The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Joe Judge Firing Reaction, Rodgers vs. Esiason and Mike Silver on Flores/Dolphins Break Up, Harbaugh's Next Move, Staley 2nd Guessing

Episode Date: January 12, 2022

Colin gives his thoughts on the Giants firing Joe Judge after 2 seasons and why Judge didn't work out (3:00). He also lays out a theory about about Aaron Rodgers/Boomer Esiason's public beef (7:00), and gives a reality check to the Jimmy G haters (11:00), Then, longtime NFL writer Mike Silver joins Colin to discuss how Jimmy G's future with the 49ers could change in the next few weeks (14:00), why Garoppolo and Derek Carr deserve more credit than they're getting (21:00), what the Raiders will do at head coach (23:00), what really happened in the Brian Flores/Dolphins breakup (25:00), if Jim Harbaugh would really leave Michigan to return to the NFL (31:00), Brandon Staley's controversial 4th down call (39:00), how Bill Belichick handles those calls (42:00), and the biggest problem with the analytics crowd (44:00).Make sure to Subscribe and follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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There's a lot of reasons. It's America's number one sports book, incredibly easy to use, super, super, safe, totally secure, super fast payouts in as quick as two hours. You're not going to get that anywhere. Also, same game parlay bets, live betting. It's the best. Hey, if you're new, just download the Fandul Sportsbook app. I did it in 15 seconds. Get started now. Sign up. Please use the promo code Colin so they know we sent you. Please use the promo code Colin, C-O-L-L-N. Fandul Spock app, sign up. Hi, everybody. A lot of NFL stuff coming up with Mike Silver on a Wednesday morning podcast. But first Joe Judge was fired head coach of the New York Giants. So I got a call

a day ago from a defensive coach in the NFL that coached against the Giants. Here's the first thing he said. He goes, the first thing the Giants have to do is get rid of Joe Judge. It has been chaos according to his buddies inside the Giants. The second thing he said was this is the worst offensive line by far in the NFL. And he said, here's what's interesting. They release Kevin Zeitler like a year ago. He was their second best offensive line at the time, arguably their best. He goes to the Baltimore Ravens and signs a three-year deal worth $22.5 million.

So they draft Andrew Thomas. Now, he came in the pandemic year out of Georgia, and he was a little overwhelmed with no preseason for the first year. But this coach said, Thomas is going to be. be a 10-year starter. Great kid, getting better. After that, he said they have four backups joining him on the offensive line, that he felt it was a roster full of backup offensive linemen and Andrew Thomas. So he said, regardless of who they get, Gettleman, never replace Eitler, they had an injury to a center, so now they have a backup to an average offensive lineman.

whoever takes over, they've got to get the O line fixed. It is the lowest ranked O line in the league. And my coaching contact said in all his years, he'd never seen an offensive line that was less talented. Secondly, on Joe Judge, this is what I heard from somebody I trust. So years ago, I worked out east, as you know, in Connecticut. Connecticut is overwhelmingly half the state is Patriot fans, half the state New York Giant fans. So over the course of time, I made friends with a former New York Giant employee who was reasonably up the food chain, still has connections to the team. So, you know, once or twice a year, we talk.

So I texted him at the end of the year on Joe Judge. and his takeaway was, oh, this job is not secure. He said, just wait for a week. And I said this on the herd FS1. This is in a real murky area. Well, apparently the murky went sideways. But Joe Judge was combative, was very much a My Way or the Highway guy, reportedly got into a fight in the last 24 hours with his offensive line coach.

I can tell you, this person said, that Jason Garrett was at wits and dealing with him. So just a lot of chaos with Joe Judge. And this is another Belichick assistant that, you know, proximity to greatness doesn't equal greatness. Matt Patricia, Joe Judge, that it's another Belichick assistant that comes into an organization, very strong-willed and tries to dictate terms and simply doesn't have the rest of respect or the resume to back it up. That was Matt Patricia, and that's what I'm hearing,

Joe Judge was. But regardless of who they hire, this is a horrific offensive line. You start looking around the teams in the NFL playoffs. Find me the battle lines in the playoffs. We always pay attention to defenses and quarterbacks and coaches. Find me the awful offensive lines in the playoffs. Cincinnati's is probably the weakest. After that, most are average or above average. You know, I saw a story last week, Boomer Asiason, former NFL quarterback. He does a morning show in New York City on WFAN, which is the most popular station, one of the first sports talk radio stations. So he does a morning show.

It's called Boomer and Geo. And about a week ago, he got a text on his phone. And he never really asserted this was true. He simply said there's something sent to me on my phone that says that Aaron Rogers was planning to sit out the Super Bowl due to the NFL's COVID policies. And I've said this often about my show. My show is not just opinions. Sometimes it's theories, predictions. I'm not looking for 100% accuracy.

I'm looking to be interesting. I listen to the entire Boomer O'Syerson, G.O. 10 minute segment. They never said it was true. They offered up the information, debated it, and discussed it. I'll throw something out here that's interesting. So the number had come from the Virginia area. And that's what really piqued my interest, not the story. Several years ago, when I was ripping Aaron Rogers, I got a text from a Virginia number.

Don't know who it was, anonymous. giving me inside information on the Packers. Some of it was pretty darn detailed, like way more than your typical fan. So I looked up the number. I looked up the address of the number. And in no way did it appear to be somebody that worked for an NFL team. But there was too much information not to be an insider,

things that had not been published yet. And so when I hear the Aaron, Roger's story with Boomer. And I go back to my story. It's the only time in my career that's happened. But I get a random anonymous text with lots of inside information claiming that Aaron Rogers, the claim was he's leaving Green Bay. It was almost like somebody was trying to set me up to look bad.

It was almost like somebody was setting up Boomer to look bad. And Boomer and I both feel like the individual. Information is a little too accurate to be, I don't know, a random fan. Is it possible that somebody in Aaron Rogers camp is trying to create, when the criticism gets hot, a little misinformation campaign, which he can use to validate the inaccuracy of the media? I mean, did anybody else notice how harsh the criticism of Boomer Ossiason was from Aaron Rogers? ever since Aaron Rogers won a Super Bowl. Since that time, it's been playoff disappointments. It's the deception about immunization.

It's the losing to Brady. And he's taken a very anti-media narrative. Now, remember, Tom Brady would not waste a second of his life worrying about the media. It's family and football. Aaron spends an inordinate about of time making sure. you know, the media doesn't know what they're doing. Now he's angry with Boomer for misleading everybody about him. I just think it's really weird. Why is he beating up Boomer Osiason? Why would this silly story bother him? Why did Boomer get that text from Virginia? Why did I get that text

from Virginia? It's all very suspicious to me. Aaron likes control. That's why he was so damn pissed when they drafted Jordan Love and a year later leaked stories to the media to bury the Packers on draft day, regardless of what any insider in the NFL tells you. They all came out the same day with the story. Draft Day. What a zany coincidence. I just thought the criticism of Boomer was over the top. Boomer did not report it like it was factual. I don't know Assison, but I listen to the story. I listen to the segment. They kind of threw it up there as a thought balloon more than anything. Sometimes the person building the most ridiculous narratives about Aaron, is it possible? It's Aaron himself. All right, let me talk Jimmy G. You know, it's interesting,

I think, that we make decisions on people and then we look for confirmation bias, because we all like to be right. None of you really liked Jimmy G. Garapolo. He looks too good. He was backing up Brady. Never forget that Jimmy Garapolo was who Kyle Shanahan wanted if he couldn't get Brady. Never forget that Belichick loved Jimmy Garapolo. But I think it's funny. We always bring up Jimmy Garapolo's Super Bowl performance as a critique. I mean, you're slamming him for one play in the biggest sporting event in the country. It's like critiquing the Apollo 13 astronauts because on their very very very. voyage to the moon, you know, things went a little wrong.

Guess what? Put yourself in big spots. You're going to have some letdowns. It's the nature of competition and sports and technology and sometimes space travel. For the record, did anybody ever look up Jimmy G's Super Bowl numbers? 20 or 31? 65% completion percentage. Passer rating of 69. Big Ben won a Super Bowl with a passer rating of 22. John Elway once had a pass a rating of 19 in a Super Bowl. But because Jimmy G, you didn't like him initially, you saw him as a backup.

He was a second round guy. He was never a threat to start over Brady. You forget. He's only had 47 regular season starts. Why are we so harsh on him? That is a season less than Baker Mayfield. The reality is, Jimmy G. was a number of. important figure when he was just sitting on the bench in New England behind Brady.

But if you're really fair, and it's not confirmation bias, never forget this. He's 6 and 0 against the Rams. And Kyle Shanahan has won 25% of his NFL games as a head coach without him. He's Mike Silver, co-author of the book All Things Possible, which became the basis for the movie American Underdog about Kurt Warner. That's fantastic. He wrote the book years ago. you know? Well, it takes Hollywood a long time to do anything. Let's be honest. It does. I mean, every time you hear about a movie, it's like, oh, they pitched that thing 13 times. Everybody said no.

People told Silver no for years. And finally, he demanded the movie get made. All right, I want to start with this. You know the Niners really well. I know Lynch really well. I don't know Kyle Shanahan. But it's fascinating. To me, Jimmy Garoppolo goes to Dallas and wins. Jimmy Garapolo wins a second round game because they're on fire and healthy. You have Trey Lance capable. I still think he needs to be refined. He has a hitch in his swing a little bit. I don't love his windup.

So you got to start either, to me, it seems obvious. You move off Jimmy G. Unless he wins the Super Bowl. Then you got a dilemma. And then you give every bit of your attention to refining Trey Lance. But I want to throw this out there. What if he wins two playoff games? What if he gets to the NFC championship, Mike?

What if? Okay, well, first of all, I just want to enjoy the moment because I don't want to understate what just happened. You know, we saw Jared Goff win a playoff game with a bad thumb and no reps last year. This was season on the line, on the road, albeit with a lot of Niners fans there, 17-0, team that needed to win, rival, brings them back with the bad thumb. Then, oh, something went wrong. now they're down and there's a minute 27 to go to zone, what, 12?

And that's it. If you do not lead the 49ers down the field, your season is over and your time there is obviously over. Jimmy does that. Gets the ball in overtime, gets them down the field again. They get a field goal. They win that game. So I think he shattered a narrative already.

And remember, this is a guy who came very close to winning a Super Bowl. but this whole Jimmy can't do it in the big game. He's not clutch. He can. It doesn't mean he will always, but he did something big for him. And they did something big. And I feel it.

I mean, Dallas is so good. And there's a long-storied history of Niners, Cowboys, games that I could recite from childhood and from covering them. But this feels like a big moment for them. They could win in Dallas. They could keep it going. And then, yeah, that's a great problem to have. I believe, Colin, that when they made that trade to get to three,

and we can believe whether, you know, I think he was thinking of Mac Jones, he'll say he didn't know. Others will say it was tray all along, whatever. Once you make that move, in my opinion, yeah, Jimmy's time is, you know, the clock is running. But, yeah, if he goes to Dallas and wins, it just gets a little murkier. And remember, Aaron Rogers didn't play until year four. Philip Rivers sat for the first two years.

It is possible that they could kick the can. I think unlikely, but let's enjoy what's going on right now because he did do something really big. Wild card weekend just got wilder. Fandle sports books hooking new customers up 30 to one enhanced odds. That means you bet five bucks and win 150 bucks on any team to win, any wild card game. How about that?

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And here's what's interesting. They're both second round picks. People aren't as invested in them. There's confirmation bias. When Derek Carr is a bad Sunday, which Brady's had three or four this year, we crush him. when Derek makes the throw to Hunter Renfro in Indy or that throw this weekend against the chargers up the sideline, those are two the best throws of the season in crisis. But we've made our decision up.

Their second round picks, their second tier guys. So nobody gets more shit in this league than Carr and Garapolo. And they have been, they have single, not single handedly, they have been at their best in the last two to three weeks of the season. And I just think it's interesting. We all have quarterbacks. Maybe they're on our fantasy team. Maybe they're first rounders. Maybe your franchise needs them really for stability.

I've said this with Derek Carr. I don't know what the award is, Mike. He has been so good on the road in the last month. What do you make? I just want to throw this out there with the Raiders because I don't think they'll beat the Bengals. I think they're coming off a wildly emotional game. I think it's a big,

ask. But let's say, first of all, let's start with this. Your inside or your guess on the Raiders head coach next season. That's a great question. So I call it the interim trap. You get a bounce usually when you fire a coach in midseason. Players kind of like the interim and it helped, let's face it. It helps the status quo if the interim gets elevated. He knows me. So then you kind of gets seduced and it has not gone well most of the time. Mike Singletary was an interim. Hey, you know what? They're playing hard for him.

It wasn't the right move. Tom Cable, the Raiders know this well, was an interim. You get seduced by it and you don't think clearly. And I usually don't like it. And especially in this case, because it's not like their interim was Gus Bradley. Well, he's been a head coach. and this is his second time around. Or they basically said,

we want Gus Bradley and Greg Olson, who are good coordinators, doing good job to stay where they are. So we're just going to have Rich Pesachia, you know, the special teams guy oversee. And I don't want to discount what he's done. He's done something very good, and he should get a lot of credit for it.

My instincts tell me Mark Davis wants rock star stuff in that stadium. Mark Davis had a Russell Wilson kind of, you know, not fixation, but he was kind of into that concept, I think, from what I was hearing. Mark Davis, I think, has felt we can do better than Derek Carr, and we can get back to him because you're bringing up a great point. Derek Carr's clutch performances, not just this year, but over time, he's very, very dependable in the clutch. So my instincts tell me that Mark Davis wants rock star and, you know, we hear the Harbaugh things

and all that. But, and I usually don't like the interim trap. That said, hey, you know, you keep it rolling in the playoffs. At some point, it's Steve Fisher. At some point, you're like, you know what? It works. I just don't have a choice, you know. So, and that was Pat Riley, too, by the way.

You know, Jack McKinney had a bike accident. It was horrible. And then, oh, wait, maybe that was Paul Westead. Excuse me. That was Paul Westhead following. Jack McKinney. But yeah, at some point, you just, you know, you don't have a choice. Right now, they still have a choice. So I'm going to throw this at you. Ideally, GM, coach players all get along. But when you watch the Michael Jordan documentary, it's not a necessity. Shack, Kobe, Phil Jackson.

It's not a necessity. K.D. Draymond Kerr. It's not a necessity. necessity. Belichick Brady never had dinner. I don't buy that Chris Greer and Brian Flores didn't get along. My takeaway is, it doesn't matter. He won eight of nine with Tua. Oh, by the way, so I'll throw my theory and you can shoot it down and agree. I don't care. So Brian Flores gets the job. He immediately, by the end of year one, the defense and special teams are excellent. All he needs, draft the right quarterback and give me a competent offensive line. Greer fails at both. Stories out that Jason Lock and Forre reported, Flores wanted Herbert. And it wasn't a secret. The GM wanted Tua.

I disagree with all of it. Okay. So what I'm saying is I'm defending Flores saying he doesn't have to get along with Greer. I don't care. If I wanted Herbert and the Gere, GM on a Tua, and I fixed the defense and special teams immediately, I would be bitter. I would agree if I believed that Flores wanted Herbert. So I'll tell you what I have come to learn.

And, you know, first of all, Brian Flores is his own guy. He's not a Bill Belichick clone, but there's a lot of Bill Belichick in the way that he was trying to do it. And that works if you have Tom Brady. It works if you have a track record like Bill Belichick does. has not gone well, for the most part, ever in any building or very rarely, other than Belichick. If you can't get along with Chris Greer, by the way, I'm saying that's you. He's probably the GM in the league, who's the easiest person as a person to get along with. So this is what I believe.

And it's a weird organization with different power dynamics and an owner who's strong, but not always. there. I think that Brian Flores did a really good coaching job and in a league where minority hiring is shameful, it's super disheartening to see a guy who did that well be let go abruptly. I believe that Brian Flores had the power in that building and that if he wanted Justin Herbert, there's zero chance Justin Herbert would not be a Miami Dolphin. So I think he wanted to and got to it, which doesn't make him, I wouldn't fire Brian Flores for that. You know, people make mistakes. That's a regrettable one, obviously, if it's Brian Flores. But I think that Brian Flores wanted Deshaun Watson. And I think Brian Flores wanted toa, then wanted to Sean Watson. And Chris Greer, for the most part,

was doing for Brian Flores what he thought Brian Flores wanted. Doesn't mean Chris Greer hasn't made evaluation mistakes, but I don't think he was big-timing him. I think Flores had the power. And so, you know, a lot of times when people get let go and we don't understand it, and again, I don't want to discount the overtones on the minority hiring thing because it really stings in this case. But let's compare it to say John Dorsey is out abruptly in Kansas City. What? Didn't he help Andy Reid build that thing? How is John Dorsey? You, Usually when I dig in on those things, the answer comes down to the person who got let go did a very bad job of managing his relationship with the owner. And I would say Adam Gase did that too in Miami.

At some point, you don't have to be best friends with the owner. You don't have to be aligned on everything with the owner, but you have to understand what the owner expects. and needs relationship-wise, even if there are go-betweens. And I think if you come in acting like, hey, I'm Bill Belichick, and I'm just consumed with power and I'm not going to get along to get along, I'm just going to do what I do and people can like it or not. And the only thing that matters is if I win, you can get alienated from certain owners. And that's what I believe happened.

I think Brian Flores is out because he had the power. and didn't manage that situation well, still regrettable from a minority hiring standpoint, because he did a very good job as a coach. So this is an interesting time of the year. Jim Harbaugh called me the other day. I love it. And his dad had watched the show and told Jimmy should call me and thank him for nice things I said. So we talked for about five minutes.

Nice. And he's got a really cool setup at Michigan. and his dad lives next door. So the kids leave the house, go right next door to grandpa's. Perfect. It's like Obama in the White House with Michelle's mom. That's brilliant. So Michigan's rolling.

They probably won't beat Ohio State next year. But he's got Cade McNamara. The recruiting's rolling. And he's got a really good young staff. If he left, Michigan's in a tight spot. The hiring cycle is done. He's got some leverage. I look at all these jobs.

They've all got major red flags. Raiders owner, Raiders GM. Denver doesn't have a quarterback, although I love their GM and I love their roster. Yeah. I think Justin Fields is good. He was bad a lot and hurt a lot. What are you hearing on Harbaugh?

This is where I lean into you. You know, Jim, you covered him. Yeah. When I talked to him for five minutes, I didn't want to ask him straight out. I just tried to listen to his tone. Boy, the Michigan situation, Mike, is good. He's, his wife's happy.

His kids are happy. I just don't think there's the, remember a few years ago, McCarthy gets Dallas. That's a great job. Lafleur gets Green Bay. That's a great job. Brandon Staley gets Justin Herbert. That's a great job. Yeah.

I don't think any of these are a jobs. Okay, so a lot to unpack. Number one, he loves his alma mater as he should, and there is an emotional pull there. And as you said, some lifestyle things. Number two, maybe they leaned on him a little bit a year ago when they thought they had some leverage. And Jim's a competitive guy.

And maybe he's just leaning back and he'll extract his leverage revenge, which is a strong word. And they'll give him a little more money or whatever, security. And it'll feel different. the reason Jim Harbaugh is different from you and me, and we are people who have a strong sense of self collectively and individually. Jim Harbaugh doesn't believe any job's a bad job because his sense of self is even stronger. He's like, I don't care.

I think he believes he could go to any job anywhere and affect change and win. And that's whether you believe that or not as an outsider, the thing that makes Jim Harba, Jim Harbaugh is that thing. So I think in his heart, he's played in the NFL for a long time. I think most football people, if they're being honest, college is cool. There's an emotional attachment. It's not the same. It's not the highest level.

The highest level of football is clearly the NFL and it's not close. And for people who are that competitive and have that kind of sense of self, deep inside, look, he went to the NFL. During a lockout year, he took a losing team and got them to the brink of the Super Bowl. Then he got them to the brink of a championship. Then a Richard Sherman tip away from another shot at it. He lost to his brother. He lost the Super Bowl, a close Super Bowl, to his brother. So knowing what I know about Jim Harbaugh, yes, all of that may be overridden by pragmatics or his love for his alma mater.

It's all understandable. I just think deep inside he wants to go back to the biggest stage and finish what he almost did last time. It's such an interesting guy. Such an interesting guy. So I am pro analytics, but I always call him man analytics, is that you do have to consider not reducing alpha male millionaires to numbers. There are sometimes, I'm going to keep my pitcher in. He's been a good starter. He's good in the room.

I trust him over a reliever, right? A Max Scher's situation. I'm going to go with a starter for another batter, even if the analytics tell me it's a relief pitcher option. Right. And so I'm for football analytics. But Jimmy Johnson said on my show the other day, when Brandon Staley went for it on fourth and two at the 18, he said, what a lot of these analytic people are forgetting is risk and reward. If you got the first down, you're still six first downs from a field goal. Right.

I thought, I thought it was the classic, I'm all in on something and I'm not wavering. People say this all the time, Mike. Well, if you play a thousand cards of poker, you always blankety blank the 16. You always do this. Yes. But you don't get fired for losing a hand of poker. Billionaires fire coaches who have a 5,000 yard quarterback, a good old line, great weapons, and miss the playoffs. The only elite quarterback in the league that didn't miss a start due to injury that failed to make the playoffs was Justin Herbert.

Like I thought it was a bad aesthetic moment for Brandon Staley. I'm actually waiting for Brandon Staley to call me, hopefully right after we're done. And I'm going to dig in and ask him because I respect him a lot and know him. And he'll, you know, I texted him after the first game about all the fourth down gambles. And what he texted back was if Justin Herbert was your quarterback, you'd go for it too. So that wasn't analytics. That was, man, my guy is so good. I'm just going to do it.

Now, it's interesting you bring up, like, first of all, I think coaches, one reason coaches traditionally until recent years have been so averse to taking chances is they know that if they do the safe thing, they're less likely to have the billionaire on them, right? If Brandon Staley punts there and loses, no one's saying Brandon Staley costs them the game, even though in his heart, or his mind, he might think, I have a better chance. So that's part of it. And, you know, I think Jeffrey Lurie and some other owners have been more, you know, Jeffrey Lurie was telling Doug Peterson, dude, go for it more.

And Jerry Jones was kind of trying to tell Jason Garrett that over the years. Like, I want you to be more aggressive. But traditionally coaches are risk averse because they don't want the, you know, that stain. Now, let's go back to 1994 or 1995. I'm a young writer at Sports Illustrated, and they send me out to Dallas because the cowboys are reeling. Barry Switzer has just in a game in Philadelphia famously or infamously, gone for it on fourth and one from his own, I want to say 25. or 30, which at the time was, you know, like, that's like 10 times the branded Staley heat

and didn't make it. And now he was reeling. Now, I spent about two days with him. It was pretty cool. Love the guy. And didn't know him at the time very well. And when we finally got into that, we're standing in his kitchen, which was being remodeled.

And he finally said to me, you know what? that had value to me in a way that went beyond this game. He said, I wanted to show my team. I had faith in them. And I'm following Jimmy. It's been weird sometimes. You know, people talk like it's not my team. He said, I wanted Emmett Smith and Michael Irvin and those offensive linemen and those guys to know,

I trust you. You'll get this yard. He goes, and then they didn't, and we lost. But he said, I think it fortified my bond with my team. So sometimes we don't even know the bigger picture. One time I was talking to Bill Belichick back when we used to speak a lot, if at all. We spoke a lot back then. Now we don't speak.

But a longer story. At the time, I was asking Bill about the way he was frustrated with his team. was asking him about some of the ways he was conveying that. And an example he gave to me was, you know, we've gone for it on fourth down a few times here in some big situations that we've run the ball. And we have not been able to get the yard. And he said, I finally just put him up on the screen and after the last one. And I said to my players, I'm fucking done.

You guys, you, I trusted you to make a yard. I've given you chances. you can't fucking do it. I'm done doing it. And I think he thought that resonated with them. It was very dry, I'm sure his delivery, but they kind of got, man, he trusted us and we let him down. And so the next time, a few weeks later,

that he reversed course and went for it on fourth down and called a run, they blew about, you know, five guys off the field and, you know, ran outside and got about 15 yards, if I recall, because they were just so revved up. So that's the thing, and I'm not anti-analytics. I just, I get exhausted sometimes by the analytics is life crowd telling you what has to be done. And it's not just that coaches feel. Sometimes there are things going on that we don't know. And that's why journalism, hopefully, as the world opens up again and we can get access and start having more of these conversations that I'm used to having, sometimes there's something else going on that factors in that makes it pretty cool.

Well, yeah, I mean, you know, I, there's things I've thought about. I'll throw one at you. If I'm on the East Coast flying back west or on the West Coast flying back east, that's a six-hour flight with my players. I would be more willing to go for it because if we lose and I doubt them, that's a brutal bonding moment. If I trust them and we win, it's the best flight ever. If I trust them and we lose. We're together, right. I'm dead serious.

What's my flight like home? I call it. I have a great story. So Mike Vrable, who was Bill O'Brien's assistant in Houston and then became the head coach of the Titans. I went to London and was down seven, scored at the very end, went for two, and missed it, I think, if I'm recalling, right? And that's a long flight home, long flight home, probably bonded with the players, but the whole time you're going, man, should I have kicked it and given us a chance in overtime? And I was talking to Bill O'Brien shortly after that. And I said something about like,

that's a pretty ballsy move by Braybill. And he's like, Bramble made $40 million in his play career. What does he have to worry about? So it was a funny reply. Like, why should Mike Braybill care about? But you're right. Like, that's, I just think,

obviously, in the end, you're trying to win. Try to keep your job. You're trying to avoid heat. You're trying to bomb with your players. You're trying to vibe it out. But you're trying to win. But, you know, like, let's look at the John Harbaugh decisions. Because there were two games in a short span there where he went for two at the end.

And both times it didn't work out. And both times, and you have to evaluate the decision before you know the outcome. And both times I understood the decision. But, you know, the counter argument sometimes is, you know, You've done something epic to get back into a game. And you just did it. And now you're going to tell your team, and we have to get this one more thing.

And you could make a case to kick extra points in that situation. The Niners did it against the Rams. They were down 17-0. They were down 24-17 at the end. They scored. Kyle could have said, you know what? I'm giving Debo Samuel the ball. He's going to run through your face and we're going to win.

He was like, you know what? we've come this far and done something epic. Let's see what happens at overtime. I like my team. Brandon Staley, who you can definitely second-guess the fourth down call from his own 18, but they had about six or seven elimination plays. Yes. And one was a replay overturn.

One was a late flag. I mean, they survived them all. And then after surviving all of them, you know, and by the way, there were more in overtime. But after surviving all of them in regulation and scoring a touchdown on the last play, now people are like, he should have gone for two. I'm like, you know what, man? I don't think so.

I think after you, Justin Herbert, who threw a fourth and 21 touchdown and then through a last play touchdown after a replay reversal, the play before got him down closer and other fourth downs, I think you kicked that one and say, we're going to live to fight another day. So, yeah, this is part of the fascinating part of it. And the head coach has to make the decision. I don't know that there's always a right or a wrong. And what I really don't like is people after the fact saying, well, that was bad because it didn't work.

I mean, you could say going for it on fourth and one from your own 18 is bad, whether it works or not, as you suggested, risk reward. but don't tell me, well, he should have gone for two after last touch. I don't know that. I think if he went for two and made it, it's the greatest call ever. If he went for two and missed it, you're like, why? Why did you do that? And I don't know.

I came away from that game thinking, A, mad love to the Raiders because they haven't finished strong the last few years. they went through a lot and they did something big. Congratulations, the Raiders. B, I've rarely seen a team come up with that many elimination plays and survive it. Congrats to the Chargers for being in it. And C, Justin Herbert's going to win championships, dude. I mean, that guy is going to win championships.

So don't despair Charger fans. It sucks, but you've got a guy who is a, he is a champion. All right, Silver, that's an honor. I don't want to extract any more gems from you. That was fantastic. That's great talking to you, buddy. I want to mention that this guy who confirmation bias was undrafted. Right.

This did get optioned a few times before the movie was made. Of course it did. I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't have minded living in that perpetual state of options being renewed and then the movie being made because, of course, every time they option, it is. another good thing for the people who own the right. So go see American Underdog. I really do sincerely love the movie.

I would say it's way too corny to enjoy. But the fact that it is true, I think makes that defensible. Thanks, buddy. Thank you. All right. Watch this whole thing on our YouTube channel at the volume sports YouTube channel. Little red button on the lower right. Push, subscribe. Talk soon.

The volume. Get right to the romance and find the way to wow this valentines with 1800flowers.com. From classic roses and bouquets to decadent chocolate-covered berries, gourmet treats, and more. Surprise your valentine with 1,800flowers.com. Right now, get the 18-stem enchanted rose medley for $39.99, or upgrade to 24 red roses for $10 more. Go to 1,800flowers.com slash tune in. That's 1,800flowers.com slash tune in.

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