Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Is The Chiefs Championship Window Closed Bills Bucs Ravens And More

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

Is anyone good anymore??? Geoff Schwartz and Gabe dive deep into the biggest NFL Week 5 headlines — from the Chiefs’ sloppy loss and Travis Kelce’s effort questions to Baker Mayfield’s resurgence and Josh Allen’s off night. They debate whether the Patriots are secretly good again, why so many star players keep getting injured, and which quarterbacks truly belong in the 2024 class redraft. Then, the guys shift gears to college football chaos — UCLA stuns Penn State, Arch Manning disappoints, and Michigan vs. USC looms large. Packed with bold takes, betting insights, and hilarious banter — this episode of Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You breaks down everything you need to know about football this week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, welcome to Jeff Schwartz-Smarton. You're Deschart Smarney. Deschewartes presented by Draft Kings. Draft Kings, the Crown is yours. Today is October 7th. I'm Jeff Schwartz alongside, Gabe Goodman. We do our usual. On Tuesday, we talk about football that we saw this past weekend,

whether it is all the way back to Thursday, but Sunday. And of course, Monday and have football this week with the Chiefs. We'll look back to college. Well, and look forward a little bit. Big college weekend for my ducks for your USC Trojans. Gabe, you had a tough week. Your jets are 0 and 5. Kind of forced to turn over yet.

The Chargers are collapsing. before our eyes is no one can protect Justin Herbert. The Mets already got eliminated. Basketball, Knicks. Are we Knicks guy? Lakers, Clippers? What are we basketball? I'm trying to be a Clippers fan.

Oh, you choose the Clippers. Interesting. Yeah, that makes it. I don't like to make things easy on myself or my kids. Yeah. By the way, the report this morning, report this morning that Yonis and the Nix for talking. Are you a Knicks fan if they had Yonis?

Are you back in? I'm a Knicks fan every single. single postseason. I just, I can't invest regular season time in the Knicks. We can invest in the Chiefs being good or bad. Which one is it, do you think? I don't know, dude. Look, I'm invested in the Chiefs.

You're certainly invested in the Chiefs. Are we sure their star players are invested in the Chiefs? I mean, I'm the dope on this show, so I get to just say silly things. But after that loss to the Jags, we're now four in one, by the way. We'll come back to them. it certainly appears that at times Travis Kelsey is not really given it everything. Chris Jones looked a little off on a few plays. Like, are we sure this team thinks they're a real competitor?

Or is this maybe just an elaborate podcast and album promotion tour this whole season? Well, look, I saw all along that I thought the Chief's offense would get better, right? Gabe, I think I've said that to you. And they have gotten better, right? the last two weeks now the Ravens make everyone look good. We saw the Texans score 44 against them. But offensively, they look much better, 28 points last night.

And obviously with that horrendous pick, six could have been 35 points last night. The problem with Kansas City game, and I'm not sure that this is, well, I take it back. Every year we say things aren't fixable, and they managed to find a way to do. So they were 11 and 0 in one score games last season. They're now 0 and 3 this season.

The reason why they were so good at that is because they don't make a lot of backbreaking mistakes. and this year they're doing that. And to be unfair, one of the reasons that they have been such a winning program, winning franchise for so many years, is they don't make those mistakes, right? They have subscribed to a theory that I have subscribed to a long time, which is more teams lose games and win games, right?

How many times we watch a Chiefs game and another team makes that bad mistake, right? The turnover, the penalty, the drop pass, all these terrible things that happen to them. They don't contain the homes. They let, you know, the bills let Travis Kelsey. Tyree kill get 40 yards within 13 seconds. Like all these teams make these mistakes. Now the Chiefs are making these made, right? 12 penalties yesterday.

Mahomes, those are a really uncharacteristic interception. Credit Devin Lloyd and the scheme for that. But like those are the mistakes that the Chiefs have not made in previous years. Even like the very end of the game. So they're down three, right, with three timeouts about 30 seconds left. They get a nice long return. Like out. Realistically, there are two plays away from getting a field goal range.

Another penalty. And those mistakes they made over the years, excuse me, they haven't been over the years, they're making now. Defensively, they're just not as good. They can't rest the passers still. I thought Jacksonville did a really good job, really got whatever they wanted. If Lawrence doesn't fumble at the goal line,

Jacksonville scores enough points, obviously, to win that game without having to score at the very end. So it's just not a good team right now. There are pieces that are good, but in totality together, all three phases are not playing good team football. All right. So if you're Andy Reid,

and you know that. Who are you coaching up and who are you just letting be right now? Is there anyone you're like, I don't have to worry about that guy. Well, I mean, I think you would like, you know, Chris Jones, that effort at the very end was not good.

And we saw in the Charger's loss, right? He did the wrong thing at the end of the game as well. I mean, it's a delicate balance because I think he's earned the respect of the coaching staff, but you have to be like, bro, like we need a little bit more. You know, we need a little more in that final play. The final point is interesting, because I thought the Chiefs were going to try to let them score, and that's why they didn't try to tackle Lawrence.

I thought that they were like, well, we'll let them score and we'll have more time and we'll be able to, but it actually looks like upon review they were actually trying to stop him, Gabe. And for Jones to stop now, to be fair a little bit to Jones, he was not making that play. It's just a bad look anyways, right, Gabe, where he's not chasing down Lawrence. He's just not doing it. He's too far away. Lawrence is faster than him. but the fact is on a game-winning play, you are standing still, essentially, and not running down the field.

They were trying to do the same thing that I think the Jags did. They were dropping Jones out to try to get one of those crossing routes and find a way for him to disrupt. Maybe he did on his own. He certainly does freelance every now and then. But it's a bad image to be the best playing in your defense, to be the guy who's really the engine of the defense, and not at least try to run down Trevor Lawrence. Yes, as a little league coach, effort. It's one of the only things I really want to ask of people.

I tell my kids all the time. I tell my kids all the time. I'm like, I don't care how you play. Just give me effort, man. It's all I care about. That is it. So I'm not sure I'm ready to go there based on Hank's film review, but Hank did send us a text of Travis Kelsey not really running a route correctly.

And he's pretty convinced from his, look, he's got game angle. I was surprised. That's all you need. It was part of the route. He was a decoy in that route. That was the point of that route. He just stood there. They do that a lot where they have just a guy on the edge,

very as wide as possible to create separation of defense, spread the defense out. That's all they were doing. Kelsey just didn't choose to not run a route. He just, that was the route concept. Okay, but there is, he did get in the end zone. Obviously, we keep on saying when he needs to, he can still be one of those guys.

but he feels like he doesn't think he needs to as often as maybe he he he shouldn't he's old it doesn't move as well like he shouldn't have to be the offense and this is why Xavier worthy and reich she writes coming back together with the addition of foreign and with the addition of uh you know of hollywood brown not the addition but having him there Kelsey is just going to be a bit player right he'll just that's what he is right now he's at uh 2443 yards and two touchdowns he just he can't can't move quite the way. Maybe he's being weighed down by like his midsection a little bit. Oh, I wondered if you'd go there. Okay. Yeah. Maybe he's being weighed down by that. But otherwise, he just is older, man.

Like, that's what happens to older players. Most guys don't age gracefully. They just fall off a cliff. And I'm not saying he's falling off a cliff because he's still very productive and he still catches the ball and is in the right place. But he's not the same player. He used to be. And that's fine.

He's at that age now. But that's why last year, the start of the season, I mentioned it's 100 times so far. Rasehi Rice was the guy who got most of the targets because that's who needed to be the offense. He hasn't played over a year now. And so when he comes back, we've seen, look, the offense looked great last night.

They were not, the, the Mojom's interception was bad. We get that. But the protection is really good. Mohamed's very confident. The creative play calls, I thought last night we're back for the most part. So the offense is fine. It's just, again, they have. haven't had a lot of time this year when everything was was sinking together where the offense has been

good and the defense has been good right like the defense is bad one night the offense is good vice versa they haven't sort of synced that up together yeah i mean well the box score of this looked like a game they probably won it's just you know a 14 point swing on it on the 99 yard interception return like that to me that's that's it we could have saved a lot of time and just said yeah that shit happens sometimes and that's the end of the game. Correct. And even, and even, you know, even just tackling him, getting him down before that, you would think the chiefs can maybe get a stop, but it's just,

you know, when you intercept the ball at the one and not a lot of people would chase you down from behind. And Devin Loy can run. He sure can, man. And everyone, a few guys you tried. Ticon Thornton tried. Yeah, but that point he just tried to hit him like, you know, he just tried to like punch the ball from behind at that point. I get why he was doing. But Holmes, I saw people

were like, he made a bad tackle attempt. I don't want my quarterbacks tackling anyone. Like I'd rather just take Just take a knee Just like don't even participate in the play Don't try to tackle anybody Just let someone else do it on the field You screwed up once

Don't screw up again getting hurt But then the whole season's totally shot Yeah that's the way we want it So let's let's give a tiny bit of time To the winners who are now four and one And I couldn't have guessed that was coming Not all those wins are as important As the one we just saw

But the kid who I thought I went to Hebrew school With Liam Cohen It's great to see he's doing so well who's this guy and why is this working? Well, the thing that has been impressive about Jacksonville is their trench play. Off the defense's been much better this season. And they've always been talented on defense as it hasn't come together. And they're playing so much better on defense.

They leave the NFL on takeaways. I only had one last night, but that was a big one, obviously. But the offensive line, it's not a very talented group. They're playing well. Trevor Lawrence does some bonehead stuff. In the first quarter, he threw a ball. Gabe, when he was about a yard and a half past the line of scrimmage, like rudimentary stuff that he's completing,

I don't know what he was last night, but entering last night he was completing like 50, 59% of passes, which is, that was bad 15 years ago. You know, that play he trips, obviously. He makes a play at the end there. There were some throws are a little bit off that you would like him to complete. He was 18 to 25 for 221. It's not the best of nights.

But in the end, he made those plays where he had 10 carries for 54 yards. He scrambled well last. night. So they're just, you know, the thing about Jacksonville, though, is that when the regression comes with the turnovers, Gabe, they're not, they're going to go in like a three-game losing streak. It's going to happen at some point. And really, if it happened last night, they only forced one turnover.

That happened. The one turnover led to seven points, though, right? And really, you know, to your point, 14 points to wing. When the turnover stop happening, which is going to happen, they're going to stop happening, that's when you're going to see, I think, the defense step back a little bit. Okay. So this isn't one of those. years where we all decide we're pretending we think the Jags are contenders. It happens like once

every six hundred years. I don't even know like who a contender is right now. It's a weird NFL. It's a great point and we're going to get to each of them. But pretty much every team we were absolutely certain was good got beat in a stupid way. Let's transition then to the bills. I was certain the bills were good. And then Drake May takes him down, 2320. I got this feeling, man. I brought it up a few weeks ago and I just you tried to convince me not to worry. I'm pretty worried about the Patriots with a new coach and a new

quarterback and the ghosts of that place are still helping them. I don't like it. It's making me very uneasy that the Patriots might be kind of good. People were so excited to fire off there. I was right about direct mate takes. They were so excited after that Bill's game. I'm right.

Gabe, here's the thing with the Patriots. Their schedule is an absolute joke. they're probably a playoff team. They have, here's their schedule, ready? Saints, Titans, Browns, next three games.

A little tougher, Falcons, Bucks, then Jets, Bengals, Giants, then Bills, then whatever shell

the Ravens you have in week 15, and then the Jets and the Dolphins. I mean, that's a 10 win. You start three and two. They might lose two of those games.

That might be 10, and two or whatever. Yeah. So it's, it's just their schedule, too. Their schedule is makes it easy for them to win these games. So I don't know if they're good, though. I mean, I'm not picking them to win playoff games if they get in.

But they're looking at a while. I mean, it's so funny right now, the wild card doesn't include the Chiefs, obviously. But like playoffs right now in the AFC, cold to the one seed, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, the Chargers. And then Jacksonville, Denver, New England. Yeah, I don't like it. We're going to get to Denver. But let's not, this one I've got to say, let's spend our time on the loser of this game.

So fine, the Patriots are going to end up in the playoffs and we don't know if they're good. I don't like the sound of that. That's led to Super Bowls in the past. The nerds are talking, okay? Hank is my sort of nerd translator. He put out this tweet for me to show you. I honestly have absolutely no idea what this, any of this means.

okay Drake may out dual Josh Allen in primetime according to Andrew Callahan with a blue check and then there's a bunch of numbers EPA per play total EPA a dot CPOE I think the darker green is good and the lighter green is bat what am I looking at here Jeff is there something to worry about with Josh Allen do you really want to know or do you not care because I don't really care I know what it means I just don't care is Josh Allen still awesome or was that just a fluky game dude it's the NFL, man. Yeah. Like you, you have off nights.

Like, this is, it's a long season. It's why it's, it's why we have these takes in week one and week two and we look like fools by week five. We have takes today and then by week eight, everything looks, everything looks different. It's just, it's the way the NFL works, man. I mean, there were so many results this weekend that are unexplainable. If you were to explain the end of the Arizona game to anyone, they would think you were lying to them. I lost my last three survivors in, in the. Arizona game. If you're explain, you know, the way like the Panthers

Dolphins game went or the Broncos, there were five games yesterday where teams came back from double digits. The Panthers were 17 points. The Titans were down 15. I think the Saints were down 10 at one point. The Broncos were down 14. That's just the NFL man. And one week does not define who you are as a team and where you can be. Buffalo lost a game. They're four and one now. They're still very clearly in the driver's seat, in my opinion. Look, their next two games are Falcons Panthers. They're going to win those games. They're going to be six and one hosting Kansas City on November 2nd. Like I'm unworthy about Buffalo. Plus, they still have guys injured

on defense. When those guys come back, especially Milano, who has been a real like on-off switch for the defense. When he is there, their defense is on, when he is off the field, the defense is off. And Oliver being out, it's a big loss for them as well. So when those guys come back, I don't think either, I don't think anymore out for the season, Gabe. Team looks different. It's why the NFL is a very unique league because you can, you know, team in week five will maybe look much different in week 17. I got to ask you. Milano cookies.

Very underrated, right? You're fine. Really? That's it. Fine to Milano's? How about Milano versus Oreo and a heads up? What do you take? There's no milk around.

It's just the cookie. Nothing to drink with it. Oh, man. Maybe a Milano. That means that an Oreo is worse than fine in your book? Maybe. I'm not sweet tooth, though. So this is really,

but as far as packaged cookie goes, what are you going with ahead of those? I eat more Oreys than Milano only because we don't have Milano's at the house. I know, and I'm saying I think it's probably most people should think about Milano's a little more. often. They should think about rebranding their packaging, that little stack with the tin like

they get tightened on it. I don't like that. This reminds me, by the way, that we are getting into our dog takes at the end of the show. I forgot to mention at the top. We have dog takes. I want to do my dog take. You're welcome to join or not, since we're talking about things that don't have to do with football at the moment. Yeah, I think Milano. I was on with Dave yesterday, and he, good food question. If you had to only have one, the rest of you, your life. Were you taking a tomato or a potato? Oh, potato. I said potato too, okay? That's not hard. But then the thing is tomatoes are used in so many things. Sources. Sources. Like barbecue sauce. Now, I can do with, I'm okay, I don't need to have marinera sauce. I can make other sauces that

don't include tomatoes, but like pizza sauce. No, pizza's F you know barbecue sauce, right? Tomato-based barbecue sauce. Yeah, I think of the same that would potatoes immediately. But, like, but, you know, pizza sauce. But I think Dave's right. I think tomato is the answer. Yeah, I could live without French fries. Yeah, I guess. I probably couldn't. I'm reversing it.

Oh, perfect segue. I'll get us back to football. If you ask me that question again, I might give the opposite answer. So that tells me, after the commander's win and Jaden Daniels return, you know what time it is. Time to redraft the 2024 quarterback class. Last week, we had Jaden Daniels, Caleb Williams, Bo Nix, May, Pennix. J.J. Rattler. Give it to me this week. It changes

every week. Um, yeah, I mean, Daniels, I mean, Williams didn't play, so probably... Hmm. Got to think about that.

Where's Bo Nix now? We're not... We're not... You know what? We're not, you know what? I'm not going to be reactionary. I'm going to keep my list as is for right now. Daniels, Williams, Nick's...

May doesn't move up? Nix doesn't move up. Williams didn't play. I don't know what... would happen why I would knock down Williams at all for not playing this week. Those other guys played great. Bo Nix was fine. He didn't play great for three quarters.

They scored three points through three quarters. I'm sorry, didn't you play great in the fourth quarter? Played better, but doesn't like the whole game kept? That's the kind of stuff that moves you up the rankings, Jeff. Do you not get how weekly rankings work? So, oh, dude's based off of only off of last week's performance. So, Daniels. Redraft, man.

You got a new in. So Daniel, it would be, based off of last week, it would be Daniels, May, Nix Williams. Oh, Jeff Schwartz absolutely decimated Caleb Williams in his take this week. Oh, did you hear that? Clip it. That, that's a good, that's a good social clip. Put that out there, please. Yeah, the Broncos scored 18 points in fourth quarter. Nix was almost 2439 for 242. I mean, fine. but they were scrambled mode at the end there.

I can't believe Philly lost. Philly's got some problems on offense. It's just not a good offense for the moment. They should have lost the box game and they lose this game and they do have some problems on offense. My Broncos friend is very high on Nix, really believes he's got a rocket for an arm and can do this. I am not convinced.

You got to watch him a lot as a young man. So fine. Jaden's going to stay there. Caleb, we're not talking. You would say Knicks is good enough to get them to the postseason but not good enough to win a couple rounds, right? Yes.

Like when he runs into a serious team or serious quarterback. I just don't think, I just think a lot, like thinking about the quarterbacks that make it to the postseason. I mean, I don't think Bonix is better than any of them that go to the Super Bowl. You have to have a little, can you win smoking mirrors,

a couple playoff wins? Absolutely. but if they don't win the division has to be on the road and he's going to have to win three road playoff games, I don't buy that. Okay. On the other side,

we do seem to buy Jaden Daniels as a guy good enough he might make to the champ game and he looked good yesterday. What I was most interested in was the commander's offensive line, the run game was really working. You could just say that's Bill,

but I don't think you're going to tell me that. I think you're going to tell me something about some zone scheme or some special run. No, I just thought, I just thought that, I just thought the commanders, you know, came out a little flat with Daniels coming back off injury, and then something clicked at the end of the first half,

and then halftime, they just supercharged their offense. And part of it was the Chargers just can't move the ball right now. Justin Herbert is on pace to be hit more than Andrew Luck through the first 16th of his career. It's a problem right now for the Chargers. And once the commander could feel that energy, you know, they're got 10-0.

I'll score him, you know, 27 points at the end. So I just thought they finally, they sort of found a rhythm with Daniels, Gabe. They didn't really have it earned this season. He gets hurt, and they started getting that rhythm going. And when that happened, the charters didn't have enough to keep up. So, I mean, with Alt and the ankle and, like, what's this guy, Pipkins? That's kind of what we're working with.

Like, are we, is the line just, yeah. So, I mean, it's my team, supposedly. But are we, are we teetering on the edge of putting them on the band list? It's just maybe not working on. No, they're not banned. They're not banned. Well, Ryan Hampton is on the IR. Yeah.

They get to Colomax already been out. Like every star player on that team is going down. The injuries are a problem. It's just, the injuries are, it feels like the curse. Like, that's just not,

it's not good. I did see, though, that I think Madison, Behrin and, your boy Herbert, like, made official on the sidelines.

They were, like, before the game. They were being together. Like, she was officially there, like, on the sidelines, you know,

like before the game. I thought you meant they got married on the sidelines. No, that's a big, it's a big step in the, in the WAG relationship. I wonder how long before she records a song that gives us some hints about how much he's packing. Probably soon.

I don't think I've heard one of her songs before, though. That's kind of an indictment on him, right? If we haven't heard how big his stuff is, then maybe it ain't that big, right? I mean, maybe they're waiting for marriage. You don't know. One of the great advantages of our people, Jeff. We don't have to do that. Fair enough.

I the Taylor Swift thing I didn't have any of her new stuff My wife somehow Like listens to all I've heard of all the songs She has like a favorite already I don't know when she makes time

To listen to a Taylor Swift album But she has favorites already From the new album Yeah I don't know how that happened either Why don't we take a break Regroup to think about our Taylor Swift takes Which so far have been dumb But we have the bucks

We have the Eagles We got a few other teams That we need to get to And then we'll do the one word plus a little game and hit some college. A lot of college ball. We usually don't save enough time. I think we got to save some time for college this week.

Let's do that. All right, Gabe. We're back from break. Let's get some more NFL. We can fire through this to get to some college. Okay. Baker Mayfield. Like, you don't ever seem to want to just engage with the fact that somehow this guy has

some mystical powers and he just wins, man. He's got that Tebow thing. I don't know how to explain it. But he's infinitely better than Tim Tebow. Comparing them is a slap in the face to Baker Mayfield. Okay, but why did all you know it all crap all over him for so many years? He's obviously got it. He wasn't good back then.

What? If I had known he'd played this well when he was with the Browns, I wouldn't have said anything, but he was not good with Cleveland. There's no way he wasn't good. Can I give you an example of where we in the media screw things up? Yes, that's weird. I'm going to give you a take right here on the fly. I haven't thought about this, except I know it's right.

A few years ago, if I was about to set up the sound, I'm going to play for you right now. Witt would have been like dramatic music. We would have had some awful lower third graphic talking about how much of a distraction he is and how he hasn't earned the right to do this. And right now, I'm here to tell you, this is like my favorite thing about Baker and this is why this guy's an MVP contender. Can we play the sound of him pregame barking back at some Seahawks fan? fucking quiet a half-down. Yeah,

get ready. Get ready. You're not getting on the brown. Yeah, you're not going to do it. Yeah, you're not doing. All right, Gabe. Yeah. Look, a couple things here.

You were right. Five years ago when he sucked on the Browns, we would have mocked him for this. But now he doesn't suck anymore. And the leeway you get, when you don't suck, because you can have moments like this. And we can say, good for you, man.

Like, those are the rules. I don't make the rules. That's what they are, right? When you're good, you can get away with cussing out of fan, telling him to go F himself, and he sucks, and come back and give him two middle fingers

because you win the game. If you lose the game, we probably look at you a little differently. But the fact is, Tanbae is playing well. Baker's playing well. Now, Tama, to be fair, is sort of they're due for a couple losses

the way that these games have ended for them. Nonetheless, that they've won these games anyways. But you can get away with these things when you're good. If this is, you know, who's a bad quarterback? Russell Wilson is doing this before a game and goes out and stinks, Gabe. We're probably going to mock Russell Wilson for it. Yeah, Russell Wilson probably has never used those words.

Probably not. Mr. Unlimited. Yeah. Fine. Then help me out here. Should we consider putting a little on Baker for MVP is now the time? No. No.

The time would have been like three weeks ago when the better number was at. But nonetheless, look, the MVP, Gabe has been the quarterback of the team. team with the best record. Like, that's, that's what it is, or second best record. And as of right now, unless, I mean, look, Tampa is going to finish 13 and 4. Yeah, Baker's the guy. But right now, he's not going to finish 13 and 4, I don't think. And you miss the best number.

And you just wait. Like, these numbers, man, is 11 to 1 right now this morning on draft Kings. You could probably get a better number after a loss this season. Like, there's plenty of time to wager on this. You have to find the right time to do so. All right. that I'm going to propose somebody who it might be the right time to do so with, and we're going to get into our one word sort of game.

Matt Stafford, plus 1,200. Matt Stafford, very likely, is going to help a wide receiver reset the single season receiving yards record for the third time. He did it with Kelvin. He did it with Cooper. He might do it with Puka. Matt Stafford is just a machine, dude. and whatever happened in that airstream this preseason, it's working.

Yeah. So here's my take on the awards markets. I was not talking to someone last night about this. We're talking about, you went out, have a nice night out, and this is what you talked about? No, no, we're on text message.

I am very bad in these markets, game. I win zero of these wagers. I win zero. If I bet on your player to win MVP or offensive player of the year, offense rookie of the year, like you're just going to lose. It's just going to lose.

So I feel like I'm a terrible person to give you advice on what to do here. Like, for example, I have a great John Materer ticket for Oklahoma, like an awesome ticket. Great price. Heard himself knocking him into the Heisman. Like, it's just, that's my luck with all these wagers. I'm a very bad at future award wagers. So if I tell you not to bet on Baker Mayfield, you might actually take the opposite of my advice and bet on him.

I'm bad at this market. Okay. Then the only way to talk about this one team who's been on the ban list for years is to talk about this MVP market again. I said, what about jumping on Jonathan Taylor? He scored three touchdowns this weekend. I'm not saying I made anyone money yet, but it's feeling like I might have helped people a little if they got in early. Do we think he's for real? Do we think the team he plays for that I'm not going to say is for real? When they keep winning game, and they got the Cardinals this weekend, they're going to smoke the Cardinals this weekend. Taylor's, look, the two running back

MVP's in this century essentially, right? Have had record breaking seasons, right? Asia Peterson, nine yards short of the Russian record. Lillian Tomlinson had, I think, the most touchdowns in a season as a running back, and then I think the year Sean Alexander won, we had 2,000 yards.

I mean, if John Taylor does those things, he could certainly win the MVP, the problem is those are very unlikely things to happen. So I'm offensive player of the year for Jonathan Taylor certainly a better wager. Yeah. Then Puka Nakuwa with my boy Matt Stafford slinging it. Then there's a problem. He's got Jonathan Taylor's a slightly better value, I guess, if you think they're even. But neither one of those guys is easy right now.

No. Again, like these markets are low. I mean, Puka Nakuwa, what, this morning is two and a half to one? Taylor's 3 to 1 for offensive player of the year. Um, it, you know, again, like it's, those are, if you think it's going to win, fine, but with a lot of these, these records, these wagers, man, you can wait a couple weeks and get a maybe a better number depending on winning and losing. That's that simple.

You know why that is, Jeff? Because every week, multiple star players go down with serious injuries in this league. Yeah, it's not good. It's very strange. Is there a trend? Is there something to talk about here? I truly, as a fantasy player, the waiver wire has never been hotter in my league than it has been the first few weeks of this season. What's going on? Well, the issue is what I continue to think the

issue is the lack of practice. I mean, people will tell me I'm wrong. They'll tell me that the data shows otherwise, but injuries keep piling up, man. And we practice less and less and less. It sucks. I mean, you know, some of them are just blunt trauma injuries like the Territi injury. I mean, that's just football, right? Some of the ankle rolls and knee injuries are just football, but it does feel like the players are not as prepared to get the contact they used to get, Gabe. And I will say this too. Players are so much, they're in better shape, though, which is kind of funny.

They're just in better physical condition than they were for years, but they don't do as much football anymore. And, you know, guys are bigger, faster, stronger. You're going to have bad injuries. But injuries are, it's just killing, man. It's not fun every week to look at the injury point and see how many guys are out. All right. then this will be a brief segue to college.

We got a fun matchup. The quarterback matchup we're looking for and also a homecoming game. Caleb goes to D.C. next Monday night. That'll be exciting to talk about, right? Do I have that right? I think I have that right on the 13th. Must win game for both teams. I feel like they both could be contenders if they win,

or at least the commanders could be. They both feel like they're done with a loss to me. Maybe I'm wrong. What do you think about those two young guys after a Monday night football matchup? Well, first place you're a take on that. Not second take.

We're first take here. Must win is probably Chicago off a buy, right? If you want to be considered the team that you think you can be, you have to be the good commanders team off a buy. I mean, so far you've been the Cowboys and the Raiders who stink. Commanders at home, it's actually in Washington. You lost last year in the head. Hail Mary as we know.

So I think it's more of a must-win for the Bears here. I did see, noticed you glossed over the Jets being the worst team ever is one of your, one of your takes today. Oh, yes. Yes, I did gloss over that. I was trying to save us some time, but please, slow us down to talk about the fucking Jets. No, here's

here's the thing. I tweet about Aaron Glenn this week and people were angry, of course. How dare you hold, you know, just the normal stuff you get when you tweet about about coaches. Here's a thing game. So when you have a coach who has a side of the ball, right,

then off of the defensive guy, the first and foremost, in my opinion, is a head coach. That side of the ball has to be good, all right? The just defense is absolute hot garbage. And they have good football players, and they've got no better, right? They haven't forced to take away yet the entire season, their own five. So that right there is not a good indictment of Aaron Glenn.

Just not, right? Like if you do a side of the ball, I want that side to be getting better. I, look, we mentioned Liam Cohen earlier. Jackson and Jaguar's offense has gotten better this season. Ben Johnson, the defense, I mean, offense has gotten better this season, right? Like, you want to see that improvement. You know, I think if you look even the Saints, like they're just sort of getting incrementing better on offense every weekend with Kelmore, even they have no personnel there.

You want to see these incremental improvements. Instead, the Jets are getting worse on defense every week. You got, look at Rayball. Like the Patriot is getting better sort of feels like every week. week. The Jets are getting freaking worse, man. Their penalties are just, it is endless amount of mistakes on this team, endless amount of mistakes. And people say, well, he's like Dan Campbell, he'll stink early on and then it'd be good. I'm like, I just don't see it. You know, like I don't see, again, my point continues. You should be getting incrementally better every

week as you're a new coach. You're going to have bad weeks, you're going to have down weeks. But everyone I just mentioned, their team is slightly better now than they were to start the season, the Jets who are now worse, in my opinion, than they were to start the season game. And that to me is a problem, right? And so they probably give them a year two. I get it. They need a quarterback. But I just don't like the way this team is playing right now.

Yeah, I mean, you're completely disobeying the band topic list that we agreed to. And by the way, as I scan it, we've really ignored it for many topics today. We talked about the team in Indy. We talked about the quarterback in Jackson's. Yeah. I mean, here we are talking about the team in Green in New Jersey. I don't like it. And I think we should stop talking about them and talk about college football instead.

Okay, we can do that. So video viewers don't go anywhere. Listening, we'll be right back. All right. We're back, Gabe. As usual, college football storylines, I think, are much better than the NFL. Like, it is just the amount of stuff every week, man. It is just endless amount of topics, discourse, discusses.

Let's get into college football. Yeah, well, the craziest thing, especially for you and I to notice this weekend was UCLA taking out Penn State. I did not see that coming. No one did. Well, I mean, they'd have two in a row for Penn State. So there's a couple ways to take this. I'll go the most obvious way. James Franklin's in some serious trouble here because it's bad when you lose those top five, top ten matchups, and he does that all the time.

It's inexcusable when you lose to UCLA. So what are we doing here? So UCLA had a blueout. Do you know that? Everyone was supposed to wear blue, which is just incredible. So they blew to themselves? Tim Skipper, their interim head coach now has one winning against the top 10 team, the same amount as James Franklin does.

Tim Skipper's coached two games as interim head coach. James Franklin's obviously coached a lot more. Gabe, the thing about this game, so UCLA, I don't think is actually any good still. I don't think that's the case. The thing about Franklin and why you sort of put up with the losing against the teams they should lose to is that they always won these games

often buy a large amount of points, right? When they have been in favor between 7 and 24 points, I know it was a little bit outside of 24 points. James Franklin has covered like 90% of those games. He has done a great job of winning the games he should, often by a lot, which might overflight how his teams are. They lose the games that he should lose. And that's sort of where they're, it's why they're 10 and 2 every year, right?

11 and 1 every year. That's the formula. that we've seen with Penn State over the years. And now this is the first time we have seen it the other direction, where you lose the game, you shouldn't lose. In really embarrassing, it wasn't like this game was 24, 21, back and forth. The Bruins were six for six in the red zone. Nico rushed for like 150 yards.

Every third down, he rushed the ball, no adjustments made whatsoever. And Penn State looked completely lifeless for most of that game. There was a little bit of time where they blocked the point, the game got pretty close, and the Bruins came down right down to march down for another touchdown. And even more embarrassing was, you know, UCLA, Jerry New Heissel's son, who longtime coach, Colorado, UCLA, Washington, Jerry Neuizzo was the first time to call plays ever, interim play caller. He admitted after the game, he forgot the button to press sometimes to call the play in or his headset was flipped up because he's a position coach normally,

but he had to flip it down, hit the right, but like, Like, you lose to a team that couldn't get play calls in on time, essentially. Like, it was very embarrassing all around. And I go back to this with Penn State. Like, I get it. The film watcher said, Jurala, the quarterback, played well. I mean, I, you know, fine. But I think you take your cue off your quarterback, Gabe, on any team.

And I just don't think he's got that juice, man. I don't think he's that dude. And, you know, they call. an offense that they don't even believe the way they call their offense that he's their guy and he's a good football player but he doesn't have that like umph to like carry the team

I think when they're having these down moments and I think we saw part of that this Saturday at the Rose Bowl I mean in an all time loss for Penn State all time loss yeah I had two thoughts to make it about us when I saw the score one was I guess the ducks beating them didn't mean as

much as we thought it did that was for you And for me, I quickly googled Brian Daibald Penn State to see if there might be any connection there so I could revise my take. Because Daibald's still getting axed, but now I think Franklin's out before DeBoer. Well, so the thing about Franklin, though, is that this has to be a mutual parting.

Like the buyout's too big. Like, they're gonna have, I think you have to see hand to say, like, we're done, right? Like, we've done our part here. No more we can do. I think the dumbest thing ever is to think this affects the Oregon Penn State game. So if you would like to do,

that be my guest bet indiana this weekend everyone's doing it gay bet indiana number open 10 this weekend maybe 12 and a half at one place down to seven now i i i would bet i would bet i would bet in indiana don't try i wouldn't trust organ you know did because penn state lost i wouldn't trust them being sarcastic everyone be careful don't do what you just said organ's just organ is just not as good anymore we just clearly not as good anymore because penn state lost ucla this is obviously sarcasm be very careful no no just i i would bet indiana you have to do it we When Oregon beats Penn State, but then Penn State loses, that affects Oregon a lot, really.

Like, Oregon's just not as good anymore. That's my clear takeaway. I don't think, again, you're pretending that you don't understand how we do rankings in this business. That's exactly the logic we use. You did this earlier with my quarterback redraft. Now you're pretending that that kind of nonsense isn't how we make our decisions in college football rankings.

That's just how we use. Clearly, like, you know, people are wagering on the game thinking that this is the reason why. I'm just letting people know that that's the way the line is moving right now. Okay, good. Look, Hank put in some goofy crap here next to talk about Bill Belichick and how awful he's looked and how much he's tarnishing his legacy and comparing it to all other kinds of other people who in their final act had a terrible time.

I'm sorry, he's doing that to filibuster, so we don't have time to talk about the real topic we need to discuss. Archmanning. What is happening with Archman? Do we need to have Glenn Powell dress up in a funny costume and take over at quarterback for Texas? What is happening with this? Okay, what is the Glenn Powell thing? Like what they're doing a show, right?

Yeah, man, come on. I just saw. That is being marketed to you nonstop? No, no, no, I saw, I saw something on Instagram about it. Mm-hmm. But I, but then I saw the picture where he is in an organ uniform. Oh, I didn't see that. Maybe the plot twist.

Like, because Kristen's doing it, right? For Omaha, and I saw, I was talking her about it. Like, his Omaha's producing it, right? And, like, I said, like, I said, why is he an organ uniform? And she just said, tune in to find out. You couldn't even give me, like, an explanation. Come on, give me an explanation. Why is your organ uniform?

Text message with a friend is a promotion of the show. That's sort of perfect summary. You cannot go anywhere in your life without getting something from them promoted to you. I'm like, cool. I want to watch the show. I will. But I, uh, look. I know that Texas people will blame the offensive line and all this other stuff.

And it's certainly true. The offense line's not great this year. But the fact is Arch is just not as good as we thought he was going to be. It's that simple game. And that's fine. There's been a lot of whiffs this season. A lot of whiffs. Clemson, right?

Was a big whiff for a lot of people. Texas, big whiff for a lot of people. That happens, Gabe. Penn State, right? He's talking about Penn State. And Arch is not as a big whip. good. And he's good. Maybe the offensive line is good, but that doesn't mean you're

that type of quarterback that's really going to be a game changer. So I would say that that's as simple as it can be. Okay. Let me make it even simpler then. I think you might be letting the coach off the hook. Coach made these decisions. I did not like Sark's answer or comment after the game where he said

something like, you make someone play at Ohio State and at Florida and tell me their record. I mean, coach, that's your schedule, buddy. What do you want me to tell you? Do you want me to put, sorry, sorry you're playing the SEC. Sorry you scheduled Ohio State. The fact is South Florida would be one-on-one in that situation because they already beat Florida at Florida. And you're O and two.

So like, like take a deep breath, buddy. I don't like, I just don't like coaches. I understand, so, look at this, I understand coaches who complain about the travel stuff. Like, they didn't sign up, like Penn State did not sign up to travel to UCLA. That's not what James Franklin signed up for, right? I understand if Lincoln Riley doesn't like to travel from West Coast to East Coast. I get it. Like the coaches did not, when they're at their school and their school changed conferences,

they did not, they had nothing to do with that, right? I get the frustration of coaches saying, hey, man, a lot of travel. It's hard to travel, but you know, you should suck it up and do it. I don't like the excuses that some of these coaches make like Sarkley. Just own it, man. Like just you have to own it sometimes. Just say he's not playing very well. we're not playing very well.

We have to get better. So some of the excuses I get coaches make, some I don't. This is one where I don't. Like this is because Ford already lost at home this year. You can't make this excuse. Yeah, well, Sark's quite good at being defensive and trying to put other people on their heels

when it's his problem. He did it about Arch when people were questioning him week two. He got all uppity about that. Now he's complaining about a schedule. Look at his track record. He's got lots of excuses for coming up. up short with teams that were supposed to be really, really good. So I don't know.

I think we might need to just focus a little bit of that time on him instead of Arch from time to time. Speaking of traveling, Michigan comes to USC this weekend. Give me a play here. You know who I'm rooting for, but what's the smarter bet? Because I saw USC was a favorite by less than a field goal. I don't know where it is right now at this second. It's still two and a half. Two and a half, okay.

My best bet this week on every show I do will be Michigan. And here's the reason why, Gabe, as a longtime USC fan, you should have an answer for me here. When is the last time USC beat a team that can push them around the trenches? They beat Wisconsin last year. Constant won like three games last season.

You asked it very much. any specific question or I answered it. And I'm all the credit for actually getting the answer right. That's the wrong answer is the right answer is probably like the 2016 Rose Bowl against Penn State. It's probably the right answer. That's the problem, Gabe, is like when is USC shown? They lost in Michigan last year and Michigan's offense couldn't pass the football.

This year they can actually pass the football. Now, Bryce Underwood is not the most accomplished passer, but dude got it can't. And he remember, he's already played two big road games. Like playing in the Coliseum with 25,000 Michigan fans is not going to feel like anything for him. And USC, just the same thing, man. Like, are they going to get pushed around? I'm going to pull up their numbers right now

since I have my screen up right here with my college stuff. Right now USC is rushing success rate on defense, 89th in the country. Not great. Not great against Michigan. Who's going to try to ram the ball down your throat? Third down defense. Not good for you.

USC. Like, it just feels like a bad time for them in trying to stop Michigan's offense. Now, they'll probably score some points because USC's offense is off a buy and don't have some fun things drawn up. But I just don't buy them as a physically talented enough group to beat this Michigan team who's just going to try to bludgeon them to death. Okay. I could argue that we might look up in a few weeks and see a loss that could have been a win

at Champaign. and then a home win against Michigan, and maybe they could beat Notre Dame. And then we look up, and then they get a couple easy big 10 games. And you look up and you're like, oh, wait a second. No, they're pretty good. That could happen.

So, you know, we can text each other Saturday night. It could happen, but I think it's more likely Michigan's a playoff team than USC is. Yeah, I'll admit that's probably true. All right, real quick, we don't have these in a rundown, but I just do want to get a quick take from you. Ohio State at Illinois. So I would take I would, I would, 14.5, I think right now, I would lay it with Ohio State,

which is like not a great wager normally. But I think Ohio State's going to pound Illinois. Okay. And then Bama not favored by much. Yeah. At Missouri. And Missouri hasn't played any game. I get the record is good.

But they have. Yeah. Pretty fun game. I haven't dug into this one completely yet. All I know is Missouri, do they can run. rush, their running back is so good. This will be a fun game, right? Bama's been hot. Missouri's off a buy.

It's at home. Like, everything is set up for them to upset. I guess it wouldn't be that big of an upset, but can Michigan, basically can Alabama, can they stop the run? Can they stop Missouri? Missouri's running back right now. He's a transfer kid. Hardy.

Amad Hardy. He's averaging seven yards of rush so far this season. Has 730 yards in five games, Gabe. And again, it's Central Arkansas, Kansas, Lafayette, South Carolina, in Massachusetts. It's not the murderer's row here, but that'll be a lot of fun to watch Bama. Then that's an early game, right? I got to flag football.

I don't even if I watch that game. That's a New Eastern game, right? I think, this weekend. That sounds right. Look, you're going to give real full takes on all these games, I hope, with Matt. Can I just one last one for you? So Mature was suddenly on my. radar and I was getting excited.

I watched them play a bit. I was like, man, this team's better than people realize. You mentioned the injury. We don't know what his status will be for the Texas game. The line says he's not playing. Yeah, I mean, the number looks like don't expect him to play. With him, they're the favorite. Without him, Texas is a bit

of a favorite. But what do we think about him long term? I just, I don't know enough about the injury. So I think what you do is, you just, he sits this week. You let him sit. I think you actually let him sit against South Carolina. If you win this weekend, he sits next week against South Carolina. You bring him back in its Old Miss.

I mean, their schedule is brutal. It's at the end of season, it's Old Miss Tennessee, Bama, Missouri, LSU. I gave up Mateer as a Heisman. I love Mathier as a player. Oklahoma's got to find a way to run the football without John Mateer as the lead option. That's a problem this weekend against Texas. Can they run the football against the Longhorns is a big question mark. We saw, I was a little disappointed.

And to be fair, I wasn't even disappointed Archlaus. It was disappointed in Texas defense to allow Florida scores many points they think. It's during Florida has really been anemic on offense this season. So we'll see this one goes. It should be fun. Good weekend of a football. We got games spread out from noon until nighttime. My wife, game, is on the board at a senior center.

And she said the other day, I don't know, a couple weeks ago, hey, I volunteered you for something on the 11th. I said, you did what? She goes, yeah, yeah, there's a tea. And I volunteered you to serve tea to the old ladies at the senior center. They're going to love you. And like, if you can wear a suit and dress up

and I was like, what time? She goes, I don't know, like four. I was like, how about no? Organs playing at 3.30? And she's like, well, then you can set up chairs. I'm like, great, I'll do chairs at noon. Sounds good. I'll take my daughter in her softball game.

I'll go to the senior center, do chairs and then go to my son's for a football game, then be home at 3.30 to watch Indiana. Yesterday I was like, am I still doing it? She goes, no, you're off the hook. I was like, thank you. So I, like, here's what I think, Gabe. I don't do very much in life.

I mostly am a homebody. I can travel with the kids. I do kids stuff. Go up my wife on vacation off season. I just want to watch my teams play football. That's all I ask in life. 12 Saturdays a year. I want to watch Oregon play football.

I think that's not too much to ask in life. I agree, Jeff. And while you're telling you, me this, I'm realizing something. I hope this is instructive for any younger men or women, but younger men watching this show or listening to this show. My Saturday is exactly the same as yours, Jeff. I am taking kids to Little League, you know, sports, and then I was signed up. No, no sign off from me, but I was signed up to volunteer at something called spooky Saturday, right at the time when I would be pre-gaming for this Michigan USC game.

I was just told that's what I'm doing. I'm doing a one hour shift when I should absolutely be doing something else. And so fellas out there, Jeff and I are, you know, pretty independent guys, fairly successful guys. You'd think we'd be able to have a little bit more say in our own lives. No. We don't. No. I'm also doing something in two Saturdays for my son's school, like a fall fest.

And my wife went away. Luckily, I think Oregon plays like Maryland that day, Wisconsin. It'll be a night game. It's not going to be a day game. I think I should be fine. But she goes like, I need you to put on your best face, okay? I need you to put in the Jeff Schwartz-Smoo's face. I need you to dress nice.

I need to shake everyone's hand. I need to put your phone away and not watch football. I need you to, like, be on your best performance. I said, you, it's like, you got a boss. I-I-I boss. So in two weekends, I have a thing at my kids' school. The thing about private school, Gabe, it's a lot of money and they called me yesterday for more money but nonetheless um there's a lot of

shit buddy like there's a lot of events a lot of activities to do like it is an overwhelming amount of stuff to do and and in private school like it is a call like there's a it's a lot it's a lot it's a lot to put like that shout out public school mhs class of 2000 25 year reunion in the bag baby oh are you okay we know i don't have much time for this we don't have much time for we don't We can skip the dog take very quickly, very quickly. Oh, no. God, really? Are we doing this?

I'm anti-reunion. I think they're dumb and foolish, and we have social media to follow everyone. Are you, you're a reunion guy? Like, you went back to the reunion? Yeah, but look, I'm getting updates in my ear. We got to go. We got to go, because I'm afraid this is going to get off the rails or you're going to start talking about dogs.

The audience came here to get smarter on football. I'm skipping the dog takes for next week. Just leash your dogs. I loved my high school reunion. Yes, it was awesome. Wow. I was also a loser. So I had no friends.

I still don't have any friends in high school. So that's probably why I don't like it. Big Jack, star guy. Yeah, that was not tolerated at the school. People were, people were jealous that I like got to go, you know, to maybe go to Stanford because I played sports. Not a school to embrace the athletes, Gabe.

So I would never in a million years go to my reunion. I get the emails, like 20-year reunion. I'm like, no, no chance. Not going to happen. All right, everyone. We'll talk to you next week with Gabe. We're back on Thursday with Matt. We went three and two somehow.

I don't know how it happened, but we had a winning week. So we back a couple days. Take care, everyone. Bye.