The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Aaron Rodgers tests positive for COVID-19 & Odell Beckham Jr. excused from Browns' practice with Lindsay Jones + the misconception of trap games with Mitchell Schwartz

Episode Date: November 4, 2021

Robert Mays and Lindsay Jones unpack a wild Wednesday in the NFL. They discuss Aaron Rodgers testing positive for COVID-19, his previous comments on the vaccine and whether or not there has been any protocol violations. Then they dive into the Odell Beckham Jr. situation in Cleveland following his father’s comments. Finally, Mitchell Schwartz is back for an important conversation on mental health in the NFL. He also discusses coaches calling plays from the booth or the field, the misconception of trap games and if teams can feel a bad week of practice.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the athletic football show. Welcome to the athletic football show. Today is Thursday, November 4th. A little bit later on today's show, Mitchell Schwartz, is going to be joining us hitting a variety of topics. As always, really enjoyed my conversation with Mitch. Before we get into that, though, I am pleased to welcome my good friend, Lindsay Jones. Lindsay, how are you doing?

It's a loaded question right now. I am full of Halloween candy and coffee, and I'm ready to go. after one of the wildest freaking days in the NFL in a really long time. I've been doing this semi-full-time, I'd say, for almost 10 years. I think that 2013, it probably would have been my first year covering the league every day. This might be the weirdest day, I can remember, just from a news perspective, simply because let's say you go back to 2018. So you get in a time machine and tell yourself three years ago.

All right, in one morning, we're going to find out that Aaron Rogers is not, vaccinated from a virus that does not exist yet. So that is going to impact the NFL in some way. Odo Beckham is being sent home from practice from the Browns. O'Do Beckham's on the Browns. This is just a day that would have been so hard to imagine in a different version of the world. And I think combined with everything else, that was why it was all hard to square in my mind today. Well, it's been a busy couple of days.

I mean, so it's all compounded on everything. We had the trade deadline yesterday, the Von Miller trade on. Monday, the James Winston injury on Sunday, Mike White on Sunday. Like, it has just been a crazy few days in the NFL. But those few hours between about 8 or 9 a.m. to noon on Wednesday morning were kind of as crazy as it gets. And in full disclosure, I have been chasing Aaron Rogers COVID stuff all day, have been writing about it all day. So that is very much the headspace than I am in right now and ready to. I'm really looking forward to some real football stuff at the end of the week.

But right now, we are all very much in the mess of the news. Just full disclosure for everyone. That's what we're going to talk about today. We're not going to worry about what's happening in week nine. Nate now had all that stuff tomorrow. This is going to be a news-filled conversation between you and I. I can sell you on Thursday night football, however. We will do that.

Mike White. Hall of Famer Mike White, whose jersey was sent to Canton earlier this week. All right, let's talk about the Aaron Roger situation. So how did you? How do the news come to you today? Like in what order and what did you see first? I'm curious how you took it in. Yeah, I mean, it was definitely on Twitter.

And I think it was Tom Pelliserro, my old friend from USA Today, now at NFL Network. Tom Pelliserro was the first to tweet that Aaron Rogers was going on the COVID-19 list and that they had already ruled him out. So immediately, he's already been ruled out. It is Wednesday morning. So you start doing the math and figuring this out. And we know how the Packers handled this last week when Devante asked. Adams tested positive, Devante Adams, who was vaccinated, and they took it up until hours before kickoff of Thursday night football before officially deciding or ruling him out that he couldn't play.

So the fact that Aaron Rogers was ruled out Wednesday morning, there's a lot of bells going off there right now when you think about, well, what does that mean? And then, you know, it's a lot of slack messages. It's a lot of texts with other reporters, with my boss, with people around the league. I'm going, what is going on? because I immediately remembered that Rogers was asked about his vaccination status. Not every quarterback has been asked directly at some point this season, but Aaron Rogers was. And it was a full day's kind of news cycle back late August where, you know, I remember the headlines that said like Aaron Rogers is vaccinated, but won't judge teammates who aren't.

So you go back and you pull up the full quote. And he said, he was asked, are you vaccinated? And he said, quote, yeah, I am immunized. And that's where things got weird. So there was reported that he is not vaccinated. I think we can draw that conclusion at this point. I believe he in Rappaport reported that he sought out a homeopathic treatment as an alternative. Yeah.

And that's part of what I've been reporting on today and following today and have that confirmed. And so basically what I've been told from a couple sources around the league is that at some point this summer, after he reported back to Green Bay, but before the regular season started. So this was kind of all playing out in early August. He went to the union and said, I received this alternative homeopathic treatment. I'm good to go, right? And the union said, hold on a second.

So the unions doctors, public health experts, the NFL's doctors and public health experts, and the jointly appointed experts reviewed this. And they said, no, Aaron, you are not. fully vaccinated. And we will not count you as being fully vaccinated unless you have had two doses of Moderna, two doses of Pfizer, or one dose of Johnson and Johnson. And so this is not a surprise to anybody in Green Bay, nor is it a surprise to the League and Union's medical officials. So this opens up a whole lot of other questions, right? Of like, okay, well, has he been following all the COVID

protocols during the year, including giving all of his indoor press conferences without masks? So So you combine the two things where he'd been doing that, which is generally a sign that you are vaccinated. And two, having said that he was immunized earlier this year, it was very misleading to the public. Was it lying? Was it misleading? I think there's a lot of semantics going on. There's clearly a lot of semantics that he was using with immunized versus vaccinated. But the bottom line is that Aaron Rogers is out this week against the Kansas City Chiefs. His status against the Seattle Seahawks in week 10 is also in question. And now he and the Packers are going to be investigated for potential protocol violations, not just today, but over the last two or three months, including a Halloween party that he attempted last weekend.

So there's a lot. There's a lot to unpack. So let's set aside optics and morality for now. But there's a lot to get to with actual nuts and bolts rules here. what other protocols might he have violated? Because we haven't had to really think about the protocols for unvaccinated players in detail since they really came out. It seems like he's been traveling with the team.

And what are the possible things that he could have violated? And what are the repercussions of that from the league? Yeah, sure. So there are no, you know, unvaccinated players. There's no, like, restrictions on traveling with the team. But once you get on a road trip, then the life is different. You're not allowed to leave the hotel. You're not allowed to visit with your.

family and friends, you're not allowed to have visitors come to your room. I think they even call it room visits and the protocols. So there's things like that that happen when you travel. But the important things now are things about mask wearing and then what he's kind of doing when he's forward facing and in the public. They have not been fined at Aaron Rogers nor the Packers have been fined at any point up to now. I have, I asked that of multiple people around the league, had that confirmed by multiple sources that, you know, as of Wednesday, November 3rd, Aaron Rogers had never been fined for any sort of COVID protocol violation. Here's a couple of areas that are going to be looked into.

The league has said now that they're going to be looking into both Rogers and the Packers as a whole. One is, as I mentioned, the press conference situation. All of Aaron Rogers' press conferences are held indoors. I'm sure I know you've been there, Robert. It's like an indoor smallish auditorium style media room inside Lambo Field. So that's where he goes on Wednesdays. That's also where he goes. Sign right on the door, by the way.

Yeah. Right on the door. Need to wear a mask to be in here. And that's where he goes Sunday's post game and Wednesdays. He also has done all of his postgame road trip availability indoors without a mask. I asked multiple times, multiple people throughout the day on Wednesday, is this a violation? Is there some sort of carve out for? press conference settings because they did change the policy for outdoor press conferences midstream

during training camp where unvaccinated players could do press conferences outdoors without a mask on. I saw that happen in real time with Kirk Cousins and Carson Wentz. Yes, exactly. And every time that I asked that today on Wednesday afternoon, I was referred directly back to a passage in the COVID protocols that says the unvaccinated players must wear masks indoors at all times. So one, he blatantly has not. been doing that. You know, it is like a larger room. He's, you know, this isn't a scrum setting where people are within a foot or two of his face or anything. But it is very clearly a violation of like rule 1A in the rule book. I know he knows it. And the Packers certainly know this as well because

they have other unvaccinated players who have not been doing in person media there. Or if they have, they've been wearing masks or primarily they've been putting those guys on Zoom. So the organization knows it. Aaron Rogers knew it. And the league also knows it. So questions there about why has he been allowed to do this? Is that a, you know, if I'm a Packers reporter, if I'm one of the beat guys who's there every day and I'm having to, you know, either wear my mask or follow all these protocols, I want to know why that other guy is not. And there's other morality issues and like public optics stuff that we could probably get into later or we could just not even touch today, which is fine. I mean, I think the whole part of the,

That consideration with him not wearing a mask and other guys are at their press conference, with him saying, I'm immunized. This is a situation where he didn't want people to think that he had not been vaccinated because he didn't want to deal with the fallout that would come from that and that other players were dealing with. Yeah, I'm sure. This is an image thing more than anything else. Yeah. And he more so than just about anybody else in the league outside of maybe a handful of other guys at his stature.

He is very calculating. He does absolutely nothing by accident. Every single word that comes out of his mouth, whether it's in a press conference setting, whether it's on Twitter, whether it's in an interview on the Pat McAfee show, he knows exactly what he's doing. The fact that he said immunized, the fact that he is, you know, by all accounts, he has been following the mask rules in private, and he's been daily testing all of those sorts of things.

but the fact that he is doing something to make it appear that he has done one thing when he has done the other in public raises some pretty big questions. I will say when it comes to protocols, the other thing that I very much expect the league is now going to look into is the Packers Halloween party over the weekend. The protocols very clearly state that unvaccinated players are not allowed to hang out with more than three teammates away from the team facility. and they are also not allowed to go to indoor clubs, bars, or house parties if they're not, if they're, if they're crowded. Basically, it's 10 to 15 people. If there are more than 10 to 15 people at those places, they can't be there. And if they're not wearing a mask. And we've seen pictures all over social media of Aaron Rogers dressed as John Wick, hang out at a Halloween party that was hosted by Mercedes-Louis.

And that party is now going to become an issue, right? it's going to be, it's going to be something that they look at. So if there's a one of these things with it, just the idea that, I don't know, just think that you, to do that, to just have it be everywhere and to just feel like, you know, I'm not worried about this. And like if he hadn't tested positive today, and never know. No one would ever know it would have,

or if it had been if he tested positive in three weeks. But it was a very dumb thing to do, given the Packers COVID situation last week, that they just played a game without their top two wide receivers. You know, there were a lot of issues. So we don't know the next time that we'll hear from Aaron Rogers. He's going to be out for 10 days. We probably won't hear from him next week. I don't know if he's going to do his regularly scheduled Pat McAfee interview.

I don't know if he will, you know, hop on Twitter or anything. But a lot of questions for him, about him. there's just it's just been kind of a crazy you know a really crazy day that has just really big ramifications for how we view one of the faces of the franchise let all the fraces of the league let alone like what this means to a legit nfc contender even if we set aside for a second how deceitful some of this seems and what this does mean for someone who is one of the faces of the sport like an undeniably one of the faces of the sport just on a pure football level. There's a level of selfishness with it. The idea that if you're going to, this team could be

the number one seed in the NFC. And now because he's unvaccinated, because he tests positive, he doesn't get to play instantly. You miss one game out of 17. Like, it's a big deal. Every win and loss to this team is a big deal. When he was asked about it this summer, he has said he understood the competitive balance issues involved in this. And now we're seeing those competitive balance issues. Now, a guy who was the MVP of the league last year on a team that is trying to get the number one seat in the NFC and a buy is just going to miss a game. And maybe two games. I mean, there is no guarantee that he has cleared for week 10.

The earliest that he could be cleared is Saturday, November 13th. That is a home game on November 14th, but that means he will not be able to be in the building all of next week, practicing all of next week. And sure, this is a guy who can probably run in without any practice. But all of that is also assuming that he is asymptomatic. And we do not know that at this point. I mean, hopefully he's not very sick, right? I mean, that's ultimately the goal of vaccination, right?

It's not to like make you available to play games. It's to keep you from grading critically ill. So, you know, hopefully he's, you know, asymptomatic or only mildly symptomatic at this point. But yeah, I mean, a lot of really, really big questions about kind of the direction of that team now. And then look, we're going to get to see Jordan Love. I am going to Kansas City. I booked to that trip a couple weeks ago expecting to see like, you know, high-powered, Chiefs offense, Aaron Rogers versus Patrick Mahomes in the State Farm Bowl.

And instead, we're going to get Jordan Love against a Chief's team that is barely hanging on for your dear life. So not the game that I anticipated when I booked it. But look, if there's anybody ready to cover a COVID shit show, I'm your girl. After the last year, you can handle it. I felt for Matlow Fleur and Aaron Jones today. It was his birthday. It was his birthday.

Aaron Jones especially, like the fact that now, and I think that's part of it too, like Now your teammates have to be up there answering for you in this moment. Aaron Jones didn't ask for that. He didn't ask to be front and center the moment that or the day that they found out that Aaron Rogers was secretly unvaccinated. It's just a tough thing for everybody that has to deal with the fallout of that now. Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I wish Matt LaFlor would have been a little bit more forthcoming as the guy

to kind of talk about it. And I get that there's privacy stuff about vaccination status and all that sort of stuff. but like he should be the one who's doing that and not Aaron Jones and I remember who the other guy was who spoke today. But yeah, there was a defensive player who spoke today. We're going to hear from Jordan Love on Thursday who certainly is going to get questions about, you know, a lot of question, football questions. But he's certainly, he's going to get asked questions about all this stuff because look, Kurt Benkirt, their number three quarterback who's on their practice squad. He also is on the COVID list. He was tweeting about call of duty coming out when he tested positive.

So look, I mean, I hope that Jordan Love is fully vaccinated. I hope that Jordan Love has been not hanging out a ton. Look, I want Jordan Love and Aaron Rogers to get along. I don't want this to be like a contentious thing. But I hope they weren't spending very much time together because, you know, we do not want to get in a situation that all this in Jordan Love is positive too. And Blake Bortles is having to come in with zero days of practice and be their starting quarterback or, you know, come and do an issue of, you know, an entire quarterback room getting wiped out

because of COVID protocols. I covered one of those games last year. It was terrible. But yeah, I mean, they're not going to move this game. They're going to play this game with Jordan Love and it seems like Blake Bordals is their backup quarterback. And that's now something that the rest of the Packers are going to have to deal with. All right. Well, I'm sure we'll be monitoring this as more comes out about it.

I will say the one thing, Aaron Jones got up at the podium today and said that the chiefs have a very good defense. So I'm not sure what we should take from everything, Aaron Jones said this week. As if the Rogers bombshell wasn't enough today, Odo Beckham and everything that's happening with the Browns is kind of unfolding here. Apparently, he was excused from practice today, is what the news has been. Mike Silver reported that Kevin Stefansky told players that Beckham is no longer a part of the team. This all comes in wake of Odo Beckham's dad posting an 11-minute YouTube video on his Instagram of moments where Odo was open but was not being thrown the ball.

He didn't make the video, by the way. People thinking that Odell Beckham's dad is here cutting YouTube videos, I think is hilarious. I mean, can we get him on staff for us? Like, cut us up some all 22 videos, if that's the case? Yeah, the notion that he put a YouTube video with the wrong orientation on his Instagram and he was the one that made it. It's just very funny to me. No matter who made the video, this now becomes a huge deal, apparently, in Cleveland.

So now we get to a place where there's speculation on what comes next for the Browns and Odell Beckham. He's not there. I mean, if he really, if Stefanski did say that he's no longer a part of the team, I mean, this is something that seems to have escalated very quickly. Yeah, absolutely. Because, you know, look, the Browns and the Odell stuff has kind of been percolating, but mostly from a football perspective, right? Yes.

They've had a really hard time getting him integrated into this offense, not just this year. it was an issue last year before he ended up missing a bunch of time. I believe it was an ACL injury that knocked him out for the rest of the year last year. But they just never were in sync, right? They just never managed to like get the Odell Beckham thing right. He was not on the same page with Baker. There were times where the offense looked significantly better when he was out than when he was in. And they just never were able to kind of, you know, utilize him.

So he was underperforming. He was really expensive and probably pretty unhappy, right? I mean, I think that was becoming pretty clear that he was unhappy. So, you know, the timing of this is all of it is really odd. I mean, he's a guy whose name would get mentioned is like, you know, we have to do this. This is what we do, right? We're, you know, heading into the trade deadline. Potential guys who could be traded.

Well, here's a guy who, you know, sure they'd love to unload his salary if they could, right? He hasn't been a productive piece in their offense. And maybe he's an attract of enough name that other teams might want him. Well, the fact is he's been unproductive. he's really expensive and he's had injury issues. So he was untradable. There was no way that he was actually getting moved at the trade deadline. But now you get to this point where the trade deadline is passed. You weren't able to move him because there's no trade market for him. And now you have to figure out what to do. This is a mess inside the building. Is it too much drama? Now do you have to

just eat the salary? Do you cut him? Because you can't trade him. So that is off the table. The trade deadline has passed. That was 24 hours ago. So now they have to figure out. you know, if you cut them, or you're just getting the rest of his salary, he's owed about $8 million for the, for next year, two more years under contract, but no significant guarantees. Like there's not a lot of dead money they'd take on for 2022 and 2023. But it just, it just feels like it's at an end. And I wrote that yesterday and my winners and losers deadline where he's still on the

roster, but it just feels like the O'Dell Beckham Brown's experiment has, has run its course. And it all happened really, really quickly. I did not expect him to be on the roster next year. I thought that was almost a foregone conclusion. I didn't expect it to kind of come to a head in the middle of the season. In the offseason, talking to people there, they were excited to have his skill set back in the offense. I think the idea that they were somehow better without him is not something they believed in the building.

There was, I think, tepid optimist about what he could bring. Now we get to a place where that's evaporated, clearly. And now you have a question of, and I think with the trade, conversation, it makes total sense, right? I mean, this is a world where every team is cash-strapped. The Rams had to give a second and a third to the Broncos for them to pay Von Miller's salary in order for that trade to happen. If you're a team like New Orleans, who, I'm looking at it right now, they have $670,000 in cap space. It's not super easy to trade for $8 million remaining on Odo Beckham's salary. So it's not shocking that he didn't get moved. And now, if you're

the Browns, and give a few things to take into consideration, what sort of message does, if he truly disgruntled and you feel like there is something toxic about keeping him there. You have more than this season to be concerned about if you're the Browns. This is a new regime in its second year. It's a leadership group that I think they're excited about there with Kevin Stefansky and Andrew Barry. They feel like they're building something. Do you want this to be a part of the culture and the feeling in the building over the next

eight games just because you don't want to maybe grant him what he wants, which is to be released or want to see him end up on another team. So I think that's what you have to weigh here. Are we worried about him ending up in Baltimore? Are we worried about just paying him his salary and actually giving him what he's after here? Those are the things that you have to balance. I don't know what the easy answer is. I think if I were the Browns, I would just cut bait, understand, cut your losses. This did not work out. I understand there's some downsides to doing that. But we have more to worry about here than just getting the most out of this Odo Beckham transaction in the next three days. Sure, yeah. I mean, and there's other like mechanisms that they have. I mean, if they decide that,

like, where they decide that the videos were creating a major headache or conduct detrimental suspensions that you can use for a couple weeks. And there are things that you could do to kind of keep them out of the building if you wanted to that wouldn't send them to Baltimore, for example. But it's just unfortunate that it kind of got to this point. It got really messy because, you know, we've long time listeners of the pod will know how excited we've been about the Browns and the culture change that's going on in that building and how it's been a really positive place to be. And this kind of feels like one of those same old Browns thing where just when things are going well, all of a sudden this kind of drama comes back into the building.

So I think it's important to realize, though, they did not bring him in. This is a player that was here before this regime got here. And I think they've navigated how to deal with that situation and where he fits in the grander scheme of what their offense looks like, what their team looks like, what their team building process looks like. O'Dow Beckham is not necessarily a good fit for the way that Browns want to play offense, right? I don't think O'Dell Beckham's super psyched about run blocking all the time. There are different guys. And I think that's why to me, when they had the. opportunity in the spring to move on from him and save all of the money they would pay him

and then be able to allocate it elsewhere, that's what I expected. They would try to retool that wide receiver room with players that fit what they wanted to do and maybe were, had a little less downside, a guy that maybe this eventuality wouldn't be on the table. So I guess that part is not shocking to me, but I am surprised that it got this bad this fast. All right, one team that could be interested in Odo Beckham, if he does get released, is the Saints, Kimberly and Martin from ESPN reported that the Browns and the Saints

discussed a deal for O'Dow Beckham, but it did not materialize because money was an issue, like we mentioned. One of the reasons the Saints need a wide receiver at this stage is because it sounds like Michael Thomas will miss the remainder of the season after a setback with the ankle injury that he's been dealing with. Again, what a mess. I mean, now you have questions about what his future looks like, what the Saints are going to do.

I mean, everything that has gone on with him and that injury here. over the next over the last six to nine months i mean the saints have to be extremely frustrated with how this all is unfolded yeah i mean it just feels like how many times over the last 12 months or so have we thought oh mike thomas is close he's coming back just wait till they get mike thomas back it happened last year he ultimately had another setback um had to have offseason surgery you know they thought that he would be ready to go in training camp and then he'd have surgery um over the summer which set him back i was on the pub list and now he's had another setback he posted about it on his own social media today,

that this setback is going to keep him out of the entire season. And it's just really unfortunate. I mean, when was the last time we saw him playing well? I can't even, it was pre-pandemic. It was like a whole different world. I can't even remember kind of when Mike Thomas was a really good, effective player in the NFL. And now you have to just wonder about his long-term future there.

Where is this organization going? Clearly, they don't have money. You know, you just looked up exactly how much money they have. So I don't know. Have we seen the last of Michael Thomas in a Saints uniform? I think that's probably a fair question at this point. Well, they can move on from him. I mean, if they want to, it's not pretty.

You're eating $22 million in dead cap if you cut him, but you're still saving $2 million and you're saving $24 million in cash if you end up doing that because his base salary does not become guaranteed as far as I understand it until the third day of the league year. So if they want to just move on, they can't. And this, again, seems like kind of a complicated situation where a team that has to feel pretty good about what they've built, where they can go from here, maybe doesn't want this to fester and says, you know what, we'll figure this out. We'll couple this together in some other way. We don't need Michael Thomas as part of this.

That would not surprise me if that's the decision that they came to this offseason. Yeah, absolutely not. As they really have to figure out kind of who they are moving forward. I mean, they've got a lot of really, really major questions. quarterback being the biggest. And now especially if James Winston, we know he's going to be out this year, but he faces a pretty long recovery now.

Taysam Hill, are they going to draft a guy? Do you get involved in the Aaron Rogers, Russell Wilson, trade sweepstakes? I mean, they've got some really, really big questions next year. I know that they'll have, they'll pull some sort of salary cap magic because they'll always do. Do you know, do you know, if the cap is at $208 million next year,

Do you know how much they're over the cap right now in this moment? Like $15 million over? $56 million over. Oh, my God. Then there are plenty of, there are plenty of levers that they can pull. You know, like they traded for Bradley Robey. He only has $670,000 guaranteed left on his deal. The Saints always managed to dig their way out of this in some way.

But they're $56 million over the cap right now if the cap settles at $208 million. So yes, they do have some things they're going to need to worry about. But it's just disappointing, I guess. Like, it's just rough. I mean, was it last week, two weeks ago on the show that we were talking about the teams that were getting healthy at the right time? And the Saints really feel like they were, you know, two weeks ago, even a week ago felt like a team that was very much trending in the right direction. And now I still think that so many pieces of that team are really good, especially on defense. Like it feels like that defense is all kind of getting it together right now.

they're getting healthy at the right time. And now the little bits of glimmer of hope that you had on the offense that you were going to get your best receiver back. And now you don't have a quarterback. And it's just frustrating because I feel like they should be in that NFC conversation, but it just might not happen now. Yeah. And I'll be curious.

Let's say, Odebuck does get released. And they make a run at him. I think that would make sense. But then again, what does that bring your offense if Tassum Hill was the quarterback? I think there are just so many unanswerable questions associated with them right now. All right. Last thing before we get out of here, obviously people have heard about the situation that has happened with Henry Ruggs and the Raiders. He was in court today. He's been charged with a felony count of driving under the influence resulting in death. The prosecutor in Nevada this morning said that he was traveling 156 miles an hour and that his blood alcohol content was over twice the legal limit. A 23-year-old woman died as a result of the crash. I don't really know what else there is to say about this. I mean, it's an unspeakable tragedy. He is no longer on this. He is no longer on the last. He is. the Raiders, he has been released. My understanding of the way the law is written in Nevada is that it's a non-propationary charge that if he is convicted, he would have to serve jail time. I think the

term is two to 20 years. I mean, I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to add there, Lindsay, but it's just something that we had to acknowledge and talk about a little bit. Yeah, I mean, it's just a really just tragic situation. And, you know, all of our thoughts have to be with the victim in this case who, I mean, in her family, it's just an unspeakable tragedy. And it's just a reminder to everybody of just how fleeting all of this is. And, you know, we've spent a lot of time here on the print pages or the web pages of the athletic talking about the Raiders and what's going on with the Raiders. And it's like none of that matters right now.

And Rick Baskasha, their interim head coach who has already been dealing with a lot and trying to keep that organization together. I thought he hit exactly the right tone today when he spoke publicly to the media where, you know, he really centered the victim, in this case, the woman who died. But he also said that, you know, they love Henry Ruggs, and this is something he's going to have to live with for the rest of his life. And yeah, it's just, it's just really, really sad. And, you know, you hate to talk about football or whatever and think about what happens now. but this is an organization that has been through a lot.

And it's going to be really challenging to the leaders in that locker room to continue to hold this together. And just imagine what it's like around that facility right now. So it's tough. It's just a really, really hard. And God, just call an Uber. What are we doing? I mean, it's, I think every note that Rick Muscasha hit, I think in his response to this was the correct one. And again, I don't know if there's a ton more to add.

It's an unbelievably tragic situation. It's hard to transition from that. Mitch is going to be on here in a second. Before we get to Mitch, though, we're going to take a break. All right. It's time now to welcome our good buddy. All-Pro offensive tackle. Mitchell Schwartz.

Mitch, how you doing, bud? I'm doing well. You look like you're working from the shadows today. So are you doing okay? It's a little bit dark out. I mean, we're getting to that time of the year. It's about 5.30 p.m. I don't have my ring light on.

So it's getting dark out. There isn't a lot of natural light. This room is sacked it off. So it does feel a little bit dark in here. Well, next week it's going to be 430. It's going to be that dark, right? I'm already dreading it. It's the worst part about this year so far with the weather, which we're talking about

the weather now, is it went from being like 75 degrees in Chicago to 45 degrees, which is the worst. I love my 55 degree days. That is my favorite part of the year. And we got about a week and a half of them. And now they're already over. This has been one of the best stretches for fall since I've been to Kansas City. We've had a bunch of those like mid-50s, high-50s, low-60s days.

Currently, we've got a couple like mid-40s. And then for the next like 10 days, it's like all in the 50s. It's going to be perfect. So it's a nice extended fall. No snow so far. Nothing too crazy. So it's been real nice. I hope we get back.

I guess looking at it right now, there are most of those 50 days coming. But it was in the 30s this morning when I took Molly out. So that's why I was a little bit sad. So as long as we're getting out of that here in the next couple of days, that works for me. All right. We got a bunch of stuff that we want to dig into today. I want to start with a pretty kind of serious conversation. Because one of the things that's been going on in the NFL, one of the conversations

has been happening around the league over the last few days, is in regard to just mental health and just anxiety and how players deal with that. Lane Johnson came out this week and did an interview with Jake Glazer on Sunday before the game started just about some of the things that he's been dealing with over the years in regard to anxiety and depression and why he needed to take some time away from the Eagles. Calvin Ridley of the Falcons put out a statement earlier this weekend about how he's taking some time away to focus on his mental health. It's something that has become a more prevalent conversation throughout the league and just

publicly over the last couple years. And I'm just curious as someone who was in the NFL, how much that subject comes up, how much you had to think about it and what role it played in just your life as a player during your career. Yeah, I'd say, I mean, kudos to those guys for talking about it for, you know, bringing it to the forefront. You know, a lot of guys deal with stress and anxiety. You know, it's kind of a part of what you deal with to get to game day and through game day. And it's nice that, you know, it's being talked about. And, you know, kind of to what Lane said, especially as an offense alignment, you know, you're supposed to be tough guy. You're supposed to be macho. Everything's supposed to be.

you know, okay at all times, you're supposed to be in control. And, you know, it's very easy to lose sight of that. You know, I kind of hate Sundays or Mondays if we're playing on Mondays. You know, that's, you know, a lot of people, oh, games must be fun. Must be so exciting. Like, to me, it's the worst part of the week. Like, that's when the bad things happen. Like, that's when, you know, I get the most stressed out. You know, I'm literally blocking for the MVP of the league. And, you know, I let a guy get by me. He gets hurt. You know, that's an awful outcome. You know, I'm a block on a run play that guy who gets tackled he could get hurt that's an awful outcome and so there was always this you know kind of level of stress and anxiety you know that's been probably the

best thing for me personally this year is you know in this rehab process not having to be on a team to have to worry about you know playing through pain number one but just playing in general and the stress that comes with it you know my wife will tell you I'm you know as happy as she's ever seen me because I don't have that anxiety, that stress that I carry day to day, especially, you know, if I was going through this chief season, it would be a lot worse because, you know, you have the expectations and then, you know, it hasn't been going there. And I think, you know, from the fan perspective, we make a lot of money. It's a game. You know, people grow up and they wish that they could play football and it's something you do in the backyard and you play in high school. And I think

people lose sight of, like, just how much it means to us and how much stress there is in it. Like, it's not just a game. It is our livelihood. You know, yeah, we get paid a lot of money, but there's a lot of negative stuff that comes with it. Like, the guy going to the office every Monday through Friday, you know, he's not putting his body at risk. He's not, you know, putting his brain at risk or going to break a leg or do all these other, you know, bad outcomes. His bad decision doesn't, you know, cause, you know, the Alex Smith injury, for instance, like, you know, that could have been me that missed my block and Alex's leg shatters in four places. Like, imagine dealing with that for the rest of the

of your life. Like, that's an awful feeling. So we deal with a lot more stress. I think people think it's highly magnified because we get paid so much and because it's so public, you know, there's kind of the idea. I mean, there's two different ways to think of it. But for me, like, there was way more stress after I signed my second contract because now it's like, oh shit, I have to justify this massive deal I just signed. Like, they just made me one of the highest paid guys in my position in the league. Now I have to play just as well, if not better, to prove that they were correct and like you know we've seen it with the chiefs this year you know this past week with the tyrant matthews situation and you know calling the fan-based toxic and stuff it's like when the

fans have an expectation of what you're supposed to play like if you don't exceed those expectations which is usually almost impossible you know in this day and age you get to see all the hate and so you're already feeling like crap you're already discouraged and then you see all these people piling on you it definitely snowballs and especially if you're someone who you know depression runs in the family or it's a part of your life, that's not what you want to see. You know, usually the computer, your phone is your outlet, and now all of a sudden you're getting blown up in a bad way. So it definitely snowballs, it spirals,

and it's great that guys are realizing it's okay to get the help, to talk about it, you know, it affects everyone in every, you know, profession in the world. So dealing with, you know, stress and anxiety and depression in the proper way will have very, you know, real benefits for, like, the whole human society. So it's nice that, you know, sports figures are kind of leading the way on making that okay to, you know, discuss and share. How does that immediate and constant feedback loop? How did you have to kind of protect yourself from that?

Because I assume if you're a person with anxiety, if that is constantly available to you, that can be, that can snowball very quickly. Is that something that you had to manage? Yeah, I deleted my Twitter like two weeks into my Cleveland career. And I didn't resurrect it until, I think. like free agency or like right before I became a free agent. So basically my first four years, I just didn't have at least a public Twitter. I created like a second one to keep up with news and stuff. And I wasn't quite neurotic enough to like search out my name.

So I didn't do that. But yeah, I, you know, my first preseason game, like we went to Detroit and Sue was like playing defensive end and, you know, I had a couple of bad plays against them. I'm like starting to get, you know, oh, you suck. We wasted a traffic. Blah, blah. It's like, I already feel like crap. Like I don't want to see this.

you know there's been times i know my wife goes on and she starts muting people that you know are giving me crap or whatever because she knows i'm going to see that i'm more you know feel bad so you know she does a good job with that you know it's one of those things where if you're the type to read social media feedback and feel negatively about it you're also probably the type that isn't able to not read it so yeah you typically do end up seeing what people are saying so i was i mean i made a good decision when i was younger to get off social media, you know, for those, you know, first few years. Obviously, established myself into, you know, a good player and got Twitter and Instagram and all that. And then we had a pretty good run, so I don't have, you know, see too much of it.

Last year, you know, I didn't even have, like, quote unquote, bad games. I had, you know, I guess for my standards, bad games, but, like, I got the sense that the fans were so attached to Pat. And, like, you know, obviously he's the savior of Kansas City. he's their well-being that like you'd give up a pressure or he'd get hit and fans would just swarm you and it's just like okay like you know i've had games just as bad the past couple years and you know you guys weren't as ferocious as at attacking me but like any sort of slight to pat was you know offensive to and i get it like i get it from the fan perspective but again if i give up a sack to joey boza like i feel like crap that pat got hit and got sacked and got hurt like seeing it on social media

I'm not going to go on Wednesday, be like, oh, I got to practice harder because Johnny 4, 2, 3, 5, 6, like told me I sucked. So it just makes you feel worse about yourself. There's no positive outcome, I guess, unless you somehow feel better about talking crap to people you'll never meet in real life. Like, there's no positive outcome to talking crap on the internet and just only makes the guy who's already in a bad spot who's already feeling bad, playing bad. Like, it just puts them in a worse situation. So it's tough to avoid it. you kind of just have to either accept that that's part of life if you have, you know, Twitter or Instagram or just like don't have them.

But I don't know that there really is a way these days to, you know, be on those platforms and have the willpower to like never look at the comments, especially when you're doing poorly. And for every 50 nice comments, the one bad one is the one that sticks with you, right? I mean, it doesn't matter how many nice things people say. And I trust me, I speak from experience. I'm wondering, this may be a difficult question to answer, but how would you kind of describe the disconnect to people from the way that the public may view you as a professional athlete and the way that you sometimes view yourself? Yeah, I think it goes back to what I was saying about how, like, football is my life, my livelihood. Like, it's the thing I take very seriously.

It's a full-time job. You know, it's 60 plus hours a week. there's very real consequences to what I do. You know, obviously, again, I think if we didn't make the money that we did, there probably wouldn't be 95% of, you know, kind of the hate. I think it's a lot driven by the salaries that we make. And people are saying, well, you know, well, you're making this amount of money, so it shouldn't matter.

Or, well, you're making this, I'd be happy to play for, you know, 20% of that or whatever it is. It's just, like, difficult to kind of parse out how much, you know, I care, how much I put, you know, everything into it. And for the people that are like, oh, we'll get back in your playbook or you shouldn't be out doing this or whatever. It's like, okay, I mean, people have very serious jobs. You can still work a 60 hour a week and like you need two hours when you get home to decompress and like do something otherwise. You know, you're just going to drive yourself crazy. So it's like guys are allowed to, you know, shut their brains off at times and go do things in their personal life.

And I'd say, yeah, the biggest disconnect. I mean, honestly, it's the money thing. that's what causes the most animosity between fan and player probably fantasy i guess at this point i'm not a fantasy guy so i think people obviously take fantasy very very uh personally and when when their guys aren't performing that's something that you know players never want to hear that oh you let my fantasy team down it's like dude i'm trying to win real football like i let myself down and my team down like i don't care about your fantasy team but yeah i think it's the idea that i don't think you know, fans realize how much work goes into what we do in terms of just how much you put your

mind into it, to study it, to worry about it, to think about it, you know, how seriously the athletes take it. Like, it's not just a game. It's the best people in the world of what they do. Like, I know it can seem non-trailand at times or like people aren't trying or whatever, but it's like, for the most part, guys care an extreme amount. And I guarantee there's more than, you know, two guys in the NFL who are dealing with depression and anxiety on, you know, day-to-day basis. And realistically, every team has a few guys that probably at certain points throughout the year could take a week or two away, you know, kind of just work on themselves and come back in a better state of mind. So it's, you know, cool that it's getting talked about again. And I think, you know,

from the fan perspective, just have faith that players care as much as you want them to care and that it means as much, you know, to us as we're in the moment as it does to you who doesn't have to put, you know, your body and your livelihood on the line. For me, it's just a reminder that you never know what somebody is going through and you never know how someone views themselves, right? I mean, you think that we ascribe a level of success to people that achieves things in professional sports. And we say, well, look what they have and look at the place that they've gotten to. They must view themselves a certain way. They must view their lives a certain way. And that's just not how it is.

It's not how it is in so many walks of life. Whatever you might determine a success from the outside isn't necessarily how that person views their day-to-day life and how they view themselves. And I think that it's a really good reminder of that. Yeah. And, you know, I think the thing we see when guys retire when they get hurt, they can't play anymore, like 98% of football players, their identity is being a football player. He's going to ask you about that. So if they're not doing a good guy. good job at that job how do you think they feel if their whole identity is wrapped up in like being

the best in the world of what they do and now they're not playing well or they're hurt or you know the disson jackson thing like you know he still thinks he's you know number one or number two receiver the rams don't see it that way they let him you know they're releasing him but like how do you think deshawn feels he still thinks he's the man you know he's gone to a couple teams and has been featured that way like do you think he's happy with his life you know he defines himself as a football player like that's a very specific example obviously but like so many guys define who they are, what they do by being a football player. And so if they're not, you know, the best or at the top of what they do, like, how do you think they feel being, you know, the 58th best offensive tackle in the NFL?

Like, you pride yourself on playing well, doing well. That's who you are and you're not performing. Like, you basically seem like a failure to yourself. You know, that's the reality of it. And, you know, for a guy like Lane, who's considered the best right tackle in. football or if not that absolutely a top three guy every single year to have that added pressure again getting back to the out of pressure like he has to play at that high of a level every single week or people like oh he's slipping he doesn't deserve the contract you know he's had like three contracts now that

are just completely blown away the right tackle market and so now he's got to play to this whole other like fictional level of you have to now be better than every other right tackle and play as well as the left tackles but you're also this like crazy situation where you're like you know, this guy who's got to transcend the position. So, yeah, it's a very real thing that, you know, when people put their identities into their job, and in this case, your job's a football player, that's your identity. If you're not doing well, yeah, you're going to feel like crap. It's going to be awful. And, you know, just as in every other fast in life, if you're not, you know, meeting your expectations and something that is important to you, you can take it in a tough way. And for a lot of

people that's you know depression you have a ton of varied interests right like you love cooking you love a bunch of different stuff is that something that you consciously thought about just trying to develop areas of your life that didn't have to do with football just because so you didn't get to that place where it was the entirety of how you derived your identity and your self-worth no I was never conscious I kind of just got lucky with that I have that I do have other interests and that I guess I can compartmentalize you know making football as important as I make it but also not having it be you know, the single thing that defines me and, you know, this particular season, like, I mean, I don't have much hair to pull out anymore, but, you know, I'm not like pulling my hair out

every weekend being like, oh, man, I got to be out there and I'm worthless and I'm, you know, a piece of crap because, you know, I'm not healthy enough to play. And, you know, that isn't the way I feel. And, you know, I think I got lucky with that. But for the most part, I don't think people necessarily have the self-awareness to, you know, try to work on an outside hobby or profession. You know, typically you see that with the older guys who have made a lot of money. They realize, hey, I probably only have two or three years left. I got to start looking for whatever's next in life. But you're kind of creating a passion out of nothing or you're looking towards something

that can be financially prudent for you, you know, having a few other passions that aren't just football. And, you know, obviously for people that have listened to, you know, us talk in the past, I would imagine you probably don't sound like what you expect a typical offensive line. it to sound like and you know I'm not super gruff guy and aggressive and need to get in these fights every day you know controlled fights in the football aspect but like I'm not someone who just walks around with a lot of aggression and energy and like needs to let off steam and you know football is my physical outlet so in a weird way I mean that was probably the knock on me as you know I haven't

been physical enough but you know to me it's the mental aspect of football the challenge you know obviously there's a pretty fun element when you catch a guy right and you just like physically pummel him. So it's not like I don't enjoy that. But, you know, I'm not someone that, you know, prides myself on, you know, being this physical person that hurts other people and stuff. So I don't have that aspect of, you know, myself that I need to express on the football field. The last thing I'll ask you before we move on, are there resources for you within the building? Is there somebody you could go to if you were dealing with something like this? Are there just outwits within an organization for people who are having these sorts of issues? Yeah, there's always

people. You know, the chiefs are very good about that. You know, there's like a team psychiatrist and there's a bunch of resources, a bunch of different people in different roles. You know, every team has what's called a player engagement director. It's kind of like a liaison between, you know, players and coaches and lifestyle as well. So the role differs from team to team. You know, some guys are more, you know, they live in the city. They know all the hookups. Hey, I need a car. Who should I go to? Or, you know, hey, I need to get some, you know, custom clothes. Do you have a guy? you know, some guys are more oriented towards, you know, building the person and mental health and all that stuff. Some are more like career-oriented.

So it depends what your player engagement guy, you know, is about. But typically that would be a role that every team has that you could talk to. You know, I think a lot of teams are leaning towards having psychiatrists or, you know, psych people on the staff. I would say there's still that inherent distrust in, you know, theoretically, it seems like they're employed by the team. And so even though, you know, they have confidentiality, you know, agreements and whatever you tell them, they can't tell the team. I think players are, again, inherently distrusting of the coaching staff and, you know, the front office. And so you kind of assume that if you use the team's resources, it's going to get back to the team. And of course, this was, you know, 100 years worth of manly men who can't, you know, tell people that you're not feeling good or you're scared or you're nervous.

And, you know, you're afraid to kind of let that out. and then have people know about it. And again, as that's changing, I think people will be more apt to, you know, talk to the resources. And even if, again, even if, you know, illegally the team psychiatrist goes and tells the head coach, like, hey, this guy's struggling,

like he feels like crap, he wants to kill himself, you know, you know, all these things. Like, I think the stigma is changing so that, yeah, it's going to be tough to walk into the room and tell Andy redirectly like, hey, I feel like crap, I'm throwing up every day. You know, some days I just want to end it all. But like,

if this other resource i mean obviously if you're saying that you want to kill yourself like that's a mandatory report but like i think people would be more okay with like i told the right person they'll tell the right people and like get me the help i need and so you know i think as that stigma changes people will be more open to using the team resources because you know from the player perspective it won't be looked down upon uh in a way that it used to be and it used to be you were like so scared to show that weakness and now you know people are realizing it's okay to talk about that because it's happening to way more people than you know about. All right.

There's really no easy way to transition from that, but we were going to get to some more nuts and bolts football stuff here. I got a question in the mailbag this week that I thought was definitely worth digging into because I don't have a huge sense of it. And I was wondering what you thought about it. There was a conversation this week about Michael Fleur being up in the booth calling plays as opposed to on the sideline. So I'm wondering as a player, do you sense the difference between when a guy is calling plays

from the booth or the sideline, or is that something that is more quarterback driven, and you're kind of shielded from it as somebody who's on the offensive line? Yeah, from the O-line perspective, it's definitely shielded. You know, that line of communication is typically, you know, the coordinator kind of talks to the coaches on the headset, you know, even as, you know, we're all on the sideline together, it still gets radio through the headset, you know, the O-line goes and sits on their, you know, end of the bench. Typically, it's off to the further side. And, you know, your O-line coach is there.

He goes, oh, hold on, guys. You know, he listens to the headset, says, oh, you know, they're saying we're going to, you know, run the ball a lot this next drive. We've got to be physical, you know, blah, blah, blah. You know, occasionally if things aren't going well, the guy will come over and maybe he's a feisty guy and, you know, kind of rip you one until you need to do better. But for the most part, I mean, that's the extent of the offensive line interaction with, you know, the coordinator. It's after good drives, he'll be there, daffing you up. Hey, good job. Keep it going.

You know, after a few bad drives, maybe he's a guy that likes to, you know, talk to the team or yell at the team. However it is, you'll hear him in that role. but the direct communication is more, you know, quarterbacks. And it's more like coverage oriented so with the receivers and stuff. And, you know, from the online perspective, it doesn't really matter too much. You know, we talked a little bit last time about John Gruden and what Jacob said. And, you know, if there is a guy who is a yellow screamer and now he's off the sidelines, you don't have that bad energy like literally on the sidelines,

that can definitely, you know, pay dividends if that person is, you know, kind of dragging people down. The other thing I remember talking to people last year about Brian Dable, which I thought was really interesting, and how him moving to the booth kind of removed him from the emotionality of being on the sideline. And it kind of puts you in this controlled environment as a play caller where you're not getting caught up in the moment to moment feeling of what the game is like. And I think that's just an interesting way to think about it. You're like, you know what? This is more scientific up here. I'm not getting pulled into whatever. I don't know.

That feels like on the sideline. I think that's a consideration I never really thought about before. Yeah, and I mean, getting back to, you know, the mental health aspect of it, like, say the offense goes three and out, you know, you're frustrated, you're pissed off, like, you're not super happy about that. You come trudging off the field, and now your coordinator's screaming at you because you did a terrible job. And, like, he's fired up and he's, you know, rocketing his headset in the ground and throwing

his play cards and stuff. Like, that's not what you need to see in that moment. You know, I don't know who comes off after, you know, a three and out and you give up a sack. And you're just like, oh, well, my coordinator's pissed. So now I'm going to play harder. Like that stuff, you know, just doesn't really translate into, you know, positivity and good things. So a guy, you know, again, who tends to be a little feisty here, a little more emotional

and likes to, you know, share what's going on, especially in the bad moments, yeah, you put him up in the box and he can cuss out the other assistant coach is up there as much as he wants. But, you know, maybe the coaches hear that on the headset and, you know, maybe the head coach hears it. But for the most part, that doesn't get back to the players. and players don't know that, you know, I give a pressure and he's going, oh, that freaking right tackle, what a boss of shit, you know, blah, blah, like that whole thing doesn't get there.

You know, everyone has stories of the coach that's muttering under his breath and, you know, talking about a certain player on a play and, you know, kind of the true feelings come out on the sideline because, you know, it is emotional. So those guys who don't know how to regulate that in the moment, you know, to their team's benefit, yeah, getting them up there can definitely be a benefit from that perspective. and then also, I mean, some guys need the emotion and the feel and the flow of the game on the field. You know, we've talked about Chanahan's play calling before. Like he's very much just like emotion feel-based.

And so, yeah, maybe he could see more and see more coverages from the booth. But, you know, I think for him it's, you know, feeling the energy, feeling, you know, what's going on, what his guys are saying coming out of the field. You know, I know there's a little bit of psychology and the Belichick stuff. and, you know, calling certain timeouts or not or, like, looking at Pete Carroll and seeing that, you know, maybe he's flustered or looking at McVeigh and seeing he's flustered across the field. And, like, if you can't get those kind of, you know, personal reads or those tells and you're a guy that relies on them, you know. So for those guys, yeah, I think it's like any player where you find your own routine, you find what you like, what you don't like.

Like most guys probably gravitate towards what their mentor did or what the guy they worked for who they like did. But they should definitely test out both of them. And, you know, not just in the preseason because the preseason, you know, it's not real football. So, you know, the first year or two is a play caller, you know, a couple games upstairs, couple games, you know, on the field and find what they like best and maybe find what their team does best. All right. We wanted to talk about the idea of trap games. This is something that you wanted to get into because you feel like it's way overblown in the way that the public talks about them.

And there are a lot of misconceptions about it. So when we talk about a team facing a trap game, like, all right, for example, like the Bengals last week, they lose to the Jets, they have the, or the Browns coming this week, and it's a trap game. How do you see that concept as a player? Yeah, so I don't think it's that players look ahead and like, oh, well, we have a more important game next week and this week we're not playing as good of a team. So, like, we'll try less hard. I think it's more what's happening in that specific week and the week before. So like the week before, they had a very emotional game. You know, they were trying to prove themselves against Baltimore as the cream of not only the AFC North,

but that vaulted them into the number one seat in the AFC in general. And so they're going against this longtime rival. They haven't had much success against them the last, I don't know, probably 15 or 20 years. And, you know, they're putting all their energy. It's probably a lot more of a playoff type atmosphere for them and something to prove. Then Baltimore is just like, okay, well, here's Cincinnati again. So you put all this energy, all this emotion into a game. You play this awesome game.

You're now 5 and 2. Everyone's talking about how you're the best team in the, you know, AFC. It's all these young studs playing well. You know, I'm not going to say that they read into the hype and they got complacent or anything. But I've been on teams before where you see, you know, guys read the press clippings and they understand what's being said about them. And, you know, maybe the week of practice and the focus and the energy that went into, okay, we got Baltimore. We got to show them who we are. Maybe that's not quite the same when it's the one in six or one in five.

that's coming to town and, you know, it's not quite as buttoned down and, you know, not quite as, you know, focus and intent. And so it's not necessarily that, hey, we've got this team coming next week. We can be easier this week. It's more, okay, well, that was a physical game. It was emotionally draining. You know, we put our all into it. You know, maybe I'm a little more tired this week. Maybe I'm not putting the same mental focus into it for practice or, you know, that Sunday morning to get up for it. And, you know, everyone has a story of a game that, you know, maybe you felt like it was going to be a little easier. The guy you're facing wasn't quite as good.

So you felt like, okay, you know, maybe today's a 92% day. You know, typically those games, you get absolutely wrecked. So, yeah, I think the idea of the trap game, it's not looking ahead. It's what happened the week before. And it just so happens that it's like good opponent, emotional game, physical game. Then you play a lesser team. And then it just so happens a better team. I mean, if you're playing a lesser team, you're probably playing a better team the next week anyway.

That's just the NFL. So it's typically the one before and not the one ahead. And I always just hear trap games, oh, well, they got this team coming to town the week after. So that's why they're going to, you know, not play the Jets as well. Well, it's like, no, you just saw it was the one in six Jets. You watched the film that didn't look that great. You just had this really tough week. And, you know, you weren't quite as, to say, it wasn't quite the playoff atmosphere that, you know,

a Bengals' Ravens game would have been. Can you feel a bad week of practice? And coaches say that. We had a good week of practice. Can you feel a bad one? Can you feel those games coming every once in a while? You can feel a bad week of practice, but whether that correlates to a bad game, I would say most coaches would probably tell you it happens enough both ways where you,

you know, suck in practice, have a good game, you know, have a great week of practice and suck on the game. You definitely know when practice is bad, you know, offensive perspective, it's, you know, the O-line isn't winning the run periods and, you know, giving up a little bit of pressure in the past stuff and, you know, quarterback-wise, he's thrown a couple of picks with the scout team and your receivers aren't running their routes quite as crisp but they're dropping the ball and typically with the offense it's the quarterback was rushed because of the o-line you know that's an o-line issue obviously like i said the run period the running back gets tackled and doesn't get

to get to the hole or most predominantly the ball's on the ground so whether that's an incompletion you know a tip pass you know some sort of interception but you kind of expect you know you're going against the scout team every play should look perfect and crisp and been pure and the ball shouldn't be on the ground. It should be caught by the receiver and the quarterback should be making the right reeds and stuff. So you can definitely tell, you know, offensively when you're having a bad week of practice. Obviously, depending on the coach, it kind of skews in that direction. So, you know, maybe if you're the Vikings and, you know, Cousins has a couple of bad throws, but, you know, the defense looked awesome. You know, Zimmer doesn't really

care and he still feels like they had a pretty good week of practice. But, you know, that one, third, and 12, they're running double A and the wrong guy blitzes and they get gash. You know, he's going to remember that. He's going to be pretty, you know, pissed off even with the offense is perfect. So definitely skews with the coach. You know, that's why whatever side of the ball you're on, you want your head coach to be, you know, that guy because however you did that day, that's how the coach is going to feel. So the worst thing is like when you got, you know, as an O-Lignment, a defense head coach and, and, you know, you just laid it on his, you know, front floor. And he's all pissed. And he's saying, we're going to do good enough for practice. And you're like, dude, we just smashed your guys for

two and a half hours. Like, I did great, man. And he's out there. We got to do better tomorrow. blah blah blah and then you know the next day the D-line's going to be like flying around fired up and have a new blitzes and stuff. It's a no win situation for you. No, no, it's awful. So being on the correct side of the head coach's lean offense defense is definitely a positive thing. I guess in like Baltimore, I mean they're kind of screwed right because either way, whichever side has the bad day, he's going to be pissed about that. But yeah, you know, you can tell when you're having a bad week of practice. You can tell when you're having a bad practice. You know, it's more old school. Some coaches will kind of start the period over and you have two or three bad plays.

You're just like, all right, stop this. Like, let's go back to play one. There's a couple different coaching styles. Some don't ever want to repeat plays. So you have a bad play. Like, okay, that was a bad play. Move on to the next one. Maybe like Friday or in, you know, a walk through Saturday.

You'll go over that bad play again just to make sure you got it right. Some coaches, you have a bad play. Like you repeat it right then. You know, some of them you repeat it at the end of the period. So coaches kind of try to regulate that as much as possible. obviously you want your leaders to regulate it as well and you know if guys are dropping balls you know someone on offense is saying hey man we got to pick this up let's you know focus more let's be crisp and obviously the best teams you know don't need the head coach to be the main voice every

single time can you feel when you come out flat as a team like what does that feel like is that a real thing that's a good question i think it's it can be i mean there's moments where you you are flat and like but not the whole team doesn't necessarily come out flat like you know different teams have different ways to pump themselves up pregame so if you're doing that and your emotional leader kind of given the same speech that usually does usually guys respond to that and you know there's kind of an energy you can tell i mean some weeks in the locker room an hour and a half before the game like no one's playing music no one's really talking it's kind of quiet and it definitely feels you know where's the energy what's going on like why does no one seem to care right now you can definitely tell when that's happening so i guess you know you can tell if you can tell if you go out flat. I'd say typically it happens, like the game starts developing and then kind of the flow the game dictates that. Like, you know, if you're the Chiefs game on Monday night, for instance, you know, people are going to say, oh, well, you know, the Chiefs didn't play very well, they were flat and blah, blah, blah. Well, it's like, no, they got the ball and they had 13 awesome plays in a row and then they had, you know, one unfortunate play and then it kind of kicked

into the, oh, here we go again. Like, that doesn't mean that the team was flat coming out. It means that, you know, you had one bad play that kind of set things in motion to repeat this cycle of, you know, quote unquote, ineptitude for what they're used to. So, you know, on the whole, people are going to look at that game. People who watch it, I'm sure it felt like, oh, same chiefs. They don't have the energy. They're flat. They gave up, you know, the turnover and touchdown, blah, blah, blah. But it's like, well, they didn't come out flat.

The first 12 plays were awesome. They had energy. They were zipping around. It's just like one bad play flipped the kind of script for them. So there are two different versions of that. For the most part, you can tell if it's a lower energy thing. And especially the emotional leaders, they'll kind of start yelling and screaming a little bit more and, you know, trying to pump guys up. So, again, it doesn't always correlate with a bad game.

But you definitely can sense it in the kind of larger aspect. All right. Let's talk about the chiefs a little bit before we get out of here. Mitch, what's wrong with the chiefs? Oh, man. She's going straight-letter questions, huh? So I'd say offensively, again, we've talked about kind of the two high stuff and what it forces the chiefs to do. You know, it forces you to have 14 consecutive positive plays.

And that's tough to do. I mean, the chiefs are very good. They've got a lot of good personnel. But 14 plays in a row against other NFL players who, again, are getting paid and, you know, are among the best in the world of what they do. you know, it's tough to string that together every single time. And so for whatever reason, the chiefs aren't playing quite as well as they have the past few years. And at this point, like I said, it's kind of a, all right, well, you know, it's happening again. And I think that's when, you know, a little bit of the panic or the worry starts to set in.

You know, I think for people watching Mahomes in particular, it was all about, oh, his footwork and is he going to, you know, take the checkdowns and all that stuff. And he was and it looked great. And then as the game progresses, and it's, you know, a tie game in the third and fourth quarter. a little bit. Like, that's when you start wanting to make those plays. And, you know, that's when things tend to revert back a little bit more. You know, it just seems like it's, you know, an offense that's being forced to do something they don't want to do. And typically in life in general, when you don't want to do something, you're not as successful, you know, when you're forced to do it and being forced to, you know, complete 20 passes to a running back because that's the

guy they're leaving uncovered at, you know, four yards in the backfield. That's not super fun. It's boring. Yeah, exactly. It's boring. It's mundane. You know, for people that get into like workout ruts, you know, if you're doing the same lift three or four times a week over and over and over, you're just like, all right, this sucks. I need a week off or like, I got to go change it up. And it's like, well, that's what they're being forced to do.

They're being forced to do the same lifting program every single time. Either have to run the ball or they have to throw it to their checkdown or just design a play that, you know, is only five or at most eight or ten yards deep. And especially when you've become accustomed to, you know, living a certain way, you know, it's kind of the joke about why guys go broke is because, you know, they're getting these million dollar paychecks. So they become accustomed to a million dollar lifestyle. And then football's over, the paycheck stop. And you don't want to go from, you know, spending a million a year to spending $50,000 a year like most people can't even afford to do.

And it doesn't work, you know. So you go from, you know, four play, 85-yard touchdown drives into, you know, a situation. that's not quite as fun and not quite as easy. And it's just, it's tough. And, you know, it takes a lot of, you know, discipline, especially from the quarterback position to just kind of casually go down the field every single time. And for 70 consecutive plays, just do the, you know, quote unquote, easy thing. Do they have, just in terms of the structure of the offense, formationally, personnel-wise,

Do you think the way that they're built right now, they have the option of just lining up and running the ball down people's throats? Or do you feel like that's too far of a departure from what they are at their core? Yeah, I mean, I do think the Chiefs have the offensive line and the skill set to turn into a running team. It seems like when they've tried to lean on it so far this year, it hasn't been dominant enough to takeover a game. You know, I go back to last year's Buffalo game in the regular season.

And, you know, that was kind of the coming out party for the O line, happened to be the game. I got hurt and didn't play most of it. So, you know, that felt great. But, you know, the team ran for like 250 yards. And it was like, okay, well, the chiefs are going to be scary if they can, you know, run the ball as efficiently as they did. And, you know, as powerfully as they did, you know, obviously well know, Trace Smith and the physicality. And, you know, Crete Humphrey seems to set a new PFF record for rookies every week. And, you know, Tune is pretty stable in there.

You know, I think Orlando and Lucas will play better than, you know, people give them credit for. So they have the O-line to do it. I think on the whole it'll take a little bit of, you know, mindset shift because, you know, the offense is built a certain way into, you know, go into a game and basically say like, all right, O-line, like, you're going to win it for us. You know, we're going to run the ball 40 times. And, you know, all these runs have to be, you know, four-plus yard runs out the gate. You know, it takes a little bit different mindset to do it.

But they have the skill set for it. they have the players for it and you know at this point they just have to do it i think that's where the chiefs are in general is we you know for basically for a full month we're just like all right it's the chiefs they'll figure it out and you know no worries they'll figure it they'll figure it out it got to a point where you know we just have to see it like we believe that they can do it they've got the personnel all that stuff but i don't think anyone is you know quote unquote trusting them to be the old chiefs it's like we have to see it and it has to happen and it has to happen and you have to run the ball for, you know, 40 minutes in a row.

And eventually the team's going to say, oh, fuck it. Like, we do need to bring that safety down. So let's bring him down. And like, okay, now it's go time. But they haven't been able to do that so far. They've run it effectively at times. They've been physical at times. It hasn't been consistent enough to alter a defense's game plan.

And, you know, it takes a certain level of, you know, physicality and butt kicking to, you know, force a defense to change from what they want to do. do. And I think that's the mentality that have to go into games with is we have to basically physically beat them into bringing a safety down into the box to respect our run game enough to make it work. And so far, again, they run the ball decent at times. But like, you go back and look at the numbers from, you know, the Monday night game, it wasn't that great. I mean, it's not like they were averaging six plus yards of carry. It's still in the, you know, four, four and a half, five yard range. And that's not good enough to be, you know, the run game can take over a game

because you're running for four or five yards of pop, like that's not how it works. That's why the league is trending past because the best rushing attacks average five and a half yards and the worst passing attacks average six yards. So it's like, you know, if the running game is consistently getting you, you know, third and fours, like that's not going to be great. And the average of that is third and sevens. Like the running game has to come out of the gate and average five plus yards of pop. And that's difficult to do.

Of course, they've got the box counts for it. So it's like they just have to prove it and they have to force teams into it. I think that needs to be the goal moving forward. That's not enough to force a team's hand, right? Because at the same time that Mahomes is having to be patient and is having to kind of rewire the way that he thinks about something and you have to kind of play into somebody's nature when you're playing them defensively like that.

Same thing on the other side. If you're gash on a team for six yards of carry, that's hard to allow. Even if in your mind, logically, you know, we'd still rather allow six yards of carry than allow Patrick Mahomes to burn us down. As a defensive coach, watching that happen over and over and over again, that's really difficult.

So it becomes a staring contest. That's the opposite of the discipline we were saying, the offense needs to accept the checkdowns and the small runs and stuff. Like that defensive coach, who your entire career is based on physicality and stopping the run, now all of a sudden he has to have the discipline to be like, I mean, this is essentially Belichick in the Super Bowl against the Bills in like the 80s, right?

It was just like, we don't care if Thermant Thomas runs for 170 on us. Like, Jim Kelly's not beating us. And he had the discipline to do that. And the guy had like 28 carries for 170 yards. And he just didn't care because Jim Kelly didn't beat them. And like, to have the discipline to do that, that's incredibly difficult. That's, I mean, that is the staring contest to me. Like, it is the game that defensive and offensive coaches and offensive and defensive players are playing against each other right now.

I think it's a huge story. I thought it would be a huge story coming into the year. we're seeing it play out in real time. And it's probably painful for you, but I find it very interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's, the weird thing is it's tough to like watch the chiefs, I guess, struggle through it because you're not only getting like box count advantages. So, you know, in a too high look, if there's six blockers for a run scheme, there's going to be six guys in the box for them to block.

So one on one typically that's, you know, good numbers. You know, for the most part, you're kind of leaving a guy, whether it's a safety or a defensive end, who's an unblock guy. but in the too high luck, the offense, if you got seven blockers, there's seven guys to block, eight blockers, eight guys to block. There's never an extra guy to have to deal with. So numbers-wise, it should be in your advantage. And then the chiefs run these reeds and these RPO's and these other ways to isolate guys

to buy another defender. So now it's almost like certain plays you've got six blockers for five defenders, and somehow the run game still isn't, you know, dominant enough to take over games. You know, that's a little bit of it is that like because you're running RPO's, there's still going to be an element of you're throwing the ball at times. I want to say Frank Reich earlier this week said something like, you know, Jonathan Taylor were supposed to have six or seven more runs than he did, but they weren't handed off for whatever reason and subtly threw his quarterback under the bus there.

So it's like, yeah, you can call these. And at the end of the day, like, if you want the runs to be runs, you can't attach anything else to it. They've got to be runs. And with the way defenses are, with the way the numbers are working, you know, having these advantage throws that don't have to be thrown. but they're on there. It's like, yeah, if maybe the advantage throw is the guy's eight plus yards off Tyree Kill, he runs a four-yard out, I'm going to throw it every time.

Okay, well, that's a four-to-six-yard gain where I could have handed it off, and Trey Smith is kicking the crap out of someone inside, and there's a hole for a 12-yard gain. The defense is going to feel much better about, all right, well, Tyreek only had a four-yard out, and we pushed him out of bounds, as opposed to, again, that's six to eight to ten-yard run, the power of the physicality. The lines like, dude, you should have handed it. off. We're, you know, double teaming the crap out of the guys inside. But the defense doesn't feel like they're getting physically beat in that perspective. So you almost do have to

flip it a little bit more towards a purely, you know, running scheme and pounding the ball. And, you know, as you said, I think it needs to be over half of just pure execution of football, predominantly run game and quick passing. And at some point, the defense has to say, okay, we need a safety down. in the box to both stop the run and an extra guy for those underneath throws. And that's going to be the thing that the Chiefs have to do to force teams out of this too high look. And again, so far, they've had spurts of it, but it just hasn't been nearly consistent enough to force teams to change their hand. And lately, it's, you know, barely been good enough to win games against teams that they should be blowing out. All right. I'm sure we'll have

plenty more time here over the next few weeks to dig into more Chiefs panic if it's necessary. As always, buddy, I really appreciate the time. It's always good to chat. with you. We'll catch up with you next week. Same to you. Thank you. Thank you. All right, guys. That's all we got. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you to Lindsay. Thank you to Mitch. We will be back tomorrow with Nate and Sheel. Until then, please rate interview the podcast on Apple or wherever you listen. I would sincerely appreciate if you did that. Also, please go get a subscription. If you do not have one, the FI.com slash football show. You can check out all of the indispensable football writing that our staff does there. We'll be back tomorrow. Until then, appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you soon.

This was the Athletic Football Show.