Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - The RB Value Debate and Netflix's QB Docuseries

Episode Date: July 21, 2023

Geoff and Matt are back together again for the first time in weeks, and they're doing it live on Twitter. Tune in to hear your favorite duo weigh in on the debate over how much running backs deserve to be paid, share takeaways from Netflix's docuseries Quarterback, plus touch on Shohei Ohtani's impending free agency.Be sure to rate, comment, and follow the pod if you enjoyed, and check out @geoffschwartz on Twitter for live video shows, plus a recorded video version of this episode.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Music Music It's Tuesday, July 18th. I'm Jeff Schwartz alongside Matt Ford, and we're back. Jeff Schwartz is smarter than you after a long delay. We didn't have much football news. We have tons of football news now. Matt is back. We're live on Twitter as we're doing more going forward.

Please leave us a rating and review if you like this new process you find us on twitter live every week i think moving forward plus the podcast as usual whatever podcast application you like to use we have running back news we have the quarterback show on netflix which matt and i have both watched intensely we have many many notes on that i will watch those anytime i love those uh i don't know why i can't get enough of it matt it does feel like football is here now training camps begin for rookies some select veterans will be there we have college ball media days and we have our schedule in august and september for our preview shows that we're going to do we've done

it now this will be our third year in a row matt of us two we're going to preview every division we're going to do props. We're going to do totals, over-unders. We keep track throughout the season. We'll give you a total at the end of the year. Last year, down a little bit. Previous year, up about 10 grand. So we're still in the green.

Matt, I'm excited for football. Glad to have you back. You look refreshed. You look tan. I know you're in Hawaii. You look great, buddy. Life's good, Jeff. Look, now we're doing this for real.

You've got legal sports betting in North Carolina for the season, right? now we're doing this for real you've got legal sports betting in north carolina for for the season right so we can do this no no no no no it's uh january of of 24. no i don't get that okay yeah i know i'm just in time for the playoffs uh you know i do radio show on the weekends with bill krackenberger who's a professional wager that's what he does he makes a lot of money he texts us picks all the time and like i'm like i can't wait the offshores don't have the uh some of these totals for weekly he said college football week zero totals last week to me matt they're not up yet for college football so um for for uh for game totals um so we're week zero is august 26th like we're close man there's someone better at betting than the two of us

out there i don't believe that that would be impossible do you want to start with the running back news the anchor or do you want to start with do you want to start with the quarterback documentary i think the quarterback documentary is going to be like a 40-minute segment so why don't we save that um okay And let's talk about running backs because that is what everyone's talking about. So the last couple of days, obviously there's Saquon and Josh Jacobs both have not signed their tags.

There's been a lot of questions about the sort of future of the running back position. Every running back weighed in on Twitter yesterday. Austin Eckler was one of those that who tweeted that uh that the position has been artificially devalued they act like running backs are discardable widgets great great work great uh way to summarize that um so we're sort of in an impasse with this position and the future of it so So obviously you're of the opinion that running, you sort of would be one of the people

that Austin Eckler is saying takes this position. What do you think of this debate and where do you think it's headed? So three running backs for franchise tax, Saquon Barkley, Josh Jacobs, and Tony Pollard, none of them got deals, right? They all passed. And then two of them and Jacobs and Barkley did not sign their franchise. Actually, they're right now not

going to be in training camp, will not get fined for Tony Pollard did sign. Al Secler, by the way, trying to get more money from the Chargers this year. I think he got a tiny pay increase. And look, I get it. If you're Saquon Barkley, you basically have seven years of agency. You play five years on your rookie contract, then you have two franchise years that are cheaper than obviously getting a long-term contract which is what he wants he wants that long-term guarantee and i understand the anger with running backs not getting the money right i get it you want to make as much money as possible you have a short shelf life the problem i have matt is when you say well we're indispensable we are a part of a winning team well you gotta show me examples

and that's the hard part right where are the examples of running backs getting second contracts and that helping you win a super bowl because ultimate goal is winning a super bowl and again i i hate taking the stance because i played with adrian peterson jamal charles john the student these guys were great for my career and as an offensive lineman i love running backs but looking at it from where i'm sitting in this chair right now in my office, I can't tell you to spend a lot of money on a running back because you can find them, and the history shows, all over. Look at the running backs, the starting running backs

for the last 10 Super Bowl champions. None of them, none of them are the names you would expect to be at the top of that. You pay these running backs a lot of money, and the return on investment is just not there as far as Super Bowl wins. Now, is Christian McCaffrey good for the Niners? Absolutely. But guess what? The Niners are not winning anything this year unless they find a quarterback.

Okay? And that's just – Matt, it's the hard part about this is you cannot make an argument, really a factual argument, any evidence-based argument about paying running backs more than we feel like we should get more money. And I understand. I understand as a player, former player, yeah, you want that more money, but I can't really say why and give examples for where the more money should come from to pay the running backs. Also, you know, Saquon and Josh Jacobs are really interesting cases because Saquon, by the way, has not been healthy his entire career. If

he had been healthy his entire career, I do think he has more chance to see a better deal from the Giants. And both Saquon and Josh Jacobs were not drafted by their general managers, right? I think Gettleman drafted Saquon. He's not there anymore. And then in Vegas, we know the GM is Ziegler, right, from the Patriots. He didn't draft Josh Jacobs to Vegas as well. And again, the success for these teams this year comes down to does Daniel Jones take a step forward? Better wide receiving court, does he take a step forward as a passer?

And then on the Raiders side, it's not whether Josh Jacobs gets 2,000 yards. It's who's the quarterback this year? Is it Jimmy Garoppolo? Is it someone else? And so it's hard to make an argument that back should get more money. And as far as the solutions to this, people say, well, change the franchise tag rule.

Make running back deals shorter. It's never going to happen. You're not changing the CBA for three to five players that want more money, right? And owners, by the way, would find a way to artificially deflate anyways. They'd find ways to make it not where it should be. There's also other positions that have gripes. Look, I'm going to pull this up right now just to have this this this money here. So centers, by the way, are really underpaid.

Ready? The 16th highest paid center, roughly the median for starters, is making four point three to five million average per year and plays nearly a thousand snaps a season. The 16th highest paid running back is making 4.5 million per year and plays 208 offensive snaps. Like centers are underpaid too. Guess what? So are tight ends, right? So are tight ends that as a franchise tag, they're used as a tight end, not a wide receiver. You know, there's all these, there's all these inequities in football it's just not fair and i don't have a great solution matt because they're not changing the cba and until a team proves we are winning because we paid you as a running back then teams will start doing it more often yeah it's it's a fair point it's unfortunate um one of the things that i want to steal it's something that our mutual friend nick wright said on uh what's right podcast

that we do around here everyone should go check that out um so he was talking about the nba and how a few years ago it felt like centers were sort of 20 years ago you needed a center right like akim olajuwon was picked over michael jordan for a reason right everyone sort of figured you had to build around centers and then centers after shack like kind of went out of fashion right like they a few years ago in the playoffs everyone was kind of wondering do you even need a center like draymond green six foot eight he's playing center like the game sort of changed it was a supply and demand thing and then came Nicole Jokic and then came Embiid right and then the center position kind of came back I kind of feel like that's what might happen with running backs is that we're in a bit of a supply and demand situation where you can win the Super Bowl with

Isaiah Pacheco but you know if you have somebody like saquon barkley or christian mccaffrey or whoever then you have a different opportunity and i kind of feel like the i kind of feel like the game needs to be coached a little bit differently in order for these running backs to get fixed like for example the the falcons draft bijan robinson eighth or whatever right they already have tyler algier on the roster the guy averaged five yards a carry last year. Why don't you give Tyler Algier 20 carries a game and give Bijan Robinson like 12 touches a game? Extend his career. Like use him almost more like a receiver, right? Like Justin Jefferson doesn't get tackled 30 times a game.

He gets tackled five times a game. And so like, you know, he's not going to get hurt quite as much. Like Tyree Kill's speed doesn't fall off like Derrickry's speed falls off because he doesn't take as many hits so i kind of feel like i wonder if that's like the way this is going to go is running backs are going to sort of i mean coaches should use them differently it's not fantasy football where you have you know you want to give the guy 40 carries a game and christian mccaffrey did that a few years ago and just like fell apart for two years yeah i feel like they have to sort of use them differently and i think that kind of lends itself to the nfl's like the way the nfl is going anyway

yeah but also that also will end up devaluing the running back right because if you're saying let's rotate reps then you're going to pay guys less and less if we're rotating reps look the thing about the run game though matt is that you need a back to get 20 to 25 reps in a game if you want to have a good running game because you have to get used to to seeing the same thing the running back sees and running that play over and over again to make sure you're on the same page like there's a rhythm to the run game it takes typically some time to get in a good rhythm if you're rotating back so often you don't get in that rhythm with that running back because you, again, you might see something in the first play. You're like, oh, okay, we didn't expect this.

We run it again in the third quarter. We know what to do. Boom. Let's go. And we see oftentimes those two- and three-yard runs turn into four- and eight- and 12-yard runs later in the game. I do think we're seeing more teams go back to the run game a little bit. Look what the Eagles did last year.

Look at the Chiefs in the playoffs right um look what the eagles did last year look at chiefs in the playoffs we know what the falcons did like there's team the lions run like there's teams starting to build back in the running game i feel like it's a big part of what they do but until again until it becomes more valuable to run the ball and throw the ball you're just he's not going to pay these guys it's that simple and uh again turnover general manager uh i like the idea of look splitting reps is great and all, but you draft a Bichon, what, eighth overall, you're going to play him.

That's just the way it works in the NFL. So there's a tough spot they're in. Not a great solution. I get why Baxter angry, but I don't know if there's much we can do about it now. Well, I kind of feel like the way to do this, like so Nick Chubb is the last running back to have gotten a long-term deal it was two years ago and the way that the browns have used him in his career so he had his most carries uh ever last

year he had 300 carries but in the past like he's always been part of a committee right like kareem hunt was there he's never sort of had to carry the load he had nine starts his rookie year um so you know derrick henry for for instance um why did his page go away like derrick henry would get 500 carries in a season oh yeah or and you know he'd he'd fall apart so i think that that could be the way instead of like instead of treating running backs more like i guess kind of like linemen where you kind of need them to have like a high floor and there isn't like a ridiculous gap between floor and ceiling like i do kind of feel like for a jameer gibbs or a bajon robinson or mccaffrey even like there's another back there like you can give that other back like a lot of those three four yard carries it doesn't mean that you know you can't give john robinson some of

those but i do feel like by using them in a committee like you still can increase their value over time and I feel like that's what I would want to do anyway if I was a coach right but you're not but you're not going to pay them more because of that though I mean like that's not going to help backs that backs out very much right so but the problem is not the pay it's it's that they don't last like the you know what I mean like no one wants to pay saquon barkley because in three years he's gonna fall apart not because he's not good now like i know i don't feel like it's i feel like the game has to change and and i think that's sort of like going back to the centers thing but i did see that uh you know that kenny galladay is going to get paid more by the giants this year year than Barkley is. And Barkley's on the tag. Like, that's ridiculous.

It is. I don't know. Look, Jonathan Taylor probably gets paid by the Colts. He probably breaks the mold there because, again, he was drafted by Chris Ballard. That's a big part of this, right? If your general manager stays for your entire tenure, then you're going to find they're more likely going to want to uh to pay

the guy they drafted yeah and i think you know i definitely got that's a that's a good point you made that you know some of these teams are uh you know they're not married to these guys that they didn't draft so it'll be interesting it's kind of funny to see all these running backs like chime in and you know it's a shame for guys like eclair and and saquon and all these guys to not have the certainty of other positions but i think the game will change before we move on here i'm disappointed i had a piece of food in my mouth and no one told me that was in my teeth that's a that's a that's a mistake i should have seen myself in the mirror i was like you're on camera you're gonna see it if it's something that's not like i didn't want to be like, hey, your tooth's fucked.

Well, I'm looking at the camera. I'm looking at the camera, not myself on screen. And I've had this piece of chicken in my mouth for the last 10 minutes. I did notice. No, I did notice it. Yeah. Bad job by us. You didn't let me know.

You got to have your mouth open. I'm off its alignment. I expect to have a few crumbs every now and then in my mouth. But geez. All right, let's get to the discussion. i'm off its alignment i expect to have a few crumbs every now and then in my mouth uh but geez all right let's get to uh the discussion me and you've text about the most the last week is this a quarterback series on netflix it's fabulous i would advise anyone who enjoys the type of things to watch it what's your what are your takeaways i know you're hot on one subject i'm hot on a few um i think the first thing i that i took away was you can if you didn't watch any of the football parts i feel like you could tell just from who's having the most fun who's

gonna have the best season like the thing with mahomes and and and Reed to some extent too, that I really noticed, Patrick Mahomes is having a blast the whole time. They do the custom installs where they make their own plays. On the field, he's talking smack. He's having a good time. And you watch Kirk Cousins, and he's got stuff wired on his brain. He talks about, I must be sick for wanting to

do this every week marcus mariotta i don't think he smiles outside of the ultrasound the entire show like he's miserable and mahomes has this like mahomes's confidence and his joy in the process like mahomes you know cousins is a totally different person than Mahomes. Like Mahomes is talking about in the first or second episode. He's like, I don't know, man. Like I'm just a baseball player. Like this is just fun. And Kirk Cousins is like, I don't know how I'm here.

And so he's dealing with so much doubt and so much like he's dealing with stuff from when he was in high school. You can tell. And Mahomes is just able to play. And I feel like that's something that I would never have guessed without having seen this show. Just how much of a difference there is in the mindset from the difference between the first best quarterback in the league

and the 14th, 15th, whatever you want to say Cousins is. The difference is not... Their physical ability, obviously, is a little bit different. like the difference between maybe maybe burrow and cousins who are physically a bit more similar is is all mental like cousins just seems he's dealing with so much just to get on the field and perform where mahomes seems like he can just go out there and improvise and be really free and that that was unbelievable for me to see that's sometimes the difference between hall of fame players and really good players right is the confidence they have within themselves to go out and compete at a high level and the homes knows that he's really good which i think you saw in this series like he has no

doubt about it he knows he's good he plays that way and he plays fired up. And look, for the most part, Matt, anyone listening, footballs cannot be very fun. Like Cousins and Mariota are more than normal, I think, than Mahomes. Football's hard, man. And you saw the Cousins part where he's playing through injuries each week. Like that's what football is. Cousins is what football is. Mahomes is like what what the one

percent of one percent football is like the rest of us is like cousins where you're just doing everything possible to play each week and whether it is the neuro stuff he's doing whether it's the the treatment the rehab he's doing whether it's the practice plan whether it's all that's what most NFL is like is what cousins is going through and obviously he's done at a high level for so many years I find myself coming out of the documentary not changing the way i feel about cousins as a player but like as a person i i think it was great for cuz this was a great exposure for cousins he looked he looked fabulous i like the cockiness of patrick mahomes like i just thought it was great like he is who he is he knows he's great works his tail off and he knows on sunday he's

a killer he's gonna come he's gonna do what he's going to do what he – what does he say? This is what I do, like, all the time when he makes a big play. This is what I do. Yeah. Yeah, this is what he does. And then Mariota obviously kind of going through the later part of his career. You mentioned something pretty interesting about Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes. And Mahomes talked about this.

I've said it many times. What Andy Reid does so well and why when you watch the Chiefs play, they have a lot of fun. A, winning helps. Let's throw that out there. Winning is very helpful. But two, he says all the time, he says that he wants your personalities to shine. He wants you to be yourself on the field.

So if Patrick Mahomes is a guy that needs to talk a little shit, needs to get fired up, he's fine with that. You never see him tell Patrick to stop. I think Patrick mentioned one time Andy told him, like, calm down a little bit. But for the most most part he's not telling him to stop be yourself be your personality show it on the field that's the difference between andy reed and a lot of coaches um i i just loved again cousins what cousins play through each week is how most of us feel like you're just getting you're just getting by you're just getting

by you're just getting there and you're playing each week uh what other takeaways did you have well to your point on andy reed like the difference between his interactions with mahomes and kevin o'connell's interactions with cousins are fascinating and same with arthur smith like the way that the two moments that really stood out to me were two quarterback runs where uh cousins went for that uh that fourth and goal against buffalo and he didn't get it and o'connell just ripped him and it's like this was a this is a rookie head coach who comes right after cousins just made this huge error and like as a person who manages people i can't imagine somebody making a big

mistake and then immediately being like you screwed up why'd you do that you should have done this you should have done that and cousins is like yeah i know i know i know it's like you got to give him a second you got to let him take him take it in and then when mahomes had that game i think it was the chargers where he had those two long runs and reed comes up to him and granted they were in a position where they were winning uh reed comes up to him he was like yeah you did that better than i would have or whatever you know what i mean he was just so loose and it was they had such like an interesting relationship and arthur smith and mariotta don't even seem to like talk like they talk about robots like it just seemed like they're miserable and i i thought that was something really interesting about reed's leadership style where he really like he was he was just so kind and he he really gives people space to succeed and

o'connell was like i'm in charge i'm the man you got to be on the same page as me like almost a little paternalistic the whole time it was just like very weird uh okay so i'm glad you mentioned that um my take on that situation and and you heard Cousins mention this like halfway through the season. It takes eight to ten weeks to get a new offense up and running. It just does. By the time you kind of see everything and go through the cycles of the season and you saw, and you mentioned it, it's like, yeah, about week 10

I started feeling better in the offense. And I think Oconnell was trying to kind of figure out how cousins is wired in those moments like he asked him again the the playing question was they were at buffalo it was fourth down and the cousins just decided to run a quarterback sneak on his own right and he was short he was short which is like call time out like that's that's a moment where i get what kevin o'con kind of pissed. Like, bro, we game plan all week for this moment, and you just threw the play out that we had worked on all week and just did a quarterback sneak, and it did not work. And he didn't jump over the pile.

He just, like, fell forward, and obviously the Bills didn't fumble, and the Vikings won the game instead. And I felt that Kevin all series was trying to figure out how to coach Cousins. Like that felt like a big part of his struggle throughout the year was trying to find a way. I think he realized eventually, I think he mentioned this too, like you got to let him like have his own time to himself after bad plays.

I think it took him some time to figure that out. And by the end of the series, I felt like he did a better job of letting cousins like fume by himself and not getting his face after a mistake yeah that's interesting i i don't know i mean their whole dynamic was so interesting and it just didn't seem i really i really respected how cousins was able to just kind of navigate how hard he how hard it was for him just to get out on the field. Like I remember when he was in Washington, there was, there were these stories about how he would literally have every minute of his day planned because he just, that's what he needed

in order to get to the place where he could succeed. And that's what it takes for him. Like he, he clearly has some mental barriers that Mahomes doesn't. And it's like, you watch what they're working on. It's like cousins is at the sports psychologist and my homes is working on these off platform throws. It's like, who's going to be better. You know what I mean? Like clearly the homes is like,

yeah, whatever. I'm good. Like I know how to, every time we're down, like I come back and win and cousins has to deal with this totally other thing. And I definitely related to cousins more.

Like I'm sure most people did. If you were watching this, like, I just can't imagine, you know, just walking into, you know, your office every day and being like, yeah, I'm the man. Like I can, everything that's going to happen today, I have an answer for it. I'm better than everyone. Like that's not how most people feel in their life. Most of us feel like cousins where it's like, I got to have the right amount of sleep, the right amount of exercise and the right mood to just function. Yeah. So I, you know,

I really respected how open he was about that too. Like, yeah, I thought that, I don't know. He seems like a really, just like a, like a relatable person and a really crazy job.

But, and this is not at all like a slight to him, but you can tell why he hasn't won many playoff games you totally can and and that meltdown in the in the bills game like you know i'm sure producer hank's nodding along like cousins does weird stuff under pressure like he right you could see how high strong he was and how o'connell was like dude you gotta chill out like remember he did the the kneel instead of the spike like something happens with him where he can get 99% and then something happens at the end. And, you know, that's, I guess what the psychology is for, but you know, the, the, he has like,

he can make every throw, like, but I don't know. There's a, there's the, the mental thing is, is something that I don't think my homes gets enough credit for after watching this. No, um, my homes is just kind of built that way. I think though, I think that's a part of it. you just like built a certain way a couple other things I noticed um and I have not said this publicly until now but I'm going to talk about on my podcast I saved it for my podcast um it's very very noticeable who Patrick mahomes talks to in the sidelines and who he does not yeah look and I know it could be edited a certain way i know that

these are the way it's done but patrick mahomes talks to andy reed and matt nagy didn't talk much eric biettami the entire show again could be edited that that way matt i don't know i'm not part of the editing process of these shows i know that that's the way it can go but when he came off the sidelines and talked to the OC, he talked to Andy Reid, and most of the time, Matt Nagy. Him and Matt Nagy were like this. And I found that very fascinating because on the other side, Cousins talked to the OC, he talked to Kevin O'Connell, and Mariota, there was plenty of instances where the offensive coordinator and Mariota were talking all the time. They were like after games, highfiving hanging out it was very noticeable that Mahomes and Eric Bien-Ami

did not talk the entire series now there were times where they're like hey how you feeling I'm good how you doing okay like well let's go win this one but there did not seem to be much they didn't talk at practice like there was almost no connection between offensive coordinator and Patrick Mahomes did you I know I text you this but I think you noticed it also right yeah well once you texted I was I kept my eye out for it because I hadn't started yet and there was one there were two moments one was when one was like a huddle in the locker room after a game where they Mahomes was like dapping everybody up or whatever and walked right by behind me like they didn't even look at each other and i was like oh that's kind of weird and then there was

another one i think it was after was it the i don't know maybe it was the chargers game where they're doing the handshakes on the field and they're next to each other and they both see each other and go different ways and i was like that's weird like i didn't even notice those i didn't even notice there were at least little moments where i was like even if I didn't like someone, if we just won a game, I'd be like, yeah, great job, especially if it was your offense coordinator. It just seemed like there was definitely, it was definitely strange. And we've talked a lot about B&M on this show, but I, as now, as a Washington fan,

I have heard a few of these things that have come out from some of the reporters that are like, he's really tough on players and the players after practice are like is this going to change in the season or is this guy just going to be this much of a hard ass the whole time and i wonder like you know that doesn't you know mahomes doesn't need that like right like he's he's such a natural like there's so much going for him he doesn't need somebody to be like you didn't plant your feet before that throw you know what i mean like so i kind of wonder if they just had such a stylistic clash and you know

there's been all these rumors about the enemy like maybe that's what it is i don't know man i just found i found it odd um i haven't followed any of those reports in washington yet i know that he has you know i he's i've seen him uh i put there a year but like you know that you know he yeah he it's a little fiery uh it's it's part of his personality which i guess i don't really mind is it like nagging or is like what is it why when you say fire it's like they're all competitors like what is it yeah i think it's just i think he's just competitive i don't really see a problem in in that very much like if you can't you don't there there's a there's a balance as a coach

of being a hard ass and then, like, loving on your players, right? Like, there has to be a balance in between. And if you don't ever show that love to players, that's when the hard ass stuff gets too much, right? So if you're saying, hey, Eric Bien-Ami is too hard on me, it's mostly that he doesn't – to me, it's mostly he never shows you any love, right? He never comes to you, hey, man, you know, good practice today. Like, way like like way to go it's more just like all the time negative all the time i don't know that i spent one year with eric biannimi he's running back's coach i couldn't tell you how he is

his oc i just felt that very glaring in the documentary that there was not much contact between mahomes and eric biannimi at all now they didn't allow access to meeting rooms, which Andy Reid was not going to allow. But it was so good, man. The play calling, like hearing the plays being called, I hope you guys realize how difficult it sounds, and it is that way. I liked the family part of this because I thought all the wives were very supportive,

which, again, I don't think they're not supportive, but they're very supportive of their husbands. You made the comment to me and it's actually pretty funny. I think it's true. It's like Brittany Mahomes is like unimpressed with her husband's success. Like she just seems totally unfazed by it. Like not at all.

Like, and my wife was the same way. She does not care at all like just totally didn't care and they've been together so long like i think when you've been with someone from the beginning you don't look at them as like a football player only and so the success on the football field is not really like what drives the relationship and yeah she was like you know she would cheer obviously but just it didn't seem like she was like overly impressed that he's the best player on the planet yeah i don't i definitely noticed that and i think it was another that's good but i want to make sure it's a good thing that's that's good by the way like i'm gonna make the very it's a very positive thing about and i about her relationship with patrick i think

that's a great positive to have yeah and and with you and meredith shout out to meredith the best i think um that was another difference i think with with mahomes and cousins who mahomes's father was a professional athlete like it's not that weird that he's a professional athlete like britney had her own success as an athlete she owns a soccer team like that you know what i mean like whereas cousins like cousins was like i can't believe i could be all state one day you know what i mean like whereas cousins like cousins was like i can't believe i could be all state one day you know what i mean like he's still just processing the fact his own reality where my home's like it was it was just so different you know what i mean and that's such an advantage and i felt like i first of all can you imagine as and now i can say i've

done this in your ultrasounds like can you imagine having a camera crew in there like like shout out to the mariotas man like allowing that access like that's such a special experience to just be like sure come on in netflix producer guy that was when the season even started i was like how did they allow this like incredible access like great work by the production team there to accomplish that i couldn't believe that it was there was a lot of behind the scenes stuff um one other thing that i thought was just personally pretty funny so because this is my wife when i played because i was hurt a bunch so patrick gets hurt against jacksonville and um they win the game and they catch his wife in the box talking to a friend who's off camera and she's complaining about patrick being too hurt to

help around the house like oh he's going to be home at 7 30 because he had to rehab oh he's not gonna help with the kids like what a surprising show right after bedtime oh oh honey i can't i can't play with the kids tonight because my foot hurts and i showed my wife that and she's like yep yep that's how it was yes that's how it was when you played too i felt like it was a very real moment people i hope they're not knocking for that because that's how it was when you played too it felt like it was a very real moment people i i hope they're not knocking it for that because that's a real feeling like you're a family like you have kids at home and it's a partnership and i get that patrick mahomes you know in in season he has busy but like your partner wants you to help with the kids too i dealt with that we had

a young child and i was injured a broken leg leg. My wife felt the same way. Like, dude, what the heck, man? Like we're in this together and you're always hurt and you're rehabbing and you're not part of the family unit. And so that was like a real – that was great they put that in there. That's how wives feel, man. Like it's supposed to be a partnership and you're asked to get in rehab and get surgeries. So my wife felt that way a lot when i was hurt i was hurt

a lot too which is unfortunate um anything else you found you find interesting about the series yeah one last thing so um there's as a as a producer i really noticed this there's they use across the industry they use these sound bites there was a ton of good morning football history they use these sound bites there was a ton of good morning football there was some right there was some colin coward there was some like they would use these sound bites for exposition where especially in the first couple episodes where they would sort of have to explain you know kirk cousins career where it'd be like you know kirk cousins like here's the problem with him he just can't win a playoff game and he's he's been really good for a while but whatever it was just like the most basic information and i can imagine these producers being like can i just have someone out there to just explain this guy's career that i can just

lift and just put in this goddamn show like how many hours of kyle brandt do i have to watch to get this down so jeff i was wondering if and and i i thought we make a podcast yes why aren't we in there like there is a world where someone could have seen your take on the home on the chief yes i should be as a chief homer i should be on i should be on the show so i think i think here's what we need to do i think we need to pick like seven quarterbacks and just guess who the next season's gonna be and just offer some very generic just biographies of their life so far like you know like aaron rodgers played for the packers for a while and won two mvps and now everyone thinks it's gonna be easy in new york but will it be we'll see like i feel like we just need to do that for like four or five you should do it because they would actually take it.

Joe Burrow succeeded at LSU. Yeah, so Joe Burrow, give me the thing that they're going to put in QB season two. Explain his career. Here you go, producers. I'm giving you a free one. Go. They announced they're doing season two. Yeah, but they haven't casted it yet, right?

Should it be should it be um should it be two quarterbacks or three i mean i get why they picked so it was it wasn't supposed to be mariotta right like it was no i think it was someone someone else supposed to be in there yeah got it so i think i i thought mar Mariota was a really interesting choice and it could have worked. I think I think like he was an interesting guy. And I also like I didn't really realize his connection to just how unusual his career was like the first Hawaiian quarterback. I think in the league like the Heisman with the point like I just thought that was like so interesting but he was tough like it was tough to watch like you knew what was going to happen with him and when you have homes it's like you're kind of like i got just give me more homes like it's unfair even to cousins um so i feel like but somebody right on the cusp like a backup who's trying to play like you know like uh like a baker mayfield or something he'd be an incredible choice for this because you can't, like,

I think Burrow would be awesome. I don't know. It'd be interesting to figure out. Instead of these quarterback superlatives, what we need to do, Matt, is I need to be hired by Netflix or whoever, Omaha, who's ever producing this. And what we got to do, guys, we have to get the clips that you show to line up with the voice of what you say is happening. Because it doesn't happen all the time. And it

bothers me to no end. It's a pet peeve on these football shows. For example, they showed the Chiefs and Bengals playing. They showed the scoreboard, said seven to three. And then the next clip they showed was a touchdown to make it 7-3. You can't show that. You have to show it the other way around. You can't do that, okay? Secondly, they call plays. Like Mahomes is calling a run play, and in the next clip, they're in shotgun throwing a pass.

I can't deal with that, Matt. I just can't deal with that. And it's very clear sometimes the practice footage is not when they're talking about practice, and that also bothers me. I like that a lot.'s really good take they should have somebody in there who knows football to make the edits like they filmed like two weeks of practice and just use that entire practice footage for the whole they definitely do that they have to but I'm wondering so the play call thing what does every player on the team have to know every little wrinkle in the play,

or do you tune out when you hear the protection? Oh, good question. Do you tune out when it's like gun, slide left, whatever, and then you're done? You don't care about the route? No. Okay, so good question. I listen to formation and then the protection, and then I'm out. But there might be a check in the middle

so you have to pay attention like it might say you know gun duo right 65 all go special kill 35 inside zone read so you might depend yeah you gotta listen like to make sure the end part of it doesn't imply to you um but yeah that if he kills it at the line it's going into an inside zone run yeah yeah got it so you have to listen to the whole thing sometimes um i so two things one is i think the best offensive linemen know the formation because that's important because if you study defense and you know what you're getting and then you hit the formation in your head you can start with an idea of what when you turn your back from the huddle to go to the line of scrimmage you know what you should see in front of you so if i hear like gun duo right so i know

the tight ends to the right so if we're on the left hash the strength is to the field on the right and if i come out and i see a defense alignment that I'm not expecting, sirens go off in my head about why is this not what I think it's going to be? Is it a blitz coming? Is there pressure coming? Or are they doing differently? And you start that process, honestly, when you hear the formation. I think that's what the good linemen do. And then I think sometimes with route combinations,

it can give you an idea of if the play is a deeper play, a shorter play. Other than that, you don't have to really listen to route combinations, it can give you an idea of if the play is a deeper play, a shorter play. Other than that, you don't have to really listen to route combinations very much. But I also thought, like, there's so many cool things. Andy Reid called the pass to a right tackle in the fourth quarter of the Super Bowl. Like, that's crazy. That's insane. Andy Reid's just so calm.

I mean, basically the last hour and a half was just a a Patrick Mahomes documentary because of um of uh of you know the the Super Bowl run um but I don't know man I they're doing one of these for the U.S women's national team for the World Cup I believe uh which is going to be incredible as well I watch all these man I love the I love any of these series so much. Yeah. Yeah, the tennis one is a different company and stuff, but that one's really good too.

I haven't watched the tennis one yet. Is it good? The tennis one's really good. Is it weekly or they just drop it all at once? In batches. It's like six, and then they did another season. Oh, so they're not going to have the Wimbledon this past week up anytime soon? Yeah, they just dropped last like the wimbledon like this past week up anytime yeah it's like last

they just dropped like last year's wimbledon uh i love these shows man of all i love all this i wanted to ask so when they showed mahomes doing the film study um and he was he was like watching blitzers and he was like this guy they don't move here because they're in zone like yes this guy like i could tell this and this like yes i couldn't believe here because they're in zone. Like, this guy, like, I could tell this and this. Like, I couldn't believe, like, to me, I would have guessed that he would not be watching, like, the defensive line as much as he'd be watching the secondary because he, like, watched the coverage.

Like, how much, is that just a quarterback-specific thing? No. Take me between that and what an offensive lineman would do and so basically i the office i'm just don't we don't look at corners but we look at safeties because safeties tell us the whole picture um you know if the safeties are how do you mean okay the safeties are both deep right you get too high safety look typically they have to find a way to get extra guy in the box because you don't have as many players in the box as you want and so they have to find ways to get basically more defenders in the box they do that by moving the defensive linemen so the snap because again if you have like a let's just say for the basic you have

a two by two formations you have two on one side two on one side okay and you have a two high look you have you have a linebacker in the middle four defensive linemen and your outside linebackers are going to be walked a little bit out to cover all that space because you have two safeties deep. So I have to find a way to get more guys in the box in the snap. And the way to do that is by moving defensive linemen. And then it's kind of forcing things to go to that linebacker that's sort of waiting outside the box. So when two high safeties are up there as a lineman, I sort of know, okay, some movement's coming, right? Like I sort of know, okay, all right.

One high safety, less movement up front, but you often get more pressures because the safety that's in the middle field is in the middle field. The other guy is typically going to be over a player who's going to pressure because you have to replace that guy. So if a nickel's pressuring off the edge, the safety has to replace that nickel in defense. So that's like an indicator, okay, there's one high, are there eight in the box for a run? If it's a run, you're not going to get much pressure. But if the safety is down one direction, that typically means someone's got to bring pressure because there's too many guys inside

the field, right? It's a numbers game. The same thing can happen a week. If a safety is down week, you're like, well, there's four guys on this side of the field with only one running back. So if there's one extra defender here that's not supposed to be here, that guy's probably going to pressure. So it's because of numbers game, right? And Mahomes is looking at that as he sees, okay, well, is the defense aligned in a certain – there's times the defense alignment

align in a certain position, Matt, because they have to – when they pressure, they have to get somewhere on the field until they cheat their alignment a little bit enough to where they have to get to where they have to go to snap the ball. So this is all film. So you pick these things up during film. I don't have to know where corners were. That's more Mahomes looking at – but he's true though.

Guys that like linebackers especially that are flat-footed are the ones that typically pressure versus the guys that walk around. The walk-around guy is trying to get your attention. It's the guy who's like, don't look. Don't look at me. Don't look at me. He's the one who pressures it more often than the guy just kind of like walking around. So you start learning these things the more you play, and that's kind of part of what helps you.

That's what helped me throughout my career is watching defense. If you see, again, like you see a guy where he's not supposed to be. Sirens go off. Okay. Why is that guy there? Like what's his, why is he where he's not supposed to be? You know, if I see a, a outside linebacker walk an edge of line scrimmage or push out a little bit, that defensive end, it's probably coming inside.

There's one less gap. Like the gaps have to be filled and they get filled by defensive linemen moving. And so you, you look at all these things throughout each play and that's why again what i mentioned earlier like if you if you break the huddle and already have an idea of what the formation is supposed to be and what you're supposed to get because everyone has tendencies that puts you in a good position the line of scrimmage to figure all these things out the fun part about mahomes by the way is i I could probably confirm this, but I didn't. Every pass play, essentially, he just does his own protection.

If you listen to him on the show, he points to someone, yells out a protection, and then just, it's like, it's what Peyton Manning did, but at a much smaller scale because it's not as like out there. But also too, there is a protection called mahomes just does what he thinks is best for each play it's like the greatest thing ever um and it's another again it's another level that he has unlocked from watching film and understanding

defenses that's the one part i think i hope we understand is like you you can't just be a good athlete and have a good arm the mental part of all this is a huge part of why Mahomes – it's why all these guys succeed, right, is they're able to see things. And Cousins, for your point, like there were times when these high, stressful times, he just wasn't as good as Mahomes. He just mentally couldn't get to that point. And so the ability for Mahomes to, again – and part of that's just his training is the way

he trains but there's just a lot of that's just natural right he's naturally gifted um you know in his in his brain and with with his body but um i loved it man i want to get burrow next year burrow and dac would be great if burrow and dac no yeah that'd be great hank suggested stafford i think that'd be really interesting like i don't know there's they're all super interesting I mean I think Burrow is the most mentally like Mahomes but I agree I mean that was that episode where they start with the play calls floored me like you know you know it but then you actually when you sort of walk through it the thing I was really picturing is like okay you're exhausted it's so loud it's snowing whatever you have to get out of the huddle you have to hear what's said you have to picture it you have to

know what part matters you have to know what the kill is or whatever yeah and then the defense does something different you have to notice it and then without even really communicating you have to assume that whoever whoever else it's relevant to has to know it and then you have to execute it like the mental part and the physical part like the combination of both is why the people in the NFL are so unbelievable and it's why some people i'm sure just like hang around it's like they have all the physical skills and yeah or like they have all the mental skills or whatever and the rest of it but chase daniel it's good enough right these guys like chase down just like he's so so smart um it's one interesting one interesting thing um so the reason my play calls are so long in the nfl is the reason you

mentioned is when you're tired and you might not hear this loud and you might not know the adjustment, but they tell you exactly what you're doing, right? Again, like gun, green left, Z go, Y shallow, shark, right? So that's like a two-man combination on one side and you individually label the routes on the other side. So when you're like, you're're tired you might not hear the call right but you hear why shallow got it got why instead of being like gun duo left you know 91 ace and it's like oh fuck am i the y in this play okay but on 91 okay so i'm on the left and then i have to ace like i do no no just tell them what they're doing just tell them exactly what they're doing. Just tell them exactly what they're doing, right? Like, again, wise shallow, all goes special. Three verticals, wise shallow, right?

You know, you heard it throughout the play calls. And then, of course, the more you play in offense, you can shorten those things up. But last year, Kansas City had so many new wide receivers, they just said exactly what to do. You do this, you do this, you do this. Done. And then, of course, they had the, you know, the trick points.

I thought it was crazy. We knew this already. But, you know, on Done. And then, of course, they had the, you know, the truck boys. I thought it was crazy. We knew this already, but, you know, on the Skymore touchdown, the go-ahead touchdown in the fourth quarter, they were in the wrong formation. And Mahomes was like, oh, okay, cool, whatever, man. Like, come here. Like, you'll run the route instead of everyone else. And so, like, but again, like, that's the importance, in my opinion,

about people asking, well, why the play call is so long? That's why. So when it's the importance, in my opinion, about people ask, well, why the play call so long? That's why. So when it's loud, when you're tired, when the communication is hard, you hear exactly what you're doing. And then also, too, because like in Kansas City's offense, you know, the Z might play the X one play. The Y is now the U. And they put a new Y in.

And then the running back's the F on this play. Like you move so much on an offense like Kansas City, less on Minnesota. Jefferson is who he is. Dillon is who he is. You move so much. One play, you might be the Z. The next play, you're the H.

The next play, you're the F. The next play, you're the – So to hear that, okay, H, wheel, done, right? Next play, I'm F. F, go, done. So that to me is the importance of putting together an offense like that. I left the show and I still haven't finished, but I left the show feeling like football was a hundred times more complicated

and a hundred times more simple. Like, yeah, it was a hundred times more complicated for all of the things we just said for five minutes. It's a hundred times more simple because on that Buffalo fourth and 18 play cousins was like hey justin jefferson like i'm just gonna throw it high like good luck you know what i mean and

mahomes was like i don't know i'll just run for it on third and 18 i'll just do it you know what i mean he said that in the huddle by the way like like he told jefferson like i'm throwing it hide you yeah and it's like it's like okay you know what i mean and it's like justin jefferson's just the best receiver in the league like that's the play you know what i mean and so like it's like okay you know what i mean and it's like justin jefferson's just the best receiver in the league like that's the play you know what i mean and so like it's this high and low of the best players are going to win for you and also like everyone else has to do their job and understand all these different facets of the game at once it's it's unbelievable like it doesn't make any sense how anyone can be good at this like it's just it's an incredible amount of and like mental resilience to be able to deal with like you incredible amount of and like mental resilience to be able

to deal with like you said the mahomes thing like just to be able to process all that in real time just stay calm like that's it's a gift in and of itself it was really cool the last the last thing i know we're getting long here with this topic but i think it's interesting um mike florio continues to be the worst in the world like tweeting about gambling. It can't be any worse. I have a Twitter account. And he mentioned that Kirk Cousins should have been listed on the injury report with his rib injury because of gambling. And it's like, guys, really this obtuse?

Kirk Cousins practiced the entire week. He played the entire time. He's not injured. That's not entire time. He's not injured. That's not an injury. He's just sore. He's hurting. Injured is like you're out of the game. That's the way it's defined in the NFL.

Injured is out. You're hurt. That's what Cousins was. He was hurting. He was sore. If you left a list, every ailment you had in your body in week 10,

Jeff Schwartz, right ankle, low back, left elbow, right thumb. That's ridiculous. I practiced every rep that week. I'm not being put on the injury report. So Cousins is not in the injury report. Like Florio, please stop being this dumb when it comes to gambling. There doesn't have to be another addition to injury report each week that someone has a problem with their ribs. ribs like it didn't affect cousins at all

yeah i completely agree and it's also just like let's not be naive like everybody it's like every offense alignment every running back like they all feel that way like they're everyone's everyone's dealing with it i felt like it was just i don't know the thing the speaking of gambling quickly and we have talked about this for way too long yeah the thing that speaking of gambling quickly and we have talked about this for way too long yeah the thing that i want to remember for this season is how the vikings won that game against uh the buffalo and then the next week they played dallas and there was that setup soundbite of kyle from good morning football saying like okay vikings like just don't go out and get blown

out by dallas after this because that's what you always do and cousins was like yeah you know it was just too emotional of a win like we were we weren't going to play well the next week like we got to remember that like the teams that aren't the chiefs and the bangles and who have like normal people as their quarterbacks and coaches that's what happens like you need to be that next level guy like mahomes or a few others in the league who can ride those waves a little bit better but for somebody like cousins like it's just such an opportunity it's it's more of a like where were they last week what happened because it does have an impact the following week agreed all right let's get to

these over-unders here we'll skip the uh the the wide receiver thing i mean dr hopkins went to the titans do you want to do you want to make do you want to plant your flag on some stances or do you over-unders here. We'll skip the wide receiver thing. Dr. Hopkins went to the Titans. Do you want to plant your flag on some stances or do you want to do the over-unders? It's up to you. Let's get to over-unders. We can plant my flag when more than a couple people are watching right now.

We can save that. Fair enough. You want to do Madden rating over-unders? We'll do Madden rating over-unders we'll do madden over unders i just want to talk can we just talk about about uh shohei otani for a second because that's really what i care about that's all i care about how can the angels trade a player like that like i don't care how bad you are the angels continue to underachieve he's the best player in baseball he's a one-of-a-kind talent you cannot trade this guy just build around

him stop being schmucks about this yeah it's like what else what are you saving the money for i the fact that i he could walk in here right now and i wouldn't know who he was is more insane than what he's doing like the fall of baseball in sports i've thought about it a ton recently because like there was a time where this would have been the only thing anyone talked about like more than the nfl even but i feel like uh i have a hypothesis the home run thing in 98 the astros a few other times it always feels like whenever we get excited in baseball it gets ripped away from us because someone was cheating or some something was happening that was like unnatural and i feel like fans stopped like stopped having fun like it just it just didn't become fun to root for anymore. And even like, so you get the letdown thing, but also the Mike Trout effect, which is kind

of happening with Otani too, where it's like, this guy's the best. Like you have to watch him play. It's like Mike Trout has even won like a playoff series. Like in every other sport, if you have the best guy, you win stuff. Like the chiefs win stuff like LeBron's one stuff. But in baseball, it just doesn't matter like how is that possible like how do you have this guy and it's still like well the angels like they do kind of suck still like what the like how is that possible like what is wrong with the

sport i mean he's on track to have an over 11 war which would be incredible um for a season which would be the highest war and since 2000 you know i think no let me tell you that that's how good i get it right um i get it but like what's that like that's not like a life experience it's like there's a guy there's a guy like reinventing the sport and i can't yeah i would rather be dead than watch an angels game i think part of it is the angels are the second team in the in a city right like Angels are the second team in a city, right? Like they're the second team in Los Angeles. I mean, they're not even in Los Angeles.

It doesn't even matter. And the oversaturation with the ability to get highlights, I think, really hurts baseball because, you know, you used to have to like watch SportsCenter, watch these national TV games to get your eyes on some of these players But I just gotta open up Twitter and see I don't even have to watch angels hit I mean I have to watch angels play this open Twitter in the morning and they show me all seven of Otani's great place I've had before but the access is great. I love watching baseball. I still do watch a lot of baseball but um,

I think that the the access has made it to where there's not as much like need to want to watch everything otani does in real time yeah i guess so i think there's also like not that many highlights that are that interesting in baseball like we've all seen a home run we've all seen like ellie delicate yeah because yeah because there's no because there's no 100 miles per hour from shortstop like that's that's new yeah like home runs and strikeouts you're like cool i've seen that like do you know what i mean like in football like these mahomes highlights i think there's so much there's just like so much again there's so much like um you know there's so much access to this.

By the way, breaking news right now. This is very important to our show. Very, very important. Before we get out of here. Las Vegas police serve search warrant in the 1996 fatal drive-by shooting of rapper Tupac Shakur. Really? Yeah.

I don't know who, why, but maybe Tupac's killer is going to be found. Whoa. Yeah. I don't know who, why, but maybe Tupac's killer is going to be found. Whoa. This is a huge story. I'm going to Vegas tomorrow. Maybe I could be there for the arraignment. Maybe you're going as like a

vigilante agent of justice. How is this a thing? How is this a thing still? It's about time. Man they've i'm sure that the police have just been investigating it for 27 years that's all that's it just took them that long like there was they did everything right is someone like on death row is about to die just confess to doing it or something like i don't even know what could possibly like imagine if this happened now like if like the most famous musician alive

in the middle of las it was on the strip like on a fight night like can you imagine now like that would be you can't you can't like blow your nose out there without 20 million people seeing it like what are we doing yeah it happened yeah on the fight in the middle of this vegas strip it's insane buddy yeah all right any uh all right how's anything else how's the baseball season going in little league any anything we got it oh we're doing little league baseball we're moving on to football my kid's gonna play flag football this year he's excited oh nice uh i'm disappointed we don't have any game updates on his little league baseball team this summer was gabe do a mini triathlon is gabe doing a mini triathlon anytime soon we can make fun of him before who knows i think he's doing the real one in october uh a real a real

child like a like a full like an iron man triathlon or just like a like a full he'll complain enough about it to be a full one whether he does a full one or not we'll see how's um i think you gotta get in the ring one time buddy your boxing videos are firing me up yeah with who who should i fight just another another producer oh hank that's that's not fair all right we've gone way too long let's be nice we've gone way too long thank you guys for joining us we'll get back to more regular programming once August hits as we get more back into football.

Sorry, I can't talk for an hour straight. Sorry, everybody. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of weeks. Take care, everyone. Enjoy what's left of your summer where football kicks off full-time in a couple of weeks. Take care. Talk to you later.