Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - NFL Schedule Notes, NIL Updates, and All the Offseason Headlines You Forgot About

Episode Date: May 11, 2022

Geoff is back with Gabe to break down what we know about the NFL's 2022-23 schedule so far and explain the NCAA's new NIL rule restricting collectives. Plus Geoff checks back in on all of the storylines you forgot about from this NFL offseason, including Brian Flores' suit against the NFL, Calvin Ridley's suspension, all the players in new cities, and much more.On Moving the Line, Gabe speaks up for Jalen Hurts, Geoff tells the story of the only time he paid for a jersey number, and the team argues about traffic. If you're stuck in traffic listening to this, tweet @geoffschwartz (when your vehicle is stopped) with your take on the zipper merge, and be sure to rate and follow the podcast if you enjoyed the episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's wednesday may 11th i'm jeff schwartz alongside gabe goodwin this jeff schwartz is smart you powered by the varsity podcast network the nfl schedule is out this week well in full we'll talk about what players look for in the schedule talk some more nil the follow-up our discussion last week and so much more in the nfl and i have a brand new co-worker that was announced today, which Gabe is most happy about. Gabe, how are you, my friend? Yeah, okay. So Tom Brady is allegedly going to be a Fox broadcaster when he's good and ready, apparently.

The 10-year deal starts when he decides he wants to start being a broadcaster. We'll find out when, I guess. So does this mean he's not going to miami next year who knows what it means like man like obviously you work at fox i did work at fox i still do some work for fox i'm not going to try to pretend like i know what's going on in this situation i would just say the guy remember it was only a few months ago the guy retired and then denied he had retired and then unretired and then we heard he tried to buy a team and then he's he's saying the tuck rule was probably a fumble like who knows what to believe with this guy can we just agree this

is sort of silly the the question is i think in this situation is i'm a fox employee but i work most on the digital side. I do a little bit of television. Tom Brady's going to be the number one NFL guy. He's taking over for Aikman, and he's going to do a bunch of marketing stuff for them. Do we ever cross paths? Do you think I ever have any opportunity

at some point to say, hey, Tom Brady, nice to meet you, Jeff Schwartz? The answer is no, in my opinion. I don't think that you're going to be in the same place ever if at all. You know, yeah, no, I don't think that you're even going to be. There's like a there's a green room at Fox. It's called the Avocado Room. Yeah, I go.

Yeah, I've been there. Now, the Avocado Room is pretty much all comers, right? Like you see the biggest stars of the whole network are in there just alongside dopes like me or someone with a little more clout like you. I think that maybe Tom Brady is even above the avocado room. I think he has. He's like, he's separate. Like he gets to share Colin Cowher's dressing room, like the two-story dressing room for Colin or something like that. Colin might have to move to a new dressing room if Tom shows up. But maybe, you know what? I'll tell you what.

Because Tom loves avocados, maybe the avocado room will just become Tom Brady's green room from now on. And everybody's got to move to a new place. Tom Brady's green room. I'll tell you what. I have enjoyed the Fox green room. People are very nice whenever you go. During football season, it's fun. There's a lot of coaches in there just talking football.

It is a ton of fun. It is one of the treats of being in this industry that you and i have gotten to enjoy and i i had it at espn with with boomer and tj and kishan and all those guys were being there and it was whatever you might think of them as on-air personalities it is a treat to watch football you know a few feet away from chris berman it's awesome oh it's so much fun i did that one sunday when i was kind of flipping through companies with ESPN like three years ago before COVID. Berman is a hoot during football games,

watching the games. It's a lot of fun. I don't know whatever room that is ESPN, but yeah, it's a lot of fun. So Tom Brady is my new coworker. So I told my wife we'll meet Giselle at the Super Bowl next year because Fox has a Super Bowl.

So I told her that we're going to be able to see them at some point. And it was funny. Speaking about Tom Brady, the F1 was in Miami this past weekend. I watched the first season and a half of Drive to Survive. I think that's what it's called on Netflix. Good show. I like it. But I'm not an F1 fan per se.

But I put it on for like 15 minutes before the race started my son i said hey you want to watch racing or do you want to watch basketball i said f1 so i put it on beforehand and all these people are there beforehand right like they show all the celebrities and meredith's like all the hot people are there why am i not at this event i'm like hon the the bracket we're not in that bracket love i bracket, we're not in that bracket, love. I'm sorry. We're not in that bracket to be at the F1 race in Miami. Well, also, all those people are well-known diehard racing fans. They've been with the sport for a long, long time. Like Tom Brady and Michael Jordan.

They care a lot about. David Beckham. And that one guy was walking around, and he thought Pablo Banchero was Pat Mahomes. It was so good. And there was some other guy, though, that she's like, oh, my God, this guy's the hottest guy ever. I went and looked him up on Instagram. They were like influencers there and she was excited.

I was like, hon, I'm sorry. I'm just not cool enough. I don't have that bracket. But maybe Tom and I will be best friends moving forward. Let me ask you this do you think tom and giselle on a quiet uh sunday or a mother's day for example ever throw grilled shrimp into one another's mouths like you and meredith no we certainly do not yeah mother's day meredith was like i want you to cook outside i said all right fine it was an unusually cool day. It was like 60 degrees. And so I just made breakfast on the, it's a pit boss griddle.

And then I did the same thing for lunch. And I made tacos for lunch. But she's like, you have to do the shrimp thing and the onion thing. Like at Betty Hana and all the hibachi places. I said, fine, fine. I just defrosted shrimp just for that purpose, to throw them in her mouth. And then i did one of those onion trains but didn't light on fire unfortunately so i tried to do light on fire but

yeah i did the whole experience she just wanted a shrimp thrown in her face and she caught it i saw it on twitter for first attempt too she caught bad throw by me but first attempt she caught it i was very impressed um but yeah no they're probably not uh they're probably not doing that for for mother's day i i didn't know that tom brady i've seen very little of him on i don't follow him on social media don't follow his wife on social media but what i've seen though he does seem like he's a good father like he actually cares there's some people i feel like stage the the fathership thing and mothership thing on social media. I feel like though he does, or is a good father, put it like that.

All right. I listen, uh, people who listen to this show or follow me on Twitter. No, I, uh, I don't pull punches with Tom Brady.

I'm not going to question him as a father. That that's, that's an area where I wouldn't go, but a lot of other areas I would call him out. But I think their mother's day was, was good. Um, cause I,

again, I, there's some people i see on twitter on instagram i saw this one never mind different day different conversation let's get in to oh my by the way too is we're recording this right now they're filming a commercial in my house again yeah it's the fifth or sixth time we get paid they film commercials in our house it's unbelievable so i might not like be very loud. They're not actually filming right now. They're filming tomorrow. Today was a set up day. Yeah, Gabe, they pay us a lot of money

and they just take over our house for three days. And this time they removed all our light fixtures downstairs, moved our TV off the wall, and they basically built an entire set in our kitchen, dining room, family room area. Wow. And they're not recording today, so I'm at home doing this otherwise i had

to go to my wife's office probably but yeah so i might not i'm gonna be very loud today but you'll be able to hear me good all right well listen i don't want to disturb anyone doing work in your house uh let's talk about a few things that jump out right now this week you know people can listen to this whenever they feel like it obviously there's not a ton of breaking news going on, but the NFL is sort of day by day leaking out more and more information about the upcoming schedule. You had a great idea. Why not just release a game a day until September? I think that's a terrific idea.

Can you imagine a random July day? They're like Texans-Jaguars, week 15, 1 p.m. Eastern, CBS. Dude, talk radio, TV, heaven to to do that we would get five minutes at least and some of these games the ones that have already gotten out are actually really worth talking about so let me throw a few of them at you obviously the rams are going to be the opener on thursday night we don't know who they're going to get yet that is tbd i think i'm jokes aside i honestly think things like tom brady's future future, Aaron Rogers future played heavily into who are the Rams going to get on the opening Thursday night?

Who do you think that's going to be? They don't, they don't do division games normally. Right. On the opening night. I mean, is it probably, is it me Tampa?

I mean, it could be Tampa. I mean, it could be the Bengals, I suppose. Right. I don't think it's the Bengals. It's they,

they won't do a rematch and they don't play the Bengals. Do they? right? I don't think it's the Bengals. They won't do a rematch. They don't play the Bengals, do they? I thought I heard that it was going to be Rogers-Brady was going to be the Sunday night of week one. I thought I heard that. I'm curious. Okay, let's see the Rams. This is so funny. Their schedule is already like, we know.

Okay, so their home game. Oh, it's going to be the Cowboys. Okay. Or the Bills. All right. Week one. Yeah. They host the Cowboys this year, and they host the Bills.

So that feels like those are Bills or Cowboys. Probably Cowboys, but Fox is probably going to want that game, right? So I don't know. Bills maybe, I guess. Bills or Cowboys are my guess for the home game. All right. So then moving into week two. Oh, actually, taking it back.

Broncos too could be week one Thursday. Because the Broncos also play week two Thursday. So maybe they'll do a Thursday to Thursday thing for the Broncos. I don't love the sound of that. I don't think the Broncos have earned that kind of audience yet with this. I know it's... The Cowboys have? They're the Cowboys.

And yeah, quite honestly, I think the Cowboys finished this season with a better record than the Broncos do because the Chargers and Chiefs are in their division. Chargers-Chiefs is the Thursday night game week two. So that's fun. Maybe we can find a way to... Chargers-Chiefs, not Broncos-Chiefs.

Chargers-Chiefs, yes. Chargers-Chiefs. So we obviously had a great regular season game late in the year last year. That should be a fun one. Titans-Bills Monday night that week. Vikings at Eagles, the doubleheader Monday night, week two. I don't know about those.

It's actually on doubleheader really this time. They play at the same time. There's a lot of crossover. It's like 7 and 8.30, which is odd. They're once on ESPN, once on ABC. I guess they don't like those ratings for that late game, typically. The game, it's like a 1030 Eastern. So interesting.

They're doing and they're going to have Buck and Aikman do the ABC game. That's the worst of the game, right? That second game is not the better one. I'm curious how they're going to work that. We'll see. Yeah, well, you know, I think what happened, we said this during COVID, you know, the last couple of seasons, especially last year, when games were getting, you know i think what happened we said this during uh covid you know the last couple of seasons especially last year when games were getting you know moved all the way to tuesdays and we had like day games on tuesday like it occurred to everyone that as long as the players

can keep up getting more football windows being able to keep our eye on more games instead of just packing it all into sunday afternoon is a thing. And it seems like in small ways the league is trying to do that. So moving through it a little further, we get the London games are back, obviously. So Vikings at Saints in London. That seems like one we could miss week four. Giants at Packers in London. Finally, the British fans get to see some teams with an actual history. They're used to seeing like the Jags and Dolphins.

Broncos at Jags. There you go. In London, week eight. Seahawks at Bucks. Seahawks was one. I saw this pointed out. Seahawks have to travel almost 30,000 air miles for their schedule this year.

Does that actually matter, Jeff? Well, they always have to travel a lot because they're in the Pacific Northwest. Like they're in the upper corner of the country. So they're always going to have a lot of miles logged. I mean, their division game, flying from Seattle to Arizona, is a long way to go. I remember when I played in the NFC North for the Vikings,

there were some times we'd play at 12 Central and be home by 6, a 45-minute flight or anywhere. They have just a long way to go, whoever they're playing. They fly from, again, Seattle down to L.A., Seattle down to Arizona. You know, the Giants and Cowboys are pretty far apart for a division game. Same with Washington, right? I mean, the Cowboys and Seahawks typically fly a lot of miles because just their division opponents are far away from each other.

Yeah. Well, I mean, also, yeah, it just depends which division they're getting from the conference. Yeah, they have the East as well. They got a little unlucky with that. Yeah. All right. So then Thanksgiving is not set.

We know we'll see the Lions and the Cowboys hosting games, but we don't really know anyone else on Thanksgiving. And then there's Christmas and Christmas Eve. This is interesting. So Broncos at Rams on Christmas Day, a day that has usually been the NBA's day. Not anymore. Yeah. There'll be two other games on Christmas Day, a day that has usually been the NBA's day. Not anymore. Yeah. There'll be two other games on Christmas Day. So the NFL is basically doing the same thing they do on Thanksgiving,

on Christmas Day. What do you think of that? Well, Christmas Day this year is a Sunday. That makes sense, right? I mean, I understand if it was a different day, but it's a Sunday. They're going to play their regular schedule as they always do on Christmas. This is nothing new. It just may be magnified this year because of the way they announced the schedule.

But this is the way it's always been. If Christmas is on a Sunday, you're playing all your games on Sunday. You're not moving. You might have some Saturday that time of year because there's no college football on Saturday. So the NFL gets a few games on Saturday in December. But otherwise, this is business as usual. They're not moving off Christmas. They wouldn't even move off Easter if they had to.

They're playing the games on Sunday. It does not matter what holiday it is they're playing. And this is Sunday. It's Christmas. They're playing the game. So no surprise here game. Yeah. Um, a note from Hank here, the bottom four teams in strength of schedule, uh, are the

four NFC East teams for all the airtime this division gets. They've been in the worst division in the league for years now. I mean, I feel like ever since we've been doing this show, we've been in the the worst division in the league for years now i mean i i feel like ever since we've been doing this show we've been talking about how bad the nfc east is is this the year yeah they turn it around and sort of justify all that attention i'm starting doing my win total stuff later this week actually fox asked for that as the schedule gets closer to being released you know the cowboys are probably the favorite you know Washington again quarterback situation the Giants quarterback situation Eagles I mean Hurts is good but not great I mean I don't know they're probably not going to be awful this year like I think the South has a

chance to be pretty bad with Houston and Jacksonville again you know but the North with the Lions and Bears possibly but they're probably not going to be as bad this year the Giants have better coaching right a new general manager some more talent so probably probably not going to be as bad this year. The Giants have better coaching, right? A new general manager, some more talent. So probably not going to be terrible. But we will see Giants and Cowboys most likely on national television at one point this year, whether they're good or not. Yeah. Yeah, I think that some of those flex games

and games that are sort of TBDs right now, it's just going to be decided by some injuries and teams that pop up and get hot like the Bengals did last year. Who would ever think the Bengals should be a national you know a national game except late last year everyone wanted to watch them so we'll see um you got anything more on the schedule yeah so people ask me all the time you know what players look at the schedule right because we look at it I would imagine differently than you guys do and I'm a fan of the game too so I look at schedules as a fan but as a player and

you know we look at the bye week first all right because we need to know when we're having a break we need to know and our families need to know because the NFL is a grind and and so being able to have a bye in the middle of the year I feel like is ideal right week eight to ten about then we saw a couple years ago that Tampa Bay had a late buy was it week 12 by 13 buy? And then went out and didn't lose a game on the Super Bowl. So a late buy can be beneficial too. You just have to get there. So when is the buy week? And then when is your Thursday night game?

Because that's also a buy week, right? A mini buy week, right? You're off Friday, Saturday, Sunday most likely. Maybe even Monday if you're winning and your coach kind of feels that you need some time off. So it's just mentally getting yourself prepared. Okay, we have a week by. Okay, we're going to play seven games.

We're going to be off. Then we're going to play now, what, 10 more games, right? So just knowing that, kind of getting to that point where you have the mandatory break and getting refocused. And we think about, you know, getting to that point. Again, it's important for us in the schedule. Maybe, you know know you think it's weird to look when we're having it off but that's why it's a mental physical thing more than just

like i really want a day off it's just that time for us to plan when we get to see our families for a week and just get to kind of decompress from football third is primetime games um i'll say this most players would rather play at one Eastern every game on Sunday. You know, the primetime games are great because it means your team is typically good. So if you have the six, I think it's six still, is the most. If you have six, you're probably going to be the Chiefs, the Bengals, the Cowboys seem to get six every year, right?

The Bills might have five or six. The Rams are going to get probably four to five, and that includes Thursday night, right? So it's Sunday night, Monday night, Thursday night. How many of those games do you have throughout the year? And then we look at, okay, well, if you have one, a road Monday night football game is brutal game because then you get home late Monday night, you're off Tuesday, you're back in Wednesday, and that day is a little bit wonky because you're played Monday night.

So we look at, okay, primetime games, how many of them, right? And again, the year in 2013 with Kansas City, we were 11-5. The previous year, they were 2-14. We didn't have one primetime game until they flexed us in Week 9. That was it. Like, it was great to play early, get it done with, wake up, play football, win your game, and go home. And then we start looking

at other things like you know again you know others is there a personal rivalry game for us is there a payback game right i i left this team am i playing this team now right is there a family situation where you're going to play back in los angeles for me you're going to play a civil you know 2013 play my brother and those are kind of the way we look at the schedule but again it's kind of bi-week first and thursday night football primetime games and then we look at obviously the kind of the personal relations to to games um matchups that we want to see but again you already know you're playing like you you know right now who your opponents are you just don't know what order it's going to be um when you'll be at home and i think we also look last thing too is cold weather games um okay we're playing outside in in december because for a lot of us you know we don't look forward to playing in those games and so we have

to mentally prepare ourselves now to go play you know december game in buffalo if you're the dolphins right or you're another warm weather team going to cold yeah that's all interesting to hear from a guy who played in the league for eight years let me ask you this obviously you as the player have most of these logistics almost every ounce of these logistics are cared for by the team right so get just thinking about all of that you're talking about you as the dad or the father or the brother or somebody and your people. So honest question, do the family members, people close to you as a player, for the average player, do they have any access to the team helping them coordinate some travel or some hotels?

Are you doing all of that on your own? If your wife wants to go to a game in miami because it'd be fun to see you play in miami and she wants to meet up with some friends that's entirely on her to work out the tickets work out the hotels no i i i work out tickets in a hotel hotel okay so they they come to the team hotel if they want yeah i i can get them a room like a discounted room they can't be obviously on our floor. They can't share a room with us. It's kind of weird. In theory, why can't you spend the night with your wife in your room

before you go play a football game? I mean, that whole, I know where we're going to go with this. I'm not going to go there, but you can go there. You don't have to do that. You can just hang out with your wife. I don't know. I guess they want guys to sleep. I don't know.

But no women are allowed on the floors at all even in even so far some places will not allow female staff members like uh room service catering maids any of that stuff not allowed on our floors at all and then tickets obviously go through the player so uh we request those wednesday thursday during the week um but yeah flights and stuff is up to the family we have the team's not paying for that unless it's the Super Bowl and the Super Bowl they fly down on plane of family members yeah I don't want to take us to the wrong place or say something too rude here but if you want to make sure guys aren't up to no good I'm putting air quotes up with uh you know maybe some women who shouldn't be on the floor the best thing you could do is put the wives on the same floor

exactly yeah everyone's gonna get a better night's sleep probably not do anything wrong if there's a few wives around so i oh no that that's a that's a good that's a good point i mean we had a guy cut one time who left his room at night and there's's cameras. And they know when you beep in with your key card. He was a dummy. Yeah, but also, even if your buddy

on the offensive line, if his wife's staying in his room down the hall and she's buddies with your wife, you're not going to be screwing around. Oh, no. No, you're exactly right. You're exactly right you're exactly right um so one of my fate i had a coach one time before the season and every coach kind of gives this speech but one of the coaches did it a little differently you know they say okay guys

it's week one make sure you get all your ticket stuff done early in the week and make sure your your girlfriend sit apart from your wives it was was pretty funny. It was pretty funny. All right. Let's, let's shift gears a little bit. So last week I, and I bet, you know, you probably got a lot of stuff on Twitter about this all week because it was like this sort of tipping point moment for the casual fans understanding of what's going on in college football with all these really kind of crazy NIL deals. And there's a lot of new terms and a lot of complications to this. And frankly, a lot of the rules are being written and rewritten, we're finding out on the fly.

So Jeff, rather than me bungling some explanations, can you please help us with an updated understanding of where things are with NIL deals, specifically around these so-called collectives, which we knew were boosters.

But now the NCAA is saying no more collectives because they are just a group of boosters. Can you clarify? Well, they're not saying no more collectives. What they're trying to crack down on is a collective paying a player to go to their school before they arrive there, right? So let's say that I'm Jeff Schwartz Collective and I'm paying you, Gabe, as a high school athlete to come to my school. They're fine if you're already at the school and I pay you the money, right? But if I'm enticing you to come to school, they want that.

So they also have determined, at least they're trying to say, that if any of us give money to a collective, we're considered a booster, can no longer talk to that recruit. So let's say, and I mean, Oregon's Collective, I don't think you can donate to. USC's, you might be able to donate your own money to i know like in the patch of washington like there's some you can donate your money like if you want to give x amount of money to the collective you can do that and now they're going to deem you a booster and what they're trying to do now is go back retroactively and have the players snitch on the boosters which is

don't talk to ncaa never never talk to them they have no subpoena on the boosters, which is don't talk to NCAA. Never talk to them. They have no subpoena power game. The NCAA is trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube, right? They let this go now for nine months. They're trying to find ways to now rein it back in. And the issue is that who's doing the reining in, right? Because they mentioned that they want to have an independent, I'm going to read this for you exactly right. The NIL agreements must be based on an independent case-by-case analysis of the value that each athlete brings to an NIL agreement.

Which independent person is deciding this? Who are you to decide what the value is to a collective of a high school recruit? You don't know any of that, right? They're just kind of throwing big things up at the wall. None of it's going to stick. Collectives have already said they're going to sue if the NCAA comes after them because, you know, look, they lost 9-0 in the Supreme Court. And one of the opinions I think was from Justice Kavanaugh was like, no other business allowed

to be run like yours in the country. Like you're going, you can't do this. And so they're trying to put everything back. And it's just going to be very tough to prove all this because look, we've known this about college sports. Boosters have paid players forever. Okay. Forever.

And they almost never get in trouble for it. You know, SMU was, you know, the Pony Express was on steroids, right? It was, they were paying players brazenly, openly. They found one player to talk eventually about it. They were told to stop. They kept doing it and eventually got the death penalty. But for the most part, the boosters never get caught. Now, Gabe, it's legal to do.

They have attorneys. They have compliance people. They're not setting this up in a way where they can get in trouble for it, right? Like the NCAA thinks they're stupid and they're not. And each state, and here's another problem too, Gabe. Each state, not each state, but some states have their own NIL laws. So what comes first, their law or the NCAA's enforcement? And again, the enforcement part of this is really funny. Kansas won a college basketball championship with five level one infractions.

Like, they won a championship with a team that's going to get, like, a two-year postseason ban and lots of scholarships if they follow through on the enforcement of this. What I think is going to happen, Gabe, and we're hearing more whispers about this in college sports, is if the NCAA decide to go hard in this subject, A, no one's going to cooperate, but B, we heard a little bit, Ohio State's athletic director mentioned this. We've heard Notre Dame's athletic director mention this.

We're going to have a system, in my opinion, that is out of the NCAA. No more, the NCAA will not have any part of college football anymore at least division one right FBS and what's going to happen is they're going to have an English soccer league system of tiers you have an upper tier where you're going to have the schools that are okay with the current climate of college football. NIL, collective, pay for play. They're all in. Whatever you want to say is happening, go ahead and do it. You have the next tier of teams, which is like Utah, right?

A good football team that does some local NIL deals, but they're not giving players millions of dollars to go attend the school, but they're good anyways, right? They're good. They're that middle tier, and the bottom tier is like Kansas, right? Just some bad football teams. Now, I would love if those tiers had relegation. That'd be great.

I don't think it's going to happen. But like I think we're moving to a model where the NCAA is no longer in charge of college football. It's basically there. The playoff is run by the College Football Playoff Committee and ESPN. It's not run by the NCAA. And I think we're moving in that direction, Gabe, where you're either going to be in on it and want to do it or you're going to have in the second tier or the third tier and that's what college football.

Basketball is too hard. There's 300 and something teams. But in college football, I feel like that's the model we're working towards the next couple of years. All right. Well, okay. There's a lot here and I'm not smart enough to ask about all of it. I guess where i'm a

little confused and so i imagine the audience might also be is where incentives do and do not align between the ncaa and universities boosters or so-called collectives yeah players uh the nfl like there's a lot of different entities to think about here. At what point do the schools say, wait a minute, all this money, all these rich people, whether they're alum or not, whether they have real marketing goals or not, all these people used to give us the money and then we would be the product and the players were just the people on our team. We don't get any of that money anymore. And the players were just the people on our team. We don't get any of that money anymore.

It's going straight into the pockets of the players. We don't really like this. When does that happen? And what impact does that have on everything else you've just said? Well, it certainly can happen. But a lot of these collectives are run by billionaires who have money to give to both players and, you know, recruiting department and athletic facilities. No, but there definitely is going to be conversation. Some of these schools, like, where's our money at?

Our money is drying up on the athletic side because you're giving the money to the players. And there'll be conversations they have to have with these collectives. But the collective is not supposed to be associated with the university. Right. They're supposed to not talk to anyone in the coaching staff, including the recruits. It's supposed to be done, and the ones that are doing it correctly are going through intermediaries, right?

An attorney, a family friend, a parent. A booster's not talking to these players. So yeah, you can maybe get there. But again, I stressed this. I said this last week. I said it almost every day we talk about this topic, is that it's going to level out the next couple years right now it's it's wild it's uh not out of control but it's unregulated which it probably will be continued to be unregulated but it it will slow down when boosters realize it's not worth all the money they're

paying right and i get it people say well how is eight million dollar quarterback how they gain when boosters realize it's not worth all the money they're paying, right? And I get it. People say, well, how is the $8 million quarterback, how are they getting that money back? They're probably not, right? They're probably not, unless he's a Heisman winner or he went to the championship before Tennessee. But what they're getting is they're getting some marketing value, of course.

Will it translate to $8 million? Again, no. But they get bragging rights. They can say, hey, man, my man my school is gonna win and i did it and sometimes these people have so much money that eight million dollars for them is nothing it's it's enough to get bragging rights for their school um and so and that's what the boy doesn't like right so you're basically you know again you're paying players come to your school without any actual value to the collective but i say so be it like let the players get all their money

yeah well the players undeniably are getting more money on average because of this uh i guess here's what i want to end on on do you think there will be any on-field impact of any of this aside from like certain teams are going to have maybe better rosters than they would have like nothing changes about the sport nothing changes about the way we decide a champion nothing changes about the product we watch on television all of this is kind of inconsequential to this year's football season right uh yes i mean look a and m had a good recruiting class maybe they're better but the same teams are going to be good. They're going to be good. But I'll tell you what, though, Gabe.

If this leads to USC being better, to Oregon being better, Miami, Texas, I think it's good for the sport, right? So I would say in the end, but I understand if you're rooting for a team that does not participate in NIL, how tough that might be to just see your chances, which you didn't really have anyways, be squandered to be good because you can't just participate in this new wave of college football. Let me ask you the last question. I said I was done. We sort of touched on this last week. Then we talked about it on a text thread in between.

Sort of touched on this last week. Then we talked about it on a text thread in between. Are we going to see at programs? I think Hank put in the example of Sam Howell, right, at UNC. He had a year left of eligibility. He goes to the draft. He probably thought he was a second rounder. He ends up sliding many rounds deep. So Sam Howell could have been making maybe as much as a million dollars a year playing his senior year out at UNC, perhaps competing for a playoff spot perhaps they're certainly in the Heisman race instead he's barely going to make an

NFL team and he's going to make less than a half a million dollars a year are all the Sam Howell staying next year and the year after good question um I mean the allure of the NFL is is I think always going to be of value and you know Sam Howell's deal is going to be, I mean, it's going to be multiple millions of dollars, though, even in the fifth round. Is that what it was? Yeah, no, listen. Nobody's going to cry for Sam Howell.

His bank account just got a lot bigger. But he could have been a Heisman frontrunner the whole year. He could be competing for a conference championship and maybe a spot in the playoff while making sure maybe almost seven figures but then he's one year later to the nfl i'm i think it's gonna be very difficult for players to their that think they're gonna be um draft picks to just stay in school for almost less money than you get but okay but just to stay here for a second if you are a fifth round pick, you're not starting. No chance.

Correct. But if you are, like we just saw with Kenny Pickett, let's say, if you hang around and play one more year and put up some real numbers, and you would have been a fifth rounder as a junior, but now you're a late first or early second rounder as a senior, maybe you do start, because teams tend to just give the first round guy a chance. Well, certainly, yeah. But I think there is obviously arrogance for players thinking they can come back

and be something better. But maybe he realized this is what he is. Yeah, I'm just saying, I think you get on an NFL field faster staying one more year in college looking that much better, getting drafted that much earlier, and then someone rolls the dice on you. That's all.

I mean, that's fair, but I just don't know what it will take for – how much money it will take for people to stay in school. Yeah. All right. Well, we'll see. Like you said, there's sort of a water level, water line that hasn't really been established yet. Ooh, some New York came out of you there. I like it. Yeah.

So we're going to have to – Water. Water. Yeah. People call me on that.ork came out of there i like it yeah so we're gonna have to water what oh did water did it yeah people yeah people call me it came out right yeah well you well you you noticed it and you said the la version of water like everyone else does i don't even notice what i'm saying it water yeah but it went new york for a little bit my my radio producer is from jersey he does the same thing it's okay yeah right. Well, take a sip of water while I read off some headlines that happened this offseason. You tell me. I'm just going to list off a bunch of the ones Hank and I put together here. Tell me if

they actually matter or not. All right? Because we had to read all this. Well, I don't know, but we were at a quiet time. It's this or more speculation about where Jimmy G ends up. So I want to know which of these headlines will still be a thing in a few weeks when we're not just scratching for headlines from the off season, Antonio Brown,

fill in the blank, like anything to do with Antonio Brown. Are we just putting him and all of his nonsense aside, or is he going to continue to be a story? I see. He had a comment about Colin Kaepernick. I was like, I'm not reading this article.

You didn't click on it. You didn't want to talk about it. No. The last person that I, that I want to know how he feels about Colin Kaepernick. I was like, I'm not reading this article. You didn't click on it. You didn't want to talk about it. No. The last person that I want to know how he feels about Colin Kaepernick. All right. Do you think there's some legs to the story about players, college players sitting out the combine or not going to the draft? Do you think that's going to continue to be a story in the months and years to come?

I think that there will be a call from certain people for the NFL players to get paid for going to the combine, but I don't think that's going to be something the NFL will seriously consider. All right. The D.C. football team changed its name to the Commanders, obviously. First year, we get to watch them buy the jerseys, refer to them with the new team name, come up with all the new nicknames. After about week two, when we're just used to calling them the commanders are we done talking about the name change well no one's gonna be used to calling the commanders i as i mentioned in a text thread a while ago my favorite part about the their new strategy is the tiktok

star they hired to be there there's immediate correspondence i love it yeah it's yeah that should fix their image so uh yeah i know i think it's gonna be people will call them i think people will call them the redskins still like for some some older folks just because they're not used to but commander i like washington football team i'm gonna call them washington football team still all right uh here's what i'm sure is going to continue to be a story but when there's good reporting on it and when it pops up again who knows this brian flores suit you know really captured our attention it was a serious story it was an intriguing story it seemed like it was going to have a big ripple effect just a

few weeks ago it's been pretty quiet of late when does that pop up again probably when it's least convenient for the nfl i think it will come up again um i don't know i don't know when exactly it will but it's definitely not going away all right uh when are we going to hear about calvin ridley and his return and sort of re-evaluating that suspension that was a huge one for a couple weeks there it's vanished when's he going to be back in the news until he comes back that's it and when he comes back do you think it's just okay he's back because remember yeah there was also that mental health stuff going on which no one ever explained if those two were connected yeah but he comes back he comes back and he's just one of the better receivers in the league we think i hope he's been i hope he's been gambling this

whole suspension too let's just keep on doing it just just do this to the parlays just like just crappy parlays obviously the tyreek hill trade dominated a week or two of coverage for us this offseason. He's going to be a huge story all season, especially if the Dolphins are good. I'm going to ask it this way. Will people overdraft him in fantasy? Doesn't his draft value go down in Miami? I 100% agree, yeah.

Yeah, and Waddle's there. Yeah, people overdraft him. Oh, man, fantasy football. I guess I'll do it again this year. I'd say I'm never going to do it, and then I just end up doing it. Yeah. Are we done with, at least for now, this offseason with Rodgers' future trade complaint? That's over.

Yes, that's done. That's done for two years. He does or doesn't show up to training camps. Who cares? By September or whatever, he's ready to play football. He's going to compete for a championship in Green Bay. All right, good. Do you think it will take more than one half for the Carson Wentz is terrible in D.C. talk to pop back up again?

It'll take two seconds. All right. I think we're going to be hearing that the first time he throws an incompletion. But we're not talking about him. I'm glad we're still not. The same rule applies. Okay, here's a more serious one, and I really don't think people have come to a consensus on how this will play out.

We still, still do not know. We moved on to other stories. We do not know if Deshaun Watson is going to play at any point this season. We know he's getting paid a lot of money. We know they structured the deal in case he can't play yeah what's gonna happen when Deshaun Watson can't play and Baker is eventually gone it's interesting well they have Jacoby Brissett but um I just saw I think yesterday or today a tweet where he still has to sit for hours of depositions like they're moving

forward to trial it's not going to be during the season they. But this summary has to sit for a bunch of depositions. Again, what does Goodell do? And we talked about this at the time when this happened, because there's no criminal charges, right? And so civil cases take a long time to play out, right, Gabe? And so if you suspend him pending, you know, wrapping up the civil cases, that could be years like what's the end point of that so i don't know what they do man i think i probably think they let him play i i

guess send him eight games like i you know cut in half eight games down the whole season i i don't know game yeah i wouldn't want to be that fellow shoes are now with this no that one's going to be a really difficult one and uh and i I have a feeling that Deshaun Watson this whole episode with Baker just this whole off season is going to be the reason that we see major major changes in Cleveland I I just I don't see how this goes as planned and people aren't you know losing jobs over this one um fair or otherwise i just i don't see how that what they had a pretty good rebuild going on it seemed like they were headed in the right direction people liked their roster baker yeah people wanted to debate how good he was but they were winning and now it just feels like any tiny thing goes wrong the whole thing can blow up

oh it's very volatile. Yes, it can be. I'm with you there. Yeah. All right. There's been other storylines. There will certainly be other storylines in the offseason, but let's take a quick break.

Let's come back and move the line. A quick over-under game. A few other things that are in the news this week that I'd love to get your take on. Jeff, we're back. Time to move the line. I don't think most people saw this yet. Maybe by the time they hear it, they will. So apparently the mayor in Dallas

believes that they should have another NFL team in the Dallas-Fort Worth market. He's actually advocating for a second team. So i want to ask you over under one percent chance jerry jones lets a second nfl team come to dallas zero percent okay so that's under what's the chance that this guy loses his next election for even proposing this notion a hundred percent yeah what's happening here why was this thought like who said this was a good idea? He's gone. Goodbye. Goodbye, Dallas, man. Like, he's, obviously, there can.

Or maybe Jerry wants, like, the team to be there so they can share revenue of, like, he can get more revenue at his stadium if they play at the stadium. But, like, it doesn't make any sense. Like, who's going to root for? The Texans are a pretty new team. They still are struggling to find fans, right? Like, there's no one looking for a team to root for in Dallas. Well, you're right.

You're right. That one struck me as very strange. I'm sure some of the shows will talk about it. I don't know how seriously they'll take it. I don't know how seriously you should take this next topic either. Pete Carroll is playing seven-dimensional chess. Pete Carroll is playing seven-dimensional chess, but ultimately he knows that Baker Mayfield will be his week one starter. Over under 95% chance that's the case.

Actually, I made this case yesterday on Fox Bet Live. I don't think Baker Mayfield goes to Seattle or to Houston or Carolina. And here's the reason why. If you're one of those teams, you would rather be very bad this year, in my opinion, than have one year Baker Mayfield being average and winning seven or eight or nine games, right? Because the quarterback class next year is really good. And that takes you out of the running of those quarterbacks for a one-year deal for Baker.

I think Baker goes, he eventually gets cut by the Browns, and then he goes somewhere where they will, a contender will pay him $7 to $10 million to be a backup just to have a good backup in the wings. Yeah. And I'm not sure Baker wants to do that, but that to me feels like where he might end up. Baker has greater potential than the Teddy Bridgewater, Jameis Winston, Marcus Mariota. These borderline fringe starter guys who accepted a backup role who then get thrust into a starting role and kind of can play and get hot. Yeah, he's better than those guys. Yeah, I'm with you. That's my point about that. Yeah, so shouldn't he just go play behind, like, whoever looks injury pro?

And I don't know how you evaluate that. Yes. And he'll take over a team week six and then stay the starter. Like, that's just it. It'll be his team after that. Possibly. But, again, if those teams that have injured quarterback, do they want Baker Mayfield?

Yeah, well, some of them may not. All right. I don't know if you saw the image of this um davante smith was at the sixers game the other day and they put him up on the big screen and they gave him a little graphic that said former philadelphia eagle wow yeah so he he posted that and said damn got fired on my day off he is not a former eagle but they did trade for aj brown so question is. So question is, over under 10% chance Devontae wishes that graphic were true. You think he wants to play somewhere else now?

No, no, no, no. No chance. Not yet. Yeah, I think they're building something kind of special there. I actually, I kind of, what did you say their win total was? Projected win total? I think they're, I don't know yet. I think that they have a chance to, if Hertz doesn't work out this year they're going to trade up with all their assets and get those

as a quarterback like a cj shroud or bryce i don't know why people were maybe it's because i pay closer attention to fantasy with teams like the eagles but i feel like jalen hertz is fine to pretty good like i don't think there's a huge difference between him and dak prescott when all is said and done dak's got a few more years on him. He looks better now, but what's the major difference? I think Dak's a better pocket passer from the pocket. Yeah.

Yeah. All right. Well, I don't know. I just feel like Jalen Hurts gets crapped on for no reason. He has real pedigree. He's only ever won. He put up good stats on a bad team.

Like I, I just don't understand why the narrative is that he's obviously the guy they have to replace i don't get it um yeah yeah i i i just great defense of jalen hurts thanks jeff i just i just think he's like i think he's just okay like he's just okay like it's okay to be okay but he he's not elite enough to win a Super Bowl. All right. Fair enough. Your boy, KT, donated $50,000 to a charity to buy the number five from the Giants kicker.

I don't know why the kicker felt like he could hold on to this thing. How much is the most you would pay to get the number you wanted? Over under $25,000. No, no, no. I think I paid, like, $2,000 for my number in my last year. What number? 74 in Detroit. Okay.

Or $1,000. It was like nothing. Do you remember who you paid? Michael Ola. And what did he wear after that? I don't remember, but it wasn't 74. So it just didn't mean much to him? Yeah.

Okay. And so you had him worn 74 at all levels up until then? No, I'd worn it in the NFL all but one year, and the one year that I did not wear it, I had a bad season. Oh. So there's a little superstition there. There was, yeah. But 25K would be a little too much.

Too much, yeah. Okay, so under there. Let me ask you this. Your boy Mike Golick Jr., posted something the other day about what the worst NFL number is. What's your answer to that? 64.

64. That's an odd-looking number, buddy. It does look strange. Speaking of Mike Golick Jr., look, I got his thick six shirt on right now. Oh, nice. Hey, good for... Yeah, that's good for all you guys.

All the proceeds are being donated, so go to... I think it's Home Team Apparel or Home Field Apparel. Oh. My thick, thick shirt. It's nice. Yeah, it's nice. It fits well. I'm looking up NFL players wearing 64.

Like Randall McDaniel, I think. Randall McDaniel. Yep. Yeah. That's obviously – his stance is incredible. Go look at his offensive line stance. It's crazy. My blind guess for worst number was 59.

59 feels like it's like the fake number, like the costume director didn't know, like they just gave him a football jersey in a high school movie. Who wears 59? The best player I can see, according to some random list I just pulled up, to ever wear 59 was Jack Hamm. I mean, okay.

Hall of Famer, I think. Okay, good linebacker 100 years ago. I don't know of anyone who looked good in a 59. Yeah, 64 is pretty bad. 64 is bad. I will agree with that. All right. Let's bring it on home here.

Over under 99% chance the tweet I'm about to read you was dictated by Mac Jones or someone on his PR team or his agent. This is from some reporter. By every account from Patriots players, quarterback Mac Jones has taken a big leap through hard work, diligence, and development. He is in a totally different place than last year competing with Cam Newton. Everyone, including Jones, knows he is the present and future of the organization.

So I thought if tweets are sponsored, you have to say they're sponsored. That's just insane. No disrespect to this guy who's just probably trying to do his job. But come on. Do we really think that was by talking to lots of players? He runs PatriotsWire.com.

Yeah, this is definitely just a sponsored tweet from Mac Jones' agency. I mean, it's just wild. Or his agent. Yeah, it is definitely just a sponsor tweet from Mac Jones' agency. I mean, it's just wild. Or his agent. Yeah, it's crazy. Look, the problem for him is that not everyone is convinced he's the future. He's the present. Of course he is.

And if he plays well this year, he's the future. But, you know, he didn't look great last year, even though they had an okay record. Like, it's all right. Go win the job. You know, the guy everyone there worship okay record like it's all right go win the job you know the guy everyone there worships still tom brady had to win the job so you can do the same thing mac yeah and then maybe he can be he can go to fox sports for 375 million dollars there you go that's waiting for you down the line um jeff last i'm close to that last question how long could you block a cow for

over under two and a half seconds I saw the video of Cam Juergens I mean the cow was more just like what is this human doing in front of me but I could block a cow

for however long my quarterback needed what about a bull a bull is different than a cow really I didn't know that of two like city folk

talking about the difference between cows and bulls I would not be I'm not agile enough to avoid a horn or piercing. So I would probably stay away from – I love when people run with the bulls and then get hurt. And they're like, how did this happen? Well, you're running with fucking bulls.

This is going to happen. Yeah. He asked for it. All right. Last one. And I got to tell you something. I do not know what this is. I don't know. I don't want to know. I do not know what this is. I don't know.

I don't want to know. I think it involves a lot of things I don't like. But there is a hashtag going around. I have to ask you about. Over under 55% chance that you are hashtag Team Hank. I think it's a barstool thing, and I do not know what it means. Okay. So it has nothing to do with our Hank. Yeah. Because nobody is Team Hank. No. If it's a barstool thing, and I do not know what it means. Okay. So it has nothing to do with our Hank. Yeah.

Because nobody is Team Hank. No. If it's our Hank. Can I have one? Can I put one in here? Yeah. I had a tweet the other day that I didn't think was that divisive, but obviously it stirred some emotion.

And we can just talk about the situation. So there's two lanes, right? Okay. You're driving down two lanes. Yeah. And you see up on the right, about 1,000 yards up, that lane is closing. Okay. That lane is closing.

Sure. In Charlotte, the first sign you see of that lane closing, you must immediately merge into the left-hand lane as soon as possible. But your boy knows about the zipper merger. I just keep driving straight. Right. I get to where my lane ends and I make a left. However, there's always a douchebag who drives in a left-hand lane

and then jiggles over the center line to block people like me trying to merge properly. I tweeted this out and people were angry with me. They're like, you should abide by the socially accepted policy of merging whenever the fuck you want to merge. No. If everyone did a zipper merger, there wouldn't be traffic delays. I'm in the right here, Gabe. No, I don't think you're right.

I'm 100% right. No. A zipper implies like one from each side meshing together right but you don't get to race ahead in a zipper that would that would end up with that stupid zipper like when you try to do it yourself as a kid no no no no no i'm the zipper merger has to occur when the lane ends not whenever the hell you want it to end that's how the zipper merger works if you if you merge at any point before the end of your lane, then it's random points where you're merging.

Right, but then you're saying, then you're admitting to passing people on the right, which is also not allowed. No, it is allowed because my lane is still active until my lane is no longer active and I merge at that point. No, no, no, no, no. You can't have it both ways.

If everyone, not having it both ways. I do the same thing every time. I go to where my lane ends and I merge at that point. No, no, no. No, no. You can't have it both ways. Not having it both ways. I do the same thing every time. I go to where my lane ends and I merge over. If everyone else did that, we'd never have a mile-long traffic delay when one lane is closed. Jeff, you grew up minutes

from the place I'm about to describe. So you're going to know this very well. Other people, I'm sorry. Just stay with me. On the 405 heading north towards the 10 merger, there is this long stretch. It's always backed up.

You can go all the way over to the right somewhere and just sort of jet up the right side because some people... That's not the same thing as what I'm talking about. Because that lane continues to go to the 10 or to get off at National. This one, my lane's actually ending like there's a construction cone your lane is over what you're saying about that is a jackass move i also do that

but that's a separate thing see that's a separate thing you i if you if i was your defense attorney i would not let you on the stand because i just got you this is a character flaw if i'm going if i'm going in that direction i'm always getting off the 10 but anyways i would just take the left-hand lane and take it all the way up i wouldn't go to the right but i've done that before um there's also like certain places on the freeway where you can like get off but then never actually get off you just kind of just keep going like in the exit lane that's right as you back in it's a good it's a good uh job as well no i'm talking about my lane is physically ending like there's a construction cone it's like this lane is now ending you drive up to

that point and you merge over you don't merge 500 feet behind that a thousand feet behind that half mile behind that you're talking about something different which is you just basically go around the traffic in the exit lane and then pop back in before your lane doesn't really end you just want to get out of the lane all right let me ask you this question you go to a ball game this has happened to me you go to a ball game and we're basically just coming up with you know this is all your 405 and 10 interchange one is a good one because you're exactly right the right hand national spot that's a that's a yeah it's an easy spot to find scumbags right there yeah uh here's another one you're you're at a dodgers game and let's say you go

to the concession stand they're they're very packed it's hard to get what you want you get to go get a dodger dog and there's like eight registers right but the lines are very confusing and people are trying to walk through to get to their seats, whatever. Now, let's say a new register opens a ninth register. So there have been eight lines previously. A ninth register opens. Can anyone just get out of the line and race to the front of that line? Or should people just acknowledge sort of like, OK, I was like here behind you in this current line.

Now there's a new line. Let's both move up, but I'll stay behind you. So the way I look at this is that you should stay behind the person in front of you. But if they do not notice the line is opening, then you have the right to go in front of them. So how long do you have to wait until they notice? If a person says like, hey, I'm open. And then they kind of just like don't pay attention to that then they've lost and i'm going so do you like go like hey man you're gonna because either

way i don't know i don't talk to the person in front of me but i'm saying like i'm i wait i wait i wait a step i'm like well they're not paying attention i'm going and you go straight to the front well i don't cut anyone that's if someone else is in front of me i let them go can we agree can we agree that the fairest method would be to like reverse zipper now sure the second person online should become the first the third should move up to the second the fourth should be right but right but the fair the fairest thing also requires people to pay attention to things around them which no one ever does so that's on them to not like you pay attention man if the lane's opening up you got to be do you also like in the grocery store game when you see a line do you look at the amount of

people in the line or the amount of things i know the items yeah look at items yeah but but then like okay i'm the grocery store i'm number three in line they open up a new lane if they say hey you're up i'm like okay cool i just go i don't really cut the person in front of me i just they said it's my turn i just go in front of them. I don't know. What's this do? No, I think you got it. This is where I like the guy who blocks you.

He sticks his car into the lane to block you. I'm with that guy. He's blocking me from doing the correct thing. No, he's standing up for the rest of society. He's a hero. A zipper merger is the proper way to merge and avoid the least amount of traffic no you're i'm correct you're operating just like with these nil deals you are not operating under the spirit of the law as it was intended you are technically

correct i'm following the law technically so you will have to discuss this with your maker when your time comes because you know in your heart what you're doing is a little bit dishonest it's not what was intended it's not it's not dishonest what was intended was you to merge at the proper point not have a panic attack 500 yards out and immediately merge over and then sit in traffic the people that i don't understand and this is now a driving podcast fyi um like drive with ambition man i don't understand, and this is now a driving podcast, FYI. Like, drive with ambition, man. I don't want to be in the car any longer than you do. Are we just driving like a luxury time?

Like, just point A to point B, as safe as possible, as fast. People that lollygag, I just don't like it. There we can agree, which is a nice place to end, Jeff. Keep it moving, people. Last one to agree on. Last one to agree on. An IQ test should just be driving in a crowded parking lot that's what we should test people on whether or not you can have the capability to like keep your cool

find a parking space follow the freaking arrows like don't go the opposite direction if the arrow says go one direction go that direction don't go the opposite direction of the arrow how you gonna park in a space that's angled a different direction as your car is it's just it's oh god okay enough enough enough you know when we're doing podcast network we're doomed when people hank's age start you know welcoming themselves into society and we got to deal with the way that they drive and they park and what they think normal is we're all screwed then everyone's going to be zipper merging wherever the hell they please yeah so i if that's what hanks generation wants to do that i'm a fan of his generation we're going to teach generation our kids are generation aa aren't they something like that yeah our generation my kids generation my kids will know how to norman and emerson will know how to merge properly i'll

tell you that good they will know how to zipper merge all right with that we're actually not sponsored by a car. But if Toyota, if you're listening, I love a Tundra. So just if you're listening and want to sponsor this podcast, because we're now a car podcast, you let me know. All right, everyone. Powered by the Varsity Podcast. Now we'll be back next week.

Hope you enjoyed the show. Please rate, review, and subscribe. More NFL news, some fun, some laughs. We'll do it next week, guys. Take care. Have a good week. review and subscribe more nfl news some fun some laughs we'll do it next week guys take care