The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Prime Cuts: Ian O'Connor on Brady/Belichick Breakup, QB Evals with Marc Trestman, Bills/Chiefs SNF Pick

Episode Date: October 9, 2021

The best of this week's Colin Cowherd Podcast! First, Colin's top takes, including why Urban Meyer's repeated bad decision making is a real problem for the Jaguars (3:00). why Belichick's brand of football suddenly seems outdated (9:00), and why he didn't crush Baker Mayfield's dismal performance in a win over the Vikings (14:00).First, NY Post columnist and Belichick author Ian O'Connor discusses what Belichick might've said to Brady in their postgame locker room meeting, and if the Brady/Belichick relationship was always destined to implode (17:00). Then, former Bears Head Coach and longtime NFL OC Marc Trestman points out some of the glaring red flags he sees with Jets rookie Zach Wilson, and why the gap between Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes isn't as big as most people think (28:00). And finally, Action Network CCO Chad Millman and Colin on the sharp play in the Chiefs/Bills SNF matchup (41:00).Make sure you 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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The Colin Cowherd podcast brought to you by Fanduel. It's never been easier to play fantasy on fan duel, whether you love basketball, golf, soccer, or any fantasy sport. There is a contest for every fan. Fan duel, more ways to win. This is Prime Cuts. The Best of the Colin Coward podcast, another great week. New York Post columnist and Belichick biographer, Ian O'Connor, shares an inside look at the Brady Bill divorce and talks about what we watched Sunday with Tom returning to Foxboro. Former Bears head coach, quarterback guru Mark Tressman, he was great,

raised some concerning red flags on the Jets rookie, Zach Wilson. Child Millman, every week during the football season, the sharpest bets heading into NFL week five. But first, my top takes of the week. Now, the number one story right now is Urban Meyer, who is reeling with the Jacksonville Jaguars. So I was watching an old piece of tape on the late comedian Don Rickles about a month ago. And Rickles was on a show with Bob Costas called Later with Bob Costas,

some of his best work. And Rickles was a very legendarily acerbic comedian. And he told Bob that even during bad sets, never let the audience know that it's a bad night. You don't want to lose leverage with the audience and show weakness. That's when hecklers take over the night. And that's why what Urban Meyer did and the optics right now are so bad. Players now have leverage over Urban Meyer. You can lose games.

You cannot lose the locker room. and I talked to Mike Silver, long time NFL reporter today, and I said, 50-50, locker room, where's it at? And he told me he thought Urban had lost at least half the locker room, didn't fly home with a team, which is very rare. Don't believe any media person who defends that. It's very rare, especially after a loss, a close loss. You want to fly back and be with the guys. Then when this story surfaced, Urban canceled the team meeting met with. with units individually.

He didn't want to meet with all the players at once. Many players thought he was not honest in acknowledging who the woman was. And I don't care about his personal life. But I hear this a lot from, you know, Buckeye fans and Urban Meyer fans. And I know Urban and I like him. But people say it's a common thing. Guys do. They flirt after a couple cocktails.

Listen, if you work at Home Depot or Applebee's, yeah. And nobody sees it. This is Urban Meyer, a 10 million. dollar year coach. And now the owner of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Shod Khan, is embarrassed and humiliated because he took a huge risk on hiring Urban Meyer. He got a lot of pushback that Mr. College football could not handle the NFL and was not equipped to coach at the NFL.

He had real doubters. And now, Shad Khan, after a series of events, looks like he whiffed. And it's not one event. There was the comment, it's like playing Alabama every one. week, NFL coaches rolled their eyes at that. It's trying to hire the trainer from Iowa who had all sorts

of baggage. Terrible look. It is saying he would cut players if they didn't get the vaccine. The NFLPA had to step in. That was an embarrassing look. Right now, it looks like he just doesn't understand

the way the NFL works. And again, this lands directly on the doorstep of the billionaire owner of the Jags who took a big risk hiring him. There's the Tebow situation. That looks silly. Tebow was the least capable tight end on a team with bad tight ends. All of this puts the owner's judgment in doubt.

So, Urban's in some trouble here. And, you know, let's be honest about this. It's just bad optics. And let me explain that. There was an article in the New York Times a while back about the word. optics and it became a buzzword. Everybody describes things now, how things look to the general public. Now, before the 80s, you never heard the term optics. Then it started to become a term political strategists used to discuss moments that don't really have clear consequences except for the fact they

just look bad or they look good. Howard Dean famously, Iowa caucus 2004, yelled a speech after losing a lot of people said bad optics. Weird. Suddenly, he was out of the picture. He didn't do really anything wrong. It just looked really strange. And with social media now, everything is optics. Everyone can take a nine second video and put it out there. People don't care about context. It's just bad optics. It's not illegal, right? But NFL owners don't care about illegal. There's an argument to be made. I was told by. by a source I trust that if the Titans humiliated the Jags this weekend and they can't reel this locker room back in.

And again, goes back to the Don Rickles story. You don't want to show weakness to a group of 55 alpha males. Urban is a guy who's really hard on players. He's really tough. And if they can sense weakness, some of these players will split off. Fissures are created. and Urban's in big trouble. So they are paying you $10 million a year to stay at home, live for football,

hang out with your family, and not hang out at bars. That's why you make $10 million a year. Drink at home, hang out with family, and every split second you have, and every second beyond that, you're at the team facility. I always said my question with Urban Meyer was never the football. I've watched the Jags play three of their four games, two of them closely. they've gotten better every game. The football part, I don't worry about.

Does he realize, this is not college football, you can't bulldoze your way through decisions. You have an owner, you have NFL press, national media, you have alpha males, you have millionaires. It's not college football. You can't bulldoze your way through the truth. You're going to get called out, and Urban Meyer right now is. Believe it or not, you can win while losing early in your career. I thought Mack Jones in a monsoon with that pressure was fairly remarkable. In fact, I think if you went back and watched Tom Brady in his first year,

I don't think he was as good as Mac Jones was last night. He was under control, audiblying in and out. Can you imagine the pressure of facing Tom Brady in the stadium in which he won all as AFC Championships. He was cool. He was calm. He was smart. I thought it was a complete Bravo performance by Mac Jones.

I've seen Brady do this a hundred times. We all have. But here's an interesting thing to consider. Is that can you win with Mac Jones, i.e. Tom Brady and that lack of weapons? I don't think you can. I don't think Tom Brady in today's game, if he was Mac Jones, with the dearth, the lack of weapons New England has,

you have to play perfect football. And the Patriots played a really good football, but a fumble here, a doink on a last second field goal there, and you lose at home to a Tampa Bay team that didn't play particularly well. Is that what has happened in football is that there are so many dynamic young quarterbacks. The coaching is more dynamic. The wide receiver talent is so dynamic. Just look at the AFC.

what Mack Jones and Belichick will have to get through, Justin Herbert, Derek Carr, Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Lamar Jackson. That's just in the AFC. We all know, we all acknowledge the hole that has surfaced in Belichick's later years is the inability to draft and develop skill people. Jacobi Myers is their go-to receiver. He's undrafted out of NC State, and he is often their primary target. And you can be an imperfect football team. But in 2021 and going forward, you cannot be slow. I don't believe the Patriots with this current system and style with Mack Jones, who

himself has a highly efficient game and a lower ceiling. I don't think it's championship football. I mean, as Chris and Al said at the end of last night's game, Tom Brady now has more wins at Foxborough than Mac Jones. And we're in October. So it is interesting as the sport has really changed. And we see this in basketball. It's a three-point shooting game.

We see it in baseball where the ground ball is death. Strikeouts, eh, everything's exit strategy. In the NFL right now between the rules, the manipulation of the rules, the altering of the rules, the offensive playmakers at quarterback and wide receiver, Belichick style, though brilliant, feels a tad outdated. Am I alone on that? I thought Mac Jones played as well as you can play. I think we all would admit he has one of the lower ceilings. I think he'll reach his potential much more quickly than a Josh Allen.

I think 12 to 15 games in, you're kind of kind of see what Mack Jones is. And he played very well last night, considering the immense magnitude of the game. But I sat there and I watched it and I thought, can you win a championship on 12 play drives? Excellent defense. Solid special teams. I think you could 20 years ago. you could 10 years ago. But I think it's harder and harder to do that.

And I think Brady, you know, at one point when they were talking about how good Jacoby Myers had been, I thought he's the reason Brady left and the reason Mac Jones has a ceiling. Jacobi Myers. Where would Jacobi Myers fit on the Rams? He wouldn't, wouldn't make the team. I'm not sure he would make Tampa or Kansas City or Dallas or Buffalo. would not make the team. Chargers, Raiders. You just start looking around the league right now.

The game has changed. It's played at an exhilarating pace. I mean, I'm watching some football this weekend. And watching last night, did it not feel at times like a 1996 football game? I also want to touch on the Cleveland Brown's win over the Minnesota Vikings. And a lot of people on social media, Colin, you got to Barry Baker-May a few. he was terrible. Yes, he was.

But the two things to remember, for the Cleveland Brown organization, to go on the road, beat a pretty talented team, Minnesota, in a tough place to play, when your quarterback is God-awful, that is a stepping stone for the Cleveland Browns. I mean, my takeaway was, yeah, that's what good teams do. Their quarterback stinks. They play poorly, and they beat a pretty talented team on the road.

That's a great stepping stone. Listen, I'm not going to beat up on Baker Mayfield for having a bad game. Everybody has a bad game. Aaron Rogers, week one, Josh Allen, week one, Tom Brady, four of them last year. I've never put Baker Mayfield in the top 10 class. So I'm not holding him to this great 16 week, one bad week performance. He was awful. He was skittish.

He's starting to sail things now. He was high on a lot of his throws. And I've said this before. He and OBJ, it just, you know, he and Jarvis. Landry work. He and OBJ don't. I can't figure it out. It just doesn't work. Maybe OBJ ad-libs too much on the routes. Baker then, you know, loses sort of a feel for it. Jarvis Landry's perhaps a better route runner. He's got a better relationship, a closer relationship. They worked through it at practice because Jarvis and Baker are fantastic. OBJ and Baker aren't. But I thought

that Cleveland Brown's going on the road. Baker had one of his worst games in the last two years, probably his worst game in the last two years. And winning, Vikings got players. And let's be honest, what we really worried about this year from Cleveland was their defense. They had seven new starters. Back-to-back weeks, pass rush was excellent. And so, you know, you can't get too precious in this sport. A wins, a win, a win.

You don't worry about what they look like. I mean, Belichick and Brady won a lot of wet, soggy, cold Foxboro football games on Sunday. night, you know, 26 to 23, and they just had two penalties, no turnovers. And in the end, you said, yeah, yeah, I guess they're great. Doesn't matter. Just win. Cleveland won. On the road.

Baker was pretty awful. Huge, huge step for the Browns. Well, somebody I truly respect, he's written three New York time bestsellers, Bellichick, the making of the greatest football coach of all time, is his recent piece of art. I read that cover to cover. And he knows Bill Belichick better than anybody. I first have to start with this, Ian, Ian O'Connor,

who was doing this, by the way, in the wee hours of the morning, having covered the Jets, the Yankees. He's the hardest working man in New York. So Belichick and Brady met for 23 minutes after the game, according to reports. Just a hunch. Your thought about, if not the topic, just the tone of that meeting. You're surprised.

when you heard that? A little bit that Bill would go into a winning locker room after a loss and really talk to anybody. It's not really in character. But I think it's actually a good thing. And maybe when Tom Brady is done playing and Bill Belichick is done coaching, that they'll come together and have a better relationship than really they had at the end of their time together in Foxwell.

There's no question no matter what they're saying. I mean, based on the hundreds of people. I talked to for my book. I think Seth Wickersham could say the same thing for his book, that there were issues at the end of their time in New England that certainly led to that divorce. And so I think there's been so much focus on what went wrong and maybe not enough focus on what amazing things they accomplished together that maybe that was part of their conversation tonight. And hey, we need to get back to what we did together. and maybe talk a little bit more about that.

And I have a feeling in retirement, they'll be closer than they were in the final years in New England. And I hope that's the case. Ian, the one thing from Seth Wickersham's book, I have not read it. I got the excerpts. And they were pretty damning toward Belichick. One, I thought was really personal when Robert Kraft apparently at some, you know, high-end retreat with billionaires, said, I got to leave this meeting and go hang out with the most miserable blank in my life. And I could see Belichick reading that and thinking, you know, I've probably doubled your net worth.

Was that the kind of thing that would expedite an exit? Or do you think Bill is strong enough that just flies past him? It doesn't stick. It doesn't land for him. I don't think that one landed for him. I think that Robert Kraft may have offered an explanation. Hey, I was kidding around. I didn't really say it that way.

And I don't think that is going to have really much to do with Belichick in terms of how long he's going to coach the Patriots or coach at all. I think Belichick understands that there are a lot of people around the league who don't really like him. And he's never been all that close to Robert Kraft. In that organization, the relationship that was a close one was between Kraft and Brady. That was sort of a transformational relationship. The transactional relationship was Belichick and Kraft and Belichick and Brady.

That was always transactional. And so I don't think that comment really changes anything. Belichick doesn't really care. He just wants to win. And if you think he's a blank, blank, then so be it. As long as you're paying me to win football games and leave me alone for the most part, which I think Robert Kraft is pretty much done. I think the one time that Kraft interceded was in keeping Tom Brady in the organization

and not letting Rojellich turn it over to Garoppolo like he wanted to do. That turned out to be a good move. Kraft was right because Brady won another Super Bowl. So I think that I would be surprised if Bill Belmont. Belichick allowed a comment like that to dictate what he would do with his future. You know, I said this week on my radio show, I said, you know, the Beatles had Lenin was the academic. Paul McCartney was more of the global visionary. And, you know, Ringo Star lightened up the room.

And that's necessary. And I said, you know, you get with the Patriots, Belichick's the academic, crafts the visionary. and Tom is willful, but a joyful, that he needs to be hugged. He loves to be loved. He doesn't work with anger as well as he does joy. In fact, Wicker Shamm in his book talked about a study that had been commissioned by Belichick on Tiger Woods, Michael Kobe, and that Tom was different. And it's interesting when I read that I thought that's interesting that Bill was almost trying to figure out the maze of Brady's aspirational sort of motives. do you see and as I was touching on last week, this was bound like the Beatles.

These were three different cats. This was bound to be a little surly at the end. I mean, even after your incredibly in-depth book on Belichick, are you really surprised by any of this going forward and surprised how it ended? I thought that Tom Brady would never leave. So I guess in that context, I am surprised. I thought that he would put up with Belichick and because he just, he couldn't see himself playing for another franchise.

I covered as a columnist in New York, Derek Jeter's career. And at the end, it got ugly with the front office with Brian Cashman. And he wanted to leave. He just wanted to get away from Cashman and some others in that organization, but he could not go play for another team and in a different uniform.

And I thought Tom Brady would basically feel the same way, but he broke away from that. I guess in the long run, I think that Belichick probably doesn't get enough credit for keeping Tom Brady there for 20 years. It's not easy to keep an elite athlete driven as Brady is in place for 20 years. So that relationship, we focus a lot on the ending, and it was a bad ending, no question about it. Bill could have done a lot more to try to keep him. He could have offered him a long-term contract.

I had a conversation with Tom Brady four and a half years ago, and so he was 30, 39 about to turn 40. And I had about a 45-minute phone conversation with him. We talked about how long he wanted to play. We were talking past 45, 46, 47, 48. And I said, what about 50? I know it sounds crazy. And he said, it's a great question.

We'll see. So Bill is known for a long time that Tom was going to play and play and play and play some more. So there was a lot of time to figure, okay, this guy is someone we want to keep here in the long-term. We should offer him a long-term contract. they never did. So he goes and wins a Super Bowl for somebody else. So that to me is the only surprise. And I thought that Brady, despite his feelings for Belichick,

despite the fact the relationship had gone off the rails, that he just couldn't go play for somebody else. And he did very successfully. College football season and full swing, baby. You can make every moment more with Fandul Sportsbook. That's my place right now. All customers, all of them get a $10 parlay bet bonus. place a $20 parley bet, $20, and get a $10 bonus, win or lose.

Some interesting games this week. I like Oklahoma minus three and a half to beat Texas and cover. I think it's a high scoring game, but I'll take the Sooner's culture to beat the longhorns. Keep your eye on Michigan minus three at Nebraska. I think Michigan has an identity for the first time in the Harbaugh rain. I think the Wolverines win and cover. Also, I think Penn State plus two and a half has a chance in sort of a dull low-scoring game to beat Iowa. I'd probably take them plus two and a half.

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It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast's Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the I-Hard Radio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. Yep, that's me, Cliver Taylor the 4th. You might have seen the skits, the reactions, my journey from basketball to college football, or my career in sports media. Well, somewhere along the way, this platform became bigger than I ever imagined. And now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with some of your favorite athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated.

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Discovertheforest.org. Brought to you by the United States Forest Service and the Ad Council. So let's bring in Mark Trussman, who started as a quarterback coach for not only Howard Snellenberger, but Jimmy Johnson at Miami, worked with Bernie Kozhar and Vinny Testa Verdi.

As I noted earlier, he was the offensive coordinator for a handful of NFL teams, including Rich Gannon and the Raiders during their Super Bowl run, and Gannon was the MVP, two years coaching the Chicago Bears, two-time CFL coach of the year, a three-time Grey Cup champ. And people in the sport have great acknowledgement of what Mark Trussman has done through the years in building the confidence of young quarterbacks. As we've talked about on this podcast many times, it is so hard to be a quarterback in the NFL.

You know, there is a reason why many of the same quarterbacks over the last 15 years have ended up in the conference championships. This is yeoman work. It is intellectually, physically, emotionally draining. And Mark is joining us. So, Mark, I'm going to run through the quarterbacks. I'm going to state my audience knows this, my concerns. And then I'm just going to let you go on each of them. And I want to start with Zach Wilson.

And my initial interpretation of Zach was a little small, sometimes played the position, a little bit of a show off, excellent arm, good movement. I do worry about at times, this is a strange word to use, but his humility playing the position, that football, you are carrying a $3 to $4 billion franchise. Sometimes he was a little loose, in my opinion. and the great ones, the Russell Wilson's, the Brady's, the Aaron Rogers. We're seeing this with Justin Herbert. The great ones are not loose with the football. They understand the value of every possession. So my criticism is he's a little loose.

Let's start with your reaction to that. And what you see when you see the Jet Sack Wilson. I can leave this show right now because you've hit on a lot of the fit, a lot of the. But, you know, the one thing I'll say about all to be free, before I get on on Zach and I'll jump right to him, I think what's where quarterback. But the reason why quarterbacks have shown a little bit of light the last week or so is the play callers have actually gotten better. And you're right.

You're talking about the most complex, most dynamic, most amazing position in all of sports. So you hit it right. And very few can do it. That's why they get paid so much. So let me let me go to Zach first. Although Zach won this game, he was the winning quarterback in the last game, I certainly don't think he's ready to be annoyeded. I do respect from the last four weeks his toughness and his resiliency.

And he has shown some big playability. But you're exactly right. Over the time, he's shown the ability not to manage games very well and understanding of situational football. In all four games, he looked to make the home run and to hit the home run first. Even in this last game, he threw up a couple 50-50 balls that could have gone either way, that got him a lot of yards. reckless with the football over the first three weeks for sure.

His dropback fundamentals are extremely sloppy and inconsistent. He overdropped the first two weeks he was overdropping his protection at 10 and a half to 12 yards. And he really didn't show the athleticism that I expected to see. I didn't look at him in college, but I had heard about athleticism. And I would just call it sufficient kind of really in the Matt Jones, slightly better than Mac Jones, but just sufficient escapeability, but not being very accurate throwing on the run consistently. Some of the things that hurt him over the first few weeks,

his protection was horrendous. He took a bunch of hits, which goes to his resiliency and his toughness, but the protection was loose inside and he was taking a lot of hits. Secondly, his receivers, I'm not going to even go to their ability. Their depths, their techniques had gotten to improve. And the five interceptions that he'd thrown up to last week were a result of all of those things. But the things he can control, the looseness with the ball recklessly throwing and not understanding the importance of being efficient. The number one job of a quarterback, I missed everything.

And I learned this from Steve Young is to protect the football. Right. And you protect it on the snap on the way to the back and the confines in the pocket with location of throw and exiting the pocket. And he just did not do a very good job in those areas. So frankly, although they won, inconsistent drops, you know, one of the things that hurts his accuracy, the best quarterbacks, the tip of the balls in the V of the neck when they get to the top of the drop because it minimizes inaccurate throws. So if you look at all the grades, you know, they all have the tip of the ball because the arm motion is, is minimized. And there's, there's less time for inaccuracy. He forced the ball in the movement game.

Instead of taking the flat, I mean, over the last four weeks, Michael Flores given him some candy store completions. Just kick the ball in the flat, you know, and get yourself a completion. And he's forcing the ball down the field in the movements. I graded him this week of the first 10 throws. I gave him one plus. But on the other side of it, he has shown it. He'll tease us, as you well know, with the great three, make some excellent throws and overcame a lot of hits.

He had a chance to throw a cornerup for a touchdown in the red zone last week, and the grades would have backshouldered that throw because the defender was playing the quarterback underneath. He would have stopped him with the throw and just really kind of hoped it, holped it, you know, in there. So all that being said, and I know I'm riffing on here, and I apologize for that, but, you know, it's exciting to talk about quarterbacks. There is a light at the tunnel, but there's not enough tape to annoy him or tell you that he's the guy right now because there's so much inconsistency. He's got to go back. You know, I've heard, well, he watches a lot of

Aaron Rogers tape. Well, he's not Aaron Rogers. And if he continues to be, you know, loses humility with that ball in his hand, he's going to hurt his football team. So he's got to listen to his coaches, number one. He's got to take the candy store completions. He's got to respect the ball. You know, and he's like with a lot of these young quarterbacks early on, the coaches thought they needed this quarterback to win the game. Right now, we need Zach Wilson not to lose the game.

Now, other quarterbacks are in a better position to do that because they have better personnel around them. But Zach's got to lighten it up a little bit and light lighten up a little bit and just start becoming more efficient. And then we'll see if he's got any it factor because it does. There is a light that says this kid does have some it factor, but he needs to be more disciplined. So I want to move to a topic. And I've said this that, you know, I work in an industry where opinions, if they're, if they vary from kind of your usual opinions, they're viewed as hot takes. and Justin Herbert and Patrick Mahomes now play both in the AFC West. Herbert's a bigger athlete.

He was a better college winning quarterback. Herbert is a 4-2 biology major and, in fact, was a tutor with other students. So we know he's a really bright guy. He has very little, if any, injury history. Big, strong, moves well, huge arm. And he has a certain humility. he plays with that he understands the value of the football. He has now had six, three touchdown, zero interception games in 19 starts.

The other thing is that he did not inherit Travis Kelsey or Andy Reed or Tyreek Hill or Sammy Watkins. He inherited a fairly pedestrian offense and a terrible offensive line and actually had remarkable numbers. I am not here today to say that Justin Herbert is better than Patrick Mahomes, but the gap to me, Mark, does not appear to be huge. I think Herbert, when you consider the circumstances that he inherited, it is fairly remarkable the level of production so far and just your thoughts on those two and what you see with Herbert.

Yeah, I mean, you bring up some great points. you know, let's just go back and start with Mahomes because he's such a unique player. I mean, he is. He's the bovini of the NFL. He's got the ability to create, make plays with awkward throws, extend plays. And what I think is important to note here, he's not, and he cannot be an easy guy to coach. If you're into discipline and structure like Mike Kafka is and Eric Bienabee is and Andy Reid is, But there's a nuance to coaching Mahomes, and these guys have figured it out.

They don't corral him with the discipline that Herbert plays with because he's got the ability to get the job done with a candidate ability to protect the football. I mean, he's been responsible. I've looked at all his interceptions. I think there's been four the whole season. But only really two have been on him. but through his, what is it, three or four years now, an uncanny ability to protect the football. And I just think there's a nuance to how he's being coached to allow him to be the creative player

and dynamic player. It's really impressive to me because it's not easy when you want structure, discipline drops and things like that. And it doesn't kind of look the way you think it should look to be able to coach him and let him play as freely as they do. So I just give them so much credit. It's not as easy as it looks from a coaching perspective. Justin Herbert is as a lead as it gets. I mean, he is the guy. Everybody wants to.

He is the dream quarterback to coach. Cool, customer poised. He does everything right in the pocket. I've always felt you could grade a quarterback from the waist to the toes. And you know you would know exactly what's coming down. he is a beauty to watch. I mean, it is just, it's just the highest level of playing the position that I don't know that we've seen in a long time. It's such a young age.

I spoke to Joe Lombardi this morning as coordinator. You know, Joe spent, you know, he was over a decade with Sean as a quarterback coach in New Orleans. And I watched the tape. And it was breathtaking. breathtaking, breath-taking, Colin, to watch the tape. And I texted Joe, and he texted me back. I said, what a, you've done such a great job with him.

And you know what Joe did? And this is just a digression. All he could do was give credit to the quarterback coach Shane Day. He didn't give himself one bit of credit. But yet he's calling those plays. And it's the New Orleans offense. It's simple. It's concise.

It's clean. And it makes it really easy on the quarter. And the offensive line, I'm not familiar with what they've done personnel-wise. Justin took a couple of hits last night like everybody does. But that pocket was clean early. And when the pockets clean early, quarterbacks can succeed. If they get hit early, there's a residual effect. He's accurate in the pocket.

He plays with a quiet mind. As you said, explosive arm strength. And he doesn't have, you know, he's got a unique kind of athleticism. He can move in the pocket, find the quiet area. He really did have to extend a play or run last night. But he's not, he's certainly not Kyler or Lamar. He's not even Mayfield or Tanny Hill or Josh Allen or Jalen or Jalen Hertz or Russell. He doesn't have that kind of athleticism.

But I got to tell you, textbook-wise, he's as good as any of them. And it's really, he has mastered the pocket with footwork. I mean, Bill Walsh would be smiling in his grave right now because that's what it looked like years ago. I mean, it's changed and that's okay, but that's what it looked like. And it's just a pleasure to watch. Chad Millman, Chief Content Officer Action Network. I would take bills plus three at the Chiefs. This comes down to third down.

Kansas City cannot get people off the field. Now, the bills have beaten up in a very weak schedule. The Chiefs have played a much better schedule. probably why we have the number. But I do think I come back to the chiefs, which are usually, usually a slow starting team. They're a great finishing team. I think Buffalo is going to take the lead here.

I think they're a very tough team to come back from because I think they finally found a pass rush. I don't think Kansas City. Now, they've led in their last 65 games at one point, so we know they're fine. There's no reason to panic. but the defense situationally red zone third down right now it's bad and i think buffalo may not be better than kansas city in december i think today they are and they're getting points and i would

take it here's what worries me not only are you choosing the sharp sides but you're using it's like you're in my notes you're talking about andrew thomas being one of the better past rush blockers in the NFL. That was supposed to stump you. I was supposed to say that to you and you were supposed to be like, no, it's a genius. The guy's so locked in. He's down to that level of detail. And you're doing the same thing with the bills. Not only is the bill's password is really good. They're number one in the league in pressure rate, but only number 18 in the Blitz. So what they're going to be able to do against a Kansas City O line that has not recovered from the postseason last year, they have not proven to be able to protect Patrick Mahomes in the same way.

they're going to be able to get pressure on Patrick Mahomes without having a sacrifice coverage in the deep part of the field where their defensive backs are actually very good. So the defense is just much better than last year and that is really important. I would take it one step further. You can bet the plus three. You can have a little more fun and just bet the bills on the money line.

Yeah, they're going to win. I think you're going to win by 10. By the way, I believe to show you the struggle of the offensive line for Kansas City, their highest graded offensive linemen could be Creed Humphrey, their rookie from Oklahoma. That's a concern. So what it, you know, and he's really good. He was the best center in the country.

But we've talked about this before. A defensive line can be improved rapidly by the acquisition or drafting of a great rusher. Offensive line, you could bring in four pro bowlers. It takes time generally. It's a chemistry unit. And to your point and my point, Kansas City right now is struggling in that space. All right, everybody, go to the YouTube channel, Twitter, Instagram, the volume, sports, rate review, subscribe. You know the drill. We'll talk soon.

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