Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - Jalen Hurts Concerns, Bo Nix Paradox, & Dante Moore Hit Controversies

Episode Date: September 29, 2026

Join Geoff and Mitch Schwartz as they break down an absolute week of NFL chaos, starting with the Chicago Bears’ dominant Monday Night Football beatdown of the Philadelphia Eagles and Case Keenum stepping up big. The guys dive deep into what’s going wrong with Jalen Hurts and the Eagles' offense, Ben Johnson’s continued coaching brilliance, and whether Jim Harbaugh and the winless Chargers are hitting the panic button. They also examine Drake May’s regression with the Patriots, the confusing roller-coaster play of Bo Nix in Denver, and CJ Stroud’s rough start in Houston. Later, they dissect the Raiders' 3-0 start ahead of their massive divisional matchup against the Chiefs. Finally, they wrap up with college football talk—including the controversial Dante Moore hit in Oregon's win over USC—and share hilarious stories from Mitch’s weekend with former Cleveland Browns offensive linemates. #NFL #Podcast

It is Tuesday, September 29th. I am Jeff Schwartz. That is Mitch Schwartz. This is the Schwartz football show. We're here to talk about the National Football League and a little college flare at the end. It was a Sunday, Mitch, and a Monday that is what the league is known for. Absolute madness, absolute chaos, touchdown favorites, losing outright by multiple scores.

Someone on Thursday night, the Browns are Steelers, is going to 3-1. Someone has, I guess not technically. They can go 2-1-1-1. but someone's going three and one between the Browns and Steelers. And wow, man, it does feel like this show is going to be a lot of negative today because there's a lot of talk about with these bad football teams. I mean, like the Bills and Chiefs are 3-0, the Raiders are 3-0. We'll find out more about the Raiders this weekend.

Then there's a bunch of 0-3 teams that have no reason to be 0-3. So let's start with Monday night and the Bears beating the Eagles in really a slaughter, 27 to 7 with Case Keenum as the quarterback for the Bears. What are your takeaways from this beat down that Chicago gave Philly? Well, your preseason Philly take is turning out pretty good, much the opposite of my preseason Houston. Oh, same. Oh, dude, I loved Houston. I loved them.

We'll talk about Houston a little bit. I loved them, too. They have betrayed me, Mitch. Yeah, Philly's obviously not looking so great. It's just, I think they want to take this offense into the new style of the NFL, which is not necessarily to rely on a quarterback to run a zone-reed system. especially as he's getting a little bit slower and a little bit less effective. And as quarterbacks age out, you don't want to have them run in, you know, five to eight read plays per game where they're exposing themselves to hits.

And again, Jalen's more kind of a straight line guy, not really a juke guy. So Lamar can kind of make that work because he can avoid contact. Jalen's not quite like that. So, yeah, it's frustrating. And then the flip side is you didn't really see like the Eagles pass rush do much. Like that's one area that you just kept waiting for. for them to make Keenham knew off the spot or get to him or whatever. I know he was getting rid of it really quick,

but I was surprised that the Eagles defensive front also wasn't able to do much positive. So it just feels like a bit of a disaster. Now, what, two years ago, I was saying to blow the whole thing up and fire Seriani, and then they went and won a bunch of games in a row and I think won the Super Bowl that year. So I'm not really ready to fully write them off yet, but I think this is pretty low for even, you know, expectations. So Philly's offense is 2025.

Okay, so that includes obviously the last season plus the three games this year. 60 drives ending in three and out tied for 30th in the NFL. Three and out rates is last in the NFL. They have 80 drives with no first down. It feels like it's sort of the same stats over and over again. But 7.7 yards to go. I feel like it's sort of the same status. Maybe they just go for a bunch of four downs.

I don't know. Second play turnovers. So 7.7 yards to go on third down, 31st of the NFL. So that means first second down, you're obviously not good at. Also the exact situation that historically, like that's Jalen's downside, quote unquote, right,

is like the traditional pocket passing. So you don't want to be putting him into situations where he has to throw the ball on 3rd and 8 plus. And I thought last night, too, they were running the ball really well in the first half. They came out of the second half, decided to pass the football. I didn't understand that from the Eagles last night.

And look, it's sort of the Herbert discussion, and Hertz has played better than Herbert in a lot of big games. So it's kind of not fair to compare them. But like Herbert's had a lot of different coaches. Hertz had a lot of different coaches. At some point, it's just the quarterback, right? Like at some point, it has to be the quarterback. Again, Hertz has won a Super Bowl.

He's played it on the other Super Bowl he lost. So it's not really a fair comparison. But we were talking about Herbert a couple weeks ago, like, you know, how much blame goes on Herbert, right? How much point goes on hurts, Mitch, for the Eagles offense? At some point, it is the quarterback's fault. It's not all his fault. The offense line's gone a little bit worse.

They got older and some injuries have happened. Sequin just isn't as explosive he was, I think, two years ago. It's a little minuscule difference. It's not as the same guy when he was hurt for 2,000 yards. You know, the back of running backs were gain well, who had a little bit of an unfe. They don't really have quite that same oomph. They have no tight end, which kills this offense, which kills really any offense, honestly. No tight end to count on.

And so, I think those are all the things, but what is this on Hertz? How much is this on Hertz? Oh, it's a lot on him. The Herbert thing is interesting because I feel like for forever, they were actually opposites. Like, Jalen was getting bolstered by his O-line being perfect and great play calling and two awesome, you know, talents at wide receiver and tight ends historically have been pretty good in Philly. And the running back position, even before Sequin was still, you know, solid enough.

And then all of a sudden, like, those things start to wither away and guys get hired and now it's more on him and it looks ugly. In the past couple years, the stories have been, you know, the disconnect with AJ Brown, hurts his input on the offense and wanting to run things a certain way. Like, what he brought to the table in terms of the running game is incredibly valuable and was more, you know, three or four years ago, to be fair. But that is a skill set he possesses, however you want to, you know, kind of attribute that. some people don't want to give quarterbacks like full credit for just being more athletic than other quarterbacks. But that is part of the skill set that makes him a valuable quarterback. Now, again, the opposite of Herbert, as things around him have crumbled, you know, his play has gotten worse and worse. And the thing is that we haven't heard about Herbert are he wants, you know, X in the offense, or he wants this element, or he's unwilling to go under center, or he won't throw over the middle.

Like, you don't really hear that about Herbert. we can go down different tangents here of what that actually means, how guys get reported on differently. But yeah, I would say this is a lot on Jalen because it feels like they had been set up for success for so long. And he was the one holding them back. And then I think most people would admit he played above his or our view of his true talent level in those NFC championship games and the two Super Bowls. So he did perform at his best in the brightest stage, which is what we want of our quarterbacks and our superstars. but the rest of it felt underachieving,

given everything else around him. Now that, again, the around him isn't as good, everything's kind of falling apart, and they're moving towards this offense that's supposed to be easier to run and more efficient and more effective. And it is not like they have a battle line that first week with Land and hobbling around.

It was pretty rough, but it's not like it's bad now. So these things should be kind of smoothed out. And like, DeWante Smith, still a fantastic receiver. That catchy head, just incredible. So it feels like there's enough pieces and a movement towards doing things that can be more effective. It's just awful. Like it's terrible. It kind of sucks to watch.

Like this is supposed to be a fun offense to watch. It's not there. So yeah, I do think that he has to take a decent amount of the blame. And could they have moved off of this style of offense earlier towards a more modern style the past couple years, maybe? And maybe he was the one to push back against it. And he kind of had the power as the high paid quarterback. What do you make of the Bears? Case Keenham really good in this game.

I thought it played really well under pressure. He had a great throw. It was early second half. He got murdered. He had got a crossing route for a big play. He looked very comfortable. You know, and really, you know, he's able to find Khalif Raymond was the leading on wide out, I believe.

Loveland feels like an afterthought still in this offense. Burden played well in this game. The run game was just okay. But I thought he did really well. Ben Johnson sort of, I think, redeemed his top five play. call her status after this game. Well, I don't know that it should have ever left. I think this, like, my biggest takeaway is that it confirms how good Ben Johnson is, you know,

the talking point a week and he threw it back in everyone's face is like, well, see what I can do without a first overall pick. Like, it was dumb to think that the quarterbacks were the ones making Ben Johnson's offense work when you looked at what golf was kind of before Ben Johnson, what Caleb was before Ben Johnson, and how much of an impact he had. Yeah, he is again proving how brilliant he is, being able to adapt to personnel, being able to adapt to the circumstances. Again, they're not in the best spot in terms of left tackle. You know, if the chiefs were in this spot and they had their left tackle, you know, coming off an injury and not available and they're rotating guys.

Like, that would be the talking point. How can Patrick Rome survive without a starting left tackle? And like, you don't really hear that with the bears. They just keep chugging along. Yeah. Whatever you want to say about the defense and what the limitations are. there and how they're going to hold the team back, you know, when it comes playoff time, all that hasn't really mattered too much so far because the offense, except for the Brian

Flores week, has been just lights out. And I think it's cool to see interviews with guys who don't get to play as much. And, you know, Case is obviously more seasoned vet and has had some, you know, good playing. Yeah. And has had some success. And that ability to kind of hang on for all these years, keep working, keep doing all the workouts, like do all the grunt work. and you finally get your shot and it's Monday night football and you have this big victory and you play above the expectations

of some of what other people are saying like it's just it's cool to see like it's rewarding from just a viewability perspective especially I mean the flip side is like hurts and his demeanor and he's kind of got that like Joe Mazula like kind of psychopath I'm always like straight line and serious and stuff

so to see a quarterback like laughing and smiling and having fun and all those things Like it's pretty cool to see. And that's why guys play the game, like to have a lot of fun doing it. And so I think the biggest takeaway, Ben Johnson, still an A plus coach. And Case Keenham, good for him, man. I am tired of seeing Nick Seriani cuss people out during games. Like, dude, you're a head coach, man.

Just shut up. Like, he's the CEO. He's the vibes guy. The vibes guy I thought was Big Dom. Like, what are we doing? You're yelling across at someone. like grow up bro you're the coach of the NFL team why are you cussing out some was he cussed out a player was that who's calling the P word like it was it who I don't know who was called he was yelled you're like

just just shut up like come on man be professional thing is that like that's probably the only place that he could afford to do that in Philly like he's just loving out the dream of most Philly fans which is probably how they would act if they were in Siriana's shoes yeah I think regardless again if his success it feels like he and Jalen are kind of tight together in terms of like being bolstered by their surroundings more than like them being the catalyst for the success it just feels like we're kind of done with both of them and kind of ready for a change and i think the biggest indicator of him getting fired is going to be how many teams are really clamoring to sign him and to bring him in i think it's going to be zero and i don't think he's

really seen or known as an offensive you know guru and two so is he just going to have to do the like i'm taking the year off and i'm going to be a consultant for someone like i just don't know what his post-filly coaching career really looks like. I've said when he gets fired, he's never getting a head coaching job ever again. But that's it. Oh, no. But it's even getting an offensive coordinator spot right away?

He'll be like a senior analyst. That's what I'm saying. For some of his best friend in college football. Like whoever that is. So he'll go. Sabin's not around. So I know. He'll call Sig up.

I don't even know. Hey, sick, can I be a senior analyst on your Indiana team? Like he'll just, that's what he'll do the rest of his career. He doesn't call plays, not offensive play caller. So he's not offensive play caller.

So he's not offensive play caller. And his offensive head coach, he's not particularly a good head coach. He's won a Super Bowl. So, I mean, he has won a Super Bowl. I mean, give him credit for that. But it does feel like it's a pieces around him that win those games. Mitch, the pieces around the Chargers are not winning any football games. The Chargers go to 0 and 3.

They lose to Buffalo. They force five turnovers, turn the ball over once themselves. They score 16 points on the defense that's allowed 31 points in back-to-back games. How about this? since 2015, only five teams have lost a game with a turnover margin of plus four or better. The Chargers are three of those five games. Which we would have said it was either the Chargers or the Falcons. So the Deschurchase, at least.

I think it was actually, so I have it here. It's Broncos and Cardinals, the other two teams. Cardinals last year and then the Broncos in 2020. I don't even count the COVID year. I don't even count, in my opinion for sports, especially for baseball. It didn't count at all. In the last 10 years, the Chargers are two and two in creating five plus turnover. the rest of the NFL is 66, 4, and 1.

I don't know how to explain what's happening with the Chargers. To me, Mitch, it stems from a supreme lack of confidence and conviction in what you're doing on offense. And it really shows in the lack of execution in big moments. And again, is it a Herbert problem? Is it a McDaniel problem? But it feels like a Jim Harbaugh problem now, where Jim Harbaugh is not getting the most from his players and from his coaches. And that's a Jim Harbaugh issue. And he's definitely in the hot seat right now.

Oh, it has to be. Now, defensively, I feel like this is kind of what we expected. Like, we knew the personnel wasn't that great, and Mentor was kind of holding things together and making the unit overperform. So I think we expected a bit of a defensive drop off. Now, what we didn't expect is the offensive implosion. We'll probably talk about this when we get to New England a little bit, but this McDaniel offense, we've talked about it.

I put it online. I'm sorry for wanting him on the Chiefs. I'm sorry for thinking he's a fantastic play. call her. I'm sorry for being on the Herbert for MEP van wagon. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. It just doesn't feel like he's running an offense that says like, fuck you, we're running at you, figure it out. He's running the trickeration and the motions and like, why is Herbert in shotgun so much?

Why is he in Pistol so much? Get under center. Be more traditional. Run more downhill. You know what's like much harder for, okay, every Shanahan scheme for the most part has overcome terrible O-line play or overcome the limitations of their O-line. Shanahan has never had a great offensive line.

He has made everyone look better on the offensive line, except for Trent. Like... The 2015 Browns? Is that the... 2014 Browns? Yeah, when Alex Mac... No Botonio then, right? No Botonio. No, that was Betonio's rookie year.

I think he was the second graded left guard on PFF or something like that. Oh, that's a mean... ...Roleck broke his leg. We were top five offense in the NFL with Brian Hoyer, quarterback, Ben Tate had running back, and I don't know, Travis Benjamin, Andrew Hawkins, Gary Barnage, like Jim Dre, right? Only you and I know who these people are. Like, Shanahan's offense and McDaniel's offense, he was there. He was, you know, a receiver's coach. It is designed to overcome poor offense line play to a degree.

It just feels like McDaniel, obviously got to Miami, had a ton of success, had Tyreek, had Waddle, had a healthy-ish version of Tua. And then once Tua had that awful head injury, it felt like everything changed to minimizing the impact for Tua, which is keeping the ball in the pocket, you know, all these things. So when McDaniel did that first year was the Tirek short motion, he would kind of align in a more traditional tight end spot

right next to the offensive tackle, going a quick short motion. But that was like to run like wheel routes and to run like, you know, rail routes and to stretch the field horizontally and also vertically and open up a lot of space. Then he kind of maneuvered things into trying to figure out angles in the run game, which she still creates great angles. I think that's one of my biggest critiques with the Chiefs offense.

They don't create angles in the run game. But it's like all this trickeration that's like we know we can't just line up and run. 18 zap right at you and out block you and outrun you. And so whether that's like a mental holdover from Tua, that he had to like scheme around him for so long and around what that Miami offense became, or whether that's like being so afraid of the interior O-line situation and lack of receivers and some of the other things in L.A., I don't know. It's just, it's very strange.

I feel so far removed from where he was. And again, that first year in Miami was his worst O-line. And that was the best offense. Yeah. Now, again, Tua was the healthiest. Tyreek, Waddle, new scheme, like all that. I get that. but like this has always been an offense that theoretically elevates offensive line play,

especially on the interior. And we're not seeing that. So yeah, to me, again, just looks like too much trying to outthink you, outsmart you, out angle you, and not enough. Okay, so I'm going to go on one small tangent. When we got Kyle in 2014, Kyle's biggest thing was he hated the concept or the notion that people thought outside zone was like running around people and was not, not physical and was passive.

He's like, no, we're fucking running through your face. We're just doing it on a slightly wider angle than most people. Like, all you're doing is you're setting your tracks. You're running through them on that angle. The running backs shoulders match the O-line shoulders. And it was probably the most physical offense I've ever been a part of. You are running so fast, everything is just downhill, downhill, downhill, just at a slightly different angle.

Where is that in the Chargers' offense? Like, again, I think that's what McGahnow has lost. It does feel passive. it does feel a little too trickery, and it's removed the core tenet of what makes the Kyle McVey offense great, which is physicality. That's why McVeigh rebranded as a duo team, because they lost the physicality,

and they needed to bring them back, and now they just run duo 18 times a game. So, yeah, it's just, it's frustrating as someone who loves football. Again, everyone thinks I'm a Chiefs fan and hate the Chargers. I don't. I want to see good football. I want to see the best quarterbacks to be good players. But it does feel like they're being extremely let down

by the coordinator, which to your point is also a head coach issue. Yeah, and it's not going to get better. Their schedule is brutal, man. It's the Seahawks. Yeah, they needed to go 2 and 0 because it was like 0 and 5, the next five games. They're at Seattle, and Seattle's going to be pissed the way they played against Washington, then Denver, then the Chiefs and the Rams and Texans who haven't started well, then the Ravens, and the Jets who are kind of feisty, and then the Patriots.

Speaking about the Patriots and teams, we were. right on, Mitch. I think collectively all of us were sort of down the Patriots this year, considering what happened last year. I read this off when I was on FS1, the day Sean Payne didn't yell at me, was the quarterbacks that basically the Patriots faced last year.

It's like Josh Allen twice and Lamar. And then it was like, here's the 11 best quarterbacks, the NFL, one through 11, you're faced them all the season. And what's funny is that's not the problem. The problem is, you know, they didn't play terribly great, but the thing about defense. And this is, I wonder if you agree. I never brought this up to you before.

So defense is a very emotional position, right? They need more support to do their job than we need, in my opinion. Like, we're our job to score points. Just go score points, get it done. Bing, bang, boom, go score. Defense needs a little bit of help from us. They need to feel like we can get points on the board and that they can get a little bit of rest, quite honestly.

And then we did mutual pairing works together, right? If we don't score points, a defense tends to stink by the fourth quarter. That's just sort of the way it is. It's hard for defense to play. That consistently for 60 minutes, if you can't score. So I don't blame defense is that, you know,

it's 14, 6, 17, 6, and it's 35, 6, and just like defense just kind of gives up. That's what happens. My point being, the Patriots defense is not the problem. The problem is Drake May. And the problem is, why do they think they get rid of their wide receivers? I know Brown's hurt right now, but they got rid of guys that he trusted last year.

And they didn't really upgrade the offense-al line, Mitch. Like, they just, and I went in this office and said, look, I don't think they got better this year. I don't think got better this off season. And they clearly have not. Drake May looks like a shell of himself. And, you know, last year, so this year he ranks 29th and EPA per dropback. Last year was number one.

Surprisingly high. In the NFL. Now, this is a little unfair, but there's a tweet here comparing Tua and May to the first 33 games of their career and the identical, essentially. Records, that's unfair to me because he obviously had bad coaching in year. I don't know if did two have bad coaching in year one in Miami. I don't remember if you, McTaylorish coached. Yeah,

Ryan Flores told him you suck. Oh, you don't deserve to play football. Fair, fair enough. But, dude. But no,

let's get that guy another head coaching job. Everyone loves him. Well, he's also, he's still suing the NFL. It's probably hard for that to happen. But nonetheless, um,

I, I'm surprised how bad it is. I do think this offseason mattered. Like, you have a coach who for months and months and months and months, you have a coach who for months and months, you have to think about, his relationship status with his wife and with an NFL reporter.

Like that has to matter. It has to matter to how you prep just holistically as a team that's sort of always back there, Mitch. And they look like a team that just sort of has no identity, has no purpose right now. And I don't expect to get any better. So I think the variable thing is legitimate. And it's the type of thing that 20, 30 years ago might have been smoothed over easier where you're not on your phone all day.

You're not seeing all the memes. You're not seeing them getting made fun of. And then like every week someone was dropping a new story. Also, like, if you have year 15, Tom Brady, are things a little different than having year three, Drake May, who just got embarrassed on a Super Bowl and was hurt and had a shoulder and all these things. Like, I would say that's the type of thing that would have been easier to overcome, you know, in years past where now, you know, let's be honest,

it was a great offseason on Twitter for that story. But all the players are seeing that. And they're kind of laughing at their coach. And he's the butt of the joke. And it's like, do you lose a little bit of respect for him? I don't know. But not ideal from the guy who's leading the organization. Now, talking about scared offense, this offense is pathetic.

It is. So I wanted to watch Will Campbell in week one. And like on all these third downs, they're running 200 jet cut. They're just cutting. He probably has six or seven cut blocks on third downs in week one. It's a, it's a one. The online coach loves it, dude. It's a moron thing.

He loves cutting. Okay, well guess who gets to override him? The offensive coordinator. Correct. He gets to say, I'm calling the fucking plays, and it's third and eight, we're not running 200 Jet Dragon Lion and cutting defense events. Like, he's the one calling the play. So O-Line coach might like it, but I don't buy that as an excuse.

McDaniel is running, we just talked about Mike McDaniel, Josh McDaniels, is running the most scared offense, I think, in the NFL. I don't know if it's a mental thing with Drake May. I don't know if it's a shoulder. I don't know what's the receivers. I don't know if it's O-line. what combination of that, what percentage you want to appoint to each. But this looks like the offense you run for a third string quarterback.

You're just not seeing, despite the level of competition last year, like Drake's biggest thing was all the downfield throws. And he looked like he had a Russell Wilson deep ball, just like beautiful, was dropping into buckets, completing passes. Yeah, it's just something is going on there. I don't know if Drake didn't recover mentally. he gave a kind of weird answer when someone asked him about a shoulder, and he could have just said, like,

know my shoulder's perfect and that's stupid. He kind of like talked around it a little bit and, you know, made it sound kind of weird, so maybe a shoulder still hurts. And then because of that, like, you're not going to be confident. I thought the AJ Brown move was dumb. I thought he, you know, physically did not look anywhere near himself last year, despite the mental checkout. So, yeah, this offseason was terrible in a lot of different directions.

But the play caller who, again, we just, talked about this in terms of Sean Payton, Josh is probably top three play caller this century. For how long he's done it for all the success he's had, this offense is awful. And this wasn't the case last year. We were praising it. We were saying, great job, running

the ball, being physical, fullback, gap schemes, play action, deep shots. Like, now it's just we got to protect something or somebody. And I don't know who or what that is, but it's showing and it's terrible to watch. It's just

it's bad and I don't really know what the fix is for this other than just opening things back up at this point do you even trust to open it back up so I'm looking right now at PFF well do you think what what with the Drake may thing like what's your breakdown on mental versus physical I think it's all mental it feels like the Super Bowl from the Super Bowl crushed him yeah really I mean what how else do you explain it I don't because physically he he can physically throw the football we've seen him do it it just seems like that cerebral crushed him, man. I don't know. I don't know how, unless he spent off,

he's looking at Vrable memes. Like, I don't know how else, like, to explain why he's not a good mental state. Maybe. So the other thing we don't know, and I didn't watch a ton of Patriots training camp practice footage, but if the offense line was really bad in camp,

that really affects quarterbacks. And they start sort of feeling things in games that they're not really seeing. And then it affects the play caller to where you said that this offense is pathetic. technically designed. That goes into the idea that we don't have good wide receivers and good offense alignment. So we have to sort of muck up the offense to get yards in a way that helps prevent all these

issues to show. The problem is NFL offense, NFL defense figured out pretty fast, right? So you have to have second and third or fourth and fifth options for stuff. Or you're in third and long and you're just kind of screwed. I'm looking right now, Mitch, PFF out of like, whatever, out of 18 quarterbacks, I can make the sample size bigger. Drake May 16th in deep passes. it's actually Herbert last, then Jordan Love, then Drake May.

This is for 20-yard passes. Good news, though. Bow-Nix is number one, right? Bo-Nix has only nine attempts over 20 yards, which puts them at 16th out of 18. So there we go. I'm going to be right eventually. I feel this like 50%.

So basically, like, you know, the top guys you're playing right now. But, you know, like that, to your point, it's not been good. if you go to like intermediate throws intermediate throws so 10 to 20 yards passing out of out of 24 quarterbacks all right he's 24th the NFL and PFF grade for intermediate passing

zero big time throws in this in this category so this again kind of let you know Bo Nix 21st and its pass attempts let's go let's go okay speaking about Bo Nix Mitch I don't know how to explain Bo Nix. I'll bring you some tweets here.

Bonix has this really weird thing where it looks like the absolute worst quarterback ever. Then you say, this guy's the worst and he immediately turns into Joe Montana. Then you say, oh, shit, this guy's kind of good. And then he immediately turns into the worst quarterback ever again. How do you explain Bo Nix? I don't know how to do it. Obviously, I tried this summer. It didn't go very well.

I asked a friend of ours who covers NFL for a long time, like, give me the Bo NICs comp. He said Mark Sanchez that can run. I don't know if that's fair. I don't know enough about Mark Sanchez's career to really remember if that's true or not. But how do you explain Bo Nix to people that don't really watch a lot of Broncos? So weirdly enough, it almost falls into the Tebow bucket where obviously Nix is a better player, better passer, much more arm strength, all that stuff. But like, you see it and you kind of know it looks terrible. And then like the team wins and he does the enough stuff and you kind of just like call him a winner and then you think well like I saw that stat he's got the most wins and the last I know something about young quarterbacks

win through a certain amount of games and it's like are we really attributing that to nix because I don't think we are but then how do you play some properly so that feels like um you just want to say like average quarterback that has some big moments but like overall you're not winning because of him um Now, the flip side is, again, they would have been in the Super Bowl last year if he didn't get hurt. It's just, it's hard to put like a qualifier on him. Like, this is, I think, why we like advanced stats. This is why we like things that can kind of filter through the aesthetics of it and the what's being asked of him of it and just figure out like exactly how valuable is the guy. And in most of those, it's like average.

So I think that's what I would kind of go towards if you kind of had to put, you know, a big picture on it. it's just not a guy you win because of, not a guy that's really elevating everything around him. Now, the sack avoidance is fantastic. I think he takes a least amount of sacks, which, you know, as you know, offensive line-wise, once you have a sack on a drive,

your chance of scoring points plummets and your chance of scoring a touchdown is even, you know, less. So if you're trading, you know, one or two bad throws a game for just sacks avoided, like there is a net benefit to that. So that is one of the things that he does well. But yeah, it's lack of consistency, lack of, you know, kind of down to down, drive-to-drive-to-drive play. But it does seem like more often than not, he's on the winning side of things.

But he's also had one of the best defenses in the NFL for the last couple of years. So if he doesn't have that, are we really saying that about him? Or is just like a 7 and 10 quarterback who is playing and who is winning at the clip that we would assume based on what he shows? So out of like 100 plays, he ranks, I think, 18th of 22 quarterbacks, EPA per play. If you go to 50 plays, right, which includes like a Mariotta, a Jane Daniels, a Carson Wentz, he ranks 26 in EPA per play. I mean, I just, last year they were, what, 11 and 2 and 1 score games already 2 in 0 this year.

They're supposed to not win, like, you're supposed to not win these games. And maybe it wins are a quarterback stat, so we got to give it all to both. Maybe it evens out. coming up here at some point. But, I mean, they're down 16-0. They get a pick-six, which certainly helps them in this game. And now they've got the Niners who are beat up. And I think probably the Broncos offense plays well in this game.

Niners can't rush the passer. They've got no one to rush the passer right now. Their offense, you mentioned earlier, offense is playing well without, like, the best pieces. The Shanahan special. Look at what the Niners are doing, man. Like, they discontinued to beat the shot of teams with no wide receivers an older kiddle, right?

You know, use check. Coming off an Achilles. Correct. And McCaffrey's obviously very good. But look with their backup. Who's their backup? The Indiana kid.

He looks really good. Is the backup running back? Like, they're just rolling along, man. Purdy is right up there, MVP votes with Josh Allen. Like, it's looking great. I mean, you can do it in this offense if you give it, you know, your full effort to make it to make it the case. All right. So we did Broncos Patriots.

We'll get to Chiefs at some point, I promise. everyone. I know you're tuning just to listen to us, talk about the Chiefs. Before the season, Mitch, I said that I picked the Rams winning Super Bowl and they start one and two.

I think they'll be fine. They go to Philly this week, important game for them. But the Dark Horse team that I said, and it's not really a dark horse team. They were 16 to 1, was the Houston Texans. Buddy, I sold my Houston Texas sock

after week two. I'm glad I had none of it heading into week three. But my problem with the Texans, besides the O-N-3 record, is the inconsistency with the team. Week one, they, lose because their defense stinks.

We two, they lose because their offense stinks and special teams. And we three, they lose because they just got their, they just didn't play well because the Colts is holistically. This comes down to the idea that I think, for me, their quarterback's not a killer, man. And I think that when your quarterback's not a killer, when you have tough times, you can't rely on the quarterback to, like, be the guy that, like, rallies the group and wins games. It's hard to win games in national football league, dude, right? Especially when your offensive line is not great, right?

Office line is not great. Wide receivers are a little beat up. It's like, what do you do if your quarterback's not like a guy who's like, when you watch Stroud play, do you think you have the same feelings you have with the top seven, eight, ten quarterbacks in? If I don't, I don't have that feeling when I watch them play. And I don't tell you something is a killer, man. And it doesn't, that hurts when everything else is not perfect in your offense.

Yeah, that's the thing with leadership is it's not just, you know, what you say. It's not just how you perform. everyone's watching you at all moments. And so if you are a guy, and I'm not saying he's like a bad body language guy per se, although I think, I want to say Andre Johnson or maybe someone pretty high up in Houston lore did an interview

a couple weeks ago and was kind of mentioning that they didn't necessarily like the body language or what he was putting out there. But like that's the stuff that you see. So when you talk about, especially the O-line position, like... It was on the opposite. the way. It was. Yeah.

He talked about like CJ not having great body language, which is not what you want. of your quarterback. But like that leadership style, even if you feel like, well, I'm doing all the right things and I'm showing up and I'm present in meetings and I'm taking notes and I'm performing well, like that is still something everyone is watching. I've been through that with the offensive line room, whether it's Joe Thomas or me, like, you know, if you're the leader in the room, but you don't really ever talk and you're not vocal, like, if there's a moment where you need to rally the troops, like, are you really going to be the guy to do that?

and if you're someone that kind of goes into a shell or is a little more introverted, that's what other people are going to see and feed off, which you mentioned kind of the nature of a defense to be more, you know, reactive to energy and to, you know, what's their surroundings. Like, you do need a leader who is always, like, present, puffed up chess. Like, we're going to go. Most quarterbacks are because they are the most confident dude out there. They are the most successful guy out there.

it just doesn't come off that way with Stroud. So I also just think the play isn't that good. Even that week one, and he starts with like an awful strip sack and he ends with an interception. And people are like, well, he played well in the middle. I'm like,

he started the game off with the turnover and ended with the turnover. Like, for me, so I hate kind of doing this because I probably wouldn't want it to be done about me, but obviously we'll know the meme with Caleb after he kind of signed him and told him, you know, pick your head up, little bro. But that off-season media tour with him and Parsons was very odd. And I felt like he was kind of felt comfortable enough that he had established himself

to a certain level in the league that he could go and kind of just like do this thing that you don't really see any of the other quarterbacks doing. Like quarterbacks can be very present in media and doing other stuff. But like it was just this weird thing. He was doing interviews and going to different parts of the world. And it just seemed odd. And it felt like he had established himself in his head. to a certain echelon that the play hadn't necessarily gotten to.

And I don't know. I don't know if that's part of the general mentality that maybe he thinks of himself in a different world. But I just kind of got turned off on both him and Parsons after that. And neither of them have really done anything to turn me around since. And it just can't have it from the quarterback position. We've never talked about this before. The amount of text I've sent to Duke and Thorne about these guys on podcast,

I could probably do an entire show on this. This was the Baker Mayfield issue. six years ago was like, dude, you're doing commercials and you've done really nothing in the NFL, like what,

and then of course you, I think those were good, to be fair to Baker, which I'm usually not a Baker fan, but it's kind of funny. But then it went downhill, right? Because like the NFL has a way of just making you earn it

and humbling you. And if you sort of think you've arrived before you've arrived. And I understand the players now have more access to media and they've been on social media their whole lives. They want to share their opinions.

But I kind of feel like you shouldn't sometimes. Like, is that helping your, your job when you're playing is to, is only a net negative. Correct. Unless you want to retire and go in the media, which guys do at the end of my career, I started doing stuff like that, right? Because you think about the end of your career. Strauss not thinking about that.

Yeah, that was definitely the first time you started talking. Yes, I was. Yeah. End of my career. Like, they, they just, it's, it's just nothing to your point, nothing positive comes from it at all. And it really can negatively affect you. I will say in terms of quarterback who talked about Baker, I would say good on Houston for not doing a contract this year.

I'll say bad on Tampa for doing a contract this year. Well, let's talk about Tampa. Because Mitch, I said this offseason that you should have fired Todd Bulls and not paid Baker Mayfield. And I think that we collectively are like near 100% when we say you should fire a coach and team doesn't do it. And five games in, they should fire the coach. and you pay Baker Mayfield,

you shouldn't pay Baker Mayfield, we all set it, and look what happened now. Why is it so difficult for front offices to see the things that we seem to see fairly easily? Because our jobs aren't at stake

over the wrong decision, and the easier thing to do is to, like, have a quarterback, even if he's average. This gets to kind of the Washington dilemma, which is you had Kirk Cousins, and you just felt like he's solid, but he's not good enough to pay fully.

You tag him, you tag him, you let him walk. And they were kind of in quarterback hell for a while, and now maybe you're back there. But that's what happens when you let go of the 15th best quarterback and you don't have a backup plan. So I think that's the hardest thing for teams is if you do let Baker go, like, what do you do? Who do you sign?

Where do you find a guy who's going to give you decent play? Because with him, you're going to win enough games. theoretically. So far, it's been zero. But you're going to win enough games that you're not going to be able to draft, you know, one of the top, let's say, eight picks. So you can't guarantee that going into the next year, you're going to have a draft pick out of it. And you don't want to, you know, put your hat on having a mid to late first round quarterback or second rounder that you're going to think of the face of the franchise. Just obviously it works out. There's plenty of those guys like that, but not the most solid team building plan. So you just get into a

hard spot where you'd almost be in the Indianapolis role of like being good enough to kind of contend every year but then also having to find a quarterback that's kind of middle of the road. What do we do? Do we just suck for a year or two? But you don't want to do that because you might get fired as a GM, not Indianapolis because he's unfireable. But he's got the best PR media of all time because Ballard hasn't made the playoffs as 2020. Still has his job.

What's, what's, what's Ms. Ursaid doing the sidelines? She's just not writing down like we suck. Why is our GM still so in charge of this job? I don't get it. Write all these notes down. How about a note on the gentleman? She's seen a lot of talent on the sideline and a lot of talent on the field, apparently, that just doesn't win football games.

But yeah, just Tampa thing, like, I know there's some chatter with the O line. I don't think like the O line is the issue. I think everything else is an issue. Like receivers, you know, obviously lose Evans. And the receiver room has gone downhill the past few years. This past week, you know, you face. a Brian Flores defense and just not really prepared. And a lot of the issues of running back and tied in in terms of protections,

not the O line. And they're not playing maybe as well as they have in the past, which is when Baker looked at his best. Again, another guy that has required his surroundings to make him look his best and doesn't really elevate a neutral or subpar ecosystem to a higher ground. So, yeah, I would say just strange, probably should have fired bowls, honestly a few years ago. Like he just hasn't been that impressive as a coach

over the past few years, despite, you know, kind of making the playoffs, having a little bit of success. Yeah, I just, I don't get it. It feels like they're in for an overhaul. And I don't know,

you know, when your oil line's good, you always have the chance to kind of make things happen. And obviously, Baker's down there for a couple of years contractually. But it doesn't feel like they're like a piece or two away. It feels like they're kind of in the midst of a larger transition. Any last words on the NFL. for the week before we talk a little bit about a big week four matchup.

Ooh, that's a good one. Let me see here. Like the Steelers being the Bengals out of nowhere, which is so predictable because they tend to always, the voodoo is still there. Obviously, Pittsburgh. Bengals' defense did not look as well as they did.

Did you see the, the Mason McCormick clip of him grabbing Lawrence, like, by the leg on the double teams? I don't think I saw that one. Oh, there's one where he was doing the wrestling, a double under thing? Yeah, he just like grabbed him like under the leg. leg as a center like lifted him up and he just grabbed him on that's obviously not allowed so that's

illegal but if you don't catch it um that's awesome god though the holding stuff just dude it's so frustrating to me like it's like i just don't understand why people search and and like want there to be more calls and that's that's illegal that's not where the that's not allowed but just people don't fundamentally understand that we are allowed to actually use our hands to grab people like that's the point of what we do we grab people with our hands and people just like don't even understand this, Mitch. That's our job. To use our hands. We're allowed to grab defenders with it. Now, if the defender gets out of your frame, yes, it can be a holding. It can. Yes, it will be. But if he's in your frame, you're not getting called for holding. If you miss on a spin move and we

grab you, you missed on a spin move. That's your fault. Don't miss on the spin move. But it just, it drives me nuts, bro. It's just people searching for holdings all day. How do you watch football that way? I know you've always hated the people that just like look for penalties. I don't have it in me to get fired up about penalties right now. We can go down that path at a later time. But I would say in general, officiating stuff kind of evens itself out. Now, you have certain calls. It was at the end of the Rams game,

which is why I think McVeigh didn't want to do a press conference because he didn't want to get fine. But you have very specific instances where a call is awful in the biggest spot and kind of throw things off. But like, in general, everything for the most part evens out. So the whole like, well, that was a penalty here. a penalty there. That wasn't. He's holding. You just don't need to live that way.

It's going to kind of all end up, you know, washing out at the end of the game or the season. Have you want to look at it. But no, I think it was another good week. I think we kind of started solidifying things. I think Dallas had just an abysmal end-of-game sequence there. Not even just the whole

seven-second thing, but like the offense before was kind of both in the middle of trying to score and try not to give Lamar time. If Sean Himer's being honest and saying, he was told to throw the ball the way. What the absolute fuck are you doing? I know, that's crazy.

How are you not squipping the ball? How are you more afraid of a return than you are of Lamar completing a pass down the field? So there are just a lot, a lot of weird things. But I think we are starting to see things even out a little more. And I think after this next week, especially with some of the big matchups, we'll have much better understanding of who's legitimately good and who's not. The Rams, by the way, will call for five penalties in the final two minutes of the fourth quarter. which is tied for the most by any team in a game since 2000, according to ESPN research.

So McVeigh had probably every right to be upset in that moment. All right, we're going to do one more NFL thing. Then we'll get to the Oregon really quick about the Dante Moore hit because I want to talk it out just quickly with you, Mitch. Chiefs Raiders, 3-0 Chiefs at the 3-0 Raiders. They played really well in the back half of the Saints game. They forced, I think, four turnovers in the final five drives for the Saints. It was like three fumbles interception. They forced the punt as well.

Are they real? I don't know. I don't know. I guess we'll find out this week. I think they're more real than not. I mean, they've, especially with Bauer's back, my goodness. Yeah, they've got some stuff offensively. We talked about O-Line looking a lot better in the preseason.

And for the most part, they've looked better to start this year. So that's legitimate. Obviously, Kirk provides a floor of offense that, you know, at times Atlanta didn't look amazing. But, like, there is a certain, like, ability to the offense that you have, especially mentally with him. I love everyone talking about that 12-yard pass that he had. It was like a floater. No one's ever seen a 12-yard Hill Mary throw before.

But no, I mean, it's cool to see defensively. I think that's the story is how they're able to get pressure, not just Crosby. You know, four-man fronts, they've got some guys to also get after the quarterback, and then they're able to layer in some blitzes and some disguises and really throw things at defenses that they haven't been able to in the past. That's always been, you know, you block max and you tend to have a pretty good day.

So I do think it's a legitimate team. I think it's going to be a great test, a great division rivalry. And the Raiders have not had a ton of success in that building, especially against the Chiefs. And that's kind of been the thing that Andy Reid has more, whatever it was, victories in there than any single head coach.

Kubiak might flip the title on that here pretty soon, but it is kind of funny. And it's going to be just a mega game. Yeah, it's going to be a fun game. Any concern for you as a Chief's fan for this one? Yeah, the defensive front. You know, that's, Pat got hit a few times in a pretty big fashion last week. I don't think the pass protection was like that bad overall.

But in general, the thing that Chief's offense has been worse at has been the drop back pass game this year. The runs a lot better. The play action is a lot better. I would still say the running game, there's some issues there, but they're running the ball efficiently and effective, you know, for the most part, overall. Play action game looks absolutely. fantastic. I would have to imagine you're leaning on that a bit. But if you're going to a non kind of naked bootleg version of a play action scheme, like you need a plan for Max because you're either having a front side tackle, having to go after him and then settle and block him, which is really

tough, or you've got a tight end on him on the backside and having to account for a second guy to help with that block. So what the chief's play action looks like, to me it's going to be really And interesting. And, you know, Oakland, I keep calling Oakland, the Raiders get into as much of just like a true odd defense as I've really seen. So if they're going to play that and kind of go more old school, you know, bring the safety down, eight-man surfaces, you know, kind of the weak scrape, strong scrape situation. Like, how are they going to try to get after the Chief's run game and play actions? It's going to be really fun cat and mouse. And, you know, that would be the word for me from the Chief's perspective.

And, I mean, Brock Bowers, like, who the best. the fuck's going to guard that guy? Not like Bolton. I don't know. Hicks, I guess. I feel like it's got to be like Delane for a little bit. You got to see if he can cover tight ends. Yeah, I guess.

Yeah, I mean, that's just try it for a little bit, see what happens. Yeah, especially if he's on the nub side to himself, you just put Delaney on him and let him roll. All right, Mitch, Orky beat USC, screw USC, no one likes USC. But the hit for Dante Moore that we saw all on Saturday night. So Dante Moore, Oregon's quarterback, goes and slides in the USC defender hits him in the head, neck area with his shoulder. It's a dirty play. But the reaction afterwards is so interesting, Mitch, because, you know, it was a primetime game

and the hit looked very bad. Dante Moore went in fencing position. He might have had a little bit of a seizure. His legs were kind of moving. It was very, like, jarring to see that happen. But it wasn't the worst hit we've ever seen. Like it was a hit where the quarterback slid. He got hit in the head.

I am pro diving forward, by the way. I've been this way for years. Quarterback should not slide. They should dive forward. The best example of this is Lamar Jackson, who never slides. He dives forward and never gets a strong word. Rarely gets hit when he's down the field running the ball because he dies forward.

But the thing that to me upset me, Mitch, wasn't the hit. It was dirty, whatever it happens. The reaction afterwards, I was shocked, man, for the USC player continuing to celebrate when the entire Oregon medical staff and ambulance on the field, the dude was still giving high-fives to his teammates and smiling on the sideline. I was shocked that no one was like, dude, you gotta stop.

Some of his teammates tried to get him away from the Oregon bench and get him back to his bench, Mitch. What did you make of the aftermath? That, again, the hit was, it sucks, it's dirty, it didn't feel good as a fan of Oregon and fan of Dante Moore, but it's not like the worst that we've ever seen. People are like this, the worst I've ever seen in my life.

It's not. But the reaction, afterwards by number eight dude was was not not pretty no the the thing that i still don't really know and you'd have to assume he understands the gravity of the injury that he caused but he hit the quarterback and then popped up and then a bunch of organ guys were in his face and then he kind of like ran around the perimeter so i don't know if he knew like how bad the injury was to more or if he knew of the fencing or like again the jarring nature of it now the flip side is you know, if you hit the quarterback, and he's down,

he probably shouldn't be acting that way. And especially for your teammates, like, yo, dude, chill out. This isn't cool. So I don't think I'm in a position to, like, say too much more about that other than it's atypical from what we've seen. And it feels like he's celebrating a guy's injury, which is, you know,

the last thing you ever want to see in a football field. I don't know. Did Riley have a response to what Lannings said? Well, so the response was after the game, he didn't see it. So there were two separate celebrations. There was the one right afterwards, Mitch, where he was doing like the organ duck flutter thing. And then, but then on the bench, after he should have known Dante Moore was down, he's still smiling, high-fiving teammates, like all that stuff.

And now, so he got ejected, okay? And the new rule is when you get ejected, you can stay on the sidelines. That's a new rule now. You used to have to go back. So he's on the sidelines. And Lincoln, and Riley was asked after the game, like, why was he on the silence? He goes, because he's a place for us, essentially. It was his answer.

Did you see his antics? No, I didn't see it. And that's sort of the nonchalantness from the answer, I think, really bothered people. Because I think he probably did see. I don't know how you don't like see that happening. I will say in terms of the slide, like the defender should have been able to kind of read that one out. But it was kind of on the edge of being a little bit late. I'm not like anti-quarterback slide.

but like, onus is on you to protect yourself from the hit, especially with what we've seen in the last couple years, the quarterbacks taking liberties or like shutting it down. Okay, the candy picket thing was a while ago. But like quarterbacks do kind of on the sidelines, like field defenders kind of pulling off and get like an extra yard or two now and again. They don't really bait guys.

They don't like deke him and all that stuff. But like if guys just completely shut down, then sometimes they can take advantage of it. So I am for defender. hitting quarterbacks and trying to make their presence known, do it legally. But to me, that's where quarterbacks like, the three steps before the slide,

you better be slowing down, pulling up, shoulders are going back, getting into sliding position, and then slide. A lot of these guys are going, going, going, going, slide. And so even when this situation happens, it's, to me, a more obvious, like,

he slid, you maybe had time to pull off. but the onus is still got to be on the quarterback. And this is where I talked about in the Kyler situation, Kyler's fault. Like terrible outcome, but Kyler's fault. And the guy didn't get fined because Kyler was jukeing, hits the deck of the last second. So, yeah, quarterback should either do the more forward slide.

I saw my old quarterback Nate Longshore, believe he's kind of doing quarterback stuff now. He put out some long thing on Twitter about how he never teaches quarterback's a slide either. You know, see where the contact's coming from. Go down head first. use your body to shield against it, take a body shot. But if quarterbacks are going to have all these protections,

once they leave the pocket, once they become a runner, they can't have the protection of I get to hit the deck whenever I want and no bad consequences. Like that is not something I believe should exist. And I think we're getting closer to like trying to find a way to get that out of the game because we are still having a lot of these negative situations. Yeah, it's unfortunate the way it happened. also too

their Oregon put out their video from the game and USC's play-by-play guy like I don't know if you got to see it man brutal look he said originally the Dantamore slid headfirst and then he said it wasn't a hit

and then Sean Cody who's their analyst who played defense the line for them said no he's laying feet first it was a slide and then the replay is like nah knee slides to the leg not a late hit. And there's a, Sean Cody would be meme forever. He looks at the camera.

He's like, you like Jim Helpert's it. He's like, and so that's going to be a meme forever now, poor Sean Cody. All right. Any last words, sir? Oh, how was your weekend in Cleveland with all the office alignment? I meant to ask you about that. That was cool. They do a good job.

So they have this like Browns, legends community that's not like the ring of honor, but it's just like guys who have contributed to the franchise and get honored. And they kind of set up the whole weekend for him. So on Saturday, you go to the facility, go to the mock game, which, as you know, is incredibly boring to watch. But I still know, you know, enough people that are some equipment managers and some, you know, staff. And I got to see George Warhop, who was my first coach in Cleveland. He's back there coach in. So I got to see him briefly.

So that was just kind of fun to be there, hang out with Alex and see some of the staff that I haven't seen in a while. Saturday night, there's a dinner and a kind of function that they, you know, honor them. and then just hanging out after. And, you know, that O-line, me, Alex, Joe Thomas, Joel Botonio, John Greco, we got a couple years together in 14 and 15. Had some injuries going on with Alex and Joel in particular those couple of years, but just an unbelievable offensive line.

And, you know, we don't all get to get into the same place at the same time very often. If you follow Joe Thomas at all on his beef company, he had his cameraman or videographer at his hip the entire week. weekend. So I'm sure you'll get to see a nice in-depth video from, uh, oh yeah, dude. I've seen some of his TikTok stuff before, um, is, uh, is, did he bring you any beef? Did he bring you a couple cuts of steak? Is a like a good good to see. No, no. He brought them to O-Line masterminds a couple years ago and then, you know, got a, got a, got a shipment of all the non-elite cuts of meat. But, uh, no, no, no, he sent some stuff.

And a lot of their stuff is actually great. I mean, it's why I do. It's, you know, really good. I know, there's something about the genetics that they like figured out the genetics of like the cows and they can kind of start breeding them in a different way and I know he's met with Trump and like push for better regulations or safety or something I don't know he's way down the rabbit hole on this like I said he's got kind of videographer for following him which is absolutely hilarious especially given that it contrasts like the original story of Joe Thomas which is I want no media I want to be on a boat during the draft so that part of it's you know pretty funny But no, just as you know, when you get back together with your old linemates, like you just start telling stories and you recall all the, you know, stupid things you went through.

And obviously in Cleveland had a lot more stupid things than amazing things. It is, it is the reminisce of the shitty stuff is most of what we talk about. We don't ever talk about it. Well, one of the funniest things is so we had, so our last year together in 2015, our line coach had an incident and went away for the year. and our back of a line coach was George Jellione, who was an older dude, just like a tremendous person and cared a ton and nobody worked harder and stuff. And one of our favorite things about him is he would like listen to us and ask us, how do you guys want to do this?

Or we would say like, hey, George on this, you know, we prefer to do it this way. He's like, okay, it works for you great. But one of his funniest traits, which is atypical from the way any coach has done it I've ever seen in football history, is he love football so much and he would get so excited that in drills, if you did it right, he would make you come back and do it again.

And if you did the drill wrong, you would be disgusting and kick you out. Like, all right, next thing I have. Well, like, if you were working on deuce blocks and me and John just like, great fit, yam the three, he's like, oh, great job. One more time.

And he'd come back and make you do it again. And it's just like the epitome of George Dalyone was like he loved football so much and detested awful football that like you would do it correctly in the drill and be asked to come back and do it again. I never had an offense line coach do that before. I've never seen any coach do that.

Like the whole point of doing it right is that you're rewarded with the break after or like the back of the line. Joe wants to have to do a lot of reps then. Yeah, you know. No. I think he was doing this thing. I will say one thing, as you know,

the Kansas City doesn't really do. Like you don't really have to like hold bags in other spots once you're a veteran. Like pretty much the young. guys just do all the grunt work of being the stunt dummy for any sort of blocks, whether you're in pads or whether you're holding a bag. So that lasts like couple years, man, it was pretty chill. S-5 just did our thing and got to hang out and didn't have to be a De-Lyman. I got to Kansas City. And it's like, nope, every single lineman takes every single spot in the rotation. You're doing all the

grunt work. You're acting as a fellow De-Lyman. And I will say a very strong correlation between how good an alignment is going to be and how good they hold a bag and play defense in practice or in a walk through like if you have the wherewithal to know how to mimic defense a line play you are probably a good o lineman or have a chance of being a good lineman you know what's crazy is is is like uh in talking out to kansas city no one taught how to hold a bag correctly like that was the first time anyone ever told like you hold the back like you know you guys are hold like this or like a shield like it doesn't No, you have to, like, you're going to hold the bag. Like, hold it tight against your chest.

Well, the problem is they have the two little things on the back. Yeah. Yeah, well, once LaCharo started to engineer high-performance bags, then we all knew how to hold them correctly. Okay. Jeez. All right. No, I mean, that was something I figured out in, like, college.

Like, if you're holding the bag against your chest, you're not going to be able to, like, the whole point of having the bag is to present a surface that's flat that allows, that allows the offensive lineman to figure out where to put his hands and how to mimic them. So for any of you, Lyman, that made it through an hour of our podcast,

one hand goes on the top of the bag, the other hand goes across the bottom or holds the other corner, it's flat against your chest, you keep it there, and at the snap, you move forward because defense of linemen are taught to fire out.

Don't just stand there and fucking back up, and then the guy's trying to reach you, and you make him look like a jackass by going back door. So hold the back correctly, and take a step forward. Also, don't line up two inches in front of the guy. Correct.

Line of scrimmage. It exists. Yes. Okay. Any thoughts in the baseball playoffs starting today? Do we ask Jack? Correct to all the baseball players. It is apparently now the playoffs.

Are you happy the Giants sucks? I don't send you text anymore about the Giants. It's been so long since you knew to do that. They missed. I will say the whole, the My 9 video games thing that's going around. MVP 5, baby. Wait, wait, what's happening? There's a thing on Twitter where people were making a collage

of like the nine video games that were like most important to them or like they played the most. Yeah, NVL5 is number one. Yeah, I think I spent by far the most time on that one. It's the best sports video game I think ever, ever made, honestly. It's such a perfect game. I'm going to go find my PS2.

I'm going to play Alps. I'm going to play Alps. He's into sports now. So he's got a fantasy football team. He lost by a third of a point. He was so bummed. the other day he's playing baseball now on the big field the junior field don't tell him but that's some boring baseball buddy

first year on the big field Mitch it's a rough Alex's playing well it's just a rough watch for most of the two and a half hours I think Sal did this in a parent corner with Simmons on Monday I think you talked about the jump like up to longer mound and longer

base pass is like brutal because like no one knows I got to send you a video of Alex running the bases. They look so slow. And they are. I mean, but like, you're like, this is not right. He was in the outfield for a practice game the other day. He said, Dad, it's the quadas I've ever felt in my life.

I was just standing alone in the outfield with nothing to do. Because, you know, no one's in the ball to outfield in this age, really, consistently. So, but it's a big, big, big jump. The different, the good part is the pitching is much slower. So a lot of the kids actually, like, hit better because they have time to, like, see the ball come in versus the 46 feet. They play in majors at 12 years old.

So, all right, we back on Friday with Matt and I. We're going to give you no winners as usual. We'll do it as usual that we do on Fridays. But we're going to add some props this time. I'm tired of losing this. We're going to go props, which I do much better at. And we'll be back on Tuesday with our show. Take care, everyone.

Have a good couple of days.