The Ryen Russillo Podcast - C.J. Stroud’s Rise, the Dolphins “Fraud” Discussion, and Some SEC Vs. Pac-12 Matchup Debates With Todd McShay

Episode Date: November 6, 2023

Russillo opens by recapping Week 9 of the NFL season and giving his biggest winners and losers (1:08). Then, he breaks down his top 12 in CFB (18:31). He is then joined by Todd McShay to talk about C.J. Stroud’s rookie campaign, Tua’s struggles, and Jayden Daniels’s draft stock rise (23:50). Finally, the guys close it out with some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (73:13). The Ringer is committed to responsible gaming. Please check out theringer.com/RG to find out more or listen to the end of the episode for additional details. Host: Ryen Russillo Guest: Todd McShay Producers: Steve Ceruti, Kyle Crichton, and Stefan Anderson Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

on today's podcast we'll recap another week in the nfl where it felt like some teams we've been holding out hope for could not get it done uh and cj stroud's incredible game we'll go over that with mcshea i've got my college football top 12. And we have with McShay also a hypothetical SEC Pac-12 matchup of the top five ranked teams from each conference. Life advice and general vibe check-in with Kyle. Also, speaking of Kyle and vibes, next Wednesday, if you want to meet him in Las Vegas, you can do it. Next Wednesday, November 15th,

we're going to be at Jimmy Kimmel's Comedy Club for a live pod. We have very few tickets available still, but there are some, and you can get those last remaining tickets at jimmykimmelscomedyclub.com. The show will start local time, Vegas time. That's 9 p.m. in advance of the F1 race that weekend. in advance of the F1 race that weekend. Again, no, but blueberry muffins with the delicious crumb topping, total yes. Get almost, almost anything delivered with Uber Eats. Order now. Alcohol in select markets. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details.

At the midway point of the season, basically. So let's recap the headlines. We'll get the best win, worst loss, and some numbers that you need to know. The headlines so far are three games for me. Kansas City beating Miami in Germany 21-14, Miami down 21-0. Let's start at least there because that's another one of those games Miami has a chance to tie this thing in the last position. That ends with a fumble. The first half, their possessions went punt, punt, punt, punt, fumble, touchdown, punt. They had seven punts on the day where they had what? One good drive. If you go back to the Philly game, which is what I started thinking about as I was watching this play out, they had only three punts in that game, but one touchdown drive on offense was surrounded

by a bunch of other bad possessions. So it felt like one good drive against Kansas City, one good drive against Philly. The other 10 points were a field goal drive after a fumble of one yard. That was the drive total, and then the pick six. This is a pattern. Miami's lost nine straight to teams that at the time had a winning record, and their five wins this year against teams that are 11-27. Two of us, three losses, sub-50 QBR. This offense, when it is rattled, is a shell of itself. I thought that Ben Solak had a really good tweet where he talked about the timing and how finely tuned this thing was, and it's this luxury sports car, but then one grain

of sand throws the whole thing off. Well, then figure out how to not have the grain of sand completely derail who you are as a football team because the weird thing with miami that's happening now is like people are taking it personal it feels like the nfl public is just pissed off at them whether that's any of us buying into this how high powered offense wondering if at one point they were the best team in the NFL, wondering if two would be the MVP. Mike McDaniel's gone from, hey, everybody likes this guy. He says cool things, and he's so down to earth, and he's himself through and through to

who's this dork think he is? There was stuff out there on social media that just going at him. Look how he's dressed. Wait, I thought we all liked this stuff when they scored 70 against Denver. Frauds was the number one trending topic on Twitter during that game. Granted, it was a little early for a Sunday. There's not a lot of news flying around, but it was frauds and it was all about the Dolphins. We know that two against pressure is a different cat. The numbers show it. It's alarming how different he is against pressure. And he's also not running the football this year, which I think is a plus in a way if you can put up offensive numbers. But part of it, obviously, is to keep him healthy after the big scares last year.

But he's averaging 1.4 yards per carry. He's got eight fumbles. So it's starting to feel a little bit like the Dolphins, like an early 80s Nuggets basketball team, where Denver back then would score all of these points. And then you never took him seriously ever in the playoffs, although there was a Western Conference Finals appearance in there. But look, Miami, they've got Vegas, the Jets, the Commanders,

the Titans, and Jets. So they could very well be, what, maybe say 10-4, throw one loss in there before they finish with Dallas at Baltimore and the Bills. But no one's going to care if they're 10-4, if they're 11-3. Nobody's going to care about that unless they beat Dallas, beat a Baltimore with that defense. Who knows what the Bills are going to look like towards the end of the year? Maybe that game will mean something to the division. Maybe Miami will already have it wrapped up with the way Buffalo has looked. But it's getting really weird. And it's almost like people resent it a little bit. But then Tyreek Hill, he's like, I have my touchdown celebration ready. He called it the new rivalry in the NFL. You're like, this game? This is the new rivalry in the NFL? rivalry in the NFL. You're like, this game? This is the new rivalry in the NFL?

There was another point that Cerruti brought up too. This whole idea that the Chiefs is somehow still up for debate whether or not they lost the Tyreek Hill transaction. Dude, they already won a Super Bowl. Awesome catches in all the yards, but it was very telling. I don't think it's a Miami thing. I think it's that all of

us are like, hey, we thought you guys were awesome, and now you got destroyed by Buffalo, completely one-sided against Philly. And I know the score tells me that this was a game at the end of it, but it didn't feel like it while we were watching it. Kansas City on the other side, let's look at the offensive numbers between 23 and 22, because that's the sneaky part of this with their record in the number one seed in the AFC. We were like, yeah, but something's different. Well, one number is significantly different. If you look at total yards, they're down 43 yards per game off of where they were last year when they were number one in the league, but they're still seventh this year. Passing yards, they're down about 30 yards per

game, number one in the league last year, number three this year. So it's not like it's bad. Rushing yards, they never really run the football. The Mahomes scramble seemed to be a get out of jail free card for them more and more this year on some of those drives, but it's been working. But rushing yards, they were 20th last year, 20th this year. Points per game, they were first last year, 12th this year. They're down almost a touchdown per game scoring. Again, the defense got them seven yesterday as well. The third down conversion rate, they are fifth best in the NFL of converting third downs. Their second best last season. So that's not it. It's the red zone touchdown scoring. They were the second best team in the NFL scoring touchdowns on 71% of the red zone

possessions last year. This year it's 15. That's why the scoring's down. That's why the offense feels different despite some of the other numbers still being at the higher end of the NFL rankings. Let's jump to the next game. I'm going to go with Philly beating Dallas because it was probably one of my favorite games of the regular season. It was certainly my favorite game yesterday. It felt like two teams in the NFC. You want to talk about the rivalry game, and I know Dallas has their own issues, and it's hard to kind of remove how blast they get against San Francisco, and maybe there's a little bit of the Miami to Dallas of like, okay, but are you actually going to beat anybody good? I didn't leave this game going, well, Dallas lost again, they're frauds. I left it going, we'll see what happens in the rematch. And I still think Dallas, despite our concerns about

who Dak is or Dak isn't, because his overall numbers are really good, but there was an alarming stat they shared during the broadcast. I don't know. It was just, I felt like it was such a competitive game and there was still a moment there for Dallas to find a way to potentially win it as hard as that last possession got because of their own mistakes, which we'll get to here in a second. But I just, I don't know. I left it going. I think Dallas is still part of this conversation in a depleted NFC. I'm not saying they're better than Detroit. I'm not saying they're better than San Francisco, but they were competitive in a spot where, again, the spread was minimal here. It was only Philly minus three, and it's a division game, so you expect all those things.

But you can't just write them off and be like, I hate Dallas because they lost what was supposed to be a marquee matchup for them. So Philly's got the best record in the NFC. They're 8-1. That's the best record. Shout out Mike Sando here on this number. Philly at 8-1 is the best record through nine games for a Super Bowl loser since the Titans went 8-1 in 2000. Hertz is obviously still banged up. Dak's numbers did look great. If you look at just the box score, 29-44, 370 yards, three touchdowns, no picks, but they were

6-15 on third down. They also had a number here that's really scary for Dak. I imagine it's bumped up a bit with the late touchdown yesterday. But when you look at QB rating, which isn't always my favorite stat, but this again was alarming, Hurts is ranked number one in the NFL going into this game in QB rating when his team is trailing, where Dak is ranked last. And I wonder what that is today,

because you've got to add in what they did yesterday. I was looking at the last five possessions for Dallas because as they're fighting this thing out, trying to find a way to get back and get the win, there's just too many times they get way behind the sticks. Last five possessions, they had a third and 15. That was a punt. On the next one, they had a turnover on

downs, which again was the right call. I know it was called a touchdown at the line of scrimmage. I know it was frustrating. You could say the defender got there a little bit early, but on slow motion, it looks like he gets there early. I never thought live. It's like, oh, that's interference. And unfortunately the route wasn't deep enough for him to be able to cross the goal line with the football. So they're down on downs there. The third possession that was tracking here, they ended up getting the touchdown, but they got behind the sticks again. There was a second and 13, and then obviously Dak stepping out of bounds

before the two-point conversion changed everything as far as strategy on that last possession. A second-to-last possession here, number four. They went to second and 17, third and then 21, and then on downs. Then this is the possession that you're just going to be haunted by if you're a Cowboys fan. They ended up getting it to first and goal at the Philly 6.

It might have been first and 5. It's Philly 6 there after the penalty. Speaking of penalties, Dallas' next play is after being at the 6-yard line, first out, real chance at this, a false start, a sack that made it 2nd and 21, a delay of game, then it was 3rd

and 26, then CeeDee Lamb has the catch that comes up short of the end zone. Philly is finishing these games with a ferocity that is, I don't want to say unmatched because I still feel like there's moments with Pittsburgh and TJ Watt and Highsmith and Golden and that front where they just look like hungry dogs late in a game. So maybe Philly's the standard, but Pittsburgh shouldn't be overlooked, at least in that conversation. But that's how Philly closed this one out yesterday. And I love what I see from Jalen Hurts

in different game spots, because granted, A.J. Brown's almost like borderline MVP conversation stuff. Devontae's always going to be able to make plays for you, lose the tight end to the forearm situation there. Goddard, so we'll see what happens there with him once more news comes out. But Hurts, despite being banged up and not really looking like a threat to run whatsoever, and I do wonder with this knee injury that he has, and he got smashed on that knee again, and it looked like it was going to be a

bigger issue when he came back into the game, if the push in the short yardage situations, if that's taking any kind of toll, or maybe it has nothing to do with it. Just a question I'm asking something I was thinking about as I was watching the game, but specific to Hertz, like when they're up and you think he might dial it back, like he'll take a shot. And granted those receivers, he gets them one-on-one, they're getting a ball. He threw one to AJ Brown that was incomplete. There was three defensive backs around AJ Brown and he still made that throw. So if he gets picked, I'm probably sitting here criticizing being like, why are you throwing into triple coverage? What I like about him is that he mixes the predictable, easy stuff with the not predictable game situation throws where

he's still going to give guys a chance. I think receivers, especially two dudes as talented as them, love that he takes those chances. Hurts, by the way, now 63 rushing yards in his last three games combined, which I think has as much to do with the knee thing as them just trying to figure out. It's not like it's going to be gone, but there is always a correction with the dual threat guys where they just start running it less and less. It would feel a little early for Hertz to be at that position. It's primarily the knee thing, but something else I'm noticing there. It's just not much of a threat as far as I think two of the games or nothing in one of the games is like 40 rushing yards, keep you honest.

Cincinnati's win against Buffalo. Buffalo finding another way to be in the game when it didn't feel like they had a chance to be in it. Cincinnati's now scored on its first two possessions in four straight games. It's kind of back-to-back, we're the better team wins for Cincinnati against San Francisco and Buffalo. That it was so one-sided against San Francisco late

was surprising. This one, not as much with the way Buffalo's going right now. If you're looking at Cincinnati's defense, they're allowing 17 points per game in their last four wins, four straight. The playoffs this morning, at least the standings, Cincinnati's a seven seed. The Bills are now a nine seed. The balance stuff is alarming. The throw where he ends up getting picked in this game,

it was a second and 10 from the Buffalo 12, and they were only down 14-7, and it was a bad pick. And the way I look at interceptions, again, they're all different for like blame, risk, what was the point of that? Oh, that wasn't really his fault. I wish we could find a way to

just classify picks in five different categories, but that'd be ridiculous and it'd be too objective. But this isn't objective. That throw at second and 10, down 14-7, that early in the game, that early in the possession, you just didn't really need it. And he had a later throw that I thought could have been picked off where you're so enamored with his arm strength that you're like, that's terrific. But look, this is a bigger issue than Allen. I mean, Allen today, do you realize it's still the number one QB rating in the NFL? And QB rating can lie at times. There's times in QB rating where I'm like, okay, this is not true. This is a lie here. If you look at, I think QB rating, the old one, the QB rating, I think Russell Wilson's fifth, and in QBR, he's like 20th.

So Allen still has some really good stats there, except the turnover stuff, the cumulative stuff since 2018. Nobody has more turnovers. But Buffalo's down, I think, five projected starters now because of injury just on defense alone. And the other tight end got hit again. And if you look at the schedule for Buffalo, they've got Denver and the Jets,

but then they've got this stretch where they're at Philly, at Kansas City, Dallas, and then at the Chargers. New England wrapped up with that last game that we talked about, Miami, to finish this. So this is a Buffalo team, too, that cannot run the football if you want to go through those numbers. Because I love Tirico's line when Buffalo was trying to get back in the game, which they did. And they still, oddly enough, had a chance to even win it.

Tirico had a great line where it was like, all right, they're just going to come out and throw. And Collins was like, yeah, I think this is what it is tonight. And Tirico goes, we'll worry about the rushing game tomorrow. But when is tomorrow happening? Because it seems to be a pattern here for quite a while. If you take away Allen's rushing yards in the last few games, they ran for 24 yards against Cincinnati, ran for 74 yards against Tampa, 64 yards against the Pats. They went for 127 against the Giants. They only had 15 rushing yards against Jacksonville in that loss against London. And Allen also has the highest interception percentage on throws

since his rookie year. We covered the QBR stuff, which is still kind of crazy that he's ranked up that high based on the perception of him. But it's going to be more about him limiting that mistake every now and then, and then figuring out what kind of defense you have left for a Buffalo team, again,

a nine seed this morning in the AFC. The best win will stay in the AFC. Ravens beat Seattle 37-3. They ran it for 298 yards, over seven yards per carry. Lamar now has the lowest interception percentage of his career, which is almost half of his overall career number. Because at 1.2 years ago, he was over 3% interception rate on throws. Last year, it was 2.1. This year, it's 1.2. He's getting better and better now in this offense. And the defense is really the story for Baltimore on top of everything else.

They've allowed nine touchdowns total through nine games, which is the same as the vaunted 2000 team, which I don't like really doing. Worst loss, I don't know that there is one that just absolutely jumps out. Is Atlanta blowing that one? I mean, you're going to get upset about Carolina and the Colts. I guess score-wise, you could say Giants, you could say Seattle,

but I feel like we covered on the best win thing. You could say Giants because the Raiders smashed them, but Daniel Jones is now out with the ACL. So losing him and continuing to lose games

puts them maybe in that four-team race for the number one pick. If we go NFL standings and you go league-wide right now, the teams are Arizona, Carolina, who's not in charge of their pick, so it's Chicago, the Pats, and the Giants. All two and seven or worse. So maybe, maybe what looks like a terrible loss on the scoreboard

is a win for the Giants when you start getting into that race for the number one pick. Numbers you should know. All right. The Raiders, 24 points in the first half, more than any game this season that they had. The offense, not the team, but the offense never scored more than 20 points on offense this season. Shout out to Antonio Pierce, one of the realest dudes ever. I love him getting a chance here of being a head coach.

He has been coaching the last few years, college and the pros. He's one of my favorite guys going back to ESPN. We'd had him on the show. We love the dude. So I will be rooting for him. This is the most I've ever rooted for the Raiders in my entire life. The best number maybe from the entire week is the story of CJ Stroud. We will spend a lot more time with him on McShea at the top. Stroud, 470 yards, rookie record, five touchdowns, ties that I believe. He had, according to NextGenStats, look at this, on air throws, 20 or more yards. You don't get a lot of those throws, believe it or not, in the NFL. He was six to eight for 199 yards, three touchdowns, and then they have a

NextGen game score that they give out. Look, you see it in some of the analytics stuff with basketball and football all the time. His game score, according to next-gen, was 96, which is the highest single score for any quarterback in any game this season. We'll end it on a number

I normally hate. Win probability. What do they have for the Texans on the last drive, which is absurd. The game-winning touchdown drive by Stroud in the throws. They gave him 8.59% chance of even winning that game. And again, more on Stroud and McShay coming up.

It's time for our top 12 in college football. Not a lot has changed there, and I don't like to mirror what else is happening, although my rankings are different than the committee rankings. We'll see what happens. But the AP rankings, I'm kind of in line for them for a bit towards the end. Georgia, I've got number one. They've been number one now for 21 straight weeks,

tying Miami's record for second of all time. Number one streaks, I guess, is the dumb way to say it, as I just did. USC, from 03 to 05, ranked number one streaks, I guess is the dumb way to say it, as I just did. USC from 03 to 05 ranked number 133 straight. If you go back though, historically, both those teams lost the national championship game. So yeah, Missouri, I think is a real challenge, but Georgia took care of that one despite the concerns it had. Michigan, I don't know what to do with a team that hasn't played anybody, but they've destroyed everyone. I'm still doing it.

I've said the same thing every single week. I don't love putting the two next to them with other teams with much better resume wins, but I'm doing it, and I'll worry about the rest of the cheating stuff once, I guess, they do. Ohio State, I have a three. I debated moving them down behind Florida State after being down 9-7 to Rutgers, but they ended up winning 35-16. to state after being down 9-7 to Rutgers, but they ended up winning 35-16 and I think covering depending on where you were at despite feeling great about your touting ability

at halftime if you had Rutgers in the points. Here's the thing, Rutgers doesn't suck. They're 6-3. They're fourth in the Big Ten East behind Michigan, Ohio State, and Penn State. I didn't move Ohio State down because the headline of the Rutgers score and halftime and all that stuff, it's not really fair to Ohio State because it just means you haven't really paid attention to Rutgers. Even Rutgers against Michigan, I know the final score was a disaster, but watching that game, I was kind of like, wait, is Rutgers hanging in? Granted, it was 31-7 towards the end of it,

but let me double check and see what it was at halftime. Yeah, it was 14-7 at halftime. All right, so I've got Florida State four. They still have two first-place votes in the AP. I've got Washington 5 because I just don't feel like – I don't know if they'll get to a point if it's still only one loss and it's not the rematch. Maybe I'll move Oregon up ahead of them.

But up until now, they're just not ready to do that. Despite 35 points they scored at halftime. And then we'll get to some of the SC stuff off of that. So I've got Oregon here at six, 63 points against Cal. Not shocked. They'll be facing USC, which will be unranked for the first time since Lincoln Riley took over.

They fired the defensive coordinator, Alex Grinch, as we mentioned. You know, look, 35, was it 35-28 to SC at the half? Texas, K-State. I like K-State going into this game. I probably like K-State maybe more than I should have before the season even started, but they found a way to kind of turn things around.

We didn't really know what that Missouri loss meant at the beginning of the year, but now we do because Missouri is somebody you have to take a little bit more seriously. And K-State comes all the way back to put this one into overtime. Leek Murphy, who's in for Ewers, had the two picks, but Texas ran the football well enough to hang on to the seven ranking

where they're also seventh in the AP. Bama saw in person they were 11 of 14 on third down. I think at one point it was 10 of 11 in the game against LSU. I think the entire thing was really impressive because you go into that game if you're LSU with that offense going all right you know there's the defensive deficiencies and the rankings are terrible and the personnel and the injuries and everything else and missing an entire secondary but it's like if if you can't if you can't get Bama when it's Milrow then you know when are you gonna and look they don't get them very often so we know the history of this matchup, but it was back and forth and it felt

like just sitting there, I was like, well, whoever screws up here, whatever team fumbles or whatever team throws a pick here, that's going to kind of be the game. And unfortunately for Daniels, tip ball goes up, interception, short field, and LSU's defense just couldn't get Alabama off the field. So, Milrow for a night in the positive. I still don't know that I would be banking on them because I just look at Bama at that position, despite liking the receivers. I'm just, I don't know.

It's different. Like, I don't think I'd be going into Bama, Georgia going up. Bama figured everything out. They're 11-1. Like, I'm really worried about Georgia's ability to beat them. I just don't think I would. They had 507 total yards in this one on a night where they were in-1. I'm really worried about Georgia's ability to beat them. I just don't think I would. They had 507 total yards in this one on a night where they were in total control. All right, number nine, Ole Miss. This is the only change from the AP for me. Penn State's still ninth in the AP in coaches' poll. Ole Miss was in a tough spot at home against A&M.

They've had a really nice month, and we'll see what happens at Georgia this weekend. This is where I started to lose a little passion in my rankings. I'll just share that with you. 10, I've got Louisville 8-1. They've got the nice win against ND, second in the ACC. All right. Number 11, Oregon State. Two good wins, UCLA and Utah.

Beating Colorado means nothing at this point. CU, I think everybody had turned the page on them. But just to update you, they're 1-5 in the Pac-12, which doesn't... I don't think I need to do a Colorado segment here. I think we did enough of that already. And then you're like, there are two losses or three-point losses

to Arizona, who is now ranked, and then Washington State, who we thought at one point was another part of the depth of the Pac-12, but they're 1-5 in the Pac-12 as well. And then finally, they're like, is he going to leave Penn State out? Is he going to put LSU in that asshole? No, I'm not going to do that.

Penn State, because there's no one else to pick, I have them 12th. Okay, let's do it with Todd McShay here. We're going to talk about Saturday and Sunday and a little matchup of the Pac-12 and SEC hypotheticals here. But we got to start in the NFL with C.J. Stroud, rookie setting performance for a quarterback in NFL history. We've talked a bit about him in the past, but what are you seeing right now from somebody who looks like the real long-term answer at the position for the Texans? I mean, there's no position in sports that can erase other sins, if you will, more than the quarterback position.

And if you've got your guy as an sins, if you will, more than the quarterback position. And if you've got your guy as an organization, now you start building, you know, and you've got your guy on a rookie contract for five years, so four more years after this. As a general manager, there's no better place to be, right? I mean, everyone's looking for that guy. And C.J. Stroud, through what, nine games of the season is is clearly shown that he is the future in houston and that they can take that next level moving forward and that the thing that i mean we and i said it in every evaluator said he's the best pure thrower and passer of the football in the this past draft class including bryce young and you know will levis and all the other guys

but the thing that i've – two things I should say. First of all, all those questions about the cognitive test coming in, is he another Ohio State quarterback? Can he really read the field? Like, here's your proof, bud. Like, everyone who was knocking on the guy saying he's just another Ohio State quarterback, Ryan Day put him in position to succeed. He doesn't know how to read the whole field.

He doesn't have the mind, the decision-making to make sharp decisions quickly when he needs to process. Like, how do you still say that now? You can't. I didn't see it in college. And I went against that cognitive test and had him rated as high as I did because the tape to me is always what you go back to. And the tape showed

a guy that could go from read one to two to three. And yeah, he had first round receivers to throw to, but he was making the right reads. He was throwing with anticipation and timing. And so that's the first thing that's jumped out to me. I want to see when you get to the next level, new coaching staff, new play calling, new system. Is he going to be able to transition and how long will it take him? Because maybe he's going to be great, but maybe coming from that system with all those first-round receivers and all the talent around him, maybe it's going to take a couple years. It hasn't.

And I've always said, and we've talked about this before, Ryan, you can't count out a guy if he doesn't play well in year one. And even in year two, sometimes guys play well as a rookie and then they take a step back in year two. But by year three, if they haven't shown success on the field, then you start worrying. But guys typically don't come in and have a great deal of success like Stroud is having. And I know that the Texans record may not show that he's playing at an elite level, but if you're watching the games week in and week out, for a rookie, he's playing at an elite level. So rarely do you have rookies come in at the quarterback position

and play at this high of a level and don't continue to ascend. And what I've seen, the second part, you know, the processing and all that was the first part I wanted to see with all the new variables. The second part I wanted to see, is he improving? You know, does he get hot in a game or plays good in one week and then the next week he's not? It has been consistent improvement for the most part. And we just saw his best game as a pro this past weekend, you know, midway through the season. So I'm so impressed with what he's done.

If I'm sitting there in the Houston Texans organization, I believe that we have our guy. And you look around the league with all the backups starting, all the injuries we had at quarterback, there are only like 10, 12 guys that you look to and say, all right, they've got their guy at quarterback. And now Houston all of a sudden is one of those organizations, which is remarkable to think about considering all the talk about Stroud coming out of college and all the people who are just tearing him apart in the pre-draft process. This is something that we were kind of talking about leading up to today was if you're building out a team and thinking about what's better like would you rather have the old line in place or money spent on the weapons on the outside?

Because Tank Dell had a really nice game, but he's only had two games with over 100 yards receiving. Same for Nico Collins. Other than the fantasy part of it, when you look at the weapons, it's not like he rolled into this spot. Or some of the other younger guys, and they'll save money on the quarterback contracts, and maybe they'll invest in that and free agency with some of the guys that are available. But what would you rather have in place for a young quarterback as you were team building i mean i would start with protection because that's the first thing that will tear apart his confidence like drop passes if he's protected and drop passes or guys not getting open you know as long as you're you're getting enough time and you can process and you get the ball where it's supposed to go, you know in time we can fix that.

You bring in a young quarterback, and we've seen it time and time again. Like start with David Carr, one of my first years scouting. That ruined him, you know, with the Texans years and years and years ago, 20-plus years ago. You can ruin a quarterback without protection early in his career. I don't think you can ruin a quarterback by not having great weapons. I think that's one of those things. You go free agency, draft, and within two years you can bring that along.

The Giants have not been able to fix their offensive line. It took the Dolphins forever to fix their offensive line. Organizations like that really struggle to find the right guys and playing together. And, you know, the Texans, they haven't been great up front, but they've been serviceable and they certainly haven't ruined his confidence or taken anything away. I would much rather have protection for a rookie than I would have great weapons. I know he lost this week, but Will Levis, man, there felt like there was a little bit more to

that. And a couple of the throws felt like, you know, I can I'm always like at home kind of going like, all right, you know, did you need that throw? Like I mentioned it with Josh Allen, like there was a pick, but then there was another throw that was a completion that the broadcast is raving

about. And I was like, was that actually a bad decision? Because there was a defender underneath as well as somebody on top. And look, it's a sick completion. He has the arm strength to pull that off. And Levis had a couple of those throws where like game situation dictated that he had to find a way to like get it out, you know, get it outside the numbers, taking a bit of risk of somebody a little bit underneath. But the way they showed the camera angle on one of those throws to the left,

it's like he actually thought he had it the whole time. And Levis had lost a lot of people towards the end of that year at Kentucky. So he was getting beat up. You're like, do you realize all the people that they're missing? I was completely like,

I had no idea. I had no idea which way it was going to go we still don't really know yeah but I think there were some glimpses into like if you compare his talent to pick it on the other side like Levis is the more talented guy and I think it's something the Titans should feel good about despite the loss I totally agree watching that whole game I asked myself that same question. Would you rather have Pickett, the first-round draft pick, the top quarterback in that class, or would you rather have Levis?

It's only two games, right, the sample size. But from what I saw on that field going not head-to-head but in the same game, Levis is the answer so far. Now, we'll see. Again, we talked about it like the first game, the second game. You saw some things that Pittsburgh was doing that was frustrating them a little bit more than you saw in the first game for Will Levis. But the thing that I always look at with rookie quarterbacks, is it a grind or are they kind of comfortable with what they're doing and are they willing to take some chances and is their talent level at a certain bar a certain spot where they can make some throws they can make some plays that

a lot of other guys like when kenny pickett when they're having success it still feels like a grind have you noticed that like by the way i love the way you describe it because it's exactly how i feel like you just go okay, what's the answer here? Does he give you a chance? For right now, it sucks for Bryce Young, but it's a grind for Bryce Young. Yes. For him to have two pick sixes is completely uncharacteristic because even when you think he's not doing anything,

you wouldn't expect these monumental mistakes. And the second pick six is just a terrible decision. Pickett, unless it's just kind of like a throwout to Pickens, and obviously Deontay's a really good receiver. Yeah, or a 50-50 ball. Yeah. And I love that he's actually taking the chances because we'll see some other rookie quarterbacks

or second-year quarterbacks, their confidence is so shot, they're so afraid of losing the gig and making some sort of mistake that they don't even want to make those throws. So I give Pickett credit, but sometimes that looks like pittsburgh's best chance is pickett's on a go route because he's so nasty and and and and and kenny pickett isn't even taking enough of those chances you know it wears levis it feels like i saw a couple of times, like it was a questionable decision to make a throw, but I got, I got D hop.

Let's, let's take a chance. And it's like, there's a certain level of confidence that you, you have to have, you either have it or you don't where like, I'm going to take a chance as a rookie and you do it and you, and you make a throw.

That's a difficult throw. And you give your receiver a chance to make a play. If it works out great. If it doesn't, at least, at least you have the arm strength, you had the right mindset, the aggressiveness to let your best players go make plays. And it's not always going to work out, but sometimes it feels like with Pickens, you just want to strangle him. Like, hey, Pickens is the best player on the field right now. Give him more chances. I mean, Pickens is losing his mind right now. I mean, you look at all the media coverage and some of the things he's saying, and I get it. And I think DeHoff, the confidence that he has already in

Levis after just two games, you feel something building, right? Don't you just watching it, you feel like there's something here. Where Pickett, I just, you know, we're a couple years in and I'm like, I just don't know. Like, what's the ceiling? You know, I think there are going to be major bumps in the road. Durability is going to be a factor with Will Levis. Can he keep himself healthy? He's so determined that sometimes he gets in his own way. Like, all those things we'll have to sort out over time.

But I'm already seeing in a couple games like if things even if things aren't great he's going to make some plays and there's a confidence and like an injection of energy into that titans offense that you don't see with pittsburgh and you don't see with some of these other young quarterbacks that are grinding through it yeah i think that's i mean it's it can feel a little unfair too because we've had more sample of Pickett playing in games you're like you know it's not like every time Levis plays you're gonna feel like he's he's killing it I mean he's gonna hit his struggle but I just felt like there was something in that game maybe it's too much from that one game but I like the way you described

it as far as just the grind the grind sitting and watching a game going like how do you feel right now about their chances of figuring this out like when you watch the jets right zach wilson it's a grind and even though he's making like incremental improvements it's like you almost if you're a jets fan it's probably like a breath like a relief like you know like he oh he made that throw you know that late drive that they had to win the game in their last outing. He made the big throw to drive them down before they spiked the ball and kicked the field goal to go to overtime. Like, when those things happen, it's like, whew, oh, my gosh.

Like, all right, he made a play. Whereas with Will Levitz, it's like you kind of – you don't expect it, but you're kind of like, I get some confidence. Like the pocket's bearing down on him a little bit. Like he's still, I still feel like he's got a chance to make that throw. Some of these young quarterbacks, I don't have that same feeling when I'm watching in that three-second span from when the ball snapped to when it's coming out.

Okay, let's talk a little bit about Miami here. I mentioned in the open that collectively this team now, as exciting as it can be and all the weapons and all the speed and all the things that we've gotten really excited about, they're not going to shake any of the doubts until they beat a really good team. And we know that Tua against pressure hasn't seemed to work. I compared them to the 80s Nuggets in the NBA where it's like, oh man, did you see how many points they scored the other night?

And it's like you never really took him seriously in the playoffs ever. What are you seeing? Take us through the Tua evaluation expectation. Last year felt like it was the turnaround. It's not like he's necessarily bad, but there just seems to be this massive drop-off, at least

from what we've seen this season. And also kind of going back last year against teams with winning records as well. I don't even see it as much as winning records, Ryan. I see it more as what's the formula for beating them. And there are three losses, right? Philly, Kansas City, and the Bills. What's the common denominator? Physical defenses, and I mean on all three levels.

Yes, all three of them can get front three, front four pressure. That's critical. But they're physical with their linebackers and coverage against tight ends, with their corners and coverage, their safety. There's a level of physicality with that Eagles defense, with the Bills defense, with the Chiefs defense, which I never thought we would say, but that Chiefs defense is playing. And they're not just playing good. They're playing aggressive with Spagnola and they're playing physical. And I think when you, like, it's, I see the similarities all

the time. Like I remember Oklahoma beating up on Missouri when they had that high powered offense in the NFL. You remember like the greatest show on turf now what they call the dolphins the greatest show on surf like these fast you know high powered offense spread you out all these different things that they throw at you highly effective most weeks but when you come up against these physical teams it it becomes concerning and we've seen it three times now this season so i i don't know that you can coach a level of physicality. I think you have to keep grinding away. What can we do to counter? How can we set picks and rubs and different things?

And how can we get receivers free when the defense is more physical in their coverage? What are the things we can do? But you can see it early in games. When Tua is getting pressured and getting hit and listen i think he's tough like he he is shown time and time again he'll he'll hang in the pocket but when he starts to when the hits start to rack up and the pressure is coming a little bit quicker than he's used to and when his receivers are getting pushed around a little bit that's like

you see the pressures coming when you're watching on cbs or fox right you what you don't see all the time is all right what's going on in the perimeter like is it press man or press zone are they like taking them out of that rhythm where yeah it's like so hard to press tyreek because he's so fast but if you can nudge him off his spot and take like a split second away from the timing that's what what I've seen is these defenses have been physical. It's like every down is going to be a fight. And that's not how Miami's, you know, they want to be in a track meet, right? And so I worry about that long term. I don't think it's necessarily the good teams.

It's the physical defenses that they go up against are the ones that are really throwing them fits. Yeah, it's a good comp too with the spread stuff in college. Because I mean, there's some teams too, like, I just, I'm not going to name all the coaches, but I just remember like all of these games where their first two possessions, they look like no one's going to stop them. Like everything's scripted out. They know exactly what they're going to do.

They give you some weird look. And the next thing you know, it's like 14-0. It's like, okay, well now the game has started. And now we're going to see how you hold up for three hours. And it's not to say pretty much everybody's ready. As a quarterback, it wears on you. I mean, receivers too, but a quarterback, it wears on you. When you're taking those hits and it speeds up your mental clock a little bit

and you start to rush, that throws the whole timing off. And this is such a timing based offense based on the speed and the reps. And when they get going, it's almost impossible to stop, but like, yeah, you can have a good drive here there. And it just so happened in the second half that it came out and had a

couple of great drives and things looked like, all right, they've got it figured out, but it, it wears on you over four quarters. And you just don't feel as comfortable. Physically, you're kind of beaten down. And there are very few quarterbacks that can handle that over four quarters all the time

and still be playing as fast as you want without rushing, but also as confident as you need to be in the fourth quarter. And so it was a little different this time. They didn't get behind. I mean, they got behind, but they were able to kind of rally in the second half. But still, I saw it. You could see it even in the fourth quarter late,

like in that last drive. Tua just didn't look like he was comfortable, right? Did you see that? Yeah, I mean, the snap thing alone. I mean, I know it's just one play but considering everything that's on the line in that spot and you're like wait that's that's what happened like it was weird because i go this is another classic nfl game where it looks like they have no business being in the football game and here we go with them have a chance to tie this thing where you know

kansas city has its own offensive issues which i've already talked about but i i don't know it's just it's just a weird feeling that depending on who they're playing you feel completely different about them and that's not going to change unless they beat some of these tough teams at the end of the season let me ask you this real quick right i was just looking at like the top teams in the league right If you were to do a power rankings, I'm not huge like, oh, let's do the power rankings. Who are the top five teams? But if you look at it right now, we've obviously got a great sample size about halfway through the season.

To me, it's Philly, Kansas City, Baltimore, and you can kind of play with that however you want. Baltimore looks like maybe they've been the best team the last several weeks. But Philly, Kansas City, Baltimore are the three that I would say I have the most confidence in. Then you kind of get down to that next tier. This is just my opinion. I want to get yours. I think even though Sam Fran has struggled with two losses, they bring in another pass rusher right before the trade deadline. I think that they'll they'll bounce back and we saw how great they were early in the season i think sam fran would be in that next tier detroit you have

to put in that next tier and i think for the longest time we had miami kind of in that first tier or at least kind of in that you know end of the first year beginning the second tier i would and this is my question i I would put Cincinnati, even though their record doesn't line up with some of these other teams, based off of what Cincinnati has done since Burroughs gotten healthy, I would put Cincinnati in that second tier with like Detroit and San Francisco ahead of Miami and ahead of some other teams that have better records, just based on like what we've seen recently and where it's trending. Like that Bengals team to me is one of the six best teams in the NFL right now.

Not on the season, but right now. Yeah, I'd have Cincinnati in there with the four straight wins and the fact that you have a legitimate thing to point to in Burrow's calf. Like he's a completely different guy. He's back. It's fine. And the defense has been really good too, which is overlooked, especially, well, easier to overlook because you had some questions about the secondary and some of the

turnover in free agency. So I'd have Cincy there. I think I'd still have San Francisco there towards the top because the reason I don't love the power ranking stuff as much as it's just kind of catnip for this business is that a lot of times you'll just have a team that has a lighter schedule for that month. And then you're comparing them to these other teams that have gone up against the other powerhouses and you're like oh what's wrong with them you're like well you know they had a couple extra turnovers and they had a really tough schedule this month so yeah i guess because i totally agree i totally agree i guess i'm looking at it like if the play if the playoff started right now like where would your confidence be in these teams like you know philly kansas City, Baltimore, I would have confidence that they could beat just about anybody,

but maybe those other two teams. Then I would say Detroit, San Fran, Cincinnati would be kind of that next group for me. Just like, all right, playoffs start, here we go. Shit, I don't want to play the Bengals right now. I just don't. And I think it's not just what's happened or who they're playing. I think it's not just, like, what's happened to who they're playing. I think it's, like you said, it's something tangible you can look at and say,

this is who the Bengals are when Burrow's healthy and he's healthy now. Yeah, and I mean, if you're looking at it that way, you know, the three straight losses for the Niners are weird because you get a Browns loss in there, you're like, how did that happen? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like, okay, mistakes in three,, how did that happen? Yeah. And then the Vikings game, you've got the Purdy mistakes again. And then Cincinnati was

like, is up for it. So you're hitting them at the wrong time. And the Cousins was, that's one of the best Cousins games I've ever seen. And he's been great this year. Cousins was balling by the way. Right. I mean, but that game against San Francisco, I was like, man, this guy has been just unbelievable for that whole game. But unless Purdy is just a complete fraud, and I don't know if there's some Shanahan correction where if you look at the timeline of some of these guys, he's doing it with this guy. And then towards the end, you're like, oh, you know, like he had to make the move or he had to move on or maybe he got Garoppolo back because he was healthy. I'm not ready to write them off. I just think from a talent standpoint.

When I look at the Bills, the Bills, like they have serious issues now. Like this is – I'm still willing to give the Niners the benefit of the doubt in the way that I'm not going to give it to the Bills anymore. Even though they, just like Miami, ended the game, they're like, wait, they got the two point and there's a chance they could win this thing? How does that happen after watching these two teams play for two and a half hours? So I think we're aligned there. Real quick, before we get to any of the college stuff, I want to talk about Josh Dobbs. He's 15 since week 15 of last year. Apparently, he didn't even throw to

anyone in practice. We know that they were trying to figure out any way to keep him in this thing. He has the safety. He has the fumble. It looks like it's a mess. How impressed were you just from a performance like that to be in after Jaron Hall gets knocked out because he's playing for Cousins because that was all-timer comeback stuff for a guy that normally with that lack of preparation, you give no chance to win that game. It's funny. You got to understand when you sit here in this office and I've got my TV up there and I'm remote control and watching tape for 20 something years now, right? And we all remember a guy was wrong on Jamarcus Russell. I've been wrong on a bunch of guys. I was right on Brady Quinn and Tim Tebow and, and, you know, Clawson. It's like,

everyone kind of remembers that because it's, I'm on television and Kuyper and I are fighting and all that. I love the guys, but when you're sitting there and you're like, all right, I got to put on one more tape. I'm just not sure yet. Like, but I really like this guy. But he's not going to be a first round pick. He might not be a second round pick. But I remember giving a late second, early third round grade to Dobbs, right? And I remember just grinding through the tape at Tennessee and been like, there's something about his toughness. He's mobile, but he doesn't rely on it. He uses it when he needs it correctly. I think he's going to be a great backup in this league. And if you need to use him as a starter,

he can be that guy that comes in and wins you some games. Like I remember Brian Hoyer. We've talked about Brian Hoyer. Like people in Radio City Music Hall chanting Hoyer to me in the sixth round because I had a third round grade on Hoyer. And like if you draft a quarterback in the third round and get out of Hoyer what you got for 15 years or whatever, you know, like that's a win. And I love those like, and there, there are plenty of other guys.

I've given a third round grade. They did nothing in the league. So, but when you, when you actually put in that extra time and you're like, I like this guy, there's something about this guy. Then you make phone calls and you hear about their leadership and then how they are on campus and like how everyone. And then I remember with Dobbs, like how smart he was and how quickly he on campus and how everyone – and then I remember with Dobbs, like how smart he was and how quickly he picks things up. And you put all that time into one player when you got 15 quarterbacks

and 425 players in a given draft, and it turns out like it was worth it. So if Dobbs has like a special place in my heart, because he's one of those guys that gave a higher grade than I think he wound up being drafted, and I really saw that promise. And he's bounced around, and he never truly like got a shot, but he always is in that role where he could be a really good backup and he can be there. And now it seems like he,

you know, with Arizona, he played pretty well at Arizona. That's the worst roster in the NFL. Anyone out there that wants to debate me on that. I don't know how you have a debate, but he was grinding out games and finding ways to like keep them in games and i thought that they were well coached like that organization has good coaching and now in this first year

and i think that there's going to be a lot of improvement moving forward but dobbs was just finding ways to keep them competitive and you come in on Tuesday, you don't know half the guy's names, let alone have any timing with them. You're not taking snaps with the first team. And to come in and like, they were having it sometimes, like I've read now, they were at times like,

all right, here's the play. And whether in the huddle or on the sideline, like, yeah, like here's your read on this. Like, you know, like a flag football game when I coached my nine-year-old son where i'm like yeah remember we're gonna do the scissors play you're gonna fake to the guy on the left hand off to the guy on the right or we're gonna do a jet like that's how remedial like his knowledge was of the offense because it was such a limited time and to go out and do what he did

like how do you how are you not proud of that guy and excited for him and to see like an organization like minnesota if the ball bounces a couple ways like it did a year ago they they could have what seven wins right now what are they four and five now as it is somewhere in the yeah i mean the fumble their record the fumble stuff has been ridiculous but it's also yeah a bit of a correction they got all those five fouls. The ball bounced their way last year. Yeah, five and four. And so, I don't know. I love the story, and Dobbs has a special place in my heart

because he's someone who was always kind of the underdog, never was going to be the first-round pick, never got the credit he deserved in college, never was in a position to really succeed in the NFL, but he hasn't stopped fighting. And he's been prepared every step of the way. And he certainly like that intelligence. I remember talking to their coaching staff and talking to teammates now at the senior bowl, like, damn, this guy picks things up quickly.

You can tell. And to see him go in and do like that, that those tidbits I was getting 10 years ago, whatever it was with Dobbs. And now to see him on Tuesday go perform like that on a Sunday shows like that's who he is. I love those stories. Let's do a little college. I made it down to LSU-Bama again this year. Reports strong. But look, going into it.

Give me one thing. Give me one thing from the trip. It was Chris Long's first SEC game ever. He'd never been to one. Really? Yeah. I think he wanted to decommit from UVA, time machine it. But Dixieland Delight came on in the stadium.

The guy turned into just a uh he was like this is this is incredible because the weird thing about bam is i don't think bam is loud it's not as loud as lsu i don't think it's as loud as tennessee uh i don't think it's as loud as when the swamp is right george is probably a little bit more professional yeah yeah they're they're they're a touch more buttoned up. Although, one kid who looked like... There's always one. Right. There was one kid that came up to... Because I was in the LSU section.

And towards the end, it was obvious Bam was going to win the game. And there was a kid who looked like he may have had a Kid Rock back tattoo, weighed about 150 pounds, got a Bud Pounder in his hand, and he just runs right up to us and sticks his head at us. And he's like, don't give a piss about nothing but the Tad. And we're like, now what? Now what do you want us to do, man? Oh, man, I love it. There like four of four dudes and he's just like

yelling at us nobody was dressed up it's like you know i don't i don't wear i don't wear gear to the games or anything like that but yeah we uh you know you just you're in the south you move on nothing but the tide no seriously i don't even know somebody needed to check that kid's id so uh we know lsu's defense is a problem, and then you take out Wingo and all the corners and everything else, and it felt a bit like, all right. I think the Jaden Daniels thing is interesting, though, because statistically, as I had said on Friday,

when you actually look at the numbers and look at his numbers on the throws that he didn't want to make last year, he is actually a completely different guy, but he's not really ever mentioned as a prospect in a very deep class. But I know he wasn't the issue on Saturday night at all. It's the LSU defense. I would argue he was the best player

on the field the majority of the game. Like, Milrow was awesome too. But I know it was a loss and he got knocked out and that's when things fell apart, which even shows more of the value. But they were toe for toe. They were going with Bama on the road against a much better defense than what Alabama had to face.

I mean, he was carrying that team, the running, the extending of plays. I remember talking to uh to brian kelly last year right we had him in like week four or five and he had no interceptions they were efficient um but we had him it was we had it was limited though it was it was limited i think you're right and he and his big thing was he kept saying to me and we we talked in the meeting bk and i and then on the field we talked he's like i like pull the string he kept saying he's got to pull the string pull the string he's like he's like i i want him to come over after an interception when he was aggressive made the right read but was aggressive and took a change like he everyone's he's like i'm

just trying to get everyone to stop praising him for not throwing an interception like you're going to make or you're going to throw interceptions when the guy makes a good play on a on a ball that you should have thrown. I want him to. And I saw it. I think it was 10. I want to say it was Tennessee. I could be wrong where they lost and they just got worked. Yeah. Last year. I'd have to go back. Yeah. And then we saw him like three or four weeks later and he started to say brian started to say like he's he's coming around more and more so in practice but he's finally starting to realize like the timing of it trust it trust it like the guys the guy's covered he hasn't made his break yet get the ball out now and he started to trust and i saw in that game some

some progress and you see it this year. He is confident in his reads. He is confident in where he's throwing the ball. He's also confident in that's not open. Go to the next read. That's not open. Now I've got this. I've got these feet that can get me out of a lot of stuff. And it did.

I just, like, you know, everyone was, people were talking about him in the Heisman race, and that's probably not going to happen with the third loss now and all of that. But I think it's been overlooked because everything's about Caleb Williams from USC, Drake May from North Carolina, Shador Sanders' rise at Colorado, Michael Penix, how great he's playing. Bo Nix is playing great, and they keep getting better, Oregon. But to me, I would say the biggest riser in terms of draft prospects

is Jaden Daniels because he's playing a different brand of football from a year ago. He always had that mobility. We always knew he could do that. But can you play within the structure, and can you get the ball out with timing? And he's showing more and more of that. And to me, you get into the third round when you're when you're looking at like you know let's say day two second third round when you're looking at Michael Penix Jr. if he's not a first

round pick J.J. McCarthy from Michigan Bo Nix Quinn Ewers like he's starting to make an argument for himself to be in that mix and and maybe ahead of a couple guys that you wouldn't have expected and certainly I didn't have him ranked ahead of coming into the season. Okay, let's finish it with some college stuff here. Hypotheticals. We're going to go SEC against the Pac-12. SEC now has six of the top 17 teams in the AP poll. The Pac-12 has five of the top 23.

So basically, the way I did it was the highest ranked against the highest ranked from each conference. All right. So we start with UGA. We've got a little bit of a scare there for Missouri pulled away, but we'll start with them matched up against Washington. Yeah, that's a good Missouri team. Listen, I would take Michael Penix Jr. I would take his wide receivers. I would take Rome Odunze, 17.7 yards per reception this year with seven touchdowns. I would take Jalen Polk, averaging over 17 yards per reception, I think eight touchdowns. And Jalen McMillan has been injured on and off and kind of in and out of the lineup, but he's still averaging almost 16 yards per catch with a few touchdowns.

So I would take those four guys against what you have a quarterback and receiver for Georgia. But I really like Carson Beck is growing on me. And I think he's improving. We saw him make some big throws a couple of weeks ago late in games and show that like poise and confidence that you need. I don't think Georgia has great weapons at wide receiver, but I do like the way they're spreading the ball around. I think they're balanced. Everyone talks about Washington, some of these other offenses. Listen, I would absolutely say they're more high-powered and they're more explosive, but Georgia kind of sneakily is 10th ranked in the nation in offense. They just do it a different way. They'll grind you out.

They'll run the football. They've got like, I don't know, six or seven guys with 15 or more receptions. They spread the ball around to their tight ends, their running backs, their wide receivers. They don't have like this high-powered vertical offense or big plays after the catch. They just do it in a very professional, methodical manner. And defensively, I don't think it's close. You know,

like you look at Washington defensively, they would really, but recently they have really struggled. And I think that's the biggest difference. And they've surrendered, what was it? I think I looked at a 30 plus points in four of their last six games, Washington has. And Georgia hasn't given up more than 21 points in a single game in nine games this season. And yeah, you could say, well, maybe Washington has played some more high-powered offenses, but I don't know that that's necessarily the case. The bottom line is Georgia's more balanced.

Georgia's better defensively. I would take Georgia. I'm going to pick Georgia here as well because of the defense because it's not really comparable although I don't think there is much debate I mean between the offenses that they faced you know Arizona's offense at that time that was like the Arizona part of the season we were like wait is that a bad win for Washington only win by a touchdown against that but it's like look Arizona's ranked now and that offense is really good Oregon's one of the best offenses

you didn't expect them to give up 33 against Stanford, and then USC's going to put up points no matter what, but that's 42. But if you look at the yards per possession allowed, Georgia's 15th, Washington's 63rd. So even though I would say there isn't a debate about playing the better offenses to this point, I can't get past the defense, even if I like Pennix and the receiver certainly better than those guys.

All right, so we both agree on Georgia. Let's go Bama, Oregon. Yeah, it's a tough one. This is tougher, man. Is it? It's hard. It is tougher. And I think I'm going to go with Alabama.

Let's just get the headline out there, okay? That's what I was always coached to do in this business, get the headline out there and explain your headline. Well, the headline is I go with Alabama. Let's just get the headline out there, okay? That's what I was always coached to do in this business. Get the headline out there and explain your headline. Well, the headline is I would take Alabama. I would take Alabama, but this one would be a much tougher call for me because there's definitely some recency bias, okay? Like Jalen Milrow's coming off his best performance of his career, four rushing touchdowns.

And what I love about it is he showed confidence and he knew when to run. And I felt like he was trying to be what an Alabama quarterback should be in the pocket and throw in the football, and he wasn't being himself early on. I think he's gained confidence. That was the game where it felt like. And I noticed even watching Nick Saban in pregame interviews and leading up this week, he seemed more comfortable. I was like, what's up?

I think he finally has confidence in his quarterback and confidence that he can – when the initial play's not there, he can just go create. And you finally saw that out of Alabama. Listen, Alabama's defense also, there's recency bias there. They didn't look great against LSU. Jaden Daniels, we already talked about that, just tore them up, gave them a lot of problems. But Bo Nix, for as experienced as he is, as tough as he is, as great as he is operating this offense, I think Alabama in a one-game situation would kind of bottle up that RPO offense and would

have answers for it and would make them have to beat them in different ways than they're accustomed to having to win. And I think the speed of Bama and like the physicality up front and then the speed of like their linebackers, I think it would get to Bo Nix eventually, but I think this would be a great game. I mean, that's one of those games you would just love to see. I'm going to disagree. I'm going to go Oregon. Even though Bama's defensive numbers are, you know, whenever you're kind of like, oh, where are they? And again,

I like the yards per play, the opponent's yards per play stuff there. Oregon's actually ranked higher. And we've talked about the personnel. Milrow was really good. They were terrific on third down. But LSU's defense, like, statistically was terrible going in. And then you take everybody out of it. So I still think Milrow's perfectly capable of having the game where you're like okay he doesn't have it like

this is a problem and they haven't been able to run the football and i thought for the most part until it got ugly at the end of the dallas turner hit on jayden daniels like lsu kind of neutralized that pass rush which at times has looked terrific we thought it like finally turned the page against old miss and that second half. I was like, all right, here are these guys. Saw some of them in the A&M game. LSU, for the most part, kind of held up against them. So I think with the O-line and liking Knicks more than Milrow,

I like the receivers for Bama better probably, but Bucky Irving might be the best skill guy of any of the dudes that you'd put together on the list between the two teams. So I didn't have to think about this one as much. i guess we just really got the ducks yeah really okay you've always been a ducks guy though i remember you like dancing with the cheerleaders and doing stuff dancing with the cheerleaders i don't didn't you go to like cheerleader practice or something once yeah i definitely didn't dance no it was a total setup uh i was doing my my road blogs or solo on the road archived

and uh i was like we got to meet the dance team because everybody talks about the dance team right the dance team was way ahead of the and so like the guy that set it up told me they were good to go they wanted to talk they were going to let me ask some questions and take a picture for the blog and meanwhile it wasn't any of that they They were like, there's a guy here. He's standing over there. It was so embarrassing. And then I had to like talk to him. It went, it went so bad.

And then they were kind of like, what do you have to say? And I think I said, God bless America in it. And then the biggest setup of the whole thing was the guy, the guy who organized it. God gave me a sign. Right right he gave me a sign to hold up and it was like for one of our managers dave it was like hey dave and so i like the whole thing i got bait and switch right yeah and i just felt like such a loser i mean it was awful because it's like what are you gonna do be like hey everybody kind of talks about you guys are like hot you know like it was and then there was dudes there because they were doing a dance team and cheerleader mixed practice so then the guys the male cheerleaders

were like who's this defensive yeah but they were it was weird because i remember i was there standing for a good 10 minutes of the practice before. And one of the guys was messing up on the back row. And then like one of the leaders on the male cheerleader side started getting, Hey, enough of this. You guys just been off your marks all week. Like,

I'm so glad I asked. I completely forgot. It was, I didn't forget. Cause it was the whole point was I was going to experience all the things. Right. And then they were like, all right, you're here.

I guess we're supposed to talk to you or you're going to talk to us. And I was like, oh, hey. And it was brutal. And I think I talked for a minute straight and it felt like 30 minutes. All right. Moving on to the third matchup here. Tennessee, Utah. Oh, man.

It's tough to bounce back. Tennessee Tennessee Utah I I'm going Utah I I trust Kyle Whittingham I trust their physicality Bryson uh Bryson Barnes has been solid for Utah I mean yeah solid for Utah except the one game against uh. I trust Utah's defense. Listen, I don't think Tennessee's a different Tennessee. I mean, Jalen Wright has been great, 7.5 yards per carry. They're running the ball extremely well. Joe Milton's played better recently, but it's not Hendon Hooker. They don't have the general quarterback.

They're not getting the ball out with the same efficiency. They don't have the general quarterback. They're not getting the ball out with the same efficiency. They don't have the receivers. I mean, losing Jalen Hyatt from a year ago. And who else was it? Cedric Tillman. Yeah, Cedric Tillman. They lost some dudes at wide receiver. And to me, Utah, more physical, it would be a close game.

But I just think that they would find a way defensively to throw Tennessee off the mark with what they're trying to do. Yeah, the crazy thing is if you look at the defensive rankings, like Tennessee actually ranks a little bit better than them. I don't know what you can do with the Utah statistics on offense because it's kind of all over the place. They had some absolute dud games in there, but I don't think that's a true reflection of who they are

because they've gone back to Barnes after the freshman quarterback and trying to figure out this whole deal and missing their two guys. But, yeah, I'm going to lean Utah here, even though that Oregon game puts a little bit of a weird taste in your mouth. That was closer, but I'm kind of defaulting to the Whittingham neutral field here thing figuring out. All right, I skipped over actually two of the teams that were higher ranked. Ole Miss against Oregon State.

Look, I'm really impressed with Ole Miss. Whether it was being down late to LSU, 700 total yards helps as well. I know Jackson Darts had his ups and downs, but everybody seemed to be on A&M this weekend because we know that A&M is that team that's capable of kind of hanging with anybody, even in the most disappointing seasons. So everybody feels like A&M is the right side here. They go up again late, and they find a way to make some plays

and win another game at home where it feels like they've had the game. I mean, look, they got smoked in the second half against Alabama, which I totally understand. But when you look at whether it's Dart or Judkins, who's one of the best running backs, and then Trey Harris, the transfer, he had 11 catches, 213.

He's one of the better playmakers in the league as well. Look, now they've got Georgia, so we're really fine out about them. Everybody's been waiting for that slip-up, and yet they've survived this in the SEC West, as tough as that is chasing Bama with the head-to-head loss. So I'm going to go Ole Miss. And this one, I didn't have to think about too much of the Oregon State. Yeah. I had to think about it a little bit more than you did.

I'd like to know who has the ball last. It feels like Ole Miss either they offensively have to overcome their defense or they find defensively when when their offense gets out to a big lead they find a way to like make it closer than it should be but i also look at like two aspects of oregon state that's gonna they get a lot of credit this year dj uyanga lalay is you know he's playing better than he did at clemson he definitely fits what they're doing there's no question he's improved this year he's playing better than he did at Clemson. He definitely fits what they're doing. There's no question he's improved this year. He's still only completing 58% of his throws, you know. He's not making the big mistakes that he was,

but I don't think he's someone that you're afraid of going up and playing. Okay? And I agree. Like, the balance that Mississippi has, I think Jackson Dart is developing. He's making more throws. I also think that, you know that Quishon Jenkins, 800 rushing yards, 12 touchdowns. He's a bull. He really is. And Oregon State, the other part, I talked about

quarterback being a little bit overrated. I think the defense is overrated too. They gave up just 41 combined points against San Jose State, UC Davis, San Diego State, and a Utah team that was struggling at the time offensively. It was one of those games where they just didn't play well in quarterback questions. But they've given up 30 points per game against other reasonably good to good offenses. Washington State, Cal, UCLA, Arizona, and Colorado. 148 total points in those five games, an average of 30 points per game.

So I think Ole Miss, a little bit more balanced, a little bit more explosive on offense. I would take Ole Miss in this one. Okay, last one. Surprising matchup maybe to many. Missouri against Arizona. I love that Arizona turned this. Yeah.

Sorry. LSU isn't even one of the SEC teams in here, but LSU Ole Miss, like that, I don't know. I would take LSU over Tennessee. I would take LSU over Missouri. You know,

I'm just saying with the depth of the SEC. What's that? I mean, they beat them in the head to head. You know, it depends on what you think would happen with LSU to Ole Miss, but it's just that defense I mean, they beat them in the head-to-head. It depends on what you think would happen with LSU to Ole Miss, but it's just that defense is just not good. It's not good. So going into this, I was like, oh, I wonder

who LSU's going to be matched up against because we were putting this together this week, and then when the rankings came out, I'm like, look, Missouri's ahead of LSU, so we're not even going to have them in this thing. I guess if we did a six matchup, it would be LSU versus UCLA, and I'd go LSU there, But moving on, sorry. No, that's cool.

Missouri, it's one of those things about the rankings that frustrates me a little bit. You're like, you're going to drop Missouri. Okay, maybe it's because of the losses, but what did you think was going to happen at Georgia? And yet they still found a way to compete for a good chunk of the game. And Luther Bird and their sophomore receiver, I mean, look, I'm not saying he's Marvin Harrison. I'm not saying he's Keon Coleman or Dunzey,

but he's one of the best weapons in the conference. Every time he has the ball, you're freaked out about it. Cook has been really good. And so even though I love Fafita, McMillan, and Arizona turning this thing around, I don't know that I'm ready to pick Arizona against Missouri. And that might have more to do with me being impressed with Missouri hanging in against some of the other powers despite the losses. Missouri's a good football team. I mean,

that was made very apparent on the road. Georgia this past week wouldn't go away, man. Wouldn't go away. Cody Schrader, I love the way he runs, the contact balance, the toughness, six yards per carry, 10 touchdowns this year. I don't think they're a great team, but they're a damn good football team. They're a tough out for anyone. I love what Jed Fish is doing in Arizona. I didn't think it would be this fast this year. And you look at their losses.

Washington, Mississippi State, but then USC all by one score. They haven't been out of any game they've played. And to hang within one score of Washington says a lot. And even USC with that high-powered offense. I've been really impressed with Arizona. Three straight wins now. Washington State, they beat 44-6. Oregon State and UCLA.

So I'm not trying to take anything away from Arizona. I just think Missouri is a really good football team. I think we saw that this past Saturday going on the road with Georgia and hanging around. What was it, nine-point loss in that game when it was all said and done? And kind of having chances late in that game. So I just, I don't know. I like Missouri a lot.

I like the way they're trending. I like the way both teams are trending. But would take Missouri over this one which means for me personally I know it's different for you but I would have so Georgia, Bama, Ole Miss and Missouri so it would be four to one in these five matchups for the SEC I think you would be three three and two right yeah I'd be three and two because I took Oregon over Bama. I took Utah over Tennessee. And look, with Arizona, I mean, this was kind of a coin toss to me.

And I think I am like you putting a lot into going into the Grove and competing and losing 30 to 21. I'm like, would Arizona do that? But Arizona's played five ranked teams in five straight weeks and gone three and two.

And the overtime loss to SC and again, 31-24 against Washington when we thought that was a bad score, and then you realize, no, it isn't. Fafita's been incredible. I love watching that kid play for Arizona. All right, my man. We will catch up again soon.

We'll talk to you next week. All right, brother. Look forward to it. They say money can't buy happiness. Look at the fucking smile on my face. Ear to ear, baby. You want details? Fine.

I drive a Ferrari. 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you could possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid. So, now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Life Advice, the am liquid. So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required.

Life advice, the email address, as always, lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Good Monday to Kyle and to Steve. Let's just jump right into it. Calling your in-laws, mom and dad. Hey, fellas, 59150. Lift a couple times per week, but I'm slowly morphing into a running guy. My wife and I are both 28. We've been married for about a year and a half. We're both blessed with great parents who love and support us, and we genuinely enjoy spending time with them. My wife and I have had this conversation a couple of times, but I thought it'd be interesting to get your takes on this. My parents both call their in-laws, my grandparents, mom and dad. So his parents call his in-laws or their in-laws, mom and dad. They've done so ever since I can remember and still do this to this day. I've always thought it was bizarre to hear my father call my grandfather

on my mom's side, dad. I have a great relationship with my father-in-law, but I can't for the life of me imagine calling him dad to his face in any serious manner. My wife doesn't think it's as weird as I do. What's your take? Need someone to settle the debate. As the non-married guy, I think I'll defer to where you're at right now, gang. Kyle? I mean, I always thought only Italians did this. No, I mean, my father-in-law's got a great name, Orlando. Could say it all the time.

I like it. So I don't think I could ever do this. And I wouldn't feel right saying it. And I think if Alana said it to my mom, she'd be like, what the hell are you doing? You don't have to do this. Like, I don't think it would just be like, oh, I guess I'm mom now. Like she probably would have been like, let's just nip this in the bud.

And what's going on here? So I think for my family personally, nobody would go lightly with it. It would be like a whole conversation. Be like, yeah, you don't have to do this. I call my parents mostly by their first names and my sisters do that too and joe shout out to ans and joe um so so no the answer is no i would not but i do think it is an italian thing uh my dad i'm pretty sure called uh my mom's father my grandfather dad yeah so that's probably an italian thing i had never

really noticed that but no there's no that would be so uncomfortable the first time i would say that to my mother-in-law, to call her mom, and I love my mother-in-law, but it would just be such an uncomfortable thing. I don't even think she would like it. You could see it in my face, my whole body language. You'd be like, this says wrong. I don't think I could push it out with any sort of genuine... What if the father-in-law requests it?

I wouldn't wish that on anyone. Then I definitely wouldn't do it. Yeah. And again, love my father-in-law. He would never do that because he's a normal person. Great guy. Wait, there's definitely some, there's going to be some people that give you pushback

on the normal person thing there. Yeah. Well, I think requesting that you call me dad is a weird move. So if somebody wants to come at me for that, come at me for that. If you want to do, if you want to call them dad for that come at me for that i i if you want to do if you want to call them dad and mom that's fine i don't have an issue with that i just

personally wouldn't but i think it's weird that if the dad is like hey call me dad don't call me you know mr calling somebody mr whatever is also terrible i don't even know what i call him i guess i just call him barry yeah because also like where are you at now like have you been calling him jim if like or is it just like i've been in like relationships where I'm just like you, like I'm not, not you, but like, I just do everything I can to not say the name because he's definitely older than me. And, you know, Mr. Whatever doesn't sound right to me. And, you know, he's never actually told me his name's John or something, you know, it's just like, I know it, but I've always like, try to, I've sometimes tried to keep myself in this threshold where I'm just like, I look at

them and I'm talking to them and I don't have to like address them. So if you, if you're, if you've already been going with the first name, I don't think you need to change it up and you could just use that as part of your argument. But if you, if you take a long,

hard look and you're like, I actually haven't really called them anything. You might have a little bit less ammo for your argument. Mr. Also is that I feel like once you get out of high school, you don't call like your girlfriend's's dad mister something yeah yeah I agree trying to think if I ever got close enough to anybody to even deal with this uh I could see you having like good relationships though Ryan with well

with like girls dads that you dated because I don't know you're like a real dude I just I feel like they would kind of respect you but you also you know I don't not that you don't have some shithead to you everybody has a little shit to do but I don't know but would you say my shithead lane is about so Rudy uh well like aggro college Rosillo is that like you know is that somebody that you know he shows up and your daughter's like, hey, this is my new boyfriend. Are they going to be thrilled about that? I don't know. I don't know. I'm genuinely asking. I don't know. No, I think the dads have liked me. Yeah, I can't think of

ever a time when anybody was like, oh, the dad dad but i would just say there's rarely a time where it gets to the point where they're in the mix and i have to i have to address any of these concerns you're out way before you have to worry about that i bet you have a great first handshake though i could see you really really nailing that good first handshake i did actually one time you know towards the end of something happening i just showed up to the house to try to try to like get through to the parents to get through to the girl. And I'll never do that again. Ever.

Yeah. That was. What did the parents do? Did they tell you? Yeah, pretty much. Well, it wasn't like a bad thing. Was it like Jamal Adams trying to get into the jets facility like wait what the fuck no it was a very simple like hey can i spend some time with you and talk about where this is headed and you know is there anything you can do to help and they

they were like they're it was already over and they were they the way they were talking to me was like the worst and i get it i mean it wasn't it wasn't like some dramatic thing where they had to take sides it was just it was too late it's too late and so how old were you i uh i was in my 30s and i just remember leaving going yeah there was another time that i did it in my 20s where i like, Hey, when it went the other way, you guys were all reaching out to me like crazy. And now I'm doing it to you and you guys are acting like I'm the dick. Like I wasn't this mean to you when I wasn't interested in, you know, salvaging this and then, you know, whatever, it got back together and then it gets spun the other way. And so then I was reaching out to the relatives, but, uh,

there was no father around in that situation. So maybe if you had, you know, knocked at the door and said, mom, dad, I really want to figure this out. They might've just been, they might've just had no choice. Yeah. Or they would have been like, actually glad, glad you're not going to be in the mix. But yeah, a lot of, a lot of times there's been a few of those, you know, sort of meetings where I don't know that I've ever left that. And I'm calling it a meeting, but I don't know that I've ever left those going psyched. I did that. No, I did that in high school. Not a good idea.

High school. High school. They're just laughing. Actually, no, sorry. It was early college, early college. And it was a it was a bad idea. Wait, so you like you guys went to like talk to people's parents about like trying to fix this as a team. I have a very long story on this. gotta be honest what the fuck no kidding um well look i don't

one one one was serious enough that it it it actually like there was going to have to be a last minute anyway yeah right but after and look, it's not anyone's fault. It's totally fine. But it was just when you go to the significant other's parents, rarely are they going to be like you're totally right. We're all on your side.

Right. You know, like it's their offspring. You're just a dude that was in the mix for a little while on the timeline. So you're not going in there, you know, it's their, it's their offspring. You're just a dude that was in the mix for a little while on the timeline. So you're not, you're not going in there, you know, it's, it's you plus seven. You're not going in there favored. Uh, all right, let's see here. Uh, how do I get rid of my landlord stuff? Not that strong. Max numbers in the gym, 205 bench. Well, you're not going to be lifting it out. I'm just kidding. Uh, 255 squat, 275 deadlift. My family and I moved to New York earlier this year, given a number of factors prior to moving. We were not able to visit and tour the apartments in person. We were lucky enough to land an apartment that met our checklist, preferred neighborhood, proximity to daycare, public transportation, et cetera. But there was a catch. We would sublease the unit from a family living back in their home country, and the unit

still had all their stuff in it. Think furniture, kitchenware, some boxes and miscellaneous things, but nothing super personal like clothes or pictures. To clarify, this family doesn't own the unit. They're renters as well. We originally thought this would be a huge plus is the pictures and videos of the apartment. All the things inside look great. We sold all our furniture and hard to transport belongings thinking we just stumbled across the easiest moving process ever. Fast forward to getting into the unit, we realized a significant amount of the things left behind in the unit were junk. Several pieces of furniture were stained and in poor overall condition. A lot of the kitchenware was dirty or seemed like it hadn't been used in years. As you can imagine, we were not thrilled and immediately realized we would need to replace several items. I shared this

with the family we were subleasing from and asked them if they'd like to see pictures or have us dispose of anything for them. They didn't bite on this offer, stating that it was hard for them to make a decision without seeing their things in person. Given the logistics around our move, I'd already rented a storage unit to temporarily store a few of our things, so I decided to put away all the things we didn't want

around and wouldn't be using. I've tried to bring this issue up a couple times with the family since, offered to buy all their stuff from them just so I can finally get rid of the things we don't want and stop paying for storage unit still they won't bite the final catch here is i'm very skeptical this family is ever coming back they've been back in their home country for over four years at this point i've already offered to let us extend our lease for a second year even though our current lease is good for another seven months my latest and probably craziest idea is simply to move,

is to get rid of all their stuff, sock away the money I would have been spending on the storage unit and then buy replacement things for them if and when we decide to come back and make up some excuse about how we accidentally ruined some of their things.

Worst case scenario, I pay out around the same amount of money I'd spent on storage unit over time. Am I crazy? What should I do about this family stuff? All right, here's what you do. Flood the apartment. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Yeah, look, I mean all of that sucks, but you kind of got worked. You didn't get to see it up close. They know what they did. They don't care. But the problem when you're dealing with other people's stuff is that they still... And you learn this. You learn this with people, whether

it's family members, that kind of stuff stuff is that they see things and see value. So even if it makes all the sense in the world to not have these items be this other headache that they have to deal with, like, look, I dealt with it and selling a place. It was a furnished rental unit. It was furnished. And then when I went to sell it, their realtor tried to tell me that I had agreed to sell it furnished. And I was like, absolutely not. And they were like, well, look at the listing. I'm like, you're bringing up the rental listing. You're not bringing up the sale listing. And you're trying to trick me into thinking that I have to give you all my furniture? Fuck off. on my furniture, like fuck off. And so I was like, make an offer. And they made me an offer and it was less than the value. And it was during a time where there was a hard time to be like getting furniture around. And I had already moved. So I already had another place furnished.

I didn't need any of the furniture. And guess what I did? I ended up spending more on storage and moving it than I did on what I would have gotten at an offer that was a third of the value of the furniture. So I regret that. But because I was annoyed about the way the realtor was basically trying to trick me into convincing me that I was selling it furnished, which I never was, that I just let the ego get in the way. And it ended up costing me more money after the fact. So it's not apples to apples in this, but when they left it furnished, it may not to be to your standard,

but it obviously was to their standard or they're just total dicks about it and they know the stuff is trash, but it's probably the first thing. So if you go executive decision here and get rid of all their stuff and say like, hey, I'll just cover your losses,

they're going to try to kill you on that transaction. They're going to say, look, you threw away all of our stuff. It might be junk. It sounds like it's junk, but your junk, you know,

it's the people look at that differently. Yeah, right. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. This has episodes. This has episode of judge Judy written all over.

I was going to, I'm glad I don't have to, I'm glad I don't have to. And like you said, like they are going to kill you on that. It's just, if somebody feels like you tried to do something to them and then you are on the hook for like making them whole

they are going to pull out all the stops that couch doesn't get made anymore don't have the receipt we actually paid four grand for it back in the day it was really one of the like what maybe it won't be that serious but if if it really comes down to like you have to agree to you know make them whole again it's gonna be really bad my my buddy stole uh like a five dollar um porcelain like cat from this chinese restaurant in college they got i mean he didn't put it in his jacket totally got caught uh and they were like oh yeah this thing is like when they worked it out in court this thing is three hundred dollars and like we found it on amazon for five it was the same thing same exact one we still had the cat we could see it but because they thought that you know they were like this guy

tried to get over on us and now it's it's he's gonna pay the price we're going to triple quadruple we're gonna maximize this so if they can do that for everything that they have in that apartment and you get caught you know or the or you could just move out of there before they come back and it'll be totally fine but if you if you do like you roll the dice you do take the risk so you it could totally work out where you get out of there after a year and a half, and those people, you know, find another person to sublease it to, if that's how it seems like it's going. But you also run the risk of, like, totally having to multiply by five

everything that you, you know, threw out. And real quick, too, like, if you think they're not coming back and you want to take that risk on, like, I love it. I love how adventurous you're going to get on this. But if you're like, well, they're never coming back and you want to take that risk on, I love it. I love how adventurous you're going to get on this. But if you're like, well, they're never coming back, there's still going to be somebody else that rents this unit at some point. At some point, that transaction is going to happen. And then what are you going to do? Refurnish it? No. And I get it like the storage game, man. I want to get in the storage unit business after having to use storage units. Because I was like, wait, you can just change my rate after six months?

And they were like, well, you can appeal it. I'm like, what does that mean? It's a storage unit. It's not a stock. What are you talking? And so one storage unit rate went from 300 a month to in the second year was 700. And I went, okay, this is insane. This is like twice what

i paid for rent in my 20s like i'm not i can't do this anymore and then i had to move it somewhere else that you know and i was like i wish i just sold all this stuff and then of course like half of the things got trashed in the move so like now i'm just unloading my own stuff that i wish i had sold in the transaction before but i don't know like I feel like whatever move you make here that involves just getting rid of their stuff ends up in some kind of loss that is going to be a massive burden or just hassle, even if it doesn't go that bad financially. Do you have anything else on that? No, not much to add. I mean, if you have the money, I think just the storage thing is what you have to do. It sucks. But yeah, you're going to probably end up paying more.

And it's going to be way more of a hassle if you get rid of this stuff or screw with these people because they're going to mess with you. I remember when I lost luggage on a trip to... The airline lost luggage on a trip to Italy once when I was, I think, in my early 20s. And dude, they were asking me what was in there. And I'm like, dude, I had Brooks Brothers, Blazers. I was naming all this stuff. I'm like, this is what's in and because you got to play it up like i

wanted to get like the extra money or whatever that's exactly what they're going to do to you and it's going to be who's paying your ass i would just i would just continue to pay the storage and try to get out there i get out of there as quick as possible yeah keep your eyes open see if there's anything else to check your boxes you know like even though this checks all your boxes you have to think like what is the shit that comes with it you're like you're like three degree away from the actual renter of this property. And you've got a bunch of shit in there that's not yours. And you don't necessarily feel as comfortable as you would if you were in another place. So I know, I know this sounds like a killer apartment, but just keep that in mind when you're talking about checks, all your boxes, look at the other things like, okay, but what if,

if I'm the actual sole renter and I actually get to decide what comes in there and whatever, and I don't have the smelly, whatever that, you know, I feel like I have to keep the rug in here for some reason. Yeah, I mean, the main problem is they love the apartment. They love the location. They like all these things. So it doesn't sound like they're in a hurry to want to move on. But the fact that they're like, hey, do you want to extend? We're not coming back.

And, oh, we don't know what the furniture looks like. It's like, so you were comfortable renting out a furnished place, but you didn't know what the furniture looks like it's like so you were comfortable renting out a furnished place but you didn't know what the first so it sounds like these people are either completely oblivious or what's more likely they know what they're doing ahead of time they're taking advantage of the situation you didn't get to see the stuff in person so you could go water path through a mountain here and just reverse annoy the shit out of them every single month while you're there video all all of the stuff. Show it to them. This is trash. This isn't good. This isn't going to work. We paid for it furnished. And when they say, no, sorry, not our problem, these people are going to be in Germany or

something and they might get sick of you. They might get sick of dealing with you. So that might be the only path. But then again, it's kind of like how much man time do you want to put into this of going, oh, I've got to send my annoying email to the owners. And again, they don't even own the unit, right? You're subleasing it from them. So maybe their standard is just lower than yours, or maybe they know exactly what they're doing, but just dumping all this stuff and then saying it's going to work out later on, I just really think you're putting yourself at risk for a hassle that you're not going to want to deal with. All right. Yeah, Judy would rip you apart in court.

Judy would rip you apart in court. That's all I'll say if you did that. All right. Thanks to Stefan. And, of course, Kyle and Saruti. We're back on Wednesday, the Ryan Rosillo Podcast, Ringer Spotify. I'm not a system player.

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