Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - NFL Week 17 Reactions

Episode Date: January 3, 2024

Geoff and Gabe talk CFP semis and headlines from NFL Week 17.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm Jeff Schwartz. This is Jeff Schwartz of Smarter Than You. We're live on Twitter, YouTube, and your favorite podcast platform of choice. It is Tuesday, January 2nd. We are tired. We've watched a lot of football. We're going to talk more about football. We're brought to you today by PrizePix,

the skill-based, real-money, daily-fading sports game. Go to PrizePix. Use code GSSY for a first-deposit match. $100. You pick two or six players. If you go more or less than the PricePix projections, you can win 25 times your money in any entry. We normally make selections, Gabe, for Monday Night Football.

It's Tuesday. No football tonight, so what we're going to do is we're going to make the projections for Sunday, the National Football League. There's no game on Thursday this week because every game is sunday because of playoffs and whatnot so gabe um i don't know i'm just tired today stayed up late to watch a lot of football last night yeah well a couple things one uh west coast is the best coast i didn't have to stay up that late and the games kick off early on my end so my days are

better off uh so sorry jeff move back home two you mentioned it all the games are played on sunday and you know who that matters a lot to um that matters a whole heck of a lot to the eagles to the ravens to a couple other teams who maybe you know who they play or who they don't kind of has something to do with it we weren't going to get into all this but, what is your thought on like benching guys because the team who you're watching on the scoreboard earlier in the day won or lost? Like should Nick Sirianni be thinking about

what the Cowboys are doing? Absolutely. I feel like if he looks up on the scoreboard and the Cowboys are up 21 points in the third quarter, why would you play your starters anymore? You're the five seed and just get ready to be the five seed. Okay. You think it's that simple?

I think it's that simple. Yeah. I think it's part of the job as a coach to make sure that you have, you know, your best ability is to be healthy and ready to go for the playoff game at that point. Okay. Fair enough. You know, I got to admit something to you, Jeff. The listeners of this show have started to get to know me a little bit,

the people who work on the show a little bit. I was very distracted by the last thing that you said. It might have been very smart, like usual, or it might have been kind of stupid. I wouldn't know because all I could hear was a bag of potato chips being eaten in my ear. So if the audience can hear that too i apologize well here's the thing uh just like myself hank had a long night watching a team that he was rooting for lose uh so i i don't i'm not a texas person i just wanted washington to lose so i understand eating a bag of therapy chips which is probably what he was having back there um he looked a little bit

distraught which which I totally understand. I didn't like it either. Washington beat Texas 37-31. Alabama beat Michigan, beat Alabama in overtime. And we got ourselves, Gabe, for the last time, last 14 playoff, two close games within a touchdown, down to the wire. First time we've had this in the entirety of the playoffs. It was thrilling. It was the playoff we've deserved because finally it wasn't just the SEC tournament. I, you know, I'm like you, I have no special love for Washington,

right? You know, they, they screwed up my season. They screwed up yours. But it was really, really, really fun watching Michael Penix do his thing and seeing in its final hour the Pac-12 make one last potential statement. And I don't know who was rooting for Alabama

other than people who went to Alabama. Like, everyone had to be rooting for Michigan, even with all the nonsense they created this season. We got the matchup we want, right for Michigan, even with all the nonsense they created this season. We got the matchup we want, right? This is all we could ask for. Yeah, it's going to be a really good game. So I thought Alabama would win because I thought Michigan's inability to generate explosive plays

would come up and bite them. And for a large part, it did. Now they hit the long touchdown pass. Alabama just didn't adjust very well in the first half to what Michigan was doing to them in the passing game. The passing menu for Michigan is very small. And then they adjust in the second half, did Alabama. Michigan made some adjustments back and forth, and boom, get to overtime.

And part of it was Jalen Milrow can't throw either. So, like, both quarterbacks just sort of struggle to throw in general. And look, Michigan has not won a playoff game under Jim Harbaugh. throw either so like both quarterbacks to sort of struggle to throw in general um and look michigan has not won a playoff game under jim harbaugh i had not won a playoff game and in fact they had lost six straight bowl games or new year's eve games as the michigan head coach and they came out tight like they came out knowing this was there they didn't play well they play well special teams bad throws by the offense. Defense, I thought, played well.

Sacked Monroe pretty quickly or faster in that game. Despite all that, they won game. And I do wonder if there's a weight lifted off the shoulders of this program by winning this game in the way they did. Wasn't pretty. Wasn't ugly. For a large stretch of that game, Alabama looked like they were going to win even though they were not the better team, right? But in the end, Michigan prevailed.

And they won overtime. Alabama just wasn't good enough this season in this moment. I know that people will look and say, well, Georgia should have been in a four-to-stable. Yeah, probably. But Alabama beat Georgia in an upset, and that's what happens in a four-team playoff. The other game was really interesting.

So Michael Penix was incredible. I made this comment, you know, Washington's wide receivers turn 50-50 passes into 95-5 passes. They catch everything game. It's frustrating rooting against Washington when they catch all the balls. Then I saw a tweet one of their beat writers put out. Their four top wide receivers had 19 catches of 20 attempts, 95-5. They catch everything. It's super frustrating. But the thing with Washington that is a remarkable, remarkable game, they have won 10 straight games by 10 points or less. Never done before in Division I football. 10 straight games by 10

points or less. They've now won five straight games by seven points or less. It was seven, it was two, three, three, six last night. And the final play of the game, Texas had Mitchell open. I mean, a better quarterback would have made the right throw and Washington loses that game. But they keep finding ways to win these games, Gabe. And so as much as I like to say, hey, this comes to an end. You can't keep winning games this way.

This is sort of who they are. They don't blow teams out, but they do enough in these games to win them. And at some point, that has to matter. Now, they're underdogs again, Gabe. They're underdogs again. They've been underdogs now four last five games. Vegas does not believe in them. Their efficiency number is SP+.

They're 12th in efficiency. They're not even a team that people thought would be here. here but at some point you got to say look man none of this matters game they were 128th in the country entering this game in penalties per game 132nd in penalty yards per game and until that final penalty where they had the kick-catch interference, they had inconsequential penalties the entire game, like one false start, one hold, and there was like a five-yard penalty because of where it was in the field. That's it. Like, they just managed to play a game. They hadn't played all season.

They were 86 on third down defense. I don't know. Texas couldn't complete a third down for most of the game. I can't explain it, man, other than they just make the plays when it's necessary. And it doesn't really matter what any of the stats say. It doesn't matter what we think or you think. They believe, obviously, that they can win and they keep winning these close games. Okay.

So then let me talk to you about Michael Panics more specifically, because I have nothing to say in response to any of that other than, yep, sounds right. So how about this? My lesson watching that guy, and I've seen a bunch of him this season, but this was the most I've watched recently. NFL scouts, GMs, whoever makes these decisions, do not overthink this. CJ Stroud showed us. Don't overthink it. Don't get cute. There's your guy. Take Michael Penix.

I get it. Caleb Williams. I like him. Go with him. After that, this is your guy. Why are people going to talk themselves out of what we just witnessed in the biggest spot he's ever played in? All right. So I'm glad you mentioned CJ stroud because i was talking to uh

dane brugler of the athletic who does a lot of the draft stuff right and he's fantastic and i text him i said hey man like this game i saw you tweeting about penix this game last night reminded me of the cj stroud georgia game last year where yeah it was like you saw a player you hadn't seen now michael bennett had made a lot of throws that he had made but the difference was in this game he did it around pressure which he had not this season against pressure he had not a lot of throws that he had made, but the difference was in this game, he did it around pressure, which he had not this season against pressure. He had not been very good.

Like that was the way to get him was like to get him to throw the ball quickly. He just navigated the pocket, moved out of the way and threw someone open. He was, he was incredible. You know, he will play with worst wide receivers. The NFL, which is funny to say. I mean, if you put Roma Dunze and Jalen McMillan and Polk on the Chiefs right now, are they the AFC favorites with Washington?

I mean, yeah, I don't know enough about them. Probably, probably. They're a pretty good corner. The point is that, like, if they have a good wide receiver court, then Penix makes the right throw. So this Michigan game, which I guess we'll preview sort of now because we won't do it probably with Matt

much on Friday. But dude, it's a fun game because you have two contrasting ways to play the football game, right? Yeah. You have a Michigan team that's going to try to run the ball more than Texas did against a Washington run defense is not very good. They're going to try to run the ball more than Texas did against a Washington run defense.

It's not very good. They're going to try to limit J.J. McCarthy as best they can, put him in the right situations to throw the ball defensively. It's the best defense Washington's faced all season. They can sit back and zone. And here's the thing. Without Dylan Johnson, who got hurt on the end of the game, and by the way, Caleb DeBoer, one of the great things he's done

as a Washington coach, doesn't make mistakes. He botched the end of that game situation. They should have been taking knees. Should have been taking knees, of the game. And by the way, Caleb DeBoer, one of the great things he's done as Washington coach, doesn't make mistakes. He botched the end of that game situation. They should have been taking knees. Should have been taking knees, ran the ball, Johnson gets hurt, clock stops, punt the ball,

penalty, two passes, Texas is right down in the red zone where they tried to win the game. But if Johnson can't play, Michigan just sit back in zone and just say, Washington,

you're fine going down the field in the red zone. We're going to tighten things up, which is, by the way, Texas did in the second half. Texas allowed one touchdown in the second half and three field goals. They played better in the second half. They said, look, man, we're not going to get beat deep. We're going to play underneath. Now, the flip side of this is obviously kind of Washington's defense that, I mean, if you are not going to be able to generate explosive plays like Michigan,

how do you score enough in this game? It's just a very contrasting style of game, and I'm looking forward to seeing these teams play each other because, again, you just do different ways to win games, and they both do them different ways. So, you know, when I see Harbaugh, who's had plenty of coverage all year, I just see old fashioned football, right? D plus run game and the quarterback who has enough swag to make up for what

he lacks probably in skill. Here's my question. Can they throw out those couple of trick plays? They tried that. They clearly don't know how to run. Okay. So I have a theory on, on the,

on bowl game coaching. Cause I think Ryan grub did this for Washington a little bit yesterday too. When you have a month to prepare for a bowl game and you're a hyper-aggressive coach and you're a very bright coach, you try to find ways to obviously out-scheme the opponent and you tie yourself in knots watching so much film and trying to find so many different ways to scheme things up that you add in plays you typically would not run in a regular game and Michigan I think for so many years Harbaugh has

over prepared his team for that I thought Washington in a couple moments had some trick plays ran the ball too much in situations where they shouldn't have done that you overthink it so with a week to prepare right they play next monday i think both teams actually have better game plans gay because they cannot overthink their opponents in a month to prepare so i think we're actually not going to see that from harbaugh in this game for that reason okay that's a relief because i nearly gagged uh the team i was rooting for in both games got way too cute and, you know, made some silly mistakes, avoidable mistakes, and got bailed out. All right, so let's spin it forward past the game real quick, and then we'll move to the NFL.

Quinn Ewers is Ewers, Ewers, Ewe, basically is what I have to say about him. I've seen projections that he could go in the NFL. Then there's reports, at least from Hank, he's probably coming back, but then there's the Arch Manning situation. Are they a national title contender with him at quarterback or is somebody transferring? He's got to play better than he did yesterday.

I don't know what that means. He can't win a championship. I mean, are they going to keep both those quarterbacks? That's first year starting per se, but, um, I mean, are they going to keep both those quarterbacks? That's first year starting per se, but if you're choosing between one of them, I mean, I haven't seen Arch play enough.

I don't know. I know, but do you think it's Sark's call? Like, isn't somebody going to lean on him and just say, Hey, man, you're going to have arch Manning on the bench another year. Really? He's going to be allowed to play that way. I mean, it will be two years after the portal soon.

I just, I don't, I don't, I don't know, man. I haven't thought about that yet with, with that. I think that we'll,

we'll find out next week or two. Cause I think, I think arch, I think they extended the portal opportunity for like three days past the championship game for players who played in the championship game or to me the playoff to go ahead and figure out if they would like to transfer or not.

Okay. Well, also SEC schedule next year. It'll be interesting. All right, Jim Harbaugh. Look past the, let's say they win. Chargers next coach? Win or lose, I think he's in the NFL. You think so?

Did you read into these reports about his agent as much as the internet and I did? No. He's had Donya for a couple months now. Okay, so that's what most Michigan people said. Like, come on, that's not new. Chill. But I think Harbaugh does a lot of like i think when when schefter reports something on michigan he was a michigan guy i don't think

he's trying to be sensationalistic i think he's getting it from good sources so if that came up yesterday i don't think it was because harbaugh didn't want it out there just i was joking with a friend yesterday when alabama was was winning that game i thought they were going to win how many minutes after the game do we get the tweet from Schefter that he has accepted the Chargers job? I said 12 minutes, 12 minutes. So that tweet is still on deck for next week, Gabe. Okay.

I'm looking forward to having that conversation in about a week. Okay. And last one, Jalen Milrow. So we see some good in him. He's obviously not quite there. He's sort of what a lot of Alabama quarterbacks have been criticized for, including Jalen Hurts, in the past. But he kind of actually is that.

Like, I don't really know how much of a passer he is. Is he the guy next year, and are they a title contender if he comes back and improves? Absolutely, if he comes back and improves. He's got to throw the ball better, Gabe. Will he improve with another year? He barely won the job this year. Yeah, it's first year starting.

Of course he'll improve. Yes. Okay. So Bama with Milrow suddenly looks pretty scary after this experience. All right. Yeah, fair.

Let's move to the NFL. What's that? Chris Broussard over at FS1 said it best, I think. We'll just skip right to it. People respect the Chiefs. They don't fear them anymore. I think that's the easiest summary of where we are

as they win another division title but look like crap. What do you say? What's this Chiefs struggle continue? This is like the best offensive game they've played in months. Yeah. They won by 25-17, I think, right? 26-17. They won it fairly comfortably. They won by 25-17, I think, right? 26-17. They won it fairly comfortably.

They allowed no second-half points. Here's the deal. The defense is Super Bowl caliber, very clearly, right? Offensively, they played better. They just – MVS can't catch a football, and it's pretty bad. They pass protected. I mean, it was better. It was better. It was better.

But still the Chiefs. If the Dolphins win this weekend, the Bills could be out of the playoffs. The Bills could be the two seed or be out of the playoffs, which is wild. And the Chiefs would get like the Colts, Texans, or Steelers in the first round. They'd have to go to Miami. They're still viable. Kevin Clark had a tweet the first round. They don't have to go to Miami. They're still viable. Kevin Clark had a tweet the other day. He said, if you were to put your life savings

or like a mortgage payment, let's say, on four teams to win the Super Bowl, who are you putting them on? The Chiefs are one of the four, Gabe. Who are you putting your money on? San Francisco, Baltimore. What are the other two teams? You're like, yep, not the Eagles right now, right?

Do you trust the Cowboys? Do you trust the Lions, the Bills? No, Kansas City is one of the four teams you would put in there. They are. You know the fourth I would put in there? Maybe just to make a point. I would actually put the Rams in there. Rams are interesting.

I'm not sure they're deep enough, but it's interesting, yeah. Here's why. This speeds us up a little. I, I have this theory every year this week. This is when this is, this is the take. Tell me if this sounds familiar. Oh, you know, you don't want to see in this case, you don't want to see the Browns come into your building in the playoffs. Yeah. Yeah, I do. I'm I'll pay for Joe Flacco's first class seat to come to my city and try to play me. You know, you don't want to see in the playoffs in your building is a veteran like, you know, Patrick Mahomes or Matthew Stafford or Jalen Hurts even like nobody cares if Gardner Minshew who's played a little better than we expected on a team that's

overperformed is showing up in their building in January that's a win nobody cares why do we always have this take you know you don't don't want to see is the Lions yeah I do so I don't want to see Brad Allen that's that's uh that's not that's uh uh nonetheless um no I I was texting uh talking to a friend who's a browns fan i said they'd be perfectly browns to like have this momentum and lose to jacksonville and in the visual in the wildcard round right like flacco there's a ton of receptions that's the problem with flacco the rams dude yeah look mcveigh and stafford in a playoff game hard to bet against them how ironic would you want that how ironic is it they're gonna go to Detroit most likely and play the Lions yeah it's a tough one for Lions fans if Stafford goes

in there like breaks their hearts oh my God God help us if they don't if Michigan doesn't win that Monday I mean if Stafford ruins things and Michigan loses the Pistons are what they are oh and Michigan loses. The Pistons are what they are. Ugh, brutal. No, but seriously, like, why do we overthink this all the time? They finally won. That's true.

Because it's boring to be like, the Ravens and Niners are meeting in the Super Bowl. That's why. It's boring. People don't like to be bored when talking about sports. All right, well, then let's talk about something kind of boring, which is what the supposed to do with your you know your Ravens offense or what are you doing with your starters this week like we sort of touched on it with from the Eagles perspective but they have a different situation like they got to watch the scoreboard the Ravens clearly have nothing to play for

so is Lamar just shining an MVP trophy on the bench this weekend what's happening so this question gets asked every year. Yeah. And to be honest with you, I don't have a great answer for what is best to do. So the Niners, Ravens, Browns, Chiefs

are all locked into seeds right now. I think those are the teams that are locked in. Lions are pretty much a three seed. If both the Eagles and Cowboys lose, they're a two seed. Otherwise, I think it's still going to fluctuate. The Rams are most likely the sixth seed. Not set in stone, but pretty likely they're a sixth seed.

You know, in 2013, I was on the Chiefs, and we played the Chargers in week 17. It was 17 weeks back then, and we had the five seed locked up. Broncos that year, 2013, was Manning's first year there, and they were the one seed. And we rested everyone, rested everyone. And we went out and lost our playoff game. Not because we rested everyone. We just lost.

Had nothing to do with our – we had 44 points on offense. It's a great performance. Andy Reid has always rested his players in these games. Gabe, I don't have the right answer. I will say this, though. It's obviously individual and unit-based. You have to talk to your players on what they need and what they want in this game.

It's also very hard to dress veterans and dress players to play and then pull them out of the game because you don't have enough backup slots. In the preseason, when you dress everyone, totally fine. Let's say you dress eight starters and you have the eight backups yeah and those starters you decide to pull them out of the game now you put the eight backups in you have no one

left to back anyone else up you know so you have to decide in my opinion before the game sometimes okay what's the word it's like for the chiefs anyway he's always rested his guys always has done that but But this game, I could see him saying, look, man, our offense is sort of picking up steam. Let's go ahead and get ourselves a couple reps on offense.

You know, there's a couple guys, Travis Kelsey needs seven more yards-ish for like a thousand yards for the eighth straight season. Let's get Travis Kelsey some yards. You know, there's an idea that you can use this opportunity to get guys incentives.

But then again, when you take Kelsey out, you're down a tight end now. You take Mahomes out, you're down a quarterback. So it's hard to do that, Gabe. You have to decide typically beforehand, okay, we're in or out. Or like the Eagles, you play someone three and a half quarters and realize, okay, we're not making it. Let's take Hurts out for a quarter.

Yeah. Okay. I mean, I had never thought about it quite like that from like a juggling personnel perspective. And we always just think about the star players, not how do you feel the whole team and keep everybody ready, but got it. I'm going to save us some time on the NFC. It's the Niners and all these other teams are pretty fraudulent. We agree. Yeah. Can I, can I, can I, I know we have a hard out a little bit. Can I, can I explain the, the, the end of the Lions-Cowboys game quickly?

I was going to ask next. Should we be as upset as we are? I mean, this is my podcast. I could probably just do what I wanted to do, but I didn't want to step on your right hand. Okay. Yes, you should be. So let's explain what happened here.

Because we missed it, there was a procedural error at the end of the game that cost the Lions the opportunity to win the game. I have said, Gabe, you know this. You've been doing this. I don't know this. You've been doing this. I don't even know. We've been doing this podcast four years now? Four or five years, something like that. It's been a long time.

A lot of episodes. Thank you for everyone listening. I have said this. You know this. I'm like one of the rare people who says this. I do not blame officials for losses. Absolutely not. Never do.

Won't. That statement and that opinion is reserved most often for judgment mistakes right they missed a holding they missed the pi they called something judgment mistakes happen man games played fast these are humans they make mistakes procedural errors not allowed can't have those there's a procedural error this i'm not blaming this for the loss it didn't help the lines right okay so what happened was when you report as an as an as an as an ineligible player to report as eligible so you're working offensive line number between 50 and 70 excuse me 50 and 70 79 when you enter the game you're not eligible with that number you're

wearing you have to tell the official i'm eligible the official then announces to the stadium and to the defense this player is now eligible and what he does he wipes his he wipes the front of his his his uh jersey his chest and points at the at the player he's he's eligible and says number 70 is eligible okay all right um i've been the guy that's had to go into the game and be that guy very often because the coaches trusted me to play that position to play the tight end on the sidelines and running the field the typical procedure for that

both for an offensive snap and on field goal because the two tight ends typically are offensive linemen you run in the field you put your arm up in the air and you rub your chest to signal you are coming in the game to report as eligible. The official then looks at you, you look at him, you make eye contact, and he reports, okay, number 70 is reporting as eligible.

Okay. The other way, I've done this before too. I've been at guard, had to go to the Y to play tight end or the U. I go to the official after the play. Hey, I'm reporting as eligible. He then reports me as eligible. We bring in another player to take my spot. That guy does not run on the field with his arm up in the air and rubbing his chest. He just runs on the field like usual. And the play continues on the tight end the other guys in line end of story okay the lions in this situation game tried to be sneaky okay so what they were doing was they wanted the left tackle 68 to report as eligible they ran 70 on the field who had been a jumbo tight end multiple

times in that game as he ran in the field he ran with his arm up in the air and his hand like near his chest he didn't rub his he didn't rub it but he sort of ran on the field, he ran with his arm up in the air and his hand like near his chest. He didn't rub his, he didn't rub it, but he sort of ran on the field for a split second, hand up in the air, hand on the chest. He didn't do it the entire way on the field, a little bit on the field, to try to confuse the Cowboys. Hey, this guy's coming in to be eligible. They walked over 68-58, the right tackle, and 70 to the official because 68 was to tell the official, no, no, no, I'm in fact eligible.

If you see Brennan on the official, he looks at 70, he points at 70, and then leaves the huddle to go tell the defense, hey, 70 is reporting as eligible. But in fact, 70 didn't report, 68 reported. 68 told the official, hey, I am the eligible player on this play as that as that player you have to make sure the official absolutely hears you and he did not it's not his

fault the official needs to pay attention better the official went on autopilot went on autopilot absolutely and just said 70 you've been the the jumbo tight end this game you're obviously in the game for that purpose i'm announcing you as an eligible player. But 68 is supposed to be eligible. Two more parts to this. The official on the call, John Perry for ESPN, did an absolutely horrendous job explaining any of this process whatsoever. He said it was a legal formation.

It was not a legal formation. It was a legal formation because they was not an illegal formation. It was a legal formation because they did not have the right guys reporting. If 68 had reported and the official acknowledged 68 had reported, that would have been an eligible formation. They did not flag anyone for legal formation. And if they did, it would have been because 70 who reported as eligible was lined up at guard in an ineligible position. That's a penalty. But there was no illegal formation. The play was legal if 68 was reported as eligible.

The other thing I heard, Gabe, was the Cowboys would have covered him if they had known he was eligible. Let's talk about that. How many times do we see a big fella catch a touchdown? Happens all the time, even when the guy reports as eligible. So the fact that defense would have known, A, maybe, maybe not, but two, it's the loudest play of the game.

You're in a dome. It's a two-point conversion attempt. You can't hear the junk. You cannot hear the speakers. That's why Brad Allen ran over to the huddle of the Cowboys to tell them specifically who was the point is eligible. That's not normally the procedure because typically you can hear the loudspeaker.

So all those things end up being with Brett Allen being wrong. I just saw they put Brett Allen on the Saturday football game between the Ravens and Steelers this week. So we get more Brett Allen right in our faces. All right. So thank you for that. Sorry. That was very long.

Great. No, that's a great explanation. That's the point of this show. I don't think I heard anyone else explain it all that well. And I guess I'll sort of simplify it in this way and say, Nick, right, our friend, and I think Bill Simmons also sort of had a similar take here, which is, yeah, but similar to you in the past, like you can't expect the referee to get it right and hinge your whole game plan on the referee, not being confused when you're being intentionally confusing to everyone in the stadium. If your whole goal is to mislead everyone and you mislead the umpire or the

official in the process, what did you expect to happen? Yeah. So the, yeah, he made a mistake. And even, and even Campbell told him to play beforehand,

which obviously happens all the time, but still like the officials just weren't ready for it. So that's that. Yeah, I'm still not taking the Cowboys seriously over the Lions to win the NFC. All right. So Niners are bust. Three other teams in the NFC seem like they have a chance. Okay.

Yes. Time savers real quick, and then I want to come back to your picks, your square for the week, as well as maybe some more college. So can we save time and say the Broncos-Russ situation is confusing and misunderstood, and people are blaming each other and yelling at each other, and you're included in some of it, and all of it is pointless because who gives a crap about the Broncos and Russ and Sean Payton? That's a fair take. I just love that the guy, what's his name? Kirk?

Kirk? Kirk? Kirk Benkert. Oh, yeah. He's your guy. I was very surprised. I was very surprised that this was the text I got from you. Seems like a jackass.

No, he's our guy. We love Kirk. Okay. So he said in the tweet that he did Taylor Swift level, Swifty level research on Googling my name. Very odd. I did not Google his name because I just don't care enough to Google my name. The most outrageous part of that whole thing was that he said that I was

defending Sean Payne because I worked at Fox and Sean worked at Fox for a year. He just, I'm just not a conspiracy person, Gabe. worked at Fox for a year. He just... I'm just not a conspiracy person, Gabe. I don't get how that works. Like, I don't automatically think about things being conspiracy. Like, I just think the most logical answer is the answer.

Like, the Broncos and Sean Payton just don't want Russell Wilson to be their quarterback anymore. End of story. Like, that's the story. And I didn't defend Sean Payton, by the way Russell Wilson to be their quarterback anymore. End of story. Like, that's the story. And I didn't defend Sean Payton, by the way. I crushed him on here on Friday and also on Twitter. But the idea that, like, I am, like, defending a Fox employee

and that's why my take is what it is, maybe I just have a take, Kurt, with no conspiracy behind it. It was so odd, man. It was, like, an odd choice to like attack try to attack me because it made him look like a fool dude yeah well uh it was not happy moment for me when i saw jeff you're my friend and colleague here i don't know i don't know i didn't know you work with him we've done some stuff with kurt i trust your opinion i think you guys would be friends in real life i think you both understand the game better than almost anyone else talking about it out there.

And I think if you guys were together over a meal, you would find each other to be good company. So I don't know what was with the tweets between either of you. But I do want to save us time and say the Broncos aren't worth anyone getting upset over because who cares about that? Oh, I'm not upset at social media. It just was a very odd response. I was like, oh, well, I mean, anyone who worked at Fox can't say anything bad about that. Oh, I'm not upset at social media. It just was a very odd response. I was like, oh, well, I mean, anyone who worked at Fox can't say anything bad about ever? I never

met Sean Payton before. Yeah. There's a few people who worked at Fox once who I've tweeted some things about, but we all have our moment. Look, it's not preferred that I talk shit about Fox employees. I get that. But i'm also going to talk about them if they're a freaking coach if they're like currently if they're currently like working at fox i probably can't be like skid bayless as a so-and-so that wouldn't go well get a bunch of messages from my bosses so so let's keep kurt out of it and you even you out of it but let's agree that the instinct that i think a lot of fans have is that some of these guys who are paid a lot of money to talk about the game are very well connected to one another. And they're not always being as straight with the audience about their feelings on certain players and coaches as we would want them to be.

They share agents. Your boy Kirk would be defending Nate Hackett out here. Come on, buddy. Like come on buddy. Like you, like you, I'm just saying, I, I think, I think that fans, I forget guys who played like you and he fans, I think have a right to say, wait a minute, like that guy's defending him. Isn't that just cuz he played for him or isn't that just because they have a friend in common? Yeah, that's fair.

Sure. That's fair. But that's not what happened here. I agree. That's not what happened. But that is a thing that probably does happen. All right. Matt Eberflus? Is that even his first name?

Who gives a crap? The Bears are... Look, here's the Bears thing. I'll save us time on this one. This is the debate we can have from February to April. We're not doing Bears draft stuff in January 2nd. Terrific. Dion reportedly hiring a new DC who has a big name from the NFL we had some guesses offline any guesses you want to share here

yeah Mike Zimmer is my guess Mike Zimmer doesn't seem exciting enough to me I'm thinking uh you mean Pat a Pat Shermer Mike Zimmer uh coaching duo doesn't fire the fire the loins up I'm thinking something more like Ed Reed Ray Ray Lewis. Give me something exciting like that. Ed Reed could be a possibility, but he's never been coaching very long. I just think you need experienced coaches. You have a bunch

of young, inexperienced coaches. It comes from an HBCU, played some good years with Dion, obviously a lot of respect for one another. I think you need to be able to have some, like you have a new offensive line coach and OC. That's not very good.

You should have, you have young, you need some, some, some, some vets in that room, you know what I mean? Veteran coaches. All right. I'm skipping this next name I wrote down. I don't really want to talk about him. Uh, look up the internet from former Fox columnist uh and oh geez david tepper what's going on there if you if you are on a website yeah and there are the banner ads like mine have been

all like early december was like all oregon duck stuff it was like a bunch of bodacious like billboards it's what you search on the internet folks. So it's what websites you go to. So if you can, if you complain about your targeted ads, then that is a you problem. You need to go to different websites. Um, you tell them on yourself. What, what, what, what's a website that has targeted ads? Like I'm trying to find one right now that I could go to and see what my targeted ads are. a website that has targeted ads like i'm trying to find one right now i could go to and see what my targeted ads are probably most of them while you do that uh i'm gonna say in our next conversation that you and i have with each other after the college football season is over i would like to

come back to something kirby smart brought up this week and all of us felt as we watched a few meaningless bowl games particularly that georgia florida state game which is this isn't working and we have some solutions but that's another one you said like kind of a february to june kind of thing let's fix the bowl situation when we have some time we'll come back to it i need some picks for this sunday i have one last chance to make some money on the nfl regular season give me some prize picks okay very quickly i have a um hbo max pop up and then a dxl big and tall website for close i've been on i was on there like last week searching for some clothes that also sounded like it could okay forget it no let's do the dxl big and tall big and tall dxl

there's four polo shirts right here no i totally i'm with you that's what i wear it's hard don't pause for a beat now transition don't do the mcafee thing where you just make something bigger than it has to be because poor davis you're still doing it poor reese davis yesterday poor guy was just like that was it was funny from like the outside but bruce davis was so embarrassed in that moment and like i felt really bad for him. I don't want to, I don't want to talk about that. So can you just talk?

Sure. We'll be back in a second. Make me some money. We're back. Okay. Yeah. We got, we got, We got things to do here. All right, guys.

So go to PrizePix, promo code GSSY, $100 match deposit. You choose two or six players. You go more or less than their PrizePix projections. Win 25 times your money. It is Tuesday. The games are Sunday games. It's hard to find some, but I have two that I like. You ready? Yeah. Baker

Mayfield, more than 223.5 pass yards. The Bucs have to win this game. They're playing the Panthers. Panthers stink. David Tepper Stone drinks in everyone. And then I'm pairing that with Tyreek Hill

more than 101.5 receiving yards against Buffalo. Must-win game. Sunday night football. Bill's secondary times with all their injuries, just not as good. Get him the ball in space. Let him roll. So Baker Mayfield, more than 223.5. Tyreek Hill, more than 105.5 receiving yards.

There we go, buddy. There we go. We did it. I like it because they're in Miami. I thought for a second they might be up in Buffalo, and I didn't like that, Ty Hill. Yeah. Okay.

Baker's a no-brainer. Ty, why not if he's healthy? Yes. All right. We did it. Take us out, Jeff. I had fun this week. One more week of regular season, and then we got the national championship game. Hopefully Washington

loses next time out to Michigan. If Washington wins, buddy, on Monday, it's going to be a bad day for your boy. We'll be back on Friday, everyone. We're 59% of the season. Hoping to finish strong with Matt. That's a weird week, obviously. A lot of games don't matter, so

some lines to discuss. We'll do that on Friday. Take care, everyone. Talk to you guys. Hope you had a good New Year. Thank you. Bye. Thank you. Bye. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, We'll be right back. Thank you. Bye. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,