I call eye violations right they don't know where to look

so i'm also supposed to key my guy right here and obviously if you're watching this via video you can see a guy right here but then i have all this stuff happening i'm like looking over oh oh oh geez here he goes like there's so much happening right now so it's a it's an advantage for the offense in my opinion to spread things out and run a lot of these plays if you have a quarterback that can do it and then obviously plaques your pass off of that boom uh is a big game so um yeah it was um it it it's the new offense okay well so well i want to go one step further with that we heard bill belichick say of russell wilson that he throws the best deep ball in the game.

So first of all, is that true? And second of all, isn't part of why he's able to throw the deep ball that he makes, you know, safeties especially, start to just think a little bit more about, oh crap, what if this guy breaks the pocket, breaks contain, and I got to go tackle him? Like, isn't that a little bit to do with why he throws a great deep ball? If it's just an arm competition, you know, other guys can throw it. No, I... Really? No, his deep ball, dude, it's not really about beating safeties.

It's just the ball turns over like a punt. It's just like it goes up and it turns over, just lands right in the bread basket. You know, Mahomes throws more of a dart, like kind of just like a dart long pass yeah i know it's just like it just soars majestically in the air and it lands it always lands like exactly where the the hands of the wide receiver would come out of their body and catch it it's just and because of the of the trajectory of the ball i think defensive backs have a hard time playing it because like as you're running and you're just like, oh, the ball's coming right here.

Boom, there's the ball. The defensive back can't make a play on it because you don't really have to change your running style to look for the ball. It's literally going to be like right there when you turn around. And he does it oftentimes with a lot of pressure, which is,

um, to your point, it's very impressive. I'm going to make two analogies to, uh, the audience who are more like me, who didn't play professional football, but have two frames of reference here.

Russell Wilson, make a good beer pong player, get a lot of sort of loft underneath it. It comes down soft. Even if it doesn't land in the cup it has a chance to bounce and settle into the cup that's important or it's like he's hitting like a nine iron or a wedge and other players are always hitting like three and four irons into the greens very hard to hold a three or four iron on a green but you lost that

thing way up there it's going to come down and stick yes that that is um a great way to put it as someone who golfs and very rarely is able to get uh my pitching wedge onto the green with a nice little you know my goal when i shoot those is to get a divot if i get a divot that means i have a great shot or a terrible one but yes no if you get a nice i'm sorry i mean like a divot onto onto the green where I have to use the tool. Oh, you mean when it lands? Yes, when it lands, yes. If I have to go and pull my tool out of my bag, oh my God, you have to use it today. And like use the tool, that means that it's a good shot.

Yeah, ball marks are usually a very good sign. Ball marks, there we go, ball marks. Yeah. Well, to close this one out, you know, Mike Vick compared himself to Kyler Murray. And, you know, that's that's probably pretty high praise. I think that's usually going to be a good thing on a football field. So I just I thought it was a real treat to watch all those guys play basically within the same chunk of time. And I hadn't noticed that many of those guys competing with each other or playing at the same time before. So it really looked like the future for about four hours there. It did. It was a lot of fun. It did, and that's where we're going.

All right, cool. Well, speaking of where we're going, let's move the line. These are some over-under bets. Most of them are not real, but, you know, occasionally it might help you make a bet over the weekend. I want to know, we sort of touched on some of these teams. This is a time saver. So I want to know odds the week three primetime games are conference weekend preview.

75% chance that happens. For reference, that's Packers at Saints, Chiefs at Ravens. Seems very likely. Those are some great games. Oh, man. I mean, Chiefs-Ravens, in my opinion, is locked and loaded. That's locked in. The Saints are interesting because Michael Thomas being out could really,

and we're recording this before they finish their game against the Raiders, so I might change my mind here, but I'm just interested to see how the offense functions without him. And I don't know. I don't know if they're going to be able to move the ball. They might lose a couple games to where they don't have the one seed or whatever else, but the Packers look really, really good. I would say that I'd lower this down a little bit.

I just would say under because I think Seattle could jump in there as well. Tampa Bay, if they get things together, they could jump in this conversation. You know, Los Angeles Rams having a good start of season. They go to Buffalo this week. How about that? The NFL made the Rams go. They played in Philly and then at Buffalo. And the Niners played in Jersey

two straight weekends. What, why would they, I know that they're staying out there, but like, why would they schedule them? Not like that. That's very odd. Very odd scheduling. I, I had assumed it was, well, I hadn't given this much thought, but I assume it's to limit airplane travel and logistics, right?

Well, you know, I do want, I do wonder if the Rams bills game was supposed to be in London. Oh, originally. That'd be a lot do wonder if the Rams-Bills game was supposed to be in London. Oh, originally. That'd be a lot to ask of the Rams that early in the season to get all the way to London. But they do that, though. They kind of go play – the West Coast team will go play an East Coast game and then go to London afterwards. Right, and then just go one further. Yeah, you're right.

I wonder if that was one. Yeah. Yeah. By the way, next time I come to London, I think I'm going to do that. I think I'm going to schedule something in New York and then go from New York to London. Doing 11 hours straight. And with the kids too. Red eye with kids.

Did they sleep? Not advised. No, my daughter did not sleep one minute. Not one minute. Yeah, that's again why there's so much gray in this beard. You brought up the rams i'm going to talk about a couple other two and oh teams right now and this is a big two and oh discussion so i want to know the fraudulent bills over under win total against the fake

titans he's gonna have more wins the bills are the titans they're both two and oh i don't know how well they played bad teams. That's a good way to put it. I will say that the Bills have more wins than Titans do. Because they get to play the Jets and the Dolphins a few times? Yes, I think they're slightly better. Josh Allen plays this way.

You say slightly better. Last year, Titans seemed like the slightly better team. What's changed? Josh Allen's playing a lot better. And I really think that... I just wanted to hear those words. I will say that I think that the Titans and Bills play callers deserve a lot of credit for designing their offenses

to fit specifically what their quarterbacks do best. A lot of coaches are too stubborn. These guys are not. They have designed perfect offenses for their quarterbacks. Can I ask you something? Because this is just me being a dummy and watching more Josh Allen snaps than I would have guessed I would. Does he ever just take the ball and just throw it or run with it?

Does he ever just not fake? I feel like he is incapable. He's not really like a rhythmic passer. Everything's a fake. He doesn't really often just like drop back, plant his foot and get rid of the ball. And throw. Yeah. Not really his game.

And then they don't make it his game, right? They make him throw a lot of play action pass, screen passes. The offense is not predicated on a bunch of quick passes where he just hits his back foot and throws the ball. No, it's really kind of weird to watch, but it works. All right, so you broke it down between those two teams, but I really kind of actually want to talk about a few others. So Cardinals, Bears, Rams.

Give me like your basic feel on those teams. Are they for real at 2-0? I think the Cardinals are not quite there because I'm not sure their defense is terribly good yet. And I still think out of all the teams, they're a little bit just, they haven't done it quite yet. Look, I was low on the Rams this year, but the Rams have played great so far.

And the thing they've done offensively, especially, they've changed who they are offensively, which I think is very important, right? They've catered their offense to what they do best, which they didn't do very much. And their offensive line is playing a lot better than it did last season. You know, the Bears are complete frauds. They beat the Giants, and they had, obviously,

just a fraudulent game against um against uh who they play the giants this weekend i mean just like it just was giants aren't very good either so i would say that that those the bears are no they're nothing okay your boy big cat better not hear this that's i hope i hope big cat listened to this and he and he does clap back on me and twitter they all they talk about my love for edm quite often on their podcast so i hope that they uh hope he can join us one day that'd be great too open invite buddy of course yeah i mean listen i think you love edm about as much as he loves the bears but edm has never let you down

and it seems like the bears let him down all the time so I this is it's being a Bears fan especially when you see how well Cam Newton is playing must suck right now because they're also 2-0 the Bears are obviously but they're not a good 2-0 like they're they're not going to like you get your hope oh my god Mr. Biskey this is going to happen and then they're just going to crush your soul when they don't make the playoffs this year yeah no it'll suck at least being a Jets fan we just know we suck right out of the gate. We'll get to them in a second. Bill Simmons said something that he thinks the entire NFC West could make the postseason.

He was probably half joking, but it's not completely impossible this year. Remember, we have an extra playoff team. So right now, today, that does actually seem sort of likely um you buying that i would say no because it typically doesn't work out that way and obviously no new system but i would say the niners are on that course where everyone's hurt by the end of the season they just win four games like i it's just they're so beat up right now. And I've been on these teams before. The 2007 Oregon team that was number two in the nation, we lost probably, we lost multiple wide receivers.

We lost Dennis Dixon. We lost two linebackers. And it just was, one of those years, you just, it's soul crushing, dude. Soul sucking. And there's nothing you can do about it. There's nothing, it just feels like the Nin are, have bad luck, injured luck this year. So I think the Niners would be the team that won't make it right now. All right, listen, you're talking Oregon and you're giving me a chance to skip over two

things in the rundown that I don't really want to talk about, which are these crappy 0-2 teams who, you know, I was supposed to ask you if you think any of them can turn it around. I don't really believe that you believe that. So sorry, Joe Burrow, you're not getting any topic in this show. And we're not talking about the stupid Jets. How many minutes until Adam Gase is fired over under one? I don't know. Let's hope it's under. He's absurd. Let's just talk about Oregon and the Pac-12 and some good news. I want to know, Jeff, Pac-12 games over under Thanksgiving. Under, Jeff, means before.

Are we going to see some Pac-12 football before Thanksgiving? Oh, I surely hope so, buddy. My day job is Pac-12 radio. I would say that we go under here. I think we see it November 7th or November 14th. What's frustrating is that

the Pac-12 secured rapid testing September 3rd. They did not tell anyone they were doing it. They just announced that they were doing it. And they had the capability then to go to the governor of California, the governor of Oregon, and say, hey, can we play football? Can we at least start training? Can we at least start practicing, doing something? And they didn't do any of it. and then as soon as the big 10 comes back the pack 12 follows them you know to try to come back but there's no rush like they they met on friday they're not meeting again till thursday like this just seems like no sense of urgency it's very frustrating as a fan and i get it we talked about this before there is not a lot of forcefulness when it comes to our conference and the way we should be at football.

Now, they hired Merton Hanks to be the kind of football czar, which I like. But our presidents, our fans, our ADs, our communities are not, you know, they're not like passionate about football like other conferences are. I'm not saying that USC fans or Oregon fans aren't passionate, but the conference as a whole, right? Football is not, we're not consumed by football. And we're seeing it now. We're seeing it now because we can get back as, you know, they could have said, hey, come back, start working out.

Bring your kids back to campus. Start working out. And they just punted on it all. And they're going to end up, you know, they'll vote Thursday. They'll come back, but probably November 7th or 14th. All right, so they'll vote Thursday. So that's fine. So that's a little bit of progress.

Do you think, Jeff, that politics, though, do have something to do with this? Because we've got a bunch of state universities in what we'll call blue states. And we've got some private schools that are, you know, academic research institutions and, you know, highbrow places like Stanford in the conference. So they just not feel the same pressure to get things going that maybe the Big Ten did feel. Is that a fair analysis? Yeah, I don't think that they care as much about football. I don't think that's not as important. Do you think Gavin Newsom cares about football in California?

No. Not right now. No, I think he's got other things to worry about. Even before the wildfires. Like I don't, so I don't think it's, when you say like it's politics, everyone assumes it's like to screw Trump, which again, I do not think that,

that like the University the, the university of Oregon wants to lose out on a championship caliber team to screw Donald Trump. Like it's not, that's not, that's not the politics of this, but are you, but if you're saying like that, the presence of PAC 12 who represent, I think there's 11 of 12 research universities, the football revenue stream is minuscule, right? It's a rounding error for how much money they make on other projects and other parts of their school. And if you are the new, let's use USC, for example, you're Dr. Carol Foyt, who's the

president there. You're brand new on the job, relatively new. You're dealing with a bunch of scandals that you're trying to clean up that you have at USC. You're dealing with COVID in LA County. You're dealing with fires now, obviously. No kids on campus. All these issues. And it's like, hey, well, how about football? And guess what? There's an elevated chance that someone might have a cardiac arrest. She's like, oh, I'm all right, fine. I'm just, just get rid of it. Like, whatever. Like, I'm not, I'm not dealing with this. So, it makes sense from that

angle, right? Of just like, all right, fine. Just get rid of this small thing I don't care about. Let me focus on everything else. And that's why I think a lot of Pac-12 schools just canceled. As soon as they heard there was something that was some issues and linear effects of COVID-19. Yeah, checks out to me. And yeah, politics does not equal anti-Trump in my brain. So when I use the word politics, I'm talking about the pressures that, you know, organizations in society face from the elected politicians and vice versa. That's all I mean.

So let's move along. There's no politics involved in this decision. Deion Sanders Prime is going to be the new head coach of Jackson State at HBCU school down south I was a little surprised to hear this but cool news fun fun for all of us to tweet about but I'll ask you this number of years before Dion is coaching a power five school over under 1.5 years. I, um, this is, he's never coached a power five school. Do we think he's going to be a good coach? Well,

I, from what little I know of Deion Sanders, just by watching him and maybe talking to a few people around our industry, I don't think he watches tape very close. Yeah. He's just there to recruit. I think I just can't say. So he's going to do his, his two just can't say so he's gonna do his

his two barstool podcasts a week a podcast a week and coach uh yeah you know i i mean he must think that that's a reasonable workload i don't know which part he thinks is easy the podcast or the coaching i'm probably the podcast um yeah i mean i listened to him on the first one with with part of my ticket it was kind of interesting i i i was kind of interesting. I came in with it very skeptical, but it was entertaining for 20 minutes and he was on. So yeah, I don't see him as like an X and O's coach. He's probably going to be there for a recruiting coach. But he's not going to like this job, man. There's too many hours involved, man.

It's just like all your free time, if you do it right, your free time is is zap, dude. Yeah. Well, I wouldn't guess that he'll love the job, but if he takes a team that, you know, had a losing record and turns them into winners, don't you think that that gives somebody the chance to say, you know, we should hire Dion and all of a sudden he's coaching at some big school in Florida, maybe not Florida state State but get him a little closer to the dream job he thinks he wants um dude if you're Miami Florida State Florida what does he provide you that your coach doesn't provide you now well I mean you talk about recruiting i think basically every kid coming up now maybe they're too young i was gonna say every kid coming up now you know when deon sanders walks into their living room like they're going to that school but but actually it's probably the parents

of those kids who care more about deon sand. So I just, I don't get this. I just don't get this higher. I don't know why they don't want to do this too as well. That's part of it as well. Can I throw one not well-researched theory at you? I believe the plan is for Jackson state to play football this spring. They're one of the, you know,

their conference is one of the conferences that is currently planning to do that. So I wonder if maybe this is just a chance to get that experience, but sort of still stay on the traditional football schedule of the NFL and Power Five college football. And maybe he can just sort of get in there, do a good job,

gain some experience, get some exposure and move on to the next thing quickly. I just, I cannot imagine, um, that I just cannot see him as a power five head coach. Okay. Well,

what about this then? Again, I'm, I'm totally wildly speculating here i have no idea what dion's plans are but what if this is like uh like a reality show what if we're gonna find out four months from now there's a camera crew following him around you saw him enter the place with a marching band it was a big yeah it was awesome a big to do quite a production so maybe that's gonna be what it is just months of that and And then we get to watch a great show.

Um, I, I, I, every time I, I watch that video, I've watched it like twice today, three times,

say the Dion Sanders video. That's how I want my wife to come in the house when, when I'm, when I'm around just like full procession. Um, I, dude, I just,

I don't know why this is happening. I don't know why they, I don't know why he took this job. I don't know why he got hired. Um, I don't know why this is happening. I don't know why they, I don't know why he took this job. I don't know why he got hired. Um, I don't know. He's not going to power five school. It's going to be a complete and utter failure.

Wasn't he a failure at like high school too, as a head coach. Uh, he he's, I learned today. He's currently an offensive coordinator for a college or high school rather in Texas. Um, I think

it's a school with a good reputation. Someone who listens to this show will know more than me, but I was sort of surprised to read that. Seriously? He's an offensive coordinator? I read that he was the offensive coordinator. Currently serving as the offensive coordinator

at Trinity Christian School in Cedar Hill, Texas. Are they good? They'll finish out the season before beginning preparation for Jackson State's season, which has been pushed to the spring by the coronavirus pandemic. Yeah. I don't know what to make of that. All right. Offensive coordinator.

I know he played some offense, but I did not know that he knew how plays were run on offense let's go find out i mean i might tune in to watch a jackson state game now to see how he does so they hooked me in for one game i got you to watch a jackson state game yeah well i'd rather watch that than a jets game maybe jets can hire him know what? I would absolutely sign up for that right now. I would take Deion Sanders replacing Adam Gates by week three. I would consider that a huge win. Can you imagine Deion showing up and Sam Darnold? That does not feel like it would mesh very well.

I wouldn't care if it meshed. I hope it would make Sam Darnold want to go somewhere else. And, you know, I don't even know who our backup is at this point. Joe Flacco? Fine. Fire him up. Let's go. I will say, Makai Beckton, left tackle.

Really good. So, great draft pick by Joe Douglas there. So, just FYI. Something to be happy about. All right, guys. That is it. Hope we made you smarter today. Gabe is with his she shed in outside of England somewhere

I'm right in the middle of London baby you're back in London now oh yeah man I'm looking at the shard I can see that Ferris wheel over there on the 10 can I just say I feel disappointed when I visited London just didn't think it was that cool okay

I'll show you around come with me next I saw everything and still didn't like it i just was like oh okay it just felt like a bit like a older new york yeah it well it you know there's a reason why it feels that way it's kind of like i like paris a lot better yeah i mean since my in-laws will never listen to this show i'll just say i agree i hope they listen to the one time they listen to this show, I'll just say I agree. Paris is better. Well, I hope they listen to this one time. They'll listen to this one time.

That'd be great. I might forward it to them in an email or something. All right, guys, thank you for joining us today. Another great weekend of football. And I cannot wait. We have Chiefs, Ravens, Minot football, Rams, Bills. You mentioned Saints, Packers. It's absolutely loaded week three.

So stick with us all week thank you for listening please rate review subscribe I do see we have some reviews some more subscribers I really appreciate that follow me on Twitter at Jeff Schwartz until next time have a great couple of days talk to you guys in a few