The Right Time with Bomani Jones - Diante Lee on Eagles' ongoing issues, Jaguars' Travis Hunter Mistake, Lions vs. Baker Mayfield | 10.17

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

Diante Lee of The Ringer joins Bomani Jones to discuss an upcoming week 7 of NFL action. First, they break down the ongoing issues with the Philadelphia Eagles ahead of their matchup with the Minnesota Vikings. Later, they discuss how NFL coaches never know when to fire their coaches and if it is time to believe in Daniel Jones and the Indianapolis Colts. Finally, they talk about how Travis Hunter needs to pick a position, and if Baker can keep his great season vs. the Lions on Monday Night Football. 00:00 - Introduction 05:30 - Eagles keep struggling 12:30 - If you draft a QB, fire your coach! 28:30 - Believe in Daniel Jones? 34:30 - Travis Hunter needs to pick a side 45:12 - Lions vs. Bucs Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the right time, a wave original. My name is Beaumani Jones. Thanks for listening wherever you get your podcast. Thanks for watching us on YouTube. Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. I'm inclined to believe you are a hater. It is Deonté Lee Lee of the Ranga.

By popular demand has returned. What's going on, man? Listen, I like Dominique. I don't need Dominique running down my back. All right. I'm not trying to take your corners, brother. Oh, no. Not when he gave that quarter away, brother. I ain't trying to hear that shit from him. Like, this is, it's a, it is a rotating quarter now. He under, you know, this is what it is. Also, I hadn't really noticed the last time, you know, you want of these persistent hairline cats. That's, you know. Look, I try to keep it up as much as possible. The way I look at it is, my, my barbershop is across the street from where I live. I really don't have an excuse not to be there other than the fact that these prices is going up. So, you know, I got, I got to budget it properly.

but I try to get in as often as I can. What a haircut hit in 40 days? I honestly have no idea. I'm a San Diego native, so, you know, we're very competitive where market rates are at. I would say this probably, it probably runs me about 60 bucks before I get to tip. If I do forehead plus hairline.

A haircut costs 60. 60. Yeah. I really don't understand how it don't look like the 95 bulls outside. Like the 99 pacer's. I don't really get. Due to knowledge. Chish.

Yeah. Yeah. Just I was about to say. That sounds about the same. We all out here. Fredro changed the world. And for those who have not seen that clip, that is the funniest thing in the world. And Fredro Starr swears up and down and Michael Jordan shaved his head because of onics. Onyx. Because of onics.

Yo, crazy things have happened. I'm going to pull this up on my phone and play the audio here. I don't know if you have seen this, but you do some high school football coaches. I want to ask you about this because I talked about a little last week, but good for the Arizona Cardinals for playing a pretty good game last week. But at the same time, I took the fact that he got fined $100,000 as a sign that I don't know how long this thing is going to hold up that they've got going there. Like what did you think as coach of seeing what we realized that he has put his hands on

that grown man in that way? I think that like everybody, the first thought is like, damn, 100 racks is a lot. That's a lot for a coach is fine, for what seemed to just be a guy being very heated in the moment. But then the moment I got out of that and I started thinking, what is he like in the building? That when that happened, his GM or his assistants or the owner looked and said, all right, we have now crossed the threshold. Homeboy has been pushing this line maybe a little bit too far and we have crossed it and now we've got to start dialing this thing back. So I'm with you. I'm with you on that.

I don't know how much longer we got on this. like an idea apparently of what kind of guy he is. This is audio from his press availability this week. And I was not aware that Jonathan Gannon had been an assistant coach on the 2007 Atlanta Falcons. And this is how, and this is how I found out he had been. As far as when you, when you have all these injuries and you have all these different pieces, when's the first time that you can recall it?

2007, when our quarterback went to jail? 2007 when your quarterback went to jail. There's nothing better than somebody being out of press conference and giving an hour and giving an answer that makes everybody in the press just sit with what they just heard. That silence was palpable. So here's the thing about it. And this is what tells me what it's like to be around him or at least someone's like to be around him that day. Right.

There are many ways to have given that exact same answer like, well, you know, when I first got to the NFL, we wound up in a situation with the Falcons where we had the Michael Vicks situation, which obviously was a tragedy. But you know, you realize at that moment, hey, sometimes you're not going to have guys. Sometimes things just aren't going to go. He could have very easily said that. That's that that's what he said. But it ain't how he said.

You could have just said early in my coaching career. Okay. Been through adversity as a coach. Had things happened that were out of my control. You don't have to call back to that specific memory in that way. He did have to call back. because that was the exact moment. He knew exactly when he realized he had to stop doing that

when he got a call that the whole reason that he took the job was going to jail. Right. And I can only imagine because he got to start with Petrino at Louisville. I can only imagine what those conversations were like. Like, hey, man, I want to build a life some way. Or, you know, he might have had a significant other at this time. I mean, first got to go home and tell my wife or my girlfriend that the whole reason why I'm getting paid. is about to be behind bars.

I mean, you've made the front decision to hit your wagon to a man as untrustworthy as Bobby Petrito. Yes, to begin with. Inven this happens. Oh, my goodness. But all right, we got us a week of NFL football that, you know, we're in our by-week era, right?

This is where we are. I feel in a lot of ways, like, it's hard not to do a lot of rewind on this season because we don't have great teams. But I do think we have interesting teams. and I want to stop talking about the Eagles. I really, really do. But it never stops being totally fascinating what's going on here.

So now they've got this game here against Minnesota. And if they go to four and three, you cannot lose this football game. Even on the road? You cannot lose this football game. Because it don't seem like J.J. McCarthy is going to play. I know he's been limited in practice. So you're looking at Carson Wentz, a guy that you.

quickly jettisoned out the door when it was time and you've got your quarterback who's struggling and your offense that's struggling, you cannot afford to lose this football game. You haven't even gotten to the fact that the, every time I hear the Y receiver comes to the press conference, it sounds like he's talking with clinch fits and gritted teeth, you know. That's just one of them. That's just one of them. That's the one who's willing to say it publicly. The other one is a little bit better at finessing his way through.

He's got the Nick Saban media training, so he knows how to kind of talk around his situations in Devante Smith. And then I'm looking at the head coach and the offensive coordinator. And I know that you've said this multiple times. I'm looking like, hey, man, what do you do here? What do you do? If this is what you're dealing with? Why is this problem not fixed?

You don't call plays. You're not one of these Shanahan guys. You're not a coach GM type. We know who runs the roster here. The owner is the one who was given all the directives. Your job specifically is to make sure there are smiles on the face. of the 53 guys in the locker roll. You're supposed to bring the oranges.

You're the vibes guy. You're supposed to be the vibes guy. And that's what he was sold as in the first place. When he got hired, he was wearing the graphic teas with Rocky and the Sixers and all this stuff. And everybody was feeling great. And now all we've got are shaved heads when things go sideways and a bunch of sucking your teeth and rolling eyes and not wanting to admit to the fact that you might have made a mistake by hiring your buddy to call this offense. Well, let me think of, let's also think about this, right?

There's so many ways to view what is going on with this team. And, you know, one of them is obviously, I think it's interesting with Jalen Hertz, where Jalen Hertz gives you a turbo booster if everything else is going right. And then if not everything else is going right, there's a chance that he becomes what is not going right. I think something that is very interesting that happens to us with football teams is we act like we've never watched football before and that there isn't a measure of variance from year to year. So remember when the Bucks won that Super Bowl in the COVID year and then we kept talking about it like a college team. They're bringing back 22 starters. Are you sure that you want to have all 22 back?

Right. Right. Like is that what it is. The changes you do and the changes you don't make are so, much more important. But when the coach is the vibes guy and the quarterback clearly who is a coach's son is looking at the vibes guy like, hey man, this ain't no real coaching. Like say what you want about Jalen Hertz.

We always say we love the coach's son. But the coach's son is a tough audience. Tough, tough audience. It's like being the quarterback's son. Being Peyton Manning's coach was not an easy job. That's a really tough audience. This is also another guy who comes from the Nick Saban school. And he doesn't seem to be the guy that I'm just here to work hard and go home.

Obviously, that's a part of his thing. He also seems like the Nick saving guy in the sense that if something's wrong, you're going to know. Yes. And when he shows up at these press conferences, it always sounds like, oh yeah, we talked and we seem to come to an understanding. And I always hear that as Jalen Hertz is going in the office saying, this is what I want to do. Can we make that happen? And less like Kevin Petulow saying, this is the game plan for the week. And I think that even with that, that's caused. in other layers of issues as well because now your wide receivers feel like they're not getting enough opportunities. And, you know, I know I'm not the only person to make this comparison. I look at Jalen and I think of him as Russell Wilson in a lot of ways, right? He might not be

as weird or quirky, you know, at this stage in his career. But it's very much, whatever is happening on the field is a direct result of what he wants as a quarterback. And I don't know right now if that's what's serving the best interest of this team. Yeah, the other thing about this team is for reasons good and bad. It's just always a new coordinator. They fire coordinators. They've had coordinators go on to get better jobs. Like, nothing is ever the same with this team. The Syrian era has been a roller coaster, unlike any roller coaster, I believe that I have ever seen.

Yeah. I've never seen a team this good have this many problems, this many headaches on a year-to-year basis. And I think that, I don't know if you heard Lane Johnson after the Thursday night game, I'm speaking with Justina Anderson. and he sounds, A, like a guy who's very tired, right, and very annoyed when things go wrong, for one. But past that, he is another guy who's willing to say, we're too predictable. I need, you know, I need my head coach to kind of take the reins of this because he should know what it takes to win it. He should know, you know, how to develop an offensive coordinator because these guys have shuffled in and out.

And where we need to go to get back to what it was in 2022, 2023, in the back half of 2024, when this offense was, moving the ball. And the fact that it's not, and guys seem to be a little angsty and people are banged up. I don't know if you guys have noticed that they can't really run the ball no more. I don't think the Saquan Barkley stopped being fast. I think that the big guys up front have 550 snaps of running the ball and touch bushes on their body and they look like it a little bit. And if he's not there and that line's not there the way it needs to be, we are running out of options for this offense to be as good as it should. Hold on. What if two things are true at once? because I did think that

Mackay Beckton at right guard is a cheat code for run blocking. 100% right and they don't have that anymore but also Seacon Barkley is not young for a running back and that was a lot of yards and a lot of touches last year. Like this is again

we act like we've never watched football before right? These things happen from time to time so he might be fast but the margins are thin you know what I mean? Like what it takes to be that guy like I feel like a 2,000 yard season. One of my buddies told me about making music that the DOC once told him that to make a classic album, three people have to be operating at Top of Day game, like at a

Hall of Fame level to do a classic album. I feel like a 2000 yard rushing season involves a similar level of everything coming up, Millhouse, right? For sure. And a couple of those things are off. But I just realized the thing I wanted to talk to you about that's a bit broader that I think is interesting. Ryan and I had been looking at this. And I am blindsiding you with this to a degree. But did you see the thing that ESPN did where they were just basically looking at how all these number one picks at quarterback the next year their head coaches have all been fired more or less. I think I've seen a tweet about it. I have seen a tweet about that. And I know that you, this has been a conversation that you've had on this show a bunch about needing to be a little bit more

mindful that these guys don't leave college, ready to lead a franchise. That was bad the year before they got there. Yes. And that these teams, for whatever reason, bring these head coaches on from one year to the next, knowing that they don't have the juice and hoping that a rookie quarterback is going to save everybody's job. And when it doesn't go right, now we are starting all over. And, you know, Tennessee obviously being the most recent example, but we have seen this over the last decade, really, of teams hiring quarter, or excuse me, drafting quarterbacks with dead, you know, kind of lame duck head coaches and expecting everything to work out

and then being shocked when it does not. So I had an interesting thought when I saw. of this. So for example, James Winston, they fired the head coach the year after that. Jared Golf. They fired the head coach

the year after that. Baker Mayfield, I believe they fired the head coach the same year. Kyler Murray, they hired the coach specifically for him.

Right? Put a pen in that thought. Trevor Lawrence, they fired his guy. Joe Burrow. No, they kept his guy for better. Zach Taylor.

came in for better or worse. They have kept his guy. Ken Ward, they just fired his guy. Who was the number one pick last year? Because I feel like they fired his guy. Caleb Williams. Candle Williams. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

They fired his guy quick. And then the year before that was Bryce Young, and they fired his guy. Quicks. My thought is this. If you're going to get the rookie quarterback, you probably should go ahead and fire your coach now. And the reason you should probably

fire your coach now is you're probably going to fire your coach. Because you're probably bad enough that you're already behind the eight ball and that rookie is not going to save you. And they're going to be like, oh, we got it. Like, once the ball gets rolling on firing you, then that ball just kind of doesn't stop. Because I actually go through that list and I realize, oh, this is what happens when we don't offer context. Case and point, they fired James Head coach in the name of continuity because it's so crazy to look back on. They were afraid that somebody was going to hire Dirk Cutter,

and they had to have him with James. And so they kept Dirt Cutter and then fired him a couple years later. Shortly thereafter. Yeah. Jared Gough, yes, they fired his coach the first year, but his coach was, oh boy, it was Fitty Fitty. Jeff Fisher. And who did they bring in to replace him?

The best thing that could have ever happened to Jerry Gough, they brought in Sean McVeigh. That worked out. They fired Hugh Jackson on Baker Mayfield and then brought in, I guess, was the fancy guy. The Johnny Kitchen. Oh, I forgot. Yeah, got that even. And that was, that was a Baker call.

It was a Baker call. It was a Baker call. It was a Baker call. Trevor Lawrence, they made literally one of the worst head coaching hires of all time. With Bryce Young, they thought they were hiring a quarterback guy. And then immediately were like, hey, this is a horrible idea. which, by the way, most people who watched that team thought that it was a, the Frank Wright thing was not going to happen.

Cato Williams, they should have fired Iroflux before the season. Like, people get a little bit too sentimental about firing people. Sometimes you just got to do it. When you know, you know. Right. When you know, you know. And this most recent example with Cam Ward, I felt like we knew this before we got to Halloween last year.

Right. That Brian Callahan was not cut out for the gig. like when you're screaming at your second round quarterback that everybody seemed to agree should not be a starter, but you had to start because Ryan Tannihill was banged up and you're screaming on them for making all the same mistakes that he was making at Kentucky. I think people were looking around then like, hey boss, if you can't develop his way out of these problems and you're not willing to accept it and this is burning you up emotionally, this don't seem like the guy that's got the kind of constitution to be able to handle losing and the way that you're probably going to lose being the Tennessee Titans at that point in time. The same was true of Iberfluse, man. Like, it didn't seem like you ever had two hands on the wheel.

You knew before that season was over that he had to go. Well, I think that I don't get the thinking there. The truth is this. If it's not your guy, fire him. Right. Right. Like if it comes to where you're at some other inflection point of what it is that you're doing, if this is not your guy, right?

If you're not like, no, I believe in him. if you're saying to yourself, we'll see. And you're trying to turn over the quarterback. No, no, no, no, no, no. You need to go ahead and do all those things all at one time. But we were bad enough to get the number one overall pick and we're going to keep the coach.

There's a world for you to do that. Like, I don't think that that's an indefensible decision. But you need to be invested in that guy. The problem is if the rest that, if the team, if that dude loses team, then you wind up having to fire him. Like, ugh. I'm not saying these are easy decisions, but still.

I think that the other problem, too, is that ownership gets a little, maybe gets a little hesitant about if we fire the coach, what does that say about my GM? Yes. And I think that the truth is, you should probably be cleaning house anyways, right? This chain of events probably doesn't have to stop that head coach. If your roster is bad enough to get the first overall pick and you know you're going to get a quarterback, you are now transitioning into a different phase of roster building, right?

Everybody knows that a rookie scale quarterback is the most valuable asset that you can have in roster building. And why would you entrust that to a coach that couldn't win beforehand in a GM that couldn't build a roster good enough to keep you away from having a number one or a top three overall pick in the NFL draft? I think that it would make more sense for some of these owners to just cut bait when you know you're bad. When you're bad, the rot usually doesn't stop at the roster. It typically goes all the way up through the front office as well. and I think that we will probably see less of quarterbacks basically wasting their rookie years because they're stuck with GMs that don't know how to build rosters.

Trevor Lawrence, I think, has definitely been a victim of that having to suffer through the Trent Balky years longer than, you know, just dealing with Urban Meyer. I think that Caleb Williams is probably going to be struggling with that with Ryan Poles, who continues to find his way to get in extensions in additional time to build a roster in spite of not having any returns on the players that he's bringing in, basically.

And I think that Tennessee is going to be dealing with that. because Amy Adams Strunk has shown a reactivity to being embarrassed that you usually don't see from the kind of owners that build up winning franchises. And sometimes you just got to bring in different leadership, people who can let owners know that they can build something in a different vision around a rookie quarterback. And I think the fear to do so is while we're losing early development on so many of these players. Now, I will also make this point. Obviously, there's a giant outlier in Titan slash Oilers history, which is the 10. of Jeff Fisher, but let me tell you who loved a knee-jerk firing. Amy Strunk's daddy, bud.

But Adams made some moves and lets some people go ahead and coach teams pretty well, but also was inclined, you know, to similar moves. But it becomes an interesting conversation, I think, for example, the Lions in the first year under Campbell started 010 and 1. Say that that is a two-in team or whatever. I believe that Sheila Hemp would have looked at the world and said, I believe in our head coach and we're going to do this because they believed in the head coach. Like that's what you got to do.

The problem, Aaron Glenn is having right now with the Jets because they look back. I don't think anybody can stand up and say that they believe in him right now. And so if something happens and they wind up getting the first pick, you're inclined to keep Aaron Glenn because it was just the first year, right? you're inclined to go ahead and do that. But you're going to need to fire him in all likelihood. Eventually. Because you don't believe in him.

And it's the if you're going to do it eventually, you might as well do it immediately. Right. Like I think that that becomes, you know, kind of the case. But we have such unrealistic expectations of how easy it is or is not to hire a coach, hire a GM, bring in a quarterback. Like what we're learning, I feel like, is that the growth arc of these quarterbacks is so much longer than people give you credit for being. But the jobs that people have, the timetables that they have to operate on in the name of success does not go for that. So with Baker Mayfield, for example, are like, well, the Browns were out on Baker Mayfield. Yeah, but Baker Mayfield, as he was, was going to get everybody fired.

They didn't have the, hey, man, just give me three more years. And I'm telling you, he might be a candidate for the MVP. That was that's not on the board. Sam Darnel had bounced to all these places for the same reasons, right? You don't, those guys job timelines people don't have and it's because our expectations are so crazy. Like I think about living in New York, they tell you you're going to need to live in like three apartments before you find yours. That's just how it works, right? Like you got to get an apartment because you need somewhere to live. You don't have time to get all the way to the bottom of it and figure out everything you need and everything that's important.

I figure that shit out once you in there and you find it all out the hard way. Right? Like this is how it works. You get you third place and you're like, oh, okay, now I understand that this is what I want. When I was hosting a late night show for HBO, an important job is head writer. And people don't understand. The head writer is the manager of the writing staff that is to relay like what you want to them, but they're kind of a black box.

It goes in between them. But it's a process. And they're like, hey, man, it probably takes. makes a couple or three before you find the right one. I had two that were very talented, not necessarily the one, but you don't have time to go back to the network and be like, hey, man, if you give me two more choices

on a head writer, I promise you. This thing is going to stink and skyrocket. And the people I work with did great jobs. You know what I mean? But it's like, is it exactly what you need? But nobody has time for you to do what is actually prudent and realistic. Right.

And I think that similar to playing quarterback, there is a high bar to clear to be one of the good guys. If we're talking about coaching and GMs, but the threshold of clear to just be a guy isn't that high. Right. And if you only got a guy, then yeah, you probably need to, your turnaround rate probably needs to be a little bit higher with what we see in the NFL. And I think that with Detroit, one of the reasons why it worked out is because Brad Holmes and Dan Campbell were brought in in the same offseason. So anything you were saying that was a vote of confidence for one applied to the other. And I think the Detroit knew we were going to ride this out with both of these guys no matter what. That's a much different proposition than what's happening in Tennessee, for example,

where Mike Borganzi has hired last season with the lame duck head coach. And the president of football ops was hired the season before that. And he's been there through multiple guys getting fired and taking jobs beneath him on the org chart. I think that it's more of those kind of incongruencies with how you're hiring guys. and how you're handling timelines with people, that ends up being reflected on the field. Because like you said, all these guys' jobs are usually tied to how good the quarterback is,

and everybody wants to know in two years. You basically got two and a half years to show us something. And in a lot of cases, it turns into one and a half if your head coach is already walking in on the hot seat. So I do think that it's tough. And like you said, not everybody can be good at this job. But I think that more often than not, we see guys in the NFL that hold these positions

and you look at what you're seeing on the field and thinking, man, any old coordinator can be promoted to this, this gig, and put out results just like this. It is difficult to find the right guy, but just finding a guy is not as hard to find. And usually the ones with just a guy are the ones that are most liable to end up picking high in the draft and needing to be replaced. Yeah, by the way, firing Brian Callahan, tremendous idea. Yes. Just so clear. Anybody say it, like, you're not doing it.

Cam Ward a disservice by firing Brian Callahan because you think he needs continuity, right? That's like my brother was said about this cat we knew who had a son and I had said that it was good that he was around with that son and my brother said

we're going to call the man John. I'm not sure to having John for a daddy is better than having no daddy at all. That's where that's where Brian Callahan situation was we can't war. Like, no, no, don't beg your daddy to stay. That man walking out, that man going to get that pack of cigarettes is the best thing that's ever happened to you.

Let him go. Yes. Let that man leave. I mean, Jeff Simmons was kind of intimating as much after Sunday talking about, yeah, we came off a win, and this was as flat as we've ever been all season. And again, that leaves me back to the same place I was at with Nick Siriani, where you got to look at the head coach and say, what do you do here? The offense ain't good. The roster ain't good. The quarterback don't look as good now as he did in college. And the guys don't seem to be enjoying being around each other. Why are we paying you to be here? Why are you here? That is the question all of us have to answer every single day. Why are you here? Whether you like it or not, that is the bottom lie. Why are you here? And the second you're like,

Oh, yeah. You won't be there for long. All right, we'll be back with more. Coming up next. All right, Ryan, Draft Kings, pick six. What you got? All right, I like two picks this week.

I like Rishie Rice to score a rushing or receiving touchdown against the Las Vegas Raiders in his debut back from his suspension. I like Sequin Barkley also to score either a rushing or receiving touchdown against the Minnesota Vikings. Draft King's pick sense is simple, just pick more or less on two or more player sides, from breakout rookies to elite QBs and unlock the upside every snap brings.

The better your calls, the bigger your payout. This season, play your player instincts. Down low, Draft King's pick six down and use code BOMani. That's code Bumani. Play just $5. Get 56 and pick six bonus picks. Make the call ride the upside in partnership with Draft Kings pick six. The crown is yours.

Gambling problem. 1-800 gambler help is available for problem gambling. Call 888-78-98-9-777 or visit ccpg.org in Connecticut must be 18 plus. Age and eligibility restrictions vary by jurisdiction. Pick six not available everywhere, including New York and Ontario. Boyd where prohibited, one per new customer. Bonus award is non-reclable pick-six bonus picks that expire in 14 days. Limited time offer see terms at pick6.draftings.com slash prom.

I was. All right, we're back on with Deontay Lee. This is one of those weeks where you could tell that, like, the TV networks, we know what the game of the week has to be just because it's the commandos and the cowboys, right? That's what TV wants. But that time slot is also giving us the Colts and the Chargers. Where is your belief level in both of these?

With the Colts, I'll start with the Colts because we didn't spend a lot of time talking about the last time I was on. I think the more I watch. the more I realize that me believing in this really doesn't have anything to do with Daniel Jones, which is a tricky proposition, because that means that Daniel Jones at any time can show up and take all this belief and put it on the bottom of his shoe. But I do think that, A, Jonathan Taylor is probably playing the best out of anybody at his position right now. And Shane Steichen, a guy who I wasn't sure had the juice, and maybe this is a lot of this,

so it's Anthony Richardson related. Now he's got a quarterback that he can trust. And all of a sudden, they're just dicing, their dicing defenses up. Play action, deep passes, RPO's, getting Daniel Jones involved as a runner. All the things that they could not do with Richardson as a starter all of a sudden aren't a problem anymore. So I think I am becoming a believer because the coaching staff looks like they have a grip on what they want to do. And the people who need to protect Daniel Jones are doing so at a very high level right now. Just want to point out for people who don't know Anthony Richardson was just trying to exercise, stay in shape.

be ready for his chance and somehow managed to break his face. Listen. I don't know. By the way, guys, I'm not exaggerating. He was working out with them bands and he broke his orbital boat. He's having a really tough year, guys. He's having a really, really, really tough year. Look, I don't know.

I don't know if this is an experience you share, but when I was in college, I've been in a couple classes where you kind of teetering on the edge and you start going to office hours and you feel like you're doing everything you need to do. And then you look up one day and you're like, oh, shit, I had a paper that I needed to turn that I'm not to turn in on Tuesday. And it is Monday afternoon. I don't know if I'm going to get this in on time. And if I don't get this in, all this work will be for not. Right.

I feel like Anthony Richardson is kind of transitioning to that can't get right kind of territory. Yeah. The other thing with the cults is the cults have been beaten up on bums, generally speaking. I think that we would all agree that they have put the hurt on a bunch of bums. when they played decent teams, they beat the Broncos on paper and they lost to the Rams, right? Probably should have beaten the Rams,

if not for A.D. Mitchell. Oh, forgot about that. He's the OG. Instead of Shane's like they put his hands on him. Right, right? Although the thing about A.D. Mitchell was, that was why you wouldn't in the first round, right? Exactly.

He's one of those, like, it's a one that he don't play for the Bengals. Right. He's the sort of space case that the Bengals love to have dudes like that on the team. He had George Picking situation. Yes, he's one of those guys you asked coach off the record. They're like, oh man, we love him, but he'd be tripping. He'd be tripping.

But the cults have, like, they're going to play the charges, but after that, the schedule ramps up, but like kind of ramps up, okay? So they get to go play the Titans. That should be a win. They get the Steelers. We're not exactly sure how good they are. We have,

I'm not going to courage y'all to believe in this, but the Atlanta Falcons keep looking good on national television. Just throwing it out there. Then they get the Chiefs, they get the Texans who might be a little better than their record indicates. The Jaguars who might not be as good as their record indicates, but their record indicates that they are good. The Seahawks, the 49ers who, I mean, by then they may be down to 30 people. Right. Jaguars again, and then the Texans. Like, they're going to be tested, I guess is the moral of the story that I'm getting. We'll know if they're a mediocre team beating up on bad teams or if they're actually a good

football team pretty quickly, I think, down the stretch of this season. Yeah, this is going to be something. And look, the thing about Daniel Jones, you're like, they haven't really needed Daniel Jones, but what we learned from Sam Darnold last year is at some point you will. You will. Right. And even that's still the thing with even Seattle this year with Donald, where it's like, okay, I have seen him doing a good job to get the ball to wide open dudes.

at some point we're going to need a little bit more than that or the stakes are going to be higher and we're going to need you to just have a different constitution. Right. Will you be able to do that? I mean, Sam Donald has proven that that's just not really in his back, right? And I think that if you're looking at the Seahawks and comparing it to what we saw last year of Minnesota,

a lot of the same warning signs are there. You are throwing to a lot of wide open guys. You don't really have a lot of support from the run game. And right now, taking all these chances are going great, the moment the defense is start adding a little bit more pressure like they did to Minnesota last year and they don't have to respect the run game on early downs at all. Now you got Sam Donald in the gun on first and 10 in a game that you got to win. You don't want to live there if Sam Donald's your quarterback. And I think the same thing is going to be true of Daniels eventually. You talk about the Texans who are great on defense.

Kansas City whose defense is taking a step back, but they can game plan against the limited quarterback as well as anybody in the league. And, you know, the Jaguars, of course, turnovers at different points. You're going to get one of these games where Indianapolis is behind the game script. They've got to score, you know, two or three times in the second half to stay in a football game. And that's when you're not going to be able to hand the ball off to Jonathan Taylor 15, 20 times and expect him to carry this thing on his back. I mean, we've seen enough of Danny Jones to know that's not where you want to live. I'm interested to see, though, if he can do just enough to keep Indianapolis in the playoff picture. and based off the way they've been playing right now,

I guess I'm a little bit more inclined to give them some benefit of the doubt. All right. The NFL is doing a thing. I really don't like it when they do this, which is giving us a London 9 in the morning game worth watching. I guess it's a little different. You live over there on the West.

You got to be really, really a sicko. But at the same time, Rams and Jaguars. Huh? Yeah. Something there. There is something there. I will tell you, as a West Coast guy, I don't know if I have made a single opening kickoff.

for one of these lending games. I'm sure. Sorry to my bosses. Sorry to my buddies who live on the East Coast and cover the NFL and got to be up to watch this. This is the YouTube invitational for me when the game is not very interesting. But I do think we're going to learn a lot about the Rams because this is another team that has looked good and have a lot of pieces that will lead you to believe that they're a good team.

And sometimes I watch them and I'm like, man, it's a whole lot, a whole lot of weight on the back of a 37-year-old who couldn't practice. at all in the off season. I don't know how much longer this thing is going to last. Hey, look, man, it's the classic Stafford experience. When he looks great, he looks great. But who wants an interception? There's what, there's one, there's one right there waiting on you. It's coming. It's coming hard, though. Like, you're going to need to think fast. Look alive. Oh, yeah. Had them, had them gloves nice and sticky. Go ahead, go ahead and spit on them gloves before to play. You go hear that bitch coming.

Right. just spitting through the air. But when he's looked good this year, he's looked really good. The Jaguars, how much attention have you paid to the Travis Hunter experiment? Because I feel like they've taken a once a generation talent and made him into just another dude on the field by trying to make him into a superhero. He's very normal. There are times where it's dynamic and I'm not blaming the fact that he looks normal on

Travis Hunter, because there are times that they get on the ball on these glorified pump returns, right, these bubble screens, these little checkdowns out in space, and he shakes a guy, and it looks like, you know, if you've ever been to a youth football game, where you're just sitting in the stands, you're like, oh, okay, that's the kid, and then y'all are everybody else. There are some times where he can still make it look like that, but it's not as often. And I think that when you're watching the All-22, there are some times where maybe the offense is checking a play or signaling or trying to get from one formation to the next, and it don't necessarily look like Travis Hunter knows exactly where to be yet. And again, I can't blame that on him.

You got the man in two different meeting rooms throughout the week. It's a lot. All right. It's a lot. How does, how is this not such an obviously bad idea? I just can't, like, I see people dream on it. How is this just not clearly not what you should do? Like, I'm going to just throw this out here. You expect me to believe that Bo Jackson couldn't play linebacker? Perhaps. edge rusher. You know what I mean? Like, you know,

I'm sure there are other people who could have done these things, but their coaches, Derek Kendry could have 100 sacks right now. Yeah, but they coach didn't do that to him. You know what I'm saying? Like, just let him pick one

and let him be a beast at that one. Yes. And I think that what we're seeing is that he could be that at receiver, in my opinion. The way he runs, the way he tracks the ball, how he can feel,

you know, feel for guys out in space. I'm like, why are we, why will we even mess around with the DV thing? And this is me admitting that I might have been wrong in my evaluation of this. Because I thought that for sure, put him out at corner, let him play corner 100% of the time. The wide receiver stuff was nice in college. But I don't know if that's who he can be at the NFL level. I watch the way this guy moves.

And I'm like, maybe that guy does need to touch the ball eight to 12 times a game. I just think that it's hard to do that if you're trying to teach him how to be a slot, how to be an outside receiver, and how to, you know, line up at the line of scrimmage and play press technique on number one wide receivers. I mean, it's clearly affecting his decision making because he signed off on that terrible, terrible commercial that him and Trevor, and Trevor Lawrence did together. You're seeing that?

I haven't seen this. Oh, my God. I've got to look this up now. I'm amazed that you've avoided it. They run it all the time. You ever seen foot loose? I have seen foot loose. I have never seen foot loose.

But it's got, it's a commercial with the Denise Williams song and they out here, it looked like they like dancing in TikTok videos, basically. Like, they got a part where they hold in hands and they do the thing where you. where you go like that and like the, y'all do the wave with your arm and you dance together and let's hear it for the boy. And I'm like, I'm trying to figure out who this is, who this make one to play football or by, or by like, whose ideal was this? They don't, their relationship already don't strike me like that's the way that they

give it up with one another either. Nobody's buying. I'm just going to tell you, you're going to look at this commercial and we are so far away from I am not a role model. Like commercials when I was a kid had a little bit more. bike tool. That one right there had me like, oh, and I ain't never seen, like I said to a friend of mine

and she tells me how it's from footloose. I'm like, is it even from footloose? I just thought it was a literal interpretation of the song. I had never seen footloose. That's hilarious. So apparently them boys, is that the one about the town where people ain't allowed to dance? Yes.

Oh, okay. It's kind of like Baylor. I think Ryan made the same joke on her earlier show. much. Hey, man, I'm just saying, when I was, like I say, Baylor did not have his first school sponsored dance until the year of our law at 1997. That just came up on the show the other day. I don't know why. And I'll bring it up every time. Anytime, anytime they come up, don't you worry. I'll bring it out of here. I do want to ask you

this about these Atlanta Falcons. I'm never going to encourage Falcons fans to believe because I don't. I stopped. I quit. They look a height. Aide is a dangerous proposition when you're talking about the falcons. It is a dangerous proposition. The part they got Charles McDonald and me, though, was that defense, which is just children and spare parts. At least when they're on national television, they be flying. They do we fly.

And there are some times where I'm like, it seems like we're just flying to fly around and we end up landing in the right spot a lot of times. And it's very different from the typical Rahim Morris defense, which has been a lot of just kind of grass. bag. We got a bunch of guys that are just doing stuff out there. And sometimes we stop the run. And a lot of times we don't, sometimes before turnovers and a lot of times we don't. I do think when I watch them, guys like Billy Bowman, you know, you're seeing guys up front. Jalen Walker has been a little bit better than I expected their pass rush for the first time. I guess since what John Abraham was playing on the edge for the Falcons looks like it's viable. And that's a new development as well. And I think that if you believe in the defense, you can believe in the team. I'm just not there

yet. I will say, though, this is the perfect team for my own sensibilities, because every time they got the ball, all I'm saying is where's number seven? Where's number seven? Zach Robinson, if this play call is not for number seven, you're fired, all right? Everything for number seven, please, and less for everybody else. In a different time, he is one of the five most famous football players that there is. I say this all the time here, but I can't, I don't believe that I can say it enough. I don't know the last time they made. Adrian Peterson is the last time they made one of these

in terms of similar talent. But he can do more than Peterson could. Peterson is just like seven yards deep, pitch him the ball, go. I don't, you know, Derek Henry, I guess is the other person that you could put in a like similar category there. But I can do all of this. Bejohn feels like a maybe more talented Marshall Falk.

And Marshall Falk has an argument for being the best running back I've ever. receipt. I think of him similarly to Ladadian-Thomason and Marshall Fault, where it's like there is nothing that these guys cannot do. And they make guys missing ways. It's like, oh my God, only you can do this.

Right. Like, he definitely fits in that paradigm. I do think if we were in a little bit more of a run-friendly NFL, he's not just one of the most famous players. He probably is the most marketable force right now in the NFL because he does things that even guys

like Sequin don't do. Even guys like Jonathan Taylor can't do. I mean, there are ways where he can catch the ball out in the flat, and it genuinely feels like nobody has a chance to touch him more times than not. The first guy to the ball is not the guy that brings him down. I think that as this thing goes on with him, he will be maybe the next, and I feel like I say this every five years, the last guy that has a chance to make the Hall of Fame at this position. Okay, so you do that too. I do that same thing or run it back. I didn't, I've all that. Like, we're counting down the moments, right? Like, we may not get another one of these.

I'll tell you this too. Anybody that felt like Falcons overdrafted with Bijan, all you was doing was telling me you was a dork. Hater. Right? Only a dork would have said that, and the rest of y'all need to be glad because if the Falcons had not taken him,

what if he went down to the next team that took a running back in the first round that year? Because that means Bijan, as much as you might like Jemir Gibbs, Bejohn would be a Detroit lying, in which case, first of all, they never, Bejohn will be the quarterback. Maybe they never throw the ball again.

You want to talk about some big brain, Ben Johnson. That would have been the whole offense while he was here. Well, clearly the big brain is actually Dan Campbell, because they still do that stuff now. And it's like, oh, wow, Dan Campbell actually, does Dan Campbell have a streak that wants him to prove to us how smart he is? Because that would be bad. I think there's a little bit of not just a meathead.

energy that we're getting from him. And I'm like, hey, man, ain't no shame of being a meathead. We love you with this. No, but you know what he is, though? He's one of these guys. Mike Dicka fits this category. Les Miles was a guy like this in college. And that is

offensive guys who seem like defensive guys. Yes, yes. Right? Like when you think about it, you're like, huh, really? Mike Dicca. Yeah, Mike Dicca. Hall of Fame, first tight end to go into the Hall of Fame. He's an offensive guy. But, you know, they're all hard scrabbling, got dirt under their fingernails and shit.

So they seem like that they are less, honestly with less miles. There's only one reason we think him as the defensive guys because we just don't think of him as being particularly bright. Exactly. I'm not saying he isn't. I'm just telling you the way that we be treating him. That's fair. I think that's great.

Right, exactly. By choice. Yeah. Just because. Yeah. Compulsively. Yeah. Like, as an example to prove the point that I'm making here.

here. Now, what do y'all look at it? O'Jarado? Like, oh, I bet that man called, please. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, that's not a half bad, not a half bad Cajian. Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right? You know, like, that's just not. He ain't the guy that's doing that. But I mentioned the Lions, because the Lions played a Bucks on Monday Night Football. And obviously, I think the Lions have given us a little bit more proof of concept on the idea that they are for real. Tampa, I think it's been a little tricky. in terms of who they've played and the results that they've put up,

except the fair point, obviously, they got sweepstakes winners out there playing wide receiver, and they're still getting it done. They're a little beat up everywhere, and they've still managed to get it done. I have been one of the few guys, like, in this millennial sports media football circle that has been the Baker-Mayfield guy, so to speak, right?

And it's less about thinking that he's a great quarterback, and more so what we've got, gotten from him in Tampa Bay looks like a good quarterback. For the most part, it's carried over as coordinators have left. And I think that this year, it's been really tricky for me, because this is about as unsustainable, a level of play as we've ever seen from Baker, where he's scrambling, he's getting away from these sacks. It seems like every time he puts the ball in harm's way, it happens to be an incompletion instead of an interception. And that usually don't last very long. But he's playing better than ever. And now people are talking about him as an MVP. And now I got to be

asshole that stands up and saying, this is not an MVP, guys. We're not looking at the same thing. And I feel terrible. I feel like I'm abandoned in my post when I'm needed most, man. But this is not an MVP that I'm watching right now. I hate feeling like that person

where it's like, look, I just want to ride the vibes like you. Like, you don't want to feel like the Russian judge, right? You don't want to feel like the web blanket, but people always got to go too far. Feel like the damn hipster. Like, I like this thing when nobody was in on this thing and now when everybody's in on this thing

I'm leaving. Like one of those backpack hip-hop fans, you know? Like, oh, you're AM on music. Yeah, exactly. Oh, you listen to most deaf? I guess I can't like most deaf anymore. You listen to Talib? I guess I can't listen to Talib no more. Yeah, just like, oh, look who just showed up. Exactly.

That is where, that is where so many of the undergrounders did on M&M too. Like, before the M&M thing happened, because I don't know if you all know to remember when we all found out gradually and there was just mythical white dude that was out here killing it. people got in on it early, then it got out of hand. It was like, yeah, you know, there are certain limitations to his game.

Once you got to the M&M show, I felt like that was a great dividing line between these are the fans that will have him going forward, and these are all the fans who were here up to this point. And y'all can have him from here. That is a great point. I want to say this also about TAP because I think that this gets lost. As much as we talk about the redemption and the reclamation of Baker Mayfield, from being discarded and what we thought of him.

Todd Bowles is right there in the exact same boat. And in a way that is similar to Baker. And when I say that, there was a reason that Cleveland moved on from Baker, right? It wasn't, he wasn't doing this. And then they were like, eh, no good, right? Nope, he had a rise. He had fall and people typically don't think that you have a rise

that comes after that. That was the call they had made. I do not think that Todd Bowles was a good head coach when he was with the Jets. They had that 2015 Fitzmagic year. But I did not think he did a good job as coach there. He just keeps winning the division here. And it keeps hiring good coaches.

That's probably the biggest trip to me is like usually a defensive guy runs out of people to call to run his offense after a certain amount. And it just seems like he has just shuffled one guy in after another that has gotten great results with their quarterback and with this offense. And I would say that this also extends to GM Jason Light as well. Like I would remember when he first got that job because he was there right when James got brought in as the number one draft pick. And that roster was awful. Outside of Mike Evans, there was not a whole lot else going on. There were a lot of misses. I think O.J. Howard is a tight end, you know, in the first round where they really could have used some more help elsewhere.

And then he gets bailed out by Tom Brady. And I think that the book on Jason Light before Tom Brady's retirement was, oh, this is a guy that was kind of mediocre and was just hanging around because the owner wanted him around. and then Tom Brady came and bailed him out. And now that we're post-Tom Brady, what we're seeing is this has probably been one of the teams that has had the fewest amount of roster weaknesses on a year-to-year basis, basically since they brought in Tom Brady. And I think that all these guys deserve a lot of credit because they've hung around and been a regular playoff team, albeit in the NFC South, where it's not a – hasn't been a whole lot of competition,

post-Jewbreeze and post-Cam Newton and post-Matt Ryan. But they've held this thing down basically no matter who has been at the helm, or excuse me, with Todd Bowles and J.C. and at the helm because they've done a great job of hiring guys and acquiring depth across this roster. I would also say 2020, Tom Brady was a little closer to being Jalen Hertz than he was to be in Patrick Mahomes. Like that roster was a quarterback away and they got the best oh, you're a quarterback away question mark that you could possibly throw in under those circumstances. They had dudes, man. I think that Super Bowl is kind of biased us to how we think about exactly what

that team was. Yeah, go watch that playoff run. Yeah. Well, remember when they had to stop throwing out routes? When they had to stop letting Tom Brady throw out routes because they was just like, got your pops. I think I remember, maybe it was 2019. No, I think it was 2020, but they played the Saints and the Saints defense was just bled all over these guys. I was like, this is the team that people want me to believe that just because Tom Brady is here, they're going to go win the title. That's not what I see. And then they get to the playoffs. And then that's where, you know, similar to Jalen Hertz, it's like, all we need it was the guy that wasn't going to give this thing away. Yes. We just needed to get you to this point.

No, you go on, you go on ahead, run free. I assure you every day James Weston was trying to explain to people that it was this close. Could have been me. I was right there. I was right there. I was right there. I'm telling you, we talked about this before. Anthony Richardson is saying the exact same thing right now about the goals.

Like I said, the last time we saw both of those guys play in the season, there was no question who I thought was better. Anthony Richardson and not because Anthony Richardson was great. Right. You're never going to convince him he couldn't be. doing this. They sent Daniel Jones home. The Giants, a team that has not had a quarterback since Eli Manning, sent Daniel Jones home midseason. This was not supposed to play out this way. And I'm Anthony Richardson, I'm really sitting here peeved. So I'm like, yeah, all I needed was another year. And then you can start telling yourself these lies of, they didn't call those plays

when I was quarterback, you know? You say the Giants. You say the Giants. You say the Giants. You say the Giants. The one right there. Politics. That's politics. politics. Management didn't believe in me. That's what the problem was. You know how it is. You know how the bosses can be. The mythical, that's the invisible hand. Like the invisible, like, for those of you who are not familiar with the concept of the invisible hand, in economics, there's a book called The Wealth Nations that is like this foundational economic book. And the rationale behind the market, like letting the market work itself out is the invisible hand will guide everything where it's supposed

to go. My interpretation, is, by the way, the invisible hand is a slick way of saying, fuck if I know. The invisible hand is basically saying God. God will, God, God, God, God, God, God, God don't make no mistakes.

That is what the invisible hand of the market is as a principle, right? That's what it is. Politics is like these, these seedy invisible hands. The invisible hand of the underwear, man, you know, they just be doing stuff.

Yes. Absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. Type a mentality. You can't tell me that they're not trying to sabotage me behind the scenes just because you ain't heard it. Tell me it can't be happening. And it's always the same person who is the victim of politics in every place, which means one of two things. Either you're really not good in what you do or you are a real jerk. Where everywhere you go, they're like, listen, I think we brought up Carson once in that respect the last time I was on. There's a reason why some guys don't get to hang around his backups for longer than a year or two.

Jeff George is the all-timer. And whether right or wrong, that's what they decided about Cam Newton. Now, I think Cam Newton also decided that about himself, which I respect. He's like, I ain't just going to be hanging around. Not for no Mac Jones. Yeah, I got Camden. Respectfully. Like, I'm just not going to be just, I'm not, I ain't just trying to be on a team.

Right. What are you talking about it? Same thing with like Odell Beckham, right? Like, do I believe that Odell Buckham go play in the slot for a lot of teams right now? Yeah, I do. But if I'm Odell Beckham, hey, man, I'm me. Okay? This is beneath my dignity, okay?

I'm not saying I got to beat a star, but you have to treat me a certain kind of way. Yeah, yeah, like, sorry. Like, y'all going to expect me to show up on time. Right. That's the real problem. So the reason that the Broncos, I think it was the Broncos, Jerry Rice's last training camp, they didn't keep them on. They were like, oh, he could have been the fifth receiver,

with the fifth receiver does special teams. And I can't have Jerry Rice out here. I'm Jerry Rice. Running down. I'm covering no kickoff. He ain't even got to say I'm Jerry Wright. You don't bring that to Jerry Rice. You're just like, hey, man.

Exactly. We just ain't even go. We just not even go to do that. Can't even do that. Right. We only got to have that conversation. I ain't even going to disrespect you with that. Right, right, right.

I ain't going to hold you, partner. I appreciate you. Right. Exactly. All love here. Yeah. Yeah, no beef, no shade, no nothing. But that, Deiate Lee, check him out at the ring covering the NFL.

My brother, I appreciate you. Appreciate you having me on, man. And ladies and gentlemen, thanks so much for joining us here on the right time. We do this here three times a week. Ryan Brumley handling everything behind the scenes. Thank you, sir. Remember, hit the voicemail line 3-2, 3-9-6-7-6767. Remember to follow the right time.

Subscribe, like, rate us, review us, give us five stars. You only give us four stars. line to believe you are a hater. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take it easy.