The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Jim Irsay speaks out on Dan Snyder, Cardinals trade for Robbie Anderson, Bailey Zappe makes case to start & more

Episode Date: October 20, 2022

It was an eventful week at the NFL owners’ meetings. Mike Sando and former GM Randy Mueller break Jim Irsay’s viral comments regarding Dan Snyder’s future in the league. Plus, should we be worried about Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers? They discuss their concerns for the Bucs and Packers before talking about Bailey Zappe’s case to start and the Cardinals trade for Robbie Anderson. They close out the show with Russell Wilson’s numbers this season and their Week 7 picks.Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTube2:04-11:01 NFL owners’ meetings drama11:02-15:14 Texans fire Jack Easterby15:15-30:24 Should we be worried about Brady and the Bucs and Rodgers and the Packers?30:25-37:09 Is Bailey Zappe the real deal?37:10-40:54 Cardinals trade for Robbie Anderson40:55-45:05 Russell Wilson’s struggles continue45:09-55:32 GM Notebook55:33-57:55 Week 7 Picks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome, everybody. It is a new day on the Football GM podcast here on the Athletic Football Show feed. Mike Sandow here from the Athletic, along with Randy Mueller, the GM. We have moved up to Thursday. So, Randy, does it feel any different to you? Yeah, it's a big difference, Mike. I'll tell you what, one day he just got me totally off my game.

And chaos just broke out in my office five minutes before we did this. I'm going to blame it. I'm going to blame it on. a different spot in the batting order. That's exactly what I'm going to do. Oh, we don't have a bad Thursday night game to talk about, so I guess that's fine. Well, as far as we know, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

But we have a ton to talk about here, Randy. We're going to talk about the league meetings drama. Usually the league meetings, I think of it, are in March. But we've got the in-season league meetings. We've got Daniel Snyder. We've got Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft, throwing punches at each other, not quite. We've got Jim Ursay. Under the cover of all this, Jack Easterby slips into the night.

Remember him? God, that was a name. we used to hear about a lot. Tom Brady and Aaron Rogers are, for the first time since 2012, neither one of them is above 500 through six games. I looked that up, a little research. We're going to talk about Bailey Zappy, Randy's number two quarterback in the last draft, making some noise in New England, maybe making some choices for Coach Bill Belichick. We've got the Cardinals making a trade for a wide receiver. We've got the Broncos. Amazingly, through six games with Russell Wilson, they are averaging fewer points per game on offense.

than they have with any other quarterback who has started at least three games. That includes Paxson Lynch. So we'll talk about that. We got the GM notebook with trade deadline stuff, including Christian McCaffrey. You don't want to miss that. We'll get into our picks, which will be even better this week. Let's do this, Randy. Sounds good, Mike.

Happy to be here and excited to talk about some of these things. This owner's meeting that happened this week. It just makes me smile. It makes me laugh. You can't make this stuff up. It's crazy. Yeah. So, you know, in your years as GM, who goes to the one during the season?

Is that, you know, if you're the GM who's in charge of the football ops, or you're not really going to that one, right? Well, no, and it depends. You know, you might have one in October. I think they have another one later on in late November. That's kind of a, oh, a salary cap type meeting. So everybody goes to that one. Yeah, it just depends on what's going on in the league.

And most of the time, anything that happens in October, is kind of privileged information. So it might be an owner plus one. And that's really about all that we'll get in on some of the juicy conversations anyway. Per team. So the owner, maybe the team president or someone in lieu of the owner even could go to that one. But it's the highest level and not necessarily always the football GM, right? Right.

That's right. So in that setting, these are the most mature people then, right? This is the really well-adjusted, most mature people. So Jim Mersey, owner of the Indianapolis Colts goes on camera with all that's going on with Dan Snyder, the Washington commander's owner talk about ousting him. It would take 24 votes to get him out of there. He says there is merit to consider removing Dan Snyder as owner. He's asked Jim Mersey is, does he care that Dan Snyder might have dirt on the owners,

like the ESPN piece by Seth Wickersham and Don Van Netta? suggested. Ursae says, I could care less. You can investigate me until the cows come home. That's not going to back me off. Private investigators or any of that stuff. I had to laugh, Randy, because I would love to read the private investigator file on Jim Ursay if he is one. I mean, that's probably more entertaining than anything, more entertaining than Thursday night games. But what are your optics on all of this? Is it as simple as, oh, that's Jim Ursay. You know, he's liable to say anything. What do you think? Well, I think that's what the league would like is to believe. I think the way Roger came out and was asked a few minutes later if he was surprised. He said,

no, I'm not surprised. You know, here's the thing. And maybe I'm just cynical from all of my adult life behind these doors. But nothing happens without Roger's approval. And nothing is going to change that. They have made up their mind kind of the case timeline, how it's going to go. And it wouldn't shock me if they sent Jim or say out there to have this conversation. He's, of all people, had a checkered past. He's not afraid. Everything he said is true. He wears his emotions on his sleeve. He'd welcome an investigation because his life has been public. And we've had the ups and downs that have happened to him in a whole adult life in professional football. So I just think that the blessing was given. He sent the exact message that they wanted to.

he is in the league and Roger sent the message to Dan Snyder that, hey, there's enough here for us to come after you. So be careful. So I think in that sense it was planned. I think he was the perfect guy to do it with Jim, or say, because they can kind of roll with that and saying he operated in a rogue fashion. I don't think he operated in a rogue fashion at all. I'm telling you, there's orchestration behind the scenes that the league office is the best

in the world at it as far as I'm concerned. Yep. And the previous story by ESPN that came out that had all of this stuff in there that Dan Snyder has told people very close to him that he's got the dirt on these owners. They better watch out. To me, that information coming from someone close to Dan Snyder is also orchestrated by Dan Snyder to me because he wants to send that warning out. And sure, it comes out in a story with a bunch of other stuff. That wasn't certainly all of the story. But that's a story. but that was, to me, anyone who's close to Dan Snyder isn't going to say something that could be traceable to them. Like, these are exact quotes coming out if it's at peril to them. Yep, I totally agree. And I'm not saying anything about the league office that's being critical either. I think it's the smartest, best way to run the whole operation. I think they're geniuses, and I'll give it to them.

I think Rogers is the greatest politician I've ever been around, and I've known him for 30 years. He's excellent at it. His dad was a politician. Yeah, his dad was a politician. So I agree with him. So I get it. And I'm not saying that's not the way to go. He's always, he and the league are always a step or two ahead of the rest of us.

So if this information is coming out now, they've known about it. It's been well rehearsed behind closed doors. It's coming out for a reason. So what are the steps then? Because they will meet again in March at the main owner's meetings where everybody goes. I mean, the head coach goes. the GM and the salary cat people and owners, it's a bigger group, goes to that. Is this going to now play out that they're going to possibly have a motion to vote on

Alstingham? Or how do you kind of see that happening? What would be the next step? I think this would be a behind the door, behind the curtain type operation. Mike, I don't see it happening at a general league meeting ever. I just think there are too many people involved and there won't be in this, anything like this. If the league ever decides to do this, if the owners ever decide to do it, it'll be 31 of them in a room with Roger and they'll sort it out. And I don't think we'll know

about it until after it's done. So it won't play out in a public fashion. I don't think that does anybody any good. And that would be against anything the league has operated on before. So I just think it'll be done, it'll be done right, but it'll be done behind the scenes. And if Roger is to be taken for what his word was yesterday, they're not to that point yet. But it doesn't, doesn't keep them from shooting one over the bow back at Dan Snyder. And to me, they are heading to that point because why else have all this stuff? Why else would you even be engaging the discussion? They could say, hey, there's nothing to talk about right now unless they have some other reason

to keep pressure on Dan Snyder or have been in a conflict with them. To me, this is the steps towards eventually getting there, isn't it? Well, I think just the fact that Jim Mersey came out and said what he said tells you where it's headed. I mean, he wouldn't have done that had this not been, you know, sorted out of a little. bit behind the scenes. So I do think they're headed that way. Whether it ends in a sale by Dan Snyder, I don't know. I mean, it's unprecedented how it could happen. And we talked about it last week. It's a good news, bad news thing for the owners. But at the same time, a sale of the

Washington commanders is going to net a bigger profit than any in the history of probably sports, to be honest with you. Yeah, there's a financial motive too. Yes, that's right. Yeah, because whatever Dan Snyder bought the team for is not at all what that is going to fetch not. It'll fetch the highest price ever, and that's a feather in the cap of all the owners. So they've got a pros and cons to what they decide to do. Yeah, I see no advantage to keeping Dan Snyder. He's a liability on the league, and they can't get the stadium done there, and the franchise has been running on the ground.

It's in disrepute, and it's a pain for even to go to work there. The coaches and everybody has to deal with this stuff all the time. That's not their fault. Except that it might come back on them someday, and they don't want this precedent to be set, yes, in that it might be another owner in 10 years from now or whatever, and there's been precedent set. So the fact that it's groundbreaking is a little bit, you know, makes you to dance on eggshells if you're an owner somewhat. Yeah, the other funny thing that came out of this, well, I don't know if that was funny, but this was funny, was, I think it was Seth Wickersham reporting again. Jerry Jones saying kind of towards Robert Kraft, don't F with me.

They argued over whether to get a new contract for Roger D.E. Goodell, which it seemed like they're And again, it was a 31 to one vote to move forward with Jerry Jones as the only one saying, nope, I'd like to have it harder for Goodell to get his guaranteed money. Is that a big deal? Is that what goes on all the time? Did it just happen to get out? What do you make of something like that? Well, I don't think it gets personal like that. I've been in and around enough for those to know that there's definitely raising the voices and people can go after each other.

But I think you're right. In this case, Roger will get his new deal. I think really what Jerry's saying is, let's see how much money he can make for us. And that will determine how much we give Roger. That's the whole thing. It's the commissions and the percentage of the net that they give Roger. But meanwhile, let's just give a really big contract to Zeke Elliott. How about that?

And let's just really give a huge one to Prescott and Tony Romo and all these other guys. They don't have to prove it in the future. They can just get their money and have huge cap numbers. How about that? Probably a little bit of, you know, being in denial there for sure. Yep, yep. Okay, we'll quickly get to the Jack Easterby story. He really became a non-story.

Randy, for a while there, that's all you heard about. Easterby this. Wow, they're in chaos. And, man, I don't remember the last time we really heard about him. And now he is out. Right. No big deal? Just over?

Well, I think it's been minimized or he's been minimized to the point where it's probably not a big deal. In fact, I thought I saw Cal McNair say where his job response. responsibilities will be dissolved into the rest of the staff, you know, and they'll take them over. So I can't imagine he had a bunch going on if they're not going to replace him. I mean, I know at one point, a year and a half or so ago that I could not think of a person that had acquired his type of power and rope within an organization in such a fashion that he did.

I had never seen that in all my time. So he went from really the most powerful guy in that whole organization where everything ran through him to really being marginalized. And I guess if we were on the inside, we'd know how that happened. But I'm a little surprised by it. I'll tell you that. I'm surprised that he finally walked away. I'm sure there was some incentive to do that.

But I don't know what makes it happen now. It didn't happen, you know, a year and a half ago. I guess that's my question. Well, here's see what you think about this. There was a period there where the team was kind of going downhill under Bill O'Brien. Remember he had traded a bunch of assets away. and DeAndre Hopkins trade, which people tied to Easterbee.

He didn't want him on the team or whatever. But there was a time there after O'Brien left. O'Brien was really a lightning rod. Took a lot of criticism. And then when he got fired, Easterby became the punching bag. I mean, we didn't really know for sure what he was doing, but it was all these whispers and reports.

He's the reason behind this. He's the reason behind that. They made this trade because it's Easterby. and as they went through all of that tumult and turmoil, Easterby just got savaged. And I'm not saying he deserved it or not. But what I'm saying is that Cal McNair didn't get savaged as much. He got savaged a little bit for hiring him.

But maybe Jack Easterby served a convenient purpose in the interim while the team was in turmoil. Hey, you know what, Jack? You can take the heat. And now things have calmed down. No one's even talking about the Texans. Deshawn Watson's moved on. They're not even a story. And now Cal McNair's may be like, oh, yeah, you know, I can do, I'll have, I don't need this

anymore. I'll be one step closer to, to get in credit for whatever moves we make. Do you buy that at all? I think there's some of that. I think acting as a shield sometimes is your top decision makers role. And that's part of the job description. So he did some of that. I think there was plenty of turmoil.

There's no question. I do think they have things kind of turned around for the most part. But remember all the other exits that came out of that was when he was in charge, you know, Brian Ganey left, Chris Olson, their cap guy left. There were some very highly thought of people in that organization that all exited under Jack Easterby. So he had his swath and it was, you know, swung widely. And, you know, once Nick got there, things kind of settled down a little bit.

And ever since then, they've moved further away from what Jack had going. So I think he brought some of the criticism on himself. I mean, I remember the photos of him watching practice with a practice script. You know, like he was in charge of what was going on at practice. You know, I've been a GM for many years in the NFL and watched a lot of practices. I never felt they need to have a script of practice what's going on. I think I can trust the coaches who are going to figure that out. They don't need me monitoring it.

To be honest with you, I didn't really care. So I just think he kind of brought a lot of the criticism on himself. One, because his experience and background didn't warrant where he had gotten. And two, he just personality-wise from the people I've talked to rubbed everybody wrong within the building. Yeah, I think in New England, when you're a lower level employee building relationships over time, that's one thing. When you come in at the top and haven't earned it by anybody's stretch of the imagination,

you're not, you know, it was a new role that no one really had ever had before. Then it's really hard to have those relationships. And he was obviously ambitious to get to that point. And so we close the books on that chapter. Are we going to close the books early on the seasons of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Green Bay Packers. I had a note here when I mentioned that this is the first season, Randy, since 2012 that through first six games,

neither Brady nor Rogers are above 500. I looked at those seasons in 2012. Their teams, New England and Green Bay, combined to go 19 and 3 the rest of the way. I don't know if I'm feeling that with these. Let's start with the Tom Brady situation in Tampa. Obviously, a very tumultuous off-season. and Bruce Ariens steps down.

Brady was going to retire. Then he comes back. Then there's the whole tampering thing with Miami. And then it comes to head a little bit last week. Just a terrible game for them offensively. They lose to Pittsburgh. That left guard they had was getting Brady hit all day. Brady looked like Ben Rothersburg or so he didn't want to be there.

We can talk about that. From all angles. But yeah. But after the game, Brady said something that caught my attention. He said it's a game of earning it. It's the game of playing well and performing well. we're just not doing a good job of that. I don't think we've done it for six weeks,

and I think we're all playing less than we're capable of. That struck me a little bit. I'm sure you have thoughts, Randy, like, to me, that's getting into the head coach realm, talking about whatever achieving or underachieving or that over a six-year period. I understand these top-tier quarterbacks have a lot of leeway. What struck you about it?

Any problem with that? Brady-Ellenner's line, business as usual. What's your thoughts? Well, a couple things. One, I know the criticism that came his way because he decided to miss practice, not practice, but the flight on Friday night and go to Robert Kraft's wedding. I'll be honest with you. I can't blame that on the fact that they aren't playing good.

I mean, this is a guy that knows the offense better than anybody in the building probably. I don't think he's, you know, because he misses a few hours of being with his team that that's going to be reflective on Sunday. So I don't buy any of that. I think Tom Brady can do what he wants to do at this point. And frankly, Robert Crack. draft probably contributed maybe 300 million or so to the Tom Brady Fund over the years. So there's some respect there, and I don't blame him for going, you know. It is what it is.

As far as yelling at the offensive line, I think there's about two people in the league that could get away with that, and he's one of them. And the next guy we're going to talk about is probably another one. I think they've built up enough chips to where an offensive lineman would probably listen with respect. This guy has been there. He's done that. And guess what? Leading is hard. Being and holding others accountable is hard. And that's part of his job. I heard him say it on his own podcast. He said, it's not for everybody. It's leading has to come with accountability. And sometimes it has to be verbal. Other times it has to be giving people hugs. I mean, it's just all part of leading. And maybe he just felt like it needed to be said and done. And, and hey, he doesn't want to embarrass anybody on national TV. Unfortunately, this has happened a lot over the years. Nowadays, there's no secrets. So it's a lot. it's out there more than ever before, but, hey, maybe he felt Todd Bowles wasn't doing enough of it. Todd's running the defense, and Byron Left, which is not like that.

So maybe he just felt like he needed to be, like he said, part in, dive into a little head coach's, you know, mode per se to, to rip a couple of guys on the sidelines. Yeah, put him on notice. I think I think that's perfectly okay. Now, I don't think he can do it every week, and I don't think he will. But I think he has the, he has earned the right to kind of say what he wants, to be honest with you. Yes. Do you think they'll get it together? I don't know the answer to that.

Here's the thing I think people need to remember. They had change up front. And change in offensive lines to me are the worst thing you can do to a really, to a team. I think continuity and minimizing change, if you have good players to start with should be paramount, they didn't. You cannot, and this is another example of it, we talked about this a couple weeks ago on the podcast. You cannot plug and play offensive linemen. It just doesn't work like that. You can plug and play sometimes a receiver or a pass rusher or somebody like that, but offensive lines have to work together.

There's five of them up there. And what you see is one thing, but what they hear each other say and how they communicate is totally different. And it's a language that has to be acquired and learned. And it's hard to do in the course of one season. It really is. And they had changes all across the interior part of that offensive line. And it's showing now. They're struggling with all kinds of stuff.

Tom Brady is getting hit. he's not as functional in the pocket as he was. We know that because he's 45 years old, but he needs those guys. And I'll be honest, they haven't come through. And who's to blame for that? I don't know. I just think there's some patience that has to happen when you make changes to your offensive line.

It's one of the things that I always feared. Everybody said, hey, we're going to make some, let's find a couple new offensive line and let's move some people around. And I just pump the brakes on it because it doesn't happen overnight. And even if the guy that you bring in is a skill set, higher, there is a period of adjustment that might set you back before you get to move ahead. And I think they're in the setback part of that team development right now. Yep, yep.

So sometimes an offensive line can improve over the course of the season. You get some of that continuity. I think some of that really depends, too, on who's coaching the offensive line. I think we see some of these places like, you know, a place like Cleveland, which has good talent, but you have a Bill Callahan, you know, or in certain places in the past you've seen a Mike munchack. Yep. those types of guys, I think you feel really good about, you know, being able to drive that type of improvement over course of the season, make adjustments.

Joe Gilbert is a line coach for the Bucks. We'll see if he's able to do that. But it's critically important because obviously, like you said, Brady's not going to create much on its own. And when he's got guys falling into his lap all day, good luck. Yep. Well, and we're going to talk about offense flying too. I know you're going to want to talk about Aaron Rogers, and I'll let you lead us into it, but I'm going to end up back at this same point when it comes to the Packers. Yep.

So Aaron Rogers, after the loss to the Jets, I mean, an unbelievably bad loss to the Jets, they got their tails handed to him. Rogers said he, I wish he said he and GM Brian Gutikus, quote, have had a number of conversations, unquote, regarding potential trade deadline moves. He says he trusts the team to do something if there's a good opportunity. Um, quote, there's the possibility of certain guys emerge of us having a chance to make a run. Rogers said, I know Brian believes the same thing. I love Brian. I love the first name basis. Yeah. But if there's an opportunity, yeah, hey, Maddie did a nice job with the call sheet today, I thought.

You know, good job. He's rubbing his hair, you know. But if there's an opportunity, I would expect that Brian will be in the mix. It's so great. So great for. The thing that keeps giving, I'm telling you. They created a monster. They created a monster last year when they acquiesced and did his deal and paid him 50 million a year. Yeah. So this is part of what you get, Randy, besides the incredible player and the decision making and the referee manipulation during the game and the clock management that's probably better than coaches. You get the immunization protocols. You get the trips to Peru.

You get guest hosting game shows. You get Brian and Matt references. By the way, Craig, too. Remember Craig Rolstad was the referee, so he can call him Craig. He can call the head coach Matt. He likes Brian. He thinks Goody does a good job. I'm just going to leave it open-ended, Randy, for you on the package.

You're fixing to get me in trouble. Like, if you keep going, I don't know if I can bite my lip any longer. I'm laughing. No, you can, you know, you can bite your lip? No, no. Is Roger's going to say, I thought Randy did a bad job on the podcast? I mean, come on. I'll use your verbiage.

If the opportunity presents itself for him not to hold a ball so freaking long, that would be good, too. get it, go ahead and get it out and hit these receivers on time because he hasn't been sharp either. So I think there's plenty of blame to go around. And I agree with you, they got their asses kicked against the jets. The jets were impressive in any way you put it, they tore them up up front. These two guards that the Packers had, they've never had a longer day. Trust me, because I've never had a longer day watching them on film.

They got it handed to them. They couldn't block anybody. What did Jim Morris say? We couldn't do didly poo. Yeah, diddly poo. And it started up there because those guys could. couldn't hold the point. They got driven into him.

Did you see the one play? One of the right guard, and I'm not even going to mention names, got driven back to where he sacked Rogers. His back went into Rogers when he was trying to throw. So you can start with that. That group has issues. So does the perimeter players. So does the game planning of we ran the ball 20 times for 60 yards.

So that's a struggle. It's just, and we said this early in the season, this is not your dad's packers. This is a different group. It's different from last year. They really struggle to get free on the outside. They do not have receivers that can separate from coverage. Alan Lassard is what he is. He's not fast and he's not going to separate.

He's going to make contested catches. Romeo Dobbs is going to catch a few and drop a few more. And he's not going to get away from people either. So the reason Aaron is holding the ball, one is because he can't find anybody to throw it to. And when he does, the protection caves in and he can't have time to wait for him to come open. So they've got a lot of problems on offense. If I was Aaron, I would tighten up my own ship before I said too much more. That's all.

And the fact that he's involved in meetings with Brian Guticus, God bless him. That's great. I think Brian knows where they need help. And I would be shocked if he's not outbeat in the bushes for a receiver of some kind, whether it's OBJ or somebody that can stretch the defense and make teams defend us differently because the Jets just bludgeoned them up front. And it really wasn't even close. It wasn't as close as the score indicated that it was.

And I thought some of the times when they were trying play action, different stuff, look, they don't have time to take their eyes off of things, right? I feel like he needs to be like they're going to ask me for coaching advice. But just it feels like, like I'll tell you one, there was one play action play. He's under center. And as he's turning and going back away from the line of scrimmage, he actually looked over, I think, his left shoulder to see if the blitz was being picked up. And then by time he comes and sets up, it's caving in.

He doesn't even hardly have time to go through the reeds. I think there were probably a couple times when there was guys open, and he's not there fast enough. So I don't know what you do if you shotgun more or something, but it feels like he needs every second. And then when he goes to throw, you know how good he is sometimes Randy at just sort of the casual throw where he's not even lined up?

Like he's playing Nerfball out in New York? Yeah, yeah. So I thought a couple years ago when things were going south for him under Mike McCarthy, that stuff was really hurting. He would miss a lot of shorter stuff because he gets so casual. I think their margin for air is smaller now that like you were saying, he has to be 100% on point now. He can't be shooting fadeaway jumpers, right?

He's got to make sure he's got his follow through and his feet underneath them and doing everything almost more by the book because the margin for air is so small. What do you think of that? Yeah, no, I totally agree. I think the margin for air is smaller. And when you talk about play action, here's the one negative about play action. When you play action fake, you cannot read the blitz. There are no hot reads in the play action game.

Right. So people have figured that out. And I think I tend to agree with you. Either he's going to have to just use a dropback style fundamentals or take the snap from the shotgun if we're going to read hot. And I'll be honest with you, the Jets didn't blitz a lot. But when they did, they were very effective. So I agree with you. There were a couple times as well where a younger Aaron Rogers would have. stood in the pocket and fired it down to a deep dig.

And he didn't do that a time or two. He took the sack. So at some point, this happens to us all, Mike. Whatever we're doing, our mind makes appointments that our body just can't keep. And that was me seeing a different side of Aaron Rogers. And I'm not questioning toughness or anything like that. But I've seen him in the end make that throw many times and he didn't get whacked. He didn't do it.

He wasn't willing to the other day. And I noticed that with Brady too in his game. I mean, he'll stand in there and take a hit, but after you take too many of them, these guys, like anybody, you're just like, no. Especially you're down 17 points. You know, there was a point down there. There's a point in that game where they're down 17 points,

I believe the Packers were. And he's just throwing it up in the end zone. I mean, the guy's double cover. There's two defenders there. He's just like, eh, whatever, as opposed to, you know, doing the type of thing you're saying, hang and look for somebody.

So I think I would say a good news from the Packers standpoint is I think there is slack in that rope that they need to get out. And I think if they do that, depending on the matchup, who they're up against, I think they can be a lot more efficient than they were in this last game. I think you're right. And that brings us back to the margin of air. They don't have margin for air against the defensive front that plays like the Jets did last

week. Maybe some others, they do. But this one tore them up up front. And I gained some respect for the Jets as well. Oh, I did too. Let's talk a couple minutes about the Jets because I had noticed before that they had only beaten backup quarterbacks. And obviously the Packers have some issues.

And we've been critical of the Jets and how quickly they've been able to get their program going. And let's have some results. And meanwhile, the Giants were looking better, way faster. Are you singing a different tune on them? Or how is your tune changed on the Jets? I think I'm impressed with what they did. I'm not buying the hype. I've heard a bunch of media stuff about Sauce Gardner, Player of the Year and all that.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. He was beaten on several, came back and made plays because timing was off in bad throws. And I'm not, nothing against Sauce Gardner. I think he's going to be a good player. But let's just pump the brakes like we need to do a lot when we talk about the Jets. I do think this matchup for them was a good matchup. As bad as we say it was for the Packers, it was good for the Jets.

So they obviously haven't done this every week or they'd be even better record than they are. So I'm willing to give them some progress. I'm not ready to have a party yet. And to that end, I think the Jets, you know, probably is still a mediocre team at best in their own division, but this was definitely a good win for them. And I think more of an indicator of, for me, the struggles that the Packers are having, but I do got to get the Jets credit.

Yeah, we can't, I can't keep, I can't move the goalpost so much that I'm sent, that I now don't even give credit now. So I do think, though, offensively, it was a struggle in the past game for sure. They got a couple blocks, you know, blocked punt, block kick. Yeah. They trick plays on offense. I mean, I respect that part of it. I thought it was a very resourceful game.

I think they played tough. they played hard. They gave him, they wanted the fight in that game, you know, and I give them credit. And you know what? They're going to be dangerous going to Denver. I don't know if that's one of the games you got to pick, but I don't think that's necessarily a team that, I don't think Denver wants to see any team, but that's a team that can get after you up front.

Yeah, it's so much about matchups in these games, so I agree with you totally. Yep, yep. Let's get into, let's get into Bailey a little bit, and what a nice game he had again. the Browns. We talked a little bit about him last week because he, you know, obviously he had finished the game against Green Bay pretty good. And then they had the big win against Detroit, 29-0, but it's hard to know Detroit's bad on defense. Not that the Browns are good on defense. They're certainly not. But this is some pretty consistent play. And now, wait, before we get going, Randy, you know, I got a surprise. What I had Marissa do, Randy, is I said, find Randy talking about

Bailey Zappi before the draft. I said, let's find that conversation. So everybody might be new to the podcast year. I like to give credit words. I had nothing to do with this. A blindscrow finds an acorn every now and then. Yeah, no, you got a lot of acorns. You got a lot of acorns over there.

But this is from our conversation before the draft last year when, you know, I asked Randy who his top quarterbacks were and Bailey Zappi was number two. He said he would have taken the top of the second round. So, Marissa, cue our conversation from April of 2020. on Bailey Zappi. My second guy is Bailey Zappy, the quarterback from Western Kentucky. Zappy, you know, jumped to my list, really. If he were three inches taller, I think he'd be in a competition to see who I'd rather

have him or pick it. But Zappi's one of those guys at six foot, one half, two 15. So typically he's not a prototypical guy that you would look for up here high. And nor am I recommending him to be a first round. pick for that matter. The best thing he does for me is he processes information. And for a guy who's been at a school one year, he's in the same system multiple years, he was really impressive in that he could manipulate coverage in the secondary and throw people open. And that is a really hard thing for college kids to do. They normally have to wait. And we'll talk about a couple of guys that really hold the ball

too long for me. But I thought he was able to do this from the pocket and on the run. I'm not saying this guy's Drew Brees at all. But I'm thinking stylistically, his throwing motion, his ability to get it out quickly gave me a lot of similarities to where Drew was and how he did business. I think he has a real fundamentally sound delivery. And I loved his anticipation. I thought it was top notch maybe of all these guys. It's clear he has high football IQ. I thought his arm is very good. He could make the throws at all levels. I think he's going to be able to adjust in an NFL offense quickly because of that. Wow, we just got out of a few minutes of the podcast, Randy. Holy mackerel, you guys are making me squirm.

I knew Randy was turning a red. He's going to flop next weekend and everybody's going to throw it back at my face. No, no, no, no, no. He's already, he's already a success. So he's come in and done well and been ready right away. That's hard, Randy. If he had come in and struggled the first couple games, you would say, you wouldn't come off your e-value.

Hey, that happens when you come in for whatever reason. In fact, that's one of the things we're going to talk about. Shoot, all offseason all we heard about was how concerned everyone was about New England and their offensive coaching and all that. Shoot. Yeah. Not a problem for your guy. No, I agree with you.

Until three weeks ago, we were questioning the offensive vacuuming him of Joe Judge and Matt Patricia and the play calling, and they were all having questions about Mack Jones and what about the offensive system and this and that. And those storylines have all gone away. He has done well. these first three weeks. I think there has to be a discussion internally at some point here. What do we do going forward? I'm not ready to make a change after two weeks. It's still Max team, but if this kid wins four or five games, I think it's going to be hard for them to pull him out,

just because of the fact that the offense has done some things that it wasn't doing when Mac was in there. So I'll go back to what I said on him, in all honesty, the processing of information that he does at this level for a guy who hasn't played, you know, at a big school for forever, really. It's going to give Bill Belichick reason to have to think this through, that's for sure. So what is the consideration for at a place like New England, which is unlike any other place, really, but there's not sides in the building that matter where these guys are invested in Mac Jones, but there's no other agenda. That's right.

There's no other agendas. So if Bill Belichick doesn't like you or likes you, I mean, Bill Belichick, you, I mean, Bill Belichick could say, hey, Drew Bledsoe, nice job. Thanks for the memories. But we like this Tom Brady guy. And I'm not comparing Billy Zappi to Tom Brady. But there's some similarities in that if there is a place where it's easy to make a change, a lot of places would be like, nope, we invested a first rounder. We did this. Mack Jones is our guy. We're invested in that. Bill's not. No, Bill's interested in one thing, Mike. That's winning games. And so he'll do whatever he thinks to win the game for sure. I just build him, just like Rogers does, Maddie and Brian. I build Belichick. Hey, Bill. But to me, I want the, you said it's still max teams.

I just want to know why, just because he has a bigger body of work or would you? Yeah, I would say that. The body of work is large. But is it good? And again, there's a little bit of an investment with him. But again, after two games, actually it's almost three now, I don't think any decision has to be made. But I think if this kid were to continue to play like he is, they're both young enough here's the good news, they will be able to keep them both for the next three or four years and not

have an issue with it. So I think they're in a good position. They can, maybe they, they selectively choose who they think is going to be better week in and week out. You know how different Bill is. He doesn't really care about, you know, history or, or any of the prior commitments he's made. He's going to play the guys that help him win right now. I just think Bailey's playing really good. I think everybody sees that. So they're going to get Chicago, the Jets, and Indy. And look, on any given week, anything could happen. Chicago is a tougher defense, obviously, than Cleveland was probably.

But shoot, I don't know when Mack Jones is coming back, but Bayes at it could be 3-4-0 as a starter. Really easily here. Yeah, he definitely could be. I think, again, it's the part of the business that, hey, the decision makers get paid a lot of money to make these calls. And nobody knows this team as well as. Bill Belichick, so he's going to do what's right. But it looks like on the field that this kid is learning and he's getting better. And if that progression continues at this level, I'd have a hard time taking him out of the game for sure.

Yeah. All right, let's talk. We're going to get into some trade stuff here. Arizona Cardinals acquire Robbie Anderson from the Panthers. And you know, I was struck thinking of Randy was I think about a year ago the Cardinals were 6 and 0. They had won. I think they won a game at Cleveland where their head coach couldn't even go. Yeah.

All of that. There were some, look, you could take issue with this or that, but there was a lot of good, which seemed like with this team. And, man, they have got nothing going. I understand DeAndre Hopkins is, you know, is an important part of their pass offense. But it seems like it's a lot more than that when you factor in the end of last season. Number one, does Robbie Anderson do anything for you?

They lose Hollywood Brown at the same time. They're going to get Hopkins back. They'll have Robbie Anderson. maybe this week's a tough eval because it's a Thursday night game after a tough game on the road in the division at Seattle. But is there any hope here in this move? Do you like it for Arizona? What do you? Is it what?

Yeah, I think it has to be made if you're Arizona because they're struggling. They're struggling to make plays. The one thing about that offense that Cliff Kingsbury runs is there's definitive roles for all these receivers. They all line up similar ways. They are used similar ways down after down. I think he fits. Robby Anderson fits as an outside. receiver may be better for the Cardinals than he did for Carolina. So I understand the move on the

field. I think it makes some sense. They've got to find a way to be more proficient on offense to give Kyler more answers and more options per se. They weren't getting it done with what they had going. I do think Hopkins helps them a lot. So yeah, for a couple of late round picks, I think it's a one-year rental and we see how it goes, but they're a little bit desperate. You mentioned the fact that they've always started quickly, and we know how the second half of the seasons has gone for them. Now they don't have that luxury to fall back on that 6-0 start. Their margin for error is almost slim and none right now. So they've got to do something to turn it around.

I just haven't seen the efficiency like I'd like to see, especially when it comes to game management, clock management, some of that other stuff. And Kyler making throws within the system and the scheme. He makes plenty of plays outside the realm of what's been called, no doubt. And you see the athleticism. But for him to sit in there and make some of these throws that needs to be made, I'm still waiting to see that.

I wonder if, I mean, it seems like all hopes lost right now, Randy, right? I mean, they just haven't done anything. They're not scoring at all early on the games. It's just nothing. But is there a chance this is the year they actually finished wrong? You get DeAndre Hopkins back. You add a receiver. I mean, maybe they almost can't be worse than they've been.

Maybe this is the year they win a few down the stretch. I know they could all sure use that right now because the heat's getting hotter than it normally even is down there. And, man. Yeah, I think here's my struggle. with it. Hope really isn't a plan. And I haven't seen any evidence of a real structured, you know, uh, transformation from this team at all. And you go back to last year, you're talking about how they left the season at the end of the Rams game in, against them in the playoffs. It was bad. And it, and then we had some offseason turmoil when,

when Kyler sent them the ransom letter and everything else. I mean, it was, it was kind of shaky the whole thing. And it really has got off to a bad start again. And I know Cliff and Kyler have been taken care of money wise, but I just haven't seen the results yet. I will say this, their defense played pretty good. When they went back and played, was it Carolina two weeks ago, their defense played good. And so maybe their defense can carry them a little bit.

I think it has to. And they've got to find a way to run the ball as well. It wasn't bad. Defense wasn't bad against Seattle either. I mean, Seattle scored on a special teams play. Yep. Or no, I'm sorry, Arizona scored on special teams play. But Seattle wasn't exactly, you know,

running up and down the field like they had done in previous weeks. Another quarterback who got some money and got taken care of Russell Wilson, we won't stay too long on this one. I did note that they're averaging 14.8 points per game on offense with him. And I can't believe that is the lowest for any starting quarterback they've had with at least three starts since 2000. Lower than Paxon, Lynch, Joe Flacco, Brandon Allen, Tim Tebow, Brock Osweather, Trevor Simeon, Kyle Orton, Case Keenham, Drew Locke.

I mean, that is a lot of quarterbacks who were not even close to what Russell Wilson has been. One thing that stood out to me, Randy, last night I just happened to be watching some football stuff, some old stuff. And I watched some Seahawks Russell Wilson from four or five years ago. Wow, what a different player. He just looked athletic.

He looked quick. He looked like slippery. Like no one could get their hands on him. Like, you know what? He was just playing so fast and so. He was a step ahead of the law, man. Every time something closed down in there, he would shoot up the middle for 20 yards on the ground.

Then he would drop a ball into a bucket that would go a moonball. You know, just fall down in the shirt pocket of the guy running the route. He looked so good. And I guess maybe the fall has been a little gradual here to last year too. But, man, what do you make of this? Because we all could have seen him being in some decline. but this just looks like remedial. Well, I think it is for him, but it's also an organizational, I think, fault as well,

in that the offense hasn't come in a blazing. I think the head coach has been moved up two chairs from what he was in Green Bay. So we've talked about that. The scheme just hasn't been a fit for their players, although I'll say this. I think everybody said this was a playoff team. They got great receivers. I haven't seen any of that. So that might have been overstated.

and the evaluation of talent by some wasn't quite what people thought it was. So now they have Garrett, the tackle. Bulls, Garrett Bulls out for the season as well. So they've got issues up front. I think the thing that concerns me the most is Russell just seems to have that faraway look and that total disconnect from everything that's going on. He's not seeing people when they're open. He's not anticipating.

all the things that made him good, I'm not seeing any of that in his game anymore. Like you said, he was always a half a step ahead of the law. He's not ahead of anybody right now. He's throwing from behind. He's throwing late. He's throwing off his back foot. Fundamentally, he's kind of went south as well. So I don't know how you fix it overnight.

Now he's injured. He's got a little hamstring issue. Had some issue last week as well. It's going to be a struggle for these guys. And, you know, they can hope to get it right. I think their defense has played well enough for them to still. make a playoff run, but I think offensively it's been an organizational struggle. Obviously, Russell takes the brunt of it, but I just don't like that look. I don't see that look,

that sparkle that we saw for years in Seattle, and it's definitely not there. Yeah, no, I know. I wonder if he's lost his confidence, you know, and consider the source on Richard Sherman, who always never really seemed to like Russell Wilson. But, you know, when Russell signed the deal before the season, he sort of intimated like, oh, I wonder, Kyle, why wouldn't you just, if you're so hot ready to go, then why wouldn't you just wait until the end of the year, lead him to the playoffs and have him over the barrel and get the Deshaun Watson deal?

Well, his speculation was maybe Russell doesn't have the confidence that he's what he was. And that's what I think we're seeing. It looks like now as a player that he just doesn't have that confidence. And he can say, hey, I've got the belief and you work your way through it. You just don't see any evidence of that. So kind of like you were saying with Arizona,

I'm not sure where it turns. and now you play this scrappy Jets team that definitely has flaws, but looks like they're enjoying plan. They like coming to work. You know, they're going to make a run at it. Yep, I agree. I think that's a better game than people think. And it might come up in the pick section later in the show.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. All right, the GM notebook. Randy, what do you got in there? Well, we got a few things in there. First of all, the Carolina part of the trade of Robbie Anderson, I thought was interesting. And I know Steve Wilkes have had an association with him for 30 years. people might not remember this.

We signed him as a free agent in Seattle in 1991. He was a free agent undrafted defensive back out of Appalachian State. So I go back with him, and I'm happy that he's got this opportunity. And I was with him with the Chargers for a few years as well. But that year in 1991, Mike, we had three Appalachian State players off their team that all came to Seattle together. Mike Friar, you remember him, the defensive lineman? And it's not Bob Dandridge, but it was Dandridge was another defensive back that played with these guys at App State.

So we had all three of these guys. Two guys we drafted, and then Steve came as an undrafted free agent. So it was a fun group. But I'm happy that he got his chance in Carolina to kind of redeem himself from what happened in Arizona. I was sorry to see that Robbie Anderson incident, but I think Steve handled it well. He was definitive in sending him to the locker room. And then I don't think they had any choice but to trade him the next day.

He's got to minimize this kind of stuff. stuff. He's trying to show that he is the leader of this team. And I think the fact that the Carolina Panthers traded him is a feather in Steve's cap. And I think they're willing to back their coach, which is a good sign for Steve. I'm not saying he's going to be the answer for the long haul, but I do know Dave Tepper said he will be an option going forward if he can do a really good job for the rest of the year. Which, you know, what a terrible experience he had in Arizona that one year and just a one and done. And they, you know, I think it was the Josh Rosen year. It just wasn't going to come together. This, Randy, man,

I guess there's not a lot of good interim jobs. No. There's not a lot of good news, bad news, that's for sure. But man, this is a tough one, isn't it? Yeah, it is. And you couple in the fact that now we're hearing them talk about Christian McCaffrey and the possibility of trading him. I don't know that the GM notebook has a page for getting read of good players.

I think that page has been ripped out of mine. Yeah. I mean, I think McCaffrey's a really good player. And I know they redid his contract to help them. Cap wise this year and that it balloons up next year to over 11 million. I just, I don't know that you can replace this guy. Even at 11 million, I'd have a hard time sending this guy packing. Unless you're going to get something crazy.

Now, in a similar fashion, Denver did get a second and a third for Vaughn Miller last year in what amounted to an eight-week rental. I don't know that somebody's going to do that for a running back and one that's often injured at that. So I don't know that McCaffrey finds a new home, but I would have a hard time moving a guy like this. I know they only have four picks next year, Carolina, but I just don't know, I don't know that that makes sense to get rid of good players. This is not a baseball trade deadline coming up in two weeks to where we have, you know, buyers and sellers. That's just not the way football works. There's a period of adjustment for these players. You just can't get a guy in on

Wednesday and have him lead off Thursday night. Just that doesn't happen. Rams have been buyers, though. I mean, is there any move they could make? Because they seem a little stagnant, or is this, they just need to get their offensive line a little healthier and they'll be fine. Do they have any picks left at all? I mean, if they have them, there's a move they can make, that's for sure. But I don't know what they have left for picks. So I do know that we criticized what they gave up for Von Miller last year, but it worked out in that they won a Super Bowl. So if there's somebody out there, I guarantee you less need will be pounded in the pavement trying to find him and see if there's a deal to be made.

So I give them credit for being willing, that's for sure. But you mentioned their offensive line. Again, we're always coming back to the offensive line. And guess what? That hasn't changed in football in 50 years. years. It usually comes back to those guys up front. Yep. Absolutely. And that could be an issue for them, just like it has been San Francisco in the division. You know, and it can be just really hard to overcome. So what else we got in your notebook? Just a couple little notes. I think you know how the league

always is pushing parity. I think they always want parity. They want teams to be in it for as long as they can. Well, after six weeks, I think they got just what they wanted. There's 10 teams over 500. There's 10 teams that are three and three, and there's 12 teams that are under 500. So it is even Stephen, and I think those three and three teams can go either way. There's 10 of them that still can, you know, make a run, or they're going to fall off the face of the earth. So I always said, Mike, that if you're around 500 at Thanksgiving, you got a chance. So we're probably going to have another month. And some people use the term mediocrity for this. I just think it's hard to win a game. It's really hard. These teams have very little that separates each of them from the other.

So it's really hard to get out ahead. When a team is 6 and 0 or 5 in 1, at some point you've got to give them credit. They're good. They beat some really good teams. We don't get to play, you know, East Carolina State U. It just doesn't happen. Everybody's good in the NFL.

So some guys I know in the league really wish the trade deadline would be moved back so that you knew a little bit more about how your season was going because I think it's hard to, you know, you talked about no buyers and sellers. Well, shoot, if you're two and four or something or three and three, you know, it's not, you're trying to pull it together. You're not like, well, that's it. Let's move this guy because we're not going to resign him next year. That's a harder thing to do for a lot of teams.

Do you like where it's at? I think it's early November, November, November 1 around there usually is when the trade done is, do you think it would be good for the league? There's a two-part question. Good for you as a GM and then good for the league. if let's say the trade deadline went through all of November. Well, a couple things. One, you know, it was six weeks forever. And we always pushed to get it to move to eight and we never did.

Now, the last, I don't know how many years it's been, but they did push it back to after week eight, which I think is beneficial. The league's position on this has always been. They do not want teams that are out of it to be dumping players. That was their whole thing. They don't want to dump players. They don't want bad teams to dump players to good teams.

A lot like happens in baseball. They just don't want, you know, to become a bunch of, of the Cincinnati Reds, you know, dumping players here and there. Yeah, and give up. And that just, I don't think it's good for the sport and definitely not good for the NFL to do that. So I don't think you'll ever see him push it back beyond eight. I think when it was at six, it was very hard to get to know your team, hard to know strengths, weaknesses, hard to add depth because you hadn't really had that many injuries at that point.

Now you have a better chance to make a deal. And I've seen, we've seen, I think we've seen an increased amount of deals. I believe you told me there was like nine last year. leading up to the trade deadline. Wouldn't surprise me if there's eight or ten again this year, which is an increase. And I think it's good for talk radio. It's good for, you know, the sport to keep having content that gives people reason to listen in.

But I don't think it's ever going to 10 or 12 weeks to move the trade line continually back. That's for sure. Yep. Did you have another note or two in the GM note? Well, just a couple little things. You know, Seattle has struggled to run the ball for the most part. Richard Penny got hurt last week. and I was impressed by the Walker kid that they threw in there.

Kenny Walker the third. I felt like for the first time in a while, the Seahawks have a guy back there now with some juice. He was impressive to me. He has suddenness. He runs with confidence and he can make people miss. And I felt like for the last four or five years, Seattle has always been missing that runner that has some juice, you know,

that can really go. Because Penny can run fast, right? He can. But he's not evasive. He's nifty. I'll give him niftiness. but the stop and start ability with Kenneth Walker is big time for me. And here's just a number for you that caught me by surprise.

Seattle is fourth in the league in rush yards per attempt. So they've gained a lot of yards. Penny was like 6.1 per carry. And this Walker kid is well over five. So the combination of them has given them some really a lot of runs per carry. I think they just need to do more of it. They just need to run more. And I think they've done that the last couple weeks.

So I was encouraged by Kenneth Walker. I think he's going to be a fun guy to watch if he can stay healthy the rest of this season. So that was the only other note I had. We talked about some of the trade things and some of that we've already hit on, so I won't be redundant. He's a good young piece. Do you know, I know so much of the focus with them has been Gino Smith and the trade with Russell Wilson. They've got a cornerback, the tall. Yeah, 27.

Yeah, he. Wooten. Yeah. Yeah, Tareke. Tareke Willing. Yeah. He has a interception in four straight games, not just like the ball was tipped and he came and it found him like he made plays on the ball. And then there's another guy in that they have a corner named Kobe Bryant who's playing a lot and I think forced a fumble.

They've got two tackles that are starting that are rookies. They've got Kenneth Walker. Who knows? I mean, we haven't even talked much about Gino Smith, but he's at least looking like he's solid for them. and they've got all these picks coming in. Are we a little more glass half full now? When I used to talk to people coming into the year, and maybe I don't know if we talked about it,

a lot of people in the league saw Seattle as a place that could open after this year. Because I think we had talked about, hey, Pete Carroll's up there. You're going to let him make the choice to the next quarterback. I think a lot of people didn't know or see that they've necessarily had some pieces. Do you think they do now? Do you feel better about the situation?

Not just because Russell Wilson's struggling. I think that's a part of the equation too. But, yeah, you mentioned Walker. Are there some other pieces or jury out for you? I think the jury's out for me. I'm not really ready to make a declaration one way or another if this is going to be a great year. They are one of the three and three teams. But the reason I even brought him up is really just because of Kenneth Walker.

I thought his style, his ability to stop, start, his ability to make plays out of plays that are blocked, not exactly like it is on the chalkboard. I just thought that was worth noting. those kind of backs that come in have if he can stay healthy he's going to have a future but I do see what you're saying I think they have some younger talent because let's face it they haven't drafted great there over the last four or five years they do have some young guys that would seem to brighten their future for sure but I think we got to let it play out and see how see how it shakes out but at three and three I think that's that's that's optimistic and it's

been good for them so far without a doubt yep yep all right we'll get to our pick segment Randy do I have to I know. Last week you both took Dallas because we liked the six and a half points. Yep. They lost that one. So, okay, not a huge surprise, but I still liked having the six and a half with Dallas's defense. And then, Randy, you had 49ers given five and a half, and man, Atlanta surprised me too. Knocked the heck out of them.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Atlanta's stinky good. They're efficient. Yeah, and you're right. They're feisty. But here's the thing also about the 49ers.

They have been devastated by injuries again. Again. It seems like we say it every year, but there's something in the water in San Francisco that's, you know, the health of this team is really a concern again going forward. Yep. Yep. Who do you like this week? Well, the listeners can probably surmise where we're headed because we've talked about both these teams already. I like the idea of the Jets getting a point over the Broncos.

I just think it's all about matchups like we've talked about, and I think it's going to be hard for Denver to block the Jets their front seven. It's going to be a struggle. and I've just seen no light at the end of the tunnel for that Denver offense. So I'm taking the Jets in the one game, and I'm getting one point. And the other one I'm going back to the well on is Dallas. Dallas is given seven points against Detroit. Detroit is the worst defense in the league. They've struggled to stop anybody.

I think Dallas is going to score points, so I don't care who the quarterback is, and I think they'll score more than seven more than Detroit. That's just the way I think it. Dallas's defense is too good. I think they will get after Jared Goff. And you've got to give seven points in the Dallas Detroit game. And I'm willing to give that and probably some more, to be honest with you. Yeah.

So one that stands out to me, how is Kansas City only a three-point favorite? We're talking about 49ers injured, all of that. I haven't felt great about, you know, how they're doing. I like Kansas City's coming off of a loss. You know, toe-to-to-to-to-with Buffalo could have gone either way. I'm going to take the Chiefs and just give three points and think they're going to win by more than that. You think I'm crazy? No, I don't think you're crazy.

I think 49ers are hurting right now. They're looking their wounds, so I could see how you jump on the Chiefs for sure. Yeah, that's going to be my pick. There's a couple letters that I looked at. I considered New England, seven and a half Chicago. We'll see how the game plays out. And I'd consider Pittsburgh taking seven and a half going with the Brian Flores Bowl. But the Kansas City one is the one that stood out to me.

We'll see if the Chiefs can do it. Sounds good, man. I'm looking forward to next week, and we'll see if we can do a little better. on these picks. Yeah, absolutely. And we get to enjoy the Thursday night game. Hopefully, we'll see. It's not a great matchup again.

But we'll see on that. Randy, I'll tell everybody where they can find your work before we wrap this thing up at Mueller Football.com. You can find Randy also on Twitter at Randy Mueller underscore. You can find me, Mike Sando, at The Athletic and at Sando NFL on Twitter as well. Thanks for listening in. and we will catch you next time. This was the Athletic Football Show.