The Ringer NFL Show - ‘GM Street’ — Unacceptable September Strategies (Ep. 144)

Episode Date: September 20, 2017

The Ringer's Michael Lombardi and Tate Frazier discuss the lack of leadership in Dallas (02:30), the statement made by the Lions defense (08:00), Ben McAdoo and the Giants offensive line (12:30), Sean Payton in September (16:00), and Mason Rudolph's draft stock (23:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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ringer NFL to activate the offer. You play, you win, you get paid. Let's get into GM Street. Welcome to GM Street. I am Tate Frazier, and this is a part of the Ringer podcast Network, and I'm sitting across from Mike Lombardi. Lombardi, how you doing? I'm good, Tate.

How are you? I just heard about this earthquake. You okay? Yeah, I'm a little shook right now, no pun intended. I was just telling you before we got on the air last night, Los Angeles had an earthquake. I'm from North Carolina, Lombardi, we don't deal with earthquakes. We have hurricanes, occasionally, maybe a tornado every once in a while,

some hard rain, some hailing. I don't do earthquakes. I don't do earthquakes, so I'm... Tadreaserer, I'm from New Jersey. We don't do earthquakes either. Now, we have flooding, we have all sorts of other problems. We have pollution. We have everything.

But I didn't hear it. I mean, I don't live that far from you. I didn't even hear it. Of course, I'm deaf in one year, so it probably happened. And my dogs usually would bark if they heard it. It was, I felt it. I woke up. I was dead asleep.

You know, it was like 11.30 a day. What was it? It must have been Ben McAdoo calling plays created a seismic sensation or something. I don't know. It had to be related to that giant game. You know, I'd tell you what, if it would have been, that giant game would have been, if I would have been on the East Coast, I don't think I'd have made it to the end of that game.

No, there's no need to. I mean, if you're a true Giants fan, you don't want to watch that. You're going to go back, watch some Tom Coughlin tape from back in the day and, you know, just reminisce about the good times if you can. But should we talk about that Monday? Yeah, let's get out. Let's get out. Let's go on the, let's go back to the format.

Let's go. Okay. And we're going to start off with your Dallas Cowboys. We're going to do, like, what we did last week, a little bill wash. You know, if we're all thinking like no one is thinking. And a lot of people were thinking that Dallas Cowboys, they have this great offense, this great offensive line. Jason Garrett's a game manager as a coach.

They have DAC back there. So we're obviously thinking wrong, Lombardi. What's going on with the Cowboys? Well, I think a couple factors. First of all, when they can't run the football, which they couldn't do last year against the New York Giants, they struggled to run the ball in the first game against the Giants. Second game, they had a little bit of success,

but they can't really do it. Their skill level on the outside isn't really explosive. And I think this is Des Bryant. I think people have to start paying attention to stop thinking he's a star receiver and start facing the reality that, yeah, he's physical, yeah, he's tough, yeah, he can make great catches, and yes, he can jump ball to come down with it in the end zone, but can he separate, can he create separation between him and the defender? No, and I think that's really the big problem of the Cowboys.

It's not Elliott didn't go back and follow the receiver. I think the real issue is their skill level when they have to throw the football to win, to beat a good team, is it really great? So when you look at that Cowboys, and you look at Des Bryant specifically, the height of, you know, 2012, 2014, the guy the catch rate percentage you add is over 60%. That's pretty good.

I mean, that's elite level receivers. The past few years it's been 50 or worse pretty much every single year. And this year is 39%. So we've sort of seen him, he's hitting that decline. He's getting on 28 going on 29. But the other guys that around him,

Cole Beasley, he's been, you know, kind of limping a little shook up. Obviously, Terrence Williams didn't show much in that game. I mean, what do they do? How do they add an asset to the outside? Beasley's really good, but when they play against Chris Harris in the slot against Denver, then it becomes a problem. I think, and then what they did with him with Talib, with Des Bryant on Talib, is you go up to, you go up to Des, and you pretend you're going to press, and he thinks he has to convert a route, and then you back off, and now he's not sure what he's going to do, and now

you get him thinking as opposed to playing, and he doesn't have that explosive speed down the field. And, you know, I know my man, Jason Garrett blamed as Dak Prescott for for not playing well. But when you study the tape and look at the game tape, there wasn't a lot of places to throw the football. And look, I think Jason Witten belongs in the Hall of Fame. I think he's a great player, but he's not the same separation quickness. He's easier to cover. He's going to run shorter routes. He's going to catch the ball. They have too many jump ball receivers, meaning they have too many guys that have to make plays covered to get to make a play in the passing game. And I think it puts a burden on Dak Prescott. I think they really need an

If they had an explosive player on the outside, just somebody who could vertically take the top off the defense, that would really help them when they can't run the football. And we had Witton had that drop touchdown pass, which was very uncharacteristic. But he comes back and gets a touchdown on the next drive. And then we get in the fourth quarter and everyone wants to call Dak the game manager. But the guy that's really managing the game is Jason Garrett. And they have this fourth and three where they punt, Troy Aikman comes out. And he says it's a good decision. And you went ballistic over this.

I've gone ballistic the whole time. Like, I don't even understand it. Like, I've been going ballistic. in the third quarter he went for it. To me, Jason Garrett has one job to do. That's to manage the game. Now, I know he and Troy are best friends. So, look, Troy's going to defend his buddy, and well, he should.

I get that. But at some point, like, be honest about this. You're down by 18 points. It's not how much time's left on the clock is how many possessions you think you can gain, right? And it isn't like you've, this is a Parcell'sism. Are we watching the same game? I mean, his defense gave up 35 points. Did you have any faith that his defense was going to stop him?

At some point, you have to say, hey, we got to win the game here. I mean, I think in the Super Bowl, Belichick was backed up on his own yard line at 28 to 3, and he went for it on fourth down. At some point, you have to win the game or try to get back in the game. And what I think you have to try to do, and this is what doesn't always resonate, is you have to make the game not be an on-side kick game. That's what you want to avoid. When he went for it on fourth and three, you're saying, if we get this, it's not an on-side kick game.

But if you punt there, you're basically telling me it's an on-site kick game. And when I was in the league, I wanted the game to be an onside kick game because the chances of us getting the onside kick are pretty good. So if there's not enough possessions and you need an onside kick to get a possession back, I think I'm going to win. It's a little bit like in chess when you have certain situations where you know the game's over, but you can't play it out. The onside kick game makes it really you're going to win the game. And I think Garrett did that. Look, everything I see with Garrett, he blames his quarterback. You know, it's like at some point, like when do you stand up and take responsibility?

besides clap. I mean, I'm still waiting for somebody telling me what he does besides clap. You haven't been able to do it, Tate Fraser? Yeah, I've been trying to figure it out this whole time, but he kind of just stands on the sideline. It's not even a one-off thing when they were down 35 to 17. He has that fourth and, it was fourth and three, fourth and goal. They could have kicked a field goal, making a two-possession game. They go for it, and the game's over. I mean, they still had hope, and it comes down to the possessions. He wasn't playing about points and possessions. Right. He wasn't putting it in. It's like, drives me crazy during the game, okay? When they flashed a clock,

and the matter how many times you have out, I always to divide six into the clock at the end of the game. So if you have 25 seconds left to go in the game, six into 25, that's four. So probably you have four, maybe five plays to run, assuming that you can get the ball out of bounce. So it's all about plays. It's not about how much time's on the clock. And if you manage the game that way, then you can.

But again, when you want to make the game an on-side kick game, you're doing me a favor. And I think that the cowboys, they also have to become more creative on. offense because when you don't have guys that can separate and get open, what do you typically have to do? You have to bunch the formation. You have to move things around. What happens with Des. They don't want to move Des around. They want Des to play in one spot all the time because that's what Des knows how to do. So they are hamstrung by their talent. And I think the more teams see that if they take away this running game, it's going to be harder and harder for Dak. Prescott. Well, let's move on to another topic that a lot of people are thinking alike on. And that is the Detroit

Lions defense. Last night, I know. I know. Go ahead. The main guy that comes out is the Lions receiver Marvin Jones. He says they made a huge statement talking about the Lions defense. They're the number one defense in the league type statement. And that's Marvin Jones saying this. Obviously, there's going to get picked up by the media and a lot of Lions fans. So we don't want to give them any false pretense or promise. So can you tell me why that's not the case?

Well, look, I think it was the perfect matchup. They got to play a team that had no tackles and they could rush the passer. That's what they can do. They rush with four. I think they're a good defense. I don't think they're a great defense. I think their corner situation slays very good. They're going to have to prove that they can cover when they play against the team that can pass the football effectively.

But you're not good when you play against a really bad team and hold them to 10 points. That doesn't make you a good defense, okay? And I think the Lions, when they play the Packers, it'll be a little bit of a challenge. I don't want to take anything away from Terrell Austin. I think they've done a really good job of game plan. Their defensive line plays hard. I like the Lions. I think they're an 8-and-8 team.

I don't think they're a playoff team. I think they're an 8-and-8 type of team. I think the schedule will get harder for them. I admire what they did last night, but I don't think you can measure yourself against a really bad offense, which the New York Giants were last night. Ziggy Onz is one of those guys. I mean, we did our Blue Chip podcast.

He wasn't a name that we brought up, but he has the skill and the ability we remember at BYU. He has all the raw potential to be great. And he's showing signs, you know, two weeks in that he could be that guy now. I mean, he's just been hurt. And so when he's healthy, he is a big-time player, and they have Nottah in there. And then they have Cornelius Washington on the other side.

I mean, they've got a good and they play hard. and their defensive line coaches them hard. And they've got more speed on defense. And they play sound. They play that Baltimore Raven style of defense where they're going to try to take away the running game from you. And look, when you play the Giants, you don't have to take away the running game.

I mean, now all you have to do is worry about slants because they have every slant known to mankind. And Beckham wasn't 100%. I just think you have to temper the lions a little bit. This week, they play Atlanta. And if they play good against Atlanta this week, I'll be the first guy to tell you, hey, their defense is really rare,

is really very effective. I have a hard time thinking they're going to slow down Atlanta. I just want to say Matthew Stafford looks like a legitimate top five quarterback in the NFL right now. I was busted on him about him as stats of running with Andy Dalton. I think that was a good win for Matthew Stafford. I thought he was commanding at the line of scrimmage. He got him in the right play. He made plays with his feet.

Look, they're going to have a hard time winning games offensively. And it takes courage. You wouldn't do it. I mean, you ran away from that earthquake last night. But you try to play behind if Greg Robinson's your left tackle. That takes real courage to get behind Greg Robbins. So I give Matthew Stafford a lot of props for the courage. He looks like he's watched Aaron Rogers play quarterback enough now where he knows how to keep his feet active.

It's not that he has happy feet anymore. It's almost that he is bouncing around because he's on the balls of his feet because he knows he's going to have to move because he knows his line's not going to protect him. It's like he's giving up that fact and now he's making plays on the run and he looks great. Yeah, no, and I think it's really, you know, the loose plays that he's making. I mean, Gruden talked about the beginning of the broadcast. I mean, if you don't keep him in the pocket, I mean, that's the thing that I don't think people do. a good enough job talking about it during the week. To play a great quarterback, it's really about how you rush them.

The defensive coordinators in the NFL should spend more time about how to rush. They always let their D-line coach to come up with the rush plan. But the really good programs, the head coach, the defense coordinator, the rush plan to stop a quarterback is the most effective. And if you're playing the Detroit Lions and you want to stop Matthew Stafford, you don't want to get past the quarterback. The worst place to be in football is past the quarterback. It happened last night.

He just steps up. He steps out on the touchdown throw to your boy from North Carolina, Ebron. I mean, that's what happened. They get past the quarterback. Have you ever seen the quarterback turn and run the other direction? No. That's the answer. I'll answer that for you.

Unless it's Russell Wilson and he somehow runs all the way around the back. But, I mean, when you don't keep him in the pocket and keep him in front of you and keep him in the paint, he's going to be effective. I think that's how you stop quarterbacks. And now let's get into our favorite segment. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. You insulted him a little bit. You got a little out of all of yourself. I didn't insult him.

I didn't insult him a little bit. Pay homage to Goodfellas, you know, we're going to do a little bit of insulting Lombardi. We're going to do this every week on our Wednesday podcast. So we're going to insult a few people a little bit. And then, you know, maybe we're going to come full circle and say something nice eventually. We'll see about that. But first, let's do some insulting. All right.

Well, I've been insulting him on Twitter for so long. My wife told me I have to stop picking on Ben McAdoo. So this might be the last time I talk about Ben McAdoo. But at some point, like at some point, you have to wonder, did the giants realize they don't have any tackles? Like if you were playing mad Tate and you knew you couldn't block Anzu and you couldn't block Washington or you couldn't block Nata inside or Spence or whomever they were going against, wouldn't you say maybe I should keep the backs in to protect and do this? Not my man, Ben McAdoe. Not my man, Ben McAdoo. And there's always, I remember this distinctly.

Do you know who Charlie Munger is? No, I do not. All right. Charlie Munger is Warren Buffett's partner at Berkshire Hathaway. They started together. They built this incredible company. And Munger's a brilliant man. He's over 90 years old.

He lives in Los Angeles, still reads volumes of books every day. And he has this thing called chauffeur knowledge, okay? And what that is, his chauffeur knowledge is Max Planck was this German philosopher and physics or something like that. And he had a chauffeur that used to drive him around. And Max would go give speeches all the time. And the chauffeur said, you know, I've listened to the speech so many times I can give the same speech. So Max said, go ahead and do it. So Max went ahead and did the speech and then somebody comes up and asks a question.

And the chauffeur can't answer the question because he really doesn't know the information. He just has heard the information. It's a parrot. Yeah. Exactly. So it's the same thing. It's like knowing the name of something and really knowing something. And I think that's what the Bacadu does.

He knows Green Bay's offense, okay? But he can't adjust Green Bay's offense. He has chauffeur knowledge of the Packer offense. Okay. And so he runs the plays that the Packers run. Well, I was talking to a head coach, a former head coach in the NFL last week, and he's like, that Packers protections, like those things are bad. Everybody knows that.

But why do they succeed in Green Bay? Because you have a wizard or quarterback. You have Aaron Rogers. Well, you can't make Eli be Aaron Rogers with your protections. And I think that's the problem. I mean, look, if you want to know any of it, there's the thing, you know what the Peter principal is? We're going to have a whole leadership education here.

Yeah, this is amazing. I'm learning so much. All right. Do you know what the Peter Principle is? No, please. The Peter Principle is when you get promoted to a certain level. and then you peter out because you got promoted too high. Okay.

So, all right, Macadoo, when he was the offensive coordinator, the New York Giants, 32 games, he had 12 games, they scored over 30 points. When all he had to focus on was his one job, right? Now that he's been the head coach, guess how many 30-point games they've had? It's got to be less than – I feel like I haven't watched a lot of them unless they snuck by me. So maybe less than 10, obviously. Zero. Okay.

All right, so he's had no 30-point games, but he was like – so to me, that's like the definition of the Peter principle right there. I'm not picking on, Ben, I'm insulting him because he would be better off. Ben, listen to this. You changed your game plan menu. You went away from the cheesecack. Now listen to this one. Here's my next recommendation for you. Turn to play calling over to somebody else. Watch the game. Take a step back. Become the offensive coordinator or let somebody else be the head coach, but you're not doing both jobs effectively. You're hurting your team by trying to do both jobs. Like, he's staring at the playlist. Like I keep looking, like at some point, I tweeted this last night. They better take chains out to practice. Because

if they run one more route on fourth and two and they run a one-yard route, I'm going to go berserk. I mean, that's where the head coach has got to take over. So I've insulted Ben. That's the last time I'm talking about Ben McAdoo. I got an idea. How about he just learns how to clap? He gives that playbook to someone else just like his boy, Jason Garrett, and he just starts clapping. I would love that. I think if he did that, it would be great. I think it would be awesome. But the reality of it is, is he's getting caught up in the fact that he is an offensive guru. And there's no ruin his guru. I like that. next up, another team, I guess it would be pointed to Sean Peyton. He's going to be a guy that's next up that's going to get a little bit insulted, and that comes to a September record. Sean Payton's won 11 September.

I mean, even he would have to admit that he has to get insulted in that. I mean, he's one in 11 in the month of September going back to 2014. And last night, like, they tweet, they talked about the Giants going 0 and 2. They have a 10% chance of making the playoffs. I mean, this has been September's problem for New Orleans. So when it happens one year, okay, In 14, they lose to Atlanta in an overtime game, and they lose to Cleveland on the road. They lose at Cleveland.

So now they're 0-and-2. Okay, they come back and they beat Minnesota. And then they lose again to Dallas. So they're 1-3 that year in 14. All right. Then the next year, in 15, they go to Arizona and lose. They lose at home to Tampa. And then they go to Carolina and they lose their 0-and-3 again.

Then last year, they lose at home. They lose to the Giants. They lose to Atlanta, and they lose to Minnesota. I mean, so, like, at some point, there's a pattern here. Right? And so for me, where I'm insulting, Sean, is when in 14, when you went a one and three, or yeah, you went one in three, the next 15, you had to change your whole mentality for September. Because we're doing something wrong, right? We're doing something wrong. And then again, you do it in 15. Then 16, you should change it. So to me, like, this record in September is really destroying them.

And I think that Sean, whatever the reasons are, they're just not playing good enough football in September. And he mentioned a sense of urgency. That was sort of the phrase that he used. He was like, these are grown men. They need to have a sense of urgency when they come out and play. I feel like a lot of people, the story around the Saints, they win that Super Bowl, and then everyone kind of gave them a reprieve. You know, it's Breeze and Peyton.

They're all offense. You know, they'll figure it out eventually. But now we're, you know, that was 2010. We're in 2017. I mean, how long is that leash for him? I think it's this year, if he doesn't get to the playoffs, I think that the road is going to split. And whether he can get the Dallas Cowboy head coaching job, which is, I think, think could become available.

If Jason doesn't win, I'm not saying it will, but it could. I mean, there's a lot of potentials, maybe the Indianapolis coach Joe Job, Andrew Luck. But the one thing I do know is that when you watch his teams play, you know, since Bountygate, they just haven't been able to come back. They haven't been able to take over the game and handle the game. And you can blame it on their defense, you can blame it on their offense or their offensive line and all the substitutions. But the reality of it is, is they just don't play good enough football to win games in

September, and I think it's really a problem for them. And as they move forward, how do you fix it? Everybody wants to talk about Adrian Peterson. Oh, Adrian Peterson is the least of their problems, Tate. Like, every team in the league wants Adrian Peterson on the field. Like, at some point, can we stop covering the Adrian Peterson story? Yeah. Like, every team in the league wants Adrian Peterson to be the Saints backfield. If you voted for every, if you put a secret straw out and said 31 defense coordinators, who should be the Saints running back? They would all say put Peterson in the game. Why? Because they know that, They can defend him. It's one dimensional. It's not a change of pace at all.

So, like, why is that a story? Like, how is that a story? I think people would just live in the past on AP. You're my millennial. Take Frazier's my millennial advice guy. You got to explain to me. Why is this a story? I think when they heard all day originally,

they thought it was actually going to be all time where we're going to see Adrian Peterson forever. But he's at the, he's petered off. He's petered off. He's at the end of his career. Like, it's not the story. Like, a stop. The story is they can't win in September.

That should be the focus. And Alvin Kamar is probably the best running back they have on their team right now. That should be the focus of it. Everybody should be asking Sean, why can't you win in September? Not what's going on with you and Adrian Peterson. Can we get that changed? Let's do it. Let's get it out there. Let's put it out to the world. We have one more. We have one more person that is up. We've talked a lot about game management today. And another guy, another young coach, a 32-year-old, Sean McFay had some problems with that in this Rams game. What do we need to insult him about? Well, I mean, look, he's got to know who his team is, right?

Like the most important thing is most games, and I think if you watch closely, most games are decided in the final two minutes of both halves, okay? And what happens in those final four minutes of the two halves? So the Redskins score, Hopkins kicks off. There's a touchback. Okay, first and 10, they try to throw the football. Now, if you watch any Patriot tape and they get the ball to start a drive, and say there's more than over a minute, they're going to start the drive, especially if Washington has timeouts, they're going to start the drive with a run. Why? Because they want the clock moving. They're not worried about losing time. They're worried about making sure that that the Redskins don't get the ball back to kick a field goal.

So the Patriots typically will start with either a screen or some way to keep the clock moving. It's mental gymnastics. You get in their head where they're trying, they want the clock to run. They want the clock to run because they're not worried about 35 seconds. They think that, hey, we could score. But, you know, what do they do? He gets sacked.

Okay, now Washington calls time out. Next play he's got to run it again. The Washington calls time out. On third down, he goes back like he's going to try to convert the first down. Stop, Sean. Sean, your team isn't going to score a touchdown at this point. You're going to get sacked. It's strip sacked. They recover the football. Ryan Carrigan. They don't get the ball because they, I think, Haverstein or somebody will.

Sullivan, yeah. I think so. Jumped on it or whatever he did. But I mean, there could have been a disaster there. And then they punt. Now, everybody says no harm, no foul. Well, I'm insulting, Sean, because there was a harm. Like, you've got to learn from that sequence. You've got to learn that, hey, I have a young team. If I'm down at the half, my goal when I got the ball back is to get this clock moving. And if I can't get it moving, then I'm not going to let them score on me. And he got a break on that one. And can we talk about it?

So that happens in the first half. That was a sequence in the first half. We get to the end of the game. The two-minute warning is coming down. We're at like 207. The clock's running. McVeigh's talking to two guys on the sideline, trying to see if you want to take a timeout before the two-minute warning. so he has that there for him.

He goes to give the time out, but the two-minute warning hits, and they don't give it to him because he was too late, and then Goff comes out to run the offense in a two-minute drill, and this is the first time he's doing this down. They're down 27 to 20. And before they can even set up the stakes, he drops back and throws a pass,

and it's a pick, and the game's over. And it's just like that. So it's like the first half, you know, it goes wrong. Maybe he learns less and he figures it out at the end of the game, but it does the opposite. He does the exact same thing. I mean, more games are lost than they are one.

I mean, I know that's cliché as to say, But, I mean, clearly, and I think that they were fortunate that the Redskins didn't make them pay for this mistake. But you're right. I mean, you never call time out unless there's like you never want to call time out under 206 for the opponent if they have to run a play because that allows them to run a pass. So if it goes past 207, let it go to the two-minute warning. Before that, you do because you want to make sure they have to run the ball. That's why you call time out at 208 and you're going to get the ball back and it's third day. they got to run it now. Okay, they have to run it. They can't throw it. So there's a lot to learn. That's why when you're 31 years old in the league, all these experiences, you've got to cut them out every week. And when you watch a game on Saturday afternoon, you've got to play game management while you're doing it. Speaking of young guys, we're going to do, we're going to wrap up this Wednesday podcast. We're going to do the same thing where we're basically doing the lottery type guys, type talents that are in college football right now, guys that are going to translate the best to the National Football League in your eyes. And let's start this thing off with,

the two quarterbacks that a lot of people I mean are hearing as potential guys. Not Sam Darnold, obviously we mentioned him last week. But the first thing that comes up, maybe the name that's not as well known, Mason Rudolph from Oklahoma State. He has looked like a guy that could obviously compete for the Heisman, but he also looks like a pro quarterback that can come in and make a difference. And he's breaking all Brandon Weedon's record, so you know he's going to be a top quarterback. Yeah. Ouch.

Look, I watched Mason Rudolph last week. I thought he was really good. Like, I'm going to ask you the question, Tate, since you're kind of in touch with it. Why is Mason Rudolph not better than Josh Rosen? I think he is. And I think last week actually illuminated that difference. I mean, Rosen goes to Memphis and they lose 48, 45. It's a tough game.

He had some bad interceptions, too bad interceptions. He also had the ball back at the end of the game, and he couldn't convert him a fourth down. I mean, to me, that's the mark of it. Now, he let him back against Texas A&M. I'll give him that. But now Rudolph's playing. The only thing I will say about this is he's playing in a defenseless concert,

a conference. And I like to see him play well against Oklahoma's defense. But he has done everything that I think that a quarterback shows in the shotgun formation. He throws it well. And then when you look at his history, I mean, he's one of the top players in South Carolina. He had offers from LSU. He's all over the country. Everybody wanted him. So he's got obviously top talent. And to me, he's played better and better as a year went on. And I think when you break down his numbers compared to Rosen when you go on the road, I mean, when you just look at these numbers, trawling in the fourth quarter, he's really

impressive. On third down, on third down in his NFL career, in his college career, he averages over 9-1 per completion. And Rosen and third down, he averages just eight yards. So, I mean, when you're seeing the things he's doing, now is Rosen playing against better competition? Perhaps. College football is all about it. But I think when you look at it, you're saying to yourself, hey, this guy deserves to be in the

conversation. He deserves more to be in the conversation than Josh Allen in my mind. Josh Rosen. No, Josh Allen and Josh Rosen. Yeah, both of those guys. I mean, Rosen's the one that, you know, obviously a lot of people have heard the guy because of the chosen Rosen nickname, especially. We're a little biased out here in Los Angeles, too.

We hear a lot about UCLA and USC, and I think that's also why there's a lot of people, like when I talk back home and I asked them about what quarterbacks are standing out to him, the two quarterbacks that most people name are Baker Mayfield and Mason Rudolph. Who played really well this week, okay? But I look at Baker Mayfield and I'm thinking, does this guy have an NFL body to be able to hold on? No. I mean, I don't think so. He looks like a backup player to me.

He got great leadership skills, probably be a great, probably be coaching someday. He's like Case Keenum. That's what he kind of looked like to me. And I don't want to take anything away, but I haven't studied him on tape. But he looks to me like, and I think they did a really good job. Oklahoma in terms of how they run their offense there. They have some unique plays. But for me, it's like, you know, does he have an NFL body?

Can he really do this? And I just think that's, that didn't come out. Well, that's the thing with Rudolph, too. I mean, you have that Oklahoma State Mike Gundy offense, which has always been high firepower. And then you have Lincoln Riley at Oklahoma, who's sort of the same way. It's almost like an air raid type offense. Actually, it is an air raid offense. And they're playing in a conference that has no defense whatsoever.

I mean, really, they don't hit – they have pads once a week there. They don't really pay defense. So to me, it's like, I think Rudolph's a guy to follow. I think the one thing I will encourage people to do that listen to this podcast is whoever you think is in the top five, don't buy it right now. Because there's no way that top five has come close to it. There's going to be more names like Rudolph that are going to emerge. There's going to be other players. And if you focus just on the Rosens and the Darnolds, you're going to miss out on some guys that are really good players.

Yeah. Rock Hill, South Carolina. They're still putting out college prospects. Rock Hill, South Carolina. Gerald Dixon, we drafted in the third round from South Carolina when I was at the Cleveland Browns of Belichick. He's from Rock Hill, too. Gerald Dixon, good man. Yeah, DeVian Clowny also from Rock Hill, another good man. What's the, you know, this is, I'll give you my Al Davis story. All right. So Al Davis is brilliant about, when you talk about high schools, Al Davis was the best at this. I mean, it was just part of his genius that he was so good at doing it. So if you went to Rock Hill, what he would do is he would always tell me to look up who the Rock Hill mascot is, which I, don't know what it is. Okay. I don't know it off the top of my head. Why don't you look it up why we have

the computer right there. I'll find it. I should know this. Rock Hill was very close to North Carolina. It's right. So anyway, he always was so well prepared whenever he met somebody. It was kind of really Oh, the Bintaron. I have no idea of, wow, that's like a Bentaron. That would have been Bintaron. That would have been hard. That would have been hard. That would have been hard. That would have been Binteron. That would have been. It looks like a, the Bintoron. It looks like a, it looks like a Possum. But he might have avoided that one. That might have been hard. But what he would have done, what he would have met, say we'd have bring Mason Rudolph in. Okay, he would have walked in the room. Now, this is a, you know, when he walked in a room in that all white or all black with the glasses and the hair slick back.

I love it. It was intimidating, right? And I mean, you had to have your A game on. And so these young kids, they see this guy coming in there. And so what he would always do is, oh, there's Mason Rudolph. There's my guy. How's those bitterongs doing? And the kid would immediately say, oh, my God. Oh, my, he knows the name. name in my high school. He knows my nickname in my high school. Meanwhile, I'm the one who gave him the information. And literally, you know, or John Kingdon gave him. Somebody gave it to him. It was like he didn't know it off the top of his head. But it was remarkable. Then he would start reciting the kid's history before, this is before you could Wikipedia, everybody. Yeah. And then the kid's like, holy heck, I mean, this guy knows everything about me. And he captured every guy just like that. That's my Al Davis story for the week. That's a beautiful story. That

made me so happy. I just imagined Mason Rudolph and Al Davison in an all white suit. So when I see Mason Rudolph and what the hell is it a bit of wrong? What is it? Only you people in North Carolina can't. Like, if that was in Jersey, they would take away their license. I mean, I'm just telling you that right now. It's always weird with the mascots in North Carolina. You want like a bobcat? You don't know if it exists.

People are making fun of New Jersey. I mean, at least we have legitimate nicknames, you know. Oh, God. Well, New Jersey gave us Duke University in North Carolina, so we're trying to get rid of that as quickly as we can. That's New Jersey U. They came down to interlopers, came down to my state. The Duke family, I know.

I got it. I remember. I know my Jersey history. Yeah, the Duke Mafia. All right, Lombardi, before we move on, we got a word from our sponsor, MyBooky. Ever since I started this podcast, being GM Street, people have been asking for advice. Usually it's what team to bet on this week.

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where are you holding your next meeting Lombardi? Let's wrap this thing up with a word on the street. We're just going to talk about some little rumblings and rumors around the league, some things that could possibly happen. And let's talk about the trade blocks, some guys that could be out there for potential trades. One of them that come up, we were looking at the Bengals backfield.

They have kind of a lot of guys, and that need a lot of touches. When you have Jeremy Hill, who's basically the starter, Gio Bernard, who's the number two guy, and then they had this young guy, Mixin,

who just came in the draft, obviously. So one of those guys is probably the odd man out, and it's probably the guy on a contract year, Jeremy Hill. I mean, to me, If I'm the New York Giants, again, if I'm the New York Giants, I'm not going to be able to fix my offensive line. But if I got a big back, a 235 pound back, I think the Giants have to take a little bit of the Baltimore approach and try to be more physical and try to run the ball more effectively. I think they've run the ball less. The New York Giants have run the ball less than the

Chargers are Miami who've only played one game. And they've played two. Okay. So I think we've got to reduce to help our defense out a little bit. I would call and see if Jeremy Hill is available because I think he would really help them. Seattle, I would do the same thing. I don't think Eddie Lacey has any quickness to get back and run the outside zone play. I think Eddie Lacey's a downhill point of entry back. I don't think he could do that. But I think Jeremy Hill would help Seattle if he was out there.

I don't know if Seattle wants to do that. They like their young rookie. But if I'm the Giants, the best way to help Eli Manning get a big time running back in there. It ain't Paul Perkins. I would call to see if they could trade them. Well, let's even talk about the team that are playing the Eagles this week. They're also a team that struggling to find a run game. Obviously, Doug Peterson's –

I don't even call runs. Yeah, it's like an 80 to 40. Yeah, it's basically like two to one difference. Like to me, like this is a team. where I have the biggest problem with coaches today is because they're all play callers. When you get ready to play Kansas City, you have to sit there and say, okay, what are the five things we have to do to win the game? And one of them is we can't make it a 50-pass game. Okay. Because if we try to throw the ball 50 times in Kansas City with Houston coming off the

corner and D. Ford coming off the other corner and the crowd knows, it's not going to work. Yeah. Okay. It's just not going to work. So we got to find a way to mix in enough runs and keep them off balance. Now, I'm not saying established a run. I'm saying mix. sin runs. There's a big difference, but they don't. And I think Philly could use them too, but the Bengals, like, why wouldn't you? If you could get a decent pick for them, you're going to lose them in a compensatory pick anyway. You might as

well take the pick right now. And what do you get back for that? What's the return? You just want that you want a pick or do you want a player if you're the Bengals? I would think if I'm the Bengals, I would take the pick. They know they're going to get a compensatory pick. They know they're going to probably get a low three. So if you could get them a four or maybe even trade a three for them. Because even if you have them and you don't re-sign them,

you'll get the three back. So why not take it now. I would call to see of Mike Brown move because they need to make, because I will say this to you, I was against Joe Mixon. I would not have drafted Joe Mixon, but Joe Mixon's a great running back and they need to play Joe Mixon. Got it. I have Thursday night football's coming up.

The Rams, 49ers. What is the one thing that will be exciting to you in that football game that I can look to to watch? Because right now I'm a little shook. I know the Rams are basically owned by the 49ers. I think they're 0 and 3 against them the past three times. I think watch this 49er team. I think the 49ers are 0 and 2.

They played really good last week. They couldn't throw the ball against Seattle. 14 yards, Brian Hoyer was the longest pass. I think look at this San Francisco team and picture Kirk Cousins running it because that's probably what's going to happen as we look down the road. And I think this is a team

that's got a chance to become better. They played really hard last week. I think San Francisco will play their best game Thursday night. Well, get ready for that future West Coast. Jared Gough against Kirk Cousins and primetime match us on Thursday night. That's going to be a lot of fun. Sounds good to me, Tate.

All right. Well, this has been another edition of GM Street. Thank you, Lombardi. Take Frazier. And we will be back Sunday night to wrap up all the games from week three. Thanks for listening to GM Street on the Ringer podcast network. Things change. The weather changes. Your mood definitely changes. So why lock yourself into plans that might change? With Hotel Tonight, you don't have to because you'll get incredible deals on awesome hotels even at the last minute. Booking a hotel tonight gives you the freedom and flexibility to play things by ear while knowing you'll score a great price and a great place to stay.

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