The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Kevin Clark on Fields Pressure, Diggs Trade Talk, Russ Weirdness, Surprise Playoff Pick

Episode Date: August 22, 2023

First, Colin explains why he supports SEC Commish Greg Sankey’s call for expedited expansion of the CFB Playoff format in-line with massive conference expansion, why Jim Harbaugh’s 3-game suspension shows the waning power of the NCAA, and the challenges facing new USC AD Jen Cohen that didn’t exist during Pete Carroll’s dominant run. Then, Ringer Senior Football Writer - and host of the Slow News Day video pod - Kevin Clark joins Colin to discuss if Justin Fields can become the first true franchise quarterback for the Bears, if there’s any place for defensive minded head coaches in today’s NFL, potential landing spots if the Bills decide to trade Stefon Diggs, why Jared Goff is undervalued as the long term QB answer for the Lions, if criticism of Russell Wilson’s authenticity are fair, and which “bad” team can make a surprise playoff run. Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates! #Herd #VolumeSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the IHard Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. The volume. Hi, everybody, and welcome in. Kevin Clark from The Ringer. We'll stop by for a 20-minute chat on our Tuesday morning podcast. It is great to be here. There's some college football news today that I want to discuss.

Three things. Number one, SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey says the entire playoff structure, which is is going to expand to 12 teams in 2024 needs to be reconsidered because of expansion. And I absolutely agree. This is what I have proposed and this is what I believe is the truth of the playoff structure. I think it needs to go to 16, 18 to 24 teams. I think there is so much money left on the table in college football because of so many of these dreary, small town bowl. that nobody attends, nobody really wants to play in.

It's just a way to get practices for some of these coaches. That, you know, half of them nobody shows up to the games. They're awful. They're optically bad. Players could get hurt. Great players going to the NFL don't want to play in them. Get rid of those things. I think we now have to consider not just 12 teams, but 16 to 18,

because I think college football needs to take a page from college basketball and have a dramatic long playoff scenario to cap off the season. it's the icing to the cake. College basketball's primary issue is the cake isn't very good anymore. The best players don't want to play college basketball, and if they do, it's briefly one year and they're gone. College football will maintain a high level of integrity and competitiveness and quality because you have to stay in college football minimum three years.

Most players stay four, some even five with redshirting. So, I mean, you see some of these quarterbacks coming out. They're 24, 25 years old now. And so the quality of college football will remain high. I've never bought into this argument that it'll kill college football rivalries. Really, Auburn, Alabama both know they're getting into a 12 to 16 team playoff. You're not going to watch the game. In Alabama, that game won't mean anything.

You'll just skip it and go to the Falcon Saints game in Atlanta the next day. That's so stupid. You love college football or you don't. Rivalries will always matter. Duke Carolina is still a great rivalry. And we know they could meet again and again and again down the road. It doesn't matter. Great is great.

So Greg Sanky, who is the most powerful person in college football, the SEC commissioner, says, hey, we're expanding all these conferences. Let's reconsider the playoff structure. I'm all for it. What the SEC has done better than any conference, they've been willing to evolve, be aggressive annually. And Greg's right. Secondly, Jim Harbaugh, self-imposed three-game suspension at Michigan. We heard it was going to be four, right?

And then Harbaugh and his guys couldn't agree with it, right? Then it was none. Now it's back to three. The NCAA has always been fairly toothless. They depend on the reporting of newspapers and media to upend programs. They really don't have the ability. Very rarely the staffing or the ability to go into a program and, monitor these closely.

And now with name, image, and likeness, what's cheating? Harbaugh can be a difficult personality. He's strong-willed. He's forceful, and he's not going to get pushed around by anybody. I think in the end, this is probably self-imposed three-game suspension. It's probably those are weak games, Michigan will roll. Big picture is that Harbaugh is just not somebody you can push around. When his athletic director a couple of years ago asked him to take a pay cut, what

did he do? Upended the staff, interviewed with NFL teams, and has had back-to-back great seasons. So big willful personalities are not to be effed with, and Harbaugh is not going to go quietly into the night because you didn't like his answer when you're the NCAA, the toothless NCAA. I will always defend these coaches. They have to run these programs, deal with nonsense from the NCAA, deal with boosters. Yes, they're highly compensated. But there's a reason they're highly compensated. They create $90, $100 million in annual revenue to athletic departments. So Michigan's athletic department has been revamped due to Jim Harbaugh's recent success.

There's a total momentum shift. There's a total cultural shift. It is a great day to be a Wolverine. These days, not so much a Buckeye. That's because of Jim Harbaugh. I think the self-imposed penalty is probably the way to go about it. but we're learning time and time again. Don't try to push around Harbaugh.

He's going to have a strong opinion. Another story, Jen Cohen, the highly capable athletic director at the University of Washington, has taken the job at USC. Several years ago, a trustee at USC asked me to write a list of people he thought were capable of being the athletic director at USC. I actually did not write down Mike Bone. I didn't know him. I wrote down six or seven athletic directors, two in the Big Ten, two in the SEC.

One of them was Jen Cohen at Washington, highly capable. And so now she finally gets the USC job. They have won in Jen Cohen for years. The challenge Jen Cohen will face is one that Pete Carroll never had to face. L.A. is now, the economy's never been bigger because of Silicon Valley. Pete Carroll did not face two NFL teams. The market wasn't nearly as distracted. The Lakers were great.

The Clippers were a doormat. The Clippers are now viable. The Lakers are still viable. The Dodgers have never been more. popular. L-A-F-C in town. People now, because of Silicon Valley and the net worth, it has created to many people in Southern California. People travel more, have second homes, some third. It's harder to get people into the Coliseum. That's why they shrunk the profile of it. They dropped off 90,000 fans down to 75,000. They realized it. They weren't going to fill it anymore.

They also realized they had to go big on the coach. It wasn't just that Clay Hilton was struggling. they had to go big on the coach. So there's real challenges inside that building. L.A. is not even a nice town like Ann Arbor, Austin, Texas. California is the biggest economy in the country. It pulled away from the rest of the country, New York State and Texas during COVID, and there's just a lot to do here. 90-minute drive north or south.

I think Jen Cohen's struggles will be things that have culturally changed in the city. A more distracted fan base. you know, a lot of guys have to choose Saturday or Sundays. You know, if you're in a relationship and you're big football fans and one of the other people are not as big of football fans, you don't get Saturday or Sunday. And so now you have, you know, Justin Herbert, Matt Stafford, Rams, Chargers games. There's just more to do in Los Angeles. So I think, you know, UCLA is going through some of these struggles with name, image, likeness, money. is that you're asking

boosters for more and more money. USC's now building a $300 million football facility getting rid of the old one, which was really nice. And it feels like they just built. But Lincoln Riley needs a new facility. There's something contractually,

which allows him to ask for that. So now you're asking people who have got a lot of distractions. This is not the biggest game in town. The Lakers and the Dodgers are bigger. This is not a small college town. It's not even a medium-sized college town like Ann Arbor.

So I think Jen Cohen and anybody running USC, it's a challenge. Doesn't mean it can't be accomplished, but asking for money, even in a rich city, is not easy when there are so many other options. The new movie, Grand Turismo, is based on an unbelievable true story about a team of unlikely underdogs, a struggling working class gamer, a failed race car driver, and an idealistic, motorsport executive. Together they risk it all to take on the most elite sport in the world. It's a great compelling story. It's some of the most famous racing competitions in the world, and they are recreated through the use of actual Nissan GTs and practical effects. It's really cool. It's really a movie that needs to be seen on the big screen. A lot of action. Really intense. It's an inspiring, uplifting, action-packed story that proves that nothing in life is impossible.

Grand Turismo, based on a true story exclusively in movie theaters this Thursday. Get your tickets today, rated PG-13. All right, you know him. You have to. It's essential. Kevin Clark, senior football writer, analyst at the ringer, host of the Slow Newsday podcast, a friend of the herd. So I'm going to throw something at you. years ago, I'm not sure who said this.

It could have been Jerry Seinfeld. He talked about, he called it the comedy jet stream. Seattle, Minneapolis, Boston, like New York. This northeast sort of maybe a little higher brow, sort of a lot of times, you know, this educated understanding. We get the joke. And I think it was Seinfeld or somebody said, people are funnier in places where the weather's lousy because life's too. easy. Life's too easy in Miami, Tampa, and Phoenix, right? It's always sunny. And so I've always had a little bit of a theory that in the north, northern football team, Chicago, Baltimore,

Philadelphia, New York, even the Giants teams, the Parcells teams, you know, that very successful Super Bowl, they were tough, Phil McConkey, Mark Bavarro. And Chicago, I always think about this, it's almost hard to explain how Chicago can never have had a great quarterback. It's ridiculous. And you think to yourself, why? And my theory is that some of these kind of cold weather towns, they have romanticized defense and toughness. And it's not that, and I think Chicago's had multiple options in their franchise history to draft a quarterback. And they went for the rush end or the Mike linebacker.

and that it's a somewhat explainable why Chicago, I can't even name their best receiver ever. Alshan Jeffrey? Like it's, you know, so my takeaway is when I look at Chicago this year, we may finally have a dynamic quarterback for the Bears. I'm hoping so. But that's my theory on the Bears' inability to land one great quarterback ever. Is it horseshit?

Do you buy it? I buy it. First of all, do you know who? the single season passing leader is for the Chicago Bears all time. Currently, 2023. Johnny Lou Jack. It's Eric Kramer.

1995, 3,838 yards. They have never had a 4,000 yard passer in an era where you can accidentally do that going, you can walk to the gas station in the NFL right now and accidentally pick up a 4,000 yard season. I mean, that's like asking a town if you have indoor plumbing. Have you had a 4,000 yard? quarterback. I mean, it's really easy to do in this era. And the fact that the bears haven't done it is stunning. Justin Fields, by the way, came out and said he will be the first 4,000 air quarterback over

the season on a podcast. Maybe that was tongue and cheek. I don't know, but I would hope so. There's a high floor here. I interviewed Justin Fields a couple months ago. I said, does it put more pressure on you, the fact that there have been these big misses? And they passed on Patrick Holmes, Deshaun Watson, and all these guys who could have been quote-unquote franchise saviors. And he said, it's not my fault that this happened. And I thought that was exactly the way to do it and not not and i think he liked his expectations he said to me that however high the fans expectations are his or higher which i think is the exact way to do it and there's a floor here that i think the people say oh well luke gets you in the offensive staff they've got a lot a lot of

work to do and i say no it's just the opposite um there was a stat last year column that blew my mind which is his consecutive games with 50 yards and a touchdown of rushing was the most since gale sayers Okay, Gail Sayers. There's a name that actually was good in their past. And when you have that kind of production on the rushing side, it doesn't take much to open those passing lanes. I think we're going to see a massive step forward. I think that we're going to see an improved team.

And I was joking with you a couple weeks ago where it's people saying, oh, in the first preseason game, he just gave the ball to Herbert and to DJ Moore and they did the work. Yeah, good. That's the point. That's the point of a Ryan Polis been able to do. The roster is much improved. They had a bunch of money to spend. they spent it.

So I'm expecting a lot. I totally agree with your theory that I remember being at a, I remember being in a Miami Notre Dame game at Soldier Field, which I don't really want to bring up because Miami lost five touchdowns. But as they're want to do in the old golden era. But I remember just some random Bears fan at the concession stand just arguing about whether or not the 85 Bears defense was the best of all time. That's their identity.

That's what Bears fans want to do. They never want to talk about the quarterback. They always want to talk as you. said, they want Khalil Mack in the first round. They want that kind of guy, the big Dief. They want Mike Dinka calling into local radio shows and saying, here's what we're going to do. When you have those sort of voices, they never really go away. You see that all the time. And the opposite, I grew up in Florida. When the dolphins have a good quarterback, they immediately get Compton Marino. That's in a weird way held them back. So I just think a team can get buried under its own

history. And I think that's when you get in trouble sometimes. Yeah. And I think, I think, you know, when I look at this league, it's really fundamentally, to me, there's been a cultural shift. And I've seen it in basketball where the power forward went from essential to a complete liability on the floor. Like Tristan Thompson was valuable and you can't play him in a three-year period. In baseball, it used to be Dave Kingman. You don't remember Dave probably. He was like a six six home run hitter who struck out a bunch. he would be Cody Bellinger today.

He was viewed as a complete liability. Now it's the ground ball. And in the NFL, if you look at the top spending teams on defense, it's Buffalo, it's Pittsburgh, it's the Chargers, it's these defensive coaches. And I've said this before is you'd have to really convince me to hire a defensive coach in the NFL. So you recently did an article coming out on the Bingles. and it's interesting. When everybody was bailing initially on Zach Taylor, my takeaway was, no, no, it's the right side of the ball.

You just can't win in this league with an old Andy Dalton or whoever it is. And the minute he gets Burrow, he completely embraces him. Flores struggled with Tua, Zimmer with Kirk Cousins, Pete a little with Russell, Belichick with Mac. I find when the coach is offensive, there is a happier, more joyful experience. Offense is celebrated. Mistakes are tolerated. Like, I feel the locker room feels different.

What was your vibe from Cincinnati? It was unbelievable because it's not just Taylor, it's Burrow, it's Brian Callahan, the coordinator, and there's no football ego there. And Colin, we've talked about this before, but if you're going to have a culture changer like Joe Burrow, the number one step is to let him change the culture. And there are coaches who would say, no, no, no, this is my show. Zektaway didn't do that. He adapted the offense in myriad ways.

I mean, at one point in 2019, some of the coaches were saying they were trying to run the McVeigh outside zone stuff. They were terrible at it. They gave up on it. Joe Burrow comes in and says, you know what? We're going to do this, this is this. I want to get five guys into routes. They said, great.

And what the piece that I did that I reported on, I spent a long time talking to the coaches and Tyler Boyd and Teagans and some of these guys down in Cincinnati, basically, the angle was they've mastered the easy play because last year NFL defense is sold out to take away the deep ball. And basically his deep ball numbers were halved last year. It went from 13 touchdowns to seven. Guess what? He was a great quarterback anyway because there's no football ego on that staff or even from Joe Burrow. And I think that what's interesting is that modern defense dares you to be uncool. They say, you know what? Go ahead and do whatever you want to do, but it's going to be a checkdown to P. Ryan. It's going to be a checkdown to Joe mixing. It's going to be a checkdown to Hayden

Hearst. And it's not going to be a 50-yard bomb to Jamar Chase. And Joe Burrow said, deal, great. We're going to do it. And that's why they were able to win last year, especially after week five, basically had half time of a week five game against Baltimore. And they started to make those changes. But that's not normal. Mahomes said it took him a couple months to figure out to just have that patience, have that foresight. And what Taylor told me was basically he'll check, Burrow will check down and say, you know what, I know Jamar might be open 50 yards down the field. Doesn't matter because 10 yards wide open is great. He can gassed Buffalo like that with Hayden Hurst and some of the backs out of the backfield.

They doubled their targets to running backs last year. And I think what we're seeing is I thought Brian Callahan and the OC said something really interesting. He said it's a type of football maturity unfolding in front of our eyes. It's just him saying this is what I have in front of me this year. I'm not going to force it even though I have the three. I have the best receiving core in football. Doesn't matter.

I'm going to let those guys run downfield, open up the rest of the defense for me. I think it's really astounding because, Colin, as you know, like, When a young quarterback, a young quarterback is almost like a boxer, right? Their career changes so much from year to year. Style, you know, one fight can change your entire trajectory, all of this stuff. And so to go through a year where you're not doing the things that you're used to and you're not going. And the chemistry between Jamar Chase and Joe Burrow is as good as any two young players ever seen in my entire life. And the stories that Chase told me last year about how Burrow will underthrow a default because he knows he can throw in a double coverage and all of this stuff, it's crazy.

And they say, you know what? I'm just not going to do that this year. That to me is a sign of a guy who's going to adapt every single year for his career. And by the way, now that he's successful for it, the deep ball opens back up. And that's the most amazing thing that they can do it again. So the fact that Burroughs and the cutting edge of this chess match shows me that not only is Zach Taylor a good coach, not as Brian Kahneman and a good OC, but the Joe Burroughs capable of anything on a football field. So Stephen A. Smith reported that Stefan Diggs wants out.

And I've said there are two kind of quote, what you call, receiver receivers. And you don't see it as much today because I think there's so much money in it. Players want to win games. They don't feel like they constantly have to fight for the ball. The game's more wide open. They get the ball. But there's like the Des Bryant, who was difficult from day one for Dak Prescott, was just loud. Now, he was, Jason Garrett once told me he fought like hell to keep him because he gave you eight to ten touchdowns. And then there's the Randy Mastafon Diggs, which is they're highly productive for three years. And then, it's their personality.

They want more. Diggs has been targeted a lot, highly productive. It's just his personality. And I've said, I would go make the move for Randy Moss and his peak, and I'd make it for Stefan Diggs. I don't feel they're problematic. You get three years of productivity. And then their personality comes out.

I can live with that. In this league, three years is forever. Legacies are formed. And so let's just play the game. Stephen A. Smith says he's unhappy. out. If that's true, is there a team or two that you just think of off the top of your head where you're like, gosh, they just, I mean, obviously New England's clear, but I think they're trying to get value on every offensive player. And there's not a lot of those with cap space,

so you'd have to make it work via some trade. Is there any place Diggs would work to you? Wow. It's a great question because, unfortunately, if you take him away from his current team, one of the best places it loves to go all in right now is the Buffalo Bills. And that's a strange thing, right? It's like if you were just taking the team out of it, you know what? The bill signed bond military, which contract, they've got, you know, certain cap situations where they need to win right now. They're the kind of team that does it.

So if he's unhappy there, he's going to be unhappy in a lot of places. A couple other teams like the Miami Dolphins. They love making aggressive moves. Well, they're full at wide receiver. They can't add another piece. And so you get to kind of the dregs a little bit. And he's going to go to a play. Does a team with a bad quarterback when I trade for Stefan Diggs?

I don't think they do. So it ends up being, you know, a couple of different places. But I just don't, I don't see a place where he'd be happy. You know, does he want to go and play? You know, would he have taken the Chicago Bears slot, you know, to be their star guy and try to resurrect that? I don't know. I mean, and if it's a quarterback, we can't get in the ball, does that make the expiration date on his happiness that much shorter? And maybe it's a place like Carolina if he wants to reboot and play with the other quarterback.

I don't know, but when you're going out of a winning situation, there aren't a lot of options for you. And the NFL is going to set your market pretty quickly. And I think that, you know, Buffalo in general has a lot of blowup potential, but they could also win the Super Bowl. And I think there are real questions. I was just listening to some of their beat guys at the athletic, talk about how there's still questions on the offensive line. Kair Elam, who's the first round pick from a year ago, was just not taking the job the way the coaches want. There's some real holes in that roster. but then there's top top top top end talent.

And that's why you need Stefan Diggs there. If I'm Brandon Bean, I'm doing nothing to move Stefan Diggs. I'm not going to ask for a trade. I'm going to try to do a last dance situation because you need that top end talent because you've missed on a handful of big roster decisions in the last couple of years. And you went all in, maybe on guys like Vaughn Miller, we shouldn't have. And so if I'm the bills, I'm standing pat. I'm doing everything I can.

I'm putting it on Josh Allen to make it work. Everybody needs to be happy because Stefan Diggs is the type of talent you have to have if they're going to win. Well, certainly in the AFC where Calvin Ridley now in Jacksonville, it's like, oh, he'll be a 120 catch guy. I just viewed the NFC so much differently than the AFC. Like Jared Goff would get lost in the AFC. I look at him and I think, I've seen him go toe to toe with Mahomes on Monday Night Football. There will be Sundays. He's absolutely the best quarterback in the NFC. Absolutely. And it's like, So when people say, do you buy into Detroit, I'm like, kind of. It's like, yeah, Goff.

So let's talk about them because, you know, I was saying to Jason McIntyre today. I said one of the things I have such great sympathy for young people is I was very lucky in my career. I got a couple of great first bosses. Let me make mistakes. Let me grow. Jared Goff was a bust with Fisher and then got to a Super Bowl. His career was over. Like it was done with Fisher.

He didn't know east from West where the sun set. It was like embarrassing when he was on hard knocks. And I always think to myself, in basketball, in soccer or basketball, talent is talent. Kobe would have found a home if he stayed in Charlotte. They didn't trade him, right? Like he was too good. International soccer. There's not many messies.

You'd find a club. So I look at golf and I think to myself, we're undervaluing him. He was a number one pick. He throws one of the best deep balls in the league. At the end, has he gotten 240 throws without a pick? It's something absurd. Like, where do you land with golf? I'm higher on him than most people.

I went on Bill Simmons podcast this time last year. And Brad Holm said to me, Jared Goff is not a stop gap. And people were killing me in the quarterback, I'm in the Twitter mentioned, say, no, he's not. They're going to tank. They're going to get, you know, they're going to get Bryce Young. They're on the sweepstack. I promise you guys, they want to add quarterback last. They'd rather be like a Philadelphia Eagles type team where they build the stacked

roster and let the quarterback develop kind of later and then they're ready to go in a year or two of the quarterback in three or four years. I really like Jared Gough. And I think, you know, you mentioned, you know, situation matters. I've always said that's about the quarterback position. Geography is destiny, man. Like, Drew Brees ending up in New Orleans, that was written in the stars. Patrick Mahomes ending up in Kansas City. like this stuff matters.

This stuff matters. Patrick Mulhams and Andy Reid solved each other's problems. Andy Reid couldn't finish the big game because of clock management. Patrick Mahomes said, I will put you on my back and make sure that never happens again. I win two Super Bowles late in the fourth quarter. It does not matter, right? For me, Jared Goff executes the offense.

That's the one thing we always overlook. When I was at camp tour, I was talking to guys, and you hear things about like Desmond Ritter. I don't think that highly Desmond Ritter, but guess what he can do? He can run off the Smith's offense. And then that's a pretty good floor. He can hit these blind throws.

He can just fire it in there. Coaches love Kirk Cousins. They just love Kirk Cousins. And when Kirk Cousins is available after this year, there's going to be a lot of Shanahan Treating guys spending a lot of money to get him in that building. Okay. Ryan Tannenhill is another one where coaches just love the effect. He can just fire a ball and they can run the offense.

Jared Goughran Ben Johnson's offense. Ben Johnson is one of the best offensive coordinators of football, one of best play callers. And he will be one of the best head coaching candidates this time next year if he wants to leave. And the fact he can do that, the fact he can take advantage of the talent there. Brad Holmes is very quickly assembling a very good roster. I didn't love the draft. But it's funny, someone the other day in the NFL comped Dan Campbell to somebody if that was funny, they said he's got the chance to be Midwest poor man's Mike Tomlin,

which is tough team every single year, always competing. Maybe in Dan Campbell's case, especially with the quarterback, there's a ceiling. They're probably not going to win 14 games. But you know what else are not going to do? going forward, they're not going to win four. They're going to win a bunch of games not supposed to. They're always going to be competitive. They're not going to quit.

They're going to have an identity. And I think that's the most interesting thing about this Lions team. And Jared Goff is a part of that. There are guys in this Lions team who were not wanted elsewhere. And they turn that into something. Jared Goff is that. I think one day, yeah, like if they're able to get trade up and get a Drake May, somebody like that, maybe someone like Riley Leonard, you know,

with Pick 20 or something next year, maybe we're talking about that. but I don't think they're in any rush. I mean, it was interesting because last year when I was Dr. Brad Holmes, he said that the rebuild and the tear down in the first year was almost accidental. And he called the first year of the HVAC year and the second year, the chandelier year here. And the third year now is, okay, we've got the house. We've got the house. And now they're going to try to figure out what that is.

But guess what? Jared Goff's still in the house because he belongs in the house. Yeah. And yes, he's better in a dome. Yes, he's not great in a muddy pocket. Folks, it's the exception to the guys that are. Like most guys need a cleaner pocket. This baseball season continues to heat up.

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bigger. So if you've ever supported me or you're just chasing down a dream, this is right what you need to be. Listen to the Clifford show on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok podcast network on TikTok. So for years and years, I defended Russell Wilson. And I was hard on Pete Carroll. I said Pete's tone deaf, let's run on first and second, throw on third and five, that he never gave Russell Wilson credit. But to his credit, he moved off. And he moved off. him, elevated, kind of resurrected Gino Smith's career, and they've hit home run after home run the last two drafts. What I think is interesting about Russell Wilson is like the whole let's ride thing.

I'm not religious. I'm agnostic. Okay. I've always been agnostic. I didn't grow up in a traditional church. And so not that I'm turned off by religion, I try to be open-minded, but it can be a tad cringy and judgmental to me. But when I hear that Russell Wilson is inauthentic, I think, hold on.

Kirk Cousins, Derek Carr and Russell Wilson have deep religious conviction. And I think they're all authentic to who they are. I think they've given their life up they believe to religion. I find cousins incredibly likable on that Netflix special. And I really do think this is who Russell is. is. He's just insanely optimistic. And I think there's so much snark in social media. People see it as inauthent.

And it's like, no, good people who are highly optimistic, they still exist and one quarterback's the Broncos. That's really who he is. How do how, I mean, it's like, it's not cool to be optimistic. Right. Derek Carr's not cool. It's funnier to be Jim McMahon, snarkier. I get Jake Cutler. Aaron Rogers is cool.

Where do you land on Russell Wilson? I've spent time with them. A limited amount of time. I've never done like the two hour long profile or whatever. But he's been on my show a couple times. I've done some print pieces with him. I think he's an interesting guy. I think that he's got a grand plan of how he views his life.

And I think sometimes players can be kind of turned off by that if they think that there is something beyond the locker room or whatever. But I will say this. First of all, outside interests are frowned upon in a lot of locker rooms to begin with. Right. That's the thing. And the one thing you should over-emphasize is weight room, study habits, all that stuff. And from what I understand, Russell Wilson does emphasize those things.

And he works his ass off and he always has. And from what I understand, he's always put ball first. Okay. And so I think a lot of the criticism is outside noise, then becomes inside noise. or, I mean, first of all, obviously there was some tension with the Legion of Boom, which has been well documented. But this offensive versus defensive tension on a lot of teams, especially after you go to something as traumatic as that goal line thing, that's just going to linger. I've said this a million times. The amount of fractured locker rooms, the amount of quote unquote distractions in every building that never leak would shock you.

You know, somebody was talking to me the other day, actually, about the Diggs thing. And I said that, you know, the only teams that really get to. track their bad teams, right? Good teams. The Seahawks, I think, had two fist fights the week, the week they won the Super Bowl and everybody just kept it moving. The only time it matters is when you have a bunch of bad players and they start playing bad and people start to point the distractions, right? And somebody from an NFL team called me and said, you are so right. And with somebody from a good team and they said, the amount of times it'll be, oh, my God, you won't believe what happened to four in the morning with these three players and then they win

about 40 points. Happens all the time. Never comes out. Never comes out. And so your your problems and your distractions only become an issue. she wants you become bad. And that's bad for Russell Wilson over the past 12 months because he doesn't have the legs that hold onto the ball anymore. He doesn't have the athleticism that he used to. Can't go downfield. And so now it becomes, oh, Russell Wilson doesn't fit in a locker room because he has an extra office. Or Russell Wilson, you know, was going through his own walkthroughs without the coaches and that's why he's bad. No, no, no, no. He was doing all sorts of weird crap in Seattle. He just got away with it because he played well. That's all that matters. As you've said many times,

It's the great, winning is the great deodorant. Quarterbacks are the great deodorant. You play well, everything gets solved. And so your foibles come out more in Denver. People don't know him. The community doesn't know him. They're not going to protect him. And so it just comes out now that he's a weirder guy because there's not a fan base that's ready to defend him.

I believe Sean Payton is going to help that team. I was looking at some of the numbers. The false start penalties were just ridiculous last year. The pre-snap stuff. Crazy. All Sean Payton needs to do is run the offense with more tempo, whoever was doing the fall starts, get them out of there or teach them the snap count. Do one of those two things.

And you'll be able to win a couple more games. Clock management, decision making. I really do think Sean Payton's going to be able to fix the Broncos really easily. And then the assumption then is that Russell Wilson at least gets fixed a little game alongside that. Kevin Clark, senior football rider analyst the ringer, finally. There's always a bad team that has a good year. Mine's Carolina. I think their front sevens really good defensively.

Frank Reich has made Andrew love. Philip Rivers, Carson Wentz, very quickly more efficient. I think Bryce Young's really smart and will adapt very quickly. Small, ceiling lower, really bright, high school college, figure stuff out. Wonky division. Carolina is going to be a wild card playoff team. That's my bad team that's better than you think. Give me yours.

Right, division, wrong team. So first of all, the NFC has the easiest schedule in football, okay? Yes. By far. The Saints are like lapping the field with easy schedule by Vegas win total. It's going to be the Atlanta Falcons, though, who are right behind them in easy schedule, but are a better team, better coaching staff, better infrastructure, more talent. Bijon Robinson is a portal towards actual positionless football, which Arthur Smith wants to build. Desmond Ritter, as I said earlier, can execute the offense.

There's talent everywhere. They took their medicine with dead cap charges, which a lot of good teams would be able to do in the last couple of years. they basically flushed the entire roster and all the cap problems. So I'm expecting a huge jump forward. I think Arthur Smith and his schemes, he won't talk about a floor. His schemes and the stuff that he's able to do with his offense, that should get you seven, eight wins by itself. Just the way he runs the offense.

Kind of what we're talking about was Zach Taylor. He just understands how this goes. And so now there's confidence there. I like them. I like them more. I think the track record for rookie quarterbacks going with winning seasons is actually quite low. I was looking through some gambling numbers over the past couple of days. It's not a great track record. Desmonder being in his second year, maybe I like that a little bit more.

Bryce Young, I love the guy, but him just adjusting to the league, the offensive line, all of that stuff. I just have more questions there, and I think it's going to take an extra year. Kevin Clark, it's a pleasure. It's night where you're at. It is, we just got through a, in L.A. yesterday, earthquake. tornado warnings and a tropical storm. And it's already sunny. It's already sunny there. You'll be happy to know this is the first media head I've ever done after putting my son to bed.

And so I was all dressed. I had the shirt on under this blazer, nothing but spit up, nothing but spit up. And so that's a lesson learned. I will now be getting my media outfit on after Teddy Cork goes to bed. Good seeing you, buddy. Thanks. Anytime, pal. Another podcast from some SNL, late-night comedy guy, not quite.

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