Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - NFL Week 15 Reactions

Episode Date: December 18, 2023

Gabe and Geoff are back to chat about all things that happened around the league. The Chiefs still don't look like champions against the Patriots, the Bills look like they might be the class of the AFC, and the Eagles playing on Monday night to see if they can stay on pace with the other top teams in the NFC. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's Monday, December 18th. I'm Jeff Schwartz. This is Jeff Schwartz of Smart. You are live on Twitter, on YouTube. And on Monday, we're brought to you by PrizePix. It's a skill-based, real-money, daily fantasy sports game. Go to PrizePix and use code GSSY for a first deposit match up to $100. You pick two to six players.

If they'll go more or less than the PrizePix projection, you'll win up to 25 times your money in any entry. And as usual, for Monday Night Football, we will be making our entry for the game. It is the Seahawks. It is the Eagles. Quarterbacks, a time of taping unknown. But Gabe, we're going to make it work anyways, and we're going to have the prize picks for you

at the end of the show. As usual, on Monday, we'll recap what happened in the National Football League and also a college football story, a quote from Chip Kelly, fairly interesting about maybe the future of college football and how it should look. We'll talk about that. Right now, Oregon's getting a bunch of commits.

USC's getting a bunch of decommits, Gabe. It's a rough time for you. The Jets are out of the playoffs. USC basketball, not great right now. USC football, decommits. Chargers fired their coach. We've got to go find you new teams, Gabe. Maybe I'm the problem, Jeff. Maybe you new teams game maybe i'm the problem jeff

maybe it's me you're the problem no i think it's it's starting to feel like i'm the consistent thing between all the teams that struggle the most but listen jeff yes we got through eight crazy nights and you came out of it with a new friend a new puppy yeah my yeah my dog so um he's a lot off camera here i'm gonna let him stay down there so here's what happened i've always wanted one dog in life just one i wanted a german shepherd that's all i've wanted and and we have said for a while that we would get a german shepherd that is like fully trained because my wife is not so much a dog person we had we had a dog previous to having my son and we had a dog and a cat and And then we got too busy, and life got crazy, and we had our son,

and we gave the dog to a friend who had a big yard and whatnot. Gave the cat away. The cat's still alive. He's 13 years old. He's, like, no teeth. Our friend has him. And we just, like, it was not time to have an animal. We were traveling.

I was playing football. I was in Detroit. And so I always said, like, one day I want a fully grown German Shepherd. That's trade. And Ryan Khalil, former center for the Panthers, had one as well. He had a dog named Hawk. He was incredible. 100-pound German Shepherd, like, beautiful dog.

And so, like, a month ago, I think it was a Sunday morning, Saturday morning, my wife goes, hey, look, I wasn't going to tell you, but I'm sure you'd ask questions if I disappeared on a Saturday morning for four hours. So here's what I'm doing. I found someone who trains world-class German shepherds up about an hour north of North Carolina. I'm going to the farm today. And, you know, I'm just – don't get your hopes up. I'm just going to – I'm just looking.

Dude, she came back in love with the dog with foe who we have here that was just named again because all the litters go by letters so i know what how old they are f letter they have a kid on the farm it names him foe i'm not sure it comes to his name quite yet but um we got him saturday i went out to the farm a couple weeks ago too dude you you get exactly what you pay for it's not cheap but like this dude is unbelievable gabe like unbelievable listens to commands he like he has a place like a little like a little bed dude if you put him in his bed and you give him the command dude will not move will not move um so it's all we wanted was just a pet that like did what we at we don't

want to train a pet we've had our kids we've had we're not like doing puppy again kid again um the the funniest part was my daughter um was in shock like she did not touch the dog when we got and my daughter loves animals we yeah we brought him over saturday and my daughter like wouldn't she was like just stood there and we're like emmy this is your dog and she just like didn't know what to do then left the house went to our neighbor's house for like four hours came back and was like i want to see the dog now okay well here he is uh she's totally cool about him now but um yeah man yeah here he is he's he's here he's just hanging out. And so his name is, is it pronounced or spelled F-A-U-X? No, F-O.

Oh, F-O. All right. That's easy. Yeah. But he doesn't really come to it. So I don't know. Stop biting cords. So we've noticed so far in two days that his only puppy, when you put his leash on him,

he turns into like a working dog. But when his leash is off, he turns like full puppy. He's like, you know, he has to bite stuff and whatnot uh he's getting to go potty is interesting still but um he's a good boy man all right so if all of a sudden in the middle of the show today your mic goes out it's because foe bit through a cord yeah i don't think he's going to do that though but like i could give him a command to just stay he should get away from the court it's like go over here let's go over here it's the first time my office he'd never been upstairs until yesterday um he car rides i'm trying to get him desensitized to car rides and he's just like terrified of the car he had to pick him up to put him in there

um but i'm like like my kids want my kids want to take them on car rides like they want to go with them like to school they want to have them go to all the stuff we do i take him on car rides. They want to go with him to school. They want to have him go to all the stuff we do. I took him on a car ride to the pharmacy today. I just got to desensitize him. Come here, buddy. To cars. All right, let's take a shot of that full and look at that dog.

Because you're very happy. You got a sweet look on your face. You got a handsome dog with you. Life is good in the Schwartz family so I just I hate to do this but I have to bring it up um your Chiefs even though they won they still look like crap and their quarterback is still pissed at their receivers uh Kadarius Tony I mean man like I think foe there studies the playbook a little better than Kadarius does. And it seems to have pissed Pat off a little bit. So, you know, I'm looking at the AFC and I see the Bills creeping up and I see the Dolphins absolutely dominating the Jets.

And, you know, I I'm not so sure, Jeff, about your team, even after the win over one of the worst Patriots teams of all time. Yeah, well, look. Mahomes has done very well in sort of hiding emotions for the season, right? Like, even after the MVS drop against the Packers, was the Packers, he's like, yep, should have thrown the ball better. All season sort of just, like, been the good champion for the Packers. He's like, yup, should have thrown the ball better. But yeah, all season sort of just like been the good, good champion for, for the chiefs.

Um, Andy Reed has said publicly say, I got called better plays. I do this and that, but we saw last week, the temper tantrum after the bills game. I told you guys, I thought it was more about the anger about the offense.

And it was just about, you know, the referees essentially. Right. Um, and he could, he, he just had to,

he had to just find a way to, like, let off steam. And then that Tony thing, I mean, he looked like he was in emotional distress. Yes. Which, again, I mean, I would be too. The dude dropped a wide-open pass to another interception. And Gabe, if he doesn't do that, the game was 24-7 at that point. It's probably just a drubbing, right? I mean, if he doesn't do that

you get a first down the ball's moving down the field and then just the game is what 31 14 and like that's the end of it i can tell you firsthand it screwed up a lot of fantasy games that i could use those points um like you know it's it becomes 31 10 right like it just, it makes the game completely different if he catches that football. So it just, I mean, that's, I don't know. There's a lot riding on Rishi Rice. Oh, I'm sorry. Wait, it was, sorry, it was 7-7 at that point. I thought it was a different point of the game. They held them to only three points, I believe, on that play.

But nonetheless, it's just not good. No, it's terrible. Rishi Rice is their their savior i guess at this position it's not justin watson it doesn't seem to be justin ross i yeah you know i think most of us are pay attention this uh chiefs receivers more as as fantasy owners than as diehard fans or x and o guys like you but But I just, I don't know, dude. Like, I think you gotta, you gotta make statements when you go

and play up in New England. And sure, the final score was pretty impressive, but some of those drives, like Kelsey just, you know, when did he become a flopper? When did Travis Kelsey become a guy who needs help looking great? Like he hasn't looked great in weeks, you know, and forget taylor swift

who cares the memes whatever like he just doesn't look like the same players he hurt what's going on well he was hurt he's about to start the season and i feel like he just hasn't come over that because he's 33 years old 34 years old um really i'm just look here i think we should all agree that we should be glad that he has decided that practice is critical. And he avoided going to his girlfriend's birthday party because practice was critical and important to success. It is funny seeing like nine football fans trying to figure out like the relationship between Kelsey and Taylor Swift. It's pretty funny. And in Taylor Swift, it's pretty funny.

But doesn't it make you think, though? Sorry to interrupt you, Jeff. Doesn't it make you think, though, that we must be equally stupid when it comes to like Hollywood stuff? Like we look at it and we're like, yeah, she could just go to Lambeau if she feels like it. And meanwhile, anyone who knows anything about her business would be like, right. That would cost her a hundred million dollars because then she would have to cancel. But I think most NFL people are like, oh, she has a concert today concert today oh i guess she can't go to the game i don't know i feel like that's a normal reaction the reaction of them like like her not going to a game for nfl people i bet a lot of people are probably like great we don't have to see her in the stands

if it's a much different reaction than if you know if he just didn't show up to um you know to if he didn't if he like didn't show up to her birthday party people would question travis kelsey more than they would question her for not being in his game yeah that's true um all right well either way lingering injuries and the just difficulty of recovering when you're getting into the back third of your career you're saying that's all there is with Kelsey so would you imagine that when they stumble their way into the postseason and they may end the season on a four-game winning streak but when they stumble their way into the postseason as the two or the three seed when it comes time to go to Baltimore or go to Miami which increasingly looks like

what's going to happen, you think Travis Kelsey just like put some tussing on it and goes out and does Travis Kelsey things? Or is this a problem for the rest of the way? So, you know, there's a very real possibility the Chiefs have the one seed, right? I know these crazy kooky scenarios. I mean, is it kooky? Baltimore has to lose twice.

They have the Niners and Dolphins the next two weeks. Uh-huh. Right? But then that means the Dolphins win. The Chiefs are the tiebreaker of the Dolphins, though. So the Dolphins have to lose one more game this weekend in Dallas, and the Chiefs are right there. Just letting everyone know.

Yeah, I know. So the Chiefs have to win out. All those things have to happen. The Chiefs could end up with the one seed, but you're saying, wow, Miami might lose in Dallas. Do you really think they're going to lose to Dallas after what you saw from Dallas and the Bills? I do. We can get to that if we want to do that now or later.

Let's do it. Your crazy theories on how the Chiefs end up as the one seed, I think, are not worth it. No. Look, I think at this point it's very clear the chiefs are not whole on offense um and until they prove week after week that they can generate offense they're probably not winning the afc conference right now pretty simple no no and so they'll have to win a game or two on the road in the postseason which we think they can do we probably still like them better than lamar even in Baltimore even in late January but you know

we got to find out so let's talk about those Cowboys because they did Cowboys things right when we started to get fooled into thinking well no they have a defense and Dak's playing the best football of his life maybe they really are the Cowboys we've waited for for 30 years they're not they got smacked by the Bills who just a month ago we were all like they're not. They got smacked by the Bills, who just a month ago, we were all like, they're not even a, you know, playoff contender. I don't know what to make of it. We can talk about the Bills side or the Cowboys side. You tell me, but I have thoughts on the Bills. Well, we'll talk about both, obviously.

Let's start with the positive, the Bills. But it is crazy because the Bills right now are the nine-season AFC. They're not even in the playoffs at the moment. Now, their schedule lines up pretty good for them to be a playoff team, possibly if other things work well. But their schedule is pretty decent for that. My dog's eating my carpet right now. You seem very distracted right now, Jeff.

I promise you, he's been so good today. I have like, he was just sleeping a second ago and now he's like trying to eat my carpet. The Bills have the fourth best odds to win the NFC Championship. Plus 450 as of right now. To win the Super Bowl, they're the seventh best odds.

They're not even in the postseason right now, Gabe, which is insane. But look, here's the test, right? If you are a team in the playoffs and Buffalo is coming to town to play you, would you be excited for that game? The answer is no. No, because what we saw the last two weeks, especially defensively, is better than what we've seen most of the year, which is a big bonus because they have not played well in defense, right?

Part of it is that they have all the injuries. Played well last week, well against Kansas City. Now, again, I mean, look, the Chiefs blew that play, and maybe things are different if they don't blow that play. But, you know, they're playing good ball, man, put it like that. Josh Allen's doing the right thing, and I think the thing we've seen the last month is that the fire of Ken Dorsey with Joe Brady, the OC,

they're running the football. James Cook was incredible yesterday. That adds a new dynamic to that team, and what impressed me the most about the Bills yesterday was what I think Dallas has to worry about, but we'll get to the Dol the dolphins game in a second. They got out physical game. They got pushed around,

which Buffalo doesn't do offensively often. When you watch a play, you don't think to yourself, Oh, this is the, the office that pushes people around, but they did. They dominated the line of scrimmage.

They were more physical on both sides of the ball. And they shut down a Cowboys team that was playing really well. That Buffalo team, when we saw yesterday, which again, I mean, no guarantee it's going to be that team that we see each week, which is the problem with Buffalo, right? I think they host the Chargers this week. Are we sure we're getting that same Buffalo team against a bad football team? I don't know.

It's sort of the games they lose, right, Gabe? That Buffalo team, that Buffalo team can win any game this season. I think outside of the Niners, who I think right now are just a juggernaut. But, I mean, look, again, the Buffalo Bills lost to the Broncos. They lost to the Jets. They lost to the Patriots. I mean, they've had bad losses, right, Gabe? So I really think that there's an opportunity here for Buffalo to,

if they win out, man, they're scaring the playoffs. Yeah, okay. to um if they win out man they're scary the playoffs yeah okay and now all of a sudden the cool thing to say is that josh allen who was you know the source of all their problems a couple months ago is back in the mvp race at least dan orlovsky thinks that now we like dan most of the times we bring dan up on this show it's because because he said something smart, had a good take. He was saying or he thought that Josh Allen could be the MVP before this win. Josh didn't put up anything special in terms of stats, but he did beat Dak, who had just become the number one guy. That was the consensus take maker opinion. You know, obviously, we can't forget Brock Purdy and his own running back christian mccaffrey but like are we just trying to breathe the josh allen mvp thing into existence or is that

a real take no brock purdy is winning the mvp like just okay we just gotta stop this look i i know that it may be of late to the brock purdy train even though i have some i have some money to win the mvp so i'm good with that but. But Brock Purdy is going to win the MVP. He is number one in every category for quarterback. I know that they have a great offense. I know that they play a certain style of football that we've seen help quarterbacks throughout the year's game. But he's elevating the offense.

He is a reason why they're playing so well. And at some point, you have to just admit that he's the MVP. Now, again, I get it. Would you draft him over Josh Allen? No, you wouldn't do that. But that's not what the award is. The award is who's the most valuable player. And that's not always value, of course, because that depends.

But he's playing the best quarterback in the NFL right now, Gabe. And I'm not sure Josh Allen could do anything last month of the season to change that unless Brock Purdy plays Baltimore. I think it's New Year's Eve and just has like the worst game of his career. And maybe people change their minds. But Brock Purdy to me is going to win MVP. He has done enough. Excuse me, that game is on Christmas.

I'm sorry, it's on Christmas. Ravens Niners. So it's next week. That to me, next Monday night, that would be the one way that Brockport does not win the MVP, but I just don't see that happening. Yeah. All right.

Well, that'll be a fun thing to debate for, you know, playoffs. There's which Niners player deserves the MVP more, not even which quarterback, but which of the best players on the Niners deserve the MVP. The guy who's sort of fallen out of the MVP race um and may not even play tonight you touched on at the top of the show we don't really know what the quarterback situation is going to look like in uh with the Eagles and Seahawks tonight um obviously by the time some people listen it'll be clear but what's going on with Philly They're in a bit of a tailspin. I read here that Matt Patricia – first of all, Matt Patricia still has a job?

Yeah. Okay, that's weird. But he's going to be calling defensive plays? What? You know how this works, man. They always have – you know, they always have – you know, they always have, you know, the coaching fraternity just gives guys jobs over and over again.

That guy. Nobody likes that guy. Yeah. It feels like they're just trying to find some answer on defense of why it's not working. And maybe that different play caller. But I don't really think that it's a play calling issue. I just don't think they're playing as well as they did last season.

And maybe tonight's the way to break this out because you have a situation where you're playing a Seahawks team might not have their quarterback. So maybe tonight, you know, is a, but they just haven't played to be great football. I mean, it's kind of simple. Like they just haven't played how they play last year. They're not rushing the passer quite the same way. Not stopping the run quite.

I mean, it's just not been as good. And that's, it's just not been as good and um that's that's just like this is why super bowl windows are so short because you typically the defense especially year in and year out high variance there's a lot of regression that happens on defense and they're not making up offensive because they're not they're just not as good on offense and that's that's i mean is what's happening with the Eagles. It's not like a crazy thing. I don't think it's a play-calling issue. We'll find out if Matt Patricia is able to do that.

But then again, I mean, Matt Patricia has never, you know, been a great defensive coordinator. It's Bill Belichick who was calling plays. In the game that the year that Matt Patricia was at D.C., and I think he was there for a couple years, Nick Foles beat him in the Super Bowl game. So it's not going to change anything because Matt Patricia is there um but the Seahawks aren't very good right now they lost four in a row I

don't think they win tonight so it might not matter they're still going to win the division play a Cowboys team I mean the Cowboys will be the fifth seed and you know they'll still have the one seed I mean like it will all work out in the end they'll have the one seed well all right I mean you're saying that you think in the end they'll have the one seed well all right i mean you're saying that you think that the chiefs can get the one seed in the afc i think that suggests that anything is still possible over on the nfc side i'm not sure i'm really willing to give it to the eagles especially if they're going to matt patricia in a meaningful role but we're going to come back to that game because we have to get some picks from you shortly uh on that one i

yeah i want to bring up one last topic before we take our first break and come back and talk about some college stuff. That's fun. Here's the game. You're allowed to talk about one of these teams that we have previously banned from being discussed. All right. And the reason is that these damn teams keep winning and keep forcing us to wonder if they're relevant or not. Now, I happen to believe that none of these teams matter and we're better off saving the time, but this is a football show and these teams won. So here we go. Joe Flacco and the Browns,

Jake Browning and the Bengals, Baker and the Bucks, Stroud and the Texans, Minshew and the Coltsts what are we talking about here um uh let's do browns let's do brown really interesting by the way colts texans and jaguars are all tied in the afc south right now eight and six by the way don't care um let's do browns look great the the reason why i think a lot of us are rooting for the Bills to make the playoffs is so we don't end up with Joe Flacco, Jake Browning, and Gardner Minshew in the playoffs, right? Like we're hoping that we get something else.

The Browns should not have won that game. They did not play well against the Bears. But Flacco kind of reverted back to what we've seen from Flacco over the years. But in the end, made enough plays and got it done. And dude, the defense is really good as we know. Number one in the NFL in DVOA. And offensively, Flacco is doing enough. Now again, this is not a team that's winning multiple playoff games.

It's not a team that is going to do playoff damage. But it's worth pointing out that he is, you know, the Browns and Stefanski coaching them are playing good ball, man. It's the truth. They're playing good football. They're winning a lot of football games, and they're doing it with a bunch of backups. Their offensive line right now is down two tackles. Excuse me.

Their best player left got hurt yesterday. Joe Batonio did not finish the game. And, you know, they're playing with Joe Flacco, like their fourth quarterback of the season. And yet they keep grinding away, man. They keep making plays. They keep winning games. I don't know.

When you play good defense, you run the football, I guess. But they should not be playing this well, put it like that. Fair enough. And so I think what all these teams have in common is our coach of the year is coming from one of them right has to i mean this is their fourth quarterback to get a win this year i've not that i don't think that's ever happened before meanwhile jake browning i should have played him in fantasy this week i didn't i played patrick mahomes should have played browning he keeps on doing it and

i'm going back to my take i know so we couldn't talk about two teams i'm going back to my take here i i think this is every week this is making it even more obvious that joe burrow is a good player but not an all-time great player um possibly even though again just like the browns the bangles should have lost that game. I mean, Minnesota was up 73. I mean, it was those sneaks, those back-to-back quarterback sneaks were just atrocious. But Jake Brown, you know, they scored 24 points

in the fourth quarter in overtime. Like, they took that game from the Vikings. Speaking about fantasy, the league we're in, I'm in 11th place, but somehow I had to buy this week. I'm not, like, quite sure why. I think that just means your season's over. No it says next week i'm playing someone in the bracket i don't know i'm very confused we got some people behind the scenes who might need to explain that one i don't know but i am i am uh i'm not very good and i only like my team this week has like

30 points it's not good points. It's not good, buddy. No, that's not good at all. You need to focus a little bit more on fantasy, but you know why you don't have time for it? Cause you're giving us winning picks. Yeah.

You're giving us winning picks. You're making smart plays. You're analyzing the game in a, in a way that very few can as a former player and a guy who understands the numbers. So when we get, come back from a break, please give us some Monday night picks

and please help me understand what might have been the most brilliant idea any coach has ever had. And it came from Chip Kelly, a guy I would not call brilliant. Oh, I think it's very bright. All right, very good. You got an organ connection.

Well, we'll come back and we'll do some college and we'll do some picks. We'll do some college and we'll do some picks. Guys, I want to tell you about my favorite new daily fantasy game I have been playing this season. Prize Picks is a skill-based, real-money daily fantasy sports game. How does it work? You pick two to six players, and if they will go more or less than the Prize Picks projection,

you can win up to 25 times your money in any entry so go to prize picks and use code g ssy for a first deposit match up to 100 it's so easy to use i can make my picks in less than 60 seconds the depositing was simple and straightforward they even just added apple pay so i was able to get up in minutes and start playing at prize picks you're competing against other people it's just you versus projections available instead of battling thousands of other players including pros and sharks so follow along my weekly entry and see if you can do better remember go to prize picks and use code g ssy for first deposit match up to 100 are you smarter than your friends prove it with vaulted by predicting challenging and being them

with your sports knowledge vaulted spelled vltd is a place where you can store your sports predictions participate in cash prize pools without any entry fees and prove you are smarter than your friends by using the vaulted challenge feature i will have my own pool on vaulted each week we can answer questions to win cash prizes and there are no entry fees required to participate this football season vaulted will be handing out money the only way to qualify for my big game pool is to beat me in one of the regular season pools which won't happen because as you know i am smarter than you i will be using vaulted to make and store my five favorite predictions of the week so join vaulteded, and you can like, dislike, comment,

interact with my predictions, or if you're bold enough, you can make your own and see how smart you are in football, which won't be as smart as me. Go download Vaulted, spelled V-L-T-E-D, and remember to use the code Jeff, that's G-E-O-F-F, so you can see my predictions and play along. All right, we're back. We're going to talk a little bit about our prize pick selections

for Monday Night Football. Before we do that, breaking news, the Commanders have released their long snapper, Cameron Cheeseman, who I think was actually drafted by the Commanders. And he said yesterday after the game game, he didn't play very well, that he would have cut himself if he was coaching the team. So, I mean, i think when you say that you're probably not going to be around i mean that's that's an all-time like you you just can't

he was drafted the sixth round in 2021. how can you how can you draft a long snapper the sixth round yeah i don't know but i also know like long snappers play for like 20 years so you really also know like long snappers play for like 20 years so you really the one that panthers jj jansen is been here since 2009 yeah yeah once you get good at that and very few people want that job that's your job nobody can nobody can touch you right like you're good yeah um all right why don't we get why don't we get some uh picks for monday night? And then with the time we have left, we'll get into this Chip Kelly soundbite. Let's do it, yes. But give me some winners for tonight's game. Okay, so PrizePix is doing like a promo right now.

So you're able to get yourself some adjusted numbers right now. So it's kind of fun. Let me pull this up right here. They have a Demons and Goblins. They indicate non-standard payouts. So a little kind of fun. Let me pull this up right here. They have a Demons and Goblins. They indicate nonstandard payouts. So a little bit fun here. So you get some adjusted numbers here. As you guys know, go to PrizePix, promo code GSSY. First deposit matchup to $100.

You choose two to six players for your square, more or less than their projections. Last week you mocked me, even though Terry Hill got hurt. So that kind of screwed up my square. But the Will Levis overrushing game, you mocked me and it though Terry Hill got hurt, so that kind of screwed up my square. But the Will Levis overrushing game, you mocked me, and it hit like in the first quarter. It did, right away. Good point.

I get two adjusted numbers for the Eagles. Ready? Jalen Hurts, more than 24.5 rushing yards. Great number. Fantastic. And DeAndre Swift, more than 39.5 rushing yards. And the reason why I'm going Eagles rushing attack is, is here's what I think is you have a game game where they're finally playing

someone who's not one of the best teams, the NFL, obviously the Seahawks. I think they get back to the roots tonight. They just run the football, the entire game. Like they just try to smash out all into oblivion because that is what they have to do to win the game and sort of feel like the Eagles football again, right? So just go down the field and just roll up the Seahawks run defense. So those are good adjusted numbers. And DK Metcalf, more than 57 and a half receiving yards

because Eagles secondary is stinky and allows up to 10 yards. So that's more of a play I think where they're behind and they need a bunch of yards at the end of the game and they're able to just kind of make it happen with DK. I'm not sure this happens in the third quarter. I think it's a fourth quarter play right here where he just gets a bunch of yards late in the game. So, Jalen Hurts more

than 24.5 rush yards. Jalen Hurts more than 39.5 rush yards. DK Metcalf more than 57.5 receiving yards. And I think that pays like two and a half to one. So I'll take that. Adjust the number there.

Those are just numbers. I like it. I just have to point out the obvious that, you know, we're not 100% on whether Jalen is 100%. So my question is. Yeah, but it's not a physical injury though. It's a poop attack or something, right? Yeah.

So that's my question is, in a scenario where your quarterback's just not feeling great, all right, flu game type situation, is it easier for him to play a game where they just pound it in the run? Or is it easier to throw? Like, what's more exhausting on a quarterback? Or is it easier to throw? Like what's more exhausting on a quarterback? So the way I look at injuries is,

because I've been the guy who's been injured a lot of my career, is the coaches, if you're on the field, the coaches basically call a game like you're 100%. Right. They just do. Unless you're like a quarterback who goes into a game with a leg injury and they have to just protect you the entire game. But they're going to go into a game calling a regular offense. If he hurts plays, which I think he will, he's just a suck it up game.

It's part of playing ball. They're not going to be like, you know what, quit game. We're not moving. They have to run their offense. So I do not think that that's something that really we were taking into consideration when it comes to this now i i guess he doesn't play this gets voided so i'm gonna live here but there's no marcus mariotta numbers so um i have to take what i think i could get yeah fair enough by the way um nice job by the eagles in the offseason in a season where half the quarterbacks in the league are gone,

injured in some way. They have a backup who could have started for, I don't know, a dozen teams in the league at the beginning of the year and would be starting for 20 teams right now, and he's their backup. Good on on them he also seems like a similar enough player to jalen that it kind of makes sense dude it is crazy to me um how more teams just aren't prepared with a backup quarterback that can win like is mariano gonna win you a championship probably not probably not but what he's gonna do is he will get you, you know, he'll get you through a couple weeks if you need to, a series or two, right, a half.

The amount of teams that don't have this, Jets, it's kind of mind-blowing to me. Yeah, it is. Also, Mark Smerioda, by all accounts, is a good guy and a good teammate. He's very, he's awesome. I've had the chance, fortunately, to be around him a little bit. He's fantastic. I'll tell you about the Mariota story one time where I was – I've seen him more recently just than I did when I was playing,

but I'd never met him before. I'd never been to Oregon. I'd never met him before. I'd never been to Oregon when he was there. And I saw him at the Super Bowl like five years ago at Radio Row. You know how there's just a big mass of humans over there? And I was like, hey, man, Jeff Schwartz, nice to meet you. Like, you know, thanks for everything you do for Oregon, blah, blah, blah.

And he was like a second year in the NFL. He goes, oh, yeah, no, no, Jeff, I know who you are, man. I'm like, no, you don't. You don't have to pretend. We never crossed paths, never played each other. I never saw you at Oregon. There's no, you don't. You don't have to pretend. We never crossed paths, never played each other. I never saw you in Oregon. There's no recognition of me anywhere. There's one little, my name is on one little thing in the facility

of like pro guys drafted, you know, like that's it. That's my only connection to the facility. And he just was great about it. He made me feel good. You know, he's like, you know what? I know who you are. So he's a really good dude. But yeah, the game tonight, you know, we'll see if look, if it's Drew Locke and Mariota,

it's obviously not the best matchup, but this was the Chiefs. Patriots was flexed out. That would have been tonight's game without flex, without money football, fuck scheduling. Yeah, well, I mean, this has the potential to be more interesting than that we'll see who plays um all right let's talk about uh college football because this was all over my timeline i suspect yours as well uh it's pretty close to home for you so chip kelly now at ucla um though nobody would have even noticed uh he was asked about the future of college football generally speaking and went on what i would call the most composed and thought out rant i've heard a coach give in

a long time and made a lot of points that seemed right to me but i want to hear your take so why don't we why don't we play this soundbite from chip kelly it's about two minutes long let's play this for the audience and on the back end we'll pick it apart beat by beat. Sound good? Yes. All right, here's Chip Kelly. I think we need to have a conference commissioner. And I think football should be separate from the other sports.

Just the fact that our school is leaving to go to the Big Ten in football. Our softball team should be playing Arizona in softball. Our basketball team should be playing Arizona in basketball. But because football left. And they say, well, how do you do that? Well, Notre Dame's independent in football. Our basketball team should be playing Arizona in basketball, but because football left and they say, well, how do you do that? Well, Notre Dame's independent in football and they're in a conference and everything else. I think we should all be independent in football and you can have a 64 team conference that's in the power five and you can have a 64 team conference in the group of five and we separate and we play each other. You can have the West coast teams. And then every

year we play seven games against the West coast teams. And then we play the East and we play each other. You can have the West Coast teams, and then every year we play seven games against the West Coast teams, and then we play the East. And we play Syracuse, Boston College, Pitt, West Virginia, Virginia. Then the next year you play against the South while you still play your seven teams. All right. And he went on even more than that, got into Transfer Portal and NIL and everything else.

But let's start there. Any notes? Well, I took some notes down so he has said this before by the way but there's not not like in this national sort of setting before a bowl game okay so and he said in the clip too like i've thought about this for a while like like oh you know like i have like i i and it certainly sounds like he has so this is what we've talked about, though, Gabe, in sort of when the conference realignment talk was happening about whether or not we were going to this model of football only, right? This like big power conference of football teams, even tiered were like you have the big spenders, the medium spenders, the small spenders. And it was separate of everything else.

And we're going there. I think we're going there at some point, right? And Chip Kelly makes a ton of sense, right? Like, he's exactly right. Why should UCLA softball travel to Maryland, to Penn State, to Illinois, like, why do that? Why is Oregon going to have to fly all the way to the conference? Why does Cal and Stanford have to fly to Miami to play conference games

for all their sports? Obviously, football is easier. Football, you fly on Friday, you play the game, you go home. He's exactly right now. A commissioner of this power conference could be the same as a Roger Goodell, right? I mean, commissioner at the very top. Different responsibilities, right?

Because Goodell is answering to owners. Like, the structure of that would be fairly interesting, Gabe, because I don't know what the commissioner would be in charge of, probably playoffs, I guess, a general head of sort of everything, right? Communication organization. The other things Chip said in this, by the way,

that was cut out was that there should be one TV deal for the whole thing. So instead of having Fox and NBC and CBS and Disney have a say in where we go, plus the CW's in this now, right? Apple TV supposedly wants in, maybe Amazon, and you have the ability to say, no, no, no, we're all together in this,

we're all together, and we're going to end up, we're all going to, now, I'm not sure he meant equal pay, Gabe, but that we're not leaving schools like oregon state and washington state behind right that we're giving enough money for teams to sustain or maybe not the sec and the big 10 that probably feels difficult to do in this system quite honestly to tell the the ohio state michigan hey man we're going to equal revenue sharing you have to share the money with the schools you don't want to share with that that part feels like a little bit of fairy tale unrealistic but you know it's it's it's a i understand his the part of what he's saying here

the other thing he said too was um at the very end of the clip that i saw was the players have to be compensated like their employees, which is something Jim Harbaugh has said before. And he's like, look, you have a, he mentioned Amazon or Nike is like, you have the Nike subdivision and Nike just pays the players, the Amazon league and Amazon pays the players. We are going to that model. Charlie Baker, the NCAA president mentioned last week, like, you know, what if we gave the players $30,000? Everyone with $30,000. There's so many lawsuits right now.

There are so many things up in the air that this is what we're getting to. And the thing about it, Gabe, is I'm all for the players getting paid, but I don't know if people realize, like, what it'll become now that it's all different. It's going to be professional sports league, which is with younger football players. I mean, that's what it is, which I guess you could argue it is now, but it's going to change what the sport is.

So if people are on board with that, to be my guest, the same people that were like transfer portal, I love it. And then they're like, why? Whoa, it's not use what you want it. You want to transfer portal. This is what you fought for. I, over here, said, you know what? I'm not sure we should do open transfer. This is why. We have guys decommissioning.

Look, again, you can have multiple thoughts at once. One thought is players should get paid. They should get NIL deals. All good. If they want to leave, so be it. But I can also just be like, yeah, it's probably not the best thing for like the first sign of adversity. You just bounce from a school, try to get paid somewhere else.

When we've seen all through time now in the two or three years we've had the portal that most guys end up having to go down a level. It just doesn't work out quite the same. The top 1%, they're getting theirs. But you know, there's a whole middle class. And then the other part two game that's not talked about enough, and we talk about this and others that cover college football, is schools are telling players to move the heck on.

You know, USC just had a five-star defensive back decommit, and a quarterback, by the way. And my comment to a USC friend of mine was like, if I was Lincoln Riley, I was the new defensive coordinator or the other defense coordinator that hired or the new defensive back coach that hired was, was a former coordinator. I would tell all Alex Gritch's players to get out of here. I'm like, all right, good.

Like leave. Like, like I would tell them like, bye. Like, bye. Like get out of here. Like coaches are telling players to leave because they're allowed to this part of the process this is we're enabling this process to happen so there's a lot of things happening i don't think people wanted and i do wonder if we get to a sort of a super league thing where it's just football by itself if people will enjoy that product okay i want to come back

to the usc stuff in a little bit let's stay with Chip then for a moment. So in this scenario that he I think pretty clearly laid out, he is envisioning 64 teams that are like the top teams. And so should I be picturing what is currently the top five conferences and pretty much the teams that make that up. And then the next year down is where you get those other conferences. And so what happens to schools that have been dominant in those smaller conferences that are maybe worthy of being in the top 64? Do they just become the best teams in the second division? How does that work if you're independent?

It's basically what the system is now, right? And, like, I bring this up. Like, take BYU. I don't know if they're the right example. No, they're a bad example because they're up now. They're, like, all those teams are up now. BYU this up. Take BYU. I don't know if they're the right example. No, they're a bad example because they're up now. All those teams are up now. BYU's up. Give me an example.

You know what I'm going for. A team that's always going to win 10, 11, 12 games. Okay. I'm glad you mentioned Cincinnati, BYU, UCF went up this year, Houston went up this year. Because when teams go up, they often struggle pretty quickly. UCF, 6-6. BYU, 7-5.

Cincinnati, 3-9. It is Houston, 4-8. It's hard to move up. The only two schools that have moved up, again, from like group of five to power five, have had success are TCU and Utah. That's it. So the idea of like, I don't even know who the team would be now

because they're pretty much split up. Let's say a team like SMU. Well, they're going to ACC, so bad example again. Let's say a Liberty, who is the highest ranked group of five team this season. They play Oregon in the bowl game. If they had a power five schedule, they would be three and nine, right? Maybe they want that. Maybe that's what they want in the end.

And maybe you could say, look, man, we take our lumps for a few years and we're good in seven years because we just have to go through this now. But again, there's not a lot of success of that actually happening in the end. And so would you rather be 13-0 in your, in your, in your group of five league or three and nine in your upper league? You probably want to be 13-0 in your group of five league. Well, okay. So, so then Chip didn't get into this, but let's talk about it for a moment. Would it work the way English soccer works with relegation? Something we've talked about here. you know oh my god i love it so much yeah like so now that the bottom dwellers of that upper 64 are playing their ass off to stay in the upper 64 because

it's more prestigious it helps their chances in the nfl the people make more money yada yada yada there's a million reasons to want to be up there and the guys at the top of the lower division are like hey man if we finish top five percent among this group we're going up there's more money available to us players to the program you think that's how it would work i would love it so much so much if that happened it would be can you imagine there being like a bad year for Texas and they're playing Oklahoma at the end of the season and it's like a relegation game? It would be incredible. But I could not imagine the top tier schools agreeing to a system like that. Well, yeah.

I mean, maybe you'd have to have multiple years of failure for this to happen. But okay, fine. So then he also talked about sort of the notion of paying players directly and treating them like employees. And by the way, a lot of like, you know, Bernie type stuff coming out of Chip Kelly here. Didn't see that coming. You know, taking care of everyone, bringing everyone up. The big guys don't get all the riches. He's a Northeast guy. You know riches he's a he's a northeast guy

you know he's a new hampshire guy maybe you know that bernie's vermont right so you know in the air yeah but so what like how does this work in terms of the pay because i thought i don't know i've heard from a lot of people that football really is the protector of a lot of these other smaller sports and he's saying it's more fair to those other sports, not to have to schlep all the way across the country, but aren't they kind of getting left behind in this scenario? Well, my take on that is that there would be extra money on top of what's spent now

to pay the players. So you're not taking that money, that pool away from the players that they're currently have, but yes, football carries the, the, the program. But yes, football carries the program. And look, there's Title IX implications in this, I guess. I'm so confused what Title IX actually means sometimes because everyone throws that word around.

I think the way it's applied now is there has to be an equal amount of scholarships or close to it between men's sports and women's sports, and therefore the same opportunities men and women are to have facilities and sort of have the same things. I think that's what it sort of is. And not every school is even Title IX compliant anyways. I don't even know what that means. Oh, that's going to screw up Title IX.

I'm like, I don't know how that's applied in the situation. But there's a lawsuit at the University of Oregon. The club rowing teams sued the Oregon and the NIL program because it was a violation of Title IX the way it was handled. I don't know how that would apply here. I know someone will be like, oh, Title IX, Schwartz. Sure, whatever you guys say. I don't know how it applies to this situation,

but there will be pushback if they're only playing the football players. And I wonder how the pushback would would go because we we know what happened game what would happen jeff no we know that people complain about it oh yeah sorry i just that's a given people will complain about anything ever no matter what um you want me to complain about something right now oh yeah let's do it let's go back to what you what you hinted at so malachi nelson big big signing for the trojans already on his way out and it's because of kind of what you were getting at i think i don't know the specifics but it certainly seems like he he realized oh i don't just like walk on to into the starting role and get to be caleb williams day one I have to compete,

they might bring another kid in with transfer portal, Will Howard is reported from Kansas State, like, it's not going to be easy. I'm not guaranteed anything. And so he wants out before he's ever proven anything. What is that? So the portal is, it's pretty fascinating to me. The portal is pretty fascinating to me because, you know, sometimes it's okay to wait your turn, right? Like that happens. And you're just not ready to play yet. But there's a thirst, obviously, to get to the NFL as soon as possible.

Kids, Wednesday is signing day this week on the 20th. You're going to have kids commit and say, I'm taking my talents to Oregon for three years. It's already on their mind game. They're already thinking about it, right? And so if you don't play year two, well, it's one less year to get to the NFL, right? So that's, I think, a part of this as well. USC is presumably bringing in Will Howard,

the quarterback from Kansas State, which doesn't really match Riley's offense. I don't know what they're doing with USC. Another component of this is the NIL factor. Name it, but you'll like this. There's two NIL buckets. One is the traditional NIL bucket, like a Caitlin Clark of Iowa. She has like seven endorsements, as she should.

She's fantastic. I just thought she'd go with Gatorade. That's an advertising marketing deal based off your name, image, and like this. Prize picks. I'm sponsoring this show today because I am so beautiful, handsome, and they love listening to my voice. That's a name, image, and like this deal, right?

It's for me. The other NIL deal that we hear about and we know about is players basically getting paid to go to a certain school, right? There's these collectives, go to USC, go to Oregon, go to A&M, go to Louisville, go wherever, and once you get here, we'll give you X amount of money in some sort of salary structure, and it's legal. It's not illegal.

A lot of schools are not following up on that game, and when you're told, I'm getting this, I'm getting that, and then you don't, you're not starting the quarterback, you're like, I'm out of here. Go somewhere else to find that money, right? That's the business right now. And if you are Malachi Nelson, first of all, you weren't starting the bowl game

because I believe Miller Moss is going to start the bowl game, right, for USC in a couple of days. So he's not starting the bowl game, and they're bringing another quarterback to compete with him. And there's another 20-26 guy committed to USC, a five-star quarterback, I think, too. Like, quarterback's never a problem at USC. No. So that's what's happening.

The portal's being used by players to, A, get more money, B, more playing time. Sometimes both. Coach leaves. But here's what the portal was supposed to be used for, okay? Sometimes both. Coach leaves. But here's what the portal was supposed to be used for. Oren got a commit today from Northwest Football.

Northwest Missouri State Football. He is a Division II All-American running back. 6'2", 220, rushed for nearly 1,500 yards last season. That is what the portal was supposed to be used for, right? Where you have players at a lower level that are going up. Maybe a guy's a backup for four years, also be a starter somewhere else. The portal was always going to end up the way it is now without any guardrails, which we saw happen.

That's what the portal was supposed to be used for. And we're seeing game two that outside of quarterback, the power five to power five transfer, it's hard to get that one right. It's hard for that guy to come in and be really good. Look, there are certain examples out west. I mean, we both packed 12 guys. You know, Bear Alexander, Latu, Latu. I mean, there's examples of guys that are impactful players, you know,

that are transfer portal players. The one that we're finding, to me, that hits a lot, again, very small sample size, is sort of the FCS player, this kid, Northwest State Missouri, going up to the big time. Or Power 5, excuse me, Group of 5 player who's just, you know, goes to Memphis, oversees expectations game, and someone signs him in Alabama. Boom, that kid's good.

But the Power 5 to Power 5 thing, we're not finding a lot of impactful players. So it's kind of interesting to see how teams are building. Colorado has 14 guys in the portal. You learned your lesson last year, man. They didn't work last year. USC tried to portal two years in a row now in defense. How's that working for USC? To me, it still comes down to you have to –

you just have to build in high school recruiting for the most part. Yeah, point taken. The other name I wanted to bring up, and there'll be a lot of them, and it'll be exciting to see where some of these kids go, but K.J. Jefferson, who, you know, the few times I paid any attention to him over the last couple of years looked like you could easily see somebody saying he's the best quarterback in the country now i haven't heard anyone say that in a little while but there was a moment at the beginning of

the last couple of seasons where it seemed possible a do you know where he's headed and b like shouldn't that be the path go from like mid-tier ish sec type team to top of another conference team like and chase a championship i don't think jefferson is that good as all right so maybe i'm overrating him but take pretend what i said is all true is that another version of what you're getting it a guy who's like better than the team he plays for and could go be Heisman contender in the right offense. Well, Bo Nix, right? Yeah, Bo Nix is a perfect example. Thank you.

Michael Penix. Yeah. Quarterback, though, Gabe, we're finding the hits are happening power five to power five. They're happening all the time. Look at the Heisman, right? You had three trans-reportal players. Jay and Tannis went from Arizona State to LSU.

The playoffs, Quinn Ewers and Michael Penix, a crossover there between Heisman, right? You had three transfer portal players. Jay Daniels went from Arizona State to LSU. The playoffs, Quinn Ewers and Michael Penix, a crossover there between Heisman and playoffs. I think the last five or the last seven Heisman winners were transfer portal players, right? Kyler Murray, Baker Mayfield, Jay Daniels, Joe Burrow, and someone else is in that mix as well. So that's portal quarterbacks are what's happening. Very quickly, I know we're about to end the show. Did you see the hit yesterday, or excuse me, Saturday,

on Michael Pittman Jr.? Yeah, scary. So they suspended the Steelers defensive back for the rest of the season. That feels a lot aggressive, though. No? Three-game suspension? What? rest of the season yeah it feels like a lot aggressive though no three game suspension what i think it's one of those things where like your eyes just can't you can't unsee it right so it's probably what he did is probably technically no has no worse intent than all kinds of other

hits that don't have the same result but it just looked so unnecessary and so brutal and pitman's body bent in such a way. It was just, it was a very bad combination of facts. Yeah, no, I know, but,

but I feel like, I don't, I guess he had, I'm reading the statement by John Runyon being in charge of punishment is pretty funny. His dude was like the most like bad-ass physical right tackle who probably would have suspended himself at some points in his career. He was not a dirty player though. He just was a big old hoss.

I guess he had multiple prior violations. So that's like the Kareem Jackson thing for the Broncos. I just think these defensive guys, man, like what are you supposed to do? When Pittman goes in the air, you just don't hit him, I guess. I don't know what you you supposed to do when pitman goes in the air you just don't hit him i guess i don't know what you're supposed to do yeah i don't either and i feel for everyone involved and you gotta punish people when they break the rules but the rules do seem confusing and i honestly think like what it really comes down to is we the fan are so used to seeing things in super slow-mo that we make we base our feeling off of

watching something at like you know a few frames per second and this guy is making that play at full speed with you know a face mask in front of him like it's such a fine line between a great play and a dangerous play at full speed and we watch it and we're like duh that's terrible shouldn't have done that but like i i just i don't know how you're supposed to police this correctly and then i feel like too that you know when i if i were to go on social media be like yeah i'm not sure that's a really dirty hit it's not even worth saying that no it's like not i just i i i'm watching the play right now i guess you just like cut his legs from underneath him i guess you just dive on the floor well that's what i'm saying and when you watch it it's in

slow-mo you're like oh just let him land and then hit him you know or like he's not going to make the play so just stay off him but like in the middle of that play he hasn't left his feet you're leaving your feet you don't know what's going gonna happen you imagine if you just let him catch the football and just stood there and was like oh well right yeah no you're cut like that's the end of that oh man and the hip drop tackle we're talking about eliminating the nfl now too which how do you police that like no idea i i don't i geez it takes a generation right you have to coach this stuff differently it's just like the words we use like you just have to learn it differently in your formative years in a sport to not be doing it at the highest level that's it yeah yeah

all right jeff we've given people a lot of information to chew on and you gave us some great picks so thank you for that And the dog's actually sleeping now. The dog calmed down. That was nice. Yeah, I've got to take him on a long walk now. I'll get my steps in, though, with this dog. Dude, he walks right next to me. It's like the best.

It's so good. I like this dog. I'm happy for you and the family. It's such a very sweet dog. Back on Friday, we went 1-2 and two this week in gambling so we earned two points so we actually were sort of two and two um we had two pushes on games that we we plus three and they were both up 17 three in the fourth quarter and didn't cover so kind of a bummer on those but we're back this week on friday with some more picks

um enjoy the game tonight, guys. We'll be back on Friday. Take care, everybody.