The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Struggles in TNF, likely MVP candidates and Week 10 predictions

Episode Date: November 11, 2023

In this episode of the Football GM, Mike and Randy go over the struggles from the Panthers and Bears in TNF and Frank Reich's ability to take less and do more. Then the conversation shifts to a discussion on the likelihood of this being the year we see a non-QB win MVP. And then lastly, the GM notebook, Week 10 predictions and more. Follow Mike on Twitter: @SandoNFLFollow Randy on Twitter: @RandyMueller_Subscribe to The Athletic Football Show...AppleSpotifyYouTubeThis episode is brought to you by BetterHelp. Give online therapy a try at betterhelp.com/MAYSand get on your way to being your best self. Find your bright spot this season, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp dot com slash MAYS today to get 10% off your first month. That’s better HELP dot com slash MAYS.Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at SHOPIFY DOT COM SLASH mays. Go to SHOPIFY DOT COM SLASH mays now to grow your business–no matter what stage you’re in. SHOPIFY DOT COM SLASH mays.You’ll be amazed at what you can do with Grammarly. Go to grammarly.com/ATHLETICFOOTBALL to download for FREE today. That’s G-R-A-M-M-A-R-L-Y DOT COM SLASH ATHLETICFOOTBALL.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. This is the Football GM podcast. Mike Sando here with Rani Mueller. If you can hear me laughing, it's because there's a delay game penalty on Sando today. The last five, ten minutes, I'm getting these texts from Mueller. Hey, are we good? I said, yeah, I think we got a great show going.

A few minutes go by, we're rolling. I said, I agree. I mean, I think we got a good show here. What he meant was, we're rolling, Santa. You better get in here. So I don't know what the heck was going on. Clock management was bad for San Diego. I think the clock management is an issue. I think the listeners might be calling in and telling us what

Sando needs to use his timeouts a little more judiciously. There's no doubt about it. So no one else had to do that coming in, but it was just comical for me today because I know we started a certain time and I just spaced it by a half an hour. So appreciate you looking out for me, Randy. I am doing well. Thanks for your frequent texts checking in on me to see how I was doing this morning. Nothing's wrong. We're ready to go. How you doing? I'm doing great. I am fired up about the show, actually.

I was thinking this morning, there's something about the show that gets me excited. Maybe it's just talking to you about certain things, but I enjoy it so much that it kind of gets me fired up. And it's a good starter for my weekend. I hope our listeners get half of what we're talking about because it'd be a shame if you and I were the only ones that enjoyed it, you know? No, absolutely. We got a bunch of good stuff. We will start with a Thursday night game, which is a bad game, but there's good stuff to talk about off of it. I wanted to get into Randy's thoughts today, too.

He wrote about a couple MVP candidates for him and Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson. I wanted to talk about that. We got a ton of stuff. I added in, Randy, when I was kind of thinking the show wasn't going to start yet, I added in a thing on the bills in there. Great. Good for it. Yeah, you'll be good for that.

I promise you, I won't take the fifth like Robert Sala did on the radio interview when he got caught off guard about his questions on Zach Wilson. I've never seen that before where a coach just froze up and just said, hey, I'm taking the fifth. Those were literally his words. I don't know why we don't play Trevor Semy. It's like someone must be forcing him to play Zach Wilson for sure because he clearly didn't want to answer it. I promise you, whatever topic you threw on the rundown, I'll be good with it. I'm good with it.

We can talk about it. You know, that's probably one we should have had in there. We didn't even have that one in there. Maybe we'll talk about it in the notebook at the end. In the notebook. Yeah, let's throw that in the notebook. pretty good when you actually get stumped. Like you always say, you know, or you hear people say, the great thing about the truth is you can tell

it over and over again, you don't have to get your story straight. And so when you really can't be truthful, when he knows and the locker room knows that it's not working, then it's hard to say it's working. So as far as not working, the Thursday night game, Randy, 16 to 13, the Bears over the Panthers. And there's interesting things, though, to talk about off of the game, bigger. picture stuff, not just the draft order. What do you got? Yeah, I agree with you. I think there does spawn some conversations off of the, not only the performance, but of some of the decisions that have been made prior to the game. I mean, obviously the last night, the Thursday night game

was a struggle for both teams. Nothing that happened. I'll say this, Mike, that really surprised me. Some of us had questions about Bryce Young. I think people saw some of those questions come to light if you watch the game closely. I mean, it's not rocket science. It is a big man's game. And in this case, at least in my opinion, it was a struggle for young and in a bunch of different ways, mostly reflective, in my opinion, again, of a smaller frame. You can't let the Panthers offense off the hook totally for sure. The scheme, the surrounding players, there's, like we've said many times, QBs are an organizational success or failure.

And for my money, I don't think this organization's ready to support the development of this particular quarterback in this case who I think will take more support than most because he's 5-10 180 pounds. And that's yeah, that's that's problematic for them. I thought I saw that the last game too, you know, when he had a couple pick sixes. It's it's peeking around and trying to see and can't see and thrown it anyway. And some of that's just not having a trust and comfort in your protection either. I think that's starting to take a toll on him. Didn't you feel, I felt his nervousness in the pocket, you know. And I would say, that for sure, Mike. And if you remember, and this is not Hindsight's 2020, there was a game that

we've talked about that happened a couple years ago when they played Georgia. It might have been the national championship game. That game was really big for Bryce. There was a lot of, for lack of a better word, a lot of shit happening in that pocket. And it made me feel like he kind of shrunk in there and it's not his fault. It was just, it showed. The size showed. And I've never been able to get that out of the back of my mind. So that maybe was one of the reasons I've always struggled to warm up to this. But let's face it, no quarterback in the history of the league has ever been this size picked at the top for that reason. I mean, that's a fact. So we can say what we want. We can all have our opinions. And I'm not ready to bury Bryce Young because I think there is a lot of upside.

But yes, it's a struggle for smaller guys that we've kind of poo-pooed now because Russell Wilson's good because Drew Breeze was good because somebody picked Kyler Murray first, you know, but it can be problematic like you said for the long term as well. Yeah. The other thing is when you struggle as a team for too long, you know, you're looking for someone to have the answers, right? Sometimes you get in a spiral and it's hard to get out of. And I just noticed here, Frank Reich is 4.15 and 1 in his last 20 games. If you go back to the end of that 21 season when it really unraveled, they lost their last two games with the Colts. And then he coached whatever number of games with the Colts last season.

And then you have this season. That's tough. And, well, I was just looking, he's one of 28 coaches that have coached at least 20 games since then. Here's the worst records. Maddiever flew 6 and 21. Frank Reich, 4.15 and 1. Amazingly, Sean McVeigh, 9 and 19. Josh McDaniels, 9 and 16, Belichick 11 and 17, Arthur Smith, 11 and 17.

You mentioned Price Young has to have it better than most to do well in offense. Do you feel that way about Reich? Frank Reich, how do you feel about his ability to take less and do more? Do you think that he's been basically just a reflection of what he's had for good or bad? Is he able to elevate when it's not good? Well, we haven't seen it yet, and I know Frank well, we were together for several years with the Chargers, and I think that part of his M.O. is the kind of person he is, is the character. I mean, talk about an awesome guy, a guy you want to be around, a guy you want to root for to have success. But it's been a mystery at times

that he can elevate others. I haven't seen it yet. It didn't happen in Indy, but they didn't have great personnel either. They struggled at quarterback. That's the big thing for me is I hope the reason that Carolina hired Frank were some of these other intangible reasons, not his resume of being a quarterback whisperer because that didn't happen to a successful level in Indy either. I had some questions about this one, as most of us do. But my questions would then fall on the process of why Frank and then why and how did we get to this quarterback. Yeah, I just, I think it's problematic to have given up the play calling already. Because when we're giving away what should be one of our number one strengths, you should be able to last more than seven games before that gets handed off when it seems like

that was such a big part of why you were hired. So the whole thing there, I'm questioning the whole thing. I'm questioning, you know, there's been questions about who wanted who, which quarterback in the draft and all of that. So David Tepper is going to be the key variable there and how much patience he's going to have, especially if there was some disagreement over which quarterback to swel. I think that's just a, this is a very interesting place. Yeah, I totally agree.

And I don't know that we have all the information. I mean, we can what if ourselves to death, but the process by which they arrived on Young, how much Tepper exerted his will, we truly don't know. I mean, we kind of think we've heard some, but depending on his level of involvement, the process might be flawed. And really, Frank's role in it, again, I don't know. so we're just kind of connecting dots from the outside. If he allowed the team to pick a quarterback that he wasn't enamored with,

that's a fault of his as well. He'd never have more rope than in the first few months of a relationship at a new place to push back if that's what he wanted to do. So I don't know. The dynamics are up for debate because we don't know. And then where does Scott Fitter, the GM, figure in that mix? I know this. Any first round pick has to be, I think,

met with consensus within your own building. And if there's not consensus in your own building, I've been a firm believer in this for 30 years. You better pick a different lane. You better pick a lane. And even if that means we're not picking a quarterback, so be it. We've got to do what's right for us and we've all got to be rowing the same direction.

If the coach, the GM, the owner can't agree, we need to pick a different lane. And whatever lane that is, everybody understands it because we're all on the same page. If not, eventually that will be answered. And I think that may be what's happened here. I don't know. We just don't know.

I thought one of the interesting points you made when we were talking beforehand was the two best players for the bears in this game were on Carolina's team last year. Yeah. That's problematic. Yeah. That's not good. That's for sure. When your team build is as deep of a dive into a rebuild as you can get in Carolina and the two best players on the other side of the field are your guys. that's a problem.

DJ Moore and then Form in the running back. No doubt. That's a struggle. Let's step to run into it. Go ahead. No, I was just going to say that's, you know, there's probably a whole other podcast with the bare side of it. But for one thing, it's not a great measuring stick for either, except you're measuring the

depths of both franchises kind of where they're at right now. That's what I, you know, that's what I was just noticing kind of, you know, reading through and listening to some of the coverage off of the game. like it's exciting for the bears to win the game, but let's not have any grand illusions here. There's nothing going on that we're not like evaluating badgeant as a potential quarterback here. No, they're struggling on offense as well. I think they, we're always going to confuse them with the 2,000 Rams, that's for sure.

It's just a problem in itself. And I think they've got probably as big a question marks and answers to come up with these next six or eight weeks as anybody. We know they have picks. We know they've traded Carolina. That's done. That's water under the bridge. But what they do with those picks will determine if it's a successful deal for them or not. And I mean, you mentioned what happens with these quarterbacks.

I don't see any way that Chicago doesn't try to position themselves for a quarterback. And I know we're going to talk about that later. But it's going to be two top 10 picks for sure. And then it's up to whatever and whoever the decision makers are in Chicago at the end of all this to, direct them in the right way. Well, let's talk about it now. I mean, I think that I think if they're picking at the top of the draft, they're taking Caleb Williams no matter what, correct?

Well, I would, but that's no guarantee that a team would. I mean, we saw last year Carolina picked Bryce Young, and I don't think I could have ever talked myself into that. So everybody has opinions. That's clear, and some are willing to act on them. For me, Caleb Williams is by far the best option. I know there's some sentiment for Drake May. I've seen the film on both these guys, Mike.

I just, I can't drink that Kool-Aid not to that level. I watched game after game just recently. Caleb Williams has a wow factor that very few have had, I think, the last five or six years coming out. And I don't think there's any way you could pass on him for another option just because you need one. Even if Kailen Williams is gone and say the second or third pick then, came down to the Bears, I don't think they could take the Drake May course at any chance. I think they'd be in the same boat for me as Carolina is with Bryce Young.

But that's just my opinion. So everybody's going to have their own idea of what's right. But for us, what we're looking at here for Chicago is this is a race between Chicago, which has two lottery tickets for the first pick, their own and Carolinas. And the Giants, to me. And the Giants are in a bad situation because, Daniel Jones is out. Terrod Taylor's been out.

They're going to have Tommy DeVito. They could easily, the Giants could easily have the number one pick too. Yeah, you're going to have put Arizona in the mix too, I'm afraid. But yes, I hear you. Yeah, and Arizona's going to be in that mix too, but has a ton of money committed to Kyter Murray in a way that could make it interesting, at least, in terms of what their owner wants to do and what would be the trade value of Kyler Murray and all of those types of things.

So there is an interesting rate. for that, but to me, if you're the Bears, let's not let the remainder of this season talk us out of doing a no-brainer, right? It would have to be Justin Fields coming back and being amazing, being something totally unlike what he's been. He would have to be a lead pipe, lock, cinch, 100% pro-bowl guy for you not to pick a quarterback if you're, if you have the same conviction I would in looking at Caleb Williams. So, So I think I don't see any way Justin Fields is really there next year unless they win a bunch of games and end up picking 10th or 12th, then Carolina does the same, you know? Well, so what if you, yeah, exactly, though, what if you're picking third?

You know, that's an interesting deal and you don't, you know, you don't have as much. I don't know all the quarterbacks in the draft, but if you didn't have a Caleb Williams type conviction on somebody, then you're in an interesting spot having to declare as an organization, right? Yeah, I don't, again, everybody's going to do it different. and hey, it's our show, so I guess that's, we can give our own opinions, but I surely haven't seen it yet. And I've seen most people have as they're at least in the top two, Drake May, and I don't see it, Mike. I'm just, I'm not there with him at all. And I know some other teams that aren't there with him either. Just see you know, that's just not Randy's opinion. So there are others in that boat as well that, again, and we've talked about it, need can't trump conviction, valuing, and actually evaluating players. You need can't

Trump everything. It's not fantasy football. It's really not because you're stuck with repercussions if you make that call and it turns out that it's not the right one. Yeah, very fascinating. That's going to be really interesting down the stretch. Okay, like your column this week, Randy, you wrote about a number of things. One of them was when you talked about MVP's. You liked Joe Burrow. You liked Lamar Jackson. I think it's a really interesting discussion, not just because we like awards, but just it really gets into the team component, the player component.

Give me your thoughts on that, and then we can go back and forth a little bit because I got some too. Well, I arrived at it by considering it's a quarterback award for one thing, and the best quarterbacks in the league are what they are. We all know. I happen to think Mahomes is still the best player in the league. Now, he may not be having the best year,

but he, to me, if we had a free agent draft of every player in the league, my guess is most GMs would pick Mahomes first if everybody was on the street. And so I don't see that being any different. For my money, though, I think Joe Burrow might be the next selection based on the fact that his level of play when healthy, and we've seen that the last two or three weeks, I think he might be the best passer in the league, the best passer of the football, especially from the pocket.

He's been off the chart. So I didn't pick him as the MVP either. I picked Lamar based on where he's been as we sit right now through nine weeks of the NFL season. I think Lamar's level of play is above where it was when he won the MVP in 19. I think the system that Todd Monkin brought from Georgia has accentuated Lamar's skill sets to where his level is greater as a passer and especially from the pocket, not to mention the job that Eric DeCosta and his staff have done to upgrade the people around Lamar on the perimeter that we cried about for years weren't very good. Well, guess what? They're all really good now. And the weapons are there.

But I think Lamar has to be credited for upping his passing game, upping the fact that he's probably running less, but he's extending players more for the idea of throwing, not running. I think that's good. But still, to have that card in his back pocket of that explosive athleticism makes him pretty hard to stop, pretty hard to defend. I think he's having the best year. Where we sit here now a month from now I might change. So I guess it's kind of a roundabout way of saying Lamar is the MVP. Joe Burrow might be the best passer, but Mahomes is the best player, if that makes any sense. That was my opinion. You're going to pat me on the head here, Randy, call me stat boy for this, okay? I am stat boy for this. Roll it out. I'm with you. So career low, nine touchdown passes

through nine games. I mean, he's always had 16, 15, whatever. Now, that's not that I don't think he's playing great. Here's what I think. At the quarterback position, we've had the MVP win it for, we've had a quarterback win MVP for 10 straight years. Gotcha. But to me, what I'm usually looking for in that is somebody who is really putting the team on their back because, hey, you know, we may not be that squared away on defense. So I want to see somebody who's really carrying their team and the reason they win every week. And I feel like this year, the way defense has gone in the NFL, like Patrick Mahomes isn't doing that. He's got a top three defense. You could put in, I mean, Mahomes hasn't had to be on fire for almost any of the games for them to win. And I feel like

with the Ravens, it's the same deal. Their offense has been better, but their defense has allowed the same number of touchdowns as the 2000 Ravens did, nine and nine games. So if Lamar has a great week or an average week, they're still winning. If Lamar is a little bit below out, coverage this week. This last game, he was maybe 20 of 25 for, let's see, did he pass for 200 yards? The last two weeks, he's passed for 187, 157. You know, it's, it's not. He didn't play in the fourth quarter against Seattle, so that. Correct. Yeah, but you, I would never look at the Ravens and say, wow. Yeah. If it wasn't for this passing game and the way Lamar's playing, they wouldn't have a good record. Well, they're playing contemporary football. You're right. But yes, it's not in numbers.

based decision for me this year either. Yeah. So to me, in the absence of having a quarterback who's really driving it and carrying the team's success, which we usually have, but I feel like we don't this year. I don't think we have one guy who's doing that. I sort of shifted then, okay, who's a non-quarterback that's putting up, you know, amazing production? And I think there's a couple receivers in Tyree Kill and A.J. Brown. And I think even this year defensively, we might have to look at somebody. like a Miles Garrett, because it just feels to me like defense is winning for a lot of these top teams. And we just don't have anyone who is on that type of a pace offensively where you go, wow, remember the year that Peyton Manning through 55 touchdown passes, or remember the year

when Mahomes with the 28th ranked defense won the Super Bowl, to me, that's almost kind of, maybe I have a, maybe I have a skewed expectation now of what these quarterbacks should be doing. But to me, that's kind of what I think of when I think of an MVP quarterback, not the guy who might be playing well, but just doesn't have to play well because they're so good on the defense. Well, I agree with no points. But I also think that, and you started your theory with this, you're a numbers guy. And I do think numbers don't show that this year. But I think Lamar is having a better year than his MVP, you're regardless of the numbers. And that's why I say it's the complementary football.

It's the players around him. It's the perimeter players that are now in Baltimore, for example. But I do agree with you. I think Miles Garrett is right now probably having the best year of any defender in the league and is almost impossible to block as well. So it is probably a year for that. But I don't think it's because there's not one guy that's carrying a particular team through thick and thin. I think it's because just the numbers don't parallel what.

your eyes are telling you as far as Lamar playing good, as far as Joe Burrow playing good. I got pushed back in my argument a little bit from people that said, hey, wait a second, Joe Burrow didn't play the first two or three games. Why does that matter? If he leads his team deep into the playoffs, which I think he probably will, he shouldn't be dinged for playing. He actually did play, and he played hurt, and that's how valuable he was to his team. They would rather have a 70% Joe Burrow than 100% backup.

Anyone else. Yeah. Yeah, anyone else. So anyway, I didn't take that. out as I thought it was a badge of courage more than anything that he did play, not that he shouldn't win the MVP because he hasn't been productive for 17 straight weeks. And I think as we're projecting what's going to happen over the rest of the season, I think it's likely that some of these quarterbacks do get a little bit more momentum and do build on what they've done. And so you could

look at Lamar with the base of what they've got going here and say, look where this thing's headed. And then over the course of the season, they're just going to probably gel more offensively. and certainly Burrow. I mean, the first month of the season for Joe, he could hardly walk. I mean, he wasn't good at the first month of the season. He's been great since then, and I think we're pretty comfortable saying that's going to continue. We like the fundamentals of what we're seeing in these situations, what we're saying. And if we project that out over the rest of the season, I think maybe we will see some of those numbers come around and just some of the production come around.

But I do still in the back of my mind have that when the team, if you've got a top five defense, I mean, we're going to win a lot of games. That and the fact that if Tyreek Hill does reach 2,000 yards receiving, he's going to get a lot of votes. And rightly so, because he's in rarefied air if that happens. Yeah, like, what would a non-quarterback have to do? Like, no non-quarterback can be as quote-unquote valuable as a quarterback. I mean, yeah. But what does a guy have to do at a non-quarterback position to win this award?

Are we just saying it's a quarterback award only? It has been for 10 years. But to me, there's a level of production that the quarterback has to have. have for me to look at it and say that is MVP. Wow. Amazing. Otherwise, we're just not even considering any of the other players. Well, I agree with you totally. And I think this with regard to Tyreek Hill, because it's a great point and a whole other structure, probably another block of time we could spend on it, is I don't think you have to have the 2,000 yards in a skill set like he has, although I think that will get a lot of the numbers people's attention.

Sure. But I think Tyreek Hill changes the way people have to defend the dolphins. And if the dolphins continue to be good and get into the playoffs and even win a game or two, it can be a lot determined by the fact that Tyreek Hill has changed the way defenses play them, just with that speed, just with everything else he does to compromise defenses. And so I think even without a productive numbers, Tyreek probably has to get part of this conversation. And that, you know, the dividing up the credit and all of this is interesting too, because Mike McDaniels done such a great job of featuring him and utilizing them. And that pre-stap motion stuff where he's got a full head of steam has helped maximize him too.

So it really is a team. We're looking for individual awards and very much a team concept and trying to give how much credit to who can be, just make for some fun discussions. And hopefully I don't help us understand kind of what does go into winning. Because I think football is a little bit of a rare sport where we can't always agree why the games are won and lost and what's most important. I think, you know, in baseball, we see a trade being made, and you know what that starting pitcher is going to do for your team. He's going to have a one-on-one matchup all year, and we can kind of know the value of that.

In the NBA, we might add one starter, and we can all see, wow, okay. In football, man, you're one of 22. Yeah. And we don't know, you know, and you put you in a little bit of a different light, and suddenly people think you suck, right? The wrong offense or the bad weaponry or don't have a good defense, you know? It's harder. Last week was a great example of just what you're saying in my mind with the Dallas Cowboys. They lost to the Eagles.

Dak played maybe his best game of the year. And analysts all week long were trying to figure out, are they good enough? Are they not good enough? Is that good enough? Is that good enough? That expresses the point you're making right there. Nobody can agree on why they didn't beat the Eagles and what they would have to do going forward. Nobody can figure it out.

The best minds in the game can't study it and figure it out. So you're right. Football is different. I got such a big smile now because you robbed from the GM notebook. That's in the GM notebook. We got Dak in there. You brought up Jack and you just stole from the notebook. So it's not just me.

We were, that's still in there. We got a little back point in there. I couldn't help myself. Okay. Hey, while you and our wonderful producer, Tanika, were waiting for me to show up today. Okay. I thought I had all this time. Well, we were punching the clock and you were having trouble getting your time card in.

Here's Mueller's texts. I got Mueller's text right here. 9.05 a.m. because we do this at 9 a.m. You okay? Yeah, adding in something now regarding the MVP after the NBA discussion. We are rolling. What I should have said is what are you getting breakfast too? Let us know when you're done with breakfast so we can start. Oh my gosh. It's so great. It's so great. I didn't have a care in the world. But okay, one of the things I added while you were, well, you guys were sitting there waiting for Santa to show up, I had written a column this week on the bills. And I think the bills are a fascinating team. And so I had done a

stat boy column this week ran you stat boy all the way i did a stat boy column i've got different i've got different capabilities randy i can do we i can talk to the old school football guys and do a piece on what they think and i can do i can do stat boy stuff too that the analytics director likes right so i got you um you know and this one comes from that so i just watched uh watched the bills this season and then i watch i love to watch the narratives that come out around the teams and we got this week Sean McDermott's being asked if he's going to replace his offensive coordinator. Ken Dorsey's being asked the offensive coordinator of the bills if the players have lost confidence in it.

I'm going, oh, ho, hold on a minute here. I get it. The offense doesn't look, you know, whatever, doesn't look as the game's not as easy, whatever. But they are across the board top five offensively, not just since Ken Dorsey's been there, but this season. Even in their losses, their offense has been better than their defense. by wide margins. To me, the number one thing that has changed there for Buffalo is that their defense isn't quite as good. They're not getting the short fields.

They're not getting the easy points. They're not getting sort of the momentum that accrues from just having it easy and making it to where if your offense has a bad series or two, no big deal. The score didn't change. I think that's what they've had. They've been so good defensively that it's made the offense seem easier. But production-wise, this year, it is what it is. I mean, the offense has been productive. And so my biggest concern for Buffalo is kind of almost, from a leadership standpoint,

I keep waiting for someone there to just take a deep breath and go, relax, like Rogers. Relax. Guys, hey, we're five and four. The last two years, we were six and three. It's one game. Our offense ranks top five in the league, and we don't even feel good about it. We don't even feel good about our offense. We had a top five offense.

Now, guys, we have some chance. Our defense has had some injuries. We're not making excuses. It is what it is. I'm the head coach here. I've called the defense. We're going to be okay. And I just don't, I don't feel that.

I kind of feel the, oh my God, it's not the same. And that's what concerns me more than the offense. How about you? Yeah, no, I don't disagree. I think the narrative, for the most part, has been, has the window closed for the bills this year. And I agree with you. You call them hit the nail on the head. I don't think it's about their offense at all.

I'll say this. If there ever was a team, this is just my opinion, ever was a team that needed a buy, the bills need a buy. The bills have been, I think, gasping for air ever since they made the trip across the pond to London. I think they look a little tired. They look dead in the legs. They've had a lot go on. And I think they're one of the teams, I think, that has one of the latest buys, if I read my notes right.

Week 13 buy. Yeah, there you go. They could use that right now. But having said that, I am with you. My issue with them has not been on offense. It's not been how Josh Allen's taking care of the ball or now he's not taking the risks. It's been defensively. I think they've gotten old and I think they've gotten injured.

And those are the two things that bother me on defense. I thought I saw this last week. The safeties prior 21, the other safety hide. Those guys have not been what they've been in the past. I'll just phrase it like that. They haven't been what they've been in the past. I saw them get run by a couple times and they had no juice in their legs. That could be from the fact that, like I said, they need a buy, they need some rest, they need to get some rejuvenation.

It's just not there. And you mentioned that they've had tons of injuries, especially to the middle of their defense. Milano, who's been their heart and soul, their glue guy out, defensive alignment, out. We talked about it last week. They haven't been able to replace those guys. So Von Miller's been in really a shadow of what we grew up watching Von Miller be hasn't happened for him. So they're struggling on defense, no doubt. And how they solve it, I don't know. They tried to, Rasul Douglas, you know, made the trade for him at the deadline last week. I don't know that he's going to make a difference. They're hurting in the secondary right now and they're having trouble keeping up with people.

So that's a big problem for me. And they may have to be more aggressive in constructing a rush in sub packages and on third down to make up for the fact that they can't run and cover like they used to. So time will tell. But that's where I would point if I was going to place some insecurities would be on deep. defense now. And that's not all Sean McDermott's fault, just because he's taking over the defense this year. I think they have some personnel issues that are going to have to be fortified maybe before they make another run. And I don't think their windows closing. It's never going to close with Josh Allen. See, that was a good little conversation. It was worth waiting 10 minutes for me to show up

today to get that. Yeah, that's great. We got a delay a game call. So we had third and 20 instead of third and five. We might have two or three delay a game calls. But you're a tier one co-host. We can handle third and 20. It's not a problem. You're perfectly confident and strong in the pocket. All right. Next in our list was the Arthur Smith personnel issue discussion, Bejohn Robinson, Kyle Pitts. So Bejohn Robinson, eighth pick in the draft, elite running back in weapon, we would all agree. It's played in every game this year, but ranked seventh among Falcon's skill players in Red Zone snaps. We've got Drake London, 63, John O'Smith, 53, Kyle Pitts, 53, Pruitts, 47, Alger, 41, Mack Hollins 40 and Bijon Robinson 39.

I tried to listen to Arthur Smith's explanation of it. It kind of went around in circles. I have to give him credit. He has not been as snippy the last few weeks. I don't know if it's been a little bit of a humbling time the last couple weeks, but I think he has done a better job of kind of explaining this stuff and showing patience with the question. So I give him some points for that, but I didn't really fully understand or get much from it.

Red Zone touches this season, Alger 26. Bison Robinson 12 is next. Johnny Smith and Drake, London, 6. All right, that's my staff boy stuff for you. Randy. You know all of those things just from watching. You have a feel for those things just from watching what's going on. As a GM, what are you thinking? Well, the conversations, I'm sure, are ongoing.

They have to be had. When you pick a tight end as high as they did and you pick a running back top 10, who you all think is elite, and he is not the focal point, of your offense, that's a problem. If we think Tyler Algier or one of these other guys is a better option than Bejan Robinson,

we got problems, man. I mean, why would we take Bejan Robinson? If Tyler Alger is better than B.J.J.R. Robinson at any one thing, any one thing, you wouldn't draft Bejohn Robinson. So the explanations, like you said, maybe are starting to make sense. I would struggle with that as a GM.

it's one of the reasons that I would never consider drafting a tight end as high as they did is because I've been down this road and I'm just saying because I'm older, I've been around a little bit, coaches struggle to get tight ends involved in offenses. They have to go outside their scheme most of the time to make that happen. And they tire of that because there's only 50 plays in a game. You can't script a tight end in five of them so he gets his touches. It's just not possible. So even though a tied in you may view as being a great tight end, he's still a tied end. if he's going to be the focal point of your offense, it's probably going to be a struggle. And everybody says, oh, Jason Kelsey or Travis Kelsey, blah, blah, blah. He's rare. He's completely rare. He's the best receiver they have in so many ways.

It's not fair to compare him to any of these other guys. With an eight-year rapport with his quarterback or five, six-year rapport, yeah. So it's just not going to happen. So some of these fights or some of these, not fights, some of these dilemmas that you have that have popped up in Atlanta now should have been discussed before they drafted these guys. And maybe they would. were. But I don't understand why we're not playing Bijon Robinson. I heard one of the explanations was, well, he creates a lot of doubt when we use him as a decoy. Get out of here. Come on. Stop. We're going to use Bejon Robinson as a decoy more than we're going to use him in the red zone to run the ball.

I mean, some of us thought he might have been the best player in a draft. Okay. So we need to find a way to get him the ball. If Bejohn Robinson can't take our scheme to a higher level than the X's and O's of the staff, then we've made a mistake. I think, One of the big selling points for Barclay, Sequin Barclay in New York, and we said this early on in his evaluation, was he makes your offense better than what your coaches can scheme because he gets more yards than you have mapped out for that play to get. I think Bejohn Robinson is the same way. But if he never feels and gets a chance to play in that role, he'll never extend. There's probably some stat for that, Mike, points or yards above expected on each play, right? Well, Bejohn Robinson will get you more yards than your play is expected to get because of your design.

So that's a problem. And as far as the Drake London pick, I mean, that's another top 10 player, a receiver without game-changing speed. You can fight that battle before you pick him. But once you pick a guy like that, he'd better be the focal point as much as you can as well. So I guess my point is we've used top picks to be difference makers on offense. and none of them are difference makers. So where does that blame lie? I don't know.

You've got to talk about your evaluated process. You've got to talk about how we're using them. Those are the two areas where I would start. It's so fascinating to me because I think we, there's a reason Arthur Smith got this head coaching job. It was for the work that he did on offense with Titans, right? Yeah. And I don't think any of us were watching that going,

Arthur Smith sucks at offensive. No, I agree. And I'm not saying he does now. I'm not saying he does now either. Yeah. But it's just so fascinating to me that this can be a problem. problem. Like, wait a minute, who else do you want designing the offense than the guy who got hired because he was, because of his offense? But it seems like his system, is it about his system?

And you have to make this more of a game of matchups. Exactly. I think sometimes coaches get caught in the sacred of their system. Hey, you used to hear the snide comments on the side of Joe Montana, Jerry Rice, those guys used to say, is it the system or is it the player? And they would, they would snicker, right, when someone would say, oh, it's Bill Walsh's system. It's Bill Walsh's system. Well, they kind of thought it was about the player, and rightly so. Some of these systems, and not to that extent, but some of these offensive systems are so sacred in the way they do things, it is all about the system. And they don't care how good the player is. If that's the case, I don't want to be around it, okay? I think it's a player's game, and it is about matchups for me.

And I want to see our best players playing, and I want to see them the focal point of our schemes. That to me is a really good system. that features our best players and the skill sets that they bring. No one's really asking Mike McDaniel why he's not using his guys, right? Why do you think that? Because he's using them. There you go. Because he's using them all the time.

I don't think it's a bad idea. And think of that. So just think of if Mike McDaniel were coaching the Falcons, how different it would probably look, right? For the usage of the players. Bejohn Robinson would be sleeping good at night. I can tell you that, because he'd be getting ridden hard every week he would have his carries for sure.

It's just interesting to me. Even though we agree that Arthur Smith is a good offensive coach. You have to be able to, this is something that seems like it needs to be bridged. No doubt. And maybe that's something the organization needs as much as anything from 30,000 feet from across the country. Maybe they need a little glue in that building somewhere somehow to bring that together to help that. Terry Fontno, I know like him a lot. First time GM. Really never been through this before.

Doesn't have a lot to really bounce this off of other than he was with Mickey in New Orleans for a lot of years. So maybe he can draw from that. Arthur Smith, again, first time head coach. A lot of times it's the glue in the building that that allows you to overcome any of these kind of hurdles. And I think these are hurdles that can be overcome, but you'd hope that they didn't have to learn their job on the job training at this level. So how do you bridge that when, as a personnel person, there's different levels, obviously, of knowledge of scheme and football that a personnel person could have? But in general, that's the coach's area, and they're going to have a better understanding

of everything, right? They're going to be able to a coach going to the board and diagramming everything in there would be way more advanced than even a really good personnel evaluator typically, right? at the just the super fine points of scheme, right? So does that make it hard then to go to them with concerns? What do you do when you have a coach? Like we can kind of, let's just make a couple assumptions here on Arthur Smith. He's been a little prickly when people have challenged him a little bit.

And he's admitted that. Sometimes he makes some flip comments so that give the impression that it might be hard to go to him and say, hey, coach, what about this, right? He might be sort of annoyed by that. I think a lot of coaches are. I mean, it kind of reminds me of the old Jim Morrill. stuff, you know, when Jim Morrow would just kind of couldn't take it when people were, he was a really good coach, but he would try to lecture the media or whoever that you guys have no idea.

How do you, is that a tough thing to bridge internally or you talk about difficult conversations? Does it take two to have those conversations? What do you do if you think if you're kind of afraid of the coach not taking it well? Well, I do think the level of skins on the wall matter when you have these conversations. I think it is harder. I remember when I first started out, sometimes those conversations were hard because you don't have the thickness of skin. You don't have the same conviction and confidence. And frankly, sometimes as a younger administrator, you didn't have the wherewithal to time your mentioning of this and bring it up in a fashion. I just remember this. And I got this from Bill Parcells many years ago. Bill Parcell said, and he had this relationship with Dick Haley, and I probably talked about it on the show before. He used to tell me, he said, kid, just make sure you hire a coach that you can have the hardest of conversations with and use him as a sounding board and vice versa. He said, Dick Haley and I can say anything to each other at any time.

And even if it's outside our lane, we tend to sit back, listen, take it for what it's worth, and then discuss it. And once we leave the room, it doesn't change our relationship at all. So these relationships are built on, I think, awkward conversations. They're built on good times too, but you've got to be able to have that. But yes, your point is valid. You have to have a certain amount of cachet to be able to have certain conversations at the highest level. Because let's face it, there are egos involved on both sides. And I do think it's helpful to have a lesser ego if you're on the administrative side

so that you can hear it out and bring it up at the right time. Yeah, it's just a hard thing to wade into another person's expertise at a stressful time. during the season. 100%. 100%. That's a delicate deal to do when everybody's already, you know, on edge, possibly after a couple of losses. Like, you always say we're three weeks away from a mutiny at any time during the season.

Hey, we mentioned before on this podcast, the Michigan sign stealing situation. You'd kind of earmarked it as something maybe we talk about this week. And you sketched in some thoughts. But I wanted to kind of go back to the very basic of this. I think I can benefit from learning this. I think most of our listeners probably can. I want to just start really basic here, Randy, because we hear a lot being said about sign stealing.

Obviously, Jim Harbaugh and Michigan are under fire for possibly breaking some rules with their advanced scouting guy stealing signals from the opponents. I just want to start at Swear 1. Forget the stealing part. What are teams using signs to communicate? What are the mechanics? Is it the same?

in college as pros. Let's just be real basic. Let's start there. Well, I think for one thing, the college game is different, and the pro game has evolved. And my point of reference strictly is from the NFL side. And as the pro scouting director for the Seahawks for, I don't know, 15 years or so, I was the advanced scout. So I spent many a year, many a week on the road trying to gleam information that we couldn't get on tape. And what you do is when you go to these other games, You teams signal in, for one thing, personnel groupings. They used to signal in plays themselves, but they had all kinds of formulas and plays, especially on the defensive side back in the day, to send in defenses.

And it's changed. With their hands on the sideline of the coach does it to the, yeah, yep. And then you see this in college, especially now where they line up four or five guys in Dutch Dutch boy paints outfits and with a bunch of poster board and make it into a game. because the reason they're doing it is they're trying to throw the opposing sidelines off what they're trying to do. So there's never a rule, at least at the NFL level, against trying to decipher what the other teams are doing. Shoot, I'll say this, Mike, in the early 80s when I was doing our advanced scouting with the Seahawks, I remember going to a specific NFL game, and it took me about a quarter and a half.

This is just an example of the simplistic nature of sending in plays and signals. an NFL team when on offense, when it was a running play, one coach would send in the play. When it was a passing play, another coach would send in the play. So I'm from Idaho, but I'm at least smart enough to be able to figure that out after a while. So we knew when we played this team the next week, we knew if it was going to be a run or pass. Now, the hard part is what do you do with that information? And that's the big thing is can you get it one through a coach on the sideline to a player, on the field to when it matters because time is of the essence, right? And so that's part of the issue

is you've got to, even in the Michigan case, they've got a, or let's just use spygate. I'll stay in the NFL. Spygate, nothing the Patriots did was wrong until they got to the point where videotaping was involved. And if, if that is involved, then that's where the NFL drew the line in rules. There was never a problem with intercepting personnel signals or really even, from play signals, coverage signals. Defenses were the last part of the signal capers to jump on board because offenses ended up having speakers in their helmets sooner than than any other position. Yeah, as I say, they both had that now.

So why are we having it? In the NFL, there's not a lot of signaling going on to the same way, right? Except that personnel signals now are still an issue, depending on if you want 11 personnel or 12 personnel or 21st. But we're going to see that real quick anyway. You're going to see it fairly quick, but it used to be that they would always signal it in because the guys on the sidelines have to know too. So you don't want to wait until these two tight-ins come into the huddle and who see who runs out to actually get the personnel group. So there is a signal that's given.

And for the most part, that still happens in most cases. Now, that's the elementary part of it. There's different levels of it that happen all the time. And it's been for years taken as people in the United States. NFL, people really in any football game. I went to a high school game. My buddy was a coach. Shoot, I used to have the personnel singles for him halfway through the first quarter. It was just commonplace. And it's not illegal. It's not against the rules. It's just you're trying to better your chances to know what the other team's going to do. Where it gets sticky and where the

problem comes is when you have the technology involved. And that's really what got New England in trouble. So videoing, what's the huge advantage of having it on video? Well, the idea of of gathering information, for one thing, on signals, is part of it. Once you gather the information, then you got to take that information back to your office and decipher it by looking at the film. So you exactly match up the signals with what you saw on tape. And if you can find some kind of a pattern, then you have something to go on. Then you have to take that information that you've matched up on film.

And somebody on the sidelines has to get at the end of each play, someone has to get the signal for the next play and then actually get it into the game with a player who can do something with it when he gets there. So the chain of communication, I'm probably confusing the hell out of people, but the chain of this, the line of communication is three and fourfold before the player can get it on the field, they even do anything about it. So it's convoluted as to how it work. You might be finding out what the safety can already tell just by looking at the players, looking at the offense. Yes. It's not like it can affect every play. Now, when it can affect plays, and which, again, I don't want to get into SpyGate because I don't know all the details of it, but where it really got nasty was when the Patriots had an earpiece in Tom Brady's ear, and they're getting information to him from the sidelines all the way up to the snap.

As you know, that was happening, or that was allegedly. Allegedly happening. And sometimes you could push the film to the point where you could almost see Tom cover his ears at five. seconds when he wasn't supposed to be getting any information and getting that information. So anyway, there's levels of it. It's not like it was 20 years ago where you could go pick somebody blind. I used to have fun with Nick Saban. We used to laugh about it together in Miami.

When he was Belichick's defensive coordinator in Cleveland, I remember flying to games sitting in the press box and recording all of his signals of him. And so I used to kid him. I said, Nick, I already got your signals. I got a whole file of him. What are you trying to hide from? I already got what we're going to do. And he used to bristle and laugh.

And, of course, we were kidding at the time. But that kind of stuff happened. So you used to build files on specific coaches. And if a coach would leave and go to a different team, you still had the file on what his signals are. Yes. So now, let's talk a little bit about Michigan situations. So just from what you've seen of that, what do you think?

Well, I think the rules are different in college. They apparently don't allow people to travel to scout for one thing. You clearly can't videotape anything. never been the case. And I guess they have investigated that enough to where they think they have evidence of that. You definitely could never be on the sidelines of an opposing team. They've got records of that as well. That's amazingly brazen. I mean, that's almost like, I almost think it's outstanding. Like, hey, if you're doing that, that's just, like, how could somebody be on your sideline and we don't know who it is? Well, like, for example, they have pictures

this guy on the central Michigan side line looking across that Michigan state stealing their signals. Now, that has to be, you can't tell me that Central Michigan doesn't know who this guy is. He's wearing Central Michigan gear. So it's a convoluted long-term trail of evidence that's equivalent to tracking a wounded deer five miles across a timberland. You know, you just drops here, drops there. Eventually, you might find the deer died or you might not, you know. That's the way this is. So there's a lot of evidence there that I don't know how they could do this investigation in two weeks or however long it's been. I'm kind of with Michigan on, let's let due process take its course. But all of this long-winded answer I'm giving you is there's a lot of technology involved now and that's the bottom

line. That's what's got everybody up in arms is the technology of this. Is your initial impression, oh, I can't believe it. I'm appalled and I hope that Jim Harbaugh never coaches again or is it kind of like, come on, this is probably happening everywhere. Or where in between are you? I don't think it's something to push under the rug if they videotape stuff. And if they're on the sidelines of the opposing team and other teams are involved in the conspiracy. I think that's dead wrong.

But I'll say this, having kind of been involved in around this for a lot of years, I never had a conversation with the head coach about it ever. So although Jim Harbaugh may get penalized for it, he can say I'm not aware of it. And he's probably not lying. He's probably telling the truth. He isn't aware of it. Because I know when we would do this at the NFL level, the head coach was never involved. And I don't know how much he ever knew.

And it happened for years. So he could have deniability that was plausible. Yeah. I don't think the sign stealing is the difference in a 49-0-0 win, you know. Oh, I don't at all. Again, and I think you've got to have a lot of things in place to get advantage of this once or twice in a game. Once or twice. I've been around quarterbacks at the NFL level that used to say,

say, nope, I don't want it. It's too much. I can't tell you. I know you can tell me when they're going to blitz, but I can't deal with it right now. So you'd have to have the right people in place with the right quarterback, for example, or the right defensive back who can who can do something with the information if you do get it to him in a timely fashion one out of ten times. So there's a lot to go into it. It shows the luxury of having the ability to have as big of a staff as you want. I think of like the old days of football when, you know, NFL teams had like five assistant coaches, you know, and we've got guys now in the college side, then they don't know who they are.

Who's this guy? I don't know. Is this your nephew? No, I think he's some special ops guy we hired. He's deciphering the signals. He's reading, you know, the other thing. Oh, okay, great. Crazy.

Interesting. There's a lot to it. Let's dive next into the, let's just go straight to the GM notebook here. What do you got in there? Well, we've talked about a couple of things. There's only two items in here, but they're good. Yeah. Yeah, I talked a little bit about the Lamar.

Burrow. And the reason I came to the conclusion I did for the MVP deal is because I looked at a lot of tape. And the conclusion I came to, which doesn't surprise anybody, is that the groups of perimeter players that those guys are throwing to now, I think probably are the best in the league. What Baltimore has done to the receiving core is not upgraded at one level or two levels. They've upgraded it to the top floor. It's been really good. Joe Burroughs, receivers, I didn't realize, and maybe it's just me. Mike, I didn't realize they were as good as they are, but they are really good. I think these groups are game changers, better than Kansas City's perimeter players, better than Buffalo's players, better than Jacksonville players. The only group maybe that you can make an argument with was Miami

as far as perimeter players that might be comparable as a room, as a whole. Philly maybe. Philly. Well, I'm just talking, yeah, I was considered with AFC teams in this case because they're all L.S. I would think Philly's in the mix, probably on defense as well. Dallas isn't in the mix. 49ers not in the mix. They've just got a lot of guys and a lot of good players. So I just think it gives them, one, more options to where to throw the ball and who

to throw it to, but it also gives them some options for depth down the road. If those teams get a receiver hurt, they've got a lot bigger margin for air because they've got some guys that can replace them. So you said, I'm a little surprised on Baltimore because I think, hey, Mark Andrews's outstanding. I see Zay Flowers, promising rookie. But the rest, Nelson Aguilar, Odell Beckham, Rashad Bateman, you got a lot of confidence in those guys? I do. I think they're all really good. And throw in Isaiah likely as Andrew's backup. As a group, that's five or six guys that I think any one of those guys could go win a game for you. And that was what I probably learned more

about that group than I did about the quarterbacks when I looked at the tape. That's all. Interesting. I think they're all group. All as a group good. Isaiah Lathie, that name's familiar. I don't know if we talked about him in the draft or not last year. I thought someone would make a number one tight end. Yeah, he's turned out pretty good. I'm surprised someone hasn't made a run at him to try to get him from them. I guess, you know, there's enough teams looking for tight ends like him.

He probably won't be their long term because I know Andrews is signed. The other thing I had in the notebook was the Cowboys, and the fact that they lost to the Eagles last week, and we talked a little bit about this. most thought Dak played his best game. I would agree with that. But really came through for me again from studying the tape was, you know, last year, Dak threw all those interceptions and he was criticized for it. I think this year, and this may not be a good thing, but it's caused him to be more risk-averse in his decision-making. I don't think he is willing to let it rip like he has. And I just think in the back of his mind, he says, I'm not going to put up with this crap anymore.

I'm not going to be killed for throwing too many receptions. And I think for that reason now, I do see him leaving some plays out there. I think he hesitates a little bit to pull the trigger on some throws that in the past he may have done. Maybe he's just getting smarter about it. But I hate to see him pull back too much because I think at some point he's going to have to make some of these plays. he's going to have to become more of a playmaker and not a caretaker. And I thought I saw a little bit of that, especially in the Eagles game where some guys were open and there were some tight window throws, but he didn't want to take the risk.

And I say that with a little smirk in that I just think the past has affected him slightly. That's all. I think DAC is good enough to get this team to a Super Bowl. There's been a lot worse quarterbacks that have led their teams. So I think, and I like Zach, I think at some point for them to advance, he's going to have to let it rip and not be too careful. And I see him a little bit careful at times because he doesn't want to make that mistake that gets him criticized for what he did last year.

I don't know if that makes sense to him. I'm going to take it a step farther than that. So I think that Mike McCarthy has been super up front for two years about we're going to play to the strength of this team, which he says is defense. And to me, that's telling when you have the offensive coach who now is directly connected to the quarterback. There's no Kellyn Moore in between. So if Mike McCarthy thought that Dak Prescott was amazing

And we really wanted to run the offense room Don't you think he'd want to be doing that? I realized they have a talented defense But to me, everything we're seeing signal here And you can put those interceptions in part of the context from last year Part of this is we don't want Dak to We don't want to bet on Dak Now the best side of it could be

We don't feel like we need to bet on deck because we have a good defense. That would be the positive spin on it. But I see it more like don't want to bet on them. And it's interesting just in talking to some coaches this year who have played against them. I was just looking through my notes. You know, one of them said, you know, they're keeping it simple. A lot of half-field reads, that sort of thing.

And to me, that's a pulling into the reins that even goes beyond DAC. Dak is obviously perceptive to what the head coach wants to do. And this just feels like an organizational decision to play this way. which will reduce those turnovers, but maybe also reduces your ceiling, right? I totally agree. I think Dak is still capable of making wow plays without a doubt. He can. Now, he's not quite the athlete that he was five years ago, but hey, who is?

I think he can still make plays with his legs. I think he probably makes that touchdown run that he stepped out of bounds in the Eagles game a week ago, if it were two or three years from now or definitely before he got hurt. But I do think there's wild plays left in his arm. He got plenty of arms still and the ball does come out nice. But I agree with you. I think they have made a concerted effort to reel him in. We'll see at the end of the day if that's good enough.

I just think at some point they're going to have to let Dak, let it rip. I'm not saying it's now, but maybe it's as we get closer to the end or playoff time. I think you're right. There's more in that tank for him that he just hasn't expended. and maybe it is Mike, maybe it is the scheme, maybe it is the past, but it is what it is. There's a lot of people in a league. I would say the majority of people that I talk to about quarterbacks think that he just has to have a really good run game to be good, and otherwise he's not.

Well, I agree with that. I'm going to hit on that in a column next week. I write about the Cowboys, and I think some of that is based on, I think Dallas has done, just my opinion, they have not done a good job of identifying and evaluating their own players. and I think that has held them back a little bit in a long run. They've anointed players early. They have mis-evaluated some and spent money on them that they aren't that good. And that's part of the reason why they haven't, in my opinion, got over the hump and gotten better.

They seem like to be stuck in their same rut the last two or three years. Yeah. I like the little tease to the column next week. We are now, we've arrived at the moment of the picks. We were combined five and two last week. a little bit better. I went two and one, was correct on Cincinnati, and was correct on the Raiders. I was wrong on Seattle by a lot. Second time I picked against Baltimore and paid it. Payed just taking the points. Randy, you were three and one. I guess I'm 11 and 13 for the year. You're 10, 10, and 1. We've rallied a little bit here after a

couple of tough weeks. You were correct on Cincinnati, Washington, and Baltimore, not on the Jets. What do you see? this week? I see struggles for Randy and his picks, but I will say this. Last week, I seemed to have some conviction on the picks. This week, not so much. We should have to attach a confidence number to our picks when we make them, right? A one through 10 saying, I really believe this one or I don't believe that one. Hey, how many chips you willing to bet on each pick would be kind of... Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right. I think any better, and they probably do, I'm just an idiot, I'm a slow learner. I think anybody that does that for a living has to go with a confidence, conviction, number when they do make a bet.

And there may be some weeks where I don't make a bet, you know, if I did this for a living. Just the way it is, I don't like the games. I don't see anything that jumps out at me. So I just can't make a bet. You know, I got to stay on my own, you know, ground, so to speak. So anyway, here's how crazy I am. I'm going to pick against two teams that I think have a reasonable chance to go to the Super Bowl this year just based on point spreads.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's nuts. I'm going to take Cleveland in a division game in Baltimore. right? I just spent five minutes raving about Lamar Jackson, how good I think Cleveland's, you know, defense is. But I think Cleveland has a good defense. I think Miles Garrett is problematic for any offense. I like Jim Schwartz. I think where they're at in the game plan against Lamar serves them well. I'm not saying they can beat Baltimore, but Cleveland's getting six and a half points, which I'll gladly take. I'd be more worried about the Cleveland offense side of that equation against the Baltimore defense.

I am joking here. I've got my hands far apart. We got one hand we got Randy's money on the right hand. We got his mouth. He did not put his money where his mouth was fully on this. But the point spread is an interesting thing. I also think these defenses in the AFC North have a better chance and a better read on what to do against Baltimore. And I think there's a reason why whatever Lamar's record is against the NFC is 18 and 1 or something.

It's striking. And here's my Trump card with this matchup. I think Cleveland can run the ball on anybody. And I think they will try to do that and they will stick with the run. And I think that is a pretty good kryptonite for Lamar if he can't get on the field. And I think Cleveland will control the ball more than most. And you're right. These division games, there's no secrets.

They can game plan against each other pretty good. So that's the one game I'm for. The other game I'm taking is I'm going to take Jacksonville at home, getting three points against the 49 or two. I know they've lost three in a row, but I still think they'll be a participant in the NFC championship. I like San Francisco. I just think that the points at home for a confident Jacksonville team that's won five in a row, getting three points. I like it, so I'm going to take the points.

So I have Jacksonville and I have Cleveland in my two games this week. You know what's interesting about the 49er Jacksonville game is both teams are coming off a buy. So this is a Super Bowl type of matchup, right, where you have both teams having all this extra time for injuries, for just catching your breath, for scheming, for really, there's an, you know, this is a little bit of a sideline, but I think of, you know, the Jaguars GM used to be the GM of the 49ers. I mean, there's just some interesting sort of ties here to this. And I'm not sure what to make of it.

I really, I think I'm going to stay away from that game because I feel like I wouldn't be surprised by either outcome. It just feels like, hey, if Jacksonville won by six points or if the 49ers, to me, the 49ers could lose or win by 14. And I just not really sure what to make of them. Because those three games can't overly skew us. But at the same time, you know, it's just a great game going in. I'm going to stay away from it.

I got you. I'm not picking really overly sexy games. I'm going to take the Colts and give two points to the Patriots. If it was three, I probably wouldn't do it. So I've liked the coaching job that Shane Steichen's done this year. I think they have done some decent things on offense for what they have. And so I'm not getting a huge reaction from you, Mueller. I'm not seeing big smiles, but what do you think of that game?

I just, I don't, I don't have a lot of interest in the Colts. And the Patriots are a team that I understand your theory I would stay away from. I just struggle with what the Colts are week in and week out. but they are improving. They're a little bit better. I'm with you. I like Stuyken. I think he's a good coach.

I don't disagree with that pick. I don't have probably the conviction. Yeah, I didn't love a lot of the picks. The other one, I wasn't sure what to do on, but I'm going to take the Vikings against the Saints at home and take the three points. So just like three points at home. This would put New Orleans at five and five entering the buy with some question marks. And that just seems kind of appropriate from where they're at.

Now, I did not think that I think this would be five wins in a row for the Vikings. I don't know that I feel that great about where they're at, but were the sustainability of this whole thing without Kirk Cousins. But I think they're playing with some energy. I think the defense seems to be improving. The Saints have enough question marks. So just in that kind of environment there. I'm just going to sort of let it ride a little bit on the mojo that Kevin O'Connell and those guys have going in Minnesota. What do you think of that? Yeah, I think that's worth considering. I worry about Dobbs in a bounceback game. I think, that's as good as you're going to get. I don't think it could ever be topped. I do have faith in Kevin

having a good scheme, no matter who the quarterback is. Maybe Dobbs this week will actually know the names of the guys in the huddle with him. I mean, that's a great story in itself. I think the Saints might just be a little too much for them, but I do like the game. I will be interested in watching it, and I'll be rooting for your side in that one. Yeah, it would just be fun. So I didn't love a lot of the picks this week. What would the line have to be in the giant game against the Cowboys for you to take the Giants? So it was 17 points for the Cowboys. If it was 21, would you take them? I mean, what's the number? Yeah, I would. Actually, I don't think 17 is crazy. And I'm talking about the Giant side because I think the Giants will find a way to muster up enough.

You mentioned And we didn't talk about it The dispute a couple of players had With Wink Martindale on defense last week Yeah, yeah, that's on our items Yeah, that gets solved a little bit this week 17 points, a lot of points in the NFL, man I'm telling you, that's a lot

It is. I was kind of tempted to do it I just can't muster with what they've got on offense With the Giants Yeah, I know it's Tommy DeVito, whoever he is Yeah, I get it Yeah, that's a tough one

but I don't love the ones that I've got here. So I'm going to err on the side of only picking two instead of that one week when I tried to just pick four and still didn't like any of them. So we'll see. We'll see how these go. Been a fun show. Been a fun week. I'm going to enjoy the games this week, Randy.

You bet. Looking forward to it, Mike. Thanks, man. All right, man. Thanks for coming along. Everybody, you can find Randy. You can find me on The Athletic. You can find Randy on the former Twitter at Randy Mueller underscore.

You can find me there at Sando NFL. Thanks, everybody. We'll talk to you next week. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.