The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Football GM: Trades, first wins and quarterbacks

Episode Date: October 7, 2023

Mike Sando and Randy Mueller discuss the Chase Claypool trade to Miami. Remembering Dick Butkus. Bears first win of the season. Magic Johnson comments on the Commanders loss. Is this a must win for the Packers against the Raiders? A look at how teams can go about several ways to find a QB. Deshaun Watson would have gone if he could have gone. The GM Notebook and Week 5 predictions.  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast. Welcome everybody to the Football GM podcast heading into this NFL week five. Mike Sando here from The Athletic, along with my partner, Randy Mueller, the GM, the former executive year. How you doing, Randy? I'm doing great, Mike. Good to be back again. No shortage topics, as usual.

Kind of fun. Yeah, exactly. We got a bunch. And really, most of the time, we've let off with a little something. on the Thursday night game, but we had some news come down with Chase Claypool of the suddenly red hot for one-week bears being traded from Chicago to Miami. Now, Claypool has kind of, by all appearances, worn out as welcome in two places. It just happened to be iconic franchises, Pittsburgh and Chicago. Curious from your standpoint, Randy, as a GM from another team,

What are you taking into account when somebody like this becomes available and deciding whether to bring them in or whether to, you know, hey, let's not, if there's any risk, let's not do it. You know, where are you at on that with a player like this? Well, I think it's definitely risk reward. And I think you have to consider that first and foremost because you can make a mistake maybe like Chicago did in giving up a second round pick, which as we know ended up being the 30 second picking the draft. to acquire him and a year later you got to send him off. I think the risk you face is that you really don't know the player. That's the thing. You know him on tape.

You know the player what he can do on the field. It's the off the field. It's the intangibles. It's the acquisition really sometimes of somebody else's problems. I used to deal with the team a lot as a GM and it got to the point where I really didn't make the call because their theory always was if you're willing to trade him, he's a problem. and why would we take your problem? Now, you can make exceptions to that. You can make a case to each of these being individually,

but that was that franchise's philosophy. So they never would make a deal. And, you know, that might be silly at sometimes. But I think in this case, and you mentioned the term trade, that's using it liberal in this case. And we saw it earlier in another move earlier in the week when the Chargers let C.J. Jackson go back to New England. They're not really a lot of value being exchanged here.

In this case, Miami, they're given a pick, they're getting a pick. I mean, let's face it, it's a Starbucks, right? It's a Starbucks card. That's what they're giving up for a chance to take a look at Claypool. And I think in their situation, they have a, what they feel like is a strong locker room. They have some leadership. They have strong people as decision makers. This kid's not going to come in there and destroy anything.

And because they gave up so little, they'll cut him if that's the case. So they're not on the hook for anything. So that comes, that's the risk reward in this case. I don't think it works for everybody, but I like it for Miami. They have, you know, Jalen Waddle, they have Tyree Kill, they have Braxton Berrios. He probably upgrades them for sure over Robbie Chosen's, Said Wilson. At least in my opinion, he gives them some insurance against these starters getting hurt. And it may allow them to look to move a Said Wilson or Robbie Chosen down the road.

here as we approach the trade deadline. So it's kind of a two-fold asset for them to acquire, at least in my opinion. So Frank Smith, the offensive coordinator of the Dolphins, was an offensive lineman at Miami of Ohio from 01 to 03. Do you know who his quarterback was? Claypool. I don't know. Ben Rothesberger. Okay, there you go. So he was the offensive line with Ben Rothesberger. I wonder if he places a call to Big Ben, because Ben Rathesberger was Well, I would hope so, yeah. In Pittsburgh, that could be, you sort of look for these little ties or these insights, you know, right? No doubt.

And maybe Benz could have told him, hey, stare clear of this guy. Or I could say, hey, this guy was just immature. He's not a bad guy, right? Or whatever. You'd think that type of a coach. Now, they may have better intel than that based on whatever their connections are. They could have way fresher connections. But that was one that I thought of.

And then their wide receiver coach is Wes Welker. So he is somebody who has played, understands player. and personalities, you know, I would imagine that if he didn't want him, then they wouldn't be getting him. So maybe he feels like, hey, I like a couple things about him. So I think those things are always interesting. I also think when you take a look at the number one complaint that Claypool had in Chicago, which is probably the reason that, you know, the straw that broke the camel's back for him was he was asked to question whether the offensive staff was using him properly there and he was silent for seven seconds before saying no. Gosh, we haven't

seen that before in Chicago. We ever have it. Yeah, yeah. And this was kind of when, you know, everything was going out of control for the, for the bears. So I actually applaud the bears for even though they botched the handling of the communication of sitting them down. That's what they had to do. They had to do that. And moving on from him and making this decision, I think it was very positive for them. I think they needed to just do it and get it to get it over with. Oh, 100%. Yeah, especially once that video went viral of him really not giving an effort at all. They had no choice. Yeah, so good by them.

Now, I think that we can say a lot of things about Mike McDaniel of the dolphins, but no one right now, given the way his offense has played, is questioning how he uses his personnel. So this is going to be a situation where Claypool goes on in there, completely on the Dolphins terms. And McDaniel has built good credit. ability there. If it doesn't work, it's on Chase Claypool. It's not on the dolphins right now. Well, and he's to the point now, or he's strike three and he's out. I mean, this is, he's playing for

his career. So the forces are in favor of the dolphins making this work much more so than all the reasons you listed for it not working in Chicago. So I agree. I like to move. Before we get to the bear game, and we have, I think, an interesting conversation that is not specifically about the game. It's more about dynamics and ownership and some interesting comments made after the game, but I did want to acknowledge the passing of Dick Buckus. I was sure thinking about him as the Bears went ahead in the game against the commanders, sort of against a lot of expectation. And I just thought, I was, I wondered if they even, you know, I mean, obviously the players

are aware of that. I wondered if they played a video or something, you know, that in appreciation of his career. Or do you think players take that sort of thing into account when it's somebody of that stature, Randy, or is it so far long ago that it would have no impact on a team? Well, I would think if the Bears management and top decision makers didn't make Dick Buccas a focal point at some point, not necessarily last week, but any time, any place. These iconic figures like Dick Buccas, who I would consider a top 10 defender player in the league's history, You have to stand on those boxes as a bear, and I would hope they all know who he is.

He should have been prevalent around the office in photos and everything else, if nothing else, and probably warrants a speech from somebody, whether it's the coach or whoever, in that, hey, this is what we stand for, because this is the equivalent of a Joe Namath with the Jets or, you know, Roger Stobach with the Cowboys. These are iconic figures that should be revered. If we don't teach our young players, our young professionals about the history of the game in this way, I think we're doing the game a disservice. So I thought of, I was thinking of him throughout the game early as the Bears played well. And then you mentioned him as a top 10 defender of all time.

And I think our colleague Dan Pompei and I put together a top 100 list of players in the history of the game. And he wasn't the top 10 of that. Dan wrote a nice tribute on the athletic about Dick Buckkus. Dan's been in Chicago, knows Dick Buckkus really well. And they go back a long time. But, you know, I was, as I was watching some of the highlights and the tributes, one of them was from long ago. But it was really before O.J. Simpson became known for other things, he was a great player and a great running back. And he had said back in the day long ago before his, you know, situation,

with his, you know, the murder charges and all of that, he said, Buckus was the only player he faced who he truly feared. And I think that is a rarity. Don't you think, Randy, somebody you actually feared. These are really high-end athletes and competitors. You wouldn't be afraid of somebody. I'm not talking about as a match-up consideration. You're like afraid of him as a person, as a guy who's going to come after you.

And this is, you may think, hey, long ago, the game's changed. This guy was 6'3, 245 pounds. You know, Dan noted that his sleeves on his dress shirt were 37 inches. I mean, this is a real athlete in any era. And if you watch some of those highlights, I posted one. I mean, the running back is coming through the hole. And he just gets him with one arm around the guy's waist, lifts him off the ground. And the guy's running in place in the air like a kid.

Like a cartoon. Yeah, cartoon slams him on the ground. the guy's head bounces off the ground about twice and you go, dang, I've watched a lot of football. I've never seen that. I've never seen that now. Never seen that. I mean, that's a, this is a player who's really unlike just about anyone else. Yeah.

Just listening to your description, Mike, and I'm a football junkie, right? But that gives me goosebumps, really. Yeah. To think about, we all have been scared a few times in our life. Yeah. I've been on the football field maybe once or twice where I can. can remember when I was questioning why I was there. And to have that across the line from you at any position is a big thing.

And just listening to that, I'm serious. I got goosebumps just hearing about it. And I think that's the iconic nature maybe as well defined as I've ever heard or at least felt. I think it's awesome. And yeah, there aren't a bunch of these guys and the extremes that he could put on other people because of his physicality is, hey, that's what the game's all about. Yeah, there were two little notes in Dan Pompey's piece that I think everyone should check out on the athletic that stood up to me. One was, quote, in a game in which the Lions were beating the Bears as time wound down and then a rage butt because called all three timeouts for one purpose.

So he could take a running start and drill Lion's Center Ed Flanagan's archedonesis. That is hilarious. Flanagan's going, hey, what did I do? He used all the timeouts in the end just to get more. plays. He wanted to smash the center. Three shots. He get three shots at the center. Yeah. And then I thought this was pretty amazing, not in the football sense, but in 2001, Butkus agreed to do a radio ad in exchange for a heart scan that normally cost about $15,000. He expected a clean bill of health, but discovered he needed a quintuple bypass.

His doctor told him he would have died in 30 days if the blockages had not been found. This is in 2001. The hospital where Butkus had his life-saving scan in California, now features a building called the Dick Buckas Center for Cardiovascular Wellness. He encouraged former athletes, retired military, police officers, and firefighters to take advantage of complimentary screenings there. How awesome is that? Yeah. No, that's incredible. I mean, the whole thing, the whole really his career, his post football career, all of it is, I mean, we talked about Jim Brown and how important of a loss that was a few months back. You're talking about the same guy. It's the same, same persona, all time, all time, you know. They talk about,

having the Hall of Fame, the greatest of the average Hall of Fame. This guy's the greatest, one of the greatest of all times. And as a person, there's very few of these guys that go on beyond football to become even more famous sometimes than they were as a player. This is one of them. Yeah, he absolutely was. Those commercials in the 80s, if you go back that far, you know, the light beer commercials he was in. Oh, yeah. Classics of the day when you were watching football, you know, on NBC or CBS back then. So I was lucky, Mike. I'll just throw this in. I was lucky in that when I was young in the Seahawks organization growing up, one of my mentors was a former head coach of the Bears, Abe Gibran. If you've ever seen Brian's song, he's the one guy that

played himself in Brian's song. Yeah. It went on to be defensive line coach for John McKay with the Bucke's, but anyway, he grew up as a bear as well, played for a long time with the Cleveland Browns. Anyway, Abe was one of my mentors and he often would tell me butkus stories and talk about Butkus in such a way that I hadn't, he was before my time for the most part. I would have to look at YouTube and some of the other things to really get, Abe could make it come to light, whether it was Bobby Douglas or Dick Butkus or he was a bear's historian himself. So I've heard so much about Dick Butkus that even though I've never met the man, I just think the world of him just because everybody says similar about him. Yeah, Abe Gibran was on the bear's

staff from 65 through 74. The last three years has head coached there, so he knew firsthand as well as anyone. So rest in peace, Dick Buckas, a legend, really an American icon. To the games, before we get to the football components of the bears dominating, I think 40 to 20 victory over the commanders, You and I had a little text exchange after the game initiated by you, and it said this. Hey, you said, did you see the tweet by Magic? Talking about Magic Johnson. Part owner owns a stake in the Washington Commanders.

What did that tweet say, Randy? Well, it jumped out at me as to what? Did he really say this? And we all know now, and it's been talked about really on TV and radio ever since it happened, it's become the narrative even more so than the game itself or the result of it. Magic came out and said that the commanders, and he says we because he does have a minority stake in the team. We weren't ready to play.

He questioned their fire. He questioned their desire. He questioned everything. And I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, I bet you Ron Rivera is going to love this. I'll bet you the GM's going to love this. And now we have in a different way, but serving the same purpose. purpose, another Jerry Jones like press conferences, is this going to be something that's after every game now? We're going to ask Magic what he thinks of our effort and our game plan and everything

else. I love Magic like everybody else does, but I'm not sure he's qualified for a lot of comments on an NFL game. That just could be me. I don't know. Magic's one of my favorites. I've got a picture of me wearing the 1989 MVP shirt. Magic, that was my guy, my team. Growing up in California in the 80s, I mean, there's a picture. There's nobody, there's no one I admire more than Magic Johnson as an athlete. And certainly he's done a lot of great things too in the community and business-wise. But it's interesting because he is, while he is a part owner of the Washington commanders, he's also Magic Johnson.

He's also separate from that. He has this huge identity separate from that. And I think most people in a team environment are sort of defined by their team environment. They're not bigger than that. And Magic Johnson is bigger than that. So it would be an interesting, I think, situation going forward if he's going to be making comments on how the team played. I mean, how would, he's not in the, he has no NFL experience. He doesn't really know what the key was to the game.

He doesn't really know what the intensity was. Yeah. What the intensity was or what the scheming was, any of those types of things. But he's inserting himself in with big opinions. And I was, just be interesting to see how that unfolds. Yeah, no doubt. I think he created a giant headache for his head coach and really supplied an already kind of negative shark pool with some more blood, you know.

There's already enough doubt in what they're doing and the direction they're going. He interjected himself into a story that I just felt like he had no place, no place being there. Now everyone, like you said, it's going to turn to magic anytime something goes wrong to get a comment. I guess I would ask the next question is, wonder what Josh Harris, the real owner, thinks of this. And your comment was, well, did you see him in the box? It looked like a pretty good party going on in the owner's suite, too. So that may be a whole other story. Maybe their intensity wasn't what it needed to be.

You know, it's funny. But, you know, in fair, you know, magic's an ultimate competitor, okay? And so it's funny, you know, Michael Jordan has been an owner of a, you know, of a team, too. competitor type of guy. So I think, I reminded me initially of, you know, Magic's so emotional and so invested in the games that there's a, you know, a funny story. If you know the history of his career, his very first game in the NBA, you know, they play an 82 game schedule. You can't get too high or low with any win. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar hits a hook shot to win the game. They beat the Clippers. I mean, it's not that big of a deal. But hey, hey, nice shot. Good, they win the game.

Magic jumps into his arms. I mean, it's like they won the NBA title. And Kareem was kind of like, hey, buddy, we've got 81 more of these. We can't be, you know, all over the, we can't be, you know, popping champagne corks every time we happen to win a game. And so the NFL is obviously different. Each game is more important. But maybe the maybe Magic Johnson living and dying too much wearing his emotions on his sleeve here. You mentioned Michael Jordan.

And you may know this. Michael Jordan owns a NASCAR team. And he, one of his drivers is. Bubba Wallace, who's been around a little bit. And you see him often on race days in the pit box watching with headphones listening. Here's what you don't see. You don't see Michael Jordan commenting after the race and say, oh, Bubba Wallace did this or should have done that or the pit crew guys messed this up or they didn't show up ready to go. You won't see Jordan put himself out front like that. And so I just think there is a time and a place for people to say certain things.

I will say this. I don't necessarily disagree with what Magic's saying. I just don't think publicly you can comment on things like that. It's almost kind of unprofessional. That's all. Yeah. And is it because you would not want to have that happen if you were the coach? Do you think there's actual real downside to it or do you just think it's a pain in the butt for the coach? Well, that's enough downside right there. If it's a pain in the butt for the coach, then that is the downside. Because it's a, I think, yeah, let's not do it. Why are we creating another narrative of, targets for media, for anybody fans, for anybody. Now everybody, because Magic said this, now the burden of proof isn't on Ron Rivera anymore. It's not on them. It's already been said.

So yeah, everyone has to be asked about it. All the players do. Yes. Hey, was the effort better this week, Magic? He doesn't know what the effort was. No, it just it was unneeded. I just don't understand it. I mean, he's trying to, I guess, let everybody know he's got a stake in this, but we all knew that. We don't have to keep calling attention to any of that. I remember when Magic, and you could be, I could be wrong on this, but one of the reasons he left the Lakers when he did was he wanted wanted to be able to tweet all the time and say whatever he wanted. And I think that those comments were kind of said back then. Yeah. So that's a real good question. Who can tell Magic Johnson of what to say or not to say? Yeah, I hear you. Well, Josh Harris probably could. He's the,

it's his game, right? It's his ball. He can do whatever he wants with it. But I just think it probably warrants a little bit of it. Yeah. And maybe we're given too much criticism for something that Magic told Rivera ahead of time, hey, I'm going to do this, be ready for it. I doubt that happened. Yeah. Oh, I highly doubt that happened.

Yeah. Well, I'm just saying, why are we creating this firestorm? There's enough firestorms every week as it is in the NFL. Trust me. Yeah. Yeah. I always say we're about three good series away from a total mutiny. So that's just the life and times in the NFL.

We don't need one of us to be criticized. one of us in the same room. Yeah, absolutely. So it's an adventure week-to-week in the NFL. We are going to talk about that in a bit, some of the challenges that to crop up that a team or a GM have to handle. There's been a number of them that I think are illustrative of the challenges of the job. Let's hit quickly the Thursday night game itself.

A couple takeaways for you? Yeah, I think the two things that jumped out at me from watching the game on the field, Mike where I thought the commander's effort in the secondary was really bad. They were on their heels all night. They were standing around as defenders, not rallying to the ball. Tackling was atrocious. That's why I say maybe Magic had a lot of good points. I just didn't like the forum he used for them. I just think that the commanders look to me like a team unwilling to grind out anything tough. Their physicality just wasn't there, whether it was in tackling or holding the point of attack up front in the battle on either side of the ball with the big boys. I just thought that the bears

looked more desperate and they won the game and played like a team that needed it more. It almost felt like that the commanders didn't think they needed it. So a couple traits, just specifics, with those defensive backs. The only thing worse than letting the guy run by you in as a corner in the NFL is if you can't locate and find and play the ball at the end of it. Because you can be the best cover guy in the world, but if you can never play the ball, it's a fatal flaw. And I saw that time and time again last night. I saw defenders who were kind of out of position, couldn't recover, and then couldn't play the ball. That's a bad feeling. I just, that's always for me, as an NFL evaluator, been part of a criteria that was fatal. If a defensive back can't find and

play the ball, I don't want them. And that showed up with me last night. in watching this game. And I think once the film gets analyzed, they're going to probably have a lot of coaching points that Commander's defense is on that. One effort, especially by the secondary, and two, finding and playing the ball. And I'm not even talking about the offense. That's just what stood out at me after watching the full game Thursday night. Yeah. So that's a week after, by the way. They used a first round pick on a 165 pound corner last year, and he had a tough day against A.J. Brown of the Eagles in the division last week. So a couple of secondary notes there for, for Wals. Washington.

My takeaways on this game were really that I thought a week after, you know, just chaos for the Bears and really questioning of Matt Iber Fluse's handling of the game, they had a fourth down they went for that, you know, ended up really backfiring on them late in the game against Denver and they blew it. I thought they were a better, like a cleaner managed team in this game. I felt like the situation at the end of the first half was an example of that. They got the ball back on an interception, a couple minutes left in the half. And they did a really nice job of running the clock down.

I think fields, although he got close to the sideline there, he stayed in bounds. That was nice. They were able to get a touchdown, not just a field goal. That was a great way to end the half and really put the hammer down for them. So I thought that was great for them. I think they only left 24 seconds for the commanders on the other side of that. So that's the type of thing that can get overlooked. It's easy to point out the times when you mismanage it or it's questionable management.

I thought that was a good development for them. And then the second one was for so much of this year, I've been saying, hey, where's the evidence that any of the bear's moves have paid off meaningfully? You know, and we've pointed to Chase Claypool, all this stuff. The DJ Moore acquisition looked pretty good. Oh, yeah. And he looked good last week, too. Yeah. Yeah. So he's a good player, really. Yes. So I thought that was a nice takeaway, you know, for them. And if you look at Justin Fields' numbers throwing to DJ more of the season, they put those on the screen, 27 of 34, 531 yards, 5 touchdowns.

Obviously, the one game bumped it up. But in just five games with Fields, Moore is halfway to the receiving yardage totals for Fields' top. two receivers in his entire tenure there. And that's Darnell Mooney with about 1,000 yards in 28 games and Cole Comette with about the same in 32 games. This guy's over 505 games. So that's really nice to see for them because those other guys they have are fine. They just can't be your number one guy. And so that was really nice. Another takeaway was, you know, Fields, I think, averaged 18.8 yards per completed pass. Awesome. But he completed 51. And there's wide open guys he's missing still. So I, you know, the repeatability of it against good coverage and that sort of a thing. I think we don't want to mislead ourselves into thinking that,

oh, wow, it's going to be this easy all the time. I think he got the confidence now and showed he's going to be able to hit on some big plays. That's great. And now we'll see if more of that consistency comes, wouldn't you say? I agree 100%. I think the misses are still an issue that you brought up. You don't have the margin for error that you would in college. You've got to hit those throws. You don't get that many open throws to start with. And he did miss some guys, but obviously Fields is playing better. And really, for the second week in a row, I think the progress is there. Here's my question about the field's case in general is at the end of the year,

they've got to figure out if he's shown enough to pass on a kid like Caleb Williams from USC. Because they're going to end up with one of the top couple picks, probably. Time will tell. But that's the big question they need to solve. Let's just say at the end of the year that the jury is still, out a little bit, how can you pass on Caleb Williams? You really can't, in my opinion. So that's GM malpractice to pass on a kid like that. If he turns out that he's determined to be generational talent at the end of this year. So Fields can play lights out, but unless he removes any doubt at all

in the front office, they're going to have to probably draft a quarterback. Surely if they're picking into top two or three. So that's survival, progress. That's all great for Justin Fields. I just don't know if it's going to be enough at the end of the year if this team struggles. And now, they've won one game out of the last 15. So I don't think we're ready to say they've got everything fixed and they're on their way to, they only need to win 14 more to get to 500, Mike, even with my eye. For the bear's quarterback tradition to continue, what will happen is they'll get hot enough to win about five or six games, take them out of the window for those quarterbacks. And they'll be coming back. next year with the same thing. Last takeaway from this game, Washington became the ninth team since

2000 to pass 100% of the time on early downs for an entire second half. I saw a note that 55 pass plays in a row at one point in the game. That is incredible. Eric Bien of me was a running back, but he is Andy Reid's guy. That is for sure. He's running back card has to be turned in. He has turned in the running back card. This guy wants to throw the ball. He's definitely going to lose his RB card. That club is throwing him out of the club. He's not going to be on that conference call with the running backs when they determine their salary and how they can get the franchise tag up.

Eric Mianami has crossed over for sure. We know who he is and he wants to throw the ball. So I say good for him. I think Andy Reid would be proud of him for that. But that was amazing. They threw the ball a ton and that quarterback was taking a lot of sacks. So interesting. Okay.

Did he get to 30? He's been sacked the most of any. quarterback in the league, I know that. He's not going to last if they keep protecting like they are. I'm almost positive, Mike. He has been sacked more than anybody in the league this year. Well, Daniel Jones, he's second and sack rate to Daniel Jones, and Daniel Jones took 11 in one game.

Well, that might be rate, but total sacks, I think we, either way, neither one of them are going to last. I can tell you that. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, yeah. And how it seems like you have to sort of know when to surrender. And it all goes down like, you know, he goes down like he's trying to flee the scene, you know, and he's trying to get away. He's Josh Allen only half the size.

Yeah, he's not going quietly here. He's not going down swinging. And that's how you're going to get held up and hit and smashed and all those types of things. So let's see here. Yeah, you're right. Sam Howe's been sacked 29 times. Yeah. That is the most in the league.

Now, he's got one more game than Daniel Jones. So we'll see maybe against Miami. If Jones, the over-under is for Daniel Jones, he needs eight sacks to have the most in the league. But 29 sacks is a lot, a lot of sacks. And the only reason the rate isn't higher is because, like I said, they threw it on every freaking play in the game. Yeah. That's a recipe to get the next guy lined up. So I'll be very, I'm interested to see what happens there because I can't imagine that Ron Rivera as a defensive coach is comfortable with having you pass every play.

So we'll see how that goes. Well, part of that too now is they're behind, what, 27 to 3 at one point? You got to throw. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay, Chicago needed this win. And as we look around the league, who else are you putting in that category that needs a win?

And I'm not just talking about only the teams that haven't won yet because obviously Carolina needs a win. But I'm talking about sometimes it's a little more nuance than that in terms of, you know, hey, a loss this week could be a little damaging. you have in that category? Well, sometimes it's as simple as who you're playing, determining how big of a loss it is. Yeah. Yeah. It's not like some team that goes into Buffalo and loses and their season's going to be over. I mean, we get it. Buffalo's good. But in this case, I put Green Bay at the top of my list. And I'm not picking this game, but I just thought it was worth mentioning. Green Bay goes to Las Vegas this week, and I think it is a must win for them. They have to prepare, they have to play like a desperate Chicago team did last week. We haven't seen that to date, but they've got to be

almost pissed off. You saw Matt Lafleur last week in the post game kind of lose it. He was a little pissy. He was a little short. He was a little gruff. And we've questioned whether he is wired to lead in something other than a peacetime world, right? It's not peacetime president anymore. This is a world at war. And some people are better at it than others. And so we're going to find out if Matt can lead as a something less than a peacetime president. It's just the way it is because he's going to have to make some tough decisions. If that defense goes to Vegas and plays crappy, Mike, they're going to have to look at making some kind of change to fix it. And as a leader, you have to ask the hard question. You have to ask the tough stuff and be able to make tough

decisions. And we haven't really seen Matt have to do any of that. But I think his leadership skills are going to be tested. Yeah. I just think it's a must win for them to go to Vegas. They can't afford to go and not play well against the Raiders. The Raiders have not scored more than 18 points in a game. They haven't got Josh Jacobs going, but there's a little bit of a ticking time bomb component to that, right? There's going to be a game when Josh Jacobs has 135 yards, right? It's just going to happen. It can't be this week or someone's going to get fired. Yeah. So, I'm serious. Yeah. The Raiders kind of made the Chargers work for it a little bit last week. You know, Justin Herbert, as talent as he is, really didn't do much. And they had to get like a 50-yard

pass late in the game to even have any stats. So, you know, the defense of the Raiders has been so maligned, but maybe played a little better last week, you know, wouldn't you say? Oh, yeah. I think they made a little bit of progress. I don't think it's a bad defense. They just haven't played good. So they're capable of more. The stat that you, and you and I talked about this last week, but the stat you just gave of haven't scored 18 points yet, and Josh McDaniels is the offensive guru, and that's how he got this job, that one baffles me a little bit. Are we saying that they're bad on offense? They're not, it's not marginal. They're bad. And they got good players. They got Devante Adams. They got Josh, you know, Jacobs, like you said, he led the league last

year. And here's the thing. So, so to me, the Raiders, and we're going to keep talking about the Packers, but to me, the Raiders, yeah, the 18. is their season high. They've gone 1710, 18, 17. I do believe that Josh McDaniels is a really sharp football coach. But, I mean, I'm not saying head coach or that. I think he know a lot of people in the league. A lot of people respect him as a caller. His understanding of the game, all of that stuff is really high, high IQ in the game. I've heard that from too many people that I respect. I agree. But, you know, when's it been good? without number 12.

And so it's early. The job description changes when you become a head coach too, because you've got to be not only a great technician, but tactician, but you've got to bring people together. You've got to be the glue. You've got to be the straw. And he hasn't been able to be the straw,

if that makes any sense. So what is he differentiating on, Randy, with only 18 points as your ceiling this year? What's he, did he elevate car to the car's best year? No, we fired car. We had to get a car out of there. Yeah, fired him. Yeah.

So now... Their offense line really is no better. You know, as a team builder, that's where you'd want to see some progress. And I don't know if we've seen much progress. Right. So they do get Jimmy Garoppolo back. Devonta Adams has been missing practice. We'll see if he goes.

But I think, you know, there's a lot of... It is a dangerous game for Green Bay. But if this is another 17-pointer for the Raiders and Garoppolo's, plan. Maybe we're talking about them next week. Yeah, you're probably right. Interesting game, that's for sure. I think, and we've said it on the show. I think in general, the more desperate team wins. But your point might be valid. Both these teams are desperate. So it should make for a pretty good game. Yeah, absolutely. It's a game I'm interested in, right? Yes. That's for sure. So you had a note, you'd written down one of your notes was just talking about GM crisis management or

sometimes mismanaged on display. What did you mean by that? Well, I just think, and again, we beat this Dead Horse 2 on the show about GMs and the more of the criteria that becomes part of the job. It's great to be able to sit around in rooms and pick players. I understand it. But that's a little bit fantasy land, to be honest with you. We saw this week, and the Claypool deal looks to have been put to bed now with his trade to Miami, but you've still got Jonathan Taylor in Indianapolis. You've got Neal, the tackle from the Giants, spouting off about the fans. Devin Neal, yeah. Deiagratory, Devin Neal, jumping on people that are, you know, blue-collar workers, all these kind of things.

You've got people saying things all the time. Now you've got to deal with Magic Johnson's comments. If you're a GM or a head coach at one of these places, it is not one for people who lack people skills, who lack healing skills. And we kind of just hit on that with the head coaches. But it's the same at the GM chair. too. You've got to be able to solve crises. You've got to be able to bring people together and almost, I won't say ride the fence, but you almost have to be a little bit political as well because you've got to bring them all together. And 17 weeks is a long time. And when you add

the buy in there, 18 weeks is a long time. And things happen. We're together all day, every day, just like a family. And you've got to be the peacemaker within the family. Two brothers are fighting. You've got to solve it. You've got to fix it. And this happens a lot. And it's a lot more than people realize as part of these GM jobs. So let's drill down on specifics a little bit. Let's just say you were the general manager of the commanders. And maybe you've met Magic Johnson three times since he became owner of the team. You don't really know each other that well.

And you're a holdover. You were there before. And you have a veteran head coach in Ron Rivera who's been through a lot of crises. I mean, he's been head coach of the Washington commanders under Dan Snyder. It doesn't get much more crisis than that. What would you be doing? Would you reach out to Magic Johnson or what, you know, you can't call him in and read him the Riot Act or something? No, but I would probably have a conversation with Josh, the owner, right?

I would probably have a direct conversation with him. He fall, Magic falls under his really reign of management, right? If he's managing people, that's where it starts. and I think that conversation has to happen. I would just say to the majority owner, what are we trying to accomplish here? What would you like to see happen? Not that I disagree with what Magic's saying,

just the way he's picked to message this to our fans. Is this really helping us? Is this helping us sell tickets? I just want to understand the angle so that I can make it easier for all of us. So that conversation is one, I think that has to happen. So many times these conversations between, GMs and coaches, GMs and owners, the conversation never happens.

And you don't gain any footing from it. You don't get better. I think, and I'm in fact going to write this next week for the athletic, Bill Parcells told me years ago, Mike, he said, make sure, Randy, you hire a head coach that you can say anything to at any time and vice versa, that he can come in your office and you guys can converse. And the minute you leave, the door shuts and you're a band of brothers again. You have to have awkward, hard conversations to move forward.

Otherwise, things fester. They don't get put to bed. The communication becomes even more gray. You've got to be able to converse with people and have people skills. And I see a lot of places where those conversations never happen. They never have the tough conversations. We're playing this tight in that we drafted in the top five picks, 30% of our snaps. This doesn't make sense.

Kyle Pitts with Atlanta. Yeah. I'm just saying anybody in particular, I'm going in and we're going to talk about it with the head coach, just him and I. Nobody else has to know about it. But I want it to understand from him what he's doing. He needs to understand how I feel. And maybe we come to some common ground.

But these are hard, awkward conversations for top decision makers. I think in any industry, but definitely in the NFL, because that's where I've lived, they have to happen. And, you know, it's, it's, I think makes us all better. And you and I have talked about it. None of us are smarter than all of us. but if you never talk about it, you never get anything solved. Yeah, I'll be very interested to see the Jonathan Taylor situation if that can be smoothed out. And if they, because I kind of, if I'm them and I have Anthony Richardson as my quarterback,

I want Jonathan Taylor taking some of those hits that Anthony Richardson is taking as a primary runner in their offense. I kind of would like to, I would of course want to know what my head coach thinks, Shane Steichen, hey, we're going to use this guy. But shouldn't this be, shouldn't he be able to help them or no? look, this guy's not coming back. You've got to move him and get whatever you can now. What would your mindset be for them with him? Well, he should be able to help them. You're correct. But is he ever going to be the focal point of what he thinks is a $15 million a year salary? Probably not. Not in this case. I just don't see them ever paying a running back that kind of money. It's just not that important that they can't solve it for a third of that price by rotating two or three guys.

That's what we're seeing around the league, especially. That's what the Eagles have done. done. Guess where Stuyken came from? The Eagles, similar situation. So although, yes, he can take the physical burden away from the quarterback a little bit temporarily. They got running backs. We can maybe get another running back somewhere for less. I just don't think they'll ever pay a premium price. And it doesn't say one's right, one's wrong. The kid wants to get paid. He just may have to go somewhere else to do it. I just don't know if I'm willing to do that. And I don't think they're going to pay him right now anyway. Oh, no, no. This is probably a conversation a year from now or in the offseason, that's why they probably won't even tag him. Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Is it worth it to you to let him play this year and just get the comp pick down the road, that sort of a thing? Or is there a team, you know, shoot, he was with Frank Wright. Carolina needs something. I mean, is there a team that you could actually trade him to? Well, if Frank Reich wants him, I'd probably trade him right now because that job might not be there, you know, six months from now, the way Carolina's playing. So take advantage of every angle you can to gain value for your franchise. And if that's the case, you've got to consider some of that. I just don't know that the Colts are ready to make a run and that you can't replace a running back like him. I just don't know if he has the skins on the wall, the durability,

the body of work to say all of a sudden he's worth $12, $14 million. I just couldn't do that. Yep. Okay. Let's get to the GM notebook here and see how much time we have after that. We have a couple other thing sketched in, but we're just, you and I could just talk all day and we don't want to do that. And bore everybody to death, sorry. Yeah, yeah, but let's hit the GM notebook. What do you got in there? Well, the big thing that came to mind for me, and it's really spawned off the Joe Burrow situation. I struggle when I watch the Bengals nowadays. I struggle with Joe Burrow being out there. I don't, I'm not being disrespectful as to what's being said and the message. I just don't see the same

player. I see a guy that's favoring a leg, can't drive the ball, putting himself in awkward situations to where he's getting creamed way more than he should. And I understand that he gives him the best chance to win. But if we feel that bad about our backup quarterback, isn't that maybe where we screwed up? And so my point is, these teams around the league have several ways to go for a backup quarterback. They can sign a guy and have them as a backup as a guy that just gets us through a game. They could maybe prioritize. We need somebody for a whole month to fill in and start. we need somebody that doesn't need any reps that we can count on to get us through a series or two here or there. So there's a lot of different philosophies when it comes to signing or us signing a backup job in this league.

And I feel like the Bengals and everybody says, oh, they pay in Joe so much money, they can't afford it. You can afford anything you want. And some people's idea of building a team includes two quarterbacks. Some don't. A lot of the analytics people say, no way can you allocate that kind of money. money, I'm not so sure if I wasn't building a team from scratch, my first two picks wouldn't be quarterbacks. And everybody say, oh, you're crazy. What are you doing? Well, I'm not going to let one injury to our best player derail our whole team. That's really my underlying theory behind having a

legitimate backup quarterback and paying him some money. That is insurance moving forward. That's like the Tom Moore thing. Remember, he said, hey, if we lost Peyton Manning, we're effed. So forget it anyway, there's nothing we can do. To that same team. And that same statement that Tom's talking about, we said for years, if they didn't have Peyton Manning, they'd be a 500 team, guess what? We were wrong. They were way worse than that. When he got hurt, they won two games. Yeah. So, yeah, I can appreciate it. I respect it. But I just don't want to build a team with one quarterback and have everything we do. It's really doing the rest of your franchise a disservice, in my opinion, if you don't have a legitimate option as a backup. Yeah, very interesting. And especially Joe Burrow, the one concern everyone had about him, even before the calf injury was, hey, durability, right? You want to pay this quarterback because he's excellent and he's everything you want. But you got to protect yourself when you have him and they haven't done it. And it could cost them the season. Really could. Because he's not looking good and they may have to sit him as you wrote in your column this week. What else in the GM notebook? Another note that I had is these teams this week that dumped big money

into free agents last off season and then pivoted five games in. I'm talking about the Randy Gregory with Denver five years, 70 million, 28 million guaranteed. The Chargers paid J.C. Jackson five years, you know, a bunch of money, 40 million guaranteed. What makes me nervous is I want to know, because I've never done this, so I don't know the answer to this. How does the conversation go when you have to go into your owner and say, here's what we're going to do? After guaranteeing 40 million, after guaranteeing 28 million, after paying, umpteen million for one year where it didn't work out. How does that conversation go when you go and say, hey, I understand. I'm trying to take care of your money, but I screwed up on this one

to the point where we just have to get rid of this guy. That's our only path forward is to dump this salary that we spent. I would be nervous. And I'm not saying two wrongs make a right. So keep him. I'm just curious. Maybe you know, Mike. How does that conversation go? I don't know. I've never had one. Yeah, absolutely. So both these guys were signed in heading into the 20-22 season. So I think in the case of Randy Gregory, that's an easier conversation for a Sean Peyton to have because he's going to just blame George Payton. He's not the one that paid him. He's not the one who paid him. He's going to, he's already sort of building that case, right, against everything that was there before him. So he can look at it and say, look, I don't know what we're doing here, but look at the effort on this play or look at how he's playing here. You know, we can't. We can't. have this on our locker room and he's a symbol of our underperformance on defense. We got to cut. I think that's an easy conversation for Sean Payton to have because it wasn't his guy. So that one's different.

I think the J.C. Jackson one, you know, is a strike for sure for Brandon Staley, who, you know, has been struggling to get that defense playing right. And the chargers went out of their comfort zone in a couple of ways recently in free agency with that move of J.C. Jackson, five years, 80 or whatever it was, 82 million. That was outside their comfort zone. They've made some trades that, you know, that haven't always, you know, getting Kalil Mack, they've done some moves that they wouldn't normally do. And then they did, they've leveraged contracts with restructures.

They've got three or four guys this year that are going to have huge cap numbers last year. Those are all kind of all-in moves by a team that hasn't been an all-in team. So when you have some strikes against you already, this has to be a pretty big strike, doesn't it? Well, I would think so. I mean, I was a gym for a couple years in the NFL, and I've never even come close to this kind of money. Really, no other way to put it than just to be flushed. I mean, they've flushed millions of millions of dollars here. I just find that hard to believe that we could be that wrong about a fit or a guy's character

or for some reason that we don't even want him on our team. So those are hard ones for me to overcome. I'll have to admit. Well, and there was an injury with J.C. Jackson at least. I mean, that was something that set him back for a year. But, you know, when they signed him, I went back and found my little analysis file, and I talked to an executive who said, I'm sure J.C. Jackson's a good player, but Belichick maximizes guys in the secondary.

He always has. And then has corners play great for them. and then guys cited someplace else and get cut in two years. Guess what? You don't have to wait two years. He got him back. That's where we are right now. So, yeah.

So I think that those have to be some awkward conversations. What else is in the notebook? I had one other note, just kind of a fun note, tongue in cheek. Did you watch any of the Toy Story version of the game last week from London? I saw it. I was amazed that it was synced up as well as it was. But I didn't stick with it. I didn't really have the audio on.

And I was probably a little, you know, I was kind of, I didn't give it a chance. But you did. First off, I'm kind of impressed. I know. Of all the people that would enjoy it, it was me. And I thought it was awesome. All the way from Buger McFarland's big head that they had animated on there. It was the craziest.

It looked like Mr. Pertano had on there. And it was so funny. It was, and the animation was awesome. It was synced up perfectly, like you said. But the announcers were what made it for me. They had all kinds of British quips. And if you didn't see it, listeners, go back and take a look at it. They staged this game in Andy's bedroom, okay?

This was the Toy Story Andy. And the whole game was, there's guys on the sidelines, the slinky dog and everything, all about Toy Story. It was the cutest, coolest thing. If I had grandkids, I would make them watch it. And I think they would love it. But if they ever do it again, ever do it again, I'm going to watch it as well. But I'll say this with the caveat is I love these London games. I love the early morning window.

I think it's awesome. And this toy story, I switched it on, Mike, just to see what it is. And 20 minutes later, I'm still watching it. That's how, maybe it's my, I'm a simple-minded hunter and fisherman from Idaho. I get it. And so maybe that, maybe that. You like cartoons. I'm just going to say you like your morning cartoons.

I like Johnny Quest. I like some of the cartoons back in the 70s. But I didn't expect to like this this much. It was really cool. No, that's great. I am all about the early game, even though. I'm on the West Coast like you. I mean, it's six something in the morning.

But this just shows you that, now, look, we do it for our jobs. But I'm telling you, if it wasn't my job, I'd be into this. I love the, I mean, we could have a game kick off at 6.30 in the morning Pacific time or 9.30 on the, that gives the East Coast people the morning game, right? Yeah. And then at night, shoot, it's after midnight, it's practically midnight Eastern time by the time the night game ends. You can really stagger these things out. And I'm all for it.

love to get that early game. We're going to talk a little bit more in our pick section about the early games, but I'm with you. They kept Jacksonville over there after this game, which is the first time that's ever happened, and now they turn around and play a game again over there. You can't tell me that's not a test tube experiment for down the road either. Before we do our picks, let's do a quick hitter here. I think we can do this.

Quick hitting. It's our first buy week, first week of the season when teams have by weeks. Let's go quick boom, boom, boom on these teams that are on the buy and just give us our little report card or if we're feeling, as a GM, are you feeling good or bad? So Cleveland is two and two. Defense has been good. DeShon Watson had to miss the last game with a shoulder injury. Nick Chubbs out for the year. I kind of feel cautiously optimistic about where they're at.

I think the offense may come around. The defense has been pretty good. What do you think? I like them. I like where they're at. This has been a team that we've said many times. We've kind of not discussed the last couple years for obvious reasons. I thought it was uncalled for the amount of criticism.

I actually did some radio like you this week where I was asked, hey, is it a letdown that Deshaun't Watson didn't play? Shouldn't he have played? Shouldn't he be able to suck it up and play with that shoulder? I happen to see the video of his pregame workout that he did with the coaches and for the GM before that game last week. And he looked tentative. He looked like a guy that was in pain just making the delivery on the sidelines.

So I totally understand it. The fact that they have some time now to heal up. would have not played him just in watching him throw three or four times. I remember saying, he's not going to play. Done. So I'm surprised he's been criticized for that. I really don't get it. So my intel on that, and I know I, you know, done some diligence on this. Deshaun Watson's a tough guy who thought he was going to be able to play. And that's where there was a little bit of confusion late in the week, but he couldn't know until he went to throw. That injury he has specifically is extremely painful. And so I think it's a type of injury that isn't going to

linger a long time, but while you have it, it's trouble. So I, look, we've criticized Ashana Watson, he's earned the criticism in the other stuff. I don't think his toughness is one of the things we've got to worry about. I think it was unfortunate. It was a surprise. It hurt you in the picks this week. But, yeah, I'm not putting that criticism on him. I think the by-week probably times up well for him to be able to get back and be able to throw. I think he definitely would have gone if he could have gone. So I'd love to see them go. get another receiver, Mike, sometime before the trade deadline, just to try to get a little more explosive on the perimeter. But I'm with you. I feel cautiously optimistic about where the

Browns are. Yep. Okay. The Chargers get to their by week at two and two, lost their first two games, a site really producing well on offense. One of those was to Miami in a classic shootout, come back win their last two games, but they lost receiver Mike Williams to a season-ending injury. They're again a bottom five team statistically on defense slash special teams. The head coach is going down swinging with the fourth down calls, throwing deep on third and long in the four-minute offense. As a GM, Randy, I know how you have felt about this situation. How do you feel now?

It's hard for me. I don't want to be too critical of what they're doing. The philosophy isn't one that I would want to sign up for, but they seem to have their own criteria for how to judge the decisions that get made. I wouldn't feel good about this team right now. They've won a couple games, in my opinion, that have kind of been handed to them by questionable execution and decisions by the other team. I mean, we'll see.

I feel better about where Cleveland is. If you're asking me to compare the two, I just don't see the path for this charger team that gets them playoff, you know, depth, win a game or two in the playoffs, which is what I think they need to do. And I just don't see that. Yep.

Okay. Tampa Bay, three and one. Baker Mayfield has been efficient. He has one of the lowest sack rates in the NFL. They're going to get Detroit, Atlanta, Buffalo, in Houston coming out of the buy. The rest of the NFC South looks pretty limited. What's your feel here on Tampa? I think they've been a pleasant surprise.

Obviously, going into New Orleans last week was big for them. You could tell in the celebration after the game in their locker room that they felt like this was a giant win for them. I probably still favor New Orleans, and I know they just lost to them, but I favor them in the long haul. New Orleans is a little bit of hodgepodge right now on offense. They've got to get into a better rhythm. They've got to do some things to get Derek Carr off the block.

He was hurt last week. so so they they did some crazy things i think offensively just that held them back i know the question's about tampa i think baker mayfield has some of that personality that he can bring a team together i don't know if he's the answer long term there but i think for them right now it's more right place right time and i don't see any reason why they can't at least compete against the saints for that for that uh nfc south title you know i always feel with some of these quarterbacks uh you know if you can survive long enough to mature, you know, sort of the Gino Smith. Hey, welcome to life.

All of us are like that. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think the worst case scenario of someone coming to league was like, you know, Ryan Leif was just such, it was so tough and polarizing and all of that. But I even felt with him, like if he hadn't hurt his wrist, if you can hang around long enough, some of these guys, you get a Vinnie Testa Verde later in his career, you know, or Rich Gannon. Carrie Collins comes back, you know, if you can hang around, if you can just make it through, you know, to, stay out of your own way.

Stay out of your own way. You might have a chance. So that's kind of the thing I'm looking for with Baker Mayfield is, you know, he's not that old. He's still pretty young. But we haven't really heard anything concerning about him coming out of there or maturity-wise or anything like that. So it's been a real nice opportunity for him. And maybe he can, you know, maybe he can salvage it this year. So that was kind of my takeaway.

Seattle's the last team on a buy. They get there at three and one. They really blew it, I thought, in the second half of their opening game. game against the Rams. Pete Carroll talked about that after they beat the Giants. I think that was still bothering him. But they had the big win at Detroit, beat a couple really bad teams in Carolina, the Giants. Their first round pick, Devin Witherspoon looked pretty good in the last game. Their offensive line really banged up. I think the buy came at a great time for them. Do you feel me differently about them now than you did coming into the season? What's your overall

feel for them at 3-1? I think they're the steadiest of this group, and mainly that comes with the leadership having proven track records. I thought it was funny. Last week, we heard everything about the Giants' offensive line being hurt, about tackle being out, another guard being out. As you just mentioned, the Seahawks have been without both their starting tackles for almost three weeks now, and you didn't hear a word about that. So they tend to get through the rough parts, get over the potholes better and easier,

and maybe some of it's because Seattle's such an outpost. We don't get the national media driving the narrative as much. but I think they do a really good job of managing their team and operating and sticking fingers in dikes and making things good for the long haul. So I just don't think they get the ups and down some of these other teams experience. So I feel pretty good about where Seattle is right now. I think you'd have to say they're a playoff team at least a month in. Is Witherspoon going to be a all-pro type player for a long time?

Troy Eichmann was putting him in the Hall of Fame after one game, but he looked pretty good. What did you think? I'm not ready to fit the yellow jacket yet, but I do know this. He's a good player and he's very versatile. He can play inside. He can play outside. He's tough. He's physical. He played last week like I thought he would play. Now, beyond that, time will tell. Let's let him have a little body of work. But they didn't have him the first week or two and they were bad getting off the field on third downs. So he helped that. But like you say, this is against Carolina and the Giants and the competition will pick up. But I'd have to feel pretty good about Seattle where they are right now. Hi, Randy. I pushed the picks off as long as I could. I was going to, you know, we're hoping. Maybe we delay another 10 minutes here. We'd lose all of our audience because, I mean, it was a rough.

We've never had a week like this. I was 0 and 3 and you were 0 and 2. I mean, I went from 5 and 3 to 5 and 6 in one week losing on Cincinnati, Kansas City, and Miami. I just took Miami with the points. But man, I wasn't even close to winning any of these. Randy, you went from 4, 2, and 4. to 4-4-1, but I give you an asterisk on it because you picked Cleveland before we knew Deshaun Watson wasn't going to play, but you lost on Cincinnati also. We lived and learned on

that with where a borough's at. I mean, shoot, I don't even want to make a pick this week. What are you going to do? Well, I do have a couple games that I kind of like. I'm with you. Last week was a hard luck week. But hey, we're both still right around 500, which I think is salvageable. I think Mike, and I mentioned this earlier, in the Cincinnati case, I just didn't know Joe. Burrow was that limited. And so I don't think there's any way I could pick them when he is like that. And I had no clue that Deshaun Watson was going to play because it wasn't going to play. Because like you said, we were led to believe he was.

We talked about the London game. And for the reason that Jacksonville has been there for a week, has stayed for a week, they're getting five and a half points versus Buffalo. I think the Jags will be the more rested team, no travel, less things messing up their schedule. Maybe they're going to be more comfortable. They've had their share of games in England already. I'm picking Jacksonville and taking the five and a half over Buffalo, who I think is the best team in the AFC. So that sounds crazy, but that's the one game I'm going with. And then my other game for this week, I'm going to take Arizona getting three points at home versus Cincinnati, a lot to do with

what I just said about Burrow. I couldn't tell you the last time I picked Arizona and felt pretty good about it, but I do. I like Arizona in this case. I think Jonathan Gannon, Marty, Monty, Austin, Forth have done a really good job there with what they have, and I think they'll be ready to go week in and week out in more of a steady fashion. And I like their chances against Cincinnati, especially playing at home in the desert. I like that Arizona pick. I kind of almost feel like Arizona should win, but are we over? I was wondering, geez, am I overreacting to, you know, what we saw from in one game. Some of these week-to-week swings in the league are all over the place

because the Bengals had just beat the Rams, you know, not that long ago. So I do think that that's a good one. I don't know if I'm going to steal it yet. So here's the two that I put down. I was tempted on it. I'm tempted on it, but I'll think on it through this. So I thought I might take Philly and give the four points against the Rams just on the theory that both sides of the ball,

Philly would seem to have a big advantage in the lines, the offensive lines. And I've been very impressed by the Rams this year. And Philly hasn't exactly blown everybody out. But I may in this game just kind of trust what we thought and think about the personnel of these teams. Yeah, you like the matchup, huh? I might like the matchup a little bit of Philly's ability to control the line of scrimmage and run the ball. Now, if Matthew Stafford and Sean McVeigh can overcome that, I mean, I'm going to stick my hand out. and shake their hands and say,

amazing, great job. But I might just go with Philly for the matchup and see how that goes. The other one at the risk of overreacting is, I may take Houston and a point and a half at Atlanta, just kind of going with maybe the better quarterback. I had a conversation with Bill Pollian this week on his radio show on Sirius. See what you think on this. Bill said he was pretty blown away by what he was seeing from CJ

Stratt of the Texans in terms of just the efficiency and quickness of his release. He didn't think he saw that to that level in the college game. And I think I'd watched another review of his play by J.T. O. Sullivan, who made a similar remark, like, wow, look at this release. What do you think about Stroud? Do you think I'm wrong here in Atlanta? It's just going to run the ball all over Houston? Or do you see that also maybe being as being a real advantage there at quarterback for

the Texans. Well, I think I would, it's not even close. I would have C.J. Stroud over where Desmond Ritter is right now. So that part, I totally understand. I just think Houston might be a better team, to be honest with you. They're playing really good. And their personnel is better than obviously we've seen from them the last three or four years. So I don't think it's a reach for you to pick them. By the way, do you remember who our favorite quarterback was last year on the show coming out of the draft? It was C.J. Stroud. Oh, it was. Dang. Okay. I guess. Wow, look at Miller. I'm totally kidding.

Totally kidding. People are rolling their eyes saying, what the hell, you know. I think the release has always been there. I think it's he sees things. He has passion, persistent anticipation. I think we saw some of these things. Now we're getting to see it on the next level, which, hey, being open in the NFL is not the same as being open at Ohio State. It's totally different.

But this kid has the skill set to throw people open to fit it into tight wind. Do you throw with a little anticipation so that the windows open a little longer? Hey, I think he's been outstanding. I totally agree. Yeah, so the last two weeks, Houston has allowed 17 points to Jacksonville and six to Pittsburgh. So, you know, I don't know how many Atlanta's going to get. Maybe they'd do it their way. But I sort of like this combination of maybe D'Amico Ryans and some of the stuff they might be doing defensively.

You know, and then their young quarterback who the team gets excited about it. Like when you think you have a guy, right, that affects your whole team. So we'll see. I mean, Atlanta's favor, but I'll take the point in a half, just sort of on the chance that maybe Houston's better. So that's what we got this week. You got anything else, Randy? No, I think that's a good show.

Hopefully our listeners can hang with us. And I'm kind of liking this new time slot over the weekend, so we'll make the best of it. It's great. Well, everybody, you can find my work and Randy's work at the Athletic in the app. It's really easy. Just go to the author search. Hit the little search feel there.

Go to the authors, put our names in there. you'll find our latest stuff. Randy had a great column this week looking at some of the situations around the league. I had a so-so column this week looking at a quarterback situation with the jets. Don't believe that, guys. Don't believe it. Where do you say it? You can find Randy on X.

I don't have to say the former Twitter anymore. I think we're at the point we can say on X at Randy Mueller underscore. I'm there at Sano NFL. Thanks for coming along. We'll talk to you next time. This was the Athletic Football Show's Football GM podcast.