The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Patrick Mahomes, tackling rule, Steelers, Earl Thomas, & the Herd Hierarchy

Episode Date: October 2, 2018

Colin discusses Kansas City Chiefs QB Patrick Mahomes' great start and possible future, more proof the new tackling rule is fine, why the Pittsburgh Steelers are standing their ground when it comes to RB Le'Veon Bell, why he doesn't agree with Seattle Seahawks S Earl Thomas, and his new Herd Hierarchy. Guests include Doug Gottlieb, Albert Breer, Trent Dilfer, and Mark Schlereth. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Good morning after watching that incredible spectacle last night with Patrick Mahomes. It was an incredible game. NFL ratings up on all the windows. Get to that in about five minutes. start with Patrick Mahomes. He's the talk of the day. So I was sitting watching him last night, and he's pretty amazing. He is a jump off the television screen talent. And as much as I like all the other young quarterbacks in the league, Sam Darnold, you know, you know I like him, they don't have his arm talent. He's the most talented young quarterback last two years to come in this

league. Last three years, you'd include Jared Goff. Jared Goff is not as talented, does not have the arm of Patrick Mahomes. I'm showing our FS1. audience. That's an absolutely ridiculous throw. Might as well just have fun and show you the left-hander he made as Vaughn Miller was chasing him around the field. Let's turn the sound up to one of the plays of the year in the NFL.

Third and five. Kelsey's a man on the drag. Here comes Von Milp and they've got a first down. Joe, are you kidding me? Wow. This guy is incredible. You know, there's many years ago they talked about Montana Magic in Kansas City.

Look at this guy. Von Miller on his heels. He throws it left-handed. He puts it in his left hand and shot puts it to Tyreek Hill for a third down conversion. Yeah, if you had a television quarterback rating, he's number one right now. And I'm not even sure, frankly, it's not even close. Here's the thing. He's really talented. Brady's got rings, but we don't worship Brady.

We think of him as kind of a grinder, a workaholic, really responsible and coachable. There is a downside. There is a burden to great wealth and great talent. It is not a coincidence that Whitney Houston's great voice and Mike Tyson's great power and Tiger Woods great talent all came crashing down. Because the burden when you're as talented as Patrick Mahomes, it leads you to dark places. you don't have to work as hard. Nobody will ever call you a system quarterback.

They'll worship you. You'll make throws you shouldn't make. It is not a coincidence that our greatest musicians are rock stars, our Mike Tyson's, our Tiger Woods, our Whitney Houston's crash. That kind of power, that kind of talent comes with a burden. people compare him to Brett Favre. I find him intellectually more sponge-like, more coachable, little less ego. I like Patrick Mahomes going forward over Brett Farrv, although he's clearly at this point, not Brett Farr.

But what's interesting about the NFL, when you look at the all-time interception leaders, you would think the guys that throw a lot of interceptions, you know, they couldn't get the ball there, the ball dies, a defensive back comes over. No, it's the guys with the strongest arms. It's Joe Namath and Brett Fav and John Elway and Big Ben and Dan Marino. And it's the guys Vinnie Testa Verdi that could throw a strawberry through a battleship. It's guys that threw heaters. Because when you have the ability to throw the ball anywhere, you'll want to throw the ball anywhere.

is that when you have an unlimited voice, an unlimited power, an unlimited talent, you think of it as fewer obstacles. No, it's just a different set of obstacles. The best thing Mahomes has going for him is he got to sit for a year. He's got great weapons and a remarkably innovative head coach. Donald walked into the league, very few weapons, and a defensive coach. Baker walks into the league, the pressure of being a number of. one pick, injected quickly into playing, and a completely dysfunctional organization top

down. Mahomes, with all his gifts, got the perfect coach, got to sit for a year behind a smart veteran, and oh yeah, Travis Kelsey, Sammy Watkins, Kareem Hunt, Tyreek Hill. It is the perfect quarterback storm. And the downside of that is he's never going to have a bad year. He's not going to have those growing pains of Baker Mayfield. He's not going to have that embarrassing year of Jared Goff. He's not going to kick it around for the next year like Sam Darnold.

He's never going to get shut out like Josh Allen. He's never going to sit on the bench like Lamar Jackson. And you think that's all good. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That comes with its own set of pressure. Patrick Mahomes has never had a bad game, never got humiliated, never got shut out, never got mocked and ridiculed. You look around this league, most of the guys who are superstars in the NFL at quarterback

were overlooked, buried, crushed, humiliated. And it builds that thing on your shoulder, called a chip. I think Patrick Mahomes is amazing. but that kind of amazing talent in any walk of life, a big brain, a great arm, the perfect voice, great power comes with its own set of issues. I think the kid will handle it.

I think he's got the perfect coach. I think he's got the perfect city. I think he's a really, really great kid whose dad played some pro sports. But don't think it'll be all easy. Because he is right now in America, the most fascinating football player to watch. And he's still a kid.

Can't wait to watch it unfold. Let me shift to this. NFL ratings, CBS up, Fox up, Thursday night football, up. I don't know the number last night, but I would imagine it's up. In fact, 9.1 last night up. In fact, also important 13% growth among people making over 150,000. 50,000, big income advertisers like that. Why would this be? Offense, offense, offense. If Patrick Mahomes does not play last night, that game is won by Denver, and this morning it does

not lead my show. We're talking about defense, sacks, 13 to 10. The NFL does not need to accommodate Clay Matthews. Clay Matthews and pass rushers need to change. I am so over hearing everybody whine about these poor defensive players

who can't get a break from officials. I want to show you two pieces of video. Twitter, the angry bird was outraged when Baker Mayfield flag was hit by a raider. Barely hit, you can barely notice.

How in the world is that a flag? Put dresses on these guys. This is outrageous. No, it's not. The Raider defensive player led with the crown of his helmet. If the crown of his helmet is three to four inches higher, guess who's starting next week for Cleveland? Terrod Taylor.

They're back to being uninteresting. That's a flag. Don't lead with the crown of your helmet. By the way, Khalil Max figured it out. Von Miller has figured it out. Clay Matthews is still complaining. Here's some audio from last night, the best pass rusher in the league, or second Von Miller.

Roll the tape. There's been a lot of conversation about roughing the pass in the National Football League. But just watch Von Miller. He's got an opportunity to hit my homes and then land on him. He says, you know what? I'm not going to get a penalty here. And just full speed, just driving. him into the ground, but he decides, you know what?

I can't do that because that's a point of emphasis, and I don't want to get flag and hurt my teeth. Nice move there by Von Miller. Appreciate it, bro. Thank you, Patrick Mahomes. By the way, do you know the backup for the Kansas City Chiefs? I had to look it up. It's Chad Henney.

If Vaughn Miller puts his weight on Patrick Mahomes, and Patrick Mahomes leaves the game, and they put in Chad Henney for the rest of the year, When Chiefs games are on on Sunday, instead I'll go to Jiffy Loob and watch them work on other people's cars. That'll be more entertaining. 31 of 32 NFL teams have starting quarterbacks that are starting quarterbacks. One doesn't, the San Francisco 49ers. And by the way, be totally honest, unless you live in the Bay Area, when you see a 49ers game now from this point forward, it's just frankly not as compelling.

Clay Matthews is 32 years old. He comes from a legendary smart football family. He's been in the NFL for a decade. Evolve. Vaughn's evolving. Kalee Max evolving. Clay Matthews evolve. I'm over having everybody whine about the hits.

In every walk of life, academics, landscapers, pilots, me. We all have to evolve. New information. Let's change it. But Baker Mayfield, crown of that helmet, four inches up, he gets whacked in the face, and I got Terrod Taylor for the next two weeks. Those are the ratings. Patrick Mulhombs whacked last night by Vaughn Miller. I got Chad Henney. That's not a sound you want to hear in the NFL or me make. I'm over it. Belly aching. ratings up everywhere. There's a reason. It's not the tackling thing.

It's the quarterback thing. Coming up next, it is easy. Boy, everybody's banging on the Steelers and Lavian Bell. We'll try to add a little context that maybe the Steelers are absolutely doing the right thing here. Doug Gottlieb, Albert Breer, Trent Dilfer, Mark Schlarith, all on deck today.

Borrow up to $40,000 to payoff credit cards. Go to Lendingclub.com slash sports. Lendingclub.com slash sports loans made by Webbank, member FDIC, high interest debt, credit cards. Clean those babies up. You don't want to have that stuff going on. Doug Gottlieb later this hour. Albert Breer, top of next hour with the herd hierarchy.

We have a team that's entering the herd hierarchy that I love. Last week, my staff forced me to put Miami in. outrageous. I no longer take their recommendations. I was not consulted. You were not. This week, my staff pushed back, and I'm jamming a team in there that is going to be on that list, hurt hierarchy

for a decade. Everybody's looking at me. Let me say this. Some things you could say, but they're hard to do, like having patience, working out, eating right, right? Like, those are hard to do. Everybody says it's going to eat right. It's hard to eat right. I had just a big plate of nachos last night.

I didn't want to do that. It was right in front of me and the cheese was melting and my son had it and I had to have some. And then working out. I feel like working out every day. Some days I get up, I don't want to work out. Patience is hard. Got to have patience. Got to have patience.

Pittsburgh, three coaches, three head coaches since 1969. Cleveland Browns, three head coaches in four years. They got the way to do it in their own division, but it's hard to be patient. And with Levy and Bell right now, oh, Pittsburgh's in last place. I'm hearing a lot of this. Pittsburgh, you've got to get going. You've got to get going. Pittsburgh on Lavey and Bell.

You're in last place. Pittsburgh's really, really good at the patience thing. Lottie you wanted Chuck Knoll fired at the end. You wanted Bill Cower at the end. You got tired of him. Mike Tomlin, everybody wants out the door right now. Pittsburgh is very, very good at not only saying we can be patient, but being patient. And everybody's banging on the Steelers.

But let me just say this. The Rams, and this is what I hear people saying, well, Rams took care of Todd Gurley, Arizona took care of David Johnson, and the Atlanta Falcons took care of Devante Freeman. Well, yeah, but those guys didn't have two failed drug tests and get busted in a car for drug use. Think about it this way. Every player has a Carfax report. This is the simplest way to think about it. Every player has a Carfax report.

Lavian Bell's has two accidents and a transmission's been swapped out. And that affects what people are going to pay for the car. And now you got James Connor. You're leasing James Connor and he gets you to and from work. You may not have heated seats, but you're not running into telephone polls either. The Steelers do not trust Lavian Bell. And the Steelers have a right not to trust Lavian Bell. And the Steelers have a history of being really, really pay.

In 2015 and 2016, both years, Levy and Bell started the year. Suspended. This is not a Todd Gurley situation. Todd Gurley has a completely trustable personality with nothing on his car fax report. And Devante Freeman. I mean, Levy and Bell's a really talented kid. But they're not in the wrong here. What they're basically saying is, we'll give you a deal.

but we have a history here of being patient. We'll wait it out. Now there's a report this morning that Lavian Bell is going to report, you know, the buy week, week seven, week eight. All right. But if you want to play with the Pittsburgh Steelers and you're going to try to force their hand, they win always. They do.

Cleveland, three coaches, four years, Pittsburgh three since 1969. They don't listen to the noise. They don't feel the pressure. they're the opposite of a low self-esteem sports program. They're the opposite of the clippers or the Mets or the Jets. Like the Steelers, they got all sorts of trophies and rings. They're in no rush. They're in no hurry.

And the division is not running away from the Steelers. Baltimore's good. They're not perfect. Cincinnati's interesting, but they're Cincinnati. In Cleveland, they're probably a year away. Baker, another 10, 15 starts from really Cleveland. They already gave away a game this weekend against Oakland. So let's add context to Lavian Bell and people freaking out.

If you think the Steelers are going to fold on this, you pick the wrong organization, man, because they say they're patient, and they got 50 years of showing you their patient. And that Carfax report for Lavian Bell has got all sorts of dings on it and accidents on it and swap transmissions on it. And that goes a long way in you deciding what you're going to pay for a car. Joy Taylor with the news. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news.

This is the herd line news. All right, sticking with Levian Bell, according to ESPN's Jeremy Fowler, Bell plans to report to the Steelers during their week 7-5. But that's not all. Bell also told Fowler that he still wants to retire as a Steeler and believes that the team will renegotiate with him in the off season. He said, I could be naive or hopeful, but at the end of the day, I feel like that's what's going to happen. I don't think they really want me gone. That could be me being prideful, but I'm still holding out hope. I don't know about that.

Yeah. But I will say this. Since he's been gone, you were talking about them not running into a telephone pole, getting to and from work. Yeah. Well, they did that week one, because they had 35 rushes for 159 yards and two touchdowns. But since then, they've had 15.3 rushes per game, 43.3 rushes per game. rush yards per game and less than a touchdown. 0.7.

So it's got quite the drop-off since week one as far as their rushing game goes. So he's looking better and better week by week, but I don't know that this situation is fixable. Now, he could have waited until week 10 and still gotten credit for the year and still become a free agent, but he wouldn't have played any games. If he comes back week seven, if he signs any time prior to November 13th, the Steelers would have to tag him a third time. at a very high price tag or let him go into free agency.

Steelers probably wouldn't mind tagging him. Steelers don't mind paying him one-off. They just don't want to get into a marriage with a guy that's more of somebody you date. Well, then if they do that again, they could run into the risk of him holding out again. So at some point, the situation has to get agreed upon. Listen, players have to figure this out. Generally, owners and teams win. Now, LeBron can sign a one-year deal because he's LeBron, but overwhelmingly in the history of sports.

Basketball is so different. It's very hard to compare the situation. But in football. Let's just go to football. Yeah. The owners win. They win in negotiations. They went in holdouts.

The owners overwhelmingly win. The only time it's different is if, you know, you do get into certain situations like at quarterback where a team feels like Aaron Rogers. Like, we're not going to get better on the market. Let's pay him. Or O'Dell. You say O'Dell won. Yes, O'Dell won because, again, their quarterback's kind of a mass.

And they weren't willing to draft another question. quarterback because they tick off Eli Manning and the Manning family. But by and large, players don't win. And when you're going up against the Steelers and that family and that history, you want to push the envelope. Good luck, because they don't fold much. I just don't see how he's a stealer next year. So the Super Bowl champion Eagles are surprised two and two right now.

And three of their next four games are against playoff teams starting this Sunday against the Vikings and an NFC championship rematch. But instead of panicking, Doug Peterson says the Eagles need to play with a greater sense of urgency moving forward. Our understanding that for us to play like champions, first of all, we have to understand that we are champions. And you have to play, you're expected to play a certain way. The sense of urgency from players and coaches needs to sort of heighten just a little bit.

It's not a panic mode, but it's a heightened awareness of who we are as a football. team. Nobody cares if you're champions. Listen, this is so predile. This was the most predictable thing in the NFL. Philly's a puffier chest town, and they're puffing their chest,

and they're writing books, and they're having parades, and they're trash talking. It's like Philadelphia, you're now the number one target for everybody in the NFC. And you went from being, you know, the old cliche,

the hunter to the hunted. And right now, nothing's particularly good. Their secondary is a mess. Now, I do think they'll turn it around, because I do think this is a lot about injuries. Carson went in activity, getting players back. I think they'll turn it around in about two weeks, not this week.

They have not yet scored 25 points. No, no, no. Listen, they don't look good. And you look at it, they just don't. But it was so predictable. It's very hard to repeat. Anytime anyone, if it's not the Patriots, goes and wins a championship, it's like, oh, for the next 10 years, this will be the dynasty.

Like, let them get back to the Super Bowl first. Like, we did this with the Seahawks. Look what happened with the Seahawks. It's a lot that goes into it. Even if you had the exact same team, the exact same person out was virtually impossible. Philadelphia and Seattle are very similar. Got real chatty, real pompous, big personalities, often on defense.

It's the same thing. Seattle and Philly, I made these comparisons that six months ago. The fall, I mean, and by the way, well, we got Carson Wentz. Well, they have Russell Wilson. Well, we got Doug Peterson. Well, they got Pete Carroll. You can have the coach in the quarterback. If the culture changes in the room where it gets real chatty and real cocky and everybody's writing books and everybody has parades,

doesn't matter if you have Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll, Doug Peterson, Carson, Wents. There will be a significant falloff. I'm not saying they're done. No. I'm just saying this is not a surprise start to the season for them. Finally, Tom Brady got his buddy back on Monday since Julian Edelman has returned from his four-game suspension. Edelman won't have to wait much longer for his season debut either because the Patriots host the Colts on Thursday night football. But that doesn't mean the Patriots are getting a lesser version of Edelman when he returns to action on Thursday night, at least according to Brady.

You know, he hasn't changed a bit. Four weeks off, he looks good. I think everyone's excited to have him back. And anytime you add great players, we're going to help what we're doing. And, you know, we all welcome him back. And he's excited, ready to go. And hopefully he can go out and play great. Hopefully we can all go play great.

He gets open so quick. I think about Julian, his explosiveness in the routes, in and out of breaks. It's very comforting for a quarterback to see a guy get open really early in a route. I played so much football together. I really have no doubt where he's going to be at, what he's capable of. He's just, he's been a great player for our team. Yeah, so the Patriots, I think, are going to be in good shape again. I know it's shocking.

To me, they'll still have limitations unless Josh Gordon does something. If Josh kind of pops. This is the moment, though. Yes. If Josh Gordon can do something and Julian Edelman is back, and they need him. Brady hasn't thrown for 300 yards in an outing yet, and the Patriots offense is 22nd in the league in passing yards per game right now. So having Julian Edelman back is huge.

It's just, is Julian Edelman in shape? Because he hasn't practiced with the team since training camp, and he hasn't been in a meaningful football game since the Super Bowl. So Brady seems confident in him. Obviously, Brady's not going to go out and be like, yeah, he looks terrible and slow. But they have a certain chemistry. So if he is back to his form, then... It's almost like getting a starting pitcher.

back, your ace then can go to the two, your two goes to a three, your three goes to a four, with Edelman back and Gronk healthy. Now I just need Philip Dorset to make two nice catches a game, Patterson to make two, Gordon to make two or three. And it's probably just a comfort thing with Tom.

Yes, but once I get my guy back, then Gromk moves to a two, Edelman's a one, and I, all I need when you're asking Chris Hogan and Dorset to give you seven catches, then you're in trouble. Edelman comes back. I got James White, Edelman, Gronk, and everybody else can give me two to three, then you're fine.

They still don't have a pass rusher. Their issues are not solved, but it helps. But they're still a patriot. Yeah. Joy Taylor with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lye News.

So one of the big stories over the weekend was Earl Thomas, great player, flipped off the Seattle Seahawk sideline. And, you know, I said this a couple years ago with Pete Carroll. He's got the slogans, kumbaya, a lot of politics. I think Pete's a good guy. but some of it, it's with Pete, he comes in, the program explodes, and then it sort of unravels after eight or nine years, and I'm seeing it USC and Seattle, Seahawks kind of the same thing.

He's still a good coach. He's very good defensive coach. And so when Earl Thomas gets hurt, goes off the field, I hear a lot of people supporting him, including Pete Carroll on Seattle Radio, said, hey, hey, hey, don't go crazy. He's a kid. It happens. Here it is.

People that are criticizing whatever happened. don't understand. This was an earth-shattering moment for a kid. He's trying to play this game he loves and all of a sudden this happens again. He knew exactly what had happened to him. So he went right to what it's going to take to get

back and all the, you know, he had it all just totally figured out and it's as emotional as you can get. But he was very chilled about it, you know, on the field. He was an unbelievable stud about handling it and so give him a little slack. You know, this is

this very, very difficult moment that most people would never understand what that was all about. All right. So let me just add this. He was on his second Seattle contract, which he agreed to. It's not like he's been jobbed. He's in a state with no state income tax. And he's lucky because he plays safety, which has been marginalized and reduced in importance. So he's not going to get the payday he wants.

But I heard something on Monday Night Football last night. I mean, forget the fact that nine years he's played in a state with no income tax and he's made $55 million. He's got a lot of money. But last night I'm watching Monday Night Football and one of the announcers says, well, he's only the sixth highest paid safety, yet he appears to be the bet safety. Okay, my brain hurts. Let's slow down on this. Do you know who the highest paid left tackle in football is? That's a really important position.

It's Nate Solder of the Giants. He is the fourth best tackle in his own division. He's not Tyron Smith, not Jason Peters. he's not Trent Williams or the Redskins. Nate Solder is the highest paid left tackle. He's the fourth best left tackle in his division. Well, Colin, that's just one position. Do you know the highest paid wide receiver in the NFL is Sammy Watkins?

Sammy Watkins appears to be the third or fourth favorite target of Patrick Mahomes. The second and third highest paid quarterbacks in the NFL are Alex Smith and Jimmy Garoppolo. And the highest paid tight end is Jimmy Graham, who would not start for New England or Kansas City. In fact, Gronk is the eighth highest paid tight end. And I think like Travis Kelsey, who I think is as good as Gronk or better is now ninth. Earl Thomas, you went to the University of Texas. They have a business school. You should have taken more business classes.

In what profession, except for like commissioned, like car salesman, are you ever the highest paid person at the same time, you're the best at what you do. I mean, I work in radio. The way it works is you generally get paid for what you did. If you're a legend, Paul Harvey was making more at 80 than he was at 60, and he was way better at 50. Go around the NFL right now. This is how it works.

Texas econ classes. Please take them people. If you go to the school there, you will be paid. And then the next week, somebody else will sign a contract. Every week, every month, every year, players in your position are signing contracts. And so being the highest paid guy is all about timing. Aaron Rogers until recently was like 11th highest paid quarterback. Brady now is 15th.

Nate Solder, highest paid tackle. Sammy Watkins, highest paid wide receiver. Gronk is the sixth, my bad, six highest paid tight end. Travis Kelsey's 8th. And those are the two guys in the league nobody can guard. Jimmy Graham's got one touchdown. With Aaron Rogers, he's number one. I mean, at some point, Earl Thomas, okay, you're at a position that's getting marginalized.

You're on your second contract in Seattle, which you negotiated. And frankly, you're the sixth highest paid. Considering you're closer to the end of your contract in the beginning, that's about what you should be paid. And if you didn't get hurt, you would have signed a new contract, then you would have been the high. highest paid safety. Nobody's hosing you here. It's basic economics. Doug Gottlieb, around the corner,

and our herd hierarchy at the top of hour two. It's the herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd. Weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. On Fox Sports Radio, FS1, and the IHard Radio app. Heard hierarchy, top of the hour. I have a new favorite NFL team. It's not actually the Kansas City Chiefs.

I bring in my buddy, the Dugger, Doug Gottlieb. Fox Sports Radio after our show, the Dugger. All right, let's start. First of all, I'm so over the belly aching. Clay Matthews comes. The Manning family is American football royalty. I could make an argument. The Matthews family on the defensive side, Bruce Matthews, Clay Matthews, is American football royalty on the defensive side.

I'm like, Clay, you're a smart guy from a smart football family. You get this thing, right? If Patrick Mahomes is hurt last night, Chad Henney's in, and I'm turning the television off. The ratings are up to a couple of. the board, and I'm all for throwing flags on marginal hits on quarterbacks. The NFL has figured it out. They've paid attention to the NBA, and they've said, wait, how has the NBA recaptured our attention? And the answer is offense, right? Offense. And if you look across the board, not only is Pat Mahomes setting the world on fire,

but if you go through the stats, like, wow, Baker Mayfield and all these touchdowns early on. Flacco, like Joe Flacko. There are over 10 quarterbacks right now with a hundred 100 plus passer rating. Wow. 24 with a pass rating above 90. There are not 24 good quarterbacks. The difference is the league has figured it out. Just like the NBA, we're not calling moving screens.

You can't hand-check. Good point. You know, valuing the three-point shot. The NFL has done everything in their power to empower quarterbacks. And you told me this before the season started. Bet the overs on all these games. Right. Because the league wants offense.

There's more possessions. There's more passes. There's less contact on the wide receivers. And there's less contact on the quarterbacks. And there's better offensive coaching. More ingenious offensive coaching. All of that has given us stats on steroids. So it's not that Pat Mahomes isn't great, but you just can't compare.

You can't. You can't. And as of now in the NFL, offense wins. And this is part of what makes the NFL popular. It was fantasy football as well as betting on football. This should be noted. And the minute the Supreme Court said, okay, betting is legal, the NFL has not embraced it yet. They won't let Fox, CBS, ESPN.

They won't let you sell the big advertisements during their games. But the point is, I've had two buddies of mine, two buddies in the last two weeks ago, hey, what website do you go to bet games? These are guys with kids. They're busy. The bottom line is gambling. The NFL's like, you gamble on points. You gamble on stars.

I don't actually think it's as much game. I think the fantasy aspect of it. If you go to a kid's fall baseball game, flag football game, to a soccer game, not just the parents and the moms and the dads, but the kids all play fantasy football. Everyone plays fantasy football. And what it does is it makes you more interested. It makes you watch more. It also makes you watch teams out of your market more. So the NFL has figured it out.

It's not that these quarterbacks aren't great. and they grow up playing passing league and they run spread. And so they're a little bit more developed in terms of the quick, you know, pick and stick throws out of college. But what's changed in the NFL almost overnight is they've made it so that you have to have an offense and then figure it out defensively. I think it'll even out once you get to the playoffs. They'll stop calling a lot of the defensive holds and the pass interference

and some of the contact on quarterbacks. But that's the story at the quarter poll in the NFL. By the way, the thing about Patrick Mahomes is, Like you said, you can't really take numbers on anybody. You just can't. But I do trust my eyes. And there are players that I see. And I'm like, oh, oh, Khalil Mack, he can bullrush, 332 pound tackles over.

And he weighs 260, 250. There are times where you just go, Doug, oh, okay, that guy's different. I mean, he looks like Jason Kidd when he came into the NBA. Or like, oh, he's faster than everybody. Well, it's the perfect storm. Perfect storm. He played for an offensive genius in college at Texas Tech. And he got to play and throw a lot because their defense was awful.

So he'd throw it 60, 70 times a game. Then he comes to the NFL and, you know, remember, Matt Nagy was doing a great job in Chicago. Yeah. And Mitchell Trubisky is an average talent at best. Yeah. That was who he was learning from last year as well as Andy Reed and the rest of his staff and studying under Alex Smith. So he got to refine his footwork. And then they overspent on Sammy Watkins.

They have Travis Kelsey. They have an outstanding running game. And all of these things kind of combined. after a year of learning under Alex Smith, who would not take the risk. And Alex Smith actually threw the ball down field more than anybody else in the NFL last year. Like he pushed Alex Smith to performing above his normal level. All of that, now he gets a chance to start.

Now he gets a chance to play with an outstanding wide receiver group with expert play calling. And you're seeing the makings, the makings of the next superstar in the NFL. Remember, Baker Mayfield, there were a lot of reasons he left Texas Tech. But the biggest reason was that guy was coming in. Davis Webb's an NFL quarterback. The reason he left and went to Cal was that guy.

There's a lot of really talented quarterbacks playing in the National Football League, and then there's guys with just otherworldly talent. That's what Pat Mahomes has. By the way, I said this before you came out here, I said, if you want to test the Steelers patience, they are patient. Cleveland's had three coaches in four years. They've had three since 1969, and Cowher and Tomlin both faced a lot of intense media pressure when they struggled.

And it's like the Steelers are sitting there and like, we'll play the long game with you. It's not like the division's running away from us. We still got Cleveland, Cincinnati. I mean, I look at Labian Bell and I'm like, dude, I got suspensions with you. I got busted for smoking pot driving to a game. I'm kind of on the Steelers side on this. Well, we've reached this weird place in NFL fandom. It's one thing for fans to take the players side.

I actually understand that. Yeah. But it's media types taking the player's side, which is new. They're not playing neutral anymore. We're kind of anti-establishment, right? We're anti-Congress, anti-President, anti-NCA, anti-N-FL, anti-NFL commissioner. Right, anti-power. I don't know whether it's how our parents treated us or how teachers treated us, right?

But now when you get a call from the school that your kid screws up, you think parents will pick up the phone and call the principal on the teacher, right? Whereas in the past, when little Johnny came home with the bad report, it was on little Johnny to fix it. Right. And so look at Levyon Bell. The Steelers didn't say we don't want Levyon Bell. They said, here's what we think you're worth. If not, sign the franchise tender. And he hasn't shown up for work.

It's so different than the Earl Thomas thing. NFL teams, for years, used to write contracts that they wouldn't fulfill. And then they would cut a player when the non-guaranteed part of their contract and force them to renegotiate a lower rate. Those days are gone. Earl Thomas is making $10 million a year, and he's getting every penny now that he's hurt. Levyon Bell, he's hurting the Steelers as much as he's hurt himself. He's set to make $14.5 million and then become a free agent next year.

He was going to be a free agent because third year of the franchise tender, it's a ridiculous amount. So he's only hurting himself as well as hurting the team, and this is money he'll never make back. So yes, I agree with you, but this isn't any different than the Raiders and Khalil Mack. Everyone has a value. There is a structure there. And when GMs and front office people save money, it's not like they put the money in their pocket. They have to sprinkle it around.

And the teams that have had the longest sustained success, like the Patriots, have found ways to get their top players to take less. And if you have a quarterback making top end money, you're not going to have a defensive player or running back making top end money. They got Antonio Brown making more money than anybody else. They got Ben Rothesberger making any more money. They just don't have room for a long-term salary for a 26-27-year-old running back. I want to shift at the top of the hour of the new herd hierarchy,

Albert Breyer. I want to spend a couple of minutes on the NBA. LeBron's had four instances in like a week where he looks at the L.A. Media, and I think they're confused. L.A. has always been special in the NBA. And LeBron's like, no, no, no, I'm saving you. You're not special. I'm special. And the L.A. media is in this weird vibe where they're like challenging LeBron. And LeBron's like, I've watched you the last five years. You won 31% of your games. Have you noticed this weird L.A. Media LeBron vibe? He opens up at home tonight. It is an odd. What am I seeing here?

Well, I think there's an assumption, man, maybe LeBron made the wrong assumption that you come to L.A. And the local media guy that asked the lame question would somehow go away. Right? Like, it's Los Angeles. Like, everybody's like, no. Like, this is the same percentage of people. You have some super talented people in Cleveland that cover the media. And then you have some guys that just got the job.

Right. We have the same thing. There may be more people. but and I also think we have too much access to LeBron James and the superstars now. Social media that cuts away the need for media. And so you have people that ask questions like the one last week. How do you approve your loyalty? Like I signed a four-year contract.

I never signed a four-year contract in Cleveland, right? Like how do I prove my loyalty? I show up to work every day. But the Kobe people, you know, magic's revered. Laker fans are funny. Shack is beloved. Kareem, uh, wilt, uh, what? Jerry West, love, but now it works for the clippers.

The Shaq thing is weird, though. Shaq went and played for the Celtics. Like, how are you still? I don't know how he has a statue up. When he went and finished his career with the Celtic, you can't do that. Will LeBron ever be Kobe in town? I don't know. Let's see how many championships he wins.

Well, he's not going to win five. Probably not, but Kobe doesn't really get credit for the five. Kobe wants credit for all five, but Shaq was a huge part of the first three. Do you think LeBron will ever be, obviously? Yes, he wins a championship. We forget about it. Yes. I find it.

He asked for a trade. He wanted out. Kobe had the issues in Colorado. He asked for a trade. Went on the radio, told Rick Fueker, I want out. They decided to, the Chicago Bulls decided they want to hold on to Lou Alde Dang instead of trading for Kobe Bryant. He stays.

He wins a couple championships. And it's like, what is that memory thing in men in black? It was like we all took that, right? And all of a sudden, we didn't all take that, but Kobe fans did. You're talking to Kobe fans right now. The rest of us understand. Kobe fans are struggling with this LeBron thing. That's where I think all this is coming from.

I honestly don't believe there's, I think most Laker fans are so happy LeBron's here. We're like, man, we got hope. This is honestly, this is our biggest problem in the media is we pay attention to one or two idiots on Twitter or one or two idiots that deface a mural and we act like that's the majority of the people. That's one or two idiots. You go to Staples tonight and it is a. Renaissance. People are so happy. You live in Manhattan Beach. Yeah. Right? You walk down the street. Everybody's fired up. Like, man, I can care about the NBA.

I can care about the NBA because I think the Lakers have a legit shot. 99% of Laker fans are fired up because they know LeBron gives them hope this year and then somebody else is coming next year or maybe midyear in a trade. 20 seconds left. I find the most fascinating thing, Rondo Lanzo. When Lanzo is healthy, Rondo starts, right? Rondo's better than Lanzo. It was strange that Luke spent the very first press conference saying Rondos are starter. Lanzo Ball is going to have to win the job. He has never had to win a job.

Thank you. And Rondo is not giving it up. And he has a lot of respect in the league. That's going to be really fascinating. Doug Gottlieb, he is to Fox Sports Radio after us coming up next to our herd hierarchy in a team. My new favorite team in the NFL next. Ah, hour two. This is the herd, wherever you may be and however you may be listening.

Live in Los Angeles, IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and FS1. Joy Taylor is joining me. It is Tuesday. So much fun right now. NFL numbers are all up across the board. Offense is crazy. 31 or 32 teams have what they think is their starting quarterback outside of the Niners in Garoppolo who got hurt, which makes them obviously less interesting.

So, Joy, we do it every Tuesday at this time. We wait until Monday night football is over. The NFL week starts on Thursday. This week it's Patriots, very good Thursday game. Then you have the Sunday game. Then you have Monday. Then Tuesday we come in and say, these are the 10 best teams in the NFL. Now, last week I was forced to put the dolphins at 10, much to the chagrin of me.

And now I'll never put them in again because the minute you put them in and trust the dolphins, you know, they're the guy that finally gets a job promotion and shows up the next day with a hangover. They don't know how to handle success. So here we go, our herd hierarchy. Heard hierarchy. Time is now, let's go. The top 10 NFL teams, according to college, number 10.

My new favorite NFL team, I think they're going to stay in the herd hierarchy for the rest of the year, the Chicago Bears. Number one in sacks, number two in rush defense, number two in takeaways. Kalee Mack, defensive stars. Listen, I have reservations about Mitch Tribes. I do. I think he's got a really low ceiling. But I think there's two teams in the NFL. When I watch their offense, the Rams and the Bears with Matt Nagy, it's like they're using different playbooks.

So many looks, so multiple, so much motion, it's got a college feel to it. I love what I see from the Chicago Bears. Their best start since 2013 Bears at 10. Number nine. Carolina at nine. Here comes Norv Turner. And what do you know? Cam Newton has career high in completion.

percentage, passer rating, and touchdown to interception ratio. Here's the other thing. They're different than everybody else in this league. Everybody else is throwing. They have the number one rush offense because they have the best rushing quarterback, and they're frankly just playing to their strengths. And my knock on Camazo has been he's not a precision thrower in a precision league. But Norv Turner is the secret sauce.

He is closer now to 65, 66%, which is way above Cam's average. A couple years ago, he was at 54%. I've got Carolina. I still like their front seven defensively a lot. I've got them at number nine. Number eight. Philadelphia Eagles. Listen, they lost Frank Reich.

He's now the coach of the Indianapolis Colts. He was running their offense last year. Frank's really good. And it's noticeable. And they've had a rough September. And they're two and two. But they're still number one in the NFL in rush defense. And if you can stop people running, you make them one-dimensional.

Ultimately, you win games and get the ball back. Carson Wentz has been inactive. Now he's back. Let's get him home for a couple of games. Let's get Carson Wentz and that running game and those receivers back for a couple games. This is still as good as any roster in the NFL. Eagles at 8. Number seven.

Minnesota Vikings. Not every loss is doom and gloom. I thought they looked great against the L.A. Rams. I really did. I really like what I saw. By the way, here's their issue. They're last in rushing. So they put everything, everything, a lot of third downs where they have to have Kirk Cousins make a play.

Mostly Kirk Cousins has delivered, career high and passing yards again. But the problem is they're getting to third down a lot. They did it against the Rams. They got the third down 16 times. Why? Because they can't run. And so they're trying to run. And the weakness of this team is the offensive line, but it is still a roster outside of the offensive line, full of B minus B and B plus guys.

I've got the Vikings at seven. Number six. The Saints, I was really surprised. Generally, the last nine times, the Saints had gone on the road. It was the second game of a road trip. They were one and eight. And they went up to New York, and that game was never in doubt. And again, the Saints do a couple of things well that people don't notice.

First of all, it's a very good offensive line. And you think about their receivers, you think about Peyton, you think about Breeze. That's a very good offensive line. They can control the clock. The second thing is, they are third in rush defense. So they're forcing you to throw. And Alvin Kamar leads the NFL in scrimmage yards a game this season. 152.80's not a fluke.

I have the Saints at 6. Number five. I didn't have them in. I'll just put New England in there because they're going to win their division. Because the Jets and the Bills are starting rookie quarterbacks in Miami is Miami. Ten straight wins against the dolphins at home. Now, they've still got big issues. They don't get to the quarterback.

They're 29th in sacks. Now, I think they can get away with that in a lot. lot of games, especially in their division. Because those rookie quarterbacks, not a lot of weapons for Josh Allen and Buffalo, and not a lot of weapons for Sam Darnold in New York. I think it will come back to haunt them when they play a Kansas City, when they play a Baltimore later in the year. They just don't get to the quarterback.

But Edelman comes back. He's their number one. Gronks are number two. Their third best target is James White, the running back. So that allows Chris Hogan to be a fourth option. Philip Dorset to be a fifth option. Cordorale Patterson to be a sixth option. Who knows where Josh Gordon is?

If Josh Gordon now, with Edelman coming back, can just remain active, they will have largely solved their biggest weakness outside of their pass rush, which is weapons. Number four. Four best teams. These to me are the Super Bowl frontrunners. Number four, Jacksonville. Great defense. Number one defense. Number one scoring defense.

Number one pass defense. It's a combination of great corners, tremendous pass rush. Their best start in 14 years. I got to say this, though. Blake Bortals may have some limitations, but he looks more comfortable on third down than he has ever lurked in his career. And it should be noted. He lost Marquise Lee, Alan Hurons a possession receiver, Leonard Fournette's been hurt. There's every reason for Blake Bortles to not look good.

But on those third downs, we know the defense is great. He's looked in really comfortable. So this is for the first time why I'm buying into it. He doesn't have that panic look, that rush look. I have the Jags at 4. Number 3. All right, Kansas City is amazing, but their last in total defense. And again, last night was a fireworks show.

You have got to clean up that pass defense. Case Keenham had time. Case Keenham delivered a lot of big passes last night. They're going to win games because this offense has a great coach, a great quarterback, a great back, a great tight end, a couple of nice deep threats. But in the end, I think their defense is an out. And we'll come back to haunt them if they don't get it cleaned up. Number two.

My Super Bowl dark horse before the year, I think the Baltimore Ravens, watch out. Number two in total defense. And third down defense is great. They're getting people off the field. And by the way, the new NFL, Joe Flacco, pushed by the draft of Lamar Jackson. Joe Flacco's having a great year. I said this about Baltimore before this season. They drafted two tight ends and they acquired three.

new receivers. So Flacko's got five new parts. Do not judge them in the first two or three weeks. This is a team by November when those young tight ends who can both play. And these receivers, John Brown, Crabtree, they can play. This team is guaranteed to get better as the season goes on. They haven't allowed a second half touchdown this season. They've outscored opponents 49 to 9 in the second half. And they're good on special teams, Baltimore at two. Number one. I kind of think by a long shot, the Rams, I think they have as good a defensive coordinator as anybody has.

Their defensive line is terrific. They're banged up a corner, but they're still good. Offensive line, terrific, running back, quarterback, head coach, receiver, concepts. The only knock I have on the Rams, their pass rush is very hit and miss. They're pretty ordinary at linebacker. And again, if you get into a game against Aaron Rogers later this year and you're not getting pressure on him, then you're going to put incredible pressure on Marcus Peters at corners, Sam Shields, and Akib Talib.

But for now, punter, kicker, coach, coordinator, lines, I think by a touchdown, the Rams are the best team in the National Football League. Coming up next, Albert Breer will join us live Monday morning quarterback. Lavian Bell, latest issues, Earl Thomas, all that coming up, don't go anywhere. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd Weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific. Thursday, we've got a huge early season matchup as Andrew Luck and the Colts go into Foxboro

to take on Tom Brady and the Patriots. Thursday at 7.30 Eastern on Fox NFL Network and streaming on Prime Video. Colts defensive front is way, way better than I thought, and I think everybody thought. They get incredible pressure. So if they can kind of, they need more playmakers. for Andrew Luck because after Ty Wyatt Hilton,

they don't have a ton downfield. But, you know, the other thing that's interesting about the NFL, never in my life is what I'm about to say been true. Every NFL team right now believes they have their quarterback for the future. Now, a couple of them, like the New York Giants, I think, are bluffing and they know they have to draft the quarterback. What's going to be really interesting, for the rest of the season,

watch Oregon's quarterback Justin Herbert, six, five and a half, 220 can run big arm. He's going to be the number one pick. Don't listen to these mock draft people. It's like Ben Simmons. I don't care if he can't shoot. Ben Simmons is the best college player. I don't care if he didn't go to the tournament.

Justin Herbert's going to be the number one pick in the draft. And for the first time in my life, every NFL team is telling you the bad ones all have quarterbacks. And there's only a couple of teams. I think a couple of teams are bluffing that they really want quarterbacks, but they're not advertising it. And I think one of them is the New York Giants. So watch Oregon football on a Saturday if you get a chance because this Justin Herbert kid, he's got some Patrick Mahomes.

Big arm can run around, is mobile. And I mean, you just watch him. You're like, in today's NFL with all the rule changes, he'll walk in and play and be really good, really fast. So somebody's bluffing. Somebody's telling you they like their quarterback. Jerry Jones this morning was like, oh, I love Dak. We'll see. We'll see if they end up six and ten.

And with that senior NFL reporter, lead content strategist at the Monday morning quarterback via the Coward Global Satellite Network, Albert Breer. Okay, so Julian Edelman's back. Does it solve the Patriots problems? I don't think it solves all of their problems. They still have some issues on defense. But offensively, I think it's huge for them because they've struggled some on third down. They've struggled in critical spots. And that's the guy that Tom Brady goes to.

And if you really want to look at it historically, this may be the worst. they've had it at the slot receiver position over the last four games in Tom Brady's time in New England. They went from Troy Brown to West Welker to over the last five years, a combination of Julian Edelman and Danny Amandola. They've had almost nothing there over the first four weeks of the season, which I think goes a long way to explaining some of the ups and downs that Tom Brady's had. Julian Edelman comes back in, jumps into that slot position. Now, it's a short week, so it might not be right away, but he'll come back into that slot position, which is very, very important to the way Tom Brady plays football, and I think he'll make a huge difference, particularly in those tight

spots on third down. By the way, Dorset had a great catch. You can't depend on him for nine a week, but he had a great catch. Cordrell Patterson had a touchdown again, not a guy I trust for big games. Josh Gordon has had some, you know, he's had some personal issues, some drug addiction stuff. What's going on with Brady and Josh Gordon? Will it work? Well, they're working on getting them into football shape now, and that's been a little bit of a process.

as part of the reason why Cleveland was frustrated with him. I know that they put his locker next to Tom Brady's locker, which is something they've done in the past with players. They really want to become invested in the program. Randy Moss once upon a time, his locker was right next to Tom Brady's. And so they're doing things to try and make it work. And what's unique about this situation, Colin, if you look at the way that the Detroit Lions attack the New England Patriots,

they forced Tom Brady to throw it down the field and outside the numbers. And Brady has struggled in the past at times. in that spot. The Browns, when they had Gordon in the building, kind of viewed him as like a luxury item, they felt like he'd let them down too many times and hadn't been dependable. So going into 2018, they wanted to build a team where Josh Gordon would kind of be the icing on the cake. And that's why they go out and they get Jarvis Landry and they bring in Antonio Calaway. And now he goes to New England and he's not a luxury item there. They really need him to play well. So to that end, I think that they've really done what they've done what they've done what they needed

to do to try to get him back on track now. Over the years, we've seen he's not very dependable, and this thing could go off the rails at any time. But at least you see from the Patriots now, this isn't just something where they're throwing him in the ocean and seeing if he can swim. They're actually giving him some support. We'll see if it works out. Patrick Mahomes is remarkable. Mitch Trubisky threw for six touchdowns. The NBA figured this out a few years ago, open up the offenses, don't allow hand checking, don't allow bigs to put their elbows in people's backs, and the NBA ratings are up. I mean, I'm telling you, I'm watching these games. When Mitch Trubisky throws for six, we got a different league. I mean, this is

paying off, right? This is what the league wanted. Right. I mean, and I think part of this is the rules, like you mentioned, and this goes back like 12 or 13 years. You want to go all the way back to when they change the rules as to what corners can do to receivers coming off the line. One, obviously the rules now when it comes to contact on receivers, contact on quarterbacks, and all of that helps offense. I think as big a factor as anything, Colin, is that coaches now, more so that any time in the history of the NFL are open-minded about what they're doing with offense, and they're more willing to adopt concepts that you see in high school and you see in college. Now, Chip Kelly was at the front end of this five years ago.

Now you're seeing everybody adopt these sorts of things. Matt Nagy in Chicago is a good example of it. Andy Reid, who's been a head coach for 20 years in the league. He's been very open-minded to it. Doug Peterson, of course, in Philadelphia. Sean McVeigh doing a lot of things that Cal did to try and make Jared Gough comfortable. We see how that's working out. And New England was doing this stuff six or seven years ago.

They were starting to adopt some of the things you see in college. And so I think as much as anything else, as much as even the rules changes, one thing that's really changed the way offense has played is this open-mindedness on the part of the coaches. And I think you've heard the same thing as I have. 10 years ago, a lot of NFL coaches would look at that stuff and say, oh, that's college stuff. That could never work in the NFL. Well, you know, now you're seeing coaches are very open-minded to putting that sort of stuff in. It helps them adapt players quicker to the NFL because those guys coming from college are used to running those sorts of things.

And we're seeing now schematically that stuff does actually work at the NFL level. Since 1969, the Steelers have had three coaches. And Bill Cower and Mike Tomlin have taken heat in their prime for losing some games they should have won. And so if you want to play, if you want to play, let's see who's more patient with the Steelers, you're going to lose. They have a history of just sitting it out and trusting their game plan. Levian Bell is testing them in the patience game. What do you think happens? There's a report today.

He's back in a couple of weeks. Yeah, you know, I think the part of this was sort of an attempt to create some leverage on Levy on Bell's camp's part in that, like, this could force. an answer out of the Steelers. In essence, he's saying, I'm going to show up during the buy week. I'm going to take a paycheck that week for not playing in a game. I'm going to save my body. I'm going to come back and I'm going to play nine games for you. And in the process, I can make it really awkward. You know, your team's teetering right now and we'll see where the locker room is. But I'm going to show up and you know what? Things might be a little awkward. And that's not of my concern because I'm going to be gone three months after that. You know, and so I think in a certain

way. If the Steelers do intend to move Levion Bell, Bell in this case is trying to get them to accelerate the process a little bit so he can get a little bit more of his money. We'll see whether or not that works. I personally think that they're equipped to deal with this sort of thing. I think we talked about this last week or two weeks ago, Colin, that that program's always been equipped to deal with big personalities, to bring in guys who've got checker pass, to meld all those things together. But I think this is an attempt right now. On Bell's part, maybe he's getting a little lancy to try to create some urgency on the Steelers side. So they've got to make a decision on what they're going to do going for.

You know, it's interesting. I was just thinking about this Albert Breer joining us, Monday morning quarterback, that Mahomes, Goff, even Baker Mayfield, these young guys, Blake Bortles is doing well, Andy Dalton, that clearly the rules are making it easier for quarterbacks Mitch Trubisky to come in this league in Excel. And while this is happening, Dak Prescott is eroding in front of our eyes. And I think Dallas, I said this before you came on, I don't remember a time in my life where every team either believes they have their guy or they're telling you we've got our guy. Now, I think the Giants, if they go to six and ten, are going to have to make a tough decision.

They're going to have to go after a quarterback. And there's that kid at Oregon, Justin Herbert, who looks incredibly special. And again, it used to be, Albert, about 50% of first round quarterbacks flopped. That is not the case right now. most of them are working. I mean, Josh Allen even has his moments. I think, you know, Jerry Jones said this morning on his radio show, oh, he is so special. I don't know, Albert, six and ten, you can't win Super Bowls led by a running back.

Do you believe the Cowboys are totally in on back, Prescott? Well, I'm going to give you an interesting statistic here when it comes to quarterback investment, okay? every team in the NFL either has a quarterback that they spend a first round pick on or they're spending more than $16 million per year on except one. You know who the one is? The one's the Dallas Cowboys who have a fourth round pick, a former fourth round pick starting a quarterback. Look, I've talked to people in that building.

They do believe that Dak Prescott can bounce back off this. I think what's hard about it right now is that he's being held back in certain ways. A, the identity of that team has always run through that offensive line. Last week they were pretty good. They hadn't been good the three weeks before that. The tight end and receiver situation, and it is what it is. They've got some scheme issues, I think. They're not as innovative as some other teams have been on the offensive side of the ball.

And so I think in certain ways, it's hard to get a full read on who Dak Prescott is right now just because of the environment around him. And that puts the Cowboys in a very difficult position because 2019 is a contract year for Jack Prescott. You like to take care of him after this year if you can or at least make a decision on him. after this year if you can. And I'm not positive. They're going to be able to get a clear enough read on where they are with Dak Prescott by the end of this year to make a decision on whether or not they want to invest $30 million per year in the guy.

Well said. Monday morning quarterback lead content guy. Albert Breer, our friend. Great stuff, Albert. Thank you. All right. Thanks, Colin. Yeah.

It's really interesting. And I'll talk about this later. But usually in the NFL, there's like four teams. We all know we're going to draft. quarterbacks. Well, the teams that are going to end up in the top 10, they've all got their quarterbacks. So it's going to be Dallas and New York, one of these teams, Giants' defense is still playing well, and, you know, the Cowboys are two and two. But those two teams tell you they love Eli and Dak. There's no way Justin Herbert is not going number one. Because just look at the numbers,

folks. What's happening in the NFL is very clear. It used to be not long ago. That first round quarterbacks were a 50-50 proposition. Half made it half or busts. That's not happening anymore with these rules. John Watson can play. Patrick Mahomes can play. Baker can play. Donald Rosen last week made, he had some drops. He can play. Josh Allen looks good enough to play. You don't have the bust rate. Lamar Jackson looked comfortable this past week. So you move these quarterbacks out of college into the pros in the first round. The bust rate has plummeted with these new rules. That Justin Herbert's going to walk in this leak and eat it up. He's going to have success. You can't pass on him. Giants and Cowboys

telling you they love their guy. When Oregon goes, you know, nine and two and he throws for 3,000 yards, we'll see. Joy Taylor with the news. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. Well, a team that definitely has their guy is the Chiefs. Yes. Tom Holmes is talk of the world right now. The 4-0 Chiefs off to a hot start. And Travis Kelsey He says that's because of a change in the team mentality from last season to this season. I think the biggest difference is the mentality. Coach B. Enemy brings a fierce, aggressive mentality to the offense, kind of a gritty,

punch-in-the-mouth type of mindset. And I think that has rubbed off on everybody from Pat throwing the ball aggressively downfield. The play calling is a little bit more aggressive. And sure enough, everybody getting the ball has been a kind of a north runner. There's not too much running sideways. It's everybody's getting downhill trying to finish the play in the end zone. There's that word you keep saying, aggressive. You know what I think about aggressive.

Got to ask the pretty girl out. Aggressive wins in politics. It wins in sports. Their defense could use a little more. Yeah, their defense is. I just don't think they have good players on defense. But there's another little difference, too, that may match the aggression from last year to this year. Yeah.

That's Patrick Mahomes. Yes. He's more aggressive. I mean, that's, like, the biggest knock on Alex Smith. We can try to overthink it, or we can just go, Patrick Mahomes is the difference. This is pretty good. By the way, they were good last year. He's throwing left-hand passes.

They were four-and-old in September last year. And by the way, Alex Smith last year was getting MVP talk, but you can watch it. It's a different skill set. The only thing that worries me about the Chiefs is their defense. Yeah, it should. It's not very good. They just let up these huge plays. So you have to be able to outscore them. So if they come up against a team that can score as much as they can,

then they're in trouble. You can see them playing New England and New England having 36 minutes time of possession and Brady just picking that secondary apart. You can absolutely see that happening. And Kansas City's offense is sitting on the bench and they just get cold and they come on. I mean, that's really the only way to beat them because they're going to score so many points. Case Keenham had a, you know, he made plays last night. Yeah, until that last drive there.

So Fitzpatrick is no more. Dirk Cutter announced the Fitzmagic, I'm sorry, is no more. Dirk Cutter announced the return of James Winston to the starting lineup, which also means that Ryan Fitzpatrick is returning to his backup role. Here is Cutter and Fitzpatrick on the decision. Fitz's combination of experience, talent, and leadership is valued at a very high level here. But at the same time, you know, James, Amos Winston is the guy that's going to be here way longer than I am.

So, you know, he needs to be out there playing, and he will be, unless he gets hurt at Atlanta. That's the right call. He's your franchise quarterback. Who says unless he gets hurt? Isn't that like the unspoken rule? You never talk about that? Yeah. I'm going to be here for a long time unless I get laryngitis.

Then you're going to get laryngitis. Don't say that. Look, we knew this was coming. Yes, yes. The only way that this wasn't coming was if Fitzpatrick kept playing at the level he was the first. two weeks, which we knew wasn't going to happen. Because this is what he does. He has these bursts, and then he turns out to be a backup quarterback again. But that's why the backup quarterback is the best position to be.

Because everybody wants to see you. And when you come out and play great, you're the absolute hero. And then when you do bad, it's kind of like, well, he's the backup. So what do you expect? I don't know what's going to happen with James, though. I have my... He needs to grow up. I have my reservations about how that's going to work out long term. Finally, LeBron continues to make his presence felt in the entertainment capital of the world. and his new project, Student Athlete, airs tonight on HBO, 10 p.m. And it examines college sports

and the NCAA system. Now, if you remember, in February, LeBron referred to the NCAA as corrupt. I'm so over everybody beating up on the NCAA. You know how many free scholarships they give to these kids? Oh, let's watch the podcast. Yeah.

And I've always heard the narrative, like, they get a free education. But you guys are not bringing me on campus to get education. You guys are bringing me on it to, help you get to a final four to a national championship. You know, so,

you know, it's just, it's just, it's a weird thing. I'm not a fan of the NCAA. I love watching March and Mariner, so I think that's, that's incredible. I'm not a fan how they, how the kids don't, no benefit from none of this. NCA is, is, it's cool.

By the way, here's the other thing. And, and I know Maverick and I don't know LeBron, but I, you know, here's the thing. Yes, if LeBron went and played college basketball or Kobe, Brian, or Kevin Narnett, they're getting jobbed. But Kansas sells out regardless of the players, and so does Michigan State, and so does Yukon, and so does Villanova. The idea, do you know how many women's tennis players there are, baseball players, hockey

players? We look at college basketball and go, those seven guys are getting jobs. Yes, if you're as good as LeBron, college basketball stinks for you. But 99% of the kids that go there have zero chance to play in the NBA. and they come out with a college degree, they meet a zillion people. They're not going to play pro. I mean, they get an education,

this idea that it's corrupt. Yes, if you are great and you go to Kentucky, Anthony Davis, the system's not really for you. But you only have to wait nine months until you're drafted and have $60 million in your pocket. I could also injure yourself and end your career. Yeah, but in basketball, that doesn't happen much. My thing with the NCAA is,

while you make a point about all the other sports and as a broad institution, you know, providing student athletes with the exchange of free education. Right, right, right. In theory is a nice thing. Unfortunately, you know, there's that billion-dollar side of the business

that is separated from the students. So I don't, life isn't fair, right? Like, stuff's not fair sometimes. However, I do think that when there's a bill, there's billions of dollars involved, there's some sort of responsibility to share in the profits of what those student athletes are

ringing in. You know, I mean, there's college football is a billion dollar business. I agree. But if a player

gets arrested or if a player doesn't live up to the hype, then does he write the school a check? Because they have to pay for his food, his clothing, his health, his... Well, no,

they can cut the scholarship anytime they want to. Scholarships aren't guaranteed. They get renewed every year. They're not, but you don't... If you get a reputation in the community where you just let go of players, That is so, that's so, like, rare.

There's like the tiniest percentage of the situation. Everybody's complaining about the NCAA. Here's the takeaway. All this money and we don't get in the. As David Shaw says, nobody goes to college to make money. You go to college to learn how to make money. Uh, yes, if you're a student. But I do think of that overall, the money that's coming in from the NCAA on the sports side is overwhelmingly mismanaged when you talk about what the student athletes are bringing in.

So it'll be interesting to see what this project LeBron has gone. If LeBron went to college basketball, the system would stink for LeBron for eight months until he got rich. But let me just tell you something. There's six great college basketball programs and 340 that have no talent. And for those guys, I don't think the system is robbing them. I think it does rob some kids at Duke. You know, for a year, they get jobbed. They got to go to college instead of getting paid a lot of dough.

They have to wait a year. I just think I'm so. Yeah, by the way, I just think what we say about the NCAA, and we don't contextualize it, it's not the mafia. It's not whacking guys and throwing them into the Hudson River here. Let's settle down a little bit. It's not like guys, dead bodies floating down a river in the, you know, Piscataway. No, but I mean, like, we can, there's a gray area, too.

Like, we don't have to be on either extreme of it. I just think that the money can be managed in a more appropriate way, considering that there are kids bringing in billions of dollars. with their bodies. Joy Taylor with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lye News.

All sorts of stuff today. You know, I'm Trent Dilfer's around the corner, so I'm going to break now. I've got some thoughts on what makes it's fascinating. By the way, Patrick Mahomes, you do realize at one point, there were four quarterbacks in the NFL from North Carolina State and none from Alabama. You would think great high school quarterbacks go to the traditional powers, USC, Alabama, LSU, Florida, Texas, Miami, and then they go to the NFL. It doesn't work that way.

Look at the four young quarterbacks in the NFL that were all kind of going, wow. Jared Goff, Cal, Carson Wentz, North Dakota State, Patrick Holmes, Texas Tech, and Jimmy Garoppolo before he got hurt Eastern Illinois. And that's the way it's been forever. Breeze went to Purdue, Aaron Rogers, Cal, Philip Rivers, Russell Wilson, NC State, Derek Carr, Fresno State, Joe Flacco, Delaware, Matt Ryan, Boston College. Do you know there's not a single NFL starting quarterback from LSU, Alabama, Notre Dame, Ohio State, Texas, Florida, or the Miami Hurricanes?

Why is that? Because when you go to these second-tier programs, A, you have to carry the program, you get the you-know-what beat out of you. You don't play with NFL players and have to carry your program, and you get tough. And second thing, you have a chip on your shoulder because the big school didn't give you a scholarship. Instead, you had to go to Eastern Illinois. Eastern Illinois, Tony Romo, Jimmy Garoppolo, USC before Sam Darnold, nobody in the league. What Mahomes is doing, this is what happens in the NFL. The NFL is riddled the last 25 years with guys that were overlooked

that went to second-tier colleges and had to carry non-NFL guys. So Mahomes fits that bill. Trent Dilfer, coming up next to heard. Oh, it's one of my favorite 10 minutes of the week. Trent Dilfer, I'm not going to waste any time. Played a decade and a half. Super Bowl champ, Pro Bowl, or drafted by the buck, six overall. Trent Dillford, via the Coward Global Satellite Network.

Okay, the offenses, Lord, Mitch Trubisky, six touchdown passes. They're exploding. Give me the big picture why they're exploding. All right. So I think you've got to go back, let's use an arbitrary number of, say, 10 years. Before 10 years ago, the NFL offensively was a league of can't.

What do I mean by that? Well, you couldn't throw the ball more than you run it. you couldn't displace your tight end. You couldn't take running backs and line off outside receivers. You couldn't weigh at a high tempo because you'd be exposed in your defense. You couldn't run your quarterback. You definitely couldn't run the zone read. You couldn't have RPO's.

People didn't know, they didn't know what to call them at that time, run-pass options. And the last 10 years or so, it's really become a league of can. Now we can do anything. So you have to ask yourself why, after years and years of years, and the NFL is saying we can't do this. Why are they saying they can now? And it's very simple. Forever team innovation worked its way down from the NFL to college to high school.

Well, about 10 years ago, maybe even longer, it started working its way up. And I said this about seven, eight years ago on ESPN. I said, watch out. In the next 10 years, you might not recognize the NFL game. Because what I knew was going on were college coaches were going to high school, programs and going, whoa, we're going to recruit a kid, but we love what you're doing offensively. Why don't you come to our school and teach us this? And the colleges start doing it. And everybody loves how explosive college football is. But the NFL said, no,

no, we can't do that. That could never work in the NFL. Well, then all of a sudden, NFL programs start bringing college coaches in saying, how do you guys do that? Teach us how to do that. And it became a league of can. I think that's a huge reason why you're seeing the scheme changes. Number two, this is the first generation of quarterback that is growing up with all access to all the quarterback information and reps you could ever want. Never before have you go to Amazon and see how Tom Brady trains or go to whatever and see Jared Gop in the Rams or go pull up everything elite 11 training or go watch Quincy Avery in Atlanta train to Sean Watson along with 10 other high school and college kids or Jordan Palmer in California, you have camps where

NFL players come in, high school, college players are there as well. Think about the seven on seven. Think about the tens of thousands of more reps that let's say Jared Gough has in his bank than a quarterback that was drafted in the 1990s, early 2000, who never had seven on seven, who didn't get to read defenses, who didn't understand the difference between a short side, throwing a boundary throw, who didn't have to idea Mike linebacker, see secondary rotation, yada, yada, yada, basically be a quarterback. So these quarterback, these offenses have expanded rapidly. Then I do think the rules play a big part of it. I think video games play a big part of it. I was a coach's son. I knew as much football as any college quarterback when I went to

college. And I'll tell you right now, every kid I talked to in high school knows more football than I knew at that time because of video games and exposure. So it's just the perfect storm. By the way, people comparing Brett Farv and Patrick Mahomes. You know both. Take me back to Farv's rookie year. Second year. Did he look like this?

Well, I got my brains being in by him for six straight years. I think I was Owen Penn against him in Lambo. I watched him win those three MVP's. To me, he's the greatest talent and playmaker that ever played quarterback. And I watch this Patrick Mahomes get. And I think he's better than Brett was at this stage. And I bet you if you got Brett on an interview, he would say the same thing. Brett had the huge arm like Mahomes.

Brett was fiercely competitive. Brett could turn nothing into something. But this kid plays with rhythm and timing, discipline with his eyes. When he does do his athletic stuff, is playing beyond the exosos. He's not careless with the ball. Yeah. If you notice these plays where he's running around and you're showing him right now and creating the location of the ball is safe.

It's accurate and safe. He doesn't come close to fumbling in the pocket. He has incredible instinct. I think he's a generational talent and a kid that's going to be as good as we've ever seen. I don't want to put you on the spot, but everybody in the NFL either says they've got their quarterback and they believe it. And then I think there's about five teams that say it publicly. There's a kid at Oregon, Justin Herbert, who's a potentially very special kid.

and there's a couple of teams out there. Listen, if you're Eli Manning and you're the Giant and you finish six and ten and I got some pieces around, I got Odell, I got Sequin Barclay, you know, a lot of the bad teams, Trent, are going to have top ten picks and they don't need a quarterback. The Jets don't need one. The Bills don't need one. Cleveland doesn't need one.

What team in the NFL, Giants, Dallas, Jags, Miami, do you think is saying they love their guy, but if they had a chance to get the kid from a war, Oregon, they would. Well, I'll even talk to a bigger scope. I think we've all dated somebody before we found our bride that we dated for a while. We didn't want to be alone, so we didn't. But we knew we weren't really going to marry.

And I think that's going on in five or six places in NFL, that they are in a dating relationship with their quarterback. And it's a good dating relationship. They've met each other's parents. They're talking about moving in. Like, they're close. You would almost call to marriage. but they're still dating.

And I think that organization's saying is, I got to hold on to this until I find the one I want to marry. And I think most of them want to marry the kid out of Oregon, Justin Herbert, or Drew Locke out of Missouri, or Wade on Dwayne Haskins, Ohio State, or two at Alabama, or Will Greer at West Virginia. They have their eyes on those players say, man, I really want to marry that type of talent,

but I may not ever get to meet him slash her. So I got to hold on the one I have and make the most, of this relationship why I can because I'm not sure if I'm going to be introduced to my future bride down the road. Does that make sense? I think that's going on in five or six places. Yeah, and I do think it's a Miami

and a Jacksonville. Finally, three minutes left. Dallas says, Zeke's our guy. We're led by Zeke. And I say to myself, you're not getting to Super Bowls led by running games. I don't buy that you can do. And I like running backs. But Goff has to be good for Gurley to explode.

What do you make a Dallas saying, Zeeks leading our franchise? I think he's leading them this year. They have to find an alpha perimeter player. They have to find a big-time playmaker, a guy that you lean on and all those, you know, every TV analyst will show you all 22. Here's a one-on-one on third and seven.

And Julio Jones and A.J. Green and, you know, Antonio Brown, they make the play. The Cowboys have a lot of those looks, too, and they're not able to get that alpha person open and making plays, explosive plays. I think they're one piece away, as I've said before, before we can truly judge DAC and this offense's ability to go the distance.

Now, I think there's another element we touched on earlier. I do think that Scott Linehan, who have a lot of respect for, he's been a great coordinator in this league for a long time, but I do think he needs to continue to grow and innovate and add more Saturday concept to this offense while they're looking for that alpha perimeter player.

I'm with you. I don't think it could be a Zeke Elliott-centric offense and get you to the Super Bowl. I think if it's Zeke Elliott and they find another alpha, a big-time playmaker, whether that's in free agency or in the draft, then that can be good enough to take them the distance. All right. We've got to run Trent Delfrey. You got anything on YouTube I should look at anything you're doing right now, business-wise, here quick?

I'm boring as heck. Just check out Solon Science on NFL Network's pregame show on Thursdays. John Braconside doing our thing there. Soul and Science, Trent Dill, for good talking to you, bud. Thanks, buddy. Always fun. That's a cool trophy room right there. That's the best trophy room our show has.

Goulet, what's your trophy room look like? Got a surfing award. It doesn't have a Super Bowl trophy in it, I don't think. I had a feeling it didn't. Yeah, I mean, if you look at the running backs and the NFL, like Dallas keeps saying we can do it with running back, it's not hard to figure out. The last team to get to the Super Bowl led by a running back truly was Sean Alexander

and the Seahawks and they lost. Well, Adrian Peterson never won a playoff game until Brett Farve arrived. And Adrian Peterson was the best running back for about a seven-year period. Many of the great running backs of all time, Walter Payton, Barry Sanders, Ladanian Tomlinson. Forget Super Bowls, O.J. Simpson. You can't find playoff wins. I mean, Adrian Peterson, three times lost in the wild card before he got Brett Farf. And that's Adrian Peterson in his prime.

As good as Todd Gurley is, goffs eater throwing three touchdown. downs, are they're not advancing? Hour three, Mark Schlerath, coming up. Our number three live in Los Angeles. This is The Herd, wherever you may be, and however you may be listening. IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and FS1. Joy Taylor is joining me. Lakers opened their home season that's preseason and nobody cares and LeBron won't play much, but I thought I'd just throw that out there.

I won't watch. I don't care. I don't watch the NBA until about November. everybody's freaking out. LeBron's going to open up with the Lakers, and it won't matter at all. Teams in the NBA don't even get their defensive rotations down until about January. A lot of experimenting. Teams aren't in great shape until like December. No, but it feels like the NBA is brewing, though. Well, I think LeBron and the Lakers.

At least here in L.A. for sure. It's obviously very big. Mark Schlereth, my buddy, is going to be shown up in 15 minutes. He lives in Denver. He's got strong thoughts on Patrick Mahomes and what he saw last night. and later and best for last, I've bashed a certain quarterback for years. I'm about to take back what I said. But first, we all watched that puppy last night.

Patrick Mahomes had an unbelievable comeback on Monday Night Football, so let me just get to it. He's the talk of the day, so I was sitting watching him last night, and he's pretty amazing. He is a jump off the television screen talent. And as much as I like all the other young quarterbacks in the league, Sam Darnold, you know, You know, I like him.

They don't have his arm talent. He's the most talented young quarterback last two years to come in this league. Last three years, you'd include Jared Goff. Jared Goff is not as talented. Does not have the arm of Patrick Mahomes. I'm showing our FS1 audience. That's an absolutely ridiculous throw. Might as well just have fun and show you the left-hander he made as Vaughn Miller was chasing him around the field.

Let's turn the sound up to one of the plays of the year in the NFL. Third and five. Kelsey's a man on the drag. Here comes Von Mill. Got it to Hill and they've got a first down. Joe, are you kidding me? Wow. This guy is incredible.

You know, there's many years ago they talked about Montana Magic in Kansas City. Look at this guy. Von Miller on his heels. He throws it left handed. He puts it in his left hand and shot puts it to Tyreek Hill for a third down conversion. Yeah. If you had a television quarterback rate, he's number one right now, and I'm not even sure, frankly, it's not even close.

Here's the thing. He's really talented. Brady's got rings, but we don't worship Brady. We think of him as kind of a grinder, a workaholic, really responsible and coachable. There is a downside. There is a burden to great wealth and great talent. It is not a coincidence that Whitney Houston's great voice and Mike Tyson's great power and Tiger Woods' great talent all came crashing down. Because the burden when you're as talented as Patrick Mahomes, it leads you to dark places. You don't have to work as hard.

Nobody will ever call you a system quarterback. They'll worship you. You'll make throws you shouldn't make. people compare him to Brett Fav. I find him intellectually more sponge-like, more coachable, little less ego. I like Patrick Mahomes going forward over Brett Farr. Although he's clearly at this point, not Brett Farr.

But what's interesting about the NFL, when you look at the all-time interception leaders, you would think the guys that throw a lot of interceptions, you know, they couldn't get the ball there, the ball dies, a defense. defensive back comes over. No, it's the guys with the strongest arms. It's Joe Namath and Brett Favre and John Elway and Big Ben and Dan Marino. And it's the guys Vinnie Testaverdi that could throw a strawberry through a battleship. It's guys that threw heaters. Because when you have the ability

to throw the ball anywhere, you'll want to throw the ball anywhere. The best thing Mahomes has going for him is he got to sit for a year. He's got great weapons and a remarkably innovative head coach. Darnold walked into the league, very few weapons and a defensive coach. Baker walks into the league, the pressure of being a number one pick, injected quickly into playing, and a completely dysfunctional organization topped down. Mahomes, with all his gifts, got the perfect coach, got to sit for a year behind a smart veteran and, oh, yeah, Travis Kelsey, Sammy Watkins, Kareem Hunt, Tyreek Hill. It is the perfect quarterback storm. And the downside of that is he's never going to have a bad year. And you think that's all good.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no. That comes with its own set of pressure. Patrick Mahomes has never had a bad game, never got humiliated, never got shut out, never got mocked and ridiculed. You look around this league, most of the guys who are superstars in the NFL at quarterback were overlooked, buried, crushed, humiliated. And it builds that thing on your shoulder, called a chip. I think Patrick Mahomes is amazing, but don't think it'll be all easy.

Because he is, right now, in America, the most fascinating football player to watch. And he's still a kid. Can't wait to watch it unfold. Let me shift to this. NFL ratings, CBS up, Fox up, Thursday night football, up. I don't know the number last night, but I would imagine it's up. In fact, 9.1 last night up.

In fact, also important 13% growth among people making over 150. 50,000, big income advertisers like that. Why would this be? Offense, offense, offense. The NFL does not need to accommodate Clay Matthews. Clay Matthews and pass rushers need to change. I am so over hearing everybody whine about these poor defensive players who can't get a break from officials. I want to show you two pieces of video. Twitter, the angry bird, was outraged when Baker Mayfield flag was hit by a raider. Barely hit, you can barely notice it. How in the world is that a flag? The Raider defensive player led with the crown of his helmet. If the crown of his helmet is three to four inches higher, guess who's starting next week for Cleveland?

Taylor. They're back to being uninteresting. That's a flag. Don't lead with the crown of your helmet. By the way, Khalil Max figured it out. Von Miller has figured it out. Clay Matthews is still complaining. Here's some audio from last night, the best pass rusher in the league or second Von Miller. Roll the tape. There's been a lot of conversation about roughing the pass in the National Football League. But just watch Von Miller. He's got an opportunity to hit my home. and then land on him, he says, you know what? I'm not going to get a penalty here. And just full speed, just driving him into the ground,

but he decides, you know what, I can't do that because that's a point of emphasis, and I don't want to get flag and hurt my team. Nice move there by Von Miller. Appreciate it, bro. Thank you, Patrick Mahomes. By the way, do you know the backup for the Kansas City Chiefs? I had to look it up.

It's Chad Henney. If Vaughn Miller puts his weight on Patrick Mahomes and Patrick Mahomes leaves the game, and they put in Chad Henney for the rest of the year. When Chief's games are on on Sunday, instead I'll go to Jiffy Loob and watch them work on other people's cars. That'll be more entertaining.

I'm over having everybody whine about the hits. In every walk of life, academics, landscapers, pilots, me. We all have to evolve. information. Let's change it. I'm over it. Belly aching. Ratings up everywhere. There's a reason. It's not the tackling thing. It's the quarterback thing. Mark Schlereth around the corner. Best for last 40 minutes a show left. The MLB postseason is here. So forget the stats, the streaks, all stars, and RBIs because the

only thing that matters is October. The NLDS begins Thursday only on FS1. It's good for network if the Cubs and the Dodgers make it, so I'm not going to lie for you. I'm rooting nothing against the Brewers, but I want the Cubs and the Dodgers to win. I watched the Dodgers yesterday. Baseball's amazing. Max Muncie was on the couch like a year ago. He got released by the A's. He just hit his 35th homer. Baseball's crazy. Half the NFL is undrafted free agents. There's talent out there. And apparently scouts still miss on guys, but he's been this bizarre like nobody that's walked in. Jacks out 35 home runs. Let's bring in Mark Schlaher.

Three Super Bowl rings. 16 to 26 knee surgeries. By the way, you did the Arizona-Seattle game last week. I watched a lot of that. You got Josh Rosen, the rookie. By the way, because everybody's talking about Baker. And there's Lamar and Darnold. Nobody's talking about Josh Rosen.

And the Arizona Cardinal games don't get, like, national TV exposure. They don't, yeah. Yeah, they get me. So, yeah. Hi, Joy, by the way. How are you? I was thinking. So he looked pretty good.

He was actually very good. Get beyond the stats. You got to get beyond the stats, Colin. He had at least four or five balls dropped in that game. He had two deep shots, one by Christian Kirk, one by J.J. Nelson. The J.J. Nelson won should have been a touchdown or would have been a touchdown had he just caught it. I saw that. Kirk might have been, but it was still a deep shot that he dropped.

Perfectly placed footballs. You know, it's so interesting because you get this narrative of, a guy, right? His coach calls, oh, he's a millennial. He's always asking why. I'd be like, yeah, that's probably a pretty good question to ask why. Like, I'd like to know, I'd like to know the offense, the totality of the offense, what we're trying to accomplish, why we're doing it against the defense? Why does this, you know, why should this work? Like, those are good things to ask. Those are great questions to ask. How was he when you did your pregame interview? Because you guys get in like Friday or Saturday and you sit down in the interview, was he arrogant?

Was he? It was completely engaging. One of the funnest interviews I had. He was sharp. He was funny. He was self-deprecating. I thought it was fascinating about his background in tennis and about being, you know, just being a competitor and learning how to manipulate and navigate an individual sport.

Here's one of, he was the top rated tennis player in California at 12. Yeah. And, you know, he was making a decision. Do I, do I continue on with this? or do I, you know, go back to my love of football and the game that I really want to play. But I thought it was really, I thought just very intellectually stimulating to listen to him talk about the effect that playing an individual sport had on him. Like your ability, like a point in tennis is a point. Like it can be the most epic point in the world.

It's a point. You can, you know, throw one into the net. It's a point. so your ability to not dwell on the good things and to let go of the bad things, right? It's key. It's key. The other thing is you spend a lot of time talking to yourself. So you develop an inter-dialogue.

And he says, like, I've got the wristband with the plays on it. I always write a note to myself like, hey, don't screw up, moron, you know, or whatever it is, right? I mean, he was just engaged. He was fun. Like, everything that I heard about him coming out in the draft, having not met him, completely false. Like I was like, I could play for this guy. Yeah. I could play in front of that guy.

I thought he looked really good. I think I'll say this again. In terms of just ball out of hand down the field, it is a beautiful thing. He throws art. He throws paintings. They are beautiful. And let me tell you this. Ain't afraid to cut it loose.

And there's going to be times when he's just like, hey, I know the play calls for me to go over here. Nah, I'm going to throw it right there. Yeah. And he made a couple of those throws that were beautiful. Just absolutely stunning. Yeah. So you're 100% right. I mean, I really liked his demeanor.

I liked the way he attacks the game. Mark Schleroth joining us. I didn't want to cheat you at any knee surgeries. You had 26? I had 29 total surgeries, 20 knee surgeries. Oh, my God. Did they hurt? I've never had one.

What? Like when you're first of all, they knock you out, right? You're out. Right, yeah, yeah. Then you wake up. And are you in pain? You're writhing in pain? Or they give you, like, volume, and you're good.

No, I mean, you know, it's all relative. You know, the one that hurt the worst. and I had one, I herniated two discs in my back, and so I had a back surgery. It was about a four-hour back surgery, and they hang you upside down. They put you on a table that has a hole in it. They hang you upside down.

So you're hanging there with these straps, right, for four hours. So I wake up, now that one was miserable. I'd have another 20 knee surgeries to give the one back surgery back. So I'm hanging upside down. So the doctor comes in. I'm in recovery, right, and my hands have completely gone numb. Like, I cannot feel my left hand at all or my right hand, but my left was really bad.

So I'm like, hey, Doc, you know, what's going on with the hand? Oh, we hang you upside down. Those straps get in your armpits, you know, and they pinch the nerve in there. Yeah, yeah, it causes your hands to go numb. And so this is like eight hours, ten hours after I'm awake, right? I'm completely numb. And I'm like, well, when does that come back? Because sometimes it never does.

I'm like, nobody told me this. Like, how am I going to play without any feeling in my hands? How is that the response? Isn't that incredible? How is that the response? I feel like you cover that pre-op. Apparently not. By the way, you may not be able to fill your hands ever again.

Yeah, your hands. Why do they have to hang you upside down? Because it opens up the spine so they can work on your spine. Well, doesn't all the blood like rush your head? Yeah, that's the point. That's why your hands don't work for. My head was ginormous. It looked like this red button right here.

Really? Yeah, no. Hey, so you know, you would think you would love a tough running game. But here's my knock on being led by a running back. I mean, Adrian Peterson didn't win a playoff game until Brett Farve arrived. Because most NFL games, when you get to the playoffs, it's good teams. They're close. And if I trail by a touchdown and there's 2.15 left and I've got a time out running back.

And I trail running backs are useless. I don't even want them on the field. I want another slot receiver. So when everybody tells me Dallas, they're led by Zeke, I'm like, well, that's great. But the last running back led team to get to a Super Bowl was Sean Alexander. By the way, Hasselbeck was pretty good. People will say Terrell Davis, but John Elway was pretty good. People do say that one of your Super Bowl teams was one of the last, the running back led them.

So I want truth. Did Terrell Davis lead you? Oh, yeah. Was our offense? Yeah. It wasn't Elway. No, it was our offense. Well, I mean, Elway, here's the deal.

Elway walks in the huddle, regardless of the situation, you can be down by 14. The Duke walks in the huddle, and you're just like, we've got to remember. right where we want them. I mean, there's, so from that standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, that way, that quality, that believability, you got to have a guy, you know, you got to have a dude, you got to have a quarterback, right? You've got to. That team was a run first-based team. That Super Bowl that you're talking about, Terrell Davis was the MVP and missed a quarter with a migraine. If you look at Elway stats, his stats in that game were terrible. I mean, it was the worst, he was the worst rated quarterback to ever win a Super Bowl at that time.

now it's been usurped, I think, Big Ben did it, and a couple other guys have done it. But, yeah, that team was led by the running back. But you're right in this. I still think that it's valuable running back. I mean, you can't tell me that Todd Gurley doesn't have great value in Los Angeles. He does have great value. So there is that part. As far as Zika's concerned, Zika is great.

Their issue lies more in the destruction of that offensive line, because that's how they were built. Smith at the left tackle position has chronic back issues. Travis Faradick is out sick, you know, with the Guillaume Barre syndrome. Zach Martin had the knee issue in the preseason. Collins at the right tackles more of a guard. The kid they have playing, you know, playing left guard. Connor Williams is a rookie who's struggling. So that team was really built on that.

They don't have that anymore. They're not dominant up front anymore. They're probably not a top five group. anymore. Wow. So I think that's more of an issue for them right now because that's the way they were built and they don't have that right now. You know, it's, what did Jamaica, Earl Thomas flipping the bird to Seattle? It's weird to me because he made $55 million. Washington has no state tax. He was lucky enough to play for a great defensive coach who understood his talent. He had a bunch of good players in front of him. I look at $55 million for nine years and I'm like,

dude, safeties are being marginalized. They're not that, they're not, they're not a is valuable anymore. I don't know. I don't feel like he got, like there are players that I understand. They're angry. I don't get his anger. Yeah.

See, I would argue this. I think they're more valuable now than they've ever been. Safeties? Yeah. And safeties that can transition both. As a guy, you've got to be able to, ideally, you've got to be able to cover guys. You've got to be able to cover slot guys.

You've got to be able to rotate down in the run game. You know, most everybody plays a version of a single high safety. So you're in the man-free or you're in three. It's the two coverages. that most everybody plays until you get in the red zone. You're not afraid of getting beat over the top. So you've got to be able to do two different things. But in regards to him, I understand the anger.

I understand you're 29. You're the best safety in your game. You want to be the best ever. You want to get a long-term deal. You want to feel that commitment. And I understand the frustration, the anger over the business aspect of it. So I get his anger.

I'm not mad at him at all. I think he's accomplished what he needed to accomplish. Well, he came back and played as well. He was the best safety in the game for four weeks. That's what he was. He broke his leg. It's not like he tore his ACL or a Patel attendant. No, he'll play again.

So he'll play again. He'll get the big contract. Were you ever mad, really furious at a team? Were you ever treated a certain way? And you were on several teams? Sure. Absolutely. Who were you mad at?

Well, I still am mad of the Redskins. Why? I told me I couldn't play anymore. They didn't want me. I went back and, you know, went back and played six more years, went to a Pro Bowl and won two Super Bowl. So, you know, up yours, Pounce Ann. I mean, that's how I look at it.

They told you that you couldn't play. Told me I couldn't play anymore. Who told you that? Norff Turner. Can't play anymore. We're done with you. And that's fine. Here's the other thing that bothers me about those situations is, and, you know, this has happened,

this happens to all of us as players. And you hold the grudge, and it's part of what makes you, the competitive nature, part of what makes you go. So, you know, you're told, hey, you're a warrior, you're great, you do this. I mean, you're the way. you battle for us. It's awesome. I was told that. I was told that for an entire year. I was always playing with a knee that needed to be operated on, an elbow that need be operated on. And then I got called up the very

next season, week one on a Friday by the skins, and they told me, hey, you're going to take this pay cut. And if you don't, we're going to cut you after the game that you're going to start on Sunday. I don't like that. Happens all the time. Happens to every one of us. Yeah, you didn't play as well last year. Hey, really? No. You kidding me? Right? I didn't play.

Yeah, because I couldn't walk Monday through Saturday. You remember that when I couldn't walk? I never practiced. If you would have done it again, so if you were to play with your knowledge of how the system works, because players I do think and have an understanding now, they're less naive. The love of the game is important, but I think there's more transparency for all players. Players have more of a voice. And, you know, just what the Internet and social media has done, players are more empowered.

Everything you know, if you were to play again today, would you be a different guy? A little more chip. I didn't play for the organization. I played for the guys beside me. I played for the guys in the equipment room. I played for the guys on that football team and on that roster. You never played for the owner. For the business part of it, I didn't care.

You know, and I tell guys, I give guys advice all the time. I counsel guys all the time about to do what's best for your career long term. but I always preface it with, but understand, I'm a hypocrite because I never would have done it, and I wouldn't do it today. I mean, you know, I always look from a leadership standpoint, Colin, great leaders care more about the people they lead than they care about themselves. You want to win championships? You got to be willing to lay that on the line like that. That's the person that you have to be. And there's very few guys that win championships because very few guys are willing to lead like that.

I was one of those guys that believed in that. I believe that every guy within that organization is more important than me, and I'm going to do whatever it takes, and I don't care if I have to have... I had surgery on a Sunday night and played that Monday night, 24, less than 24 hours later. I wouldn't recommend that. It's probably not a good idea.

But that's who I am. Finally, it is who you are. What are you make of that Patrick Mahomes guy? Oh, my gosh. Oh, Lordy. I, you know, I'm going to have to kill a crow. Can you kill crows? Is that legal?

Yeah. Can you do that? Nobody likes a crow. Is there a crow hunting season? Well, nobody likes crows. Right. People like dolphins. I don't think that crows are endangered.

No. So I'm going to have to kill one and then I'm going to have to slather it in my green chili and eat that damn thing because I was like, come on. I mean, I know all the hype and I know all the excitement. And come on. There's going to be a struggle, right? He is as advertised what he did last. night was phenomenal outside the pocket never I mean always looking to push the ball

down the field he was he was nothing short of amazing against my team too he makes he makes throws that coaches tell you you know how like Steph Curry makes shot yeah and you're like whoa I wouldn't shoot oh nice shot yeah he'll he made a couple across his body throws and you're like that's not advised oh that was beautiful dude I'm watch I'm seriously I watched that game and there's a couple times as a Bronco I watched that game that I'm actually cheering like, oh my God, that was great. And then I realized, oh, wait, that's the guy that plays for Kansas. Like, I had to take a shower after the game. Soap up, lather down. Yeah. Like, because I felt guilty about being enamored. Because you're, you do Denver radio in the

mornings. Yeah. You can't be rooting for the other guys. Absolutely not. But he, he was pretty amazing. And he's been amazing all, you know, I've gone back and watched each of his games. And, and he has been nothing short of, you know, what's crazy is patience. Because none of us have it, right? Everybody drafts a quarterback and go, hey, we're going to groom the kid, right? And at week three, he's in. Like, all right, let's go. Hellbent for election.

And here you had a kid that came into a system that had been established for four or five years, right? Had the tutelage of Alex Smith. And Alex, by all accounts, was absolutely amazing with him, even knowing that he would usurp Alex eventually, right? And I always felt like that was my responsibility. And I think when you have confidence in what you do, like, I'm going to give you everything I know. I'm going to help you become the best player you're going to be because, I know ultimately you're not better than me and you'll never be tougher than me

and you'll never out-prepared me. So I'll give you everything you need to know. But you're not going to take my job. So Alex giving him that background and helping him along and the Can't See Chiefs and Andy Reed seeing that and then having the patience to wait and to let him absorb it all

and have that offense being there for four or five years with all the other 10 players knowing it. I mean, you talk about perfectly done, two-shaded. to the chiefs. It's like eating a turd sandwich saying that. Well, you like barbecue, right? You have your own sauce and stuff.

Yeah. Well, maybe Gates barbecue and Kansas City can slather up one of those crows for you. People in Denver. I'm sure they would love to have you in Kansas City. That division's got intense rivalries. Like, it's Kansas City, Oakland. Can you even go to Kansas City? Can I?

Oh, they love me in Kansas City. I'm sure. Why wouldn't they? Joy Taylor with the news. No. No. Turn on the news. This is the Her.

Line news. So, Marshawn Lynch accounted for 157 yards in the Raiders win over the Browns. He's still got a lot left. You know what? Between him and Doug Martin in there, and you got Jared Cook and you got Jordy Nelson, and you got Amari Cooper, and you got Derek Carr. I'm watching the Raiders this weekend. I'm like, I like their backs.

I like their tight-in. I like their receivers. I like them. It was probably a time when they were telling Marshawn Lynch he was done, too, just like they told Stink. He can play. And he still got it. Yep.

So after helping him, after helping him, who's first win in a decade, John Gruden being him. now says Lynch deserves a place in Canton. If that's not a Hall of Fame back, I don't know what it is. Honestly, I mean, what he did yesterday, what he's done since he's been here is incredible. You know, he wants to ball more and more and more. We got a good back over there, Doug Martin,

was ready to roll. And Doug can't get on the field. This guy does not want to come off the field. He picked up six or seven blitzes yesterday, too, that no one's talking about. But some of the runs. good night. He really is.

I mean, I'm going to tell you. Okay, Goulet, if I said best running back tannums, Atlanta and New Orleans have great running back tannums. The Raiders have the most underrated running back tandem in the league. Marshawn Lynch is still running people over. Doug Martin is really a little small, but he's super hard to bring down. He's incredibly clever.

I'm telling you, if you just line up everybody, quarterback, left tackle, running back, tight end receivers. Martavis Brian had a nice weekend. Raiders have a lot of talent. Now, it's almost all on one side of the ball like Kansas City. But man, do they got some offensive firepower? You think he's a Hall of Fame level? Marshawn, I think he, yeah, I kind of think he's a Hall of Famer.

I do think he's a Hall of Famer. He's 28th on the all-time rushing list. How far is he? He'll probably finish top 25. He can get to the top 20 this year. When I watched him this weekend, I'm like, oh, God, he's got the rest of this. He's got a Super Bowl. Yeah, he's got another.

He's got this year left and another year left. Say it again, John? He only wants to play in Oakland. Oh, I wouldn't give him up. No, what I'm saying is if they start playing in Vegas, he doesn't want to go with them. He just wanted to play for his hometown team. He can play. That dude can play.

And Cleveland's defense is good. He ran over people. He's still got it. So Doug Marome was accused of poor sportsmanship for going for two to take a 31 to 12 lead over the Jets with 25 seconds. in Sunday's game. Yeah. And some speculated that he is still salty over not getting the Jets' head coaching job in 2015.

Now Morone says he was simply relying on a chart and wishes someone had told him to just kick the extra points. You know, if I had to do it all over and I knew this was going to happen, yeah, I wish someone would have said something. Because the one thing I don't want to do is get my, you know, my character attacked, which happens in the past and it happens again. People that do know me know how much I respect the game and I have a ton of respect for Coach Bowles and Mike McAaghan is one of my good friends and whatever happened in the past is the past it had nothing to do with the people or the game itself that's on the field so for me

that's exactly what happened right wrong or different and I would never do anything you know what saying like that I just wouldn't because I respect the game too much it had nothing to do with you know any other crap I nothing worse than people who get boat raced and whine about how they lost You lost. The Jets played terrible football. This is terrible to me. This is professional football. There's no running up the score. And the Jets were terrible defensively.

What are you talking about good sportsmanship? Give me a break. This isn't peewee football. You're not like teaching them ethics and how the right way to play the game. Let me tell you something. I like Todd Bowles. That was a disaster. How many?

Leonard Fernette didn't play. They don't have Marquise Lee. They traded away Alan Hearns. They lost another. There is every... Mercedes-Lewis is no longer there. There's every reason for Blake Bortles to be terrible. I think they had like 400 yards offense.

Jets were terrible. I mean, who is complaining about that? It's professional football. Isn't it better? Isn't kicking the free point? That runs up the score. At least you can stop someone going for two. People have been missing a lot of extra point kicks too.

No kidding. But you're right, though. Like that... Statistical. there's a better chance you get a point than two. It's just stupid. Like I hate this idea that they're running up the score. Stop them then.

Stop them. Anyway, finally, Tom Brady got his buddy back on Monday. Julian Edelman has returned from his four-game suspension. And he is going to debut on Thursday night and the Patriots host the Colts, which you're very excited about. It's a great game. And according to Tom Brady, they are not going to get a lesser version of Edelman. You know, he unchanged a bit.

four weeks off he looks good i think everyone's excited to have him back and anytime you had great players it's going to help what we're doing and uh you know we all welcome him back and he's excited ready to go and hopefully he can go out and play great hopefully we can all go play great he gets open so quick i think about julian his explosiveness in the routes in and out of breaks um it's very comforting for a quarterback to see guy get open really early in a route played so much football together you know i really have no doubt what he's you know where he's going to be at what he's capable of. He's just,

he's been a great player for our team. I wish I could grow a beard like that. I can't grow a beard. What, if you grow, if you grow your facial hair out, is it patchy? Or just only grows like a goat?

It's just, it's invisible. I just can't, I mean, I can't, it just looks gross. It's gray. I look like,

I mean, I would assume it's gray, but what, like, is there no pattern to it? It just doesn't just go down. It just doesn't, I just didn't get facial hair.

Now, now, there's a lot of gifts I was given, but that wasn't one of them. With facial hair? I would love. You really want a beard? Yeah, that's a lot of maintaining. You got to groom it, you know, there's like bearded oils. I don't want to look like David Letterman, but it would be nice just to give up. Because I'm married now, so there's no reason to work at stuff.

It would be nice just to give up and just go to work and just not have to shave and stuff. I mean, would she appreciate a beard? Yeah, it doesn't matter. We're married. She's stuck with me. I don't know. I think she should probably put her foot down. Anyway, Edelman's back.

Joy Taylor with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lye News. Coming up next, I've bashed this quarterback for years. I'm about to take back what I said. It is best for last. That's coming up next.

Pros in the nose. Start with Lowe's. Save 5% on eligible purchases every day. With Lowe's business credit account C Store for details. U.S. only Lowe's where pros go. It rhymes. and I didn't even mean to. Best for last next.

Want more herd? The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart Radio app. Search herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. Good to have you back. Had Albert Breer on earlier, we were talking about all these quarterbacks. Trent Dilfer and Albert Breer kind of touched on the same thing

as you look at all these offenses and they're exploding. And as Albert Breer said, and Dilfer said essentially echoed the same. same thing. The NFL, old guys, the coaches now, a lot of them are getting replaced by young guys, and even some of the older guys, are much more willing to watch Saturday football and use some of their stuff. Albert, for one of the rare times in his life, was speechless. But Dilford and Albert said essentially the same thing, is that, you know, Saturday football, it used to be that the NFL dictated terms on football, but now Saturdays are dictating Sunday. And if you watch

the Chicago Bears, that's... is a lot of college stuff. It's fantastic. The Rams are using a lot of college stuff. Tennessee is using a lot of college stuff. And it's working. I mean, the college, you know, it's just more open and it's very quarterback friendly. You can use Cam Newton's gifts.

But, you know, I just think it's more fun to watch. All right, here we go. Best for Last. After almost three hours, Colin apparently hasn't gotten to the point yet. Quit holding out on us, Cowherd. It's the best for last. So we're doing our quarterly NFL awards. We're having awards today. These are our quarterly NFL awards.

And Joy Taylor is going to offer up some nominees. Let's go. All right. The first award in the herd NFL quarterly awards, the best team with a losing record. And the nominees are the one, two, and one Pittsburgh Steelers, the one and three Atlanta Falcons, or the one, two, and one, Minnesota Vikings. Well, the Steelers defense, I don't think is that fixable. Atlanta's got too many injuries that they can't overcome. I would say the Minnesota Vikings are the best team of the losing record.

By the way, they beat the Rams last year. They matched up with the Rams very well on Thursday night. Minnesota's a real football team. Upset alert. They go to Philadelphia with extra days to prepare. And Kirk Cousins, they may not run the football. They're still passing it well. Minnesota is the best team right now with a losing record.

Okay. The next category is worst team with a winning record. The nominees are the 3-1 Chicago Bears, the 3-1 Miami Dolphins, or the 3-1 Tennessee Titans. I believe in the Chicago Bears. I love their coach Matt Nagy and defensively up front. It's nothing but dudes. And the Tennessee Titans are limited, but I think they've got a certain culture I believe in. The Miami Dolphins are the worst team of the winning record.

And I think that New England game, there are losses, and then there are. losses. And that was embarrassing. You could have gone three and a half up on New England, and to not even compete was so Miami Dolphins. That's the worst team in the league with the winning record. Tried to tell you. All right. Next, we have frequent Colin Coward targets who has impressed you the most. The nominees are Baker Mayfield, Cam Newton, Joe Flacco, or John Gruden. This is tough because Cam has become a precision thrower. Baker is about what I thought he would be. John Gris. this past week I finally bought him.

But my winner is Joe Flacco, drafted two rookie tight ends, three new wide receivers, and I got to be honest with you. I think they're the first, second or third best team in the league. Flacco, I thought, on the road, they played some tough teams.

Flacco's kind of blown me away. All right. The best player without a supporting cast, the nominees are Andrew Luck, Russell Wilson, or Aaron Rogers. Okay. Andrew Luck, has no running game.

They don't even try to run the football. What did he have? 62 attempts this year? I think they rushed the ball 17 times. Three of them were Andrew Luck. Andrew Luck is working not a limited running game. They have no running game and don't even try to hide it. And they still only have one weapon on the perimeter.

He's the best player without a sporting cast. Could be a destination for Levion Bell. All right. The next category, a storyline you are most tired of. The nominees are the Brady-Belichick feud, the Levy on Bell holdout, or the controversy over the roughing the passer rules. So, Brady and Belichick was the first drama in years, so I was kind of fascinated by it. Levy and Bell does wear me out, but I think he would make the Jets and the Colts really interesting. So I think the idea of where he would land is kind of fascinating.

I'm over-roughing the passer. Vaughn Miller last night, Khalil Mack the weeks before, have figured it out. go for the ball or grab the player and set him down. Clay Matthews. Von Miller's figured it out. Kaleel Max figured it out. By the way, 31 and 32 NFL teams have their starting quarterback. The ratings are up.

The one that doesn't, San Francisco, I'm not going to watch the rest of the year. I mean, I'm certainly not going to go seek them out. I may watch them because they're on. The league's doing this because they want healthy quarterbacks. It's smart. All right. And finally, in the HARD NFL Quarterly Awards, the worst decision category. By the way, John, where's this music from?

It sounds very... It's like canned award show music. It's very awardy. Well, that's kind of the idea. These are awards. Okay. So the nominees are for Worst Decision Category. The Raiders trading away Khalil Mack.

The bill's starting Nathan Peterman Week 1 or Jimmy Garapolo dating an adult film star. Well, dating an adult film star is a brief lapse in judgment and starting Nathan Peterman was a longer but mostly brief error in judgment.

Khalil Mack, you're going to pay a price for that for the next several years. John Gruden was quoted saying this week, he had another strip fumble sack? He was quoted in saying that to Mike Silver. I think for a lot of reasons, I got to tell you, too, my biggest knock on the Raiders right now is it on the pass rush. And they had it and they let it go. You know, it's weird. I almost wonder, Gruden has been so big. busy building up this offense.

You know, he went and got, you know, Jordy Nelson, and, you know, he went and got Matavius Bryant, and he's trying to get his offensive system in. You almost wonder, did Gruden watch a ton of Kaleel Mack? Because, again, it's not like the Raiders were on Monday Night Football when Gruden was doing it. Yeah, but it's not like Khalil Mack is, like, sneaky good. It's like an under-the-rader player. It's pretty well-known.

Calail Mac is a big deal. So if you didn't have been to watch tape, I'm pretty sure they have like a little highlight reel. Do you know how good you have to be? Do you know how good you have to be to be a defensive player and make me want to turn your game on? I mean, honestly,

JJ Watt had a little bit of that. Dion Sanders had that. But in my life, it had been about three guys that I'm like, oh, I'm going to watch that defensive player. Ray Lewis had a little bit of that. And I, I mean, Khalil Mack gets me to a television set.

That he is absolutely incredible. Those have been our heard quarterly awards. That music, I thought, was very fitting, very dramatic. It was very regal. I mean, these are prestigious awards. These are prestigious awards. These are very prestigious. Is that the wrap-it-up music?

Is that what's happening now? I have to cut my speech short, get off-the-stage music. I feel like people just ignore that music now. Well, I think people ignore the Oscars now. Nobody's watching them. It's very political. You know, Doug Gottlieb, Trent Dillfer, Mark Schlerer today. Tomorrow, Philip Rivers, quarterback for the L.A. Chargers, stops by our show.

Joel Clatt. Chris Haynes, now at Yahoo. Philip Rivers will be on the show. That'll be great. They have a weird situation. Every game's kind of a road game. This week, the Chargers host their Raiders. It's going to be a road.

game because Los Angeles, it's not a Rams town. It was forever a Raiders town first. Rams were in Orange County where if you don't live in Los Angeles, that's down by the Angels. That's South. That's a different county. So that place is going to be all Raider fans. That'll be about 13, 14 Charger fans. The crowd will be so, they'll never be a home game that looks like what this game will look like. So Philip Rehers will be joining us tomorrow on the show. Radio side. We're gone until tomorrow. Speak for yourself around the corner. It's the hurt. Last night, a blown call changed a game. This morning, the internet lost its mind. And nobody's telling you exactly what happened. That's where Sports Slice comes in. I'm Timbo. In every episode, we're cutting through the noise, breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the headline.

And we're going straight to the source, the athletes themselves. Their locker room stories, their reactions in the moment, and the stuff nobody gets to hear. Listen to Sports Slice on the Iheart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. And for more, follow Timbo Sliced Life 12 in the TikTok podcast network on TikTok. Another podcast from some SNL late-night comedy guy, not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guest, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter.

Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and Friends on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. What's up, guys? This is Clivert Taylor the Fourth. And on my podcast, The Cliverts Show, I'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff. Like being an internet famous referee.

We're in the middle of a game. This linebacker walks up to me. He goes, hey, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Wreck, my mama want you to weigh better.

What? Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clifford show on the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. What's up, fam? It's Isaiah Thomas. And I'm C.J. Toledano. It's our favorite time of the year on our podcast point game, the playoffs.

We're digging into the biggest surprises of the season. And I'm looking back on some of my greatest playoff moments. If we didn't talk ever again, I was part of it. you just understood. That's how personal it got. Wow. Then after that game seven, Marquis coming to you,

he's like, you know I love you, dog. You know, it's all love. This was just playoffs. This was just basketball. So listen to Point Game on the IHeart Radio app,

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