NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - TNF Recap Texans-Colts & NFL Network's Cynthia Frelund

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

Chris Wesseling and Gregg Rosenthal recap the Texans-Colts game and then Cynthia Frelund joins the rest of the heroes in the studio for a deep dive on why she thinks they hate her (and analytics)Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the 6th, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else.

It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sunday. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's Brissette, gets a block and gets the touchdown. The block from the tight end, Jack Doyle. And Jacoby Brissette has his third rushing touchdown of the season. Here's Williams. Survives a hit, keeps on going, to the end zone for the touchdown. Benardric McKinney couldn't bring him down. Watson, Enzo. Hopkins, say hi to Mom again.

Touchdown. Hopkins. 30 yards to DeAndre Hopkins. Might be the game right here or a chance for the Colts. Brissette. Can he pick it up? He cannot. Play made by Scarlett. And Brissette, Mark Short. of first down yardage and the Texans will take over. Those were our good friends, Joe Buck and Troy Aikman. I'm Greg Rosenthal with Chris Wessling again on Thursday night. The Texans wrapped up a 20 to 17 victory over the Colts, which might just mean we're watching Deshawn Watson in that first Saturday ESPN wildcard slate

because I think the AFC South will only get one playoff team and the Texans are in first place at 7 and 4. That was a really tight game that could have gone either way, and it was such a, I guess, showcase for the different styles, distinct styles of play that really channels their quarterbacks, with Deshawn Watson going for the big play, hitting those long air yards play. And you see the difference, I think,

Will Fuller and T.Y. Hilton were the two, like, injured wide receiver X factors. Will Fuller goes for 7 and 140, I think, and T.Y. Hilton had those two-third-down almost catches that were big, but didn't really, wasn't much of a factor outside of that. Texans receivers dominated the game. Colts receivers really didn't show up. No, that was the difference to me was Fuller and Hilton, and then the guys throwing them the ball. You know, Hilton drops those two plays on a night where the Colts move the ball pretty well, but they're going to move it slowly. there weren't many possessions in this game. The first was just a clear drop.

And the second one, again, in a second half where they only had the ball four different times, he ended two drives with two drops. He was not explosive. If you're not beating Jonathan Joseph one-on-one in man coverage, that's not the T.Y. Hilton that we're used to seeing. Whereas Will Fuller had all the juice. And I'm not saying he's better than DeAndre Hopkins.

He's not, you know, nuke went for 694 and 2. he had a couple long touchdowns and a great sideline catch. But Will Fuller's kind of the X factor. He's the little sizz. He's the little ingredient. You know, when you're back on the big green egg, you know, you got to have your piece of steak. That's Watson and Newk.

But Fuller's that little ingredient that only Wes adds that puts it all together and actually makes it special. We've talked about how much he means to this offense that Deshaun Watson's numbers are like best in the league when Will Fuller is in the lineup and just playing. average without him. And I saw Next Gen stats said that he's more than twice as likely to throw a deep ball with Will Fuller on the field as he is when Will Fuller's sideline. It's all the difference in the world for this offense. Well, they were one of the worst teams in the league

throwing vertically this year, which is crazy because, you know, if you watch this game, you saw three of the prettiest deep balls that you'll ever see. The two to Fuller and then the second touchdown to Hopkins. The only touchdown they got, you know, until that, uh, fourth quarter play to Hopkins was on a total blown coverage. I actually thought the Colts defense for the most part did a good job. They stuffed the run most of the night. Hyde and Duke Johnson had one good run each. But this looked like a game that was very even. It's just like, how are you going to win? Are you going to win throwing the ball? Or are you going to win trying to run the ball down the other team's throats. The two Colts touchdown drives on one of them came off of a Deshawn

Watson interception, seven straight runs. The other one, they ran the ball 10 out of 11 times. And it's just a fine line. Jacoby Brissette did not look right. I don't know if they changed their game plan based on how he's playing or if he is just moving slow, but he certainly seemed to be like processing slow and not getting rid of the ball. And I saw some comments.

The Colts aren't winning in man coverage. Jacobi's got to go give him a chance. And I thought this was one of his worst games. He didn't look healthy. I mean, if you're throwing for five yards per attempt against, again, this Texan defense who is missing almost their entire starting secondary, that that's a problem? Well, the Colts entered this game 28th in passing yards per game and fourth in rushing yards per game. This is who they are.

And I think if I try to get in the mind of Frank Reich, that game plan was not only is this who they are, but I've got a banged up quarterback who isn't moving quite as well. And I also have a very depleted wide receiver core. I can't count on them to win downfield. so I'm going to saddle up Jonathan Williams again. And it worked for those two drives you talked about. It really worked when they imposed their will for two drives. But the bottom line is Frank Reich decided to live and die with the running game,

and he died with it. I mean, you're going to die. Against a defense where the clear weakness is the secondary, one of the worst secondaries in the NFL. I mean, at one point, this was something that John McLean tweeted the venerable Texans, Houston Chronicle reporter. After that, first touchdown, that Colts running drive. The Colts have taken the Texans' manhood.

The offensive line is humiliating the Texans' front seven. Time for them to call their mommies. I want to see DJ Reader and Whitney Merciless and, you know, face John McLean tonight in the locker room and say, you know, hey, we call their mommies. We got some stops down the stretch. What's the old man? I love John McLean because he was so nice to me when I did the Love You Blue article, the long form I did. But I do think he leans into it a little bit on these nationally televised games.

He's a fan, though. He's just getting emotional. He knows everybody's watching his Twitter on these games. Yeah, that might be part of it. The Jacoby Brisset injury, though, I mean, he's wearing that huge brace. And on, you know, one of the key plays of the game, it's a fourth and seven. He drops back to pass. Again, he doesn't pull the trigger.

Maybe no one's open on that play, but he has a lane to go pick up seven yards, and most starting quarterbacks are going to pick up those seven, and he picks up six, and he's moving slowly. And even if he doesn't have that brace on, it's like I think he's picking up that first down on most nights. And that was a difference. He's about a yard short, and you don't know what's going to happen then. I totally agree. I think I've seen Jacoby Brissette make that play when he's healthy,

and he could have also been more decisive. taken off a couple of seconds earlier and maybe had a better window. But I look at this game and I see a Texan team that's going to be riding high because they're in first place. That was a huge game. You know, they were calling it a playoff game. But the Colts, don't hang your head too far because next week you might have Devin Funchis and Paris Campbell back.

T.Y. Hilton and Jacoby Berset will presumably be a little bit more healthy. they were playing in the secondary without a couple of impact rookies and Rock Yassine and Kari Willis maybe those guys come back. They were a depleted team on the field tonight and I think that was reflected

in the result, a close game where if they're healthy it might have gone differently. Your football heart is a very strange thing. You know, you were not into the Colts early in the season. I wouldn't say they've exactly lit the world on fire over the last month.

In fact, they've lost three games out of four now and yet watching this game with you at your house, I was pleasantly surprised to see that you're a fan of the cult suddenly once again. Well, their defense got me back in. They're so young. They were playing four rookies regularly before those injuries, and they're fast to the ball. Their pass rush did not show up tonight.

That was a big factor. But I like watching their defense, and I went into the game kind of subconsciously rooting for them, but by the end of the game, it was such a close game that it didn't bother me to see either team. Here's my takeaway, though. I'm not sure how dangerous the Texans are. I know Deshaun Watson is great, and tonight you saw a lot of what made him great with the deep ball and the throws on third down. But you also saw, you know, one interception that set up the Colts touchdown. You saw two interceptions that were dropped by the Colts, including what could have been a killer one in the

fourth quarter. And you saw him fumble the ball in a situation at the end of the game we should talk about where the only thing the Texans had to do was not fumble there and he fumble the ball and the officials determined that he recovered the ball and Twitter and everyone else was fired up that how could they not review that play and it does look strange I get it we rewound you know the TV copy and the official that's standing right on top of Deshawn Watson and had a better view than anyone else says it's Watson's ball so he seemed to indicate that there was a fumble and he indicated that Watson recovered the ball and people are going to kill them for not reviewing that but I don't know there's like you can't overturn that there are rules and the rule is like

you can't overturn that unless there's going to be some sort of clear recovery and you're not going to get a clearer view than that I know you know I'm going to get called the company man here this was one I don't think there was some controversy there that's just it was what it was. We never saw another view that showed that the Colts recovered it. If the guy standing on top of him says Watson's got the ball, what are you going to do? You can't overturn that. I think they keep this purposely vague about when Riveron can just buzz in from New York

and tell officials, hey, here's what happened. Yeah. And my guess is in that situation, he said that he recovered it. That late in the game, Riveron buzzes in and says, hey, we got nothing here. There's nothing on the replays that will overturn this. The Colts have the Titans Bucks at New Orleans, home for Carolina at Jacksonville. That's a pretty good schedule. You know, the only game where they play a team with a winning record the rest of the way is at New Orleans.

The Texans, on the other hand, don't play, by the way. Neither of these teams play until December 1st. You want a little, hey, this season is moving along again? Their next game is December 1st, and it's a home game on Sunday night against the Patriots. Then they have the Broncos, at Titans, at Bucks, and back home to the Titans. So they get the Titans two out of three times down the stretch. If I'm the Colts and I'm looking at that schedule, I don't feel too bad. You know, the Patriot, they both have one really tough game, and then they both have a bunch of toss-up games.

The Texans don't look unbeatable to me, but the Texans to me are just the more dangerous team. But as a home, as a Patriots homer, I got to say, I expected to be really afraid of this Texans team. And maybe they will get better offensively over the next few weeks. They certainly pass-protect pretty well. They're pretty complete offensively. But the defense to me lacks so much juice. I don't know if they're really going to be that dangerous of an out, even if they win the division.

Yeah, I agree the Texans have a higher ceiling because of their quarterback and their stars on offense. But they also have a fatal flaw in that secondary. And the Colts don't really have a fatal flaw. Their ceiling just isn't that high. Some Colts fans I follow in the timeline. that are not fans of Jacoby Brissette would disagree with you, saying they're limited by the QB.

I think he can play better in tonight. I don't think he's a complete liability like the Texan secondary is. Well, you know who else is not a complete liability? Dan Hansis, Mark Sessler, Cynthia Freeland. They're all our friends. And we got together a little earlier today, West. And we wanted to get inside the mind. I learned a lot from this interview.

I learned a lot. And Cynthia, I'm kind of intimidated by what she's going on with her models there. Well, she's an intimidating figure, but apparently she was intimidated by us. She thought we didn't like her. We get into that. We get into the personal thing. And like I said on our preview show, if you haven't listened to it, I think this is setting up, you know, a character that we're going to have on in the future. Because I think that sort of analytical mindset is an interesting vantage point to get on the show.

I'm sure we'll have her down the line, but I'm excited to throw it over to Dan and in us to hear from Cynthia. So here you go. All right, as promised, a special guest in the studio. She's become a friend of the podcast. She doesn't think so. No, I don't. She believes herself to be a foe to some of us.

It's Cynthia Freeland. Welcome to the Around the NFL podcast for the first time. You know, it only took, what, this is my fourth season here. I think you guys hated me, or, I mean, now two of you are forced to work with me on a regular basis. So it's really broken the ice. But I thought you hated me for a really long time. Let's dig into this a little bit because, yes.

Interesting way to start out there. Yeah, I love this because Cynthia and I work on the Power Ranking Show on Wednesdays, which you can catch on YouTube or NFL.com at noon Eastern. Also, Cindy works with Greg Rosenthal on Game Day View, which is also a digital entity that shows up on NFL Net. work over the weekend. So, yeah, we've gotten to know you better. But Greg, before we throw it to the Kiss and Cousins, did you ever have any negative

feelings towards Santa, no, past or present? I think you saying that you thought we hated you says more about you than it really really does about us. You know, we run into issues, I think, because we don't really have many guests on the show in general. There are people that we've worked with a lot longer. If I had to go through it, that we probably, you know, have. alienated.

Oh, well, no, I know you have something personal with Mark, that's weird. But like the rest of us, I would trust your instincts. We all got along with.

I think your instincts are dead on. What is, so where did the, yeah, with Wes and Mark specifically, where did things go wrong? Let's, let's get it.

I don't know where it's, like, we don't spend a lot of time. You know, it's just, it's one of those things where it's like, well, I just don't think they like me very much.

Well, you seem very busy from the, right, to an outsider's view. So it's like, you know, it's more about, I think it's a Cynthia thing more than us. I'm on 13 different NFL network shows. I need number 14 or else it's not going to be complete.

We have Cynthia Freeland quotes hanging in my house. Well, we have. I didn't think you hated me. Thank you. But I love the rest of you did. Cynthia, all but I pinch hit on the game debut set last week. And Cynthia all but beat Greg and I. Oh, absolutely.

Because Cynthia's a woman that gets what she wants. She's been doing it. whole career she that's why she's uh you know your background is analytics um and you become the go to person in this building in that realm and you're you're famous i would say but when there's only one of you you're inherently the best the worst and the most average no i mentioned this is my like rendering of your fame as i mentioned i was doing the show you know with you and and andrew hawkins and my dad immediately was like oh i know cynthia freeland and i was like he doesn't watch any NFL network but he's seeing you on the Sunday morning game day show and wow now I'm not

saying I want this but one of my favorite things oh gosh going back I go way back with Ian Rappaport and I know I know his personality anytime we hire a reporter that's good he gets very worked up he gets nervous he gets agitated he's worried that they're going to get up his insider corner and sometimes his concerns are more you know worth merit than others uh do you have any concerns that someone else can come in from the outside a buzz light year to your woody you know i look i'm like fully expecting it because that's just what happens right so i think it'd be really nice actually if somebody else wanted to like do a lot of math and come then i'll just you know i'm like i i already had i was an investment banker i did some other stuff right so i'll just go i'll

just go find something i don't know i guess it's like it's good it's a compliment right it's a good thing to have. I'm not going to get worked up. I actually want more people to come do what I do. You do a lot of things. You're a Renaissance woman. I will say this, too. I just looked over your press release when you were hired by the NFL. That's so embarrassing. Did anybody else get a press release when you comes to this company? Actually, I mean, I was hired as a three day a week, 10 percent, so I don't think that document exists. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. You know your big time if they tell you when things are renewed. That ain't nobody tell you when I'm renewed. That's when you know you're really. That's what Colleen Wolfe, by the way.

Yeah, which is great. I have not said that on the show. Congratulations to Colleen. Thank you. She's just got a big extension. I'm sure in the millions and she deserves every cent of it. She better. She is a star and we love you. Colleen. Anyway, so

when you were hired, it says here that you had completed, this is four years ago, 20 marathons and 20 different states. Almost halfway to her goal of completing a marathon in each state, where are we at? And based on your number, I'll let you know if you're doing well or poorly in the last four years. Yeah, 23 now.

Oh, falling behind base. I know. I I know. I'm at math, Dan. Is it? I don't even know if it is. We're on the opposite sides of the spectrum, just so you know. As good as you are at math, I am as bad on the opposite direction. So, bam.

The best part about math is you could, like, say it. And for the most part, almost no one will know. So you could just, you know, like. True of this room. You can just say it. Like, who cares, right? That's good advice. You know, I won't, I'm not going to call you out.

We've become friends now. Maybe before having me on the pot, I would have called you out. But now, your math's perfect for me. So, yeah. Yeah, so you're 23 marathons, that's good. You're also what I've learned, you know everybody. You're one of those people to the point where it becomes market negative, I think, because she can't say anything bad about anybody because she's, quote, unquote, friends with everybody.

I'm not really friends with everybody. Like, I don't know them. That doesn't mean I'm friends with them. Jump in with your comments on that. Well, I don't have a comment. I mean, I feel that you, you know, that's a good way to operate. I don't know almost more than 4% of the people in the building. So coming from a very different place.

I have lots of questions, but we'll get through the intro. Let's get through, let's dig through the rest of the bullet points here. We are by, we are the longest intro in around the NFL. This is the long, yes. We're kind of an insular group on the podcast. Obviously. And I think good job by you again, by badgering Greg and I, almost to the point of physicality to get on the show. It was on Mike too, so like other people are listening to it.

Oh, I like found my camera perfectly. Did you watch the replay? Because I like, I hit it. I nailed that. You killed it. Like look right down the lens and like, nail it. And because we hear from, I have a specific shadowy league figure that has come to me and said X, Y, and Z are unhappy. They're not getting on the show.

That's the thing that's happening in this building. Well, it depends who X, Y, and Z are. But yes, I like that. The figure name X, Y, and Z. Yes. Wow. Sometimes they do. Sometimes they don't.

I mean, I just went to you myself. It's like, ooh, sorry, Steve Weish. It's been a few months. Like, come down, buddy. We'll bring you back. Let's be honest, I, all I wanted, like, I went directly to you. I didn't go through any shadowy figures. I went right, I went right to you guys.

That's advice you can give Daniel Jeremiah. Great. I'll tell DJ. All right. The introduction process, Mark, is over. I just, you know, I hear a lot, I hear a lot of times about your, your, I imagine you up in your apartment, wherever you live, with some sort of gigantic, computerized motherboard where you're running through all these facts and figures.

Like, I grew up. playing like stratomatic, which to me tied at a very early age, the concept of football. Well, it is. I feel like I'm in the presence of a fellow nerd potentially to some degree, which I appreciate. And I just wonder, like, are you spending all day long, like, just hitting this motherboard up for these facts and figures? I just want to see what it looks like visually, or is it just a lap? What is your program that you're running these games on when you put these predictions?

It's called the model. Yep. There's actually a lot of miles. Is it like it? What is it? I don't know if it's a robot or a. if it's some sort of wall-sized type thing. I don't know.

It used to be a robot. It's got eyes. Yeah. And feelings. I need answers. I think a lot of people in their own mind would wonder what it looks like too. In my mind, I want to know too. Okay.

So, I'll take a picture of it. But there's several screens. So I have multiple monitors. And I run different things on each one. So imagine taking your game pass, feeding in all of the coaches film because you have to see all the players. And then it draws like circles and lines and squares. It's like it's, you know how the yellow line that shows you where the first down is? It's kind of the same idea as that.

It's computer vision. That's the thing that makes me special. That's the only thing I can do. And you invented this? Well, I wrote my own covert. So computer vision allows you to create the lines. Wow. I just say, what do I want to measure?

So that's part of what I do. And then it's taking all those things and like looking for trends and doppelgangers, if you will. Keep it in our nerd reference. Nice. Or it marks realm. Of course. I live in that realm. So it's my realm too.

so it's but it's like what are similarities what are similarities so is this defense operating like the 85 bears right like we saw a lot of comparisons this week between the patriots current defense and the 85 bears so is that true yes or no did they operate against pressure with a lot of pressure or is it more the coverage from the back and like how because how a defense is effective is different right like it either nets in points or it doesn't but how it operates can be different so you can't really compare you know like like we talk about home run hitters in baseball, right? Like if you want to talk about how Barry Bonds used to,

oh, maybe he's not a good one, but he was great. Right, but, you know, you can use these like sluggers with like a lot of power or you can use it kind of like single and double hitters, right? So you can't say, yes, both get, you know, have high on base percentages or things like that, but you want to see how they're doing it. Are they doing it with power or are they doing it with, you know, more efficiency? So, and that's what you look for in football. What are the doppelgangers?

So where does this, I do want a picture. I'll send you a picture. So what about, but how does, how is that all fed into what the model is to then predict like game scores each week? So you know how you like open up Microsoft at Excel? So like Excel looks like columns and rows. Right, okay. Well, if you'd like to, it's on your computer, I'm pretty sure. It's columns and rows.

And basically that's a, that's a program. That's a computer program. So I've written a program for my stuff that takes in a lot of different inputs. And it, it doesn't look like Excel. but it operates like Excel. I ask it to do some stuff and it gives me a result, kind of like Excel does if you were going to use it to create a spreadsheet for like your household income, right?

Like what you're doing around the house. So I created the software that pulls in all these different data components and makes it so that I can visualize it so that I can use it to predict different things. And by the way, there are more than one model. There's multiple models. And they're all named after like old school rappers. Oh, let's hear some.

Greg likes rap. Well, do you like rap? Sure. I feel like he's lying to me right now I love lots of music I don't like being pigeonholed How did you know that Greg doesn't like rap? It's not ironic

He's very out in the open scene She makes a lot of like noise about Oh yeah I don't you know I don't think you guys like me Haven't been on the podcast She's never listened to the podcast That is completely untrue That is a bit of a lot of you'll make me She's building multiple high octane models

So busy I wouldn't either I wouldn't either I'm always surprised I put on my headphones And I listen to some of my favorite podcasts of which this one's included so what are the rappers okay so i'm i like like i'm a tribe called quest kind of girl i every time like every once in a while i'll get mad at once so like i'll

name something like a little bit like like easy e you know sometimes you love him sometimes you hate him got it stuff like that you know like and obviously my favorite all-time christopher wallace which obviously is notorious b ig but you got to his mother you got to go with what his mother named him so you got to so those are three of my favorites like the one that I reference every week on our show is Christopher Wallace. The motherboard. Oh, I get it. Okay. So to pick the games. Let's let's just, in terms of your model and the 2019

season, because we do talk about this a lot on the power ranking show, some teams don't, whether where their record is, where their narrative is connected to them, doesn't always jive up with where the model has them. What is a team that all season remains high up when

you're talking about the best teams in the league that perhaps has been bouncing up and down in the standings or in the view of the general public? So you know how like you always want to buy blue chip stocks like you're going to take an apple stock maybe there's a down day or whatever but like you're going to take that blue chip stock to me like the kansas city chiefs although they've had some down moments the chiefs and the patriots are those two blue chip stocks there your amazon your apple that they're going to remain high even if there's some dips in temporary kind of like day trading temporary dips if you want my you want me to

continue this no i like this yeah this makes us so but so the blue chip teams the pats the chiefs even though they've lost games this year and lost a lot of games at home. And a big part of your model, the Christopher Wallace model, is the importance of getting a buy week in the playoffs. When you're talking about Super Bowl probability,

which makes sense. Remember, like, if you think about it, if you kind of add together, so let's say tonight, so for the Thursday night game, right? Like you, let's say there's like a 56, like the winner is 56, wins in 56% of the simulations.

So the loser, what's the math there? 44. Perfect. Wow. Yes. This is your backup. If you go down, this is your backup on this stuff. That's right.

That's pretty good. Like, you're in the cloud now. Let's go. Let's put you in the cloud. Hands is in the cloud. You get my head too big right now. So then you add to get... Give me another one.

No, don't. Do not. So 70. Not too late. So you add together all the remaining... Each game has those probabilities. So you add together those remaining ones to get the win total. So if you think about it, if your win totals are out of, if like, 56 then becomes one if you win or zero if you lose.

But if you don't have that role of the dice, in the playoffs, then your number becomes like you have six games to play it out of instead of seven games to play it out of. So no matter what, you're going to be better off with a buy, like, you know, even if it's, that's why it's just always more improbable, even if the better team that you think is better

is not seeded as highly. And conversely, and using that, you know, kind of parlance, the blue chip stock, what's the opposite of that? I don't know that world either. Well, there's like, like, look, like you had a blue chip stock. It's a little overvalued right now. Who's a little overvalued? Ooh, see, that's a good way to pay.

That's overvalued. Yeah, so they're trading higher. No? Sure. Craig, like, stuck. I think you're probably looking at, I mean, to be honest with you, we'll see here, but I'm curious what happens between this San Francisco and Green Bay game. One of those seems to be a bit, I'm going to say maybe trading a little higher than maybe they should.

I'm not saying their potential is there. Both of them, you think, really. I think the loser of this one is maybe now looking back would be a little overvalued, right? Like you could argue, you could argue either way, right? San Francisco, you think about their defense and then we have a lot of questions on their offense. But then you've got Green Bay and what's going on with their defense. Their offense, Aaron Rogers, always seems to give them a chance. So they could be a bit overvalued in terms of like Super Bowl potential.

They have a question on these models. They obviously do so many things. I thought they were mostly numbers. You telling me these models watch and analyze game film? Every single game. Well, I mean, I won't be needed on this podcast anymore. But which would it? I watch it too, right?

Like, the point is, you want to have an, I want to create an unbiased way. Like, I watch every single game too, right? But I'm biased, just like you're biased. We're all biased. No matter what, like you can't not be biased. You're a human being, right? Some people are more biased than others. Like, if you ask, I used to ask Marshall Falk for help on certain things with running backs picking up blitzes.

And Marshall has a huge bias on running backs picking. But he can't help it because that's Marshall. Like, that's what he did. Like, that's his area of expertise. So you have to learn how to take what Marshall told me and make that, like, something that helps, right, as opposed to something that, like, makes me more biased. So when you measure things and you measure actual distances from stuff,

then you can say, hey, Aaron Donald is still getting within five feet of a quarterback. And, by the way, we came up with that because when I was talking to coaches, it's like most quarterbacks are about six feet tall. So their wingspan's about six feet. So five's inside of that. Your vision's 135 degrees, most people. So as long as, like, if your head's turning it, but a defender's, in your face, probably a good way to approximate pressure.

So that's, just to be more specific than like, oh, they got through the O line. Okay. Like, does that, did they really, like, did that have an effect? I don't know. So trying to, like, make things so that it's formulaic in a way where, like, if I just handed you the recipe, you could cook the cookies too. You could bake the cookies too. I'm starting to think none of us are needed on this podcast.

No, not at all. Well, have you seen these robots that are, that are trained for war now? I mean, this is all happening. It's going to be easy eating this, Wallace talking football. But here's the thing. Like, the better your inputs, the better your output. So, like, coming up with that formula, you have to ask people who know so that you can come up. And then, by the way, you've got to keep making it better because the game evolves and the game changes.

Like, everything changes. So the point is to just do it kind of quickly so you can do these, like, what if scenarios or make decision trees, but based on really smart minds. So, like, you're actually more valuable because then you become the person who informs what the robot's looking for. The robot can just look through way more years of data faster than you because they don't have to spend. No doubt about that. Yeah, especially West. I mean, you didn't have to go there, but yeah. It's the old Tom Brady Scouting Report thing, too.

I'm going to lean on here. The one thing they couldn't measure was right here is hot. You must have teams reaching out trying to pull you away from NFL Network and into their building as a singular employee. Yep. Oh, that's how you get paid. I want more. I want names. I want organizations.

Have you consulted with any teams? I do. I actively consult with teams. But you don't hear about it. So multiple income streams. Tell us like your banking guy. Let's get into that. Okay.

So we got an annuity. And then it's the end of year. So you got to consider what you're going to be doing with your tax status. So we're in California. You got to go make some donations. You're going to pay a lot of taxes. Smart. Smart is smart.

So, no, but what I like to do, the best teams, look, just like everything else, if I'm listening to you and you're listening to me and we can come up with something better together. I don't know. Like, I know a bunch of people who like. do like analytics or they say it. I don't even know what that word means anymore, but it's not a project. Like, they're just saying, they're just saying things. I see them on Twitter all the time. In fact, many times I have to throw my phone. My phone's always broken because I cannot stand looking at because these takes are so crappy. Like, of course you're going to be better at

passing the ball if you have Michael Thomas on your team than if you don't. Like I saw a whole thing this summer and I don't care if this person listens and gets mad at me. But this whole thing on saying, I'm a Lions fan, and they were saying that the Lions were worse at passing now because they've been trying to be a run first team. As it turns out, it's a tiny sample size. And you know what? It's easier to pass if Calvin Johnson's on your team than if he's not. Like these are ridiculous.

That's fair. Like these are ridiculous like takes, right? So instead it's like when I work with the team last year, I was asked by a team to come up with an analysis of three or four, but three primary running backs that they think. they could afford in this tier that's not a premier tier of running back so a backup that these are so this was the jets no it wasn't i'm kidding but yeah um it was not the jets i will tell you that but it's it's how do we how do we value these three things and it was like so i sat down with coach and i said well what kind of offense are you going to run is it going to be different like what is your

strategy what are the things you're prioritizing for and all i did then was i organized everything that he said into categories and then analyzed each of the the running backs that they asked me about into those categories. They made some cut-ups because coaches speak in cut-ups. Put it into Biggie Smalls and see what happens. And that one's a different one.

Yeah, I know. These names are confusing. No, no, no. Sorry. No, but, you know, but exactly. Like, you know, you put it in there and it comes out with.

It just gives like a grade. Like this one's an eight out of ten. Or here are the five clips that are exactly what you're looking for. Here are the five cut-ups that are not what you're looking for. And here are the five that I have no idea how to explain, but you should probably look at as a coach. All right.

So it's really just helpful. Two things we've heard because we've got to let Cynthia go. Oh, you're fine. Two things we need to hit real quick. One, be careful with this, with how much information you pump into it. It becomes self-aware. You've seen the Terminator franchise. Oh, I know.

Sometimes it scares me what it tells me. AI is like legit. Just. So you're saying the person, you know, the thing that could come into the company and replace Cynthia would be her own creation. That's what I'm saying. Exactly. And that could be the least of your problems. She could replace you.

It could replace you in always. You were saying you're a great cook in the kitchen. Be careful how much information you're pumping to its hardware. Embrace the change. It's going to happen. No, you just got to be better than it. I told you the formula. You just have to be the one informing what it's looking there.

They couldn't measure that ticker. Last thought. Last thought, because we've got to get to our preview show here. The model says who wins the Super Bowl right now? The Patriots. Come on. Yeah, but what's the percentage? It's like 13.

Right. See, that's the thing is people, I saw yesterday on Twitter. It was like, all right, I'm making, you know, it was like hot take alert. It's like, this ex-athlet says the Patriots are done. They are not winning the Super Bowl this year. And I'm thinking, well, the most optimistic assessment that the Patriots are the favorites in the NFL would say that they're not winning the Super Bowl. Because no team would have a greater than 50% chance to win the Super Bowl. Her favorite is that 13% because football stuff.

Put a button on it, Cynthia. Please. We like the buttons on our show, don't we? Yeah, we do. I mean, look, it goes, right now it's Patriots, Ravens. What was third? Chiefs. Chiefs.

Chiefs. Oh, is it Patriots, Chiefs, Saints. That was it. That was the button. Feels like you should be doing power rankings, but I'll leave it there. She's more real. I'm the feel. Thanks for having me.

All right. Cynthia Freeland, check her out on all different NFL network programming. and thank you for coming on the show. You know, thanks for having me. Awesome. Any enemies in the room? Mark? No way.

We're like fellow nerds. I feel it. I feel it. All right. Cynthia Freeland. All right. That was Cynthia and the rest of us. You know, I thought we all did well in that interview West, but you really stood out to me.

Like what you're really incisive. You're an incisive guy. See, I thought the opposite that she obviously has a natural rapport with you and Dan from being on shows with her, whereas Mark and I were kind of left out of the circle a little bit. You know, what can I say? We've been working together. It's been a lot of fun. People should check out.

You know, if you're making it this deep into the Thursday night recap show and the interview with Cynthia, you're real football head. You're real fan. And I think you'll enjoy game debut at 9 a.m. and midnight Eastern time on Saturdays. You can DVR it and then watch it with your kids anytime. Until then, though, Wes, we should get out. out of here. Let's get. Okay. They're going. For Chris and Dan and Mark and Cynthia and the wonderful Erica Tamposi behind the glass, we will talk to you Sunday.

Hey everybody, Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move to Six, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else. It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sunday. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast.