The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Wentz Is Better than Dak, Darnold Is Better than Baker, and the Cowboys Are Soft

Episode Date: December 23, 2019

Colin thinks Dak Prescott has much more to work with than Carson Wentz, Browns fans would rather have Sam Darnold than Baker Mayfield and calls the Cowboys soft. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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

breaking down the biggest moments in sports and giving you the real story behind the 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 a cappella 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. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host Kear Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played. with and just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to listen to learn

the hard way on the iha radio app apple podcast or wherever you get your podcast what's up guys this is clivert taylor the fourth and on my podcast the clivert show i'm bringing you conversations about all kinds of stuff like being an internet famous referee we're in the middle of a game this linebacker this linebacker walks up to me he goes a ref my mom wants you to wave at her what Time out. Quarterback on office blue with 42. Hey, Rhett, my mama want you to weigh better. What?

Hey, Miss Parker. Listen to the Clippers show on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for listening to The Heard podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday from 12 to 3 Eastern, 9 to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS1. Find your local station for the herd at Fox SportsRadio.com or stream us live every day on the iHeart Radio app by searching Herd. Fox Sports Radio. We go on a holiday, Monday, no days off.

Live in L.A., this is the herd. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, we're on IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and FS1, one hour from now, where Colin was right, where Colin was wrong, plenty of both. It is great to have you in on a full Saturday and a full Saturday, Sunday of NFL football Packers Vikings tonight. Joy Taylor is joining me.

Wow, wow, wow. It was quite a weekend. We had a big Christmas Saturday party at the Herd Burger. It was good, good tip off for the Sunday of action we watched. Yes, and I have to give a shout to my nephews and my brother, Isaiah and Mason and Jason. They won the national championship game for St. Thomas Aquinas and Isaiah had an interception. So it a big weekend. Big weekend for everybody.

Let's start with the obvious game, Dallas and Philadelphia. So I'm watching that game. And afterwards, the big talk is, I can't believe Amari Cooper wasn't on the field for that big down for the cowboys. And I'm like, that's your complaint? I tell my kids all the time, not interested in the problem. Find me a solution. Carson Wentz hasn't had his best receivers or running backs for a month.

And you're whining about Dak not having Amari Cooper for a play? Carson Wentz has made three heroes, three weeks in a row. Boston Scott against the Giants. Greg Ward against Washington. And Dallas Goddard against Dallas. Every week he has to make a new hero. And Dak didn't have Amari Cooper for one big play. Carson Wentz, first drive of the game, his best player, Zach Ertz, literally get split in half.

They put ace bandages on him just to keep him together, I think. So from that play on, he didn't have his top receivers, his top backs, he had backups to backups, and didn't have a top tight end healthy. And yet, he wins a game. So his best target gets hurt. Forget the cluster injuries all year. Offensive line. Wide receiver, running back.

His best tight end gets hurt in the first drive. Carson Wentz, in the last four games, has 1,200 yards, nine touchdowns, and the only picks on a Hail Mary. He is taking a rickety, broken down stage coach across the Sahara Desert, and he's pulling it by himself. And you're telling me, didn't have Amari Cooper for a play. That's like Dak complaining that he couldn't find a changing station for his Tesla app,

and the whole road trip is canceled. Give me a break. This is what franchise quarterbacks are. And you don't want it to be this. I've said this. A franchise quarterback, you can't ask him 16 weeks to carry the team. That's not fair. But you can ask a franchise quarterback if you're paying him $35 million.

Listen, we've had a multitude of injuries. We got backups to backups. Could you carry us for like a month? That's reasonable. And that's what you need. You can't tell me that DAC didn't have Zeke on a huge carry. Or gosh, Randall Cobb wasn't on the field. Who gives a rip?

Michael Gallup was there. The best offensive line in football was there. Zeke was there for almost every big play. And what about the previous four hours? You had so many breaks in this game, Dallas. The weather was perfect. I mean, the weather was perfect. You were incredibly healthy.

You had the Eagles team falling apart. I don't care about your problems. Give me solutions. I mean, today, all you Philly fans kept saying, this is the biggest game for Carson Wentz ever. No, it wasn't. He was an MVP and got your home field advantage the year you won the Super Bowl.

But I'll tell you what, I didn't buy into it. But since you said it was, it is, and start building a statue. Right next to Nick Foles. get it done in the next year or two. Just build it right next to it. Because they're not building one for Foles in Jacksonville, I can tell you that. And you've been lecturing me for two years that Foles is the future. And I laughed at you and I mocked you.

And finally, in the biggest crisis with the least help, Carson Wentz did exactly what Howie Roseman, the GM, knew he would do. That we can lean on him if things go poorly. And for Philadelphia, they mostly won't because they have a good owner and a great coach and a great GM. they mostly will never have to ask Carson Wentz to do this again. But it's nice to know that if they do, he can take the stage coach and put it through the desert on his back and carry him. I mean, complaining that Dak didn't have Amari Cooper is like complaining your private jet showed up nine minutes late. Okay, Carson Wentz didn't have a private jet.

He flew coach back of the plane. And at 33,000 feet, the emergency door opened up. He had to hold it closed, serve drinks, and land the plane. And he did. And Philadelphia is not going to win the Super Bowl. They can't. They can't. But he got him across the desert.

He got him across the regular season finish line with one more Sunday, went over the Giants. They win the division. And they're not a great team. They're just physically not. Teams like this don't win the Super Bowl. Teams like Baltimore win it, San Francisco, Kansas City. Those are the kind of team, the Saints that win it.

A lot of dynamic players. most of them healthy. You can kind of sense it early November. That looks like a Super Bowl team. Philadelphia, those kind of teams don't win the Super Bowl. But you've got to put it in perspective. The Super Bowl, though it's the goal, once you had major cluster injuries in hugely important positions,

secondary, O-line, running back, receiver, cross off the Super Bowl. There are other wins in football. And the win is today, when you've got nothing to work with, Carson Wentz is worth every penny. and can carry you. And that's all you want from franchise quarterbacks. And it's amazing to me because we make excuses for everybody.

Good God. Aaron Rogers and Cam Newton are 1 and 1A. We make excuses. Baker Mayfield falls into that until yesterday. But what Wents did over the last month is remarkable. Nothing went right for this team. And he made it right for four straight weeks. Here's Carson Wenz.

Carson, you said to me, Yeah, biggest game of my career. Now tell me how it feels to win that game. It's a huge one for us. It was a huge one. Yeah! Guys made plays. Resilient team.

Resilient bunch. Guys just, hey, man down, next man up. And we've had that mindset and guys just keep believing. Keep fighting. Keep believing. You've seen it the last couple weeks. You saw it today. Guys never looked down and just kept going.

And it was fun out there tonight. Good for him. Let me shift gears to a guy I just mentioned Baker Mayfield. Isn't it funny sometimes? how things can look so differently when they're mostly the same. So Baker Mayfield's record right now as a professional football quarterback is 12 and 16, and the knock on him, he throws too many picks. Sam Darnold's record is 10 and 15.

The knock on him is he throws too many picks. Both today are six and nine. By the way, they both just got crushed by the Ravens in the last two weeks, and their numbers were nearly identical. Baker, when he got crushed, had an 84 quarterback rating, 61% completion to 192 yards. Sam Darnold's quarterback rating was mid-80s, little over 200 yards, 56% completion. Both are dealing with coaching instability this year and dysfunctional franchises. So much is the same.

Yet Sam Darnold is loved and cherished and thought of highly by the Jets faith. and Baker Mayfield was booed yesterday and flipped off by fans. Here's a listen. The Brown's in danger of giving the ball right back to the Ravens. Ball batted in the air and knocked down by Mayfield. Three incompletions and out. Fans were looking for a first down. Same basic records at starters, same basic flaw.

We question both of their coaches. they're both dysfunctional organizations. They both lost to the Ravens in the last couple of weeks, and their numbers were virtually identical. But when Donald lost to the Ravens, it was, you know, I saw things I liked, because he's easy to root for. Humble people are like that. And when Baker lost to the Ravens,

he is flipped off by fans and they boo him. Cocky, snarky, too many commercials in love with himself. This is why I said from day one, I'm not handing my franchise valued probably over $5 billion to Baker Mayfield and that personality. And I would hand my franchise, though deeply flawed mechanically, to Sam Darnold as a franchise quarterback. Darnold doesn't have Mahomes or Wents his talent. He's not as athletically gifted as Deshaun or Patrick Mahomes or Russell Wilson. But I said, I draft Darnold because I think, A,

he's more talented than Baker and B, he's a lot more mature than Baker. They've had the same career, the same dysfunction, the same coaching issues, the same turmoil at coach, the same interceptions, the same record,

losing to often the same teams. In fact, Baker's Browns are 2-0 against Darnold Jets. But who does the fan base respect? Who do they like? Which quarterback do they find optimism and ugly losses to Baltimore? Which quarterback's not being flipped off?

This is exactly why I said, Baker to me as a franchise quarterback is undraftable. His personality is not built to overcome the chaos Cleveland will force him to deal with. And Darnold's personality is the kind I would build around with a franchise similarly in cold weather that is due to give Donald a lot of instability coaching chaos and dysfunction for 10 years. I know Colin Wright, Colin wrongs 50 minutes away, but yesterday was a great example of why I called one guy undraftable and why I would have loved

to have draft the other. Coming up next, more on the Cowboys Philadelphia. Big picture, how do you solved Dallas. How did Dallas get here? We'll talk about that coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHeart Radio app. 40 minutes from now, Colin Wright, Colin wrong, Joy Taylor in a couple of minutes, heard line news. The two times Dallas, let's be honest, Jerry Jones bought this organization in 1989. And there's two times with two legendary coaches, Jimmy Johnson and Bill Parcells. When they took crap and made it work.

Jimmy took over a horrible franchise. Landry's teams at the end weren't very good. Jimmy comes in and builds a dynasty. And then Barry Switzer, nothing against him but sort of gravy trained Jimmy Johnson's momentum. And then it was Bill Parcells took over for a 5-11, 5-11, 5-11 Cowboy team. Parcells comes in and makes them very good loaded physically. And then, you know, Wade Phillips sort of gravy trains. I don't like Wade, but he kind of gravy trains.

and the momentum of Bill Parcells. So Jimmy and Bill also had something in common besides being great coaches. They both made Jerry Jones uncomfortable because they pushed back on Jerry and didn't let Jerry have the control he wanted and didn't let Jerry take all the credit he wanted. And Jerry doesn't like that. Jerry wants to be comfortable. He wants to call the shots. He wants to have his kids around.

He wants to have friends of the Cowboys. It's a small kind of family business. despite being the biggest brand in the NFL. But comfortable in the NFL, and you saw it yesterday, comfortable is soft. Yesterday, Philadelphia didn't just win. They punched Dallas in the neck organizationally. Bill Belchick fights this constantly, even with Tom Brady. Constantly making Brady uncomfortable.

Remember, he gave him the game ball and Tom was uncomfortable getting the game ball. Tom's uncomfortable getting praise from Bill because he never gets it. It's a constant battle for alpha males making seven, eight figures a year to make. make them uncomfortable because football is uncomfortable and practice is hard and games are hard. And it's intense. And yesterday was a chance to be tough and hardened and Dallas isn't. They're mentally soft. They're physically soft.

It's amazing. No team in the NFL is built to run the football more than Dallas. The best offensive line in the NFL easily and the best running back. But good Lord, the second they get a little pushback on the running game. Kellan Moore bails on it. Let's go back to being cute and clever. You look at that box score yesterday. It just has soft all over it.

Lousy on third down. Only 16 first downs. Possession, 23 minutes. Three yards a rush. With the best offensive line, they don't want to be in the cage. You ever watch those UFC fights? And you can tell certain guys don't want to be in the cage and certain guys do.

Like Nate Diaz will be in any cage, any time, anywhere, any weight class. loves to be in the cage. A lot of guys that fight him don't. Dallas is a soft team. And yesterday needed a hardened football operation. And that's what Philadelphia is. Now Dallas has a great stadium and a great art collection and the best facilities. And they're all sorts of pretty.

Philadelphia is not. Even when they won the Super Bowl. They're tough. And they're hard. And yesterday in the Northeast in December next to Christmas, you were looking for hard. and Philadelphia was built for this, and Dallas isn't built for this. You can't blame the kids when the parents made them trust fund babies. You can't just blame the kids.

They're not built for this. Philadelphia is built for this. Doug Peterson, the coach afterwards, nailed it. This team right here, I told you before the game, when we stood in this locker room, you were built for this. Yes, sir. Okay? You're made for this right now.

This time of the year, where we are, the team, Okay, nobody, and I don't really give a shit. Nobody on the outside gives us a chance. But you guys in this room believe, you won this game during the week, okay? During the week, that's what it takes, man. And we're figuring that out. Philadelphia under Peterson is built to be uncomfortable. Jerry has built the Cowboys to avoid discomfort.

You can blame the players, seven drop passes. They're not built for this. They got a cool art collection. Best uniforms, big ratings. They're not built for this. They're built to be comfortable. And yesterday was all about uncomfortable. Go look around at the NFL right now.

Look at the coaches that are at the top of the game. Is Kyle Shanahan ever smile? Sean McDermott and Bill O'Brien are the grumpy emoji. Belichick. I mean, it's just intent. John Harbaugh. And he's put his arms around Lamar Jackson, but Harbaugh, Zimmer, Belichick, Kyle Shanahan, McDermott, Bill O'Brien.

It's tough, hardened, putting pressure on their teams all year. And players, frankly, appreciate it. They like it. Players like to be pushed. But when you're not pushed, you know, you're not in other locker rooms. You don't know if everybody operates this way. And Dallas is young and comfortable and talented and finesse and has a cool art collection. but they just weren't built for yesterday. I mean, you could tell five minutes in the game.

Philadelphia's got backups that are backups to backups. It's like, all right, it's what we do. We practice outside sometimes. It's cold. It's Philadelphia. We don't get foie gras. We get cheese steaks. Loved every second of it.

By the way, the only nice guy left, like the classic nice guy is Andy Reid, and I love Andy. But the knock on Andy has been. His teams are better than in September than they are in the cold, although this one may be different. And Andy's nice and he's fun, but the knock has been, his teams kind of lack pound. They lack tough, they laugh rugged, they lack. I thought yesterday wasn't just about football teams.

It was about football operations. One was built for it, one wasn't. Joy with the news. No, no, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. So Des Bryant had an all-pro career in Dallas and set the franchise record for receiving touchdowns,

but he clearly thinks he, his career would have been better if he had a different coach. Des saw a tweet from C.J. Vogel that read Jerry Jones really allowed Jason Garrett to waste the primes of and then listed 12 of the top Cowboys players under Garrett, including Des. Tony Romo's on there. Sean Lee, obviously lots of great players. And he responded to it by saying, Dez responded by saying, I knew this very early in my career. I'm keeping it 100,000 right now. You knew this very early in my career. I'm sorry, I'm just stating facts. I know exactly what football is. and I know how it's supposed to be played.

CJ, you kind of crushed me with this one because you spoke a fact. Well, it's not like Des had a terrible career. Des had a good career, didn't he? Didn't he have a pro-bo career? He had a great career. He had a great career in Dallas. As I said, he set the franchise record

for receiving touchdowns. But Des' career kind of trailed off a little bit at the end, somewhat due to injury, obviously. Yeah. But I think the bigger picture point, it's not that Des didn't have a great career with the Cowboys. He did, yeah.

But they didn't achieve what's, they needed to achieve, which was a Super Bowl, and it's kind of lending to what's happening right now. It's a little bit why I kind of look at the time with Ben Rathesberger, Antonio Brown, and Levi-on-Bell as a huge disappointment for the Steelers. And a bit of a mark on Tomlin's career, as much as I respect Tomlin, they should have won a Super Bowl with those players. The amount of talent that you have on your team, if you don't win a Super Bowl, it does matter. And I think that's more to what Des is talking about. I told you all week, I felt like this game was one of those games. all the signs are pointing to

this is just going to be a disaster. Like I had the feeling. You and everybody in Vegas. By the way, Joy and all the Vegas wise guys love Philadelphia. I could not get my brain wrapped around this. How's Philadelphia going to score? It was all backups.

And Zach hurts. The whole franchise is backups right now. I don't know. It's just maybe it's just in my bones. I think I'm wearing actually Eagles colors today. That wasn't intentional. It was for Christmas. So am I, actually.

I think it was more. everyone was saying it was impossible. And even though the Eagles obviously were devastated by injury and all signs points of the Cowboys should and must win this game, teams like that just don't give up that easily. And it just felt like a trap game to me. You know what's funny about it? Like even though it wasn't, I mean Dallas must have dropped seven passes,

it wasn't the most artistic game. It was such a classic football game. It was just the whole game was drama. You were just like, the game had everything I wanted except a bunch of points. And I sat there and I thought, this is going to get a massive rating. It was a classic football game where the team that had a better week of practice and wanted it a little more. Like I felt it was not drop passes both sides, players hurt. I'm watching that game and I'm like, this is why the NFL is so popular.

One team has all the talent. One team has all the heart. and I think the heart team's going to win. And in the NBA, it's hard to do that. It's hard to overcome a dynasty in Golden State or the Miami Heedles. Philadelphia shouldn't have won. They're an underdog at home, and they did. And I think that is a lot of what we love about football.

It's week to week. You just don't know. There was so much mattered in this game, too, leading up to it. So the Seahawks took some big hits in 2713 loss of the Cardinals yesterday. Chris Carson suffered a hip injury, and C.J. ProSise broke his arm. which knocks both running backs out for the season. And it's now being reported that former Seahawk Marshawn Lynch is traveling to Seattle today to meet with the team and discuss a potential return.

He's well rested. Yeah, he hasn't played since October 14th of 2018. But Marchand is just one of those guys. It really doesn't matter. So all top three running backs are out for the season. Mishat Penny is also out with a torn ACL. And their left tackle, by the way. I think is Dwayne Brown out for that?

I think he's... Okay, two or three weeks. So you cross your fingers. Well, I mean, that's the season, basically. Like, I mean, you need them for, what, five more weeks? Oh, my Lord. Seahs also lost control of their path to a buy in the NFC. If they win the division, they can only get as high as number three without any help.

By the way, if Philadelphia wins this division and Seattle had to go to Philadelphia, I think Seattle gets, in a weird way, Seattle gets a little bit of a break is that I, coin flip. Like Seattle is now off the Super Bowl. I think I'd like Seattle on that spot. That's what I'm saying is that Seattle may be because of this out of the, put them in the Super Bowl. Seattle, I wouldn't want to face Seattle with Russell Wilson, Pete Carroll. It devastates them for the ring.

But it doesn't devastate them for a playoff win. I wouldn't want to face Russell Wilson on the road. Look, with this many injuries at that position, it's going to be difficult to make a deep playoff run. But I don't want to face them. in the first round. By the way, and I say on the road, Russell Wilson is 17 and 4, I believe, in Eastern Time Zone games. He's the best quarterback in the NFL on the road in the eastern time zone by far Russell Wilson.

So when I said on the road, Russell goes to Philly, it doesn't change anything for him as a quarterback. No. So the Patriots trailed the bill 17 to 13 in the fourth quarter Saturday, but Tom Brady and the offense came to life on their final two drives. The England scored 11 unanswered points to win 2417 and clinched the AFC. East. This is the 11th straight division title for the Patriots. I don't get too crazy about the division title. It's the AFC East. But they have 11 straight. They are now the number two seat in the AFC. They'll have a first round by if they

win over the Dolphins on Sunday. Running game looked pretty tasty. What do you know? Something else had a crazy feeling about. The Patriots aren't really done. This is what I've been saying all year. I don't care how they play during the regular season. I don't care. I don't care. I've seen this movie 20,000 times. I've seen it for 20 straight years. It's the craziest thing. I don't win the Super Bowl every single year. Didn't that feel like a playoff game? It felt

like a classic New England playoff game. You're like, oh, they controlled the clock. They moved the ball against a really great defense that nobody can run on and Rex Burk had his game in the year. You're like, yeah, that's weird. That's strange. It's not strange. You do this all the time. You should be happy. The dolphins won. I am happy. And your cousins won.

My nephews, yes. and my brother. And look, I'm pleased that the Dolphins want, even though we're slipping further and further in the draft, but it's fine. Joe Burrow's out of reach anyway, so it doesn't really matter at this point. Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by.

The Hurd-Ly News. All right, let's bring him in 30 minutes from now. Colin Wright, Colin Wrong, my friend, Michael Vic, four-time pro bowler. So I was, it's funny because I was saying that if you look at football right now, I don't think Dallas was built to win that game yesterday. I think Philadelphia is. I think

Philadelphia is hard, they're tough, they're intense. And if you look around the NFL, Sean McDermott doesn't smile, Belichick, Kyle Shanahan. And I said, my knock on Andy, he's too nice. And Mike's like, timeout, time out, time out. You played for Andy. Was he too nice? No, Andy wasn't, not with me. You know, I think with DeShan and, you know, maybe Lishon and some of those guys, he was

a little more lean. He still stayed on top of everybody, but I wouldn't, I still would say it was things that we did that we didn't want to get back to coach for sure. Okay. So he's not too nice. So let's go to, you know, it's funny about this. You know, Doug Peterson said, we won this game during the week. Yeah. We won it during the week.

I like Carson Wentz. If I recall, you loved Carson Wentz early. And yesterday, the last month, you don't want to ask your franchise quarterback to carry the team all year. Right. But there are moments that you're like, the next three weeks, bro, you got to carry us. So why did you initially like Wentz and what did you see yesterday? Well, I always thought he had a tremendous upside, you know, from the things he did, you know, in the past three seasons, you know, the potential was there. And he always showed, you know, a glimpse of greatness.

But to see the last three or four weeks and then put it all together, whether it was coaching and costing and causing, making sure that this offense ran smoothly and didn't ask him to do too much, he just did his job. And the guys around him with backups, guys. who probably didn't have any snaps with the first team and all of preseason, all the offseason. And for them to be able to find a way to win games, I think it's a big part of Carson Wentz, but I think it's more so the fact that Doug Peterson understands what he has in Carson, Winston what Carson can do and taking full advantage of his talents and what he brings to the table.

Let's be fair about this. It's not easy. So Carson Wentz is the franchise, gets hurt, and then Foles wins the Super Bowl, and they build a statue. So every day Carson Wentz goes to the facility, he sees the... The only thing I hate about the situation. I was going to say, you've been in this situation before. Yeah, I've been in the same situation with Nick Foes, ironically, you know,

where, you know, I got hurt. Nick stepped in, took him to the playoffs. And then, you know, it's almost as if you, you know, you root for the guy, you root for the person that you, you know, battle with each and every day. And you want nothing but the best. but it's also a feeling of, you know, how to this happen to me. You know, you want to be that guy at all times.

And any competitor, any quarterback, you want to be the guy behind the center. You want to win the games. And this is what they brought you in for. And then you get hurt, the guy behind you wins. And by the way, you guys hear the media. Right. You hear the critics. You see the statue.

Yeah, you see everything. And, you know, it's not going away. So the only way for you to make it go away is win. It's win games. So, you know, that was frustration for me. early in the year and now I see the task on the turning that's why I talked about it yesterday there's been a legacy game for Carson

maybe you can start moving towards erasing some of those memories that a lot of the fans may have and look this is Carson wins football team I think he earned that right over the last three weeks to say that and you know if they win and beat New York next week they get into the playoffs and this will be

a season that we'll never forget yeah I feel the same way it's not you don't have to win the Super Bowl to make great strides and have a great season. I mean, it's optimism for next season for the future. Considering the obstacles, if Seattle, with all their injuries now, won a playoff game, you'd be like, we thought they were going to be third in their division.

Some seasons don't end with a ring, but they end with a lot of optimism. Absolutely. Let's talk about DAC. The franchise tag was created so that you're like, listen, we like this guy, but he's got a lot to work with, and we don't want to get tied to a four- or five-year contract.

When you watch Carson Wentz's talent and Dak next to each other yesterday, there's a gap. Now it's not Mahomes Tribisky, but Went is bigger, stronger, the arm. I look at that performance yesterday, and fair or not, I could see Dallas saying, all right, let's clean out the coaching staff, give Dak a new coach for a year, and if he pops, we'll give him the contract. But I could see them saying after that game, we're going to franchise tag him. I can see that. Oh, man, it's a bunch of things probably speculating it.

and swirling around in everybody's hair right now because, you know, yesterday was sort of confusing. You know, with Philadelphia having, you know, a depleted team all across the board, and the Dallas Cowboys coming in pretty much healthy, you know, I think with a big three, you know, with Dak, you know, with Zeke and... Amari? Amari?

Cobb had a big day? You know, Cobb, Gallup, everything was in place for them to win that football game. And like I said, if they... If both teams showed up, then the Dallas Cowboys should win. There's a lot of questions being raised right now. And I think that has a great deal of talent. Is it being used correctly?

Yes, I think so. He missed a lot of throws yesterday. Maybe he was still hurt. But at the end of the day, this franchise has to evaluate, you know, what they want to do from a coaching standpoint. And, you know, I think that is the answer for this team. But do he needs to be in a different offense? Do he needs to have a different change of scenery?

a couple more pieces added. We don't know. They just left us with an open book of confusion, and that's what I hate about yesterday's game. Yes, it was competitive. And the best team won. And a lot of guys dropped passes. And a lot of guys dropped passes.

This is multiple games this year. Cowboys don't score a touchdown. Right. And so now I have said earlier, and I believe this to be true, Dex the franchise quarterback. It's just you got to get over the top 10. But Kellan Moore yesterday, once again, the offensive coordinator

against a veteran defensive coordinator got too cute. I don't know Kellan Moore but he's a baby and the Cowboys got a lot of coaches that are former Cowboys. It feels like to me DAC has regressed

and that's not the way it should work. It feels like there's a big coaching issue here. Yeah, absolutely right. And for the most part, I thought Dak was put in good situations. I thought Kellan Moore called a pretty decent football game. But they schemed a lot of guys open.

Yeah, a lot of guys was running wide open. You know, Jason Whitten dropped balls, Gallup dropped balls, Cobb dropped a couple. You know, Mike Cooper dropped a couple. Some were selling high. It was errant throws. And, you know, they're too good of a football team to have those things happen. So it has us looking at them, like, you know,

was it the coaching? Was it just the players? But I thought for the most part, Kellan did an okay job. It was just the players didn't deliver. No, I think that's fair. I think this is very fair. I've been brutal on Kellynne Moore this year. But there were seven drop passes and Dak missed a lot of them. I don't think you can crush Kellynne Moore yesterday.

Absolutely not. When I watched the game, there were eight to ten times. I'm like, Dallas guys are wide half for Dak, half were dropped. Tavon Austin running down the left sideline. You know, Doc just overthrew him. And instantly I'm thinking, you know, is he trying to overcompensate? Is his shoulder still hurting or bothering them? I'm seeing, you know, passes fly.

high and that's just not typical of what we've seen from Dak Prescott, you know, throughout the course of the years. By the way, franchise tag, you get very rich. Dallas has no state tax. He'd get about 35 million a year. Again, it's not like the franchise tag. It's good money if you can get it. Okay, Michael Vicks, stick around.

I'm going to ask you some thoughts about what happened to Baker Mayfield dealing with angry, angry fans. Also, let's talk Kansas City. Uh-oh, it kind of feels like they're the only team that could go into Baltimore today and win Michael Vic Moore plus Colin right, calling wrong in 20 minutes. It's the herd. Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. Welcome back. Michael Vick is joining us.

Sometimes our best discussions are off the air, folks. 13 years, four-time pro bowler. Love having them on Fox Sports NFL analyst. Happy holidays to you and your fam. You're flying back to Fort Lauderdale. You're going to fly back to Fort Lauderdale. Yeah, later on today. Okay.

You've just been great for us. I love having you on the show. So I want to talk about something. You know this. You came into Atlanta and you were such a unique talent. You were Lamar before Lamar, except you were a higher draft pick and it was unbelievable. And Michael Vick and everybody wants the next Michael Vick like Lamar. But your team didn't know quite what to do.

And you had some missteps early in your career in Atlanta, but I've said this from the beginning. In Atlanta, you were an easy guy to root for. Because your team wasn't all in on you. The coaching wasn't great. You were so unique and exciting. And I always said he's a good kid. He's not quite ready to be. He doesn't quite ready to understand what the NFL franchise is.

Similarly, Baker Mayfield. I think there's a DNA thing here. I don't think, I think Baker was a little overdrafted, probably by a round or two. And I think he's a little cocky. His DNA is more linebacker than it is quarterback. Yesterday he's getting boot. So he and Donald have the same basic record, the same flaws, the same issues. the difference is

New York loves their guy and feels like he's the future and I think there's a lot of people bailing on Baker Mayfield. When you see Baker, what do you see? I look at Baker and I see a guy who just needs to be more comfortable

with, you know, just within himself. You know, I like what he's doing at times. He's showing leadership. He's showing that he has the direction and he has the support cast of his team or the support of his team. But then there's times where he's a little too fiery,

you know, it gets a little out of pocket at times. And look, you know, at the quarterback position, you know, with a guy like Baker who's young, and we got to give him credit for that, but you're still, you know, in year two. And you're a vital, you know, a pivotal point in your career when a lot of guys in your draft class and around you having success, you have to start to feed off that.

You know, you can't always be making the headlines, and yes, you have a lot going on. You got a ton of commercials you're seen all over you. But you know what that brings, a lot of pressure. You know, and pressure to perform. What the NFL is all about is being at your best for 16 weeks, on and off the field, at the quarterback position. Everybody else is a little lenient for them.

They can get away with a lot. But at the quarterback position, all eyes are on you all the time. And that's one thing I didn't understand. You didn't understand. Or didn't pay a lot of attention to at a very young age when I was in the NFL, and I learned a hard way. And right now, it seemed like Baker's going to learn the hard way. And these could be hard lessons for him that can help him in the future.

Let's just hope he starts to winning because that will cure everything. Winning is the cure. Yeah. So you had an incident with fans in Atlanta. Yeah. And then to your advantage, A, you were wildly dynamic, that you were built for Atlanta. They loved you.

And then you started winning. Yeah. Where was the moment for you as a young quarterback when you'd had some missteps? Was there a meeting a moment when you're like, when it was family? Like, I got to grow up here. Yeah. Well, it was a moment after a game. We played the New Orleans Saints.

And, you know, I did everything I could do to win the game. I can't remember what happened, you know, had a good game in the run game, past game. And just reached a point where I was just super frustrated. You know, all the blame and all the fingers was being pointed at me. And I'm like, well, you don't see what else is going on around me. But that was an immature way to look at. at it because you're the quarterback, you got the balling hands at all times. And when that's

the case, the fans, the general public, the organization think you are the guy to get it done. And yes, I put myself in that position. After the game, a fan was heckling me and wasn't even Atlanta Falcons fan. It was a New Orleans Saints fan. And, you know, I flick him to the bird.

And, you know, we go to dinner that night and my mom, it was probably the most disappointed in me that she's ever been in my entire life. And I lied about it at first. I didn't tell it. I told it I didn't do it, knowing that I did,

and didn't know what would come behind it, you know, all the backlash and just, you know, how deteriorating it was to, you know, my career and how detrimental it was. And right then and there, I learned that, you know, you are responsible for your actions. You know, I hurt my mom more than anything outside of football, you know.

And like I say, when winning cures everything, we lost the game. but you have to know how to handle the losses in the tough times. That's what makes you a professional. Well, yeah, we were talking this morning as a staff. Somebody said in our staff, the NFL either humbles you before you get in the league or humbles you immediately. That's why when you draft people and you go through the combine in these intense interviews,

I got to ask you questions. I got to find out about your childhood, your mom, your dad, and they're uncomfortable. I don't have to ask all those questions about everybody. But you're going to face, you're going to be humbled, and you're probably a high school, All-American, a college, All-American, the alpha male, hey, what's it going to be like when you're one and nine and the fans are booing you? And it's hard. And that's why I always said I like Donald's DNA.

It's built for the long term. I think Baker's built for the moment. Sam's built for the long term. I want to shift to this. So Kansas City, all year long I called them the windbreaker team. They're not built for the winter. They don't have a coat. I'm watching them last night.

I watched them in the snow. I watched them last night in windy cold Chicago. kind of feels like they're there, right? You know what? At the end of the game, when Patrick Mahomes said, look, we're trying to get poised to make a run at it. It said a lot. Just to look on his face, the confidence,

and I know how Andy is this time of the year. It's only going to get better. You know, he's more detailed. He's paying more attention to the defenses and what needs to happen, how he can make Patrick Mahomes even better. And, you know, Patrick is a game-changing. He's got to, when he gets that,

ball, anything can happen, just like Lamar Jackson or just like Drew Breeze or Tom Brady, anything can happen at any given moment. So I think Andy trusts them. I think they play well in the cold weather. I think they play well over the last couple years. And I don't think it phases Patrick. And if Patrick can handle it, then everybody else can because usually it starts with the quarterback. Right. You know, if the ball's not too hard and if he's not uncomfortable and he can go out and play one of its best games, you know, at any given moment like he did versus New England Patriots last year in a loss, losing effort in the AFC championship game, and they got a chance. Yeah, they do feel like this morning, you could see them going to Baltimore, and, you know,

they need Patrick to do crazy stuff. Yes. The other thing about, I like about Kansas City, and this is why I don't like New England this year, when you get to the playoffs, you got to have the details all buttoned up. Right. But it would be nice to occasionally get a freebie touchdown. or a cheapie, not a 13-play drive. Kansas City's built to get a couple cheapies.

Right. Because, by the way, sometimes you get out-schemed, even Andy Reid. Sometimes you go and you get a bad call. You need the occasional, special dude to give you a free one over the top. And I watch Kansas City and I'm like, man, they're checking all the boxes and I know I get that. Now, I don't get that with New England. When you watch New England this weekend, though, Mike, they found the running game. Found a running game.

I knew it was coming at some point. I knew James White would become a factor and, you know, it was a couple of different guys who was able to make a difference in the ball. Rex Burke had a good game. Rex Burke had a couple of big runs and, you know, Sony Michelle did a good job. And I just know, you know, at some point the New England Patriots are going to figure it out.

Even when the chips look like they are down, they always find the way to pick themselves back up. And, you know, it's going to be that way. This is the time of the year where they play some of their best football. They know what it's like. They've been there before. over and over again and, you know, with time to scheme and a buy, who knows what can happen. I told a friend yesterday, I said, I don't think New England could win at Baltimore.

But if I'm Andy Reed and I'm watching that thing. Yeah, you just. Before the Bears game, I'm like, oh, God. Because they were checking all these boxes, but you're like, if they can't run, they can't keep Patrick off the field. And I watched it and I'm like, oh, now they got the running game. This could be Andy. Yeah.

Okay. They check the running. We can run the game and keep it away from Patrick Mahomes box. Vick, it's great seeing you. Coming up next, Colin Wright, Colin Wrong. One more herd. The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart Radio app. Search Herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like.

Oh, here we go on a holiday Monday. We'll be back tomorrow here to this live in Los Angeles. Rainy Los Angeles is the herd. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening, We're on IHeart Radio, Fox Sports Radio, and FS1. We'll have fun this hour in 15 minutes. We're going to go talk to Matt Mosley, longtime cowboy reporter with strong opinions,

meltdown in Dallas today. And then in 45 minutes, most popular talk show host in Philadelphia. Mike Nithinelli, the Philadelphia perspective today, they're going crazy. And by the way, the city of Philadelphia should apologize to me. The next time I fly into Philadelphia, even if it's just at the airport,

and I'm there for an hour, I should have some sort of parade and gifts should be furnished to my entire family. I mean, weren't they, they were kind of mad at you because... I was honest? Well, yes, honestly, you can sometimes trigger that response if you're not ready for it. You weren't very happy with all the celebrating they were doing for their once. Philadelphia owes me just a presence. I will say, though, you've always been higher on Wentz than...

America. Than DAC. Yeah, I think he's the closest thing to Patrick Mahomes we have. I don't think he's Mahomes. But I think he's about the closest thing to Mahomes. Oh, he's got an incredible arm. I like once. You don't think we're all maybe just overreacting a little bit to this day?

No, I do not believe that. Okay, here we go. All right, it's Monday. If you've never watched the show, shame on you. But if you haven't, we do something called calling right, calling wrong, where I have a lot of opinions, but we've got to hold me accountable because I make mistakes. And we've got some big kind of topics I've talked about this year. I whiffed on, some I haven't.

So here we go. Where Colin was right. We had a very good week, blazing five, four and one. We picked the dolphins, one of our favorite picks of the week. We took the Jets to not only cover but upset the Steelers. We picked the Ravens to win big, and we picked the Chiefs. I don't want to talk about the Cowboy game. I am 53% on the year.

Last year, this is about the time I got ridiculously hot. My goal is over to get 55% to 56%. We can still get there. I've already seen the morning lines. I like my pick, so we're at 53% after a nice four in one week. Where Colin was wrong. Set it 10 minutes ago, I'll say it again. I called the Kansas City Chiefs a windbreaker team not built for the postseason,

couldn't run the ball and couldn't stop it. Guess what? This defense is now officially good enough to win a Super Bowl. I don't think it's Baltimore's defense. I don't think it's New England's defense. I don't think it's Buffalo's defense. I don't think it's New Orleans defense. But I think it's good enough to win a Super Bowl,

and they've proven something to me. It's my only criticism of Andy Reid. Izzy built cultivate those ground games late in the year because he's smart and he's clever and he's fun and he's flashy. But I'm watching that defense and they got it figured out. Honey Badger has helped. They've been very good situationally. They're getting pressure on the quarterback. By the way, D. Ford comes, he's in San Francisco.

They got healthier on the defensive line. They've got more sacks lately. I like what they've done. I was wrong. Where Colin was right. Despite what Chris Collins were told you of NBC. Mitch Trubisky is not a franchise quarterback, and he's not remotely close to Patrick Mahomes. It's not just about inconsistency.

He's got one of the weaker arms in the NFL. He's got excellent coaches. He's just not a great natural thrower of the football. I told you this when he came out. How in God's name can you draft Mitch Trubisky, a nice kid over to Sean Watson? They played in the same conference. They faced each other. What are people watching?

I don't understand it. And I'll say this. He works hard. I've got a source inside the building that says the players love him and he works hard. But they've got really clever offensive coaches and a nice old line, decent, nice skilled people. They got the pieces here. I remember when I was on vacation in Hawaii and everybody said he's going to be a top five pick and I got off the boat into the room to watch a crappy bowl game and I set on the air the next day. That is not a franchise quarterback.

That's not a first round quarterback. And last night, come on, Chicago, get over it. Move on. Quit being delusional. he would need everything to be perfect to win a division, which he got a couple of years ago, but you can't count on that. You can't win divisions year after year after year like that.

Where Colin was raw. No team I've whiffed on more than the Saints. I called it the fallback season. They'd lost too many brutal, emotional, organizational games. I just think they'd step back. Drew Breeze looked really tired at the end of last year, and this is the best Saints team I've ever seen. It's the best Saints roster I've ever seen,

including the one that won the Super Bowl. speed, dynamic, pass rush. Plus, you get all the brain power. They don't turn it over. You can't get debris. They don't get penalized. Michael Thomas is easily the most dominant wide receiver in the NFL, and Mickey Loomis has drafted the hell out of this team.

Four straight drafts, and all they've done is hit home runs. Deep down, I actually think, like this morning I wake up, and I guess kind of feels like a Saints Raven Super Bowl with Kansas City and San Francisco close. But I just didn't think they could overcome all these wildly emotional, dramatic losses. And here's the leadership of Peyton and Drew Brees. And once again, they're loaded.

Where Colin was right? Even when the dolphins were 0.7, I said they're a well-coached football team. You can be 0-and-7 and poorly coached. You can be 0-and-7 and well-coached. They said, Brian Flores knows what he's doing. They are four and four since then. They have very little defensive talent. Outside of the quarterback, they got to go figure out that defense.

They can't stop. I'm not sure they could have stopped Joy Taylor's cousins this weekend. They can't stop anybody. Really. And Flora is a great defensive coach. But they beat Philadelphia. They beat the Jets. They've beaten the Colts, teams with a lot more players.

I love their future. They've got multiple draft picks. They've got to get some guys in the box defensively. They got to get a quarterback. I don't even know. I mean, even if they, even if they didn't get a quarterback, quarterback. I think if they short up the defense, they could be a 500 team next year. That's how highly a think of Brian Flores. Where Colin was wrong. I watched Daniel Jones a bunch in college,

and then the Giants picked him six, and I'm like, I don't know. That doesn't feel like a franchise quarterback. I'm wrong. I don't think he has a good coach. He doesn't have a number one receiver. Yesterday, another big game. Five TDs, no picks. First rookie quarterback ever. To have four plus TD passes in a game and no picks and he's done it now three times. And again, you can talk about Dax coaching. I don't love the coaching here. I think they got the wrong coach.

I think Pat Schumer is a coordinator. But he's just athletic enough. He's got very good feet. You know, I never thought he had a great arm in college. I thought he had great coaching in college. But there's a Matt Ryan thing where he didn't play with a lot of NFL guys in college. And he's now getting NFL guys

and it feels like a gift. Like he's got a little juice and a little pop because he's finally playing with elite guys and he didn't play with a lot of elite guys at Duke. And Matt Ryan didn't play with a lot of elite guys at Boston College. But I was wrong on Daniel Jones. They got their franchise quarterback. GM, coach, I got my questions, but I think they have their quarterback. Where Colin was right.

I said firing Ron Rivera for Carolina, he's not the problem. He's not the problem. They had lost. Of their seven losses this year, five had been one possession with Ron Rivera. Since he's left, they've been destroyed, and their defense has quit. They gave up 40 to Atlanta, 30 to Seattle, and 38 to Indianapolis, and Jacoby Brissette. The Carolina Panthers owner is going to make changes, and I get it. This is not the change to make.

Now, he does need a good offensive coordinator. He's an alpha. He knows personnel. He's a tremendous defensive coach. He's not an offensive guy. That's okay. Belichick isn't either, and gives him. Josh McDaniel, the tarmac to land his plane on.

But I think they fired the wrong guy. Special teams, for the record, have also gone into the tank since he was fired. They've gone into the tank. Where Colin was wrong. These words I never thought I'd hear. Ed Orgeron, coach of the year. You know what, man, the dude evolved. And Ed Orgeron, I remember years ago, the administrators at USC asked me,

what do you think of Orgeron as a head coach? And I said, he feels like the world's best defensive coordinator. I just, is he a head coach? I was wrong. A, he's evolved. B, he's learned from his mistakes at Old Miss. And three, here's what it has. And this is a big deal.

He's got a presence. USC's current coach is a good guy. He doesn't have a presence. If you look at the great coaches in college football, they walk into a room and you can sense them and you can feel them. And, you know, sometimes Ed, you know, you have to listen twice to his press conference to get exactly what he said because he's got so much emotion. But he has done an amazing job. He went and found an NFL guy to help him with the offense.

He's grown and he is the American football story. Overcome, overlooked, fired, evolved, and made himself into a powerhouse. Good for him. I was totally wrong. Where Colin was right? I said when they hired Freddie Kitchens, I said, said, if this is going to work, you've got to make this a young locker room he can build. Be careful about OBJ. OBJ is the kind of guy that would be good with a Pete Carroll, a Mike Tomlin, a Bill Belichick.

Freddie Kitchens is a pup, and you're giving OBJ to Freddie Kitchens. Now OBJ yesterday melted down. Jarvis Landry's melted down. The longer Freddie Kitchens has this big personality team, the more restless, the more unraveled, the uglier it gets. I didn't, and I said this with Freddie Kitchens, John Dorsey hired a coach he could control. That's not the kind of coach.

You got to give a coach full power if you're going to give him OBJ and Jarvis Landry. The coach has got to own the room. Players can sense weakness, and the minute they can sense Freddie Kitchens is in trouble, the stars are all over him on the sidelines. Where Colin was right? When Tua got hurt for Bama,

all I heard, Joy and Iowa heard is, Oh, my God, he could fall out of the first round. We're like, no, no, no, no, no, no. It's going to be a bidding war on Tua. Well, this weekend, the Colts owner acknowledged, we may have to draft a quarterback. So let's count now teams that in the top 10, Cincinnati drafts one, they want a quarterback.

Detroit draft three, could draft one. Dolphins draft five will want one. Jacksonville, 6 may draft one. Charger 7 are absolutely drafting one. Carolina drafting eight, absolutely drafting one. Folks, you're going to have multiple teams. Word is the Raiders may want a new quarterback. I don't agree with that, but they may want it.

The idea this kid, who is the most talented kid in this draft, injuries aside, he's the natural. He's the gifted. He's the Russell Wilson. The idea that he was going to drop out of the first round. Go look at the last two NFL first round drafts with quarterbacks. people are moving up to get kids that are far less talented than Tua. He's going nowhere but into a bidding war as long as the medical stuff clears, which I hope, and I think we all hope it does.

All right, so we got a lot of stuff today. So we're going to go to Dallas. Matt Mosley is a very opinionated guy. Funny guy, I've been covering the Cowboys for a long time. What is the reaction in Big D today? crazy time in Dallas. Tony Gonzalez last hour. We'll go to Philadelphia in 30 minutes loaded on a Monday.

Be sure to catch live editions of the herd weekdays in noon Eastern 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the IHeart Radio app. Two great bowl games are coming your way on FS1 and Fox. Friday it's a San Diego County Credit Union Holiday Bowls number 16, Iowa. Battles number 22 USC at 730 Eastern on FS1. Then next Monday, Cal faces off with Illinois in the Red Box Bowl at 3.30 Eastern on Fox. Both games are also available on the Fox Sports app. I love Iowa over USC and I love Cal over Illinois.

Two of my favorite bets in the bowl season. That in Clemson. I love Iowa this Friday. Coaching matters a lot in bowl games. Kirk Ferrence, once again, Iowa's got two first rounders. All right, let's go to a guy who always got great perspective. You know, it's funny, I was reading some stuff last night in the internet, and people are like, hey, the Cowboys may have saved money on DAC. Maybe this wasn't the worst loss of all time.

So let's go to Matt Mosley, our friend in Dallas via the Coward Global Satellite Network. Co-host the Doom Day podcast, a great one with Edward. Okay. So let's start with this. We can do the blame game, but let's, Jason Garrett. I said this last week. He does feel a little like dead coach walking, right, this morning in Dallas? It's over.

Today, and there is some celebration, there's not as much pain and angst as usual after a Cowboys lost today. And I think Jason sealed his fate. So this was the end, barring some kind of crazy Super Bowl run, which I don't see, although I would not rule them out of the playoffs. But this was it for Jason Garrett. And you know when Jerry, I've been around him a long time after games, when he only speaks for two minutes, that's a sign he's done and he's very sad about this because as you said recently this is a family member this is family he's having to say goodbye to and pretty much everybody on this staff is gone and last night's silled what we kind of knew was coming all right so let's talk about the next coach

there's a lot of speculation i've never bought into the urban Meyer stuff because i've known urban for about 15 years and he's never really expressed to me he's a college coach He doesn't watch or love the NFL. No, he's certainly a learned, smart guy and can figure it out. Am I wrong on that? Is it a college coach? Well, there's some excitement. Jerry does like Lincoln Riley.

He likes my alma mater's coach, Matt Rule. He's at least getting familiar with those people, but I don't see it happening. And I would way more likely see a Ron Rivera, Riverboat Ron with Norv Turner, because let's remember the heyday, the good. glory days of the Cowboys were with Norv Turner, and he almost hired him when he hired Wade Phillips. Yeah. He went with a defensive head coach because they'd put a ton of money on that side of the ball. He's always at least floored the idea.

And when people, Jerry always, this plays into your family narrative, though. He sort of loves to keep things in family and Norv his family. I'll say this, though, if Aitman became a GM today, the first guy he would try to go higher is North Turner. And so I would not be shocked if you saw some sort of Rivera, Norv Turner combination. Let's talk about Dak. The franchise tag was built for teams that have to be careful with their money.

They like a quarterback, but don't know if they love him. Dak, after yesterday, feels a lot like that, juxtapose next to Carson Went. He's not as big. He doesn't have the arm. He's not quite as athletic. Did yesterday, in short, in short, you know, he's not quite as athletic. a franchise tag for DAC instead of a four-year deal? No, I don't think so.

I don't think Jerry can stand to do that to him. I think they get the deal done. If anything, it brought Dax value down from when he was in the MVP race. Maybe we were getting up there to 38 or 40. Maybe this thing now gets done at 34, 35. So, no, I don't think you go and have him play. He was fine having Garrett coached you to the final year of his contract. He will not be fine with Dak underneath the head coach playing on the final year of his contract.

They get a deal done. And I know right now after that performance last night, that has Cowboys fans a little concerned, but Dak is going to get the huge money. But your guy, Wins, my goodness, I was watching you tweeting. Your guy got the best of them. I mean, you talk about drinking the Kool-Aid. Boy, you should be in the Wins family. Yes, I love him.

I do. Listen, I buy into guys. I bought into Andrew Luck early, Russell Wilson, early Wentz. I go nuts. Sometimes I lack emotional discipline, but I do love Wentz. I think Philadelphia is a very limited team this year. Like I think Dallas, if they would have won, is a limited team this year. Let's go to specifically this game.

Because I want to make a point, I have said most of the year, Matt, that I think Kellyn Moore is a big problem. Every time they faced a veteran defensive coordinator, except Wade Phillips, it is a Kellyn has gotten too cute they got him out of the running game i think this is a kellyn more defensive coordinator issue at its core i did not think let me defend him though matt there were 10 times receivers were schemed open in that game i couldn't crush kellyn more for this could i no but some of it you can i mean when you're third and one and you have

Zeke Elliott, you spend all this money and you're making decisions like that. Tony Pollard came in the game. Zeeke took himself out. There was a pitch that they did where he fumbled on. But this, this guy gets caught in the moment and he's overthinking things. Now, you can't blame him for Dak missing Tavon Austin. Y'all just showed it. You can't blame him for Gallup dropping that ball. I mean, he scheme those guys open. But Colin, you and I could scheme people open against this Eagle secondary. What an embarrassment to go in this. there and get three field goals. I will say this, though, if Kai Forbath had been here the whole season, the Cowboys would have been 10 and 6. None of this would have been necessary. The great

Kai Forbath, he will be a first ballot guy. All right. And finally, Matt Mosley co-host a Doom Day podcast with Ed Werder. I have said that, and I've said this earlier, that the Cowboys are a great brand, but there's so many former Cowboys on the coaching staff. I love Charlotte. I think they're brilliant. But Jerry's been at his best when he's least comfortable. Bill made him uncomfortable and Jimmy made him uncomfortable. Does he at least sense that? Do you have a sense that Jerry knows he may have to relinquish a little something?

No. I think he knows he needs to do something for his fans and make a change, but Jerry will always make himself comfortable above all. And yes, he does care about winning, but not enough to bring in a power hungry head coach. Urban would want to do everything. He would want to be in control. Hey, even Matt Ruhl. You say, Matt Ruhl's young.

Matt Ruhl came out and said it would have to be the perfect situation in the NFL, and he'd have to put his entire program in top to bottom. Jerry's not going to let somebody do something like this, which is why this is a situation for a former head coach. for, and it's a guy I'll leave New England. I mean, McDaniels, I know some people like him, but I mean, that's a guy who loves it there

and thinks maybe he could be the next head coach there in New England sometimes. So that doesn't even feel like a fit to me. Jerry doesn't really know him. Jerry just has a couple of people that he feels comfortable with. North Turner, Rivera. Ooh, I don't want to say the next one. People will get mad. Jeff Fisher.

No, but I'm just saying those are the people he feels comfortable with. Well, McCarthy. Yeah, well, Mike McCarthy, that's another one. Again, he could have some control and say Matt Mosley, Doomsday Podcast, have a great, great holiday for you and your family. We love your work.

Thank you so much. And say hi to Ed. I appreciate it. Siccum bears. Make sure you talk about the Sugar Bowl, Baylor versus Georgia. Good night. Good night. Good morning.

Good afternoon. Matt Mosley. Yeah, you know, it's funny about Jerry. Jerry's an oil maverick. He's a risk taker, right? And that's been his thing. But as he's aged, he doesn't feel quite like the risk taker. It's interesting, right?

Like Al Davis. Al Davis, for the Raiders, was known as a very progressive risk taker as an early owner. And then as Al got older, he wanted comfort and he wanted his voice to matter. Jerry's got a little bit of the Al Davis thing where he's this oil maverick, this risk taker. I'm going to fire Tom Landry. I'm going to bring in it. And Jerry for a long time, push back on the NFL.

It's a Coke League. I'm going to bring in Pepsi. That was Jerry. Jerry now is aged and psychologically, emotionally. He feels like he likes more comfort. He senses, you know, more... Isn't that what always happens, though? For everybody?

I mean, do you feel like you've gotten edgier with age? I certainly haven't. I stayed up to 822 last night. Maybe you're right. Maybe all of us as we age get a little more... We just want things how we like them. Yeah. Yeah.

You know, don't touch the thermostat. By the way, you know what I did last night at my house? I unplugged the Christmas tree. Because Joy, Friday said... It gets in your brain. My mom is obsessed with the Christmas tree being unplugged and turned off at night. Like, you cannot leave it on. It's going to burn the house down.

And you told me that Friday, and I went to bed last night, and I got up the stairs. Now I went, nope. The cat's an idiot. I'm unlawed. Unplugging the Christmas tree and then I went to bed because I didn't want to jump out of a window at 4 in the morning because the house was on fire. I'm telling you it infiltrates your brain and then every night I unplug it. Not even just turn it off. Just got to unplug it.

Joy with the news. No. No. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. Amazing. So despite all the reports that O'Dell has been telling teams he wants them to come get him out of Cleveland, he insists he wants to be with the Browns. There's three years left on his contract.

And according to Ian Rappaport, the Browns want to keep him around too. GM John Dorsey reportedly told O'Dell that they want him to stay in Cleveland and have no plans to trade him in the offseason. All of that said, and all this sounds really nice and really there's no point in talking about it right now because if something does happen, it's not going to happen for a few months. Right. That little interaction with him and Freddie Kitchens on the sideline was not the kind of interaction that seemed normal. Like there's conversations that kind of make a stir on the sidelines and sometimes we're just like, It happens. It's competition.

That didn't feel like that. And mostly didn't feel like that because they're losing. And I do feel like Jarvis Landry and Odell since Freddie's been weakened, the helmet issue, the t-shirt issue. And so is it like, you know, when you give a coach power, even if the players don't like him, he can still go to the GM and cut him. But when a coach gets weakened, that's when players with big opinions sense it. It's like kids in a classroom. If they sense weakness from a teacher, they go after it. And it's not even, it doesn't, it's not even a reflection of character.

It's human nature. Even with your parents. Like if you know dad's a pushover and there's something you really want, you manipulate the situation to get it. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person. It's just how things go. It works like this in every part of life. In every business.

We've all had bosses. We're like, we know they don't really make decisions. Like they're there. They have the title. they're kind of in charge, but if you want to manipulate the situation or you want to go around them or you want to just take over

and do what you want to do, there's really nothing they can do about it. And look, I'm not in that locker room. I don't know how it goes. All we're going off is what we see on the field and what we see on the sidelines and what we hear from the Browns and Browns players. And again, this is a colossal failure of a season.

Yes. You can't come into the season the way that you did with the expectations that this team had and conversations about the Super Bowl and it'd be looking like this at this point in the season. No, they're the most talented tire fire in the league. Of all the bad teams in the league.

Like you can take the Jets. They have a bad old line. They just replaced a terrible GM. They don't have a number one receiver, a number one corner, or a number one pass rusher. You can look at the Jets, and they're 7 and 9. You're like, the quarterback got mono. Hey, 7 and 9 for the Jets feels like pretty optimistic.

You can even look at the dolphins and go, four and 12. I'd much rather be the four and 12 dolphins. When you look at this roster in players, you can't be seven and nine. You just, you can't. You can't. Absolutely cannot. So the Saints got a crucial win over the Titans yesterday with a record of 12 and 3. They are keeping pace for a chance at the top seat in the NFC and home field advantage in the playoffs. But Michael Thomas also had a historic day. He finished the game with 12 catches to give him a 145 total this season, which broke Marvin Harrison's record of 143 from most receptions in a single.

season. You know, it's funny, he's really unique. He's not a burner. He's not a speed guy. He's big and long. And just completely reliable. And just great hands. And you know, it's funny, like Jerry Rice was not a four or three guy. We always look to the speed guys like Tyree Hill. But Thomas is a 12 to 14 target game. There's something to be said about routes, hands, size, toughness. Just consistent. You cannot. It's amazing. Everybody in the arena knows he's getting the ball and they can't stop him. You know, it's kind of interesting. The MVP, I mean, obviously we know Lamar Jackson is the MVP, but if Lamar was having like

5% less of the season that he is, maybe 10 because he's been so incredible this year, I mean, you've got Christian McCaffrey, Michael Thomas, like there's. George Kittle. George Kittle. God. Like, unbelievable. I mean, obviously Russell Wilson, and even for offensive player of the year, like, it's going to be tough to pick it.

But for the NFC, play a picture right now for the Saints, they can get the one seat if the Packers lose one of their last two games to play the Vikings tonight, obviously, and then they're at the Lions. Or the Saints beat the Panthers and the Seahawks beat the 49ers. If 49ers beat the Seahawks, the Saints and still get the two seed if they beat the Panthers and the Packers lose one of their last two games. So there's a lot of movement that's going to happen in the last two games for the NFC. Greenback, Minnesota.

Very big. Very big. Finally, LeBron James missed his first game of the season as the Lakers dropped their third straight in a 128-104 loss of the Nuggets, but the Lakers aren't focusing on their losing streak with a big Christmas Day matchup coming up with the Clippers. Anthony Davis told Spectrum Sportsnet that the team is looking at the bigger picture. Our heads are still high. I mean, you know, you look at the bigger picture. I mean, we're still first in the West.

You know, we're still doing a lot of great things showing signs of a great team, but we never expected, you know, to lose to in a row. You know, we didn't expect to lose to win a row. You know, but we got to, it's not going to get any easier. We got a tough one, you know, coming up in two days. So we got to, you know, get back, you know, into the gym and working on our defense and make sure we're ready to go on Christmas today. Anthony Davis also said the team lost its defensive edge without LeBron.

LeBron's listed as day-to-day. He is reportedly expected to play on Christmas against the clippers. He has a nagging groin issue. Thoracic muscle strain again. Denver outscored the Lakers 73 to 51 in the second half. So, I mean, look, what team is the same without LeBron? James. Well, also, if you go look at LeBron's career, now until about the trading deadline has always been he downshifts. So LeBron starts every season big. He downshifts around January,

the holidays trading deadline, and then he reships and reboots. After the also. So it's like this is a little, I've watched LeBron so many years. He kind of downshifts. It's a little bit of a pattern. I mean, this is obviously an injury, which he normally don't have with LeBron because he's unbelievably durable. It does concern me a little bit because this was an issue last year, the groin. But, I mean, look, he's been playing a long time. He's played a lot of games. It's going to happen.

It's not a huge concern. I don't think they should push him to play on Christmas if he's not 100%. I doubt that they will. The Christmas Day lineup is amazing anyway, so it'll be fine. Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Hurd-Ly News.

Listen, Lamar Jackson's going to win MVP, and he is so spectacular. Lamar has taken the oxygen out of the room for the MVP talk, and not only that, the spectacular talk. But I said this about Lamar Jackson when the media was banging on everybody for not picking Lamar Jackson in the top 10. First of all, only about six teams every draft need a quarterback in the first or second round. So 90% of the teams are eliminated from taking a quarterback. Okay, and the Baltimore Ravens didn't even pick Lamar Jackson with their first pick. Settled down. This is not a science.

And that's where George Kittle comes in. He was drafted in the fifth round, and outside of Lamar Jackson, I think he's the biggest nightmare mismatch in the entire sport. He is a rock star. He's gronk, but way faster. He's Travis Kelsey, but a better blocker. So when you talk about, I can't believe Lamar, how did you not see Lamar Jackson? He got drafted in the first round, kids.

George Kittle got passed by everybody four times. Nobody can guard him. I mean, nobody. He's too big for defensive backs. He's too fast for everybody else. He played at a major school that goes to bowl games. Iowa, a school that puts out all sorts of NFL players. He plays a position that's been emerging for five or six years, the tight end.

And everybody passed on him four times and half the league passed on him five times. Drafting is hard. It's hard. He was wildly productive in college and teams were like, I don't know if it'll work. What? You had Gronk in the league as an example. You had Travis Kelsey in the league as an example. I don't think it'll work.

And I remember when he was drafted, I came on the first. and I said, he's really athletic. I watched them play like three times. But for all the Lamar fanatics, Lamar is great. He still got drafted in the first round. What makes the NFL great is half the league is undrafted. Undrafted, half the league is that it's the heart. He's got it.

He's relatable. He's a rock star. He's fun. He likes contact. Never ripped teams for missing. Everybody missed on Brady. Everybody missed on Montana. Everybody missed on Russell Wilson.

Everybody missed on George Kittle. Everybody four times. It's why I love the NFL. Overachievers, underdrafted, and you become rock stars in the country. Coming up next, we go to Philadelphia. One of the top talk show hosts on the East Coast, they are loving life and still probably hating me. Mike Miscelli next in The Herd.

Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd, weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. He's the outspoken, popular rating. success in Philadelphia Sports Radio, a city that loves it sports for years. I've had a contentious relationship with Philadelphia, but I got to say, that was a right cross. They delivered to the Cowboys. I think Doug Peterson had it right. This is a city and an organization built for moments like yesterday and via the Coward Global Satellite Network. Mike Miscelli, 97-5, the fanatic. By the way, he's on in about 10 minutes, so he's cutting it close. You know, I mean, the city almost owes me an apology, I've been on this Wence

bandwagon since day one. Can we acknowledge now that Wentz is really a special talent that had to carry this franchise for four weeks? I don't think there's any question about it, Colin. You know, the people here there was this Fosian faction in Philadelphia that didn't want to let go

of the guy because he would, he did, naturally. But, you know, this guy is the franchise quarterback, and even when he was going bad, we tried to do it. How many quarterbacks would you want more than Carson Wents? He was still in the top 10, but the last three weeks he's really grown. And I don't know whether it's because he got a comfort level with all these new guys that came in the line of, these new hungry guys, or whether it took

this long for him really to get the flow. But yesterday was a beautiful effort. And I think yesterday was you saw, and I don't want to be provincial here, one team had heart and the other team became in heartless. I mean, that was clear. Yeah, I don't think that's being parochial at all. I mean, I think Philadelphia, and I've said this before I joke about it, that cold weather cities have to endure. You practice in cold, The drive to work is in snow. And a lot of the L.A. Rams, L.A. Chargers, Tampa Bay, we're all soft. And I think Philadelphia is a tough town, and I think your teams are tough.

But I do think this, though, as a Philadelphia guy, when you looked at Dallas, how do you view the Cowboys this morning? If I was a Cowboy fan, I would be completely out on this entire thing. They need to change that whole thing. You know, I'm watching this game yesterday. It wasn't like the Eagle fans were confident. they were going to win this game. We did a poll on Friday. 52% of the people voted, no, they weren't going to win this game.

But the way transpired, the way they came out with a lot of fire, and you saw the other, I think the other team realized the quarterback was hurt, and they were willing to overpay the price to overcome that. They looked like they were, they quit a lot in this game. The drop passes, the patterns weren't sharp. The quarterback obviously was off, but they didn't show any fight at all. You know, when you look at Philadelphia, and we said this earlier, I, Joy and I talked about this. Some years, you need to win the Super Bowl. Other years, you win a division, and it feels like a W. If Philadelphia wins the division, and I know this is hard for a Philadelphia talk show host to say, but it feels like you got every inch out of this broken down stage

coach. Does it not? Yeah, I think you're right about that. Wow, that said, the home team advantage, the hometown advantage, the home stadium advantage, when somebody comes in here, no matter who it is, I think San Francisco will be the most formidable. Seattle would be flying across the country the second time to play here. Minnesota, I think the Eagles had their number. So I don't know if Eagle fans would be satisfied with just that now after what they showed in this game. Because they showed a gumption, a heart, something that Eagle fans really hadn't seen on a consistent basis this year. So I hear where you're going with that. And it would seem like a win. But it's a home game. It's a home playoff game. I think his fan base would expect that. to do the same to that team.

They do to this team. By the way, we talk about this a lot in the show, is that I kind of look at organization before I look at players, and I like Philadelphia. I like Howie Roseman. I like the owner. I like the coach. But the last two years, there have been so many injuries.

Is it fair to criticize Philadelphia this way? They're a little old. They need to reboot in some units. I like the organization. But they got a little patriot to them where it's like, guys, you need to be a little more athletic. Is that fair? No question about it. We've been talking about that for weeks now. They had a little sentimentality in this year. They came back with Jason Peters and it really didn't work out. They came back Darren Sprouls. That didn't work out either.

They counted on some guys for sentimental reasons. They definitely have to get skill player fresh. Now, Greg Ward came in. I wouldn't get too hopped up on whether he's going to be a starting player, Boston Scott. They found a star in Miles Sanders. But they're going to have to invest heavily and skill players. Alston Jeffrey carries a big contract next year. He's hurt. They're going to have to waste that kind of money on him. They need two receivers to replenish this whole thing. And now with the tight end situation, like Zach Hertz is a warrior. He played with a broken rib yesterday. So they're okay there, I think. But the skill players really have to get deeper. I think that's the one thing they absolutely learn this year. All right, Philadelphia guy, if I said Super Bowl teams,

I said this morning, I thought the Saints were really impressive. They got into a whole is a decent team. They were on the road out of the dome. Baltimore, New Orleans feels, there's a feeling to it this year. Philadelphia, Mike, where does it feel like to you? I agree with you. I think it

would be really difficult for the Eagles to win the second game on the road no matter who it would be. So I would favor New Orleans. They seem to be the most consistent NFC team. So New Orleans, Baltimore, I'm right with you there. All right, Mike, get ready, prep. Do your show. Great having you, buddy. I appreciate it.

All right, Kyle, good-seeing. All right, his Twitter account at Mike Miss 975. That's 97.5. The Fanatic, four hours a day on Philadelphia radio. He's an absolute fantastic host. By the way, great news. 15 minutes could save you 15%. Go to geico.com, geico.

I do want to talk about this. It's though the game was Saturday between New England and Buffalo. I thought it was a playoff game. And I'm sitting there thinking, Andy Reid is watching this before his game and thinking, oh, crap. Because the Chiefs played on Sunday night, So they got to watch Saturday's game.

And all year long, I do believe when you've been successful in any business for 10 to 15 years, you have some context to it. There's a flip the switch thing you can do because you kind of know, all right, November football is different than October football, December football. And all year long, I've said, New England checks a lot of the boxes to win a Super Bowl. Head coach check, defense check, experience check, special teams check, quarterback, Brady's Fine, check. But there's two things they don't check the box. But one of them, they checked Saturday. They got the running game back. Because Buffalo is a real defense, and they averaged over four yards of rush,

23 first downs, 38 minutes time of possession, no penalties, pass the ball, 400 yards, 50% on third down. I'm watching that game, and I'm thinking, I still think, there's one box they haven't checked. I think Kansas City, Baltimore, San Francisco, Minnesota, New Orleans have the ability to get the occasional, maybe once a game, easy touchdown, freebie touchdown. Now, the Patriots, to their credit, have been using more trick plays this year because they don't have the burner over the top, so they'll create deception. They'll go trick play to get their kind of cheap touchdown instead of eight, 12, 13, 15, 15.

played drive. But when you watch that running game, it's like Joy's been talking about, we know they check all the boxes. Now they check the running game box and why is that box important? That's the box that keeps Mahomes or Lamar Jackson off the field. First down, they were great on third down against Buffalo, ran the hell out of the ball, controlled the clock against Buffalo, very efficient on third down. We know the coach, the defense, the experience, the special teams. Now, I said this morning, seeing New England go to Baltimore and win, it feels unlikely. I just don't see it. But now hosting Kansas City, who would have a tough game earlier with Buffalo maybe, a little injured beat up.

You can see it happening. I just thought, Andy Reid's watching this and going, crap, got their running game going. Because that's the thing if I'm a homes and Andy, I'm scared. of. It's not the trick play. It's not the block puns. It's the, oh, Dante Scarnack, you got the offensive line humming. Isaiah wins back playing well. That's what would worry me.

Good stuff. Tony Gonzalez last hour. A lot of stuff. Cowboys DAC, the franchise DAC. We had a wild, wild weekend of football. We got bowl games coming up as well. Don't go anywhere. One more herd? The herd streams

24 hours a day, seven days a week within the I-Hart Radio app. Search Her to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. I find Tony Gonzalez's life story fascinating, and a lot of it we don't share on the air. But Tony, and I'm going to let him tell the story, reminds me a little of George Kittle. Because I watched George Kittle play at Iowa, and I liked him. But he was a fifth round pick. I didn't love him.

He almost feels better as a pro than he did as a college player. in the Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez, third most catches, NFL history behind Jerry Rice and George Kittle. So let's go back to your Cal days. I'm a Pac-12 football fan. I didn't know who you were until about an hour before you left Cal as a junior. Like George Kittle, you're a better pro than you were a college tight end. Explain that to me.

I think it's opportunity going to the right system where they're going to feature and give you the ball. So my first two years at Cal, I wasn't all anything. I wasn't even honorable mention all Pac-10 back then. That means I wasn't even the fourth best tight-in in the division after my first two years. And then my third year, I was first team all-American. And the reason was that Coach Mariucci came in and Hugh Jackson came in, and they brought this thing called the West Coast offense, which features the tight-in. And they started designing plays around me to get the football.

And so that's where it just took off. Okay. So here's George Kettle. he's good at Iowa, very good, but fifth round good. He goes to the NFL, and who does he get as a coach? You know him. Yeah, John Embry. John Embry was my position.

Coach he played in the league for, I don't know how many years. Coach Colorado briefly. He coached Colorado, the head coached there. Everywhere he's been, if you look at his career, every tight-in that he's coached in the NFL has gone to the Pro Bowl. And so you got him along with Kyle Shanahan, who's an offensive calling genius, and they're going to give this kid opportunities

and they're getting the most out of him. And then obviously, the athleticism of this guy, George Kittle, and the tenacity and the mentality and all the ways that we love. He's everybody's favorite tight-in right now. That takes over, too, once you get the system around him. By the way, he's a bit of a rock star. Here's George Kittle after the game.

Play the tape. He's very pro-wrestler. What the Ninus! Oh, good game. Woo! You know what, though? You know what that does for your team? I said it about a month ago.

This guy is the Ray Lewis for the 49ers. He sets the tone. He's the one out there dancing. He's blocking people. He's the guy when he blocks somebody and he pancakes him. He had that big smile on his face. I don't know if you guys ever saw that tape, I think it was last week. He goes back to the huddle.

He's looking in the huddle. He's talking to his boys. And he's like, hey, man, did you see that? Did you see what I just did to that guy? And he gets everybody around you fired up. when he's in that lineup, it affects the defense, it affects the offense, it affects the coaching staff. He is the heart and soul of that football team. The North Star. I want to talk about another player. You know Drew Brees well. You were in the division.

You played him twice a year. You know, Michael Thomas is another player. Very good college player. The most dominant wide receiver I've seen in several years. He takes over games. Tony, he's not a burner. He's not a 4-3 guy. You know, Jerry Rice was not a 4-3. three guy. Do you think some of his success, like yours, you got the right coach at Cal and the right coach, George Kittle got the right coach. What do you make a Michael Thomas for the Saints? Oh, love him. He's a big guy. He runs great routes. He's got the hallmark that we talk about. One of the hallmarks of a champion caliber player is confidence. His Twitter handle can't guard Mike, just to put it out there, that means there is no fear. And then you're playing with the

most accurate quarterback in NFL history. 67% accuracy over his career. But Drew Brees, that doesn't hurt as well. But this guy, he is another one of those guys that is a heart, the beat of the team. Because every time he catches the ball, he's just intense and is contented. He's so physical. So physical. So physical.

And you've got to have that. I mean, him running through guys, he's quick. He right. You know what he gets also? He gets friendly. He comes back to the ball. And a lot of people out there with not understanding football knowledge, but it's a huge difference.

When you come out of a route and you get friendly, that means you come back towards the line of scrimmage. Look at him, come back right there. That is how you catch a lot of balls. That's how I caught a lot of balls. Even when I was guarded, I would come back to that. You had a big catching range. You have the butt to box guys out.

A lot of what he does because he's not a burner, he's not getting huge separation, is simply six three coming back to the ball, there's nothing you can do. It's almost a basketball move, and you're a basketball player. I've caught so many balls. People, you could watch film of me,

and you're like, man, he wasn't even open there. And the quarterback would throw it up in the air because I'd come back to the ball. I understood how to use my body. And this guy, too, he is extremely quick out of his route. Just like Jerry Rice, not very fast that way, comparably speaking, but coming out of a route, that quickness snapping it out of a route,

that is how you create separate. and that's what he does well. By the way, Tony Gonzalez has a podcast wide open with Tony Gonzalez, Chris Voss, head terrorist negotiator for the FBI, talks to all sorts of business leaders. You know, I was saying that Philadelphia, I'm a big, you and I share this. We like business. We like cultures. There are certain cultures that are built for big games.

Philadelphia is tough. You drive to the stadium. It's snowing. It's a blue-collar city. there's something around Philadelphia that was built for yesterday. Dallas, it's warm weather, like a dome. It's got an art collection in the stadium. A fruity drinks upstairs.

I watched that game yesterday, and we can bang on coaching and playing. But there are teams in this league, and Philly's one of them. They're kind of built for yesterday. They want to get in the octagon. Yeah, right? Like some guys are tough, but you were in NFL locker rooms. There are always one or two guys in every NFL locker room. You don't want to get in the octagon with them.

They're not always the strongest. I watch Dallas. Is it fair to say, they're a little soft. They're a little soft mentally. They're a little soft. They're a little art collection. They're a little finesse. A little privileged or, you know, kind of like rich.

You think like, you think because of Jerry Jones and that Empire galactic, you know, stadium that he built. Facilities. It's like we don't have to try as hard. We can just show up. And they got all the talent on that side of the ball. There's no dog. I guess that would probably is. That's a good way to say.

There's no dog. There's no bite. Like, come on, man. A couple guys on their team. I'm not calling out everybody on the Cowboys. And I think sometimes that starts with your head coach a little bit. Jason Garrett, I love Jason Garrett. I really, really do.

I respect him. But the only knock that I would ever have on Jason Garrett is that he's a little too nice. That, you know, you can't. you can't let the locker room run you. You have to run the locker room and you have to set the tone. And that always starts with the coach. But, you know, there's a fine balance with that. Who was the toughest coach you had? Tuffest coach was Marty Schottenheimer. When I first came in. Well, you won a lot of games with him. Well, I only had him for two years, but you look at his coaching career, what he was able to do.

He had that locker room. And there was a respect for him. There was a fear of him. Why? Because, just like yesterday, we're looking at Odell Beckham coming to the sideline and yelling at Freddie Kitchens or do you think that would happen to Belichick? Do you think? I don't think it would happen to a lot of guys.

A lot of coaches. Like, are you, I just, I just don't know. I would never have done that to any of my coaches, first of all. But you, in life, you put heat on people you think you can. It's like the kids, like they say about teachers. Kids are smart. They feel the teachers. they feel their weakness, and you screw off in class with the teacher you know you can screw off with.

And you confront Freddie because you can feel now in the last couple of weeks he's lost his power. The players are reading about it. And have you noticed in the last three or four weeks, more players are confronting him? Because they sense the weakness. He's injured. And once that happens, oh, it's over. It's over. I mean, because any guy who wants to, especially in this day and age, we were talking about on our show yesterday,

The guy, come get me, that culture. Mika Fitzpat, I mean, it works, first of all. And now guys are actually having success when they go complain. They do get out. Act a fool. And you'll get off the team. I mean, Antonio Brown, just start acting crazy. And they'll get you out of there because they don't want to deal with you.

And that's a dangerous precedent. But it is what it is. It's happening right now. Got to always ask you a chief's question. I called them the windbreaker team, not built for the winner. They look great in snow and they look great last night. What are you talking about? Kansas City is cold out there. We're tough.

We're tough people. Well, Andy's teams have been flashy through the years and a lot of explosion plays. I watched them the last couple of weeks and I'm like, I feel like they could go into Baltimore and win. Well, you know what they have this year is the defense. Forget about the offense. You know Andy Reid's always going to have a great offense. That's going to take care of itself. But defense, where they say the first time in his coaching history where his defensive

of a team held the team to three points, two weeks in a row. I mean, that's a big deal. And now they got Terrell Suggs. Situationalally. Which adds toughness. I mean, that guy's good against the run. He's a big boy. Yeah. And to go with Chris Jones and Frank Clark coming

off the edge and Tyrone Matthew, this is a different defense than they've ever had to go with that offense. Absolutely. They could beat Baltimore. By the way, one final question, Tony Gonzalez. Thirdmost catch has ever made the NFL top 100 team. I got to talk about the top 100 team because you made it and it's unbelievable and it's remarkable

and it wasn't always easy for you overlooked in college had a couple of rough years jason whitlock called you a bust in kansas city who was the best player you ever played with and who was the best player you ever played against and i mean had to go up against in a game um best player i played with probably willie rofe oh lord the left tackle oh he was a load who was left off that top 100 team. Just the only knock against the top hundred is that it kind of leaves the guys who were in the Hall of Fame who made the top of top of. And now it's like,

well, Bo, you didn't make top of 100. Ray Lewis will tell you, Willie Rolf was a nightmare. And then Will Shields, too. Both those guys right there. Just both Hall of Famers, football players that will fun to watch. And then going against who, you know, toughest guy.

The safety from the Seattle Seahawks. Cam Chancellor. Cam Chancellor. And I was a little bit older. I was a little bit older in my career, but that guy was, I mean, 6-3, 235 pounds playing strong safety.

He was that somebody like, I can't out physical now. Oh, you couldn't out physical? Well, I mean, I could. And I had some success against him. Don't get me wrong. But he brought it. Him and Champ Bailey, those guys, because they put champ on me in the game. He's a cow guy. Wasn't Champ Bailey a cow guy? No, he's a Georgia guy.

No, he's a Georgia guy. My bad. Yeah. But those guys, quickness, bigger guys. that could handle me physically. Well, not handle me. That could stay with me physically. But then that quick athleticism, smart guys too. But yeah, Camp Chancellor, he's somebody. And Rodney Harrison.

Rodney Harrison, too, I'll give with those guys. Chris Voss, head terrorist negotiator for the FBI, wide open with Tony Gonzalez. You dive deep in a variety of subjects. You didn't give up acting, did you? Well, for the season, I had to. What do you mean? Come on, Thursday night football.

Oh, you gave up. So you passed on several action movies. I did pass on a movie. You did? I did. What was the movie? I don't know. Something you probably never heard of.

Oh, you want to. Look, I'm no, I'm no Ralph Machio. Yeah, yeah, good point on that. Tony Gets. What is it? I could have thought of it better. Random. Al Pacino, I'm the Al Pacino.

There you guys, better than Ralph Machio. Joy with the news. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the herd line news. karate kid is legendary it was very very well respected by critics and consumers alike

it's still very watchable so the Cowboys watch their chance at clinching the NFC East yesterday with a heartbreaking loss to the Eagles after the game Jerry Jones said he felt numb by the result and seemed to be in disbelief that his team couldn't get the win oh my gosh

we thought we could come up here and play a better game than we played and thought right up until the very end of the thing that we can come in and make some plays and get it done. We had it in mind stepping back up here and getting on a run and having some good things happen. This is a disappointing setback for that locker room and for all of us.

I know it is for the fans. Jerry looks sad. You know, I'll say this. Yeah, sad because he's got to fire Jason Garrett. There are a year sometimes where you have a coaching opening, Joy, and there's not a lot of coaches there. This is a good year to be looking for a coach. coach. I got Ron Rivera with

Norv Turner. I've got Matt Rule. I've got Urban. I've got Lincoln. I mean, of all, in some years, like, it's funny, a couple years ago, USC, the word is they were looking for a coach, and I'm like, not a very good year. There's not a lot out there. You got college choices.

You've got an NFL choice. It's a very interesting year with pretty good candidates. But does it really matter who coaches the Cowboys? Somewhat. Does it? Because we talk about culture all the time, right? And obviously when it comes to facilities, when it comes to relationships with the players,

when it comes to branding, when it comes to power and money as a brand, fans, Cowboys, Top, Top, Top, Top, Top, Top, Top. But like, on the fields, championships as of recents, does it matter who coaches the Cowboys? Because culturally what's going to change? Like this idea that Jerry is all of a sudden going to change who he is and allow a proven or rising coach to come in and run the organization the way that he wants it to be run, I mean, these are hard habits to break.

The idea that all of a sudden Jerry is going to be a closed-door owner to all the players and enable his coach to have the power and control and the final say and final word. Is that really going to happen? I do think there are coaches that could be a little firmer with the locker room, a little more intense. I think there are better fits. Like I think Ron Rivera would make them a better defensive team and a tougher team. I think they become a finesse football team. Better or a championship contender.

Well, that's fair. Better. Because we're having two different conversations. That's right. I do think they would be better with Ron Rivera. They might even be better with Mike McCarthy. They might be better with Lincoln Riley. Rule or Urban Meyer.

any of these names that are out there, they might be better, but are they then all of a sudden in the conversation for actual Super Bowl contender? I don't know. And I don't think, I think that Jerry is just an outlier when it comes to ownership. Because when I think of owners in the NFL, I immediately think of Jerry Jones and Robert Kraft.

Like, immediately, right? First two owners that pop in your head. One relinquishes control one refuses to. One, I can only think of one instance where he has overruled. a situation. That was with Jimmy Garoppolo. Quite frankly, it worked out well for them. Yeah. So I don't know. I don't

see it. The Seahawks running game took a huge hit yesterday. Chris Carson and C.J. Pro Seas both went down with season-ending injuries. Brunel. Brunel. But former Seahawk, Marshawn Lynch, is traveling to Seattle today to meet with the team and discuss a potential return, and head coach Pete Carroll is definitely on board.

He'll be flying in here this morning, and we're going to give him a really good chance to come back to play for us. And I'm fired up for it. You know, and he's got to get through some some hoops he's got to jump through here, just physical and stuff like that. But he's been working really hard. He's really excited about the chance to do something to help it out. And I think it's freaking great.

You know, if he can get out there and tote the ball for us, the circumstances rolled just at this time. And he could have four or five games left in and maybe that's what we need. Who do they play next guys? Who does Seattle play next? Oh, Niners. Yes. Well, they're not going to win the division, but they're in.

So, okay, so my question is, can they get Dwayne Brown back in time for a playoff game. I could live with Marshawn Lynch. I can live with a lot with Seattle. Dwayne Brown solved a lot of their problems at left tackle, and they had them for two years without him. Well, I mean, I don't, obviously none of us know what kind of shape Marshawn's in. He's going to have to pass the physical there,

but I do think he does give him a little bit of an emotional lift to the team as well, especially with all of these injuries at that position. Mishab Penny is also out with the torn ACL. But look, I mean, rough game against the 49ers. But again, I don't count them out. It's not like even with these injuries that I consider them to be, I mean, they're banged up, obviously, but they bring Marshawn in and make it happens. What the Seattle always does.

It's not necessarily that the 49ers are going to just get that win. Right. So I don't know. Again, when it comes to the Seahawks, when it comes to the Eagles, if you've been there before, if you have the experience, then, you know, I'm not just going to, I'm not going to write you off. Finally, the Bengals put up a great effort yesterday. to come back and take the dolphins into overtime after trailing by 23 points in the fourth quarter. It was a very frustrating game for me to watch. But they couldn't complete the comeback and lost their 14th game of the season.

And with that loss, they are officially on the clock and I've locked up the first overall pick in the 2020 draft. Very exciting. Pretty well, you know how I feel about Joe Burrow. Yeah. I wouldn't draft him number one. So, well, from your lips to the Bengals' ears, hopefully they don't. and the dolphins can trade up and scoop in there. Because right now it's the Bengals at one,

Washington at two, the lions at three, the Giants at four, dolphins at five, Jacksonville, Chargers, Panthers, Cardinals, Jets. There's a lot of teams in that top ten that need quarterback. Okay, my theory on the draft has always been, outside of John Elway and Andrew Luck, I would always trade the number one pick, always. If I was Cincinnati and somebody wanted Chase Young, because I think Chase Young teams would move up for Chase Young.

I would say, okay, let's say it's the number six team. I'd say, okay, we'll flip, and I want a second round pick. I get the six pick. Outside of Andrew Luck and John Elway, I've never seen a player that I knew was literally going to change a franchise overnight. I would trade out of it. Cincinnati needs more than Joe Burrell. Absolutely, and that's why this gives me anxiety, because obviously I'm very high on Joe Burrow, but I don't know, I don't love Joe Burrow having to come in and save the bangles with all the holes that they have.

I mean, this season was a disaster for Cincinnati. Cincinnati historically is very old school in the draft. They're not one of these like Belichick's, he's moving up and down the draft. Certain teams will move up and down the draft. Cincinnati's like, here are their picks. These are the ones. So I don't think Cincinnati has that sort of history where they, but if I ran Cincinnati today, I would absolutely trade out of the number one.

Get more picks. get more picks. Just move down to the 13th pick. Get a, get somebody else's second. Get a second round picks. You have two seconds because you already have the top of the second round. I mean, so to me, the obvious move

always with the number one pick is get out of it. I mean, I just don't think it's fair to put that on Joe Burrow. And you know, so much of the success of a quarterback is where you end up going in the draft. I'm going to make a prediction. Okay. No quarterback goes number one.

that is my prediction for the draft. I don't know. I think somebody's moving up for Chase Young. Well, Chase Young's definitely going to go. I don't know. There's so many teams that need quarterbacks. The Dolphins have 10,000 picks. That's the team that needs to straight up.

I think Burroughs fine. But if you get him number one, like I think Miami, if they could get Burrow at eight. And there's not. There's no way, Burroughs going to eight or seven. I'm telling you. No way.

Prediction. Burrow is plummeting to eight. Are you done? Yes. Joy with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Heard Lide News.

I love the drafts. We just did just a draft show. The minute the NFL season ended, I just went into draft talk. I'd be totally happy. Coming up next, the three-word game, every NFL game described succinctly in just three-word. That's coming up.

Be sure to catch live editions of the herd. Weekdays in noon Eastern, 9 a.m. Pacific. All right, we call the three-word game. Every game starting Thursday. Well, we didn't have one Thursday. Every game starting Saturday afternoon until tonight can be described in just three words. Three-word game. Here we go.

Texans bucks. Season of giving. James Winston, four interceptions. third game this year with four plus interceptions. He's thrown an interception in all but four games this season. Nobody throws more bad balls by 115 Eastern in the history of the league. He could be the first player ever in the NFL to have 30 touchdown passes and 30 picks. He's productive, say that.

Bill's Patriots, TB 12 gets 12. his 12th, 12th win season, most consecutive division titles ever by a starting quarterback. I thought this was one of his better performances of the year. I thought he was accurate. The bills didn't get in his face. He threw a nice block. I thought it was Tom's best game in a couple of months. Rams Niners, third and 16.

Rams tied the game late. Niners drove nine plays. 60 yard. They had two big third and 16s. The first one, Jimmy G. gets it to Kendrick Bourne, who went to Eastern Washington University. The next third and 16, Emmanuel Sanders for 46 yards. Jimmy G. can be flawed. He's not perfect. He makes mistakes, but he is terrific and confident in big moments. Third and 16 twice answered against the Rams. Bingles Dolphins. Welcome home, Joe. Joe Burrow, LSU from Ohio, will probably be Cincinnati's number one pick.

I think he's good. I think he has the potential to be a nice franchise quarterback, but I have my doubts. By the way, the last time the Bengals picked a quarterback number one, it did work out well. Carson Palmer, it did change their franchise and the trajectory of the Bengals, so I have no doubt they'll go with Burrow.

I wouldn't, but they will. Jags Falcons, fighting for Quin. Well, it was about two months ago the rumors of Dan Quinn's going to get fired. They're 5 and 2 cents in a division with some pretty good coaches and teams. They're allowing only 18 points a game since week 10. Dan Quinn's a defensive specialist. So that tells you the defensive guys are listening and fighting for their coach. Arthur Blanks got to think about that.

This team likes their coach and they're fighting for him. And the schedule's not been easy. They drilled the Saints. Not an easy win. Ravens Browns, a fitting end. Brown's playoff drought is now officially 17 years, longest in the NFL. Baker Mayfield booed, flipped off by fans. OBJ Jarvis Landry last couple of weeks yelling at the coach.

This is how it ends for a poorly run, inconsistently manned. strategically inept, coached football franchise. Panthers Colts. Cam coming back? Two months ago, I didn't buy it, but Josh Allen's a transitional piece. Will Greer doesn't look the part. I mean, he's just a guy. I don't know.

You look around. What you don't want to be in the NFL is chaotic at quarterback. You don't have to be great. But Cam starting, you're not in chaos. My guest today, they may just bring Cam back. Steelers Jets, Lavian, his game against his old teammates, 25 carries, 72 yards, season high rushing attempts came in wearing Steelers' colors, honor his former team. I thought he played well.

Actually, he has had a down year, but behind that offensive line, tip of the cap to Labian and Sam Darnold, that may be the worst line in the league and he's got 1,200 yards rushing not terrible Saints Titans

can't guard Mike that's his Twitter account Mike Thomas 12 catches against Tennessee the guy's unbelievable 145 catches for the year that's like two good receivers I mean that's two receivers

he's not a burner he may wear Odell Beckham's number but he's not flashing he's not a burner long tough strong has a great quarterback, comes back to the ball. I thought it was a really impressive win by New Orleans, fell behind,

could have mailed it in. They've already got the division. Nice win by the Saints. Raiders Chargers! Still mathematically alive. Raiders are seven and eight, Joy. And they need a series of things to happen. If the Raiders win next week,

the Colts win, Pittsburgh and Tennessee lose, the Raiders are the final wildcard team. That's not too many things, actually. I thought that list would be longer. Yeah, Raiders needed Pittsburgh, Tennessee, and Cleveland to lose and Indy to win. And they did. Yeah. They're still mathematically alive.

Lions Broncos. Locke for Elway. Drew Lock's 3-1. Got a big arm. They're averaging seven points a game more with Drew Locke. He was a second round pick. A lot of people liked him. They thought he was a little scattered, but they thought he had huge talent.

Maybe John Elway. found his guy, three and one with him. Cowboys Eagles, Garrett's a goner. Jason Garrett's contracts up. Been a coach since 2010, never had back-to-back playoff appearances. He's like the Cam Newton of coaches. We know he's confident, but you've got to be special if you coach the Cowboys because it is the biggest brand in the league. Cardinal Seahawks, extremely costly loss. Seattle went from a one-season. seed to a five seed.

They lost two running backs and Dwayne Brown. If you combine that with the other back was gone last week, Penny, they don't have any running backs. And this is really Baltimore, Seattle are really defined by the running game. So of all the teams that could ill afford to lose running backs, Seattle is one of them. Chiefs Bears can beat Ravens. Listen, they're 2-0 against Lamar. Everybody else is one in 19.

A, they can get into a firework show with Baltimore and win. B, they've shown an ability. Went to Foxboro. They can win on the road. C, to beat Baltimore. Baltimore's going to get some free touchdowns because of Lamar, some freebie, some easy ones. Kansas City, they can get those two-play touchdown drives. Watch out.

They feel like the third best team in the league this morning and the second best team in the AFC. But Patrick Mahomes gives them a shot to win in Baltimore. Baltimore. Not sure anybody else can do that in the AFC. Packers, Vikings, true Packer test. They've played four playoff teams currently. They're two and two. They did beat Kansas City without Mahomes. Vegas has this. Foxbet has it. Five and a half point line and Vikings don't have their top two running backs. Feels like Vegas and Foxback don't buy the Packers. I don't. We'll see it tonight for Joy and everybody here. I hope you're having already a great holiday season. Speak for

yourself is coming up next. One more herd. The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the IHeart radio app. Search herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. 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 on humor 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 a cappella band with their between

songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I-Heart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to learn the hard way with your favorite therapist and host, Kier Games.

This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that's really not safe to have anywhere, but you're having them with a He's a businessman professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit are armored. It signals to the world that you not to be played with. And just because you have the capability that does not mean that you need to.

Listen and learn the hard way on the AHA radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. 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. Linebacker walks up to me, he goes,

A, ref, my mom wants you to wave at her. What? Quarterback on office, blue of 42. Hey, rep, my mama wants you to wave at her. What? Hey, Ms. Parker. Listen to the Cliverts show on the IHart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.

This is an IHart podcast. Guaranteed Human.