The Ringer NFL Show - Wentz’s Foot, Lance Starting (?), QB Battles, and Training Camp Standouts

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

With training camp underway, we kick off the week by running through all of the major injuries so far, including Carson Wentz requiring surgery on his foot, DeVonta Smith missing multiple weeks with a knee sprain, and Dak Prescott’s sore shoulder. Then we run through the players getting the most training camp hype and decide if we are buying it or not. Finally, Craig’s brother, Scott, drops by to embarrass him on his birthday. Check out The Ringer's 2021 Fantasy Football Draft Guide here. Email us at [e-mail]. Hosts: Danny Heifetz, Danny Kelly, and Craig Horlbeck Guest: Scott Horlbeck Producer: Craig Horlbeck Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Gene and Roger is the story of the two most powerful, influential movie critics of their time, Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert. You can find Gene and Roger on the Big Picture feed on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Here's a quick trailer. It seemed like a crazy idea for a TV show. Take two rivals and let them duke it out about movies. But Gene Sisko and Roger Ebert quickly became the most popular film critics in the country. Millions of viewers tuned in to see whether they vote thumbs up or thumbs down.

This is the story of two unlikely superstars. stars who changed the way we argue. From Spotify and the Ringer podcast network, I'm Brian Raftery, and this is Gene and Roger. Listen on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to the Ringer Fantasy Football Show. My name is Danny Hyfitz. I am joined

by Danny Kelly and the birthday boy, Craig Hourlbeck. How was your birthday weekend? It was really nice. Just kidding. We don't care. All right. We have a lot of training kit news to get to. If you want to hear about Craig's birthday, we're going to roast him with his

brother at the end of the episode. we have too much to get to you're 27 like get over the birthday thing my God stop back me for it Whoa We're gonna We're gonna

He has some issues going on right now with this We're training camp hype season Some hidden anger For some reason Now it's training camp hype season But first like we're gonna go through We're gonna go through all the training camp hype You know all the tweets that are like

Oh this guy's looking dangerous You know on air with no pads on But first we have a lot of injuries to get to like there's a lot of news. Yeah. This feels like the first, this is the first full week of training camp, right, officially?

Yeah. Or do we already have a full week technically? I don't know. Whatever it is, there's been enough news now to where your Twitter feed is inundated with hype bullshit. It's like superlatives pretty much.

I eat the shit up though. I'm gonna be honest with you. Like 100% honest, I was scrolling through just like a beat reporter list that I follow and it is just fucking it's the best. I love it.

All my confirmation bias is just going crazy. Well, it's like, you see a video of A.J. Dillon, right? And like, A.J. Dillon's doing a running back drill. And he does a spin. And there's, there's no contact right now. So they just take a giant bowsoo ball. And they just roll it at him. And he spins around the

Bosu ball. And I'm like, yeah, that ball's got nothing on him. And then I watch it 10 more times. I'm like, you know, the ball almost got him. And then Craig starts talking about how he looks slow. And I just, it's a slow spin. Blow a gasket. I can spin faster. The Bosu ball almost got A.J. Dylan. It's not even, it's like, it's like,

literally just a warm-up drill and we're getting excited about it. Yeah. Yeah, let's separate the noise from the actual real news here. We'll try. Yeah, well, let's do that with this pod too. Want to get to the news?

Yes. Okay, great. Carson Wentz. Foot injury. Out, five to 12 weeks. This is actually funny. Like, let's go out. This is a straight funny.

Yeah, all right. You know what? I don't like to make fun of people's injuries, but it's not, not funny. So first of all, five to 12 weeks. Weird timetable. How did they come up with that? We're six weeks out from week one right now, or five and a half or something like that.

Have you ever heard five to 12 for anything? So he's either going to be back between week one or week seven. Great. Right. Well, it depends, apparently, on how his foot, I guess, like, responds to the surgery. Because he's going to have to have surgery to repair a metatarsal, which apparently had been an injury that goes back to his high school days. And it just kind of like finally went over the edge. A broken bone came off, came loose.

kind of a weird thing definitely really terrible timing and now it's looking like number one he's not going to be ready for the start of the season I would say I would be conservative and say it's much more likely he does not play the first like six weeks of the season if not more

and if he comes back before that great but the situation where now is the Colts don't have a starting quarterback like Jacob Isson rookie last year who hasn't really played in a meaningful game for like two years now is apparently the starter,

fourth round pick. So, I mean, I think that's a huge thing. And just going forward, like the Eagles are not going to, probably not going to get a first round pick. It's not going to be upgraded because Wentz had to it was going to have to have played 75% I think of the snaps

for that 22nd, to turn into a first. So there's big implications with this injury. Yeah, so if he basically misses like four or five games, then the Colts have to give the Eagles a first rounder. But I'm curious, first of all, just, so apparently they'll know in a few weeks, whether it's a five-week timetable or a 12. When said he heard a twin, you felt a twinge or he heard a pop? Do you think the twinge is like the

five-weekend and then like the pop is like the 12 weeks? Is that like kind of the range here? Yeah. I think the pop, the pop was like the bone coming off. Yeah, pop, if you hear a pop worse than twinge. Ouch, snap crackle. Did you guys hear about his workout regime that he's implemented where four years ago they said he started an intricate warm-up program and it's they said it's not that different from like what other quarterbacks do but it's 45 minutes in length and the Eagle staff deemed it extreme

and he's been doing that for four straight years and now they're like oh maybe he's like been going too hard in warm-ups and it's part of the reason why he could have gotten hurt what's they doing in those 45 minutes it's that's bizarre he just needs to do the DAC power twists or whatever the hell DAC does

so right I imagine there will be more on this we'll have more there elephant in the room, though, is that what if they, I mean, who could they replace him with if they wanted to? Can you imagine if it was Nick Foles? I mean, that's like, I think, the runaway favor right now is Nick Fawes. That is so funny. He's going to be cheap.

He's the bear's third string guy. He has that history with Frank Reich. It's going to be false. No, they can't. They cannot, though. They cannot. They literally traded for Carson Wence to rehabilitate him because he just could not get away from this freaking guy and there's always a backup behind him.

If Wenz hurts his foot and then Nick Foles comes in to replace him, he'll be broken. He'll be just, he won't be able to function. It's, but you can't write this. This is like poetic at this point. The fact that this is possible. It's just like he just keeps following this guy. Did you hear it? So Nick Foles had had a presser this morning actually and he talked about how he's aware

that some teams might be looking to trade for him. He wants to go to the right situation, blah, blah, blah. He said that Frank Reich is one of his favorites, if not his favorite coach ever. like it's happening it's going to happen so the other ones the other options are Marcus Mariotta who I think that would be fine Derrick Arthur Raiders

I think that one makes a lot of sense Gardner Minshu but the problem is that that's he's the backup for the Jaguars and he's probably the easiest guy to trade in the entire of any quarterback in the NFL but he's in the division why would the Jaguars do that right that doesn't make any sense

yeah dude forget the movie forgetting Sarah Marshall it's forgetting Nick Foles and the lead character is Carson Wetz everywhere this guy goes he can't get away from him. He's unbelievable. So here's the thing. Let's, if they end up trading for a quarterback, we can talk about that then. If the Colts actually go into the season with Jacob Isson as their quarterback, who was like a fourth rounder last year and it's barely played, what does that do to Jonathan Taylor at running back where we have him

as a top player? What does it do to Ty White Hilton as a receiver? And what does it do to Michael Pittman at Receiver, D.K.? Like, what does this do all the Colts skill players in fantasy if Wenz is hurt for an indefinite amount of time? So I think like the easiest way to put it is it hurts them all. It's definitely not a good thing for any of them. The offense, I think overall is going to be worse. They're going to run fewer plays. They're going to score fewer points.

All that stuff. It's a big deal. For Jonathan Taylor in particular, I think it really hurts him because I would say at this point, you're drafting him at his absolute, like, best case scenario. And if you're going to be in an offense, if you're going to be the guy in an offense like this, in order to be a top level guy, you have to be like Christian McCaffrey where you're getting, you know,

like 90% of the touches in the offense, and I just don't think that's going to be the case. I don't think they're going to do that. I think they're going to rotate in Naheem Hines, you know, maybe some of these other guys and have like a three-way committee or whatever. And so it just really hurts him. Unless all of a sudden he just becomes like an elite number,

like volume guy, which that's the reason I think we're a little bit nervous about him even before this injury. So, you know, I think it just lowers the ceiling and basically it makes it less likely that he's going to pay off on his like mid to early first round pick, right? I mean, this is brutal. I mean, I think we have to seriously, we have, we haven't updated our rankings. This just happened.

We haven't updated our rankings yet to account for this. I mean, we've Jonathan Taylor 13th overall. I mean, we, I think we have to seriously think about moving him down a lot. And then Ty Wighton and Michael Pittman, obviously, I think Pittman was the guy who was way more exciting to me because he had the, potential to emerge as like a real number one option. But now it's like, well, what, how much can you trust that now? I think it's really disappointing for a lot of reasons. And then also just in the wider race in the AFC South, now you've got the Jaguars with

Lawrence, the Texans who are maybe the worst franchise in all the four major sports in America right now. To relegate him. But the cults might be looking at third place in this division if Wence is out for an extended period of time. Not to mention he's going to miss all of training camp in the practices, or at least I mean, they say he might be able to do some stuff while he's rehabbing, but still, he's not getting live reps.

This is a disaster for them. It's hard to be in on the team. The first seven weeks of the season, the Colts play Seattle, the Rams, the Titans, the Dolphins, the Ravens, the Niners, like, they could start the year 0 and 6. Can you imagine Aaron Donald? Does Jacob Eason being chased by Jamal Adams

in week one for Seattle and then Aaron Donald in week two, trying to throw past Jalen Ramsey? Good luck. Zoinks. Well, that's, super depressing. So, sorry to Colts fans. Apologies. And then I think Michael Pittman was a sleeper we like.

That's kind of tough for him. Yeah. Yeah, we had him like circled earlier, like before this all happened as like a guy who potentially could break out. But now it's like obviously much more difficult to envision that. I mean, I think he's still going to be a good player long term. But yeah, the offense just it's, it's not looking great. In a similar vein for a receiver that we had some hopes for, Devante Smith, rating highsbring. Tough for D.K. Tough for Eagles and Colts.

I don't know what's going on here. Devonty Smith sprained his knee. It's a MCL injury. He's listed as week to week. They expect him to be back for week one. But still, it's like, this is the Eagles. It's like the Eagles are cursed. Or maybe they just have some weird medical stuff.

I have no idea what's going on. But I think Eagles fans are just resigned to like they have trust issues now. Like none of these players matter to them until you see them on the field. Like they've had crazy offensive line injuries the last two years. Every Sunday in a football game they have, you see the graphic goes up at Chris Collinsworth is like, look at all their week one starters and none of them made it to today at week eight. Like it's just,

it's just they have the worst luck. DK., what do you do with Devante Smith, but really just this whole offense now that it's like, Devante's out, Jalen Rager's had a really tough start to training camp. Like, what do you do with this team? At the beginning of the season,

it might be an issue for them. And obviously, I think Devante Smith is going to come back in a couple of weeks, but losing two to three weeks of training camp slash preseason is obviously not a good thing. You know, it's, it's harder to hit the ground running. It's harder to get yourself fully initiated and ingrained in the offense. And yeah, it just kind of puts it, it puts everything like back, the schedule back for his potential breakout. So I'm still generally bullish, but we might not see it. So maybe like just remember last year, Justin Jefferson, who did play, I think,

most of the preseason, he still, it took him a couple of weeks to like break his way into the, into the starting lineup. And so maybe now we see Dante Smith. you know, take a little bit longer before he's sort of like the number one guy for this offense. And, yeah, I don't know if I'm not going to overreact to this because I think at the end of the day, we just have to wait and see. And generally speaking, I think the reports of Jalen Hertz and practice have been pretty strong, pretty solid. He's gotten better every day. So, you know, I'm not freaking out, but yeah, it's definitely not encouraging. Let me ask you guys, I think what's happening with Devonte Smith right now is a really critical part of,

fantasy drafting. How does this affect you guys when considering Devante Smith in a draft? Even if he's completely healthy by week one, let's say you're drafting in late August and he's missed all three preseason games. He's recovering fine,

on track for week one. Do you drop him down even a slot? I feel like it's almost it's kind of a subjective way of looking at it. Some people I feel like don't care about this stuff. If they see ready by week one, they don't change anything. How much does this affect Devante Smith's

stock for you guys if he didn't play for the next three, four weeks. Yeah. Do you care? Yeah. I think I would drop him down maybe like a round or something. And just he'd just be less of an interesting, less of a guy that I'm like really looking to draft. If he falls a little bit further and he's still there, then maybe I'll grab him kind of deal.

But yeah, I'm less like hype to go get him. It's harder the younger you are. Do you think more often than not these guys end up becoming like the injury discount players, do you think they end up becoming a value in that your traditional fantasy football group of drafters end up overreacting to these preseason injuries, or do you think people underreact to them? Like, what's the proper way to value them in your guys'

mind? I think that there's a sliding scale of experience. Like, if Julio Jones or Travis Kelsey maybe is a good example, if Travis Kelsey missed three weeks of camp, I don't know how concerning that is because he knows the offense, him and Patrick Mahomes know that. Like,

the role is the same. They're trying to keep him healthy. Devante Smith, they're installing this new offense with this new coach. He's a rookie. He's never been in the NFL. Maybe you think Alabama's, maybe he's more professional than the Houston Texans at this point. So he has some NFL preparation. But it's like, that to me is more concerning when you have a guy on a new team who's never been in the league trying to learn all this stuff and how he's missing these weeks that are specifically designed for him to get on track. And now you don't get to do those. That's a bigger deal to me than like a

veteran. So it's hard. But also, Devonty Smith's really talented. So, you know, you can maybe carve back some of that. But it's more impactful for me when it's a young guy. Yeah. Dereability, D.K., durability issues. It's worth saying this happened to Jalen Rager last year. Didn't Jalen Rager the Eagles' first round pick last year make a miss a lot of training camp and then

never got on track? Did he break his hand though? It was a hand thing, wasn't it? It was a different injury, but he missed a lot of time. And he's actually having a very, he's having a very tough training camp, but for there's things off the field in his life that are unfortunate that he's struggling through right now. So the Eagles just have there's a lot of bad luck going around the team, man. And it's felt that way ever since they won the Super Bowl.

It's like they sold their soul to the devil to win that game. I mean, Nick Foles beat Tom Brady, that sounds about right. Yeah, exactly. There was some bargain there. All right. Moving on. So the Cowboys, Dak Prescott has a shoulder issue. He left practice last week.

He had soreness and his throwing arm. He said he's never had soreness in his throwing arm before and that it was small, but he didn't want to make a small thing. He did a big thing. So he was just sitting out. They did an MRI, revealed a muscle strain. Seems like it's not a big deal, but, you know, it's still a muscle strain and just throwing arm.

kind of want to see him back out there. Dika, this is where are you at all or no? I think it's in the same vein of the Devante Smith thing. It's like, it's a little worrisome. I'm not freaking out yet. It's one of those things where if it was something

that was more related to like his ankle, like if it was a, like a quad or a knee, something that was bothering him, I'm like, oh, maybe it's because he's like having issues with his ankle still, blah, blah, blah. It's like one of those related injuries. But it's like his last It's like his Lytos muscle, which is like, I don't know.

It's just kind of random. It sounds like he just overdid it a little bit, and they just need to scale back and give him some rest, and it'll be fine. But, I mean, anytime it's a throwing, like your throwing arm, it's an injury to your throwing arm, that's worrisome. I'm a little worried, but I'm not quite freaking out yet. If only we had an entire HBO documentary crew

to document all of this and then post it every week on a television channel. That's next week. August 10th. We'll know. Crazy. This is going to be a crazy. hard knocks. There's so much going out with the Cowboys. Do you guys

ever wonder, I always think about this when athletes have minor injuries. So like it said that he like pulled himself out or mentioned that he had shoulder soreness but that it wasn't that big of a deal. Do you think that like a minor injury to Dak Prescott is like a killer injury to us three? Like do you think if we were experiencing

his shoulder soreness, we'd be like my shoulders fucking killing me? That's a fucking great question. And the answer is your back pull is probably how all NFL players feel all the time. Yeah, I'm honestly though genuinely like I always wonder that when someone's like oh I felt a little something in my arm so I took I stepped out of practice if we felt that in our arm and we'd be like oh my god mom I think I broke my elbow yeah actually I do I mean it's a combination of just absolute toughness to play through for both your team and also lots of money but also like and they also get some drugs and then professional trainers and masseuses and all these things to help them stay in the field but like nobody's healthy at the end of a season like our idea of fantasy football what quote unquote health means is whether you have that questionable label next to you. No one's healthy at the end of the season.

Like you have A.J. Brown just playing 15 weeks and he just ends up needing knee surgery. Like, yeah, you probably could have been out for the season in week two if you didn't want to play. Like, they play through an intense amount of injuries that you often never hear about. I think people were relieved. If you heard Dak Prescott got hurt, the fact that it was on his arm. It's honestly so much better, I think, than the fact that it was in his leg.

Garrett Gilbert is the Packer or the Cowboys No, 2 right now. yikes do you think so kellen more how old is kell and more he's the offensive coordinator like isn't he still in his 30s couldn't he just play

yeah we asked this last year and I think there was like he's 33 I think there's rules I think there's rules against it it's one of those things where the NFL thought it through and they're smart

and they're like because if you just let coaches play then all the teams will just stash actually like good players on their coaching staff for like positions couldn't you fire him

and then sign him as a player and then fire him again and then I think the NFL would actually be no. Like you're not allowed to do it. Okay, rolling through this, Washington, guys thought we were doing the COVID list? Because we're not. I'm telling you, dude, this year sneaky COVID shit is going to be a huge deal.

Six players from Washington are on the COVID list, including wide receiver Curtis Samuel, also Brandon Sherf, who's probably their best offensive lineman. Washington has among the lowest vaccination rates of any team in the NFL. They're about 70% now. But for the record, this is important. Anytime you see a team's vaccination rate, it's, oh, it's inflated because the guys on the bottom of the roster, like 60 through 90,

have more incentive because, like, if you're an on-the-fense player to make the roster, you kind of need to get vaccinated for them to want you want. They don't want some guy. They're just not going to, yeah. They don't want liabilities. Right. Yeah, exactly. Like the 53rd guy is not going to be the guy.

They want to be the outbreak guy. So as they cut from 90-man rosters to 53, all these numbers are going to drop. So when you hear a team like the Bucks is saying they're going to try to be at 92, 98. 8% later. That's probably more legit. That's high. But when we hear Washington at 70, that number's actually going to go down, unless a lot more players start getting shot. So just keep that in mind. And then on that note, the Vikings,

backup quarterback, Kellan Mon tested positive. He was the rookie they drafted. And then Kirk Cousins was a close contact. So both are on the COVID list. Jake Browning, only available quarterback at their practice. And I just have to read this quote from head coach Mike Zimmer from the Vikings. I guess he's just kind of an angry man.

And like, he's going, he's in fuck it mode. And I love it. He's in such bucket mode. Jake Browning's the only available quarter from Minnesota. And Mike Zimmy's like, Jake's really smart. He's vaccinated. That helps to be the backup. So as we move forward here, he's going to get a ton of reps tonight.

He's out there. He's available. And that's important. It's important to be available when you're playing football, a team sport. Yeah, Zimmer. Zimmer was not, like, mincing words or whatever. He was basically just like, you know, he basically said something on Monday. like, you know, we could be past this by now,

but people are being dumb and not getting vaccinated. So it's going to be one of those things where we could end up another like a Kendall Hinton situation next year again. It would not be surprising. Big winner, though, Browning. Jake Browning. Sure. Yeah.

Jake Browning. He's there. He's available. He made some throws. Best abilities availability, Jake. There you go. All right, yeah, that's the most depressing kind of hype imaginable for training camp hype. Like, he's available.

He's here. He got his very. vaccination. You want to get to like some more fun training camp hype, the more A.G. Dillon spinning around balls. All the inflated bullshit tweets, yeah. Which I love. The next decade of us just longing for the before times. It'll never come back. Big picture before we get into these specific guys. Like it's so cool to have training camp and football back. Like after last year, when everything was so weird and truncated and there was no preseason, I am amped. I'm amped up for preseason football. Like, I cannot wait to watch preseason football. It's so true. I, I think we talked about this

a couple months ago. I went when I, I went through my notes, like, to pivot to the 2021 season earlier this year. And I just started reading my notes in the 2020 season. And I had, I think I had like 16 pages of notes. And the first 16 pages were just various questions of like, will the season happen? How will games be played? Right. Right. How will players play if they test, like, just all the details that eventually worked themselves out. And I was like, wow, fun to focus on. on football, but maybe not entirely. But on that note, actual football,

Peter King for Football Morning in America, who has this excellent column every week, led with Matt Stafford, your boy, Craig. Yeah. And he wrote that Stafford was already going to be a strong contender to lead the league in passing yards and touchdowns. Minus Cam Acres, Stafford could easily be the most

desirable fantasy quarterback in the NFL's golden age of quarterbacks. I'm not sure Pete's playing. and is really tapped in to the modern fantasy football landscape. Maybe he is, but this is a great take. I love it, obviously. Big Rams guy over here. But I'm still not, he's not going,

Stafford's not going top five for me. Pump the brakes, just a little one. But yeah, this is awesome. Also, that article, he talked about how Aaron Donald there was just in the middle of, like, a series, just hugged Matt Stafford. He was just overjoyed. Such like a fucking sub-tweet of Jared Goff.

It's hilarious. Yeah, yeah, it's tough. But like everybody seems to be just overjoyed with Stafford so far. No, there was another one like that. I'm trying to remember. But I think McVeigh said basically they're all the guy, like the veterans are looking, and they were just enjoying Stafford, like, improvising around the goal line. And then McVeigh kind of paused and it's like, when you know, you know.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the relationship that taught you what you really want in a relationship. It's tough. Yeah. Peter King was like, oh, Jared Gough was a student. and Matt Stafford is a peer to McVeigh? We need the Ariana Grande like that. What's the song with all her exes?

She's like, One taught me pain. Thank you next. Thank you. We did the thank you next for all this weekday. Ouch, out. All right. So, all right, but having said all that, are we actually still moving Stafford up?

I mean, we have Stafford in that tier of Brady. Yeah, I feel like we're all on Stafford this year. He's properly rated, I think. Yeah. So generally speaking, over generalization, but still, are you guys basically down to, wait on quarterback this year, even though a lot more people are taking Mahomes, Kyler, Josh Allen, Dak, high up, you're still down to

wait and get one of Brady, Stafford, Tannahill, Jalen Hertz, somebody late. Does that work for you guys? Well, late, later. I don't think you can get it. Not like 150th, but like you're down to be one of the late, last people to take your starting quarterback. That's my question. I am less down to do that than I've ever been this year. I'm getting tempted more than I ever have this year to dip and reach into that top.

Yeah. When that first tier of quarterback starts coming off the board, it's very difficult to like be like, you know, not take a quarterback right there. Like if you're the, if you're sitting there and Kyler's still on the board and Mahomes and Lamar have gone off or the Mahomes and Josh Allen, it's very hard to not hit that draft button.

I've found. But generally I'm willing to do it. Yes, hyphids, I'm willing to wait a little bit longer still. I'm not like 100% like go hard early on quarterbacks because you've got you have guys like Aaron Rogers like Tom Brady and you could do the thing that hyphids that you've mentioned in the past where you take one of the veteran quarterbacks and then pair them with Justin Fields or Trey Lance and like you buy that upside you're still going for it um there's a lot of ways to do it so you don't

have to go early quarterback I don't know if late round quarterback is really the the right term to use this year I think like you want to wait until like mid round quarterback so well on that note talking about the rookie quarterback so You do a little working quarterback watch here. Peter King also went to the Niners camp and he had a great anecdote. Basically, Tray Lance and Peter King pulled the, I've been covering this for 38 years card and was like, it's not just about how accurate they are in your little like Twitter videos,

but also are they winning over the veterans? Are they making mistakes and then bouncing back and not being afraid? Do these dudes who, at the end of the day, like, put their bodies on the line, do they feel like they can go to war with this guy as the quarterback? And Peter King was like, they actually seem to like him. And he had this great one where Debo Samuel comes. up to Shanahan and says, Trey Lance has balls,

which may be crude, but they seem to be respecting him, seems to be going well. There's a lot of Lance buzz going around already. Are you guys buying in because I think I am? Yeah, I am. So I think, you know, we've talked about this in the past,

just offline, like how high do we put Lance? How long is it going to take him to get into the starting lineup? I think maybe if it was two weeks ago, we would have been like, oh, like maybe by week six or seven, I'm starting to think it could be

legitimately like week one at this point. He's starting to like, it seems like he's starting to win over the coaching staff. It feels more and more like it's only a matter of time until he just straight up passes Jimmy Garoppolo. I mean, I'm looking at Twitter right now as we're recording and it's talking about Garoppolo throwing two picks and Lance already run in a bunch of

read options stuff. Like the things they can do in their offense with him is like so different than what they can do with Garoppolo. I just think, end of the day, the coaching staff is probably going to be, And I mean, Shanahan came out and said at the beginning of training camp, like, this is not a quarterback competition. Like, it's Garapolo's job. But that's just something I think a coach has to say to, like, properly motivate your players and, you know, give Garapolo, I guess, the respect that he's had for starting for the last couple years.

But I don't think that necessarily keeps him from making this decision and going with Lance. If Lance lights it up, that's just going to, that's going to be how it is. they got to win games. They want to win games. So I don't know. I'm starting to believe that Lance is going to be the week one starter. I don't know about week one, but I agree with what you're saying that, again, Shanahan has said, like, Grappo is the guy. He also told Peter King, I truly don't know what's going to happen here.

And I actually believe him on that point. Because here's the thing, whether it's Justin Fields and Andy Dalton in Chicago or Trey Lance and Jimmy Garapo with the Niners or Mack Jones and Kim, New England. It's important to remember there is no upside. at all to saying the rookie will be the starter. And there's increasingly less upside in saying it's going to be a competition because for all those situations

where there was already a guy there that was the starter who's not like a Ryan Fitzpatrick guy but actually is like could be a starter. If you call the competition and the rookie just, you know, isn't amazingly like ready to be a quarterback in week one. It's like he quote unquote lost the competition. Right.

There's no upside to saying that. Like he's going to play when he's going to play. Everyone knows the deal. Everyone will get over it. You just don't want to, you got to manage the expectations. So I, yeah, I think that's a big deal. And that's a really important thing to keep hammering home is like you're saying, like, there is no upside to saying it's from day one. He's going to be a starter. It's, it's like deflecting blame. Like if the, you know, for instance, if Fields doesn't start in week one, even if he like, you know, is just like straight up not ready, they're, people are going to blame the, the coach. You can be like this is stupid. And so you're, you're taking the, you're, you're taking the, you're, you're. you're deflecting blame or whatever, and it's very, I think it's actually a really smart thing to do. But keep that in mind, you know.

Coaches more than anything are managing, like, psyches. Like, it's not only just like what's going on in the field. Like, you have to manage these guys, like, they're now in the NFL, like all the media scrutinies upon them. Like, Trey Lance was a quarterback, where did he go?

North Dakota? Where was he playing? North Dakota State. Now he's playing for the San Francisco 49. You also managing the psychies for the fans, to be clear, and they're, they're crazy. Fans are crazy.

Yeah, so like, to me it makes a lot of sense to not immediately anoint Trey Lance as the starter. but I don't know, man. They trading up the three to get him, and now they're going up against Matt Stafford, Russell Wilson, and Kyla Murray in the division. They know what Jimmy Garapolo is.

I think the second Lance is ready, he's starting. I don't think they're going to waste any time. I think if Shanahan thinks he's ready, week one he starts. Yeah. So on that note, the other one that I think in the similar vein is Justin Fields. So, Dekin, how has Justin Fields

been doing in Chicago so far? So I think it's been a little up and down. I mean, I would say the hype hasn't been out of control yet, Dalton has been more polished from what we've heard and kind of like getting really good chemistry with Alan Robinson like he's looked pretty good There's been I think as training camp has gone on Fields has gotten sharper and sort of started like be more comfortable But right now it doesn't feel like he's emendently going to be the starter quite as much as it feels like with Lance However like again as we were just talking about like there's no reason for the coaches to like name him anything

In fact, like Andy Dalton, I think today said something like right after they drafted Justin Fields, Matt Nagy called Andy Dalton and said, hey, it's still your team. You're still a starter. Like, this is your team this year. So, like, I understand that he doesn't have to keep that promise. But like, it just doesn't feel as imminent anymore to me as it does now with Lance. We'll have to see how everything plays out in the preseason, though. It's like making an alliance on the first episode of Survivor. Like, it's what you're supposed to do. It's good. But the second the merge happens, if it's going to help, if it's going to benefit you, you cut that guy as quickly, as you said, we're on a team together. That was then. This is now.

That was then. This is now. Andy Dalton, I still think, I mean, even though he gets the call from Nagy, like the second he sees fields get drafted, Andy Dalton's got to be like, listen, I know where I stand in the league. I get it. I'm a professional. I don't think I'm going to start 16 games this year.

Right? Yeah. I think generally though, like if it's answer your question, everything has been positive with Fields so far. Like there's no reason to start freaking out like he is not good or anything like that. So if you had to pick one of these guys to be your backup upside quarterback on your bench, which traditionally I haven't done, but I think now there's so many rushing quarterbacks that could be high upside, it's important. Would you rather have Trey Fields than Justin Fills? Sorry, Trey Lanz than Justin Fields right now, D.K. Yeah, based on, I think, the last week, I might. I might say Trey Lance,

especially too, because they're talking about how they were using him in the redoption game and how that is all going to be so important and effective in their offense. And right now, like,

just full disclosure, we've got Lance significantly lower on our rankings at the ringer.com. However, I think we need to move them up. And I think based on what we're seeing in training camp, based on the news,

based on what we just said, I think it feels more like Andy Dallon's week one starter for Chicago and it feels more and more like, Tray Lance is making up ground on Garoppolo. And, you know, we didn't mention it before, but maybe Garapolo gets traded to the Colts. So you never know.

That's a good one. One other point about Fields, Lewis Riddick, I mean, we talked about how you guys – High Fitz, you mentioned that the veterans took to Lance, which is a good sign. Like, Lewis Riddick today tweeted, not going to say how crazy good some of the things I have been told about Justin Fields. The professional have been this far. Don't want to hear that it's only training camp brigade, puff up their chest and scream at the top of their lungs.

But it has been that good, just. saying. So it sounds like from an intangible standpoint, Fields has got it. It's just a matter of time physically when he rounds into form. And that matters. And like, let's be real. That's kind of what happened in Philadelphia last year is they took Jalen Hertz and the team kind of gravitated toward Hertz

more than they did to Wentz. Like that stuff matters. Like, you know, the quarterback also is to lead the team. And it's not all just training camp buzz. Like, it's not like everything's positive in training camp, like these quarterbacks. Like, Zach Wilson has been pretty up and down. Like, people are willing to to criticize high draft picks as well. So don't

Everybody think it's all like, you know, so he, he's just and cream. So we don't need to go to the contract stuff too much, but basically he was late to training camp. He was the last, Zach Wilson was the first, sorry,

the last first rounder to sign his rookie contract, basically because there's this contract gobbledy gook, and Trevor Lawrence didn't have to do it. So why do I have to do it? But, well, it's because he's Trevor Lawrence and you're not. And, and so that got him held up.

So he reported late, took a red eye to practice. and then kind of sucked for the first couple days. Which, like, I don't know, who cares? Yeah. Well, he sucked the first day and then... He took a red eye. Sounds like he's bounced back the last few days

and it's been much better. So I think it was, like, much ado about nothing. Yeah, I think that's the case. I think to round out the Justin Fields' Trey Lance discussion, though, I think, personally, when we get off and we're going to, like, powwow about our rankings, I think it should be Lance Fields, like, right there at, like, QB14, QB15. in that range. I think that's where we should end up.

We'll have to see how it all goes because we each do our own rankings and then use the consensus. But I do think that we need to move Lance up significantly based on everything that's happened this last week. Can we get into the true rookie quarterback

biggest news, in my opinion? Yeah. Out of camp. Mac Jones is good. Yeah. And is playing well and is already out playing Cam Newton and people like him.

If you had to bet right now, all three of you, other than Trevor Lawrence and Zach Wilson, which of Lance Fields and Mac Jones will start first in the season. Ooh, that's good. That's a good question. I don't know. So based on what we've been hearing from Patriots camp is that Newton's still taking all the first team reps. He's still leading everything off, but he hasn't separated himself from Mac Jones. I don't know if I've

heard necessarily that Mac Jones is out playing Newton. If anything is, if anything, Newton just hasn't really separated himself. I still lean just very, very, very, very slightly that Belichick is going to start the veteran, but I don't know. It's like, my opinion on that is like not very strong. It's like one of those things where if you just had to pick one, I'd say that Newton

is the starter week one. But in terms of the next person to start, I think it comes down to Jones versus Lance now, more than Fields versus Lance. Interesting. Hyfitz, what do you think? This is where those Twitter videos actually stick with you, and I really wish I could say like the

11 second bits from training camp don't have any impact on my mind, but they do. And just all the throws I've seen from Cam not having a grip on his accuracy. And it basically, it just seems like the combination of foot and shoulder injuries he's had means he has to throw differently. And then it's hard for him to compensate.

So that's why he just underthrows people on one throw. And then the next one, he overthrows it. It's because he has trouble stepping into his passes now. And like, that didn't get fixed over the off season. And if that didn't get fixed over the off season, and I don't see how he will be better than last year. And like, it's funny because Mac Jones is kind of everything Kim isn't. Like, they are exact opposites.

So everything that Cam Newton lacks, Mac Jones does really well. So it's probably hard to not be like, man, you know who's hitting people in the chest? Mac Jones. Also, Mac Jones apparently did an impression for his rookie skit of Cam Newton. Came out in like a fancy hat and all that stuff. And apparently everybody loved it and he killed it. And people like Mac Jones. which I think is a big deal as well.

Dude, the Cam Newton. That impression. I don't even could imagine seeing that. Every Cam Newton outfit is just a different Batman villain. Like you just Google Cam Newton outfits and you're like, oh, that could be a Batman villain. Yeah, it's like a 90s Batman villain. Who would you rather have dressed you, Russell Westbrook stylist or Cam Newton stylist for the rest of your life? Every event.

Newton, for sure for me. Newton's is like more funny. Newton's is like, oh, this guy's at a costume party? Russell Wilson Russell Westbrook's is like Oh, he's trying Dude Russ I think I put Russ

At the top of my mental rankings Like it must have been eight years ago He wore like a metal shirt I don't remember this It's like imagine just a gray t-shirt But it was like straight up like metal It was like armor It's like a metal t-shirt

I was like That's why I was so strongly In Cam Newton's favor Is like doesn't Russell Westbrook Wear like things that would be very uncomfortable Like leather pants And like metal stuff Like I'm not trying to wear

chain mail. Just give me weird shit. Camp Newton wears weird clothes, I guess, or like whatever. Big hat. I like that. I'd way rather dress like that. Westbrook wore a construction worker's vest to the game one day. He's put it in that work, Craig. Safety first, Craig. An orange vest. That's a dad I can appreciate that. No, D.K. I don't want to shit on you, but the helmets for the safety. The construction vest is to say, come on, we're putting in the work, D.K. That's a, yeah. The vest is just a big metaphor. Okay. got it. The vest is to get fits off. The hat is for safety. Guess what? When all the, when fancy executives visit a site that's being built, they don't put on the vest. They put on the hard hat.

They should do both. Maybe they'll do both now that we saw Russ do it. Want to look at a couple quarterback, the competition check-ins, quote-unquote competition. We have the Broncos and the Saints here. Those, they could not feel more different. The Broncos real quick, you know what the Broncos drew-lock, bridgewater thing reminds me of? That scene in the wire where he's like, nobody. wins, one side just loses more slowly. I feel like that's Teddy Bridgewater versus Drewlock. Yeah. I think, I feel like it's been exactly what it has been.

It's like higher highs for lock, but lower lows. And Teddy's been consistent. Yeah, it's exactly what we thought. Yeah. It's like they are who we thought they were. The most predictable thing in the world, fanjo, even the other day. Uh, I don't know if he was asked specifically about this or not. He probably was, but like he basically said like, there's a fine line. Checkdowns are good, but you need more than. checkdowns. Just like kind of like directly speaking to Bridgewater. Yeah.

And obviously, you know, with Drew Locke, he's, I guess like his personality as a player is more chucked the ball down the field, more yolo ball type deal. And Bridgewater is much more, you know, disciplined and refined and polished, but he's also just not going to be as aggressive. So, yeah, I don't know. They're going to have to find a happy medium there. However, it doesn't sound like either guy has really separated themselves quite yet. Guys, I think I'm out on the horses.

We're a weekend. I'm out on the horses. The cults out on all them after this Wednesday thing. And the Broncos, like, I'm starting to think about it. I love Teddy Bridgewater. Drew, Drew Lock exists. Whoever wins, I feel like we're just going to be pretty disappointed with how they play. The defense is going to be really good.

And the head coach, Vic Fangio is like pretty old school football guy. he's probably going to want to run. And I just, and Pat Schumer, the offensive coordinator is like, you know, not the most imaginative guy. Also is a dead ringer for Josea from Red Dead Redemption. It's neither here nor there. But like, Jerry Judy, who like fits all these boxes as like a good breakout candidate, Cortland Sutton, like, it's just a team that isn't going to throw that much. And like with a bad quarterback, like, I just feel, I don't know.

I'm starting to think that maybe the upside here is like ignoring the glaring siren that this is not a good quarterback room. Which quarterback room would you, which quarterback room would you prefer? the one we're about to talk about next or the Broncos. That's a good point. Yeah, well, I mean, the Saints are in the same boat, but oh my God. So, well, I'm kind of, I'm, I think I'm higher on Giovante Williams for the running in Denver and lower on the receivers. But then you got the Saints where it's like, you got James and Taysam. What the fuck is going on with the Saints, D.K.

I don't know if I should curse while saying Saints in the same sentence. Can we all just, why can't we all just understand that James is better than Taysam Hill and just stop? Can we just move on? James is better at throwing a football than Tassum Hill is, and Tassim Hill should not start. I feel like they're both going to play a lot. Like I think that it's going to be a college-esque experiment, and I think that in third and goal, like red zone, what they would call situational football,

like third and short, red zone, I think Taysom is going to be on the field, and it's not going to be, like we're trying to fit two very not normal players into a normal box. I just don't think Sean Payton sees the same box we do. And that's why we don't get it. Craig, do you just think turnovers don't matter?

Is that what you're saying? Like, with the James thing? Like, history tells us he's going to just, throw picks, like so many picks, make terrible decisions. That's why there's a competition. I know it's obvious, but, like, yes, he's clearly a better arm and probably more accurate, but decision-making is such a big deal, and he doesn't have it, or at least he hasn't had it in his career. At least someone's catching the balls he throws. Tase him hell's throwing him into the ocean. I don't know. He had a couple years to correct the thing, and also, like, he got the Lasic,

which I can't believe we're clinging to. Hell yeah. Just imagine. What if he, well, Lombardy's joke with James for years was he couldn't see the color of the jersey's right. And imagine if that was actually true. Can you imagine? LASIC doesn't fix colorblindness. You can see the, you can see like the number, the number is better. It's like, you know, how they each team has distinctive number styles. At least he can see that. I know James doesn't make great decisions, but I just, I don't know. Maybe I, I'm on a camp of one, but just think. Craig, you'd be happy to hear. And I saw this from Nick Underhill. today, James Winston just had the best practice of any quarterback since camp started.

So that's... Started four days ago. Well, yeah. So no one's really had an edge. Well, I don't even know who their third string is, but whatever. You know what I mean. And then Larry Holder, every Saints QB seems to be slinging it today. That said, James Winston has looked more of the part through four days of practice, making all the throws.

So it is starting to seem a little bit like James might have the edge here, but we'll see. look Michael Thomas is not going to play in September I this is a disaster I don't know how I feel the Camar anymore it's it's just it's all tough we'll circle back to this it's a very depressing all right I think it's this is object permanence there's some veterans that you just the act of seeing them is like oh yeah remember that they're they're a person yeah rashad penny happy birthday present yeah Craig talked about Rashad Penny on the podcast on Friday and then a little bit after we recorded, Penny did a press conference at the CX training camp and he was basically like, 223 pounds. He's lost like 11, 12 pounds since last year. And he played at 235 in college.

So he's like lighter than he played in college. He says he feels great. Best shape of my life guy happening right now. He said he feels like he's in high school again. Yeah. Pete Carroll, Pete Carroll agreed. Can I read you, Rashad Penny's high school stats? Yeah. I just want to put this in context. This is very important. Where did he go? This is my gift for Craig. Rashad Penny, I honestly feel like I'm back in high school again. He,

his senior year of high school, he played at Norwalk High School in California. His senior year, he ran for 2,500 yards and 41 rushing touchdowns. Wow. So, I think if he feels like it's high school again,

we have Rashad Penny way too low. We think in top three? All time. Would you rather have senior year of Rashad Penny or Derek Henry? Oh, there's a question. Yeah. Derek Henry.

Didn't Derek Henry, like, play quarterback somehow? Like how Craig... Doing everything. Like how Craig answered that earnestly. Like, it was a serious question. Also, Rashad Penny is the fifth...

I think the fifth greatest rushing year of all time in college football. Yeah, that list isn't as impressive, it seems, in terms of NFL success. Barry Sanders is first, so it's kind of impressive. He's good. Jerich McKinnon for the Chiefs. Remember him? Wow.

Yeah, to be honest, guys, I forgot he was on the team. Same here. Yeah. I did as well. So he seems to be kind of the guy that's slotting in like with Clyde, DeRell Williams.

and Jerich McKinnon. Kind of annoying for fantasy more than anything. Jerich McKinnon's a cool story because he just missed like two full years basically. And I'm just happy he's healthy. But like, if it's a rotation with Clyde with three people, that would kind of suck. That would make things much more complicated.

And again, like the question with Clyde is, are they going to give him the value touches? Because last year they took away Red Zone, goal line stuff from him. And he wasn't as involved in the passing game as we all thought. And those are like two of the big reasons that we're really excited about Clyde de Roots

Blair going into last year. If they do a rotation with Darrell Williams and McKinnon, you know, it could severely dampen sort of like his upside. So that's a little bit concerning. But right now, like, honestly, I'm not that worried about McKinnon. You know what I mean? It's like he'll, maybe he looks a little exciting in camp. But like we have to actually see it go through like preseason, have him stay healthy. He is like 29 years old. You know, it's not, I really still think it's going to be Clyde Edwards-Layers backfield. And this McKinnon thing is just a side show. Yeah, I agree. Okay, well, while we're being nice to Craig

about Rashad of Penny, I'll be nice to you, DK. Omar Kelly covering the dolphins tweeted that Tua is really showing a mastery of this offense I didn't expect at this point. Ball is out quick, it's accurate and out in the perfect spot for wide receivers often. That's good to hear. It's really good to hear, and this is confirmation

bias season. It's absolutely confirmation bias. But, I mean, it is a good sign. It's better than being like a big negative, right? He threw four picks or something in practice at like a couple weeks ago, people were flipping shit. I think, you know, that's fair.

But everything we've heard lately is that he's been looking pretty good. He's getting on the same boat. He's getting on the same page with Albert Wilson, who's back from, he took last year off because of the pandemic. He's kind of an interesting sleeper kind of guy this year. But yeah, like the things that Omar Kelly tweeted here is who Tua was in college, balls out quick, accurate, perfect spot for a wide receiver. That's like who he was.

He's a rhythm. He's a rhythm passer with excellent accuracy, ability to attack downfield. That's who he was in college. So the fact that he's showing some of those traits in this offense, and I think also it's big that this offense really is going to be designed for him this year versus last year when it was like a Ryan Fitzpatrick offense. And he had to come in and sort of run this Chang'aley thing that they'd designed for Ryan Patrick. The reason they brought him in and brought Changailey in was to run the offense to this other guy.

So, you know, whether that means, like, much more focus on getting the ball out quickly and in rhythm, I think that that perfectly suits Tua. And I think Waddle has gotten some hype so far. You know, like I said. Devante Parker got a little bit. Devante Parker, Albert Wilson. Like, you know what I mean? It's just going to be a better situation, I think, for Tua. He'll have a chance to break out.

I'm looking at these as positives. I'm not, like, freaking out quite yet and getting really excited about Tua, moving them up in my list or anything like that. but it's definitely a good thing. Dolvin's are really hard. I feel like every single player on their team, it's almost like Jack of All Trade's Master of None. I don't know who they like on that team. I don't know which pass catcher to go after.

I just think it's going to be really muddled. I absolutely agree. I think Will Fuller is their number one guy, but again, he's had the injury problems this whole year, his whole career, and then he's missing week one because of his suspension. You know, we don't know what their chemistry is. It's just like tough.

I could see every scenario playing out. I could see Will Fuller coming back in week two and being great. I could see Waddle playing really well and we're like, oh, yeah, of course. Waddle was so underrated in Alabama. I could see Devante Parker being good and we're like, yeah, he's the veteran. That makes sense. Like, yeah.

I don't know. Who's lubricating Will Fuller's muscles? Well, in that Miami heat, maybe no one needs to, you know? Yeah, just the humidity. Yeah. That's why I went there. Houston has more of a dry heat. You're probably right.

Okay. Giants signed Alfred Morris running back. I only put this here because I think at this point with the Sequin thing, I don't mean to just be like Debbie Downer. It's kind of like a watch what teams do, not what they say. Signing off from Morris to me indicates that they think they'll need him.

Now, do they need him for the preseason or the regular season? We'll see. I think if you get to the point where Alfred Morris gets cut, Sequin's cool. And that's basically why I'm bringing this up. It's like maybe there's need him

for week two of the preseason to get the other players looks and to see what's going on. Yeah, yeah. But if he makes the roster, we'll see how far in cut downs he gets. All right.

Any other guys, any other hype you saw excited you guys or depressed you guys i don't know i'm a little bit depressed to be honest about the denzil mims thing he's now running with third team it's gotten worse since like the ota's or whatever when he was running with second team it's it's again i really don't get it it's not a death now for his career by any means like i don't think it's over for him or necessarily or whatever but it is very worrisome and it's kind of depressing because he was like pretty exciting as a rookie there like there were some moments there when he really flashed he batted injuries for much of the season.

But it really might just be a situation where he's not a good fit for what they want to do. And maybe whatever, for whatever reason, the coaching staff doesn't like him. Like, it might just be a situation where he's better off getting traded before the year. I wouldn't say they don't like him. I think they're challenging him. This is a high pick for a previous regime. And I think that for whatever reason, like, they just, they might want to challenge him and see how he responds. Yeah.

Regardless, it's depressing. I mean, because I like him coming out of college. I think he's a good player. I think he's like an elite athlete, all that stuff. I was really excited to see kind of where he went. And, you know, in Dynasty, like, I've got him on a lot of teams, so I'm, like, really hoping he shows out. But it's just not looking good so far with where he's playing.

And third team, I mean, he's playing behind all these guys, like Keel and Coles with the first team. And, you know, they brought in Corey Davis, who's taking over that kind of role that I think he was slated to play last year at the ex-position. So, yeah, Denzo Mims. It's just not looking good right now. Steelers camp apparently a lot of drops everyone's got the drops he was done

oh they didn't fix that did they what do they got the twisties still a thing damn it they got the drops he's apparently like Deonté dropped two balls like Chase Claypool dropped the ball Naji Harris dropped two balls so you know same shit how do they not fix that

I feel like I cover this for a living I should know this but I feel like it's kind of like I still watch the NBA and I'm still just like how do they miss the free And I know that like smart people are like, look, you can't make all them. But the average person, which is like, how does anyone in the NBA under 60%? And that's how I feel with the team with the Steelers.

It's like, this has been the thing for them for like two years in a row. Like, just they have many different players in the upper echelon of the drops leaderboard. Like, I just don't know how you don't fix it. Talking about players shooting free throws. In the NBA last year, the average free throw percentage in the entire league, I believe, was 77% from the line. Is it weird that me, Craig Horlebeck, could probably shoot 70% from the line,

and I'm clearly not NBA caliber count. And you should look at it at a 4 to 5 or 8. Call it 8 out of 10. But like, is it weird that I, me, can shoot a better free throw percentage than like every center in the league? Yeah, I think that's the strangest part of the free throws is that, like Ben Simmons is the perfect example.

Ben Simmons shot, like a third, right? Like 33% in the playoffs? and it's like that like I think free throws are the only thing where you actually can say this where there are people in the stands who could do that like every other thing in sports that looks easy is not and everything that looks doable

is not doable except free throws now I know doing in front of 60,000 people's heart at 30,000 but there are people who can make five out of 10 free throws normal people normal house people that you work with can do that if Doc if Doc Rivers saw me shooting hoops for an hour, would he be like,

I'd rather have him shoot free throws than Ben Simmons? Potentially. Well, here's the thing. I got this from KOC, which they need to change this eventually. They're going to, I think, to slow down NBA, or sorry, to speed up NBA games, they're going to stop having the two free throws. It'll be one.

You make shoot one free throw and you get the shot or you don't. That's not actually going to happen. I think it should. Why wouldn't it? Like, think about Janus, where they're counting down the 10 seconds. But think about how long it takes. So one, it they averaged it out. It would actually take five minutes off the average game,

which is a lot. That's hard to take five minutes off a game without changing much. Also, why is it worth, why do you get two shots anyway? Like, every, the entire sport is like one basket, get you two points. Now you get the free shot, make it or don't. How do you do ann ones then? Well, the end one would be for the one point. I don't know.

I think if you want to cut down on time, how about we just do two halves, just like college basketball, cut down on time. What is wrong with the free throw thing? Why do you get two shots for, like, it's the only part of the entire sport where it's one bucket, one point. for one shot. Just make it to two.

What about a three point foul? It's one shot for three? Yeah. Eh, I don't know. I don't know about that. It's a free throw. It's easy. Don't know about that. That's too easy. That's actually, no, that doesn't make any sense. Because so then you would just, everybody would just be trying to get foul shooting threes because a free throw is so easy. That'd be, I mean, getting three points from a free throw

is so much easier. Everyone's trying to do that anyway. D. K is just like, and kill me now. I'm reading, I'm reading Twitter. Okay, let's move on. Craig, it's your birthday. We'll actually talk about your birthday now. Happy birthday, bud. Yeah, happy birthday.

We brought on a special guest to absolutely roast you. Great. All right, so it is a very special day. It is Craig's birthday. He is 22 years old. Is that, is that what you're? I'm an extremely old 27. Late 20s now.

Oof. 27, late 20s? Yeah, late 20s. I had a little anxiety about it last night, but, you know, plowing through the day. Wow. Well. Kindly shut the fuck up, Craig

is my reaction to that. Well, it's a special day. So we wanted a special guest. And I was like, what if we brought Craig's older brother and Scott to tell some embarrassing stories? And D.K. was like, or we could just tell,

like, say nice things about Craig. Which shows the difference in yours personalities between the two. Yeah, Dek is a much nice of person. So I won. So Scott Horlebeck, welcome to the show. How you doing, Scott?

What's up, guys? How are you guys? I'm good. So to be clear, this is, this is Craig's older brother. Yes, it is. They debated making this a surprise, which I would have liked. I knew about this. An ambush.

I still don't know what the stories are going to be, but I wanted to be ambush. I wanted him to just kamikaze in here and drop bombs on it. No, you didn't. You wanted things to be safe. He wants the control because he'll edit out of the stories. There's going to be bleeps and all this stuff. You're going to, yeah. But no, it's the difference between D.K. and I, because it was the compromise because D.K. was like, this is kind of mean.

And I was like, yeah, that's the point. You don't be nice to people on their birthday. It's ridiculous. Hyphus is like, you clearly don't have a brother. And I was like, no. So that's correct. Yeah. Anyway, so, wait, so Scott, so how much older are you than Craig?

I am four years older. Oh, okay. That's the gap between my brother and I do. So is 27 late 20s. Should he be having the existential crisis? I think it's late 20s. I think 28 is definitely late 20s. I think 27's like early late 20s.

Early late 20s. Cool. So I'm not early late 20s. Early upper middle. Yeah, yeah. Craig, by the way, Craig texted me this morning. And he said he was lifting a few days ago when he heard his back. and he's on day four of back pain now.

He's like, I thought this wasn't, I didn't think this was supposed to happen until I was 30. Great. Now the beat reporters are going to start tweeting about my back injury and how I'm out for a week. Load management. Craig's on load management with the ringer. Did you feel a twinge or did you hear a pop, Craig?

Definitely twinge. Big time twinge, lower right back. We'll see. Me and Wentz are out. Buddy, back injuries don't go away either, especially when you're in your early to mid to late 20s. Yeah, you're Larry. bird now. Early late 20s. Well, without further ado, we brought Scott here for one reason,

which is to tell some embarrassing stories about Craig. So please, Scott, the floor is yours. So I think I'll just tell a few because I don't want to bore everyone too much. I think the first one, kind of one of our family favorite stories is when Craig was really little, he was six or seven or eight, Craig's probably going to have a lot of, he's going to think I'm telling this wrong. But I'm going to tell it how I remember it. So Craig, Craig was in a private school, in elementary school. So he's a seven or eight and he is at a recital,

a performance. I think it's Christmas as well. And my parents are there, I'm there, and our grandparents drove out from Alameda. So everyone's coming to see Craig. Shouts out the bay. Shouts to the bay,

let's go. Steph just resigned. So everyone comes out and we're here, we're excited. I think this is Craig's like first recital as a little kid. And he's in the front row too.

So you can picture the crowd or the group of kids. And Craig's front row middle, because he was little at that time. Craig was really, he's tall now, but he was little when he was growing up. So he's front row middle and he has a little red turtleneck sweater and khaki, khaki pants like he works at Walmart. Like Harbaugh. And the show begins and they start singing.

And my mom pulls out the camera naturally to record. Because I think that's what you just do in 1999 or, 2000. And it's like mean girls. He got the camp quarter. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a super normal thing. I think the whole crowd was,

was all the parents were filming. So it's not, this is not just like our mom. And Craig somehow immediately sees that my mom's filming. He can see the camera. And he's just like not okay with that. As he's singing,

you can see his hand gestures. Now he's now gesturing to our mom in the crowd to stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. Stop. And at first, we're like,

Is he doing that to us? And we're like, oh, my God, he's having a meltdown on stage. You can see my hand? Like, I was doing like the, like, cut it, like on the neck thing, you know, with my hand. That's the best part. That's the best part. So at the very end, as the song is kind of rapping, I guess, he gives our mom like a, like a Des Bryant, like a toot flash. Don't you even think about it.

So seven-year-old private school, red turtlene. and khakis, Craig, giving the throat slash. Just hated paparazzi from an early age. Let it be known that I went to public school for middle and high school, okay? Not some private school yuppie hating people for filming me, but that did happen.

Why were you so upset? I honestly have no idea. I think perhaps I was embarrassed my singing skills weren't great. Maybe I didn't want it captured on film. I think it was a lack of confidence in his performance skills. Yeah, that might be right.

Lack of confidence. Can we get that video? Is there any way... Yeah, that still exists? Yeah, mom would love this at the throat. You know, like, how moms? Like, my mom got all of the home videos. You can, like, convert them into digital.

So she did that. So she has them all. Oh, so they're in circulation. Okay. Sure. Great. Scott, we'll follow up after. It's like a perfect, like, six-second, like, Twitter breakout. It's just made for...

Wow. Made for social. I have an idea for later. Yeah. That's amazing. Okay. So that's one. So that's when he was really little.

I think another one that's fun is this one's kind of like, and this one has photos too. So this could pair nicely with the video from previous. We can do a whole series of. Scott, you understand content. This runs in the family. Hell yeah. I'm in advertising.

This is what I do. So, so. It's supposed to make me look good in advertising, I thought. Well, any publicity is good, yeah. You're not my client, so this is different. So like we said at the start of this, Craig and I are four years apart.

So naturally, we competed. and everything. We're both very competitive. And me being four years older, I never let him win in anything ever. King pong, basketball. Michael Jordan. Yeah. The face Craig is making right now,

like the memory, like he just went somewhere in his own head. The PTSD is rushing back. Just a thousand yards stare. So one of the kind of mental mind game warfare I would play on him was he had an earlier bedtime than me. So the family would be sitting on the couch watching something in night. And he'd say, I don't know, 10 or 11, and right when it was his bedtime on the second,

I would make it clear, mom and dad, can we get this moving? Get this asshole out of here. And he would get so mad. And he'd be like, no, mom. His sort of counter to this was a protest, a sleep protest. Once he got the boot and he had to kind of turn the corner from the living room and go up the stage, kind of the show began, we would hear something up and down the hallways. And then we would hear doors opening and closing, drawers, opening and closing, shuffling in and out of things. He's now trying

to make our evening as miserable as possible because he has to go to bed. So from up above, he's going to just be like the worst apartment neighbor you've ever had, right? So he's doing his whole, you know, charade upstairs. And then eventually it would get quiet. Everything would stop. And he'd be like, oh, thank God he finally fell asleep. But the kicker on all in all this is. I like how he's saying we. Like you're lumping your parents into this too.

Like, oh yeah. Thank God we got rid of them. He would, as a part of the protest, he would never sleep in his bed. So we would come up the stairs and we would find him. We would find him with a blanket on the top of the stairs asleep, in his closet, asleep, in my closet, in my bedroom. in the bathroom. He was like, you know, he was like a passed out

an old man who just got home from the dive bar just out all around different parts of room and we have photos of these. They're so funny. He's just out cold, like in a closet. Like he just came off, you know. A bender. Seven hours at the dive bar.

Yeah, that's real. There's one infamous photo of me with a white blanket passed out in the middle of my hallway upstairs just on the carpet. Like starfishing out cold. I hated getting, I hated going. I hate to go to bed, honestly. I would hide around the corner when I was sent to bed

and I would watch my family watch David Letterman because it was the closest I could get to staying up. And then Scott would hear me and be like, Craig's in the hallway. And be like, scurry away. Scott. Oh my God. Craig, what do you have to say for yourself?

Did you win the protest? Were they worth it? Yeah, I think so. You know, those hours watching Jay Leno and David Letterman around the corner really shaped who I am today. So yes, I'd say so. Can you sleep anywhere now, by the way? No, I actually have trouble sleeping anywhere about my bedroom.

Maybe I just don't like sleeping. I just want to be up all the time. I think that's what it really is. Maybe that's where your back's fucked up. You just slept anywhere and everywhere. Thank you, Scott. Those were tame. Those are relatively tame.

I feel okay about them. People now know I sang in a choir when I was seven and I slept in the hallway. If I get, you know, if I came in too hot and heavy, I'm getting a text from mom. What did you do? He's going to get, he'll's going to fire Craig because of what you said. I feel like that's an invitation that we're leaving stuff on the table. I mean, Scott can always come back.

He's just, you know, he's just to call away. This could become Scott Corner. There we go. Once a month, Scott comes in, and just kills Craig. Well, maybe at 28 years old, once a year we could do it. High Fitz, your brothers is four years older, too. We're going to get him to come in on this, too.

That would be a lot worse for me. I kind of like this. Old brother. Old brother beat out. We have an entire episode. It's just not the three of us. It's just all of our siblings on a pod. Just talking shit.

chatting. He's got to suck. That would be amazing. Scott, thank you so much. Any parting words for Craig on his birthday? Happy birthday. I hope you have a good dinner tonight. Tell Liz,

she's a saint. Wow. Fantastic. Scott, thank you. See you guys. Thank you. Oh, wait, no, Scott. Stay.

Thank you, Craig. Thank you, D.K. Thank you, Scott. Thank you, Lorne. Scott, would you like to pick a band to thank? A band. Yeah. Name any band.

Thank them. New Leon Bridges album. out shouts Leon Bridges. Ooh. Boom. There we go. There we go. Everyone's better at this than I am.

It pisses me off. That was a good answer. All right. We'll see you guys on Wednesday.