The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Costly injury on TNF, Deshaun Watson out for the season, and the Bills in disarray

Episode Date: November 18, 2023

In this Week 11 edition of the Football GM Mike and Randy pondered the questions of....could this be it for the Bengals postseason hopes....does the air go out for the Browns after losing Watson for the season and what to make of the Bills in disarray. From there the guys discuss the GM notebook and make their Week 12 predictions. Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Rabndy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeThis episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Find your bright spot this season, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp dot com slash MAYS today to get 10% off your first month.Right now, you can try LinkedIn Sales Navigator and get a sixty-day free trial at LinkedIn dot com slash MAYS23. That is LinkedIn dot com slash MAYS23 for a 60-day free trial. Let LinkedIn Sales Navigator help you sell like a superstar today! Just go to LinkedIn dot com slash MAYS23 and get started. New to Etsy? Use the code HOLIDAY10 for ten percent off your first purchase. That’s code HOLIDAY10. Maximum discount value of fifty dollars. Expires December 31st, 2023. See terms at Etsy dot com slash terms.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome, everybody to the Football GM podcast. Mike Sando here, along with the GM. Randy Mueller. How are you, Randy? Doing good, Mike. A little under the weather this week, so I'm anxious to do this and take my mind off being sick. So I'm looking forward to it.

Well, you're looking good. Looks like you got a haircut. I couldn't tell you were sick. I don't think anyone's going to be able to tell on the broadcast. You can talk hurt, right? I've been told I was sick before with clear takes on certain things. So now it's legitimate. I'll be not 100%, but I feel good.

I can tell you what, the AFC North doesn't want to hear it, Randy. They got their own issues, a lot more serious than, you know, than what do you got a cold going? Or you got a little, a little cold. Yeah, a little tough cold, yeah. All right, so last night, as we record this on Friday, Thursday night we had the Ravens 34 to 20,

but I don't know if there was any winner in this game or in this whole division. Right now we've got Baltimore 8 and 3, Leveland and Pittsburgh, six and three, Cincinnati, five, but there's a lot of oil on the highway, isn't there? There sure is. And how this division has changed just in the last five days, right? I mean, with quarterback injuries to Deshaun and to Burrow, to, you know, the upsets that Ravens were taken last week, I mean, it's upside down right now, and your guess is as good as mine going forward. But yes, the Thursday night tilt struck home again from a medical standpoint. And between the officiating and the doctors, they took most of the air out of it for me.

Ah, a little officiating complaint there. You didn't like that holding call in the long touchdown pass? Seriously. Every week it's something, right? And of course, the response will be, hey, our officiating has never been better and blah, blah, blah. I've lost faith in him. And now, and this is getting ahead of myself here, but you saw the play that Mark Andrews got hurt on and all the uproar on social media about the tackle, the hip replacement.

tackle or whatever it is. Now we're going to let these... I love it. Yeah. We're going to let these officials judge if a tackle is good or not. Sorry, I'm not interested in going on. Oh, my gosh. I'm not putting one more thing on these officials' plate.

They clearly can't handle it what they have. And now we're going to throw that out there. No, I'm not buying that one. Oh, no doubt about it. I think that's one of the challenges of officiating is the rulebook gets thicker and thicker and you have them doing too many things. And then you take them outside of their realm, which is, you know, Of course, they have to have a certain knowledge of football to do this.

They have to recognize formations and all of that. And you start putting judgment in there on a tackle and intent and all of this type of stuff. It just makes it even worse. We had this down later. Let's have the hip tackle discussion because I would love to know. Is this a new thing? Is it happening more? Is there a reason?

Why are we talking about it? I agree with you 100%. When I saw the tackle, it never came to my mind that it could be termed a dirty play. I've never seen anything like it discussed in any of the meetings I've ever been in. Now, I haven't been in an owner's meeting in a few years, but I can't imagine that this would get a lot of traction outside media or outside social media, trying to over-legislate a game that is a contact sport and does have injuries. So I don't know. I just don't understand it. But here's what I see.

I see it through Troy Vincent and the other guys at the league. it's like they have to have some kind of initiative every year to check a box that they made progress towards safety or they made progress towards the excitement of the game and sometimes you almost run out of things to add. I mean, it doesn't mean the game's perfect, but like to me, this one is, well, I'll say this, this one is opposed by the players association,

which is always there with, you know, with safety issues as they should be, whether it's turf, field surface, you know, the different types of field surface or whether it's concussions in the league, you know, had been trying to downplay that. But even they think that the hip drop tackle should not be outlawed because they don't know how any, how half of their players would be able to play. You can't make a tackle. I totally agree. And I think the fact that it's been named something makes it a target for one thing.

I don't like, that's the only thing I agreed with on social media last night was the fact that they've named it, and it is a target now because it has a name. And that makes literally no sense to me at all. Well, John Harbaugh, it was definitely a hip-drop tackle. It is being discussed. It's a tough tackle. Was it even necessary in that situation? John Harbaugh, of all people. Come on, man. Seriously? I know this. Defenders have to have an option on getting players down. We've already over-legislated the roughing the passer penalties and judged and put, I'll stick up for F's in this case, put them in an unwinnable situation. This would be unbelievably out of their norm, out of their legislative possibility, I think. So I would be totally against it. Can we just

let these guys play a little bit and give the defense a little bit of a chance? I honestly never thought about this ever being illegal or that it was even a thing until I read about it after the game. Well, these teams with their 70-man coaching staffs, I'm joking, but we're getting closer to 30 than 20 now with a number of people on a staff. Plus, you have all these, some of the teams have robust analytics departments. Here's my project. If I was truly curious and had the manpower.

Hey, go back and watch X number of years of play, of football plays, offense, defense, and let's put the different tackle types into buckets, right? One of them could be, you know, the guy just ran out of bounds and wasn't even impacted. Another one could be that the runner gave himself up. another one could be a horse collar tackle. Another one could be a quote-unquote hip drop tackle,

which we've never even talked about in the past. I would love to know the frequency of this, the number of injuries off of it. Now, that could lead to making stupid rules changes, but I would at least want to know. I'm just kind of curious. Where was this in all the years of football of being a thing that was suddenly a problem?

Well, I do believe in this day and age of over-legislating and league office oversight, in every regard that the exercise you just mapped out probably is already happening. There's no doubt. There are so many people involved now at the league level that they're going to research this to the nth degree. And some of that is good, obviously. Yeah, I'm curious.

Yeah, I would just like to know. So we'll see. Yeah, is this always been a problem when you look at the injuries? Are the injuries even up? This one of Mark Andrews really scared me the way he reacted to it because he went on to his back and then was kind of moving his arms, but he didn't move from. from like the chest down, and I thought, oh my gosh, what just happened here? Because he wasn't moving.

So it was actually great to see him get up and walk off. I did raise this on social media, your favorite place there, Randy, on Twitter. Did you notice that Mark Andrews had to walk upstairs as he left the field? I thought that was kind of weird as he went out the thing. I was like, what are we doing here? Can he take the elevator? Is that what you meant? That was just the fact that it's on a different story, a different floor?

I understand the player. I love the, hey, you know what, no one's carrying me off this field. I'm walking off. That's always kind of been like a thing. If you can walk off that field, these guys will usually do it. But then when I get off the field, I do want to not take the stairs to go to wherever that was. That was hilarious when they opened the doors. And here's poor Mark Andrews with a bad season-ending ankle injury.

He's going to walk up the stairs. Yeah, it's not like we're playing in old Baltimore Memorial Stadium where the pipes come across and you have a whole series of stairs to maneuver. You're right. These stadiums should be up to speed on at least let the players in cleats walk on level ground for the most part to their locker. Yeah, I'd love to know what was going on there. Great stadium, though, great atmosphere. Wasn't that a great crowd?

I thought it was really a good deal. Now, let's get into some of the injuries. We can start with Mark Andrews because, you know, Baltimore has been a good team, is a good team this year, had a couple hiccups along the way. And you had talked, we had a discussion earlier. You really liked their combination, not just Mark. Andrews, but some of the other guys in the receiving department. Now Mark Andrews out for the year. Maybe, Randy, they're in better position to wed to this because they've gone to three wide receivers more. Is that true to you? Do you think that they can do it or do you think this is

dooming? Well, I think his skill level is it's hard to replace. There's no doubt about that. But they have other options. And you mentioned the three wide receivers. Isaiah likely being the backup is a good player. He could be starting for a lot of places. The other kid from Iowa State Kohler, who played some in the game last night, another good player. The injury that if you couple it with it, though, that concerns me. And I don't know, I have not seen the specifics on this was the OBJ injury at the end of the game. Oh, yeah. To me, like that could be severe for whatever reason. They never, at least I have not read at the taping of this show what that injury was, but that could be problematic as well in that that's another weapon,

possibly gone. Obj downplayed it and said he'll take this extra time and then he'll be okay. But we all saw how he was walking after the game. He was not moving that arm. Now, we shouldn't probably bring this up because they'll probably create a rule of body weight tackles on wide receivers down the field, which by the way, that the same guy, right? Same guy did that wiped out like three guys. But I actually, I would not want anybody to get hurt, but I do think defense you want people to know you tackled them in playing the game. And that guy, that tackle, when a receiver gets bodyweighted like that by a guy with fives on his jersey, that is a-30 yards downfield, 30 yards down field.

Search and destroy make you pay. It was kind of like, whoa. I'll take that anytime on my team. You know, no doubt. Got me fired up. I love that. I love that. And it's funny because, you know, living here in Seattle area, I've always marveled at like

Tyler Lockett, man, he is, he gives himself up quick. because he doesn't want any of that. And sometimes you go, oh, you could have got a couple of extra yards, but you know what he plays every week? And I don't know what OBJ could have done in this situation because he's trying to leg it out. But that was a tough hit from a much bigger guy.

Who was coming full speed. And I was obviously impressed with the way he did that and the motor that is attached to that 55 jersey. So I'm for those plays. I hope we don't find a way to legislate that as well. But, hey, it's 2023. And yeah, we want to find ways to cure all. all ills instead of just having a having one of your buckets that says shit happens.

It does. And it has for Joe Burrow as well. Let's talk about this injury a lot bigger, probably the biggest injury going in the league right now. Joe Burrow, and we all kind of saw the situation in the game on the sideline. You knew it was a problem when he tried to throw it and the ball fell straight to the ground and he let out an obvious expletive for him. There's no sugar coating what's going on here for them, right? No, except that the injury itself and the mystery behind it, I think will cause as big a stir as the injury itself. Let's just keep it on the field for this part of the discussion. I think it may not end Cincinnati's season, but I think it ends their playoff run if Joe Burrow misses an extensive amount of time.

I mean, we all love Jake Browning in the Northwest. We saw him playing at Washington for four years, but as an NFL starting quarterback for multiple weeks, I just don't think that's going to happen for them. So it is a giant loss that I'm not, I really don't have a lot of doubt that they can't overcome. So that's part of it. The mystery, like I said, of when he really heard it, when it was an issue,

I'll let you describe to our listeners kind of what transpired before that when he got into town and all that. Yeah, I'm a little bit torn on this one. So they showed, you know, him getting off the bus and he had some kind of a little brace maybe on his throwing hand, up maybe more of a wrist type of a brace.

And then there was a really, actually an interesting discussion on social media that came out of this. And I thought it was interesting. I think we saw, you know, some people saying, oh, my gosh, this is a huge violation. They were hiding an injury. And then there were others, I believe Mitch Schwartz, the former player, it was a former player. Whoever it was a former player was saying, hey, look, everybody's got something every week here. and I go back to when I was a beat reporter and you'd watch practice back then and you would see things that you,

you know, you couldn't always report every detail of everything you saw in practice, right? If they were working on a trick play or something, you're sworn to secrecy that we're not going to write about that that week. Well, the injury thing was always kind of, you know, could be sometimes a point of dispute between the media and the team over, hey, what can we report? And the team would often say, look, if the, the player isn't limited in practice. If he takes all his reps, we don't, we're not putting down a hang nail or certainly there used to be back in the day if your quarterback had injured ribs or something. You don't want to put that out there.

So if the guy practiced all of practice, it's like, hey, we don't have to put him on the report. That is kind of the interesting part of this to me because there are a lot of guys who practice and don't miss a play, and they probably don't put on the report. But when you get the scrutiny and it's a quarterback and it's his throwing hand or it's Bejohn Robinson, somebody who's, you know, a prominent player. Atlanta, they had a little bit of an issue with the reporting of it. And now there's gambling involved, a lot of that. Maybe the stakes are higher and maybe more stuff needs to be put on there.

What do you think? If you were the other team or somebody, should this have been listed that he had a hand that was pottering him? Well, I don't really care, to be honest with you. If he plays, he plays. We're not going to play against him or treat him any different if he's right wrist is sore. So it really doesn't matter to me. If the injury was reported or not, But my guess is, and you mentioned that the leaning in that the league is done to gambling is going to change the way things get reported. And I think we've seen, and you mentioned them, a couple of loopholes here where I agree with Mitchell Schwartz and that everybody is banged up to an extent and everybody has something that could go on the list. What I don't like is the entitlement that a lot of people come across with in that they think they need to know everything because the league now is embraced gambling. and so all these people that make every little bet on certain things, great.

If you want to have that clean of a slate, then go bet on baseball or something else. But football is just not like that. If guys don't miss time, if guys practice fully and are not limited, I'm not sure that they need to be on there. So I think too much information is an issue. I think it then becomes cumbersome to the teams. What do we report? What do we don't report? From a competitive standpoint, I don't really care.

I know if Joe Burrow shows up, and before that injury, the Ravens were defending him the same. So that part doesn't matter to me. And maybe I need to see it better from the better standpoint per se. But I just don't think that now that the league has leaned into betting that every person now is entitled to every little information, every step of the way. And so that's where my pushback comes from. Yeah, interesting. I notice in our notes here, Randy, your notes on the Bengals were like, hey, all the air disappeared immediately from both sides of the ball when he left the game. The defense wasn't tackling as well in the second

half, and the Ravens really pushed it down their throat. So that lets you know a little bit how Burrow dependent they are. What a leader he is for that team, what a needle mover he is, and you can't fool the players. They know what they know what he means to their team, right? I mean, it's a huge wind out of their sales. I think they know it. And they also know what, and again, I'm not beating up on Jake Browning, but they know what Jake Browning is compared to Joe bro too. So yeah, that's a hard one. That leads into my next point of discussion,

staying in the F.C. North with the news that Deshawn Watson is out for the season. There's a couple ways we can attack this. I want to talk about Watson and his future, but does the air not go out of their team to the same degree, I would guess? Even though Deshaun Watson's a big name

and has been a star player in the past, it wasn't like he was carrying them this year. Maybe they have a better chance to ride this thing out? Well, I don't think there's any question they do. Deshaun Watson has been a Johnny come lately for them. Really hasn't even played well when he has played. And we all know how much rust he's tried to kick off from really being inactive for two and a half years. So I don't think that the same degree of importance to the team that he's even in the Joe Burrow area code. So

I do think they can come back from Watson being down. I feel bad for Watson having to probably miss now another half of a season. It's not going to help his long-term production for the Browns, but I do think they are prepared to deal with it. You know, PGA Walker, they've won games with. Now this week it's going to be DTR, whether they can win with him, I don't know. But I think they at least are prepared and have a defense that is not dependent on the quarterback being the star or carrying them.

And therefore, I think there's a couple differentiations between them and the Bengals. So we'll get to them in those replacement quarterbacks, but I just want to talk about Watson a little bit. We've seen him for basically six games in each of the last two years, and it hasn't looked great. I think that he has certainly distinguished himself with his toughness and willingness to play. He obviously wasn't right this year.

But what do you think of his outlook for 2024? This is sort of the second year in a row where it's like, okay, this year doesn't really count, but let's get him healthy and ready to go. are you, how worried are you about him ever being able to be good again? Well, I'm worried about it for sure. The bad thing is the Browns can't do anything about it. It's not like they can cut him or even not deal with him because they can't. As we know, his next three years are guaranteed at a cap dollar number of $64 million per year.

That's hard to deal with. That's going to be 20% plus of their total salary cap. They knew that. I'm going to credit the Browns with knowing this because they know. negotiated this contract and have to have had a plan of how they want to deal with this. What that is, time will tell. But they cannot get rid of Deshaun Watson. It is what it is. It's problematic. Will he come back? I think he can come back. But there is a little bit of mystery as to this injury, throwing shoulder. I don't know. I mean, I don't think it's

a high probability that we ever see the Deshaun Watson that was seen in Houston. for those last couple years. I don't think that's going to happen. I think that ship has sailed. They are certainly pot committed, right? To use kind of a poker term here where they put so much into this that they can't really get out of it. And so they probably have. Not really. They can't.

Yeah. So they really have no choice but to sort of keep buying into it. And the salary cap part to me is manageable if the owner is willing to keep spending, throwing money after money because you can keep pushing the hits into the future caps. They've already redone his deal once without extending it. They could do something similar. They could add dummy years to it and kind of ride it out as the salary cap goes up. And if you're willing to make similar bets on other players, which they have been so far,

like I mentioned in a column I wrote for Thursday, they have 11 players in their roster earning $12 million or more per year. It's by far the most. in the league, not by far. There's a couple of teams close behind. But they are willing to spend. So if they are willing, and they also have good players. They have some good players in that team. So if you're willing to extend a bunch of guys and push money out, they can definitely do that. And the question I have in the end is, at the end of all of that, can Watson still hold up his end? I think he doesn't have to be a top five quarterback in the league, but I think you don't want him to

be too much lower than the top 10 for what you're paying him to be able to really compete. And then, oh, by the way, there's no guarantee you're going to stay as good on defense or offensive line. Things can happen to change that over the next couple of years while you try it while you maybe pour more money in to buy yourself a bigger window. It's pretty fascinating. Yeah, I agree with you. And you might know the answer to this. What would be a question in my mind is where does their total team cap stand in 25 and 26 with his numbers? penciled in there because let's face it if he's got a $64 million cap charge and if they don't push it out in the manners that you've mentioned can they improve as a team they've got to find ways to improve

and to adjust and have some flexibility year in and year out these guaranteed dollars and that's a whole other topic but these guaranteed dollars are problematic it it limits your versatility in how you build out your team because of the cap per se we don't have a luxury tax like they do in baseball. We can't just say we're going to pay more than this and then pay a tax at the end of it. That's not the way it works. So I would be interested to see and study their cap as it extends out and see the other players who these 11 guys are who are paid the 12 million plus and see where those contracts expire. You know, I used to have a board in my office and I think most people probably do where it had your depth chart, you know, in depth chart fashion, but it had the contracts

and the length of them listed out so that you knew what year deals expired, voided, or when you were going to have a void at a particular position. I'd be interested to see that for the Browns in going forward. I think they are what they are this year, and they're probably all are what they are next year. They're going to give Deshaun a chance to come back on that. But it's 25 and 26 that I would want to know where they are how it compares to these other high-paid players.

and can we add to this team or not. Does anybody think they're a Super Bowl team right now? I don't. Maybe on defense you can make a case that this defense can get you there, but they're going to have to find a way to improve their offense, even though their O line is good. They're going to have to find, in my opinion, some better perimeter players and some more options on offense.

Well, Josh Dobbs' performance with Arizona and now Minnesota was really not predicted by a lot of people, if I go back. I mean, it's easy now to say, oh, you had Josh Dobbs. You should have kept Josh Dobbs. I don't think we did a special podcast at the time. saying, oh my gosh, how in the heck can Cleveland let someone of Dobbs caliber go? Now, the Browns, though, obviously had a lot more information than we did. I think they wanted to get a pick for Dobbs because they're getting as many picks as they can

after trading them all away for Watson. But they had Watson on their team. They had Dorian Thompson Robinson on their team. They had PJ Walker on their team, and they decided to get something for Dobbs. Now, do you have a pro, it's easy to second guess that they should have kept Dobbs now. do you think that's fair to do based on what we thought of Dobbs then? I don't know that I have a criticism of the deal with Dobbs. My criticism would be the decision to go with a rookie backup quarterback.

And that's really what they decided to do by moving on from Dobbs. Because they didn't have PJ Walker when that decision is made. PJ Walker was cut by the Bears and brought on the practice squad later. So that wasn't part of it. Yep, you're right. So their decision was that DTR looked great in preseason. Let's go with it. Yeah, not so fast.

There's a difference between preseason and regular season. And I know we'll get to this later, Mike, in the GM Notebook, but there's a lot of these decisions that kind of don't pass the smell test for me. So who's deciding what in Cleveland? I don't know yet. So I'm not ready to place playing, that's for sure. Yeah, interesting. So let's talk a little bit about Dorian Thompson Robinson.

What do you know about them? Can Cleveland kind of keep being a six and three? type of team with him. It's not like we said. It's not like the past game has been worth anything with Watson in there. He completed 14 to 14 in the second half against Cleveland, but look at the throws. There's a bunch of them behind the line of scrimmage. I think 11 of them didn't go more than five yards down field. He couldn't throw. A couple of them were intermediate passes, 17, 18 yards down the field. But the past game has not been what has been sustaining them. So is the drop-off to even a Dorian Thompson-Robinson, is it more of a drop-off?

drop off in name? What can he do? Can you give us a quick eval of him? Well, having studied him from college, I can say this. And we all know he played for Chip Kelly at UCLA. It seemed like he was there forever. And he did improve as a starting quarterback. I remember looking at him his first couple years at UCLA and I said, no way. This can't happen in the NFL the way this kid's operating. And he got better. But I still think his accuracy is erratic. His ability to process is erratic. And some of that's just the natural adjustments to the NFL speed of the game. So, yeah. see that. Yeah, hasn't played. And they found that out. Hey, they already rolled him out one time as a

starter and they said, whoa, whoa, after a week, we can't do this. And this is how PJ Walker got installed. So I think what happened was PJ Walker just made the mistake at the wrong time, which led them to possibly losing a couple games because of the untimely mistakes that he made. And so they figure, hey, we've given DTR a chance now to catch his breath. It's going to be different this time around. he's a little more light on his feet. He's a little more dynamic athletically than PJ is. So let's give him a roll and see where we're at. And hopefully they catch lightning in a bottle.

I don't know. I mean, their MO isn't going to change. They're still going to run the ball. They're still going to have to play great defense. And guess what? Their defense is probably going to have to score like it did last week in Baltimore. Their defense scored on the pick six. So they're probably going to have to have that same formula going forward,

regardless of who the quarterback is. But I just think at this point, Stafansky thinks he can manage DTR better than he was able to manage PJ Walker. Joe Flacco in for a workout. That had to get you excited, huh? Yeah, I was all stirred up on that one. Holy mackerel. Joe Flacco, who, no disrespect, we understand his career. He rolled the dice. He was the highest paid player in football. But I think he's outstayed his way in the NFL about by three years. He got a few extra years?

Yeah, he's got a few extra years. In fact, we know how bad the Jets have been wanting a quarterback. They wouldn't even have him back. And that was his last stop. So that is an indicator right there that even the Jets where he spent the better part of the last three years with them, they wouldn't even take another bite of that apple. So I don't know. I just think it's a disaster plan option for Cleveland. I don't think Joe Flackle would come in there and play ahead of the two guys that are there. He's probably a third guy.

And let's face it, when you get to your third or fourth QB in an NFL game or the NFL level, you're done. All right. Let's just face it. You're done. you can think you're smarter than everybody else and have a deeper roster, but you're done. Your third or fourth guys aren't going to factor in. Yeah, that's true, except, you know, in this division, you take Burrow out, right? You got Kenny Pickett hasn't exactly been setting the world on fire.

So in that division, I think Cleveland can still be the second team, possibly. We'll see how they're able to manage it. Maybe so. Crazy. But Flacco doesn't do it for me. I just, I think they're looking at, and this is the point I think that you're seeing around the league. and probably to some extent why Cincinnati settled on Jake Browning, the football acunem and the smarts is now becoming the number one critical factor in a backup quarterback.

I heard O'Donnell, the coach from Minnesota, make the same remarks about their acquisition of Josh Dobbs in that they knew how smart this kid was. And let's face it, it makes sense. They don't get any reps. They're not going to get any time with the first team, but they're going to be expected. the play like the quarterback that just got hurt. And that's what you see in Dobbs. You saw a guy learn in two or three days. And these other guys that are now being mentioned, Jake Browning's the same way. I'm sure Flacco is the same way. He's going to have things sorted out in a matter of days,

not weeks. And that's now a critical factor. So Dobbs, you know, is known for being so smart because he's a, you know, 4.0 guy, right, with the internship with NASA, all this stuff. I mean, but what's been amazing about him is his running ability, he's been. been a huge part of this. So as you were saying, the smarts is a big part of it. I agree. That's typically what a lot of teams have wanted in a backup quarterback, the comfort of, hey, we don't have to coach him to learn the system, even if he's not that good. Like, he can execute the offense. He doesn't need reps. He can execute our offense. We don't have to work as hard as coaches when we know. That used to frustrate you, Randy, as a GM.

The offensive line coach wants a 35-year-old guy because he doesn't have to coach him, right? Doesn't have to coach him, yep. But I would say this about Dobbs, like. He's running for all these plays. I don't remember Dobbs being this known as Mr. Scramble, but that's been a huge part of his game. Giant. And you saw the reaction of the coach, right? When he ran for that touchdown,

he kind of just threw up his hands and said, I don't know what I just saw. I don't know what happened. Yeah, it wasn't part of his evaluation either because that's above and beyond, right? What's the EPA on Dobbs running for a touchdown like that? Where he gets away from. Mueller bringing EPA up.

I like this. Well, only because he was my coach. and you'll tell me what I'm actually saying. I love it. No, that is outstanding. You see, you're coaching me up. There's one or two things I can bring you along on. But yeah, it's good.

I know it's good. Okay, it's good. Dobbs, scramble, EPA. We'll look that up. But that's a good one for him. I love that. Kevin O'Connell was miced up for that game, I think, and they had the camera on him. Sometimes that affects the authenticity.

But I thought it was still pretty authentic. He's looking, he's watching Dobbs Xxie display. And he's like, oh, he wasn't really going, no, no, no, yes. But it was kind of one of those, what are we doing? and he's like, he just turned around. Literally had his palms up, literally had his palms up and shrugging his shoulders as to say, I can't tell you what happened. I don't know what he did.

No idea. It's really, really fun. It's fun for them. So, yeah, I could just keep talking about Dobbs and the Vikings as they go to Denver. That's a fun one. We've been talking about, though, backup quarterbacks and the team's prospects of that. Sometimes I'm pretty good with the segues, Randy, in our next topic. Sometimes they're just right there and we just shift gears.

but I don't know that we have a great one for shifting into the bills. I don't think they need Josh Dobbs or a backup quarterback. I think they're fine, obviously, with Josh Allen. But they're not fine in other ways. And we'd be remiss if we didn't discuss the firing of Ken Dorsey there. And then, shoot, we had Stefan Diggs' brother tweeting stuff, just all contributing to the overall feeling of Bill's disarray. What do you make of it?

Well, I think it's more fallout from the 13 seconds two years ago from that meltdown in Kansas City. And I said at the time, that might have been the greatest game I've ever seen. But I also thought those 13 seconds would be analyzed more in the annals of football for the next 50 years than any 13 seconds ever. And I think that a lot of people have analyzed those 13 seconds on a lot of levels, not just for play, but for coaching, for strategy, for judging personalities, for accountability. that 13 seconds is still haunting the Buffalo Bills in my opinion. It's cost Leslie Frazier, his job a year later. I'm not saying that the 13 seconds is the reason Ken Dorsey got fired, but we learn about people in times of strife.

And I think we're learning a lot about McDermott, the coach of the bills in times of strife. We're learning about accountability. Some are more accountable than others. Do you think it was Ken Dorsey's fault that they had extra guys on the field and that's why the miss field goal got a second chance. Even the fumble and drop passes and stuff. I mean, I don't know.

Just kind of red bad for me. It was kind of, oh, man, we're going to point the fingers here. I know this. There's no more fingers to point at. So if Sean McDermott doesn't get it settled, you might look at the bills and them being in the market for some amount of change. I'm not saying it's him. But I'll say this about Sean McDermott.

And you might know him better than I do. I don't know the man, have never met him. he comes across to me as being very uptight very i cannot wait to to pass the buck when they asked him after the game mike about that uh 12 man on the field the first thing out of his mind was well we practiced that three times we practiced that three times that tells me he couldn't wait to shift blame to somebody else by saying we practiced it i had him ready that's not my fault we had him ready. That reeks of issues for me in the building. Most of the time, like an insecurity type thing. Yes, very much so. When coaches always jump to, hey, we practice that, it's like they can't wait to get it off

of their plate and to blame somebody else. And that, that permeates with me a lot of times when I hear Sean McDermott and just kind of his roughness, his gruffness, his demeanor when it comes to mistakes, when it comes to calling things out. I just never know how authentic that is. I'd love to see him just say once, hey, blame me for that one. Blame me for that one. I should have had us more prepared for that. Here's some other things I did that I wish I could have done different.

But there's never any of that, at least that I hear, from Sean McDermott. Well, sometimes he says, hey, I'm ultimately responsible, but then gives the three reasons why it was something, you know, the special teams coach. It's got to be authentic. Yeah, the special teams coach this last time, you know, on the substitution pattern, on the 12 men on the field, that type of stuff. So I have felt like Buffalo was a place. We could feel some kind of an implosion possibly coming.

If you were to go from 30,000 feet and look at what they've done there, you would say Sean McDermott should have his name on the Ring of Honor and should be able to be the head coach there as long as he wants. If we were just looking at this from, hey, look, when they got there, they hadn't been in the playoffs for 17 years. He got there. They went to the playoffs right away. And then they've, even now,

a time of total crisis. Shoot, they're five and five. Half the league would love to be in the position there in at five and five. That being said, I think what you're kind of getting at and have alluded to is the idea of sometimes there's a shelf life for certain coaches in certain places. And I go back to even Andy Reid, who hired Sean McDermott in Philadelphia, there was a time when his run in Philly, it was just sort of time to move. on. We're talking a little bit about that with Bill Belichick after 20 years in New England. Maybe it is just time. This would be a pretty quick time for your time to be up. But given all of the water and the bridge, all the things that have happened there, it may be a situation.

I guess if I was the GM, I wonder, what would I be investigating and thinking? And you mentioned the accountability thing, but how do you balance the fact that, Sean McDermott has a great record and has done a great job versus the feeling of, look, we just need to have something different. And it's not personal. It just may be time. You got to balance that, right? I think any time a team underachieves, you put a reasoning or two on them.

But if that doesn't hold water, then it sometimes can come back to that coach and his personality. Having been in some buildings where the coach is hard to deal with, it seems like there are more arrows coming. those type of personalities way when it fails on the field because it's not warm and fuzzy because it's not a likable dude for the most part whether that's with the media or sometimes even in the same building it's hard to to garner support sometimes if if others feel that way in the building especially so it's a struggle I think at some point at the very least and I don't think Sean I don't think he's in trouble. I don't think he's going to get fired. I think he would have another year beyond that. But I do think at minimum, they need to freshen up the offensive scheme. I think they're

going to have to find a way to better present Josh Allen and his skill set with something that works on a more consistent basis. And I think if nothing else, maybe they go back to a little bit of that wild carny ride that he's taking them on to where I just feel like Josh Allen has kind of been beat down to where now the swagger isn't what makes Josh Allen. I'm all for not throwing picks and for taking care of the ball. I know, but he is. He is. But there were a couple last week that weren't his fault either, the one that bounced off the receiver's hands.

There's a couple other turnovers that not necessarily all on him. But I just think that he needs to be given a certain amount of rope to be Josh Allen, too. He's not running like he used to. He's not. And again, we're critical of this because he put his body in harm's way. So there's a fine line between reeling him in and letting him be Josh Allen. So I do think there's some freshness needed. I just don't know if Joe Brady's going to be the answer, but that's the only option I guess they had this year. See, I see the freshness, though, needed with the whole

program. We talked, as we talked last week, when she was under fire, we both agreed. The offense wasn't really the problem. Sure, there's things you could change, but they've gotten some age on defense and then the overall tenor of the leadership. I just don't think it's going to happen. I agree with you. I just don't think it'll ever happen like that. Okay. I think he carries so much weight. And here's another one. Who is really in charge? I do know the owner's in charge because he owns the team. So it's a matter of who has his ear.

Oh, yeah. And how settling is the case made for, hey, is this the right long-term direction for us, you know? I think the rest of the season is going to be pivotal on this. Because if they come out and have no emotion and lose to the jets or, you know, just don't look like they've got any punch to them, that will be read into the evaluation, of my opinion. I think that we need to see how does this team? Does this team rise up? Do they have any fight to them? Is there any substance to this?

Or are they just going to go down and then a blaze of, you know, mistakes and not taking full accountability and all of that type of stuff? Sometimes the player's reaction to this tells you kind of the way they feel about leadership as well. So that will be interesting to watch, effort, all that stuff. Yeah. I have loved the reaction of what people are saying. Yeah, that could be right. I don't know. I was going to ask you, does this is a Stefan Diggs thing raise your antenna at all?

Yeah, that's botherser for sure. And then when he was asked about it, he didn't really say he didn't really stand up for Josh Allen or anybody else. He just basically said, hey, I didn't say it. I think there's some feeling that he probably thinks he had a lot to do with making Josh Allen. Well, he's a brother obviously does. Yeah. So I don't know. I do think your description of disarray is true.

and I would like to keep a close eye on the effort level of these players the next couple weeks. I think you hit the nail on the head there. Yeah. And I always felt that Stefan Diggs was a shelf life player too. And obviously was in Minnesota. And it is in Buffalo. And so there's just a whole shelf life idea of Buffalo to me with head coach, with situation, and all of that. And so like I said, we got a lot of season left.

It's not done. They have talent on the team. But if I'm watching as the owner, I need to see some signs of life here. I need to see that we're not just going down in a nose dive. Because if we are and we don't pull out of it this year, I don't know what makes me think we're pulling out of it next year. That's just my point. I agree with you. And it sounds like a column for the athletic there about framing it as who has the owner's ear.

Yeah, could be. Could be. All right. Let's stay in the AFC. We've talked about Joe Burroughs' health being up and down. down. We talked about the bills being in some form of crisis. We talked about the Brown's quarterback situation. The chargers are obviously faltering. The Steelers are kind of, eh, whatever. The jets don't have Rogers. So obviously everybody should be talking about how the Jaguars are

ready to make a deep playoff run, huh? They're, uh, Mr. GM. But it's hard to do after they lost 37 to three or whatever last week. But I just think the Jaguars are kind of an interesting team. It has a good record. But I'm not sure how good they are. What do you think? Well, when you mentioned to me this a couple days ago, I did dive into the film room where I get a lot of my answers. And I probably agree with you to a certain degree. But I came out of this film room with a bad taste in my mouth if I'm the Seahawks or the Rams or the Cardinals. Because guess what? The 49ers are back, buddy.

I'm telling you. They are back and they are back on defense. and they came out of the gate against the Jaguars last week with five down linemen. I thought I was watching the Chicago Bears, man. They came out and came after Lawrence and there was no prisoners. They started fast. They pressured them. The Jaguars were caught totally on their heels, got punched in the jaw and had no response.

This game was over early. And as evidence, 34 to 3, it was about that close. I think the 49ers, Javon Hargrove, who we heard a lot about in the off-season. season when they acquired him, but not so much up until now. He decided he wanted to play last week. Chase Young, great addition. They were lining up all over the place. They now alternate seven guys up front alone, and they gave the Jaguars fits. So I thought that game was much more about the 49ers being ready for prime time than the Jaguars not. And so I agree with you. I think the Jaguars aren't ready yet, but they, I think, can learn from this. I think this was a very important. I think this was

awakening for them. They got slapped around. I think they would be the first to admit it. They weren't ready for it. And I think it was a learning step for them. In fact, we'll see when we get to our picks. I'm not ready to give up the ship on the Jags yet. But I do think that the story for me coming out of that game was more about the 49ers than it was about the Jags. So great. I'm going to balance your film work with a little bit of stat work here. Oh, there we go. There's a shock. We're going to have some numbers. Well, this year, just big picture, the Jaguars are better statistically on defense and special teams than where they were last year.

I got you. And I agree with that on film, too. But statistically, the offenses are in the league that have gotten the worse from last year, year over year, are the, in this order of the giants, we could all see that. The Browns, they were actually better with Preset last year. They've been really bad on offense. The chiefs who are still pretty good on offense, but were amazingly good before. So we're not as overly worried about them.

But the Jaguars, who were probably decent on pretty good on offense and are now or not, then the Raiders, Jets, and Panthers. So the problem I have with this is we were hanging our hat coming into the year that Trevor Lawrence is ready to go. Next step. Here we go. This guy's ascended. He's already now, now he's moved into the top 10 or 12 quarterbacks in the league.

And by the end of this year, we're going to feel like he is knocking on that door to get into the top tier of quarterbacks in the league. and I think if anything, we don't, we would feel like he's the same or falling off some. Doug Peterson did mention that he's had a knee injury, which we know, and we give him credit for playing through that. But what are you seeing about him? Do you want to bet on this offense that was supposed to be good? And I don't think it's been good.

Well, they did win was at five straight before last week. So it was good enough. But I would say this, to concur with what your numbers are telling you, he did. flush early, he's not as accurate on the move. I just feel like they pressured him to the point where he made some bad decisions. So I agree with you there, but here's the other side. I don't know if anybody else has a defense like 49ers and can do that to it. So I think the 49ers personnel allow them a lot of ways to affect the quarterback. And they were able to get to Trevor Lawrence. I don't know that some of these other teams can do it. So again, I go back to the way the

49ers physically handled them up front was the key for me. So I think the Jaguars have to bow their neck a little more. And if their offense is going to be next level, they need to be more physical. They need to be able to run the ball against good teams. And they didn't do either last week. This season, they've had four like horrendous games on offense. San Francisco, Kansas City, Indy, and Pittsburgh. They've been kind of a little below average on offense against Atlanta, New Orleans, and Indy.

they were kind of a wash against Houston. I think there were some turnovers involved there. And they had a really good game on offense against Buffalo. I guess I would just like to see at some point this season that they have some good games on offense. And when you basically had one good game on offense to this point in the year, that's just a little bit concerning to me. So definitely going to have my eye on them

and what they're going to do from this point on. They've got Tennessee this week. See where the Titans are at. be a good opportunity for the Jaguars. But I'm just a little, I agree the 49ers were a big part of that story, but the Jaguars were coming off a by too. So, I think this though, Mike, too, and this is bears watching, we know the second half of NFL seasons are all about adjustments. And whether it's offensive adjustments or defensive adjustments, teams are going to figure out what you're doing. Coaches are really good at the NFL level, especially when you play teams twice. So we're going to see,

and we're going to get some answers as to what you're saying, but hey, They're 12 first downs, 221 yards all day, gave up five sacks to the 49ers. I'm not sure everybody can do that to them, but they're going to have to make some adjustments, no doubt. I'm with you there. All right. Lots of great stuff so far here, Randy. Let's dive into the GM notebook.

Got a few items in there. You alluded to one of them. What do you got? Well, there's a couple of them that might spin off a little bigger conversation as well, but I wrote a column this week for the athletic about a possibility of the Patriots trading for a coach as opposed to just signing one on the street or finding one that's available through traditional ways. If they move on. And I thought maybe if they deem they need change in New England,

then it might be worth them giving a pick or trying to find a way to get Mike Rable from Tennessee. At the same time, I could see Robert Kraft if he feels like his shelf life in New England is expired with Bill Belichick to trade him somewhere. And so I was thinking where might be an interesting place for Belichick to end up? And I've read a couple possibilities out there. Commanders was one. Carolina was one. I've also heard the Chargers and somebody saying he's a front runner there.

I can probably dispel that one in that I don't think the charges would ever, one, pay for a Bill Belichick type price tag or two, give up that kind of a structure to let him come just run the whole show. That's not their MO. So I don't think that's a great fit. But I do see some possibilities with the Washington commanders. or Carolina in that regard, to ownership groups

that might be willing to give to get. And I think that, those are possibilities. I don't know what you thought about Washington commanders or Carolina. I'd like to know, Mike, you're feeling too. Absolutely, Washington's one. In fact, there's a few people in league I talk to that have their eyes on New England a lot,

have a good feel for that. And one of my conversations maybe a month ago was the guy I was talking to was kind of saying he was predicting Washington a little bit for him too. And as a new ownership group that could use some gravitas and some guidance of how the things work in the league and you would be bringing in somebody who knows that better than anybody and just saying, hey, here you go. We've got now strong, focused leadership in our building. It reminds me a little bit of, you know, Vince Lombardi after he was done with the Packers, ended up with Washington.

And they had, I think they had a winning record. It might have been a playoff team his first year. And then he unfortunately was stricken. with cancer and that was it. He died rather quickly after that. But there'd be a little bit of historical symmetry there for a great all-time coach going to the nation's capital to get a historic franchise going again. I think if it is, I think for Belichick, it would be, I would think the flagship franchise thing would be kind of neat to him, like a, like a giants or a bears type team or a commander's type team.

not ruling out a Carolina type of thing, but I do think that is interesting. Think of it. Here's one thing I wondered about, though. So we heard the report coming out, you know, that let's just say Belichick has one more year in his deal with New England, right? If you are, if you were Belichick, you would kind of have to agree with a trade destination, and you'd have to agree with the terms of it because you don't want to go somewhere that's giving up too much to get you.

Oh, I totally agree. So how much control would he have? Let's just say it's a relatively anicable split, but it's going to be a little tense when you're moving on. Why would Bill Belichick play along with it? Would it be because Robert Kraft then could make him sit out a year by not letting him go somewhere? Or how would that work? Would Belichick have any pull in it? I don't think Robert Kraft would do anything without Bill's blessing.

So I do think it's something they would. have to work together on for sure. And let's don't forget, how did Kraft get him? He traded for him. So they already think second and third level. So I do like that about this. I agree with you on the Washington fit. The structure in Washington doesn't change because the current standards there are the

GM and all the people answer to the head coach anyway. So that doesn't change. I do think that if Bill knew that Robert Kraft had any inclination that he wasn't the guy, he would want to go somewhere else. And I don't think he wants to sit out a year at his age. So all those factors tell me that, you know, he's probably willing if Robert doesn't want him to make a deal somewhere else. And then it's his goal if once he settles on where he wants to go to get that team to pay

as little as possible. It would be a fascinating set of dynamics for sure. I just want to see Bill Belichick behind the podium there after the game in Washington when the reporter says, hey, what did you think of? Magic Johnson's tweet about your red zone offense. I would just like to see that after the game. I don't think Magic will be tweeting that if that's the case. I really don't think we'd get that to that level. I don't think he cares about what Magic thinks about how we played and the intensity we used and everything else and how we practiced that week. Yeah. No disrespect to Magic. I love them,

but we all got to stay in our lane. Well, I don't know. Magic likes to, Magic's a pretty big guy himself here too. He likes to tweet after the game, so I was half kidding, but it's kind of fun. What else he got in the notebook? Well, the second thing I had in there, it kind of ducktails off what we just talked about. GMs around the league get credit and blame for a lot of things. But fans should always, I think, try to consider before they heap praise or kill their own GM from that standpoint. You've got to understand where the structure is and the control that some of these guys have or don't have. The Watson deal made me start to think this through is who would an inner organization make sense of a deal?

like this. Any football mind would not want to guarantee a contract like this for five years. This has to come from a baseball point of view or another professional sport point of view. So it brought me back to, we all know that Andrew Barry is the GM, but Paul D. Podesta, who's grown up in baseball and has been known as an analytics guy in baseball, has the owner's ear there too and may have a lot more clout than any of us know. This move kind of had his fingerprints all over it for me. So before we beat up Andrew Barry, I just think we got to consider the ownership group and who has his ear. And so I don't know in this case what happened, but take it to the next most recent area of criticism is in Carolina where Scott Fitter is getting criticized for picking Bryce Young. We don't know where ownership

came in on this. You and I saw a couple videos the last week or so that led us to believe that The owner was heavily involved in Carolina, and I think most would surmise it that cover the team because his explanation of the probability charts that they studied on Bryce Young, giving them the highest probability of winning Super Bowls made me not chuckle. It made me laugh. I'd like to know where those problems. Yeah, I'd like to have those pearls of wisdom because I think any team would love to have the probability charts in front of them before they drafted anybody for any reason. I just don't think that's realistic. And so I just think, you've got to understand how these GM's hands are tied or not.

I know this. I spent 35 years in the league myself. I had really unfettered ability to build my own team one time. And that was in 2000 with the New Orleans Saints one time. So that was lasted for three seasons, three drafts. And I was a GM most thought in Seattle and by title in Miami. But I never really had full control of everything that would amount to a team build. So most of these guys in the league, I'm going to say most of them, about a third of them don't still have final say in control.

So all I'm asking is that people realize before they start slinging arrows, how easy my team set up and do I really know who's pulling the strings? Yeah. Yep. I think that is a hard thing sometimes to know where the, it's hard to know where to always give the credit to. And it's hard to know sometimes where to give the blame to. And some of that is, you know, conveniently masks the responsibility for who did. it or who wanted to do it. We don't really know. I've always felt like, you know, I've always kind of, I'm interested in the evaluation of owners too, right? And just what's the best way to evaluate them? And so in some instances, Mike, even the cap guy who operates behind the scenes, but he has the owner's ear and can control whether deals get done or not, in some places, that guy has a lot more weight than people realize. He can always say, hey, I couldn't get it done.

We couldn't get to the right number. Blah, blah, blah. I've got. I've done thousands of deals. I know if a deal can get done or not. I've had to pull the plug on several deals because I just didn't think it was responsible. But I know that the guy who actually has the pencil and negotiates those deals to acquire players has a lot of clout in the room.

And that never gets talked about because a lot of times, hey, one place I was for 10 years, I felt like the cap guy controlled everything. And that's just the way it was. And that never gets talked about. And then the cap guy stays when everyone else gets fired. Forever. Got a lifetime job. It's a government work. Got a job forever. Anyway. The third thing in my notebook was, and I know we're running out of time here, so I'll try to make this quick. But I wrote this again for the Athletic this week was the contract of Dak Prescott and kind of where we're at with Dallas. You helped me a ton on this column because we did a little research on some numbers and figured out why DAC might have had an improved production the last couple weeks. Mike McCarthy's adjusting on offense, making CD land.

am available in certain ways, actually giving maybe DAC more rope to run and throw differently than he had the first two months of the year. I just feel like, and we all know Jerry is driven sometimes by public perception and he cares about what people say, why not go ahead and give him that $50 million a deal? You know it's coming. They don't have any other options in Dallas to find another quarterback. So you're saying, hey, when he's playing well, is the time to do it because it'll be received better than if you happen to do it after they lost in a playoff?

or something. Or in the off season when people are talking about it for months. The last time they did it, everybody criticized him for months. He's not worth this. He's not worth that. Well, I think if you really care about that, go ahead and extend him now. You'll know where you are from a cap standpoint before you get into next year's cap year. So before February, you'll know if you have room and space and all that and get it out of the way while he's playing really good. I don't think it's going to be reflective of you got to overpay now just because he's had two or three above average weeks. I just think it makes sense, and maybe I'm in nuts, but I thought it'd be a good time for them to, and maybe they have, open up talks with Dak and see if he couldn't make a deal.

I've been very interested in Dallas this year. I think we know what Dak Prescott is for better and worse. I mean, he's obviously played a long time. I was kind of interested in the transition to Mike McCarthy. And I think the conventional wisdom of, you know, kind of fan or media was that, oh, they were losing Kellan Moore, that could, you know, that might be bad for their scheme. And I had a little bit more of an open mind and I really wasn't sure. I think there, I think like we said early in the year, maybe there was too much of a reaction to, let's keep the interceptions down. But I just wonder if over the course of the year, you know, they're riding high now,

but can they kind of find a spot that's the right calibration for everything? C.D. Lam's obviously playing great. And as a player like that has success. You know, they buy in more and they get some momentum and they're excited to come to work. I wonder if, I wonder what this Dallas season will be ultimately. I kind of felt coming into the year as we looked at the NFC and just thought, you know, it wasn't that great beyond a couple of teams. I, you know, I've always kind of wondered coming to this year.

Could this be the year that they go a little bit deeper, you know, in the playoffs? So I don't know where you're at on that. I think we need to see the second half of the season. I guess you probably feel a little better now than you did a month ago. Well, for sure. The uptick in Dax play, who I think went from average to fairly way above average has been awesome. And I think it's been easy to see why, especially when you study the numbers.

But play it out even further in your scenario, let's say they fall off a cliff. There's going to be cries for a new quarterback. They're not going to get a new quarterback, Mike. It's just not going to be available. Who are you going to sign? Kirk Cousins to be a Dack. And you're going to have to pay him $50 million? I'd rather have DAC.

So I just don't think the options are going to be available, regardless of where this team goes for the last six or seven weeks. I just think they are what they are. And DAC has them in a corner right now. Yeah, maybe they can draft one, but they're going to be picking at the end of the first round. So unless they strike gold with a quarterback in round two, maybe like they did with DAC, it's not going to change. If you were starting a new franchise or if you were not the Cowboys, if you were another team, you would probably take Cousins over Dack, right? But you're saying if I was Dallas, I wouldn't make a change to Cousins. That's what you're saying.

Correct. I would not make a change. And I'm not sure I would take either if I was starting a new franchise. Right. Well, sometimes it's just whoever you can have, you know. Yeah. And that's my point. It's whoever you can have.

What do they say? You've got to love the one you're with. And this is it. They better love him up because they're going to take a big step back if it's not DAC. And I don't think Jerry or anybody else is willing to do that, nor should they. I know Mike McCarthy's not going to want to start to train a new quarterback in where he's at in his career and his time with the Cowboys.

I thought this was a big legacy year. for Mike McCarthy, and it still can be in that he really was seen in a very positive light with the development and excellence of Aaron Rogers. Then by the end of that, he was kind of seen that it was stale, and he was criticized offensively. Then he comes to Dallas, and he's not really doing anything because he wasn't calling the offense or the defense, and they didn't, they've won, but they haven't really won, you wouldn't say, because of something he's done. but I thought this season could be interesting for him.

If they were to make the Super Bowl or Dak Prescott were to really flourish or if their offense was to be appreciably better than it was under Killing Moore, I think it's notable. And it still remains to be seen, but it's at least trending in the positive direction now. I know playing the Giants isn't that big of a deal, but they've, you know, they've had some decent weeks here. So they've played well.

And I agree with you. I think it is a referendum on Mike. And I think it'll be a positive referendum the way it's trending that way anyway. Yeah. Well, talk about trending positively. I mean, after we really took it on the chin and the picks a few weeks ago, but we've battled back, Randy.

We are, you talk about parody, parody in the league, parody in the picks. I went two and oh last week to get to 13 and 13. After that, I had that disaster. I think I had an 0 for four weeks once, the Hail Mary week. I was right on Indy and I was right on Minnesota. Randy, you are 11, 11 and 1, where we got our heads just about. above water barely. You were one in the one last week. You were correct on Cleveland. I was worried for you for some of that game. Let me tell you when that, when Zay Flowers broke open in the

second quarter and Lamar threw that ball, if he catches that, I think the game's over, lights out. It was a little bit overthrown. So Cleveland was able to come back. And then you had Jacksonville too, which it looks like, sounds like you might stick with them this week. What do you got? Well, yeah, let's talk about that game. And we can both give our sides of the coin. Because it looks like we're going to be on different sides of it. We're going to go head to head. and I am going to double down on Jacksonville. I'm going to take them and I'm going to give the seven points versus Tennessee. I think Jacksonville's defense, yeah, I think they will have a field day with Will Levitz.

I think Will will struggle. And I think the Tennessee defense is not the 49ers defense. So I think you'll see more of a Trevor Lawrence uptick. I just think they'll be better. Again, I don't want to overemphasize, but what I saw was the 49ers playing really good. And I just think Jacksonville's better than that and better than they should. showed last week. So I think it's more of a one-off than a trend. So I'm going to take Jacksonville. I'm going to give you those seven points because it sounds like you're going the other way.

Well, I'm going to have to stick with my pick, but you have made a compelling case for me not. Oh. And I don't feel good about Tennessee. But I reserve the right to pull that money back when you when you before the card you're dealt. Before the cards are dealt, I can pull my chips back. I can put another chip on top. I don't want to shame you into having to stick with your pick for sure. I could do a side bet, you know, a suited side bet. If I'm talking about like a blackjack table, they haven't started dealing yet. So this could be dealing with this could be counting as dealing because you have your cards here shown. So you want to reserve, you're going to reserve your right and you want me to tell you my other two picks. Yeah, yeah, tell the other two. Okay. The other two

picks for me are I'm going to take Pittsburgh getting 1.5 with Cleveland. I think no matter who the quarterback is for Cleveland, I think it's going to be a struggle. I think. I think, that whole division has been turned upside down. Again, I hate picking Pittsburgh because I have zero faith in Matt Canada, but I do like Kenny Pickett and think he can overcome the OC. What are you grin at about? Are you a fan of the offense that the Steelers are running? No, I'm not at all. I don't know how you could take. I mean, I don't know what I would probably take Cleveland in the point and a half, but I'm getting a point in a half. I do want to talk to you about your love for your love for Kenny Pickett because you have been high on him. And I'm kind of with you on that

that maybe in a different setting. You know, he'd be okay. You're taking him to overcome. So, uh, okay. So I got, I got you on that. I'm smiling a little bit. That one would make me a little nervous. Your Jacksonville pick makes me less nervous. This one makes me a little nervous, but let's, let's hear the rest of it. My third pick is one in the, that's the game of the week. And I normally stay away from Kansas City, Philly type games because both teams are really good. The point spread is really down. But I just think this is a time that Kansas City is going to make a little stand. So I'm going to pick Kansas City, given the two and a half against Philly. I think Cincinnati's defense is playing at a high level at all three levels in the

secondary up front and at linebacker. So I like the chiefs in this game. And I don't mind given less than a field goal. So two and a half, two Philly. So I'm taking Jacksonville, Pittsburgh, and Kansas City. You know, Trent McDuffie's done pretty well with Kansas City. Do you know anyone who had him as their number one corner in that draft coming out? Well, you never know. Even the blind squirrel finds an acorn every now on that. No, Mueller, man, you're good. You're good.

Isaiah likely, all these guys that end up being good for the most part. Now, Pickett was another one, but we got a good reason on him, the offense around him with that scheme. But I like the chief defense. I'm with you. So here's the games that I got. See what you think. I'm going to take Arizona with the five points.

Now, I think Houston may win the game. but just to me, Kyler Murray looked pretty darn good athletically. I was surprised at his quickness, his boldness, his willingness to run. I think Arizona coaches pretty well.

You know, I think they've had a bare cupboard this year to work with with new quarterback or backup quarterbacks. And I think they have to be pretty excited by what they saw from Kyler Murray. I'm not saying he had a perfect game by any means,

but he looked like he belonged out there. It wasn't too fast for him the first game out. rusty from a movement standpoint. So I'm totally buying the Houston excitement. Love C.J. Stroud, but they did lose to Carolina. They're not the perfect team. So what do you think? I'll take Arizona in five points and just Houston may win the game. I can't dispute that. I agree. I think Kyler looked good last week, especially for having first game out of the box. So I'm with you. Yeah. I'm fascinated by that whole situation with him and them. So that was one. I will not pull back my money on Tennessee taking seven. I don't love this one.

But I do believe in the general overall trend that I don't think Jacksonville has been that good, especially on offense. I think they'll be better. But division matchup, Titans I looked up, they've covered just twice in their last seven games, just once in their past four division games, even. I think that goes back to last year. And that was against the Jaguars in Jacksonville. So it is a big week for the Jaguars. I think maybe they're going to have their San Francisco. go bounce back game. That really could happen here, but I think it would, I would feel bad pulling back the money because of your bet. I think that would be, and I'll just go with it. I'll take Tennessee,

and seven is a decent amount of points. I also have down Kansas City giving two and a half. I do Kansas City radio every Thursday. They put me on the spot for the pick. I think I had 24 to 20 or 27, 23, that type of a game, at which point, Randy, the host blurted out. was taking Kansas City to cover, and I didn't really think of it that way. But I guess I sort of am. Before you could take it back? Yeah, no, I feel like Philly, though, has done great, but is fortunate to have their records so far.

I think this is just one where they kind of go back to Ait and two, and it's no panic or anything. But Kansas City at home with, you know, on a national TV game with Andy Reid, I know both teams had two weeks, but Andy Reid two weeks. Mahomes sort of feeling and talking about after the last game, we've got to get this offense going. They've had some time to probably work on some things. So I would take Kansas City. Maybe they only win by a field goal. Maybe they win by more. But I feel okay with it at two and a half. I feel okay with it at two and a half.

The last one I'm going to take is I'll take the chargers and give the three at Green Bay. And I'm not a huge fan of what's going on with the chargers. But I think the Chargers have lost in some of these games where they're playing really high-powered offenses, you know, or they're getting into some games where, hey, it just doesn't quite go their way, but they're putting up points in the games, right? In the Miami game early in the year, you know, yes, after the game, we're talking about Brandon Staley's defense, but it's 36 to 34. You know, they're doing okay.

They lose to Detroit, but it's a 41-38, or it really could go either way. And yes, at the end of the day, the Staley defense, you know, is not what it should be. but they're not playing Detroit or Miami this week. They're playing the Packers. And I think the Packers have not been the type of team that's been consistent enough offensive. We've seen some flashes. You see some things you like about Jordan Love, but they just haven't really put it all together. So to me, I know I have to give three points, but this is a type of game where I feel like the Chargers,

instead of they've been losing by two or three points to these super shootout game teams. I don't see a shootout. Do you? Do you see a shootout in this game? No, I don't. I don't think Green Bay is going to be an issue out with anybody. Yeah, so I think the Chargers probably, even if it's a little bit of a struggle, get their 24 to 20 or 24 to 17 or if it really goes well, 27 to 13 type of game for them. I agree with you.

If I look at the Packers, I'm like, okay, are they going to be three and nine here? Or do they beat a decent team at some point? Their wins are Chicago, the Saints barely when they were down 17 points, the Staffordless Rams. they are three and six with the Chargers, Lions, and Chiefs up next. The league surprises us, Randy, and teams do rise up. But I don't know. Sounds like the Packers are probably, need to be part of our show next week.

I was just thinking of that today, like, hey, the Packers lose almost every week. I know they won't beat the Rams, but we don't really talk about it. We just take it in stride. Like, you know, hey, it's another loss. And, you know, watching, it's more than just, you know, obviously moving on from Aaron Rogers, but the consistency of the passing game and being able to complete some of these passes is disjointed for them this year. So probably is something to talk about. Maybe there's some a new angle to it too, you know, and just looking at them and maybe they beat the charges

this week and there's less to talk about. But I do think that's something to have on our radar. You got anything else? No, I think that wraps it up. We've extended ourselves today. So hopefully our listeners enjoyed it and look forward to doing it again before we know it. I love the convo, Randy, I used to, when we first started doing this, you know, I would be a little nervous going in about do we have enough things or how's our notes. And it's really funny because like last night after the game, we had no notes put down. I mean, we're thinking about it. We're talking about it, but we go from, it's not like we're scripting the whole thing out. So I really enjoy that part of it. We're able to just kind of go in some different directions. We have a guide. We have a menu. But if we want to go

off a little bit and something else comes to our mind, we can do that. We do that a couple times today. We left a couple things on the cutting room floor. We had a couple things in there that maybe we'll hit in the future, but always a lot of fun. Best luck to you with your picks. And happy Thanksgiving, everybody, too. Next week with the Thanksgiving holiday,

we will not be doing the Friday show. We've got the three games on Thursday, but we will not be doing the Friday show. So this will be our last time for a couple of weeks. We will talk to everybody then, and who knows how many quarterbacks will even be left in the league by then, Randy. We may be looking at a A few more backups, hopefully not, but it's been that type of year.

A lot of things change in a short amount of time. We do know that. We do know that. Happy Thanksgiving to everybody. Happy Thanksgiving and everybody. You can find Randy's work. You can find mine both on The Athletic. You can search for us for the little author search there.

And you can find us both on X at Randy Mueller underscore at Sandow NFL. We'll talk to you next time. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.