The Josh Innes Show - I've Got A Sleeper Pick For First NFL Coach Fired

Episode Date: August 19, 2025

I was watching Joe Burrow run for his life last night and decided that Zac Taylor has a very good chance of being the first coach fired this NFL season. Lets take a look at the odds. Also, how is it possible that the Bengals, who have an all-world QB, have the exact same problems they had last year? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Good morning, everybody, about 440. Bright and early. We're bright-eyed and bushy-tailed after wrapping up the football weekend with the Bengals last night. The Bengals and the commanders, which I kind of broke down the middle on in terms of, well, I lost a couple of bucks last night. But it was because I was bored and I took both teams receiving yards, even though I didn't feel like the commanders were going to throw it much. but I took them anyway, so I lost that one, hit the bangles easy, and I lost a couple other things. So yesterday wasn't a good day for your boy, but it wasn't like a disaster.

It's not like I found myself, you know, crushed yesterday. Just got to bounce back. Last night we took an L, but tonight we bounced back. Now, one thing we did learn last night is that we may want to get in on a first coach fired bet. If you can find a website for a first coach fired bet, I think after this weekend of football and after kind of seeing what's going on around the league, I think we've got a couple of people who are on the first coach to be fired list

that are very good value, assuming you can actually find a website that will give you first coach fired odds. Let's, and it all has to do with Joe Burrow and a lot of stuff. So let's play a couple commercials and let's continue. All right. So, last night, Joe Burrow stayed in for the first quarter of this preseason game. They looked okay in the first drive. I bet on Joe to throw a touchdown in the first drive of the game, which was disheartening because they had a guy in the end zone open.

Ball was dropped. That should have been a touchdown. Should have been easy cash. Should have set me off in the right direction, but it didn't. Then I took some other guys to score touchdowns. It didn't score touchdowns. It was a shitty night for me from that angle. But Joe Burrow, what we saw last night, was a lot of the same.

Joe is still great. Joe is still Joe is still cocky and confident. Joe is still a guy that can sling it. Joe is still a guy that can make every throw. He's still got Jamar Chase, who is still a beast. What did we also see last night? That all of the things that plagued the Bengals last year, if you watched the Bengals at all last year,

the reason why they started so poorly, the reason why they couldn't bounce back and get into the postseason is because the offensive line play was bad and the defense was atrocious. Now, a preseason game may not be the best gauge of this and Trey Hendrickson didn't play because he's still in the midst of this hold in, whatever. But if last night was any indicator, the offensive line still sucks and the defense is still bad. And if that's the case, the Bengals are going to be a disappointment again.

And assuming Joe Burrough stays healthy, which means assuming his offensive line doesn't get him murdered, which almost happened multiple times last night. I'm watching this game and I'm going, Zach, take the dude out. Generally speaking, I'm not one of those kind of guys. Like, I don't go into these preseason games and say, oh, don't play this guy because what if he gets hurt? Well, what if he gets hurt in practice? I mean, guys get hurt in practice. They have these split squad practices at joint practices. People get hurt.

We've seen injuries happen in practice. So if you're concerned with a guy getting hurt in a preseason game, then I could argue they should never practice because if those games are meaningless, then practices are meaningless. I mean, it's the same concept. You are practicing, basically. You are playing a practice football game. You are practicing getting better in a preseason game. So if a preseason game is dumb, then so is practice. So there's value in the preseason game.

Not a ton, but there is some value. And for the first time in his life, Joe Burrow has taken a ton of snaps. I think I saw a stat last night that in his career, Burrow has taken 15 preseason snaps. This year he's taken over 30. So they're trying to get into a bit of a rhythm, trying to get into a groove last night. And the first drive was pretty good. They leave him in for the second drive. It sucks.

He's running for his life in the third drive. There was a situation where he gets taken down and kind of twisted down. And like I'm watching this because I love watching Joe play and I want Joe to be good and I want to bet on Joe. That's the biggest reason. I love the guy. NFLSU, as it were, so I love watching Joe Burrow. There's a play where he gets twisted down for a long loss on a sack, and I'm watching this, and I feel like Lance Harbour's dad in the stands.

I'm like, Lord, don't do this to me. Like, what the fuck is Zach Taylor doing? It's clear this offensive line is not good. At least the guys that were out there last night. The defense did nothing to put up any sort of resistance when the first drive of the game for the commanders, they marched. right down the field didn't have to throw the ball bang bang bang touchdown i mean i think the bangles are going to be a mess again they're going to be a letdown because you've got

joe burrow you're wasting great joe burrow years you are wasting jemar chase years you're wasting all of this with a bad offensive line and a bad defense which now brings us to the first coach to be fired and if you look at this list again this is from i'm looking at this from odd shark and you got to find the right sites that have it like i don't know if draft kings I don't think a Draft Kings has it right now, and I don't think that Fandul has this. Now, the guy with the shortest odds are the guy that's most likely to be fired in season is Brian Dable. And I agree with that. Like, I think Dable's going to be gone, too.

I don't know if it's going to be in the middle of the season, but it probably will be because they're going to lose a lot of football games. They're either going to lose a lot of football games with Russell Wilson, who's the starter, or they're going to start Russell, and they're going to deal with a lot of pressure early losing games, and they're going to bring in Jackson Dart and Jackson Dart while looking like a guy who's going to be a Hall of Fame. Like, I think Jackson Dart's going to be a rock star. Hall of Famer might be a stretch. I think Jackson Dart, as we talked about yesterday,

I think Jackson Dart is going to be legit. It's just a matter of when he sees the field. Because Russell Wilson, as we saw last year with the Steelers, the Steelers were a better run organization, maybe not as good offensively in terms of how they're run. But the Steelers are a great organization, solid head coach. And Russell was fine for stretches. and then Russell went back to be in the current day Russell Wilson.

So I don't anticipate Russell Wilson having some sort of successful season where he's the quarterback the entire year for the Giants. So eventually they're going to go to Jackson Dart. Who knows if they even keep James Winston? A lot of teams need backup quarterback, and maybe James Winston's going to go somewhere else. They can get something for him. So if Russell is done, they're going to go to Jackson Dart.

Maybe earlier than later. I don't know. And you're not going to win a lot of games with a rookie. You're not going to win a lot of games with Russell Wilson. That's why it's fascinating that, like, Brian Daibole is truly dead man walking. I do not see a scenario where Brian Daibol is the coach of the Giants next year. And I wonder, he may think the same thing. Like, the only thing I could see is if, you know, they get to the rookie quarterback,

you don't anticipate winning a lot of games with the rookie quarterback, and he slings and shows up and shows out, and they believe that Brian Daibol is the reason why Jackson Dart is playing well. And it's not to say the rookie quarterbacks can't play well. guy. You saw it with Sean Peyton and Bo Nix. It's like, it's not impossible. But I'm just, I'm not a big, look, Day Bowl blows. And he's at every opportunity, and I get that his

quarterbacks haven't been all that good. And I think Jackson Dart is going to be better than the dweeps they've had in there. But I think that him getting fired in the middle of the season feels really, really, really likely. You got Mike McDaniel, who's falling off a cliff. You talk about a dude that was on top of the mountain, a dude that was everybody's kind of fun, charming, quirky, guy. He's aged 100 years. I think we talked about this last year. Mike McDaniel has aged a hundred

years. He's got meth face. He has aged like someone who's been shooting heroin or doing meth for the last 10 years of his life. Do you remember when you saw the mugshot of Goldberg from the Mighty Ducks? I don't know if you've actually seen it, but there's, I guess there might be a couple mugshots. And I forgot what drug he was into, maybe heroin, maybe meth. I forgot what what Goldberg was into apparently he's cleaned it up now but there was that time where you hadn't seen Goldberg in a hundred years and then Goldberg shows up in a mugshot and you're like holy shit what happened to Goldberg like that's Mike McDaniel right now he goes from being kind of a youngish spryish tanish guy and like look at his face it is haggard this dude is aged he will

also get fired in the middle of this year he's to me I would actually consider Mike McDaniel over Brian Dable. Because they may give Brian Dayball the benefit of the doubt because, you know, rookie quarterback, it may wait till the end of the year. Mike McDaniel's going to be fired in the middle of the season because the dolphins are going to be a disaster. He's got a veteran quarterback. They're a mess.

The charm is worn off. He will get fired in the middle of the season. But last night, when I'm watching Zach Taylor allowed Joe Burrow to run for his life in a preseason game behind a shit offensive line with a defense that has no chance of stopping anybody. Imagine if they trade, Trey Hendon. which that's the report that's out there, is that Trey Hendrickson might get traded.

Let's say you trade Trey Hendrickson. You are a non-threat defensively. So Joe Burroughs going to have to win a lot of, you know, 45, 42 games. They lost, I believe, two or three. I think they were two and two last year in games in which they scored 35 points. Think about losing two games in which you scored 35 points. They can't stop anybody. So since they can't stop anybody, they're going to have to win a lot of shootouts.

to me, Zach Taylor, and he's got the worst odds on this list, plus 900, plus 900 for Zach Taylor as the next coach to be fired, which would be the first coach of the season to be fired. I circle Zach Taylor and say there's amazing value in this, because there's a real possibility that the Bengals are like they were last year, one and four, two and five or something to start the year, season over really before it even starts, defense in no way better, offensive line getting Joe Burrow crushed, plus 900 for Zach Taylor ain't bad. Plus 900 for Zach Taylor, I circle that and go, that is tremendous value.

If you can find that somewhere, if you can find that on Draft Kings fan duel, or if you're like in Houston, I guess you guys can't use those, but you could use one of the offshore sites, which I guess may be more likely to have that. Because Zach Taylor last night, like I understand that you want to get your guy out there, you want to get them in a rhythm, you want to have ended on a high note, and an He did. They threw a touchdown and it kind of got a little bit of a groove. I think Joe completed his last five passes. So he kind of got into a little bit of a groove. Fine. What I saw last night, not that a preseason game is the end-all be-all. And I very rarely look at a preseason game as any way to judge future performance. But you do want to see what a team does relative to past performance, especially if past performance was terrible. Offensive line and defense were terrible for the Bengals last year. And what was last night? Offensive line was terrible. Defense was terrible for the Bengals this year so far.

And that could potentially be without one of the biggest game records on defense and Trey Hendrickson. So I think the Bengals are going to be much like they were last year. I feel there's no reason to believe. Let's look at the Bengals schedule really quick. Let's see what the Bengals schedule is. Is it one of those that can get you out of the gate poor? The Colts, actually, that's the preseason. Let's see Bengals and Browns.

That's a game you should win. I feel like in the Battle of Joe Burrow versus. a newly named starting quarterback Joe Flacco. That's another great topic is how long Joe Flacco remains in a quarterback because there's going to be so much outside pressure to play Shudor Sanders in Cleveland, so much, and it's going to become a racial thing, you know, old white guy, keeping the young black guy from getting the job, what's the deal? And I understand injuries, you're dealing with injuries right now with Shadur as well,

but there's going to be a lot of pressure. Bengals will be a loseable game. The Vikings will, to me, you should beat the Vikings. I think the Vikings should suck. Let's see. Broncos is a game you could lose. Lions is a game you could lose. So all of those games that you would circle,

I don't think there's any game in there in which the Bengals will be heavy, heavy underdogs. There's not a game I see in there where they're going to be like, oh, they're a six and a half point dog. Because the Lions are probably the best team on that list that they're going to face. And the Lions have their own issues too. So replacing two coordinators, who knows what they're going to look on. We have not seen Jared Gough play at all. so we have no idea what he looks like in the new offense.

Reports out of camp have been that the offense hasn't looked great, although last week in their scrimmage games with, I think, the dolphins. I forgot who it was the week before that, but they had the dolphins this week. The things started looking better. I think it was against the dolphins and that they kind of schooled the dolphins, so people kind of felt a little better. There's no game in which the Bengals will be a heavy favorite or a heavy underdog. They'll be a favorite against the Browns.

I think that goes without saying, and maybe that'll be a five-and-a-half type of a line. even though it's on the road, so maybe like a four and a half. And the Browns were one of those sneaky cover teams all last year anyway. And Flacco's a pro. Bengals at home against the Jaguars, that could be a game in which the Bengals are like in the two and a half favorite range. Vikings quarterback play. You're going to be close to even money against the Vikings come week three because I don't

trust the Vikings quarterback play at all. Broncos on the road, you're probably looking at close to even money in that game as well. and at home against the lions, I'd say, I mean, those are all going to be within one or two points. So there's not going to be some lines that are gigantic. So for every game in the first five, you could win, as much as this team could be four and one, they could be one and four. Why am I trying to sell you on this? Because if they start one and four, they're going to fire the coach. If they start one and five, they inevitably are going to fire Zach Taylor, and he may be the first to go.

And there's good value on that. That is all. All right, more to come.