The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Aaron Rodgers, Lonzo Ball, NBA, & Steph Curry

Episode Date: November 1, 2018

Colin explains why Green Bay Packers QB Aaron Rodgers is more like Pittsburgh Steelers QB Ben Roethlisberger than New England Patriots QB Tom Brady, more proof that Los Angeles Lakers G Lonzo Ball should be starting, the history of the NBA, and why Steph Curry should get more credit. Guests include Chris Broussard, Greg Cosell, Jordan Palmer, and Tim Hardaway. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed Human. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind, and nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo, and every episode, we're cutting through the noise,

breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headlines. And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves, their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok.

Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter.

Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, guys? This is Clivert Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Clivert Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her.

What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Wreck, my mama want you to weigh better. What? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Clifford Show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season, and I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was harmed. you just understood. That's how personal it got.

Wow. Then after that game seven, Mark keep coming to her. He's like, you know, I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for listening to The Heard Podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday. From 12 to 3 Eastern, 9 to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS1. Find your local station for the Heard at Fox Sports Radio. or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching herd you're listening to fox sports radio ah this is the herd wherever you may be and however you may be listening live in los angeles i heart radio fox sports radio right here fs one joy taylor hope you had a great and safe and

happy Halloween go to the dentist now i avoided eating too much candy but it was It was fun. How was your Halloween? Good. A couple of kick-cap bars. I'm ready to go. Get back on the treadmill. I'm fine. Great to have you in today. We have a pack show. One hour from now, Greg CoSell. I have the greatest segment and the greatest of my career. John's been with me for years, and my staff won't let me lead the show with it. So I think it's going to come up in 15 minutes. They don't think it's lead worthy. I thought the show was called The Hurd. I have a little pull around here. I got nothing. So I can't lead with this segment, which I think is great and fascinating and interesting. and we could talk about it for five days.

Yeah, and that's what my staff said. Voted off the island for this segment, so 15 minutes. I want to start with this. Brady and Rogers meet Sunday. And once again, is all talking about how great Aaron Rogers is. And he is great. I'm not saying he's not.

This is not here to bash Aaron Rogers. Bill Belichick was the latest, the lava train. Here it comes down the hill, lavishing praise on Aaron Rogers. killed us the last time we played him. I mean, he's a great player. He does everything well.

He reads coverage as well. Very accurate throwing the ball. This is one of the great quarterbacks. You know, in National Football League, no question about does everything good. I'd say playing against Aaron Rogers is very, very difficult. You know, he's as good as anybody that I've faced. We faced a lot of good ones through the years. Okay.

They're going to face off Sunday. There is no comparison between Brady and Rogers. Let's get past that. Tom has blown way past him. And let me give you an example here. And this is not a criticism of Aaron, because who I'm going to compare him to is great as well. For a long time, the first seven or eight years, the first seven or eight years of LeBron James' career, he would.

compared to Carmelo Anthony. And those were fair comparisons. They were both All-Stars. They were both great. They were both scoring a bunch. And they were both growing. But by about year 9, 8-9, the comparisons no longer held true.

That's not to say that Rogers doesn't have a better arm than Brady. And Carmelo's not a more natural score than LeBron all time. He is. But after about year 8, it's like it's so lobocytes. stopped comparing Carmelo to LeBron. First eight years, you had arguments. Remember, LeBron didn't win his title until year eight. LeBron was just an all-star.

Carmelo was an all-star. In fact, Carmelo got his Denver Nuggets to the Western Conference Final, and LeBron had got his team to the Eastern Conference Final. As a fair comparison. And then it started getting, like, lobsided, and nobody compares Mello and LeBron anymore. Here's who you should compare Aaron Rogers to. Big Ben.

Big Ben and Aaron Rogers, are very, very comparable. Let's talk head coach. Mike Tomlin, Mike McCarthy. They both have a good head coach. Neither one of those coaches is Bill Belichick, Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh. They're both very good coaches, though not consider the best coach in the game. Both franchises are Blue Bloods, Packers, Steelers.

They both went to non-traditional college football programs. Cal? In fact, junior college Cal for Aaron, Miami, Miami, Ohio for Big Ben. Neither was taken number one in their draft class at their position. In fact, both have used that as a chip on the shoulder. Aaron fell in the draft and Big Ben was the third quarterback taken in his draft. Both are very, very outspoken against their very popular franchise. I mean, Aaron Rogers has taken not even thinly veiled shots at the Packers bosses. And Ben has taken multiple shots at the Steelers and Mike Tomlin. Both have had really, really,

really, really, really nice weapons, both better than Brady. Ben's had Plaxico and Heinz Ward, San Antonio Holmes, Aaron Brown, Juju Smith-Schuster, that's Big Ben. Aaron's had Donald Driver, Jordy Nelson, Greg Jennings, Devante Adams. Those are really above-average wide receivers. Both generally have good offensive lines. In fact, if you look at their playoff histories, it's very similar. Aaron Rogers' playoff losses.

He's lost to some really good quarterbacks. He lost to Russell Wilson's going to be a Hall of Famer. Carson Palmer may be a Hall of Famer, and Matt Ryan's very good. But he's also got some stinkers. Aaron Rogers lost as a huge favorite to Eli Manning. He lost to Colin Kaepernick twice, and he lost to an old, old Kurt Warner. Big Ben the same. He's got some playoff losses two times to Brady and to Peyton Manning.

But Big Ben's also got some stinkers in the playoffs. He lost to Tebow, David Garrard, Blake Bortles. Ben and Rogers are both elusive and scramblers and add livers. That creates all-time highlights. And it creates improvisation, which can drive teammates and coaches crazy and bad interceptions and plays out of the pocket where you get hurt. In fact, both are always playing at about 90% health. Aaron's increasingly banged up.

Big Ben last three years increasingly banged up. You've given me these Rogers Brady comparisons. Stop it. It's like Mellow and LeBron. It worked for about seven years. And then by 8, 9, 10, 11, there's no comparison. They're both Hall of Famers. Mellow and LeBron are both Hall of Famers.

Mello's probably a better natural score in his first eight years than LeBron. But when you start piling up trophies, Tom Brady doesn't have a trophy case. He's got a trophy room. He doesn't have a trophy wall. He's got a trophy room. Their personalities aren't the same. Brady is more coachable, more humble, less condescending, not as aloof. Aaron is Big Ben. And by the way, both will be first ballot Hall of Famers. To Aaron's credit, he no longer wants to hear about the comparisons to Tom Brady. You look at MJ and LeBron, you know, it's tough to settle any of those debates because there's the what-if game and the situation game and who you played for and what area

you played in. I'm just worried about winning right now and he's got five championships. So that ends most discussions, I think. That's very appropriate, very accurate. it shows Aaron Rogers intelligence, understanding, self-awareness. This is not a bash Aaron Rogers segment.

But LeBron and Mello only worked for about seven, eight years. Then it got silly. Rogers Brady now has moved into silly territory. Rogers is Big Ben. From the franchise to the coach, to the style, to the outspokenness, to the banged up, to the ad-libbing,

to the playoff failures. They're right aligned with each other. And they are two of the greatest quarterbacks I've ever seen, but they're not close to the greatest quarterback I've ever seen. And that's Tom Brady. By the way, right now is when I should move into the greatest topic I've ever created. But the, yeah, but bosses, staff gave it a big thumbs down. So let's move to my second segment, which won't be the greatest segment ever created for radio and television.

but I think it's worthy of talking about in the first 15 minutes of our show. Lakers won last night, had a couple of big leads, almost blew the game. I'm not going to break down an NBA regular season, November, October game. I'm not going to. But I will tell you this. It once again proved Lonzo Ball is better than Rondo, and I've been on this for two weeks. Lonzo Ball played twice the minutes of Rondo last night. The Lakers won again when that happens.

That's happened four times. They're three and one, and the only one. loss was in overtime. Lanzo, by the way, was three for three on threes. Lonzo, by the way, had seven assists and no turnovers, and Lanzo has separated himself defensively. He is much better than Rondo. For all the Lonso ball haters, he is better than Rondo, and the Lakers are better when he plays more minutes than Rondo. Rondo is moody and inconsistent. Rondo picks his spots, TV games, TNT, what he wants to play well. Last night was not a big TV game. They played the Mavericks. It was a Wednesday. Nobody watched. And Rondo was two for seven and had a

minus 21 plus minus. Lonzo should be playing three minutes for every minute Rondo plays. Lonzo is better than Rondo. And Lanzo is the future, not Rondo. And here's the other thing is that Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and Lanzo, they're boys, their buddies, their friends. Rondo is friends with anybody. In an article a year ago, he said, quote, I'm not really into people, unquote. Rondo is the NBA's transient, moody vagrant who shows up in a town, doesn't make friends, sometimes helps you win, and then people tire of him. Watch the Lakers with Lanzo last night. Better communication, cleaner, the ball moves better, the team is better, and they win. Now, Rondo will have big television games.

At this point in his career, that's what he is. But the NBA regular season has a lot more Wednesday night at home against the Mavericks and Thursday night on the road against Phoenix and Monday night at home against Portland than it does big TV games with the Warriors. Lonzo is better than Rondo. Lonzo should be playing significantly more minutes than Rondo. Lonzo is easier to get along with than Rondo. This was always the question coming into this season.

We knew LeBron was good. We knew they didn't have three-point shooters. We just didn't know who was going to get the minutes with LeBron. The veteran Rondo or the kid, Lonzo. Last night once again proves what the answer. answer is. Lonzo played more minutes and the Lakers had huge leads, but they almost blew it. That's the NBA. Everybody either comes hard late. It's the new revolution of the NBA. Leeds evaporate fast. Happens to the Warriors, happens to the Jazz, happens to the Celtics.

So it's going to happen to the Lakers. Last night, once again, Luke Walton, I think he's figuring it out. Lonzo is better for the team. Better for the results. And Lonzo is better than Rondo. Coming up, I don't know, maybe we could have the greatest segment ever created on radio and TV. I don't know. Seems like a pretty good time for it. Okay.

It's up to you. Thought the show was called the herd. Had a little pull here. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. All right. Break down some hockey games next, I guess. Coming up next, you become your personality, and boy, is it happening for a couple of couple of quarterbacks in the NFL.

That's coming up. It's the herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the I-Hard Radio app. By the way, if you got the dreaded stuff he knows, cold and flu season, try Vix Synex nasal spray. Vicks Synex nasal spray. Be ready when congestion strikes. The season's coming to get sick. Listen, you know, our president often uses the term fake.

news. And the reason it kind of works is because there is some fake news out there. Most organizations aren't making stuff up. But I've seen this in my 25 years in my business. I've seen increasingly, I used to be a young guy, and I looked in newspapers for the truth, and I looked to the media for the truth. There was less opinion, more truth. I'm in the opinion space, but I still try to give you data with all my arguments. Because when I got into this business, you couldn't just have opinions. You had to report stuff and fact-check stuff. But I found over time that the media is more rooting than reporting. The agendas and biases are, you know, obvious.

Now, in politics, it can hurt votes. It can hurt our country. I think bad reporting can hurt America. In sports, you know, it's just stuff you argue about over a Heineken with your buddies. But I saw this headline this morning. Cam Newton should be among the frontrunners at quarterback in the MVP race. Stop rooting and start reporting. Cam Newton's passer rating is fourth in his own division.

He's tied for touchdown passes in the NFL with Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's 22nd in passing yards, but they're running. It's called quarterback, not running back. You will be judged eventually on the pocket. And if you compare him to Patrick Mahomes, it's not even close. It's like they're playing two different. It's not, you're talking. yards per game. Touchdown to pick. Pass a rating. It's a blowout. And by the way, I think

I would say Cam is having an MVC year. He's the most valuable Cam. This is the best Cam I've ever seen. His leadership's been good. His coachability's been good. His running is always good. And his passing's been better. So he's having an MVP year. He's the most valuable Cam's ever been. I think he's more valuable now than his MVP year. Because I think he's a better passer and more coachable now. And he's more mature now. And he has more snaps now. But statistically, wins and losses, he's the second best quarterback in his own

division right now to Drew Breeze. And by the way, Matt Ryan's numbers are better than CAMs. So fake news works because it's often right. Even my job as an opinion guy, and I'm an opinion guy, you got to give me some data. And I'll give you an example of this about Cam's stats to MVP. We do this about once a month. We call it the blind resume where I'll put Cam Newton to the left. And for our radio audience, I'll try to make this as consumable as possible. Passing yards, Cam on the left has 235. The guy in the right has 260. Touchdowns, Cam on the left has 13. Guy in the right has 15. Passer rating,

a real stat. Cam 974. The guy in the right, 97. 7, 8. Rushing yards, almost even. Cam's got 15 yards, more rushing. So I'm being told by this, that can't, those numbers, and these are things that matter, your touchdowns, yards per game, passer rating, and let's put in rushing yards because that's the big argument for Cam. So there's Cam on the left.

Who's the guy on the right? Mitch Trubisky. Less rooting, more reporting. Cam's having an NBC year. This is the best I've ever seen Cam. In fact, I thought his quarter on the road against Philadelphia was the best quarter he'd ever had. I watched every snap of that game. And I was like, man, and I said it the next day, I'm like, that's the most coachable.

That's the most efficient. That's the most person. Plus, I get cams, you know, he's running, his size, his gravitas. That's always been great. But, you know, this is not Mahomes. If you took out Mahomes, Brady, Breeze, Gough, and Philip Rivers. Just, I'm not even going to mention Gurley, Khalil Mack, just quarterbacks. There's five guys who are in a different galaxy right now.

He's more closely aligned to Mitch Trubisky, which, by the way, their styles, Trebisky and Cam have a very collegiate feel to them. That's okay. That's what works for them with their abilities. But let's get out of the MVP stuff. Let's get into the NBC stuff. Joy with the news. No, no, no, no.

Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. All right, so the Packers are traveling to face the Patriots. on Sunday night. Of course, the Rogers Brady debate is raging. And yesterday, Aaron wanted no parts of it. Let's watch. I mean, I'll let you guys worry about those types of conversations.

I think that's, you know, end-of-career conversation. I'm just worried about winning right now. And he's got five championships. So that ends most discussions, I think. It's Aaron being kind of humble there. No, no, no. I mean, I always get... I always try to be fair with Aaron.

He is in a remarkable talent. He's very Dan Marino to me, and he's becoming very big Ben to me. But I think the Brady-Rogers stuff now has gotten into LeBron Carmel. It worked for about seven years, and now it's stupid. I just think that at one point or another, the amount of championships that you have matters. A lot.

Especially when you're compiling a trophy room. And not even just the championships, the division titles that they have, like their consistency over the years. Like, at one point or another, it's like, all right, like, he's just doing more winning. That's right. And then you're like, oh, we'll look at the team around it. Like, no, either we're comparing quarterbacks or we're not.

Are we comparing teams? Because if we're comparing teams, the Patriots are still better as well. But let's compare quarterbacks. And let's stop this too. Well, he's got Belichick. When Montana was crushing it, we weren't given Bill Walsh all the credit. Right, right. We were, by the way, Bill Walsh had a lot of quarterbacks in his career.

One went four for four in the Super Bowl. And I also don't like that just because you're saying, it's like the Kevin Durant's LeBron comparison. Like, just because you say LeBron is better doesn't mean that Kevin Durant isn't incredibly talented and easily 1A. It's not taking anything away from who he is. I actually think, I understand your Ben comparison, but I think because

of the talent level that Aaron Rogers and Drew Brees is a closer comparison, just because just the talent alone, that's why people compare him to Brady. But if you look at their career win records, Rogers would need to average 15 wins a year until he is 41. But remember this. Breeze and Hary's inherited a mess. Both Big Ben and Aaron inherited really stable, steady environments, where

Breeze just had, it was, you know, I mean, Breeze had to essentially save his franchise. Yeah, yeah. So Baker Mayfield made some interesting comments yesterday while praising Patrick Mahomes, and a lot of people are taking it as a little bit of a slight to his teammate, Miles Garrett. Talent-wise, I thought he should have been. I love Miles, but, no, I'm coming from, from the Texas Tech system, there's always your skeptic, you know, about people doubting the fact that all he did was sit back there and throw the ball. I mean, he threw it 88 times in our game. So, but when it comes down to it, throwing the ball is throwing the ball. He's really good at it. You like him saying this? I'd like less talking. It's nothing against him. I'd like less talking.

I mean, I just, like this week, I saw a quote from Baker yesterday about the Chiefs. Bring it on! No, it'll be piling. it on. Sam Darnold would not say with the chiefs coming up, hey, bring it on. I think Baker was saying that in more of a bigger picture. Like, everyone is doubting us. So bring it on. I think he was directly talking about the chiefs. It's probably not the best week to say that because it's bulletin board material. As you said, it's kind of easy to just yank that quote and apply it to everything. I understand what you're saying. Less is probably more. But this is what Baker is. Like, this is Baker's personality. In most cases, I always say, especially if you're the quarterback,

just give us the bare minimum. I know we're cranky media people who want juicy comments all the time, but it's in your best interest to just do the Belichick. We're on to Cincinnati quote and just keep it moving. Because then you won't be in this situation. I don't think he meant to take a jab at Miles. Bring it all. He was asked a direct question.

And obviously, like, they would be in a better situation if Patrick Mahomes was there. And Baker wouldn't be there. So I'm sure he doesn't mean that. Finally, Derek Rose had a night last night. He poured in a career high 50 points to lift the Timberwolves over the jazz last night. And his performance evoked some Derek Rose memories of past. And the league took notice of it, including LeBron James. And he was, Derek Rose, was brought to tears by the performance and shared how much it meant to him. You and your career high 50 points.

What does it mean to you, Derek? Everything, man. I work my asshole, bro. Even when a superhero is knocked down, he's still a superhero at the end of the day. And Derek Rose showed why he's still a superhero. You know, I've given Derek Rose a hard time over the years because I feel like it's kind of in that territory of Cam Newton. Like you were just talking about, like we have this memory of Cam Newton and therefore we apply it to everything. But Cam is always available to play. Well, yes.

And that's, I mean, that's also. And that's not Derek Rose's fault. He's not trying to get injured, obviously. But being available to play is important. But this was a nice moment for Derek Rose. Because he has, he's had a lot of struggles and injuries, as you said. And you could tell how emotional everyone was and even the fans just saying there after. Soda is, I swear to God, the timber wolves are just, if literally their logo should be a question mark.

I swear to God, I've been waiting on this team. It's a lot going on there. If you look at how many great players have played with the T-wolves, and I got nothing in return. Seriously, I got all the names and none of the results. They should just take the wolf out and put a big, like the riddler and Batman. Just give me a question mark for the logo. It's really bizarre. It is. Joy with the news.

Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The herd line news. I am told I have been given an okay. I will next hour near the top be able to bring in, and I'm dead serious about this. I have got a topic that I absolutely love. Right here. Love it.

I think it's really fascinating. I worked my butt off on it last night. I'm totally into it. And this is the response I got from my staff this morning of the eight people. Not arable. So here's what I'm going to do. When I do it, I'm going to track it on social media to see if you couldn't stand it and don't respond. I'm going to see, does it get tweets, likes, retweets, and then I'm going to go to the next day and look at the rating on it, my television rating.

I can do that in cable TV to see if you liked it or thought it was the dumbest thing ever. Yeah. And by the way, if it gets a huge number, I'm going to be looking for a new staff. Because I really think it's interesting. and they won't let me talk about it. But I have gotten it okay to talk about it near the top of next hour. With that, somebody I'm always allowed to talk to, and I'm glad for that.

Chris Broussard comes on. Okay, Chris, I'm watching the Lakers last night. Once again, Lonzo plays the majority of the minutes, and they're more seamless, they are cleaner, he hit his shots,

seven assists, no turnovers. I'm telling you, I'm seeing a gap widen here. Lonzo works with LeBron better than Rondo. No question. Because look, you got one player that needs the ball and that can't shoot. That's Rondo. You've got another player who has proven he doesn't need the ball and he can shoot off the ball, spot up shoot. That's Lanzo.

Obviously, Lanzo's going to fit better with LeBron. So there's no question. I don't think it has to be a big issue because Rondo is fine coming off the bench and he can be the leader of that second unit. The challenge for the Lakers is this. They are trying to do two things at once that don't necessarily go together. What's that?

On the one hand, they're trying to see who they like among the young players. Who plays well with LeBron? Who can handle the pressure of playing with LeBron and the pressure is to play at a high level? And who's a keeper going forward? Okay, so the first thing they're doing is it's an audition. Right, right. What's the second thing?

The second thing is they didn't want to just leave it to chance to, hey, maybe we'll hit rock bottom. They wanted to win to some degree now. They're not thinking championship, but they're thinking, hey, we do want to make the playoffs. We do want to make a little noise in the playoffs. That's why they went out and got Rondo, Lance Stevenson, and the veterans. So those don't necessarily go together. You heard Luke last night after the game when he was asked, why wasn't the ball in LeBron's hands on like three straight possessions.

He said, well, we, you know, we want to develop the young guys and see who can handle that person. Well, we got to win. Give it to LeBron and let's win. Or are we trying to develop the young guys? And that's what I mean. They don't go together. So your point is they got two things they're trying to do simultaneously and they don't

actually go together well. Right. This is not peanut butter and jelly. This is peanut butter and mayonnaise. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Okay. So let's talk about the first thing, though, which is, and I believe this to be true.

And I support Luke Walton on this. When I'm watching the Lakers, it is clear to me that, A, they've been in every single game they've played. This isn't the Rockets where you've got a bunch of big contracts and you're getting crushed at home. That's promising. You're right. I watched the Lakers every night. And I held it last night. They had two huge leads.

Every game they've played, I don't recall Portland the opener. I felt like Portland controlled that game mostly. But they had a shot. They had a shot late. So I would argue the way. winning thing, your second point? They're right on track. How many games they played so far this year?

Eight? Yeah, three and five. Okay. Nobody thought there were going to be seven and one. You look at that. Have I had told you they got to play San Antonio twice? They got to play Houston. They got to play at Denver, which everybody keeps telling me is the surprise team in the league.

They've got to go to Portland and then they get Dallas and Phoenix. Most of you would have said two and six. They're three and five and could easily be six and two. Right, right. So, I mean, I think they're in a, when I look at what's happening in Houston, I wake up this morning, I would feel great if I was Magic and Luke. Don't you think they think that? Well, they got a long way to go.

Their defense is atrocious, okay? And now, what was, what really was encouraging last night was that they hit three-pointers. Yes. They shot 59% from three. And over the last six games, it's not just one game. Anybody can get hot one game. Their last six games, they've shot almost 39% from the three point line. That's the six best in the league over that stretch.

Wow. So if they start hitting threes, you obviously have LeBron. Like closing these games has been a problem. But when I have LeBron, I know, look, I'm going to be able to close. So if I got guys hitting threes now, I have LeBron to close and always keep us in the game. Now let me focus on my defense. And there's no reason. and they aren't big and bulky, I get it, but it's a different league now.

There's no reason they shouldn't be a good defensive team. They're long, they're athletic, they're young, they have depth. Okay, what's the problem? Okay, but let me defend. In the NFL right now, the Bears are supposed to have a great defense. They can't stop anybody but a rookie quarterback. The rules now have made it very difficult to stop anybody. But you have to have some degree of defense.

I thought Baltimore had a great defense, and then Carolina went through him like a knife through butter and so did the Saints. So in the NBA now, let me defend the Lakers D. And let me defend all defensive players in the NBA. When did the NBA become a three-point league? Six years ago? Roughly. Okay.

Okay. Six years ago, the NBA became, you got to hit threes. Okay, that's when everybody realized it. Right. For the past six years, everybody's now been working on it. Guys like Boogie Cousins and Centers who didn't shoot him, do. I think we're getting to a point like the NFL, these young quarterbacks, all these years of seven-on-seven tournaments, college quarterbacks are just more ready to play in the NFL.

Okay? I just think everybody shoots three now. I think who's playing great defense this morning in the NBA? But it's relative. Like, you're right, scoring's going to go up. It has. It has. It's not about holding the team to 90 points or even 100 points anymore. It's 16 to 1. Scoring's going to be up, but field goal percentage, three point defense percentage, defensive efficiency, and the Lakers are near the bottom in those things. And that's, so look, the top of the NBA defensively compared to 10 years ago is going to look like nobody's playing deep. That's my argument. But the teams that are at the top defensively are going to be ones.

Yeah, Toronto, Milwaukee's undefeated. Why? They got the second best defense in the league. And they hit threes. They lead in the league in three-pointers. Toronto defense. Golden State still defends. So if you want to win, yeah, your defense might not be like the bad boys,

but it's going to be good for this era. And the Lakers are bad for this era of defense. It's only eight games, but so far. Let me finish with this, is that when you talk about all those young guys, Lonzo, Ingram, Kuzma, Josh Hart, they're all young guys with LeBron. Is there one that you think fits best and one you're still not sure about? I'm not going to say Lanzo fits best, but he's fitting well. I think he fits really well.

Kuzma's a fit because he can shoot, but he doesn't defend. He's got some other things he needs to work on. And I got to be honest, I like Hart too. Now, Hart hasn't played well since, you know, the other guys have come back and he's coming off the bench. But you're getting to my point. I've been disappointed in the former dukey, Brandon Ingram. I thought coming into the year, I thought he would be an absolute. And I've got to tell you, he's a tease.

He has moments. He has quarters. He has possessions. The Ingram LeBron thing is interesting. It's not as good as I thought. Lonzo LeBron's better than I thought. Well, because here's why. The three guys we named, Hart, Kuzma, Lanzo.

They don't need the ball in their hands. Ingram, what have we heard? Oh, he can play point guard. He can bring the ball up. I don't need that with LeBron James. The better players with LeBron are guys. that can catch and shoot, know what to do without the ball, can move without the ball. And again, even though Lanzos a point guard, he's never been a ball-dominant over-dribling point

guard. That's good point. He's always gotten the ball out of his hands. Good point. This is, we talked about audition. This is an audition for Ingram. I'm not saying he can't play with LeBron. But it has been.

It hasn't looked good so far. It hasn't looked good. And maybe the fight and the suspension disrupted that. Maybe. It's early. I'm not going to make a definitive decision yet. but I see what you're saying because, yeah, it hadn't been great so far. I got to tell you, there was a lot of haters on Lonzo Ball.

He's pretty good. Well, let's not go overboard. Chris. I like him. You know, I've been sitting here saying he, maybe he could be Jason Kidd, and he could shoot it better than kid, obviously, right now. But let's not act like he's playing like an all-star. I just said the guy.

I mean, I'm just saying, like, right? Right. We're getting excited because he's hit some open threes. I'm just saying He was the number two picking the draft He's supposed to be in the raft He's supposed to be better

than Magic Johnson And I heard Where's Deeran Fox Where's Josh Jackson? I'm here Where's Markell Fultz? Deeran, Deeran is balling Sacramento's five and three

They'd be in the playoffs If they started right now That's ridiculous That eight Eight games But still they're five and three He's averaging 17 It is November 1st

You're telling me to calm down Chris Broussard Greg Kossel Top of the Hour Coming up next, never seen anything like this in pro sports. I've never seen anything like I saw yesterday, and I don't have an answer for it, and maybe you do, that's next. Chris Broussard, good stuff, it's the herd.

Great to have you in. I understand when coaches walk to a podium, and they're emotional after a loss, they're angry after a loss. I totally get it. Herm Edwards, Denny Green. I get it. It's entertaining. Jim Morris, Sr.

I get it. Coaches are human. They have a right to be. I also understand when coaches before games, trading deadline, get prickly with the press because they don't want to give out information, and the press's job is to get information. Pat Schumer's been kind of prickly with the press. Bill Belichick through the years, prickly with the press. I get that. So I get when coaches are a little rough before a game, when they don't want to give out information, and the reporters are seeking information. I get it. I get after games when a coach is pissed. He's angry. He's defeated. And he can pop and snap and report. I get all that. This one is the strangest reaction by a coach I've ever seen. It is a Wednesday. It's the Detroit Lions. It's the middle of the week. It's a question

about nothing. And here's the Lions head coach. Why do you think this is your friend? Well, you know, do me a favor. Just kind of sit up and just like have a little respect for the process. Every day you come and ask me questions and you just kind of like, you know, give me this. But I mean, like, just to be a little respectful. I'm asking just to be a little respectful in this whole process, okay? So ask me a question professionally and I'll answer it for you.

That's the strangest reaction I've ever seen. He's lecturing somebody on being professional. Wasn't that the number one criticism when man? Matt Patricia was hired that he didn't look like a head coach, unkept, the goofy t-shirts off the plane. On Monday night football, his first game on the sidelines, he had his hat on backwards, which, by the way, I ripped him for. I had three league executives, DM me, text me, and say, you're right on the money.

It's the talk of the league this morning. I mean, of all the things in the world for Matt Patricia to beat on, that would be like Bobby Knight lecturing a media member, control your temper. I mean, it's kind of inappropriate. Who are you to tell someone how to sit in a chair when they're speaking to you? By the way, they don't work for you. Unless this is a picture of the reporter while Matt Patricia was asking him a question. Sorry radio audience, but if it was that, I get it.

Okay. It was the, I don't even know where to go. man Patricia, the knock on him was he's super smart, he's a little sloppy, he doesn't quite, you know, he's just not buttoned up, he's kind of a mess, which by the way, the reason Rob Ryan has struggled to get head coaching jobs, people say the hair, the appearance, he's not, that's a thing in the NFL. I don't know. I just, I don't even know where to go on that. I mean, Patricia showed up with a hat on backwards and changed it by the second week and has never been seen wearing a hat on backwards since. So, close. Clearly Matt Patricia heard guys, I'm not just saying me, heard the criticism of dude. Quit being a frat boy. You're a three and a half, four and a half million dollar a year coach. You're not a frat boy. I think that's one of the strangest things that I've ever seen.

I mean, I don't like to get into like people's appearances and whether that has anything to do with their job, obviously. I mean, as a woman, that's something like we have to deal with every day. But I mean, what does someone's posture have anything to do with what they're asking? So I've seen coaches blow up and be crazy. 99% of it I totally get. That I don't have an explanation for. And I don't think he's done a terrible job.

I actually think Matt's done a pretty good job. They look kind of like the lions usually look. They're not quite as good as I think they should be. That felt a bit personal. That's exactly what it felt like to me. It's like Belichick's a jerk to everybody. Gruden's intense with everybody. Mike Tomlin's got energy with everybody.

They're consistent. That felt like a guy getting personal. Because the question wasn't even, was not out of line. Yeah, it was just a nothing. It was a Wednesday question. Right. It was not even very specific. By the way, by the way, if he had done that, if somebody was, if he was suppressing information, I get the prickly.

Had he just come off a tough loss, I'd get the prickly. That was just personal Wednesday nothing. And the lions, I'm not banging on the guy. I don't think he's been a disaster. He's been fine. He's kind of, I don't think he's the best new coach. I think Frank Wright in Indianapolis has really done a good job. but Matt Patricia's not been a disaster.

Well, what did you say before? Have a plan when you go to the podium. Have a plan. That wasn't a plan. That was making it up and looking jerky. That was just bad. You know, can I just, let me just throw this out there. At top of the hour, Greg CoSell,

and then I've been told, you think I'm joking about this, I created, I thought, a fascinating topic. And in the morning, I come to work every morning, and I get here at about 555. I sit in the morning meeting, and there's about 7, 8 people, 9 people around it, table and we bring in topics. I thought I had the most interesting topic. And for two hours, I fought it. And they don't think it's terrible. And I said, I think it's the best thing we have today.

I think it's going to do very well on social. I think it's going to do well in our TV ratings. I can track all that stuff the next day. I can track my podcast. I can track my television cable rating the next day. It takes me about 24 hours and I can track it all. And I said, this is going to pop. And I was given snarky comments and sneers. Yeah, it was nothing. And so I said, they wouldn't let me lead with it. I said, okay, if it bombs, it bombs, it's on me. So you will decide if this is stupid or it's not stupid.

But I think it's fascinating. And I think it's something that I've thought about and it's a belief system. And I think we saw a great example of it yesterday. and I'm very excited for it. I'm very excited. So I'm going to do it next hour. And Greg CoSells top of the hour. I'll try to sneak it in next hour, but they told me I could run it next hour for sure.

And so they said it was not a first hour topic. I was not in the meeting for this. No, you missed this part of the meeting. But you came into the tents. You were there when it was getting, we were just finished it. The meeting room was quiet by the time you arrived because I would have been fighting for my gutted. Tension was palpable by the time you got into the meeting.

Okay. And usually. So I have, so I actually have no idea what this particular topic is. I think it's really interesting. And I think the, you know, one of the reasons I like it is you,

the audience can play along with me. And I think you can agree or disagree. I don't care. So I can be a fully independent, non-influenced, uh, opinion about this topic. All right.

All right. So next, this next hour is great. Greg CoSell, our NFL meat sandwich for 15 minutes. If you don't learn stuff with Greg CoSell, I can't help you. Nobody, nobody.

He and Trent Delfare, if you don't get smarter with him, I can't help you. Jordan Palmer, brother Carson Palmer, the quarterback guru for all these young quarterbacks. He's shown up to. Tim Hardaway is on the show today. Hour 2 in L.A. We are live. It's the herd. Hour 2.

This is the herd. Wherever you may be and however, you may be listening. Iheart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and right here, FS1. Joy Taylor is joining me. Greg Cosell in two minutes. so great to be here today. I have such, had a great night's sleep, Halloween with my son, so much fun.

This has been a great time of the year. The World Series wrapped up. Now college football. You got big games this weekend. Tonight, John Gruden, an interview exclusively with Howie Long, who he knows well. It's supposed to be the most outspoken.

John Gruden's ever been, and you'll see it tonight as the Raiders and the Niners play. I've said this before. It sounds crazy to say this, but every year there's a couple of teams that go from like fourth place and they win a division. The 49ers are, now tonight, I don't even know who's going to play quarterback for them. They get Garoppolo back.

They go in free agency and get a running back and draft a couple of corners. They will, in my opinion, they got the kind of players. They're going to make a lot of noise and make the Rams uncomfortable next year in that division. And also, also, I've been talking about, if you just turned in, I know a lot of you come in and out of the show. I have a topic that I came every morning when I drive to work. I have a topic I sit down. It's the first topic I discuss. And I say, guys, this is our lead today.

And 99 out of 100 times the staff is like, woohoo. Yeah, Colin brought a good topic. Today, total pushback. I thought this was the best topic. It's a fascinating topic. And the staff's like, it's not only not going to leave the show. You can't put it in the first hour. Maybe you can throw it away at the end.

So they're not going to let me lead this hour with it. I have been told I can run it in 15 minutes. I will track if you think it's good or not. If nobody likes it, nobody retweets it, nobody watches it. My podcast numbers go down. I can track all that stuff day to day. Then I was wrong. And I'll announce on the air I was wrong.

I think it's going to change American radio. Maybe not change it, but it's going to be interesting. Whatever. All right, let's move to my guy. NFL meat sandwich, 30 plus years at NFL films. His name is Greg Kossel. Greg, how are you this morning? Colin, what's going on? How are you? I feel like here we go. We're getting to the halfway point. Some things have been established. One of the things that's been established to me is, oh, wow, the Colts took two

offensive linemen in the draft. People said they overdrafted the line, but I've watched every snap of the Colts in the last three weeks, Greg. Andrew Luck's not getting hit. Andrew Luck's got time. Andrew look looks like he's back. What is the film say on the Colts offense and the protection now luck is getting? I think there's a number of factors. One is the run-pass ratio. They are running the football. And they can run the football because what stands out on film, Colin, is their interior three,

which is Nelson, it's Kelly. And I'm trying to think of who the right guard is. They move Braden to the outside. Yeah, Braden is playing right tackle. but their interior three are very, very athletic, and they're very good in the gap scheme run game where you pull. They're very good at the sprint-draw, where you pull as well and get people outside.

So they are very athletic inside. It's Lewinsky, by the way. He used to be with Seattle, and this is a perfect example of coaching. The O-line coach for the Colts is doing a great, great job. Mark Lewinsky was a play some tackle in college, and then was a guard with Seattle, and he never made it, and now Gluinsky looks very, very good playing right guard for Indianapolis. The other factor, and this is coaching, is there's a lot more quick game stuff.

So the ball is coming out by design. That's the way they're running their offense, and that always helps an O-line, and luck is really taking to this system. He's not holding the ball anywhere near as long. You notice he's not running very much. There's a rhythm and timing to their pass game. Yep. And by the way, they're limited personnel-wise on defense.

They need an edge rusher. They could use a corner or another linebacker. But there is no question. He's second in the NFL and touchdowns to Mahomes. And their tight ends have played well. Andrews finally, for the first time in his career, has time to throw and he's tearing it up. Now, here's a team with a young quarterback who's also been beat up that doesn't have a lot of weaknesses on the defensive side.

The Houston Texans and Deshaun Watson, he had a play last week when he moved left. it was so clever, it was so Deshawn Watson, I know he's playing hurt. You know, you told me before he can be a little hot and cold. Are you seeing improvement? I think one reason for improvement and one reason why I think you'll see more efficiency is if they can stay with the formula that they played within their last two wins, which is he drops back fewer times. I think the more he drops back, the fantasy numbers might be good, Colin,

but I don't think that benefits him or the team. You know, I think their offensive line, which is clearly a work in progress and does not have great players, will always look better when you run the ball more. They've been running the ball more. And I think that that will help to Sean Watson. Now, he may always be a guy that moves around a lot, and he'll certainly make plays doing that because he's athletic. But ultimately, you want to get him to the point where he's efficient. And, you know, for instance, I'll give you great example, that 49-yard touchdown he hit to DeAndre Hopkins,

where Hopkins was wide open. It was a scheme to play that got Hopkins wide open, but DeShan was about three beats late with the throw. But Hopkins was just so wide open that probably people didn't notice that. Those are the little details and nuances of playing quarterback. I guarantee that he was told that by the coaching staff. Let's shift to generally free agent signings are overrated. They don't have the impact. I don't really buy into them.

I think it's fun for me as a radio TV guy to do the trading deadline stuff. But I thought that Golden Tate to the. Eagles feels like, oh, this will make their offense a little cleaner and a little smoother. He's almost like an additional running back. I like the move. It didn't feel like you're just kind of throwing a guy out there trading a pick. Do you think Golden Tate Carson Wentz? It could click pretty quickly and have an impact?

I do because of Doug Peterson's offense. I think Doug Peterson's offense is very much built on the short pass and the run-after catch. And I think by making this trade, they've told you that they're not quite happy with Nelson and Angoulars progress in that regard, because they have a great tight end in Zach Gertz, who is a match-up weapon. They can move him all over. They've got a solid wide-out in Elshon Jeffrey. And then beyond that, they're really lacking at the skill positions. And it's an offense, as I said, with the short pass and the run-after catch. And one area, Tate is terrific, which the Eagles use a lot. It's part of their offense is the screen game. They're very

multiple with their wide receiver screen game. And Tate, as you said, he's built like a running back, a strength of his game is run after catch. And I think he will help this team, and he'll probably help them right away because they have to buy this week. All right, two quick ones. Alex Smith wins everywhere. The Redskins are at the top of the division. But are they essentially the Alex Smith chiefs, which they're efficient with a really

low ceiling? Do you buy the Redskins? Again, now you get into what one's view of the quarterback is in relation to, let's say, getting to the Super Bowl. They're clearly old school. And I think Alex Smith forces you to become old school because he has limitations as a passer. But you can't have it both ways, not you, but people in general. You can't say that the quarterback is the most important player on a team

and then dismiss the fact that Alex Smith since, what, 2011 maybe, or somewhere around there, with his winning percentages, like over 65%. But at the end of the day, they're old school. The last three games, Adrian Peterson, 67 rushes, averaging 5.2 yards of carry, and their defense. No one's talking about their front seven. It is one of the best front sevens in the NFL, so they're playing old school football. By the way, I was critical of Kirk Cousins. I don't play fantasy football. It doesn't interest me, but I like that my audience does because it gets them kind of viscerally emotionally connected to football. So I support fantasy football. I get fantasy football.

I don't play it. So I don't care about yards and stats. Kirk Cousin sometimes comes out for me when I watch him as empty calories. I get the yards. I get the completions. The fantasy people love him. but he's like four and 21 last 25 games against good teams. I mean, you know, again, against the Saints, I'm told he's great, it's not his fault. What does the film say with Kirk? I think the film shows a pretty efficient quality starting quarterback. I think people are responding to the money that he was given, and therefore assuming that he's now a top-top echelon quarterback,

if you're ultimately asking, and then there's no way to answer this specifically, but if you're ultimately asking whether Kirk Cousins can be the quarterback of a team that gets to a Super Bowl, my answer to that would be that he needs team around him, as most do. You know, there's only a few guys that you could truly say can put a team on their back. Most need team around them. So right now they're not running the ball particularly well or very much. I think their defense has not played as well at times this year. I think he's been asked to throw the ball too much.

We're getting into that issue in the NFL. where so many teams are throwing the ball, you know, 40 plus times. They're asking their quarterback to drop back. Even Aaron Rogers, and you can say what you want. We know he's super talented, but he's average more than 45 dropbacks per game this year. That's too many dropbacks. Yeah. A team that's going the opposite way is Seattle.

Old school, too. Yeah, and by the way, I was wrong on this. I said, listen, Pete Carroll, I didn't like their draft. I think they overdrafted the running back out of San Diego State. They were loose. I thought politics and it just the whole vibe didn't work for me. I got to tell you something. They're not turning the ball over.

They're running the football. No mistakes. And they're playing good defense. Now, they haven't played great competition. Is a little fool's gold because of their competition or do you buy Seattle? Well, let's put it this way. They're playing the way that they feel they have to play. And I think arguably the best hire of this officer.

season was Mike Solari as their offensive line coach. He's been in the league 30 years. He's highly respected. This offensive line, which by the way is a high pedigree offensive line, has gone from being a sieve to being really, really efficient. And one reason they are is because they run the ball. Offensive linemen much prefer that. Russell Wilson has become a complimentary piece. Russell Wilson, for someone who started every game this year, has far and away the fewest pass attempts per game of any starting quarterback. They're not asking him to do very much. which might seem counterintuitive, given what he's done in previous years, but they are so much more efficient on a week-to-week basis.

Yeah, when I watch them, I just see, now they're not as explosive as Pete's earlier Seahawk teams. They don't look like as USC early Seahawks teams. They're grinded out. I thought that one in Detroit was very impressive. Yes. They don't make any mistakes. The penalties down. The turnover's down.

The takeaways are improving, so it feels real to me. Earlier today I said, I saw a story that Cam Newton should be MVP and I said, give me a break. He should be MVC. He's the most valuable Cam I've seen. I think he's his leadership, his coachability, he's obviously coachable. He's more precise. He's not Patrick Mahomes. He's not Brady golf numbers wise.

But it, to me, and I don't know what the film says, I do feel like this is the best Cam has been, even with his MVP year. What's the film say? I will say this. I will say that the Panthers are as tough an offense to prepare for and defend as any in the league. With all their different personnel packages, their formation looks, their multiple backfield actions, with a quarterback who must be accounted for in the run game, I think Norv Turner has done an unbelievable job sort of expanding his worldview

because coaches normally coach what they know, but he's expanded his worldview. He's made Cam Newton clearly a much, more efficient player. And we can say what we want about Cam, but he's a very difficult guy to defend. Will he ever be Drew Breeze or Tom Brady in terms of passing efficiency? You know, precision, ball placement, every throw? Probably not. But he's a very difficult guy to defend when he's part of your run game, and their offense could be the toughest in the league to defend. Yeah, and I thought that quarter against the Eagles a couple of weeks ago in the fourth, poised. It was phenomenal. He was, that was the best I've ever seen.

cam. And that was from the pocket, right away. Yes, all from the pocket. And I came out the next day. I'm like, that's as good as I've ever seen him play, including his MVP year. You know, this week, Brady takes on Rogers. And I said, you know, for a long time, we compared LeBron to Carmelo. And then after about eight years, you're like, okay, we've got to stop this because LeBron's, he's putting up all these trophies and these titles, and Mello's just talented. And listen, I think Brady Rogers, in terms of accomplishment, we've got to stop comparing them. I made the comparison that from their... outspoken personality, to their improvisation, to their elusiveness, to their arm strength,

to kind of their, you know, dramatics. I think Rogers has a lot of similarities to Big Ben. They both got overlooked. Neither went to a juggernaut college football program. Both are increasingly banged up as they're older due to their improvisation, and they both have world-class arms. I see some similarities a little bit to Aaron and Big Ben. Does the tape say anything like that?

Well, you know, I think Aaron Rogers, for me, has always been a fascinating guy to evaluate because the talent level throwing a football is arguably off the charts, and his movement ability and then throwing off movement is tremendous. He's always been a guy that, and the way I've described him, I've said this to you in the past, but it's been a while. He plays more like a jazz musician than a classical pianist. You know, he's an improvisational guy. Now he's very capable of playing from the pocket.

There are times he does not, and I would bet that that can be frustrating to the coaching staff at times. But he's so gifted that he can do special things. So I've always found him tough to evaluate. I think Ben has actually played a little more, certainly later in his career, Ben's been much more of a sort of stable pocket guy than Aaron Rogers. Okay. All right. That's good. That's what the film says.

All right. So with that, let's stay with the Steelers. It's time for Greg Kossel's play of the week. And is it a running play? We're going to do a running play this week because James Connor, to me, has played exceptionally well. And his numbers, you know, we can get into comparisons of players. That's always fun. That's always easy.

But teams look for production. And James Connor has more productive right now than Elevian Del was, which, again, we can debate whose quote-unquote has a better skill set. But let's start this play. This was a touchdown last week. week against Cleveland. And this was your basic shotgun power scheme. This is what we call a gap scheme run, which is power. And what you have here is you have Connor offset. You have David DeCastro is going to be the puller across the formation. But let's start front side, because these

three offensive linemen have down blocks. They've got to clear out the play side. And what they do with their down blocks, and you can see this, is they seal all these defensive linemen. And away from playside. That has to happen for this. Now what you're going to get into once they do that, is that now allows to Castro, one of the best pulling guards in the league, to pull across the formation.

Now, Jesse James, the tight end, he has to get the second-level play-side linebacker. Now, no one can block Jamie Collins. The front doesn't allow that. So now those two blocks on the front side, play-side have to happen, and Connor, he has to beat Jamie Collins. Collins, because Jamie Collins, as you can see, is clean into the hole.

So if you're Greg Williams, you're saying Jamie Collins has to tackle him, and if you're the Steelers, you're saying great, great run by James Connor. But this is just classic shotgun power. Everybody runs it really well executed. By the way, it doesn't look like they miss Labian Bell on that run. No, and the numbers, you know, obviously he's had three straight 100-yard rushing games. He's got a lot of catches. You know, the production is just as good, if not better. Well, when I got Ju-Jew Smith, Antonio Brown, Pro Bowl offensive linemen and Big Ben, you can't glom on to one guy.

So a running back should have a little more space with the Steelers than he would have on less talented offensive rosters. So this kind of bears it out that they have so much talent on the perimeter that it's going to take certain guys out of the box. Most running backs that are capable should succeed with the Steelers. You would think, I mean, this is what we call 11 personnel too. so there's three wide receivers on the field and that lightens the box. Yep, yep, and James Connor delivers. Greg CoSell, NFL Meat Sandwich, NFL Films over three decades. Great talking to you.

All right, Colin, thank you. All right, coming up, at this point, I may let down myself. The topic that I think is interesting that my staff does not, but you can decide. It'll only be five, six minutes, but I want to talk about it next. And it's getting, I would like to turn that frown upside down. I think it's very interesting. Joy can listen.

But just hear me out. I've got a theory and I'll give it to you. And it includes us several sports. And that is coming up next. I don't need the negativity. I'm already doubting myself every day in my career. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd. Weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific.

Sunday, it's a Fox NFL doubleheader, starting with Matt Ryan and the Falcons, taking on Adrian Peterson and the Redskins. then it's America's Game of the Week as Todd Gurley and the Undefeated Rams Battle Drew Brees and the Saints. It's all on Fox and the Fox Sports app. Check local listings. I don't like the Saints in that one.

Okay, now I've built this damn thing up so much. Now everybody's going to say they don't like it. But when I drive to work every morning, I always feel it's my responsibility to bring a lot to the table. I can't just come in and say, okay, guys, what do you have for me? So I usually come, I drive at 5.30 in the morning. I drive here, and I kind of in my head, what's the lead story? And Steve Nash had an interesting comment yesterday when he talked about Steph Curry. And you know how I feel about Steph Curry.

He's changed the game. There's been a lot of great basketball players. Steph Curry has changed the game. The game doesn't even look like it used to look like. Steph Curry is getting coaches fired, presidents fired. Steph Curry has changed the spacing. By the way, you can argue who the best basketball player is, the best center is, the best coach is. You can't argue who the best shooter is.

There's not even a second place. He's first. I don't even know who's second. Maybe Steve Nash. So he is, and Steve Nash had this quote yesterday. He said he's the evolution of basketball, man. We're watching basketball evolve and it's Steph. Now, I just want to start with that premise because I agree with that.

Now, from that, I talked about Mount Rushmore. And this is where my staff pushed back. My staff said that's so hacky. you're beyond doing Mount Rushmore topics. Mount Rushmore topics are the four greatest in, you know, who are the four greatest quarterbacks, four greatest is this. I've always had this theory that in any Mount Rushmore argument, the first three are easy and we start arguing and throwing haymakers and bottles at each other over the fourth.

And I'll give you an example. You can do it with anything. You can do it with a hamburger, fast food hamburger places. McDonald's Burger King Wendy's. We argue over the fourth. you can do it NFL head coaches all time. Lombardi Walsh, Belichick. Then we got a lot of arguments.

I mean, hell, even Mount Rushmore itself, it's Washington, Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, and they got Teddy Roosevelt is the guy that shouldn't be there, but he got there because he built it. I mean, if I built radio, I'd be on Mount Rushmore. Teddy Roosevelt's not even the best Roosevelt. FDR is the best Roosevelt. You would never take out Washington, Lincoln, and Thomas Jefferson.

They're guaranteed. But this guy got in because he created Mount Rushmore. Again, Marconi did radio, so he gets on the Mount Rushmore. If I did, I'd be on the Mount Rushmore. But he shouldn't even be the one you argue about. It's the fourth. And I was thinking about this about Steph Curry and about Mount Rushmore arguments. They're kind of hacky, cliched arguments.

But think about this. In baseball, much like fast food, football coaches, and presidents, baseball, Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Willie Mays. You can't argue. You argue about the four. Ted Williams, the greatest pure hitter ever. Babe Ruth at the time for 75 years of the sport, greatest player. Willie May, say, hey, kid. And if you go to the NFL, Jim Brown, many people still think is the greatest player ever. Jim Brown, Montana Brady. Then we-

Lawrence Taylor. But he's a defensive player, and it's mostly a scorers league. He's the best defensive. I mean, he's transformed the game, though. Well, he's a defensive player. They're buying jerseys for offensive players. Here's the other one. Hockey. Gordy, Howe, Gretzky, Bobby, Orr. Then you argue about Bobby Hole, Lemieux. Okay, you go to golf. Ben Hogan, Jack, and Tiger. You can say Arnie, no, no, Ben Hogan won more than Arnie and has a significantly

shorter career. Who you argue over is Bobby Jones and Arnie. If you go, though, here's where it's interesting. Because it's always this way on these Mount Rushmore. You get to three really quickly and you can't figure out a four. And this whole point was about how great Steph Curry is. If you go to basketballs Mount Rushmore, this tells you the greatness of LeBron. It is Wilt M.J. Magic and LeBron, and you can't even argue Steph Curry, who has revolutionized the game, is the greatest shooter of all time, is going to end up with more championships than LeBron, is in the greatest team that's ever played, and it would be embarrassing not to have LeBron on.

there. First of all, Wilt changed the rules. Michael's the greatest player. Magic saved the league and is probably the most transformative player in the history of the biggest brand in America outside of the Dallas Cowboys. And then it's LeBron. And my point is, all these Mount Rushmore's, you can't argue this one. First of all, people say Kareem. When Magic arrived on the Lakers with Kareem, Kareem was suddenly the best player, second best player in the Lakers. How the hell are you on Mount Rushmore. When Magic arrived to the Lakers, Kareem's profile shrunk. He was an enigmatic, score, aloof, not really a team leader, but he had a hookshot. Magic came and stole the franchise. You can't put Bill Russell in. Bill Russell wasn't even the best player at his position,

center of his generation. Wilt was. So my point is the greatness of LeBron, that he's on the Mount Rushmore. He's still got five years to play. the most revolutionary basketball player, the only one close is Wilt is Steph Curry, and you couldn't put him near Mount Rushmore. Is that a great topic or what right there? I don't see the flaw in this topic. What was the major pushback?

Because they said it was a Mount Rushmore topic. I don't care about Mount Rushmore. We're above being hacky now. Yeah, no kidding. We've built my career. Smoke coming out of it. A giant pumpkin next to my desk for a week. If you go Mount Rush,

I've always had this theory that you can't go on a camping trip with guys and you can't go to Vegas with four guys. You can only do it three because you find your best friend. Yeah, once you have even numbers, people split off. Yeah. For guys, you go with your best friend and then you find one guy you can get along with. By the time you get to a fourth, you're three days through the camping trip and you're like, I had no idea. Bob did meth. You can't take a fourth guy.

You can't. You can never get a fourth. The fourth is impossible. Always he's a. I'm with you on the fourth becoming the arguments because, Once you get to the fourth, it starts to become more of a preference. Or over a fact. Right.

So there's more of an opinion once you get to the fourth of whatever. You can't argue. Okay, Will Chamberlain literally scored 100 points. He scored 80 multiple times. He's the greatest physical force in the history of the league. Bill Russell was known as a defensive center and couldn't stop him. Yeah, I mean, there's so many people that you could put in there. I mean, Shaq.

Oh, gosh. Shack was a dominant player. He couldn't beat Elijah one. Come on. In his pun. That's what I'm saying. Like, this is what we'll do. We'll go back and forth on the fourth one.

Nobody put Shaq on the mountain. There are people who would put Shaq up there. No. Not, not. Shaq, Kareem. I'm sure people would argue Larry Bird. The Mount Rushmore? It's a preference.

You get to the fourth one, it becomes a preference. I would put him on the, the bird. I would put Sparrow, Robin, Larry Bird, and an eagle. We're not going to fall into this trap. Did I oversell? No, you did not oversell it. I think that you oversell the pushback on it, because if it was just the Mount Rushmore argument,

I'm just going to say it for our show, if we're being too up to you right now, we are not above doing Mount Rushmore. By the way, the Laker Mount Rushmore's, Wilkareem, Wilt Carim Magic Kobe. Certainly people would argue Kobe. That is a fact. All right, I got to get out of this.

I got Jordan Palmer around the corner. I don't know. Maybe the public thought that was idiotic. Tomorrow, why don't we debate if Pete Rose is the Hall of Fame or not? I mean, Barry Bonds is the fourth one on that, Mount Rushmore. God man

Okay so this is why we shouldn't have done it because it's the Mount Rushmore because it's going to get into the Mount Rushmore argument Yeah Give me a break None of the pitchers can be on there from that area either

Joy Taylor with the news No No no no Turn on the news This is the Herd Line News We are not above Mount Rushmore Topics I'll never do another one

Because I got so much Pushback And I thought that was brilliant I didn't think it was bad at all I got nothing From my Honestly you were starting to make me worried about what was going to come our way.

That's what he's old on. All right, well, I'm not above doing Mount Rush. I got Jordan Palmer's coming up, too. He's coming up before the movie. All right, so Baker Mayfield didn't have much to say yesterday about the possibility of Lincoln Riley coming to Cleveland, but he was very forthcoming about how the Browns would move forward after the firings of Hugh Jackson and Todd Haley,

which he called his Welcome to the Business Moment. Here he was on it yesterday. I think my leadership and my presence and, you know, making sure guys stay focused it is more important now than ever. It's one of those things that you can handle it as a distraction, like I said, or you can use it to come together as a team. You know, this locker room can become a lot tighter, you know, with all distractions.

But we'll see what kind of men we have in this room. Not what kind of team we have, but what kind of men can handle a distraction the right way, can come together and focus on doing their job and doing it at a high level against a great team come Sunday. That's a pretty good, Claude. I like that. That's pretty good. Baker can have a good sound bite.

I like that. Here's the thing about Baker and Cleveland. I'm really, I got to say, I'm disappointed in how that all played out. It's a mess. It's just Cleveland. It's a mess. Yeah, like it's like give the kid a chance. And by the way, they brought Greg Williams to the podium yesterday, and he said ridiculous stuff.

So it was just God. I mean, it's nothing against Greg Williams. It's more about the change. Like, you have to have consistency. Look at what dynasties do. What is the main thing that all consistent winners have? Stability. Consistency.

By the way, Arizona. Already replaced coordinators with Josh Rosen with a guy that probably won't get the job next year. You knew you were going to draft a quarterback high. You knew that, right? So why wouldn't you then begin positioning your franchise to have some stability for that number one overall pick or that high pick? Anyway, we talked about Cam Newton earlier in the show. He scores rushing touchdowns like no other quarterback in NFL history. In fact, he has run for at least five touchdowns in each of his first seven seasons.

And this season, he's at four rushing touchdowns. which means his next brushing touchdown. He'll have eight straight years with five rushing touchdowns, and that's something only a handful of NFL players in history have accomplished. Here is the list of them. Marshall Falk, with Danny & Tomlinson, Jim Brown, Ricky Waters, Eddie George, and Thurman Thomas. They're all running back.

He's in a really good company. Well, he is probably the greatest running quarterback maybe in NFL. Michael Vick was more explosive. Cam's more durable over, so Cam will be able to do it for another five years. Michael just got beat up. Now, he has improved a lot as a passer significantly under Norv Turner. He's completed a career high, 66.4% of his throws. Yeah.

13 touchdowns and only four interceptions. So he has had a great cam year, as you said earlier. And finally, how am mighty a fall on the Rockets who had the best record in the NBA last season have plummeted back to Earth, a humbling one and five start. Last year, the Rockets didn't lose their fifth game until December 20th. I know. Which put them at 25 and 5. So New Rocket, Carmilla Anthony, thinks it won't take much to turn things around. Not a whole lot. He said when you're losing, that confidence can go two ways. You can keep it or you can lose it. I'm in the locker room, so I know the morale. I know the confidence level that this team has, the attitude that we have. We've just got to get a win. Once you get that first win, then you start to unravel and figure things out. No, it's not that simple. That sounds great. It's a lot more than that. It's about defensive intensity. It's about chemistry. That sounds good.

I get what he's saying. You know, every journey starts with one step. That's excellent. That's on a poster somewhere at Hallmark. poster. Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Hurd Lye News. Former NFL quarterback, a quarterback coach now to Darnold and Rosen. This guy knows what he's doing. Carson Palmer's brother, Jordan Palmer. I love bringing him on. He's really smart, really thorough, fascinating look into the world of young quarterbacks, and he's joining us next in L.A. It's the Hurd. He started as a water boy

with the Elite 11 back in the 90s. He is now helping to find it, Jordan Palmer. NFL seasons played four. Sam Darnold, Josh Allen. You told us Josh Allen was going to be really, really explosive, and he has been. Of course, brother of Carson Palmer, who is retired and living a great life somewhere that I'm not going to announce.

Somewhere. Somewhere. Mobile home, whole thing, hanging out with kids. Good for him. All right. I love bringing you on because you make us smarter. Let's look back so far. Sam Darnold so far, to me, he's been as good as the Jets running game has been.

He doesn't have a ton to work with. So far, I would give him a B. He's been inconsistent, but he's the youngest of them, the few as college starts. What have you seen with Darnold? Well, I think what we've seen from Sam is not really cool looking and fun for the fantasy community and for the general casual sports fans or NFL fans, but for the Jets fans and people who know what they're looking at, every week he executes the game plan.

He did it was 100% in his run checks. He made good decisions. When he made a bad decision, it's one he's not going to make again. That's what you want, your rookie year. That's what you want in a freshman quarterback. Somebody who every week executes the game plan, takes what's there, makes the most of what's available. And at the end of the game, you win or you lose. But that's how you can build on, as opposed to splash plays, really cool-looking things can't do the simple things correctly.

By the way, when I say this, I'm not trying to defend him. I don't think he has anything to work with. I think it's a very weak tight end. He's got a young tight end I like. Wide receivers all banged up. Running back's not spectacular. His protection is hit and miss, mostly miss. Again, I don't think he has a ton to work with. Is that fair?

Yeah, I think that's absolutely fair. And I don't think anybody would really debate that in that locker room even. And so it's going to be interesting to see how they combat that. If there's been some free agent guys that are available, that time came and went. They have the most salary cap space in the NFL. And so for me, a fan of him and running the best for him, I think it's an exciting time. And a lot of these young quarterbacks are in similar situations. Cap space, picks to come in, all that.

I think Baker has, of all the rookies, Arizona jets, and Buffalo. I think Baker has the most talent to work with. I thought he had three running backs before they traded Carlos Hyde. I think Jarvis Landry is very good. His old line again is hit and miss. It was overwhelmed by Pittsburgh. You know, I don't love his personality. Like I like Sam's personality. Sam's more Russell Wilson Luck. I connect more with Sam than the noise of Baker. What have you made of his play? Well, there's been, you know, conversations around maturity and that was a big conversation. All these teams, when they're evaluating rookie quarterbacks and potentially drafting somebody, the bulk of the conversation

is around maturity. I don't think that's it. I think between Sam and Baker, they are who we thought they were. And what's cool is, what Baker is, those things that you talk about, the good and the bad, I think that's what Cleveland needs. They have explosive playmakers. They have zero stability, as little stability as you can

possibly have when you fire your head coach and off the coordinator one week. What they need is somebody who's really confident, doesn't care about the instability of it, who can battle through it, walk on, Heisman winner, and who's done that before. That's That's what Cleveland needs. The Jets need stability, consistency, good playmaking, and a guy who's not going to create a

negative conversation in the media. So I think they're both doing exactly what they want. I'm excited for Baker. Okay. So I said today, listen, for a long time, LeBron Carmelo were compared. Same draft. Carmelo was better offensively early. LeBron appeared to be better defensively, bigger physically.

But after about seven, eight years, you're like, there's a gap here. One guy has a trophy room. I think Brady and Rogers are just different people, different personalities, different arm, different athletic ability. I think Tom's incredibly coachable. He's taking pay cuts. Some could say system. I'd say coachability.

I don't see him as comparable. I think Rogers is big bend to me. Elusive, cannon, chip on the shoulder, kind of outspoken personality, a little passive aggressive. He's saying something. I'm not sure what he's saying. Do you think the Rogers' Brady comparisons are just, they're over? it's so hard for me to have that conversation with different types of people with with NFL

quarterbacks it's consistent answer I think if you grab 10 great franchise guys any era who watch it and know it and you gave them truth serum they would say the gap between Aaron and Tom is significant giving Tom or giving Aaron the nod talent because the way that they would look at it it it's not talent and it's not Super Bowl if it's Super Bowl is then it's math right add them up but what I look at it is when all these guys were at their best, playing their best, and not this game. We're talking about franchise guys. You've talked about it.

It's these years, right? The seven great years. There's a huge gap between Aaron and the rest of these guys. And I think most franchise quarterbacks, give him true serum, would say the same thing. What is it about the ball looked different out of Aaron's arm? Why? He's 6-2-18.

Why? What does he generate that? I think him and Russell is in this conversation, too, but I think Aaron is the most opportunistic guy I've seen play quarterback. He did not throw like that in college. You were friends with Trent Dofer, Trent spent some time with him pre-draft.

He didn't used to throw like that. He took things from Brett. He took things from everybody else. He made it his own. I see a lot of high school kids who ask, how does Aaron throw? Is that something I can learn to do? The answer is no.

He's taken these things and he's made them his own. And when he's at his best, which if he's healthy, he's at his best. That's the thing. Every year he's played, if he's healthy, they're going to the playoffs. If he's not, we'll see. His best is, I think, a big gap between other guys.

I think of Brady and I go, that's Tim Duncan and Popovich. That's a perfect pairing. Not a perfect quarterback. That's a perfect pairing. Aaron is standing by himself, and he's had the same coach for a long time, but McCarthy and Belichick aren't in the same conversation. Right, that's true. What do you make a Cam's year?

I put up a blind resume, and I said, I understand when the media likes Cam, good looking, number one pick, Heisman winner. He's a star. He is an absolute rock star in this league. He's got a Westbrook quality. He's a flawed player, but you can't take your eyes off Cam. He just don't look like anybody else. But his numbers match up to Tribiskees in that when I did this blind resume,

everybody's saying MVP and I'm like, you know, you look at rushing, passing, touchdowns, yards per game. It's very Tribisky. And the similarity they have is that there's a collegiate look to their offense. Greg Hosell just came on and said he may be the hardest guy in the league to prepare for. What do you make of Cam? He's not your classic Jordan Palmer student.

He's not. What do you make of it? If you would have had him at 16, would you have been confused? Would you have been troubled? Would you have been, what do you make of Cam? You know, I agree.

I think he's a hard guy to prepare for. He's a hard guy to evaluate too. He has some things where you go, man, you shouldn't be able to play in the league with that. His lack of anticipation, he waits till guys are open and throw it and you can ask 100 people who know what they're talking about and they all say the same thing

but it hasn't mattered really because he's got these and he hasn't had that superstar after Steve Smith left they haven't had that guy who can just win with separation he also throws too much arm not enough leg and and I think that is open for debate could he I say there's a hundred hundred little gold chips you get when you push the ground away

between then and when the ball comes off your finger any lack of any inconsistencies you have you're losing you're giving away those little little gold chips, right? I think he throws with 60 or 70 of them. He leaves a bunch on the table, but nobody would say he doesn't have a really strong arm. He still gets it there.

So he does what he needs to do, but he has these elements of his game where you go, man, that's got to be hard to play well, but then he's got these other things, rushing in the red zone and hanging in the pocket, and just what's in his chest and finishing and being a champion at every level in

high school college all the way through, where you go, man, those things offset and we're sitting here at the end going, yeah, He's in conversation for one of the better guys, and I don't really know how to evaluate him. Josh Allen, Sam Darnold, among the young quarterbacks who went to Jordan Palmer. He is the quarterback guru in America right now. His brother, of course, is Carson. He played himself in college where he was a great player in the NFL for four years.

Bengals, Jags, Titans? Yeah, yeah, you were Titans. Best round of us. A lot of coffee. Yeah. Finally, I love Andrew Locke. I get nothing but pushback. for the first time in his career this year,

he has protection. When you evaluated Andrew early until now, people think they think I'm nuts. I'm like he's one of the great quarterback talents I've ever seen. He's had no help. This year finally has help, and he's second in the league in touchdowns. How would you evaluate him?

You look at him on the physical side of it, we haven't really seen one of these guys since him. There hasn't been the, I mean, he was the fastest kid. had the best arm. He's from Stanford. He won big game. So I've heard several people say, you know, he'd have been the first pick in pretty much any draft. Elway. Yeah, that's a strong. I said, Elway and Luck are the only two people of my life that there's no missed potential. Every other quarterback, there were missed potential. Elway Lucker it. Totally. And I agree. And I don't think he's changed. I think the injury thing, whatever's happening there and taking all that time off,

We talked about it last time I was on, is he going to struggle early or not? And we said it was just dependent on what's around him, really, because if it's up to him and the ball's in his hands and he's got enough resources to work with, he's absolutely one of the best quarterbacks in the league. And I think, you know, once in a generational player, he didn't have protection before. He had some talent out at Whiteout. Now he's got protection. Now he's throwing the ball, you know, being opportunistic and finding tight ends. He had three score last week.

Great. He's making the most of what's around him. Finally. You have a podcast. I can only go about 10 seconds. Jordan Palmer, quarterback coach and mentor. Any young quarterback out there interested in getting better? Here's your guy, Jordan Palmer.

We love him. Hour 3 next, The Herd. Ah, Hour 3 live in Los Angeles. This is The Herd, wherever you may be. And however, you may be listening. Iheart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and right here, FS1. Joy Taylor is joining me coming up. The Raiders are at the Niners tonight on Fox.

Jimmy Garoppolo doesn't play. CJ Bethard, we think we'll play. And it's John Gruden, who has a sit down with Howie Long. In 15 minutes, we sit down a former NBA great player. He played for the Miami Heat, among others. Tim Hardaway was a five-time All-Star. His thoughts on the Jimmy Butler situation. Jimmy Butler is now doesn't want to play for the T-Wolves.

He wants to play somewhere else. It's kind of maybe a subtle protest by Jimmy Butler. And Jimmy Butler is a real player. He's an all-star level player. So how does that work out? Tim Hardaway will join us for that. And I'm going to hand out my NFL mid-season awards in Best for Last. So I'll hand out my NFL mid-season awards in 40 minutes from now.

Well, another day and more praise for an admittedly great quarterback, Aaron Rogers. This time the praise came from Bill Belichick. He killed us the last time we played him. I mean, he's a great player. He does everything well. He reads coverage as well. Very accurate throwing the ball. This is one of the great quarterbacks.

In National Football League, no question about it does everything good. I'd say playing against Aaron Rogers is very, very difficult. He's as good as anybody that I've faced. We faced a lot of good ones through the years. Okay. They're going to face off Sunday. There is no comparison between Brady and Rogers. Let's get past that. Here's who you should compare Aaron Rogers to.

Big Ben. Big Ben and Aaron Rogers are very, very comparable. Let's talk head coach. Mike Tomlin and Mike McCarthy. They both have a good head coach. Neither one of those coaches is Bill Belichick, Vince Lombardi, Bill Walsh. they're both very good coaches, though not consider the best coach in the game. Both franchises are Blue Bloods, Packers, Steelers.

They both went to non-traditional college football programs. Cal? In fact, junior college Cal for Aaron, Miami of Ohio for Big Ben. Neither was taken number one in their draft class at their position. In fact, both have used that as a chip on the shoulder. Aaron fell in the draft, and Big Ben was the third quarterback taken in his draft. both are very, very outspoken against their very popular franchise. I mean, Aaron Rogers has taken not even thinly veiled shots at the Packers' bosses.

And Ben has taken multiple shots at the Steelers and Mike Tomlin. Both have had really, really, really nice weapons, both better than Brady. Ben's had Plaxico and Heinz Ward, San Antonio Holmes, Juju Smith-Schuster, that's Big Ben. Aaron's had Donald Driver, Jordy Nelson, Greg Jennings, Devante Adams. Those are really above-average wide receivers. Both generally have good offensive lines.

In fact, if you look at their playoff histories, it's very similar. Aaron Rogers' playoff losses. He's lost to some really good quarterbacks. He lost to Russell Wilson's going to be a Hall of Famer. Carson Palmer may be a Hall of Famer. And Matt Ryan's very good. But he's also got some stinkers.

Aaron Rogers lost as a huge. huge favorite to Eli Manning. He lost to Colin Kaepernick twice, and he lost to an old, old Kurt Warner. Big Ben the same. He's got some playoff losses, two times to Brady and to Peyton Manning. But Big Ben's also got some stinkers in the playoffs.

He lost to Tebow, David Garard, Blake Bortles. Ben and Rogers are both elusive and scramblers and ad livers. That creates all-time highlights. and it creates improvisation, which can drive teammates and coaches crazy, and bad interceptions, and plays out of the pocket where you get hurt. In fact, both are always playing at about 90% health.

Aaron's increasingly banged up. Big Ben last three years increasingly banged up. You've given me these Rogers' Brady comparisons. Stop it. But when you start piling up trophies, Tom Brady doesn't have a trophy case. He's got a trophy room.

He doesn't have a trophy wall. He's got a trophy room. Their personalities aren't the same. Brady is more coachable, more humble, less condescending, not as aloof. Aaron is Big Ben. And by the way, both will be first ballot Hall of Famers. To Aaron's credit,

he no longer wants to hear about the comparisons to Tom Brady. You look at MJ and LeBron, you know, it's tough to settle any of those debates because there's the what-if game and the situation game and who you played for and what area you played in. I'm just worried about winning right now, and he's got five championships. So that ends most discussions, I think. That's very appropriate, very accurate. It shows Aaron Rogers intelligence, understanding, self-awareness.

This is not a bash Aaron Rogers segment. Rogers is Big Ben, from the franchise to the coach, to the style, to the outspokenness, to the banged up, to the ad-libbing, to the playoff failures. They're right aligned with each other. And they are two of the greatest quarterbacks I've ever seen. but they're not close to the greatest quarterback I've ever seen, and that's Tom Brady. Lakers won last night, had a couple of big leads, almost blew the game. I'm not going to break down an NBA regular season November-October game.

I'm not going to. But I will tell you this. It once again proved Lonzo Ball's better than Rondo, and I've been on this for two weeks. Lanzo Ball played twice the minutes of Rondo last night. The Lakers won again when that happens. That's happened four times. They're three and one, and the only loss was an overtime. Lonzo, by the way, was three for three on threes.

Lonzo, by the way, had seven assists and no turnovers. And Lonzo has separated himself defensively. He is much better than Rondo. For all the Lonso ball haters, he is better than Rondo, and the Lakers are better when he plays more minutes than Rondo. Rondo is moody and inconsistent. Rondo picks his spots, TV games, TNT, what he wants to play well.

Last night was not a big TV game. They played the Mavericks. It was a Wednesday. Nobody watched. And Rondo was two for seven and had a minus 21 plus minus. Lonzo should be playing three minutes for every minute Rondo plays. Lonzo is better than Rondo. And Lanzo is the future, not Rondo.

And here's the other thing is that Kuzma, Brandon Ingram, Josh Hart, and Lanzo, they're boys, their buddies, their friends. friends. Rondo isn't friends with anybody. In an article a year ago, he said, quote, I'm not really into people, unquote. Rondo is the NBA's transient, moody vagrant who shows up in a town, doesn't make friends, sometimes helps you win, and then people tire of him. Watch the Lakers with Lanzo last night. Better communication, cleaner, the ball moves better. The team is better and they win. Luke Walton,

I think he's figuring it out. Lonzo is better for the team, better for the results, and Lonzo is better than Rondo. You know, something else with Lonzo Ball, and I know, I know LeVar Ball is very controversial,

and a lot of people don't like LeVar Ball, his dad's methods, right? I always said, I'm not going to criticize a dad, period, but I'm not going to criticize a dad that got his kids to UCLA. Here's what's interesting. One of the things that you could argue is that Lonzo is used to having a big personality in his life. He's okay being in the shadow.

He doesn't need to walk in the room and be the loudest, the biggest, the most talked about. Lonzo's always fit right in. LeVar Ball, I've seen him when he's with Lonzo together. I've seen them is Lonzo sort of is in the shadow, sort of obeys dad, is very quiet, listens to dad, laughs with dad, but doesn't need to dominate the room. LeBron's a dominating figure in the room. LeBron dominates the ball, dominates the headlines. He's the most verbal player in the NBA and the floor.

Is it possible, I know everybody wants to bang on LeVar ball, but is it possible that Lonzo, growing up with this outspoken, loud, funny, personality-driven dad, and he was in the shadow of it, fits perfectly without agitation with a big, global, star, verbal, LeBron James. I don't know if this is true, but it seems to me that Lanzo's grown up in an environment, he's cool with the shadow. He's cool with it. he's cool with it and you know some of that comes from who we grow up with so i think he personality wise really works with lebron james a five-time all-star all-time great tim hardaway is around the

corner and my mid-season NFL awards i'm handing out plus joy taylor's got heard line news around the corner saturday the 10th ranked buck guys looks to get back in business against nebraska at 1130 eastern then big 12 contenders west virginia and texas clashed at 330 eastern That's coming your way Saturday on Fox, so watch anywhere on the Fox Sports app. Last time I saw Ohio State play, they were getting pummeled by Purdue. So it's their first, I wouldn't want to be Nebraska. I've got to feel in Ohio State. The Buckeyes are going to rub it in on Nebraska.

West Virginia also plays Texas this weekend. Our next guest was a first-round pick, a dominant player. He was the fastest player in NBA history to get to 5,000. points and 2,000 assists. He and Oscar Robertson did it faster than anybody in the history of the sport. He is now coaching. And for the first time in the history of my show, I've had back-to-back guests who went to U-TEP. Carson Palmer, and let's bring him on Tim Hardaway.

Jordan Palmer, excuse me. Former NBA All-Star. You know, I was looking at this Jimmy Butler. So you've been a great player, and now you're in coaching. and the Jimmy Butler situation. In the NFL, you hold out. The saying now is in the NBA, you act out. If you just don't want to play,

what do you make if you're Minnesota and you have this terrific player and he just doesn't mix with Carl Anthony and Andrew Wiggins and the modern NBA player, you know, if he doesn't get along with his boys, he's out. If you're in Minnesota, what do you do? Well, first of all, thanks for the great introduction. Thank you.

Um, yes, two, um, U-TEP guys coming on on the same day. El Paso, shout out. El Paso shout out, no question. Um, that's great. Um, you know, when, when all this happened with Jimmy Butler, everybody was like, he's doing the right thing, but you don't do it in the public. You don't do it in the public eyes. You don't do it in the news.

You don't do it in the radio or nothing like that. You take it behind closed doors and you do it behind closed doors. and we had veterans back then that would talk to you behind closed doors and make you understand what you need to do to be a professional basketball player and how you need to carry yourself in professional basketball. But, you know, the way he has done it is aggravating and should not have happened and it's kind of disrespectful to his teammates and to his coaches and what he did in practice, disrespect his coaches in practice like,

you need me now. but we all been through that, but that was the wrong way to do it. I think he's in a situation where they have to trade him because it's just detrimental to the team and detrimental to Wiggins and Anthony Towns. So I think that he will be traded, and he's looking like he's sitting out right now and don't want to play right now. He's trying to force their hand to trade him.

But Tipto wants him to play and wants him to be there. You know, Tim, it's different. You didn't play A.U. basketball. You played for probably a hard-ass high school basketball coach. Then you went to college and your coach was tough and then you went to the NBA. That developed a

toughness and a thick skin for players. Players now, they go to AAU. And AAU basketball is not like high school. The player controls AAU. Yes. And then you go to college for a year and you still control the coach. Then you go to the NBA and you make so much more money

than your coach. I mean, high school and college for you is different. Could I make the argument that Jimmy Butler is simply a product of his environment, which is AAU, we just give you more cool stuff, college, please come to our school, NBA. I mean, Jimmy is what the current player is. He doesn't have that willingness to go through the tough times. He wants to find the perfect spot. Well, I think he's looking at all the other guys, Kevin Durant, you know, that went to,

and LeBron James that chose and went to where they wanted to go and which team they wanted to go to. You know, that's what he's looking at right now. And he wants to pick and choose and even even Kawhi Leonard. Yes. You know, he, like, I don't want to play no more for the San Antonio Spurs. And he forced their hand. Do you, you know, I don't know what went on with that situation or whatever. But it was everybody still wondering what.

what happened and how it happened and what sparked that that type of talk with Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs with Kuwait Leonard. I mean, a brilliant coach, a brilliant. Should have worked. It should have worked. It should have worked. I don't know why it didn't. Does it bother you that players today, they want, I mean, part of me argues the players should

have more power. Oh, yeah. No question. You should have had more power. Well, Oscar Robinson, he went to bat for us for them to have this type of power. to after their free agent to go wherever they want to go and play wherever they want to play. But, you know, I think that Jimmy Butler just did it in the wrong way. Too toxic.

Yeah, it's very toxic. Too toxic. Yeah, if he did it behind closed doors, it'd be great. It'd be fine. That's how LeBron and Durant did it. They surprised us. Exactly. You know, and that's the way it's supposed to be behind closed doors and talk behind closed doors.

To your team may make your team may understand what you want them to do. and close doors with the management and say, look, I want my max money, and I deserve max money. But don't be out in the media, Instagram, you know, in a newspaper, on TV, or whatever, and say that, you know, I should be paid this. It's too disruptive. Well, you know, there's a player in the NBA that I think has honestly changed basketball, Steph Curry. The basketball

doesn't look. The only other player I can compare him to is Wilk Chamberlain where they had to change the rules because Wilt was so dominant. So Steph comes in and now, poor centers, if you can't shoot a three, you can't play in this league. But it's funny about Steph. Steve Nash said something yesterday.

He said he's a dancer, he's finesse, and a lot of players, they won't put him in LeBron's class. They won't put him in Durant. They won't put him in Jordan. He won't put it. He's not huge. He's more of a jabber. He's a dancer.

He's clever. And that doesn't sit well with a lot of all-timers. That he's too small and he's not physically imposing. How do you view him? Well, that's the game today. The game is not physical. The game is not imposing. The game is really, you know, soft.

And that's the way they play it right now. And he having fun with what the rules are allocated to him. He goes out there and he plays. He's the right way. You know, he shoots the ball. He shoots it from long distance. People are trying to out shoot him at times in the game. Like, I can out shoot you further than you can outshute me, Steph.

No, you can't. You know, you just need to play your game. But Steph just goes out there. He has fun, and that's the way the game is played today. How would you have defended Steph? Well, in today's game, you can't defend them because you can't put your hands on them. You can't deter him. When we was playing, that's how we played.

We played growing up. We was very physical. We put our hands on you. We could put our arm on you. We could move you in different ways where you didn't want to go and we could push you. And that wasn't a foul. Today you can't deter them and push them and knock them off where they want to go. That's the way it is.

But the scoring is up. It's exciting. You know, he has a lot of charisma and what he does and what they give him and how the freedom he can shoot from anywhere. and the way they team is structured is great. They team is structured that way where they have a lot of freedom and all five in them on any given night can score the basketball. You know, Tim, it's funny. When you played in this league, it was a big league.

If you didn't have a center, you almost weren't a legitimate team. True. Now, if you don't have a point guard in a good wing, you're not a legitimate team. True. But you know what? You also have centers. You have a Draymond Green that to me is the key. glued to that team. I say

he's the head of the snake. He gives them that team confidence to go out there and be able to do whatever they do. So I want to talk about this. So the warriors based on today's rules are the most dominant team I've ever seen. No question. Most believe the team you faced, the Bulls,

who by the way didn't have a bunch of long range shooters were very physical, more mid-range. If you slice the rules up where you could hand check, let's just say I brought the hand-check back. I've made the argument that you don't use all the bulls rules or all the warriors, but if you did bring the hand check back, the bulls would beat the warriors. You face Jordan.

Right. Go back to tell, for young people watching us, everybody always was glommed on to Jordan. I always argued that was the longest, most physical team to talk about facing that Jordan. Bulls team and what it was like. Well, it was great to face those teams because that's the way we played. We played physical. We played with a lot of charisma out there. We played with a lot of spunk. And you had to be tough to play in those days.

You were on those tough Miami teams with Zoe. Right, right. I mean, you know, you had to play tough. You know, Dan Marley was tough. I was tough. Sean Lennon was tough. P.J. Brown was tough. you know, we was out there really almost fighting because that's the way the rules were.

That's the way we brought was brought up to play in playgrounds, tough, rugged, and physical. And if you saw two years ago when LeBron them won that series against the Golden State Warriors, they was physical with the Golden State Warriors. That's the way to beat them. That's the way to beat them. They was very physical. but they was in with the rules they was not against the rules they was they was within the rules within the rules and did what they supposed to do at at the particular time when they was supposed to

push them off screens get over screens and help out and they switch when they supposed to have switch and tristan thompson thompson did a great job with with staying on curry when he gave the ball up and stayed on them and not forgot about them and let them go and wrong so uh that's the way that's what you got to do you got you got to understand saying how can I manipulate the rules. Exactly. By the way,

the Bulls manipulated the rules. They took it right to that edge and that's how they played each and every playoff game. Right. And by the way, the Bulls are they played, they manipulated's perfect.

They took the rules to the edge. Before them, the pistons took the rules to the edge. Right there. And right now last year, the two teams that took the new culture to the edge, the Warriors and the Rockets. By the way,

who's the best coach you ever? either coached with the NBA, played for Best Coach and Why? You know, I played for three Hall of Fame coaches. Don Haskins at University of Texas, El Paso, Don Nelson with the Warriors, and Pat Riley with Miami Heat. So I played with three Hall of Fame coaches. Riley was tough. You know, all three them was tough.

All three them was tough. They demanded a lot from your team. First of all, they demanded you to be in great physical shoes. shape. They demanded that you know how to play out there on the court, and they demanded that you didn't go out there and do stupid things out there on the court. So we, like I said, they taught me a lot about the game, and I was grateful to have them. But, you know, Don Nelson, he was innovative. He was before his time. Way before his time. The way the game is played today. Is what Don liked. Don should have been bored today. That's the way we was playing.

in the 90s. And a lot of people don't know that. We played exactly the same way the Warriors are playing now in the 90s. We had Tom Tobert or Jim Peterson point forward, bringing the ball up, you know, running the offense. We had plays where we back cut. We had plays where we... Do you have Chris Mullen on your team about? Oh, Chris Mullen. Me, Chris and Mitch. Yeah, it was shooters. Rod Higgins, Terry Tigo. You know, we had a TMC. You know, we had a bunch of shooters, man. We played. exactly the same way as they played today. And a lot of people don't understand that Don Nelson had this in his sight at that particular time. So he was way, way ahead of his time.

So we, I mean, and we had fun playing in that way, too. And a lot of people didn't know, we didn't know what we was doing at times. And we know that they didn't know we was doing that time. Who's the most underrated player? I'm going to give you the most underrated player in NBA history. And then you tell me the most underrated player in NBA history. And then you tell me the most underrated player, Tim Hardaway five-time All-Star. I'll tell you the most underrated player of all time, Mark Price. And I was going to tell you, Rod Strickland. Strickland was great. When I first got to Portland, he was there. Interesting cat. I heard he threw up before every game. Real nervous guy. Well, Alonzo Morning did too. Before every game?

Yeah, before every game. Alonzo morning threw up. Yeah, yep, in the cup, right before every game. Yeah, that's terrible. That was nasty. When I first saw it, when I first saw it, when I first He said, I was like, man, what are you doing? He said, I'm just nervous. I got to get to nervousness all. Every game. Every game. Rod Strickland.

Yeah, Rod Strickland. We had him on the show one time. Good dude. Great guy. Great guy. Great dude. Very underrated. Tim.

Another one. Who? Kevin Johnson. Well, he was great. Yeah, Kevin. Yeah. He was on the Marley, Barclay. Right.

A lot of people forget about him. Charles Barkley. Marley. Marley. Kevin Johnson. Danny Hage. Was Tom Chambers? Tom Chambers. Tom Chambers was on that team.

Sorry about that. I got so excited. I was thrilled there. Tim, it's great seeing you. Nice seeing you, too, and I appreciate you having me on. Tim Hardaway, former, great NBA All-Star. Joy with the News. No, no, no, no.

Turn on the news. This is the Herdline News. All right, so the Packers are traveling to face the page hits on Sunday nights. Very anticipated game, and the Rogers Brady debate is raging, and yesterday Aaron was asked about it, and he wants no parts of it. I mean, I let you guys worry about those. those types of conversations. I think that's, you know, end of career conversation. I'm just worried about winning right now, and he's got five championships. So that ends most discussions, I think.

Unfortunately, Aaron, it does not end most discussion. It is much discussed still. If somebody said, Joy, Bob is the greatest attorney of all time, I would say, okay, how many cases has he won? Sure. Okay, if you're going to be the greatest quarterback of all time, and Tom Brady's still playing, Tom's won a lot more cases. If you're going to be the greatest, if you're going to be the greatest blank. Wow. What kind of suits did the other attorney have? See, that's what you...

What were the cases that he was given? Whenever you have to me... I have good, good cases? Yeah, I mean, to me, quarterback's about winning. It's not like baseball. I don't care about your OPB. You got to look at what judge they had in each individual case. Did you win more case?

If you won 90% of your cases, you're an all-time great attorney. I don't listen. I don't know why this is. debate, why having the debate of the greatest of all time takes anything away from Aaron Rogers' incredible talent. And his career is not over. Who knows? Maybe he'll win five championships.

I don't think so. But it's not over. It's an end of the career conversation in general, but it's also still fun to have. And this what we do because we're sports fans. But to me, winning championships matters when you talk about the greatest of all times. Yes, it's huge. It is huge. Like you don't, we're not here for participation trophies.

You're playing to win a Super Bowl, right? He has more. So that's what it is. And a lot more, not just like one more. All right. So this is weird yesterday. We talked about this earlier in the show. Matt Patricia went a full seventh grade teacher during his press conference yesterday. The first year head coach sitting at three and four. And a day after trading away Golden Tate, he focused his energy on scolding a reporter for his posture. Let's watch.

Well, you know, do me a favor. Just kind of sit up and just like have a little respect for the process. day you come and ask me questions and you just kind of like you know give me this but i mean like just just to be a little respectful just i'm asking just to be a little respectful in this whole process okay so ask me a question professionally and i'll answer it for you it's the strangest reaction i've ever seen in my life it's not like the reporter was laying on a couch next to matt patricia i don't understand it i i mean yeah so okay so that's an appropriate that's an inappropriate way to sit during press conference. I truly don't, I could not describe the death stare that I would

return if I was asked to sit up straight. It was almost like a reporter had written something negative about him. Yeah, it felt personal because the question wasn't out of line. It wasn't unreasonable, unreasonable over the top question. And it's just a weird response to it, especially, and that's an intimate press conference. I don't know who asked it, but I'm assuming it's local. So, you know, it's just, it's okay. You got to consider it however he wants. And finally, Big night for Derek Rose last night. He poured in a career high, 50 points, and let the Timberwolves over the jazz.

And his performance evoked the memories of Derek Rose's past from many around the league, took notice of it, including LeBron James, and Rose was brought to tears by his performance. And he and LeBron spoke about the performance after the game. You and your career high 50 points. What does it mean to you, Derek? Everything, man.

I work my ass off, bro. Even when a superhero is knocked down, he's still a superhero. at the end of the day. And Derek Rose showed why he's still a superhero. Yeah, we talked about Cam Newton, people kind of remembering Cam Newton's MVP year

and kind of holding Cam to this sort of nostalgic place that every time Cam does something that's exciting and all of a sudden he's back in the MVP race. And now, to Cam's credit, he's not hurt the way that Derek Rose has been hurt, but people hold this Derek Rose in this sort of space. I've been very critical of Derek Rose just because I feel like his injuries

and some of the things that he said. You fell apart. Yeah. He did. He did. But this is a nice moment for him. You can tell he was very emotional having this moment. I mean, he hasn't had a 40-plus game in seven years. Oh, wow. And he's averaging 19 points this year. So obviously, this is, I mean, anytime you score 50 points, it's a big deal. But it's a nice moment for Derek Rose.

And you can tell that his teammates and the fans were really excited about it. By the way, it's fitting that it happened with Minnesota, the most confusing, perplexing team in the league. That Derek Rose, if I had told you five years ago, he's going to go to this one crazy team and have one of his great nights. you'd be like, how about Minnesota? Weird things happen there. It's kind of unexplainable. The Minnesota T-Wolves, the Minnesota question marks. Joy with the news.

Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lye News. Coming up, I'm going to hand out my NFL mid-season awards, and including my MVP, that will be next and best for last. If you've got the dreaded stuffy nose, it's that time of the year. We are now in November. sinex nasal spray from VIX uses directed when congestion strikes.

Sinex nasal spray. It's the herd. One more herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart radio app. Search herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. Good to have you in. In our best to last today, I figured we're midway through the season, midway through the season.

So here we go, Joy, and best for last today. It's our herd mid-season NFL awards. It's time for the NFL Mid-season Awards, where we hand out awards in all the top categories. And a bunch of other ones we totally made up earlier this morning. Please, re-welcome your host, Colin Cowher. All right, these are my mid-season awards envelope, please, Joy Taylor. All right, we will start with Colin's best team. prediction. The winner of my best team prediction, congratulations to the L.A. Chargers,

who I said would be a dark horror Super Bowl pick. They are sixth in total offense. They have a four-game winning streak. Their only losses are to the Rams and the Chiefs, and they've cut down, they've had the talent for years. They've cut down on the thing that was really their liability. They beat themselves. They now, top five fewest giveaways, some of the most takeaways. The hyper-aggressive chargers are absolutely. In fact, when I talk chargers, I'll get more texts from execs and scouts in the league that say, dude, that roster is as good as the Rams.

My best team prediction so far has been the Chargers. All right. Your worst team prediction. The Hurd NFL midseason award for my worst mid-season prediction is the New York Giants, who I called a dark horse Super Bowl contender, they're just a dark horse. Nobody wants to watch them. Nate Solder has been exposed. They are one in seven.

They don't do anything well. They're 31st in the NFL in rushing, and they are 31st in the NFL in sacks, 28 in points per game. And remember how shocked I was when Brian Cox came on my show. and laughed at my dark horse Super Bowl prediction. Giants are no good. Now, that's a little strong. No good?

No good. Nate Solder, Odell, Sequin Barclay. No good. No good? No good. They might win five games. Oh, come on. That's my worst team prediction so far, the New York Giants, Joy.

All right. The next one is the best rookie quarterback prediction. The winner is all of them. As Jordan Palmer said earlier today, they've been fairly predictable. Darnold has been hot and cold, stoic and professional. Baker's been hot and cold, noisy, but an accurate thrower. Josh Rosen throws the prettiest ball, but already got hurt, and I question his durability. Lamar Jackson's not ready to start, but has been dynamic, and Josh Allen's not ready to start,

and has at times been overwhelmed. my best rookie quarterback prediction. We're good on that. We're five for five on the quarterbacks, all of them. All right. This is the coach that you bailed on, but you were totally wrong. The Hurt NFL mid-season awards. The coach I bailed on and completely whipped was Pete Carroll.

I said there's a lot of raw, raw, a lot of politics, a lot of nonsense. Not enough Russell Wilson and not enough details. Seattle has rebooted and Pete's done an incredible job. They don't turn it over. they now are the most run-centric team in the NFL, and all of Pete's teams generally achieve at a high-level defensively, their fourth and past defense, fifth and total defense. And since week four in the NFL, Joy, the best running team and the best defense,

I kind of bailed on Pete. I said, I think it's running out. I was totally wrong, and I'm giving myself an award for being completely wrong. All right, here is the coach that you bailed on. You were totally right. The winner of this is easy. John Gruden. Out of a sport that's incredibly fluid to begin

with, John Gruden has been, and you can watch him tonight, has said the wrong thing, has traded the wrong people. They gave up Khalil Mack and their last in sacks. 31st in points, 30th and third down. I never really

bought the quarterback whisperer, although I think he's a bright guy and a great TV guy. I didn't buy this coming in, and we've been right on that. So the words continue. The most entertaining press conference moments. I think this is easy. Ryan Fitzpatrick, dressing as Connor McGregor, hands down the Hurt NFL midseason award for most entertaining press conference. Week two, after a second straight 400-yard game. He was a good sport, smart dude. Currently, by the way, has the best passer rating. I'm not joking.

In the National Football League, I'm not joking, Ryan Fitzpatrick. He's also currently the starter. Yeah. All right. So the player you supported for way too long. Speaking of that. James Winston wins the award, the Hurd NFL mid-season award. Joy, you called it. The player I supported way too long.

Listen, I said he's got some Eli Manning where there are times you watch him and you're like, wow, you can win a Super Bowl with this guy. The difference is Eli off the field and on the field does show maturity and leadership. James off the field is juvenile and on the field. has almost bizarre judgment. His interceptions last week, they just make no sense. He was suspended for the first three games of the season.

And at this point, I don't think anybody inside the building there, they won't say it publicly. I think nobody trusts him. I think he's lost trust of the building. I said that going into the season, and I just supported him way too long. All right, this is a move you had doubts about and still have doubts about.

My award for the move I doubted, and I still doubt Josh Gordon to the Patriots, listen, when you have a chemical issue or a drug issue, that's the hardest thing to overcome. And Josh Gordon's super talented, but there are some things now that we're in his control and that are out. And do you have an addiction problem? Do you have issues that are beyond just getting up and going to work? last week, by the way, they suspended him briefly. That didn't make it public why. It appeared, according to reports, that he didn't show up or was late to practice.

I still don't find him a trustable asset post- Thanksgiving. I doubted it coming in, and I still doubt it now. All right. And finally, your most valuable person award. Yeah, now we have an MVP most valuable player. I think the most valuable person in the NFL I would give that to Sean McVeigh of the Rams. First of all, the only undefeated team.

Second of all, every single owner in this league is looking for the next Sean McVeigh. He has created a fascinating culture which you're going to watch get copycatted from here on out. He wouldn't play any of his stars in the preseason. He wouldn't play any of them. Watch NFL teams next year play nothing. None of their top players a snap in the preseason. People are copying him. By the way, he also gives veteran players no pads, no contact during the week at practice.

That is being duplicated now in the NFL. He turned Jared Goff into what would look like a bust into a franchise quarterback. And when the NFL rolled the dice on moving the Rams, St. Louis, a very legitimate at Sports Town to Los Angeles. There was a lot of people that said, this may not work. The apathy, the Lakers, Dodgers, it's been an absolute home run. In fact,

I would argue it's killed USC and UCLA football. They are not a topic in this town anymore. And I also think he has had an incredible impact. He has changed how NFL owners and GMs look at young coaches. You know, Lane

Kiffin came in, didn't work with Al Davis. Young coaches got a bad bad label. McVeigh has changed that. People are now willing to roll the dice. Sean McVeigh is going to do more 28 to 38-year-old coaches of favor than anybody in NFL history. So Patrick Mahomes may be the most valuable player. Jared Gaw, Sean McVeigh, the herd NFL midseason awards, is the most valuable person so far in the NFL season. Black Friday deal start now at lows, 40% off Applant Special Values offer valid through the 7th of this month while supplies last. C Store for details, U.S. only.

Black Friday deals start now at Lowe's 40% off. Well, last night we saw it. Lonzo Ball was good. Lonzo Ball played minutes and the Lakers won. The Lakers are now three and one when Lanzo plays more moments or more minutes than Rondo. and Chris Broussard came on earlier. We talked about this. There was a battle going into the season.

Veteran Rondo, young Lonzo. Again last night, Lonzo got the major minutes and the Lakers looked really good, and Broussard talked about that. You got one player that needs the ball and that can't shoot. That's Rondo. You got another player who has proven

he doesn't need the ball and he can shoot off the ball, spot-up shoot. That's line. But Lonzo, obviously, Lanzo is going to fit better with LeBron. They wanted to win to some degree now. They're not thinking, hey, we do want to make the playoffs. We do want to make a little noise in the playoffs.

That's why they went out and got Rondo, Lance Stevenson, and the veterans. So those don't necessarily go together. Yeah, Lonzo Ball last night. Lakers won. Two big leads almost blew it. He went three for three from Beyond the Ark. He had seven assists, no turnovers. he's a better defender than Rondo.

And, yeah, I think Lonso, I think Lonso juxtaposed with Rondo, he's more chill. And I also think, as I said earlier, growing up with Lovar, he's okay being in the shadow when you're surrounded by a loud alpha. And I think he's worked very well with LeBron James. Tomorrow on the show, the Red Hot Blazing 5, Peter King, T.J. Hushman Zada, the Blazing Five office to its best start ever. John Gruden saved the season for the Raiders tonight. It's the hurt.

Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where SportsSlice comes in. I'm Timbo. In every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headlines.

And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the iOS. Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Slicel Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smygel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to

David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel help an Acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, guys? This is Clivert Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff.

Like being an internet famous referee. We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue. 42.

Hey, my mama want you to weigh better. What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas.

And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs. We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was finally. You just understood. That's how personal it got.

Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis coming to you, he's like, you know, I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game

on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an IHeart podcast. Guaranteed human.