The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Last-Place Chiefs With Mitchell Schwartz, Plus Fields vs. Nagy With Jason Goff

Episode Date: September 27, 2021

Russillo shares his thoughts on whether or not Justin Fields is ready for Matt Nagy’s offense and whether Matt Nagy’s offense is ready for Justin Fields (0:58). Then Ryen talks with longtime Chiefs offensive tackle Mitchell Schwartz about the Chiefs’ second straight loss, this time to the Chargers. They discuss how teams have evolved to defend Chiefs skill players, what it’s like observing Patrick Mahomes’s pre-snap reads, the Chargers' improvement, playing with WR Keenan Allen in college, Derek Carr’s hot start to the season, and more (15:15). Then Ryen is joined by The Ringer’s Jason Goff to discuss the Bears' 26-6 loss to the Browns, and whether or not Matt Nagy is holding rookie QB Justin Fields back (45:25). Next Ryen recaps the weekend in college football (57:25), before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:06:10). Host: Ryen Russillo Guests: Mitchell Schwartz and Jason Goff Producers: Kyle Crichton and Steve Ceruti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everybody? I'm J.J. John G. Stramski. And I'm Jason Goff, and if you haven't heard, the ringer has gone local. I'm bringing the fire, I'm bringing the rain from the Big Apple with my show, New York, New York. And I'm repping Chi-Town with my new show, The Full Goal on all things Chicago. We've got episodes three nights a week with all the reaction of the local teams and guests. Plus bonus episodes around all the big games and storylines. So whether you're uptown, downtown, in the burbs, or a transplant, make sure you follow New York, New York, and the full go on Spotify

or wherever you get your podcasts. Today's pod is loaded. We have Mitchell Schwartz, former Chief chiefs offensive lineman on what he saw chiefs charges some other stuff and we go to chicago jason goff new podcast here at the ringer what is up with matt nagy and fields that's where my open is on the hate list for nfl coaches and life advice i had a question about matt nagy after week three's disaster and justin fields because i mean that was the biggest story. That was really the biggest story. It wasn't even L.A. beating Tampa Bay.

Aaron Rodgers and what he did after Garoppolo got his team ahead. That was an unbelievable Sunday night game. I think the Chargers-Chiefs thing, we're going to spend a lot of time on that game with Mitchell Schwartz, former Chiefs offensive lineman. So there's a lot of headlining stuff, but it felt like the most reaction, and this is a point that I've made throughout preseason and everything,

is that Bears fans' angst about Justin Fields status with the team. Like I just got to a point where I was capped out. I was like, okay, I got it. I got it. I don't, I'm sick of reading about this. Like every single fields preseason game was this just on it. But I guess I don't know that I really respected how bad this whole deal was in Chicago with quarterback.

So we know what the history is. It's not very good. But I watched a good chunk of this game because I was fighting with DirecTV for three hours to start my day. So I had two games to choose from, then had to go back and watch some more of the Reds and stuff. So I watched this game. And I guess I can't help, but I guess, yeah, I'll admit, I laughed a little.

I laughed a little. I'm sorry. I laughed a little at all of the Justin Fields people because Justin Fields didn't look like he was even close to ready. But by saying that, that could then be turned into, wait, are you pro-Nagy? And let me just say this loud and clear. I'm not pro-Nagy, okay?

The Nagy thing hasn't worked. If he didn't have a job at the end of the year, I would not argue that he should have kept his job. I wasn't even a big Mitch Trubisky guy. It was very clear that the staff bailed on Mitch at some point, but I also think Mitch had his own limitations as a quarterback, those kind of limitations that are going to lose you games when you start trying to go a little further into the season. But I would work it out this way in my head that I'd go, what if the whole time when everybody was mad at Nagy about playing Dalton and saying that Fields wasn't go, what if the whole time when everybody was mad at Nagy about playing Dalton and saying that Fields wasn't ready, what if he was actually telling the truth that Fields wasn't

ready? And he didn't look ready yesterday, but he also, I don't know who would have looked ready in that situation because the offense looked like it had nothing to do with him. So this is not anything that's complimentary towards Nagy. It's simply this. It's what if he was just kind of saying, hey, we got this guy in camp every day. He came from an Ohio State offense where the O-line's always going to be better than everybody they're going up against.

Hasn't dealt with pressure all that much. The receivers are all pros. And now the first taste that he's going to get of real pressure, real adversity, we don't think he's ready for that. So we want to give it a few weeks, maybe a month or two or whatever. There was also a part of it too where I think people got really grossed out

about it because the Sunday Night Football broadcast where Collinsworth was basically saying this is the whole game plan, and it was very pro-Nagy, and even I was turned off by that, even though there's nothing about me that's attached emotionally to any of the Chicago outcomes. And the fact that Nagy was like, I know you all want the fields part, but I'm going to make you watch Andy Dalton. It wasn't somebody else.

It's I'm going to make you watch Andy Dalton before I let you see Justin Fields. So all of those things make a lot of sense and why people took it so personal. And then you have the result we had yesterday. I don't know if Fields is going to be great. I don't know if he's going to be bad. I have no idea. And I'm not going to use yesterday as an example, other than to repeat the point. What if Nagy was right about him not being ready?

Others would argue Nagy hasn't been ready all season long because the numbers for them offensively are a joke. The Bears right now are averaging 3.3 yards per play, the fewest of any team through three games over the last 15 seasons. There are numbers. I'm going to get to a couple other numbers a little bit later, but it led to what I think is now a new submission, although I think locally Nagy was on the hate list, but I think Nagy is now on the national hate list. And that is, Cerruti and I have been doing this. It's really Cerruti's idea, but it was just basically there's a hate list of NFL head coaches that are generally hated by the, I guess, national media. I wouldn't say it was just local. So who are the names that you're kicking around? Because now we obviously have to have

Nagy to this. Yeah, it's national media. It's a lot of Twitter too. And Nagy is probably just outside. But I have five guys I think are ahead of him that instantly everyone roots against, no matter what kind of success they have. One, Cliff Kingsbury. Too good looking. Didn't think he deserved the job. He's number one for me by a landslide.

Two, I have Urban Meyer. Nobody likes Urbanyer for a million different reasons uh and i'll leave it at that dan campbell i mean that guy is as old school knuckle dragger as you could possibly find he is everything like he is the antithesis of what like you know the analytics group thinks you should find in a new head coach and i think people have failed you know have basically rooted for him to fail from day one even though team is actually playing pretty hard under him. Zach Taylor, kind of a similar thing to Kingsbury, although he's just the, oh, okay, this guy was a coach for Sean McVay for one year. Now he gets a head coaching job.

I think people thought that was unfair, and they rooted against him. And the last one's a little bit different. I think it's John Gruden. $100 million contract. He was out of the league for so long. I think everybody thought he was out of touch. Then he goes and trades Khalil Mack when he gets there.

The roster's kind of been a mess. So I think Gruden kind of rounds it out as a kind of been a mess so I think Gruden kind of rounds it out as a kind of different guy but I think people like to clown on him because they just think the game is passing by I think Gruden's been really good on the offensive play calling stuff he got $100 million I didn't love that he was always campaigning for any job that came up when he sang

Rocky Top and Mike and Mike when he was still at ESPN but he got a raise every single time he did it and it worked out so the guy got paid he's not worth $100 million. The front office needs to be better, but he's done a good job here with Derek Carr, and they're off to a good start. The Taylor one, I totally get people being frustrated by it,

but I don't even think enough of us have an opinion on Taylor. Kingsbury, he's going to be the OC of USC, and then it's like, no, now you're going to be the head coach, but it was brought in to handle Kyler Murray, and at that point, the Kyler Murray part of it is accurate, but I think there's a lot of stuff, good looking, good house, clean lines. Just weird, resentful. There's a resentment towards success sometimes now that goes on that's crazy.

I would put Urban number one. I think the NFL national media is so mad about how he staffed and kept a guy in staff at Ohio State, and then the strength coach that he hired, Jacksonville. Not that Jacksonville is the media mecca of Los Angeles or New York. But me being to all of these college campuses as much as I had over all the years at ESPN. You can't understand it unless you're there. These are gods amongst men.

The way that you were treated when you win at programs like Ohio State or Alabama, or what would happen to you if you were at North Carolina in basketball or Duke or Kentucky, Kansas. It's hard to be normal. I can't imagine Nick Saban going to marathon for gas and saying, I think I want to get a Diet Coke. Can he even go in there and get the Diet Coke? I don't know if he can. But the way that you're treated with such reverence and awe and worship and then urban, it's like, Hey, no, now you're, now you're in Jacksonville. Not that there's not a ton of Jags fans that aren't huge fans of him because of what he did at Florida, but you get the point. But now with urban, I would look, you can not like urban. You can be pissed about the hiring. You can not like anything about him. And I'd say, fine, can we give them a year?

Can we give them four weeks? can we give him any amount of time because every time they lose the victory lap that you see from people when it's like hey you know this team stinks right um and with trevor lawrence even with him i mean andrew looks like the only guy that i've seen be able to do something the quarterback just doesn't do and that's not have a great team around him and carry a team i mean that's that's what was so great about luck in that first year even with with Russell Wilson, he wasn't asked to do a ton. They had a great defense. They actually used to run the football back then.

But now I'm rambling a bit here. The Campbell thing's very predictable because no one likes the end. Nobody likes to admit that every now and then you get to get a little fucking cave man on this game. And I'm okay with a little cave man. And if the team plays for him, which it seems like they are playing really hard for him,

then I'm okay with it, even though that Neanderthal thing is totally uncool. You're right, though. Nagy's not in the list because nobody... He wasn't hated from day one. That's the difference. He wasn't hated from... I think all those guys,

immediately when they got the job, there was a vendetta against them, like, this guy should not be here and we are going to root, you know, kind of root against him, essentially. Whereas I think Nagy, when he got there, it was like, okay, Andy Reid, there's some hope here. He had are going to root, you know, kind of root against him essentially. Whereas I think Nagy, when he got there, it was like,

okay, Andy Reed, there's some hope here. He had a decent first year at least. And there was something to hope, you know, something to build on or hope for. And the,

all these other guys, uh, it was from day one. Yeah. I mean, Nagy's made the playoffs. What? Twice?

Yeah. He's made, he's made it twice. Now the point of this whole thing was me saying like, what if, what if through all of this and everybody being right about Nagy not being good? I mean, here's some numbers for you. Right now, we told you about where the offense has been in the last 15 years.

Against the Browns, they average 1.1 yards per play. That's the worst for a team since 2004. It's the second worst since 1981. I don't know what the hell they were doing when they were trying to block Miles Garrett with just Jason Peters. The front office hasn't done him any favors. Their top three cap hits are Allen Robinson, who we all like but doesn't get the ball anymore, and Nick Foles, who's watching and basically said to Dalton, hey, the offense doesn't work, and that was caught on camera. Then

Jimmy Graham, who has one catch. Those are your top three cap hits for your Chicago Bears. The team is not well run. It's not a really talented team. This is not a pro-Nagy segment. I'm just simply saying, like all the other rookie quarterbacks, none of these guys are ready. I would rather you play and get out there and get it over with.

But yeah, I'll admit there was a part of me for the push for fields because preseason numbers were 30 of 49 for 360 yards, three touchdowns, zero picks, and a 97 QBR rating. That, oh, yeah, okay, he's ready. He's good to go. Look how awesome he's been in the preseason. The preseason means nothing. It means even less now.

No one cares about it. Zach Wilson against the Packers. I was going back and reading preseason stories this morning. 9 of 11, 128 yards, two touchdowns. Quote, Wilson picks apart Packers. I was going back and reading preseason stories this morning. 9 of 11, 128 yards, two touchdowns. Quote, Wilson picks apart Packers defense. Randy Mueller, 40 years in NFL front offices, now on a podcast, said, quote, Zach Wilson, more ready than Trevor Lawrence. Have you watched Zach Wilson?

Again, he might end up being right. This isn't like an anti-Randy Mueller thing, but the whole point is that none of these guys necessarily were ready, and Nagy might have just been like, hey, look, he's not ready, and I don't even want to put him out there, but they did a disastrous job helping Fields through his first start against Cleveland.

Now, I'll leave it at this. I mean, like Chicago and Fields or anyone else, I mean, there's a Jets amount of coverage where I'm annoyed by your own assumption of your own relevance. Like, no one cares. I mean, the Jets, you're not the Giants.

I mean, whenever it's like, oh, here we go with the Jets game, keep it to yourself. Sit in a corner and face the corner and be bummed out about your fucking Jets on your own. I don't want to hear about it anymore. At least the Bears have some history,

although it's bad history at the position. When you get the quarterback like Fields, who looked as good as he did at Ohio State, we all know what the game here is. The game is, even if it's not going to work out, at least I have hope. At least I have hope. Nagy may have been delaying your hope. He might have been actually doing you a bit of a favor here because I don't know if Fields is going to be great or terrible. I don't know. I don't know. Two of the guys that we're talking about right now, these top first half picks are going to suck. They're going to be on different teams in year

five. Hope is a weird thing. Hope is why we like the NBA draft. Hope is why whoever gets Mo Bamba next, that fan base is going to go, well, the Magic never knew how to use him. That is going to happen. That's what hope is all about. I can only think about trying to get a job. Some of the stuff that I do now, you'll have a meeting.

You're like, all right, the agent says, okay, we're waiting to hear back. You have hope for a few days, and you may not even realize that in a few days you're going to get awful, awful news. And what Nagy did is he made you wait to find out about how much hope you should have and watch Andy Dalton in the process. And I think that's ultimately what led

to all this stuff. And then you see a coach who clearly didn't seem to get his quarterback ready. I hope it works out for Fields. I hope he's awesome. I hope it works out for the Bears. I hope it works out for all those fans. But yes, I couldn't help but notice when I watched that game yesterday, as bad as it was around him, like what if Nagy, the one nobody likes anymore, was actually telling us the truth about where he thought Fields was with his NFL career? I want to finish with two final thoughts here. I want to thank my good friend Colin Cowherd for getting to it.

I tried to call up E-Trade this morning. I was like, is there any way I can invest in people talking about Justin Herbert and saying that he may be past Patrick Mahomes this week? Kyle Hurd did it he did it uh that is I knew somebody was gonna do it because it's a bit like the dance it's like a dance floor take you know where you're like I'm not a dancer by trade and then you get a couple short ones in you you're at the wedding you're like all right fuck it maybe i'll take my jacket off a little bit like oh they're playing r kelly okay although i don't know if that's that's accepted

anymore um you get my point though that you know the song comes on and you're like i'm just gonna get out next thing you know you're just wiling and there's a circle around you that's herbert better than my homes is a wedding dance floor take if I ever saw one. So I knew it was coming. I didn't know if cowherd would go there. I thought he was, I thought he was a little bit more established to go with that one, but he did it.

He did it. That's hysterical because you texted me last night and I was searching on Twitter. I'm like, is nobody going to take the bait on this? I was like, I was hoping to have some actual examples. So thank you, Colin. You're the man. Appreciate it.

I just wish I could make money off of that stuff. Cause that was one where I was like to have some actual examples. So thank you, Colin. You're the man. Appreciate it. I just wish I could make money off of that stuff. Because that was one where I was like, okay. The quote was, I would argue that Herbert almost makes it look easier. Than Mahomes. Than Mahomes. Not just playing the position. If there's one thing we'd say about Patrick Mahomes at this point of his career, is no one's ever made the position look easier ever

and he was like you know what I'm taking Herbert alright and then the last one is I just want to thank Aaron Rodgers who said after an incredible final possession there was like alright you need two deep throws you need the clock to be right you need a spike and give Crosby a chance I mean that was just absolute surgery that you would expect from a guy like Aaron Rodgers.

But I want to thank him for not taking the Jeopardy job because I know I already prepped for it. And if Aaron Rodgers is hosting Jeopardy right now because he put a lot of prep work into those shows, we would be denied that last night. And it was close, if you believe some people, about Aaron Rodgers hosting Jeopardy. Okay, looking forward to this, especially because I don't think any of us expected three weeks in to be going, okay, one and two Chiefs, what's the deal?

Joining us now, a guy who played tackle for them for a bunch of seasons, been on the podcast before, it's Mitchell Schwartz. So, no, look, there's no way any of us thought that they'd be one and two. We probably thought their defense would have some issues. We've seen that. But specific to what we saw yesterday and kind of the whole thing, I mean, look, these are still your friends. These are guys you played with just last year.

You retired. What are you watching right now when you see the Chiefs? Well, I didn't actually retire. I'm still recovering from back surgery. Wait, what? Yeah, I still have a little nerve pain down the legs every day. So once I can get that figured out, then I can make an official decision.

So that is not the case right now. But in terms of the Chiefs, it sucks to see. I mean, as you said, I know everyone, and obviously I'm cheering for them. It seems like offensively, I mean, going against Brandon Staley, all the articles have been written, the too high thing. It seems like teams are going to kind of force Kansas City to march down the field and not make a mistake

and have those 12, 14 play drives, not have a turnover. You know, they got three rookies on the O-line, not give up a sack or holding call or some sort of bad play to throw off the drive. And, you know, the thing that scares teams the most about the Chiefs is the speed and the, you know, big playability. I think, you know, teams tried to impress them. They tried to throw some man stuff at them, confuse them with different defensive looks. I think now it seems like they're just going to sit back,

play super deep, take away Tyreek going 50 yards downfield and kind of force the Chiefs to march themselves down the field. The past couple of weeks, at some point in most of those drives, they've had that turnover. They've had that bad play that ruins drives. Yeah, if you're going to get four straight possessions with turnovers from the carryover of the end of Baltimore and then what happened at the start of this game against the Chargers, I mean, look, that's not going to happen. This team could be 3-0.

I look at them in 1-2 and go, okay, what's the biggest issue? The crazy part about the Chargers game is that I actually loved what they were doing defensively for most of it. I was like, hey, they're probably going to have a terrible defense. Maybe even worse than they were last year. Whatever. It's not going to matter. I actually thought they had really nice stretches defensively yesterday for the first time this season. Yeah, that's the best the defense has looked by far.

I mean, they came out. They were flying around early in the game. They got some of those three and outs and those quick defensive stops. Obviously the offense put them in a pretty bad position for, you know, about two or three quarters there and they still held their own. I mean, by the end of the game, you know, they give up one or two touchdowns. But again, everyone's talking about Herbert, that offense, you know, all the things they can do. So, you know, defensively, they looked a lot better. I mean, the first two weeks, your run defense probably isn't going to look great if you face Baltimore and Cleveland in weeks one and two. Two of probably the best two run teams in the NFL and so different stylistically.

But the defense just looked like they had that attitude, that aggression yesterday. As you said, they did a lot better. It's not too not uh too often where uh you're seeing the defense kind of holding the game up and then you know as bad as the offense was like in the middle of the third quarter i think the chiefs took the lead the score flipped and you're like all right well they've been playing like crap and here they are in command and i think everyone at that point thought it was going to be you know a 10 14 17 point victory so you mentioned the two high safeties with staley uh this is something that we're seeing um brandon staley apparently you know again this is me reading about it and then

seeing what people say after the fact is that he's going to try to get teams to run you know one of the things that i've noticed whether it's saturday or sunday is that nobody wants to get out of trouble with the run ever and and i always laugh whenever it's 14 nothing at the start of the second quarter and the analysts will be like well you know you gotta you gotta still try to stay balanced you're like there's still two and a half hours left it's two scores like you don't have to only pass and with mahomes it's not like i'd want to be handing it off a ton you're kind of doing what they want but did you ever have i mean look it's kind of ridiculous to even ask you this question when you're playing with a guy who might go down as the best to ever play the position but did you ever have moments where

you were like why are we just passing every single time no yeah i mean he just he makes it work you know i always from my perspective i always thought when the offense kind of got bogged down or when we weren't looking so hot, I always thought, hey, just go empty and just put all the pressure on the defense. I mean, put Tyreek, Travis Kelsey, a running back, Nicole, D-Rob, Sammy Watkins at the time. Just put all those guys out there and just say, all right, cover all five of them. Because you know Pat can diagnose the blitz. You know he can like, oh, this guy's coming. I'm just going to dump it off over here. Oh, can diagnose the blitz you know he can like oh this guy's coming i'm just gonna dump it off over here oh kelsey saw the blitz he's open now so if you want to blitz him good luck if you want to try to hold up with seven guys on those five

and having all the options available i mean good luck on that too you know i always thought spread it out kind of go more up tempo maybe start running two minutes stuff i mean we see we saw this thursday night with you know davis mill or david mills Mills. They looked pretty bad for a whole half, and all of a sudden they got into the two-minute drive and they started moving the ball. Teams that aren't moving the ball get into these drives and they start pushing the tempo. They start throwing it downfield, and all of a sudden they have success.

And so to get back to the question, no, I never thought, hey, maybe we should start running it more. But to your point, when I had Kyle Shanahan as my offensive coordinator in 2014 in Cleveland, we got down pretty big. Our first game of the year in Pittsburgh, we were down like 24 to 3 at the half. I was like, okay, well, this is another great season. And Kyle's thing, so he had this super up-tempo offense. It was a step faster than a traditional, you know, kind of two-minute no-huddle thing.

There's like one word, and that tells you the formation and the play and all that stuff. And we went out and we just basically ran the ball left, right, play action, run left, run right. And to your point, you know, we were down three scores and we clawed our way back to tie it with the run game. So yeah, you don't have to start throwing the ball

down 14-0 in the first quarter. Modern football is obviously trending towards passing on every single play and as you love to say going for every single fourth down and uh you know that doesn't have to be the case yeah it's a stupid question in your like for me to ask it about the kansas city chiefs as i'm asking the question i'm like this is a really stupid question because you should never want Pat Mahomes to be like, no, I'm good. We're just going to keep handing it off a ton. But I would say in a broader

observation of the game, especially on some of the Saturday stuff, where they got guys that are three weeks out of high school, you know, again, I don't mean graduation date, but start of their college career, and you're going, so you're just going to have this guy drop back 55 times in an SEC game? What are we doing?

And that's when the score is still somewhat close. So for Mahomes, it's a stupid question. And I'm willing to admit maybe it's still not the greatest observation. It's just an observation that exists that no one ever seems to ever want to settle things down or get back into a game by running the football or even just being balanced at all. It's like, as soon as you see 14,

nothing, it's like, oh shit, we're just going to go shotgun four wide. Let's do it with the chiefs. Here's the other thing. Like, I don't know.

You're going to answer this one is, is there something you're seeing defensively where so much of it's on Kelsey and Hill where it's almost two guys on them every time because there isn't enough respect for the third downfield threat? I mean, it does seem that way, at least with Tyreek specifically. You know, Trav is still putting up numbers and, you know, has a bunch of catches and, you know, you can put two or three guys on him, but even he doesn't know where he's going to go until he makes the move. So it's, you know's a little futile to try to learn tendencies and route concepts because Trav just is all feel out there and he knows what's on the paper.

And then he goes and does his own thing and gets open. But yeah, it seems like as an offensive lineman, so I learned this from Joe Thomas, what is the guy I'm going against do best? Oh, if I'm going against Von Miller, it's a spin move. If I go against Bosa, maybe it's the power in the long arm. That's their best thing. Take it away. If he can beat me on a second or third move, great. He's a great rusher and that works for him. I think defenses are figuring that too. If you take away

the thing the Chiefs do best, which is Tyreek running wild downfield, Kelsey catching everything, you can live with McColl, D-Rob, Kringle, the other guys beating you. I thought yesterday the Chiefs moved the ball really well it seemed like they were you know kind of quote unquote in control um it just every drive ended in some sort of mistake whether that was their own fault or whether it was the chargers making a play with you know punching a ball out or whatever um but

yeah i mean i don't see any reason why you wouldn't i mean we talked about say we but people talked about you know belichick and, oh, well, he takes his best corner and he puts him on the second best receiver and he doubles the first receiver. And like, we saw those clips of, you know, two guys

on like Tony Gonzalez at the line of scrimmage and like they just basically hold the crap out of him back when that was legal and in the red zone and just saying like, all right, good luck

beating us with anything else. So yeah, I mean, going into a game, what do you have to worry about? Tyreek and Kelsey. So do what you can to take them away. At that point, you start mixing it up. And then that's where things get a little bit more confusing. And the defense, you know, stops being quite as predictable. All right, last thing on the Chiefs here. Give me a story that gives all of us an example of what it's like to break the huddle with Mahomes, or, you know, him,

him diagnosing something, him seeing something. I mean, there's a lot of special players out there that play the position, but there's a calmness to him too that is pretty rare. You would watch him and be like, I can't tell if he's up 30 or down 20. Yeah, so I like to think of myself as a smart player and I can kind of figure out where the blitzes are coming from

and all that stuff. I mean, what he does and what these quarterbacks do is on a whole other level. But we'll go into a play and, oh, I know the front and I see the safety and I know this blitz has come in and say he calls the protection the other direction. And I kind of turn back like, hey, this guy's going to come. He's like, yeah, yeah, I got it.

And he just has those moments where he's making that decision knowing maybe a guy is going to come free because the guy coming free leads to like this particular hot throw and they're going to run this coverage and like the guy behind him is going to be open and maybe he actually doesn't want that guy to be blocked he wants him to be free and it's just this like whole other higher level of thinking where i think i'm so cool and i got this shit and like oh yeah i know the blitz we should slide this way he's like no. We actually want to go the other way. I want to make sure this guy's free.

I want to throw over his head. It's just those kind of little moments where you realize this other level that the guy's playing on. That offense, I mean, there's so many moving parts. There's a motion guy every time. There's people moving at the snap.

I mean, the verticality of it. He has to know what we're doing too because it's a center-directed, well, it's not a center-directed offense. It's's a quarterback directed offense so you know he's kind of in control of all that stuff it's just cool and like every time you think you have it figured out like you realize that like this guy is four steps ahead of you it's nice to have that guy back there that's for sure was there ever because you know when you get enough people around there's always a difference of opinion was there ever a time early on there was a guy who was like, I don't really like this dude?

No. You're talking about people not liking Pat? Yeah, because I've never heard a thing. No. There wasn't one guy maybe that got cut three weeks later? It was like, you guys, eh. I don't know. Kind of annoying.

No. I don't think you would name him anyway, but I was trying. No, there's some guys that you don't like throughout your career that you're not willing to throw out there. But I think that's kind of the cool thing with him and with Kelsey as well is what you see is actually what you get. It's not a facade. It's not them trying to be this brand or whatever.

They're just themselves and they're natural. And I think that's why people gravitate towards them. What are you willing to say about who the Chargers are for not only this season, but the next couple of years? Yeah, it seems like they're kind of neck and neck with Kansas City at this point because the differentiation has always been Mahomes. Herbert seems like he's, I don't know,

a top eight guy already and getting a lot better. You know, we saw in the Super Bowl last year, you know, obviously Kansas City's goal this whole offseason, make the O-line better. You can't expose your quarterback. Your O-line has to be, you know, if not the best in the league, it's got to be a top 10 unit. You know, the Chargers went out, they dropped to the left tackle, they brought in, you know, a top center. They really solidified the offensive line. So that gives Herbert this whole springboard. I mean, they've had studs in the skill positions for forever. I went to school with Keenan in college, so I've always known how good he is.

But they've got these other receivers. They've got the running backs. They've got a tight end or two. The offensive line is really what was holding back that offense, so they fixed that. Defensively, I mean, you get this, you know, kind of the new age style of defense. So you've got the guy leading the charge now in charge of the team. So he's bringing his ideas, his thoughts to a defense that's pretty good skill-wise. I mean, they've got Bosa,

who's obviously phenomenal. Everyone's loved Derwin James when he's on the field. So it's a pretty scary thing. You know, I tweeted out before the game, this is one of the rare times you could get two of the best five quarterbacks in the NFL in the same division playing two or three times a year for the next 15 years. And I think the cool part is it's not offensive genius head coach against offensive genius head coach. It's Staley against Coach Reed every single time. And I think that's a little wrinkle there as well. So yeah, the Chargers look awesome.

I don't think it's too early to say that they're a really good team already and their ceiling is pretty high as well. Yeah, with Derwin going out, I was like, ah, here we go again. Because he's been so good when he's healthy, but he just isn't healthy all that often. Bosa even left for a series and I thought,

oh no, and then I was like, nope, there he is. And then he had a big play late. I love the receivers. I mean, Mike Williams is totally an afterthought all the time. He's a matchup nightmare because of his size. And then Keenan, who's – and I know we always will say this guy's the most underrated, this guy's the most underrated, but we never bring him up with the receivers. I mean, Devontae, I'm a DeAndre Hopkins guy.

We can go on and on, but I just don't feel like Keenan's ever brought up. I mean, Keenan's an interesting guy because I remember being down at Bama right around when it was like, no, he's going to Cal. We were like, wait, Keenan Allen went to Alabama and then he decided to transfer to Cal? Did he ever talk to you guys about that? Not directly, but I think he was trying to get his brother to come, Zach, the quarterback. And I also think Bama wanted him at safety, believe it or not. So it was kind of a package

deal and Cal was willing to accept that package. So my senior year there, I had Zach Maynard as my quarterback. It wasn't bad. I mean, it's not like we really had anyone better at the time either. But I think there was a little bit more of a package deal there than not. But Kenan was incredible. His freshman year, our offensive line coach called him Wonder Boy because he was just doing stuff that we'd never seen before. And he's so smooth.

And then I think a big reason why he's not talked about. So coming out, he had like hurt his knee his last year and he tried to, you know, run for the combine. He ran like a four, seven, one or something ridiculously slow.

So people just assumed he was this like slow wide receiver. He couldn't get separation, but he is so fricking smooth. And like, he's the guy that, you know, if people just look at and actually study, he was doing all that like nuance stuff as 18, 19-year-old in college.

And now as he's in his mid to late 20s, it's pretty awesome to see. And I don't really love talking about Chiefs rivals like that, but Keenan's an awesome dude. And he's just so fun to watch. And anyone that appreciates wide receiver play, he's up there. Like you said, he's just not talked about. i mean look you cow guys stick together um i i was surprised it took so long for you to remind us how smart you are as a cow guy because well i'm looking at i'm looking at the timer i gave myself 12 and a half minutes um i got the over there so

um did you put a fandal prop on that for me or what your face i was like uh-oh did i just ruin the interview and it's like no he had it he had it ready i'm i'm coming on after the fury uh interview so i got a low ceiling a low low bar to climb over the funny thing about keenan yesterday too is that he has this kind of look of disgust throughout the game and i don't know how that like peaks because, you know, when Herbert needed to get the first down, move the sticks, basically kind of in the game, you know, Keenan runs that little route to the right side.

And it's, as you said, it's so smooth. There's not like a ton to it other than just perfect technician at work, gets inside, catch, whatever, first down down and then he just looks around like i shouldn't even be out here with you people which is a little like it's a little aggressive but it was just i don't know it was just a funny way for him to look around to just be like i'm disgusted you even thought i wasn't going to get that first down and it was like man everybody thinks you're pretty good. So I don't know who you're mad at right now.

Yeah, I mean, I've never been one to like fake being angry at people to get motivation. But I think, you know, people kind of need to do that to psych themselves up. Obviously, it's work and whatever he's doing. Yeah, I always, you know, kind of find it interesting to see what makes guys tick. That was always my thing with Richard Sherman. I thought he almost talked so much to motivate himself that he had to then back up what he was saying. It was almost this self-fulfilling thing where he talked a big game, but then he also knew that he put that on himself. And then he had to go succeed and fulfill that.

And he obviously did that, which was pretty cool. So yeah, guys, the inner conversations motivating did that which is pretty cool um so yeah guys like the inner conversations motivating themselves it's it's pretty cool okay let's talk a little bit about play calling and the rest of the stuff that you saw on sunday i mean i opened up with the naggy and fields thing which you know no one's sitting here going i love the way they used fields it was a disastrous like i'm not going to go over everything i just said at the open of this podcast but this feels like it's not just specific to fields i mean we know the rookie qbs are struggling in general but there's even some guys who've been around a while so what are you seeing with play calling um where you can almost tell like it was always my mitch traviski thing with

maggie where i was like oh they don't trust him like i can tell what they're doing now and some of the some of the stuff they would try with him when he's younger they don't even call anymore are you seeing that around the league with a handful of guys yeah and that's what i mean you were big on it last year with two or two like that just didn't look like a staff that you know trusted the guy and talking about self-fulfilling i mean i feel like that's when a coordinator doesn't trust his quarterback or his offense you know what do they do they play it safe so they run the ball on early downs they throw these little two or three yard passes and hope someone breaks the tackle. They throw screens. As we've talked about, those are the lower percentage plays. They're not going to get quite as much yardage. And now you're left with third and seven, third and eight,

potentially third and 10. Or maybe a run got stuffed in the backfield. It's third and 12. But now you put this quarterback that you already didn't trust into a third and five plus situation, which is like the lowest percentage play in the playbook. And so they almost like force themselves into these less successful situations, especially if you don't have a good O-line. I mean, the Bears O-line is struggling. And so if you're playing it conservative earlier, and now all of a sudden they got a pass block on third and eight for four seconds with a quarterback who's not diagnosing things quite as crisp and quickly. You know, that's going to be real bad. And so, you know, weirdly, you know, these coordinators that don't trust their quarterbacks.

I mean, we saw it again. I mentioned earlier with Houston. You know, they basically played the most vanilla offense of all time. And not a surprise they couldn't get, you know, conversions on third downs because they're setting themselves up with these third and longs. All of a sudden, they kind of just let the quarterback loose in the two-minute drive. They had no choice and he started playing better. And then in the second half, they trusted him a little bit more. You're able to do some better things on early downs, put yourself in better situations. I feel like that Miami game yesterday, we saw that a little bit with Brissette. I don't know what it is with Miami. It seems like once they don't trust the quarterback, they go pretty calm and pretty vanilla.

Again, it's just another O-line situation that if you don't trust your O-line on first and 10 to hold up for a seven-yard pass, how are you going to trust them on third and eight for that 12-yard pass? And so I think a little bit more aggression. It's not, as we talked about earlier, you don't have to throw the ball all the time.

It's not that type of thing. But playing it really slow and cautious, especially when the O-line isn't clicking on all levels, I think you're just setting your whole offense up for failure. Because it's the same side of the ball, but it is the division, where were you at with Derek Carr and where are you now with him from what he's done this year? So I always thought clean pocket Derek Carr was awesome. You know, there's no one who watches him throw, you know, his pretty passes and says, oh, this guy sucks.

Like he throws an amazing ball when everything's clicking. You know, he was one of those top guys. To me, he was always the guy that once the pressure started to build and more, you know, defense-to-line pressure, you know, getting after the quarterback, he seemed to change into a little bit different quarterback and he kind of always went into a week, hey, if we can get to him, if we can affect him,

you know, the play starts to slip. You know, I'll just always remember, I mean, it's something you don't necessarily forget, but, you know, he was feeling a little pressure. He was trying to get rid of the ball and just kind of threw a duck over to the left side and it got picked. It might have been a pick six,

but one of those, like, he just didn't want to take the hit and wanted to get rid of it and made a really poor decision. And, you know, that was kind of the thing that I had stuck in my head. Two, three weeks, dude, he is crushing it. He has, you know, pressure in his face. He's throwing these bombs that are accurate.

You know, obviously he's led these fourth and fifth quarter overtime drives. You know, essentially the only quote unquote knock that or concern I would have had about him is how he holds up when the pocket condenses, when guys are hitting him, all those things. He's just been lights out. And so he's a quarterback that's firing on all cylinders.

Everything looks good. There's not really an area of weakness. And he was always able to do all those things. It was just kind of that last step for quarterbacks to vault themselves into the top tier. So yeah, when you're talking about him, you're talking about Herbert and the Chargers and the Broncos are sitting there

3-0. The AFC West looks pretty loaded right now. The thing that I always thought, Carr was really, I don't know what it was. I think the way his schedule worked, he always watched Van Pelt and I. So then when we met him or we had him on he was like specifically nice to us and you're like oh that's that's cool and i'll admit like it's a smart thing strategically to do as an athlete

because you know derrick was somebody early on like if you go look at some of sandoz quarterback tiers and i remember i think one year he might have been a top five preseason MVP favorite. Cause it was a carry over of like, okay, he's this young guy that's turned the page and you're good to go. And then it's like, all right, some of the numbers are really good. Um, we had a scoring number from him going from this season to the last season, where I think he was number two in drives that lead to any points at all. Um, I mean, that's, that's unbelievable. I mean, the number all. Yeah. I mean, that's, that's unbelievable. I mean, the number two quarterback negotiating this. I mean, if you want to sit here and talk about some of the numbers being off for a little

bit here or there, like I saw Emmanuel Acho do this thing where he was trashing Dak Prescott and he used the same TD stat like twice in the same presentation. It was like, look how low he is in TDs. Look how low he is in TD percentage. You're like, dude, that's like saying a guy who doesn't get a lot of hits has a low average. Like we got it. And so we can move the numbers around however we want. But that's a pretty clear cut deal where it's like, all right, if you're quarterbacking your team and you're second behind only one other guy, a number of drives that lead to points.

It just always felt like the Raiders wanted to replace him. So maybe that impacted us a little bit. But the other part about Carr that I always thought was funny was that after he got so sick of first take talking about him, specifically Kellerman, he challenged Kellerman to a fight and he was like, what are we getting to the octagon? We should start a business here. And then, which sucks for Kell kellerman is that a betting site named steven a the favorite in a boxing match against derrick carr and they never used kellerman

in there again i don't know if derrick carr would beat up i would think if you're getting hit by 300 pound guys every week you're more likely you're tougher than a lot of us that are behind a microphone so you know i still think derrick carl We all know you're ripped, so probably not you. Yeah, well, ripped is an exaggeration there. I don't know. I just did a really long Derek Carr thing, and I'm not quite sure where it was going. I don't know if you had more to add to that,

but I do have a question off of that soliloquy. Well, the interesting thing, so Carr, I feel like, has had kind of the Twitter reputation of blocking guys pretty easily. He does? Yeah, I feel like, has had kind of the Twitter reputation of blocking guys pretty easily. He does? Yeah, I'm pretty sure. Not like Roethlisberger, though. Not like the Roethlisberger guy.

No, I mean, he's the leader in the clubhouse. But I think Carr might be number two for quarterbacks who, you know, any sort of negativity out there. And look, I don't mind people that block or mute people on Twitter. I'm not blocked. Nice. Yeah, there you go. See, so he does like you. Let's check Roethlisberger.

Yeah, I think Carr has kind of... The first few years, like you said, he was a young guy. He was ascending. He didn't have quite as big of a jump as we'd like. Then all of a sudden, he gets Gruden as the coach. Everyone's ragging on Gruden. The offense sucks. He's a mess.

You know, the first year or two, it was good. It wasn't great. You know, you kind of wanted more. Yeah, you were thinking about replacing him potentially. I mean, at the time, two years ago, what Carr was, what we've seen of Kyler the past few years, you know, Kyler was the guy they wanted to replace him with. Well, that seems kind of logical.

I mean, this past year, yeah, who really wouldn't want to trade for Aaron Rodgers? You know, that seems pretty logical. So I'm not sure that placed by, you know, an elite quarterback is a bad thing. I think, you know, to go completely off topic, this whole Shanahan-LeFleur thing, the fact that like LeFleur is miffed that Shanahan had the gall to like ask if they could trade for Aaron Rodgers. Who wouldn't want to trade for him? You're really pissed about that? I mean, come on. That is ridiculous. Your quarterback is saying he's never going to play for you again.

And supposedly one of your good friends calls and says, hey, if you guys are going to trade him, can you think about us? We would love to have him. I don't see what's wrong about that. So that's a weird situation. I don't know what you thought about that, but that's a weird situation. I don't know what you thought about that,

but that whole storyline is just odd. It doesn't make any sense. I mean, the guy went on a campaign publicly for months and then showed up and then was like, all right, I guess I'm good. You're not doing your job. Imagine being on San Francisco's side and saying, well, we couldn't call about Rogers

even though he was campaigning to get out of there just because we couldn't do that to Lafleur. Like give me a break. You can not like it, but you can also understand it. Yeah, exactly.

And I don't know. I mean, people take stuff personal for just really odd reasons, but that's one, you know, especially since it was the Sunday night game last night and then they held the whole handshake thing and everyone loves handshakes on Twitter and reading body language and all that stuff. By the way, still blocked by Roethlisberger.

I uncovered that one years ago, and then everybody was going, wait, I'm blocked too. I'm blocked too. It was a fun little day. We were able to put together some content. Okay, so I'm going to leave you with this then. Because of the Derek Carr challenging Kellerman, which then turned into Stephen A.

Smith, which I still kind of respected a little bit. Uh, is there a quarterback that you're like, actually, this is the toughest quarterback I ever played with? Well, Josh McCann is pretty tough.

I think we've kind of all unearthed that after he played with a hamstring, like torn off his leg. Um, but he But he was awesome. He would get back there and take some freaking shots and just keep trucking. Honestly, people aren't going to expect me to say this. Brandon Whedon, that dude did not care about getting hit. He would get lit up and just keep coming back. He was the first quarterback I played with, so maybe I didn't quite know that NFL quarterbacks do that at the time.

But I remember he would stand in the pocket and he would take fricking shots. I mean, he was also like 29. So he probably had his old man strength at that point, but you know, he, he would, he would take it. I was impressed by it. You know, obviously we all know Alex Smith's toughness at this point too. You know, he's a guy one of your favorite quarterbacks, obviously, but you know, no one's going to question that guy's toughness. Yeah, I think Josh McCown was like sneakily one of those guys. One, one of the most awesome guys.

And two, super tough. And then that got unearthed again in that playoff game. Okay, but what if you had to fight McCown? I think he could bring it if like his family was threatened uh I think I mean personally I'm not really like a fight guy either so I would have to have like some motivation to get me going um what if he insulted your cooking oh man if he asked for like some a1 sauce for my steak yeah it'd be go time gloves are off um i definitely couldn't take the the hockey guy you guys had but uh no i don't think i don't think many because winger brad uh winger

who was on who people check out that podcast a lot of hockey tough guys would just be like yeah on skates like i'm i'm incredible and it's like i'm gonna lose a lot of fights with a random guy every now and then but i'm completely different on skates than i am not on skates and so i asked him that he was just like what dude he's like i just i just destroyed people what are you talking about i drive a rock truck and pick up hollandaise sauce and sign autographs now um anyway all right hey i uh i appreciate this because uh i'd like to do this again at some point. So not retired Mitchell Schwartz, formerly of the Chiefs. And again, you can follow all of this stuff, which actually is kind of cool to check out during a Chiefs game.

It's at MitchSchwartz71. So thanks, man. Yeah, I appreciate you having me on. I know we kind of went in all different directions there, but I had fun. Jason Goff has a new podcast with us here at the ringer of the full go with Jason Goff. I listened to him for years on ESPN radio. He is out of Chicago and he is upset.

I assume like everyone attached to Chicago. So if you'd like to Chicago sports, check out Jason stuff. Okay. My open isn't going to even be popular. Cause I just didn't go 100 like it's i mean look maybe it's 98 nagging two percent fields um how are you doing today i feel like anybody from chicago i can't even get to the business part of this until i check in like

are you a lifelong bears fan that's completely distraught okay so just save space go whatever direction you need to go in man just i've seen too much of this and to have somebody with the raw materials that justin feels i think has you know we've like shout out to shane matthews and mike tomzak and rex grossman and kyle orton and all the dudes who came before him i just i don't want this for him like i i know what this franchise does to that position and i just don't want have it's like seeing like knowing that you're the bad person in a relationship and then you see another one coming along you're like i i don't want this for you like let me get my shit together first and then maybe you can flourish you know like that's how i feel about this whole thing and and uh that

that seemed a little specific yeah yeah yeah yeah shout out to the old me. But now that Browns game, man, that was, um, she's like 48 yards on 42 plays. Like, right. I know you've seen some bad sports in your life, covered some bad sports in your life. That's as bad like all time Chicago lows that that's right up there, brother. That's like Terry Bevington. That's like Tim Floyd era Bulls. That's bad, man. It's bad. Yeah, look, I'm with you. And I think that's the problem for any Bears fan is that if you're like, okay, well, what if it's still a little bit of feels? You're like, no, we don't want to hear that right now. We don't want to hear that.

And look, none of the rookies look good right now. They all look overwhelmed. They look like completely different guys than we saw in August when there was so much excitement for it. Nagy didn't get it done with Trubisky. I think there's another part of the Chicago ownership that's been explained to me a lot, and that it's not a group with deep pockets.

They've kind of just inherited this thing. So they don't run it. Like you think Chicago, you think big market, it's one of the best cities in the country. Anybody who's spent any time, we keep falling in love with that place. You love the people from there.

And yet it's like, wait, this isn't a first class operation. Like the Chicago bears aren't a first class operation. So I think that part of the story is something outside of Chicago a lot of people don't understand, which leads to even more frustration and more angst when something looks as bad as it did yesterday.

Yeah, I mean, a lot of angst and frustration are always thrown at Ted Phillips because he's a money guy who a lot of people believe is involved in some football stuff that maybe he shouldn't be involved in at times. But, you know, it's the McCaskey family. And it's Virginia McCaskey who is the matriarch of this entire thing, who gets shown on every nationally televised game. She cares. I believe she cares. But then when it filters down to the Suns and the people running the organization, like in my

lifetime, I believe there may be been two coaches, two head coaches hired with previous head coaching experience. I'm 40 years old, right? So this has been a new job and a first-time job for far too many people for it to be a heritage franchise in this league. So, yeah, it goes above Justin Fields. It goes above Matt Nagy. But in this instance where you hire the offensive guru and your points per game keep going down, you can put it on Ryan Pace, too.

I mean, this dude takes big swings, moves up in the draft, and sometimes those swings don't work out. You know, Kevin White, Leonard Floyd, who was playing against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers yesterday instead of for the Chicago Bears. Right. He's playing the L.A. Rams. yesterday instead of for the Chicago Bears, right? He's playing the LA Rams. So, you know, it's a long, long fight that Bears fans have had. There's a lot of different gangs in this city. There's the Bulls gang.

There's a Sox gang. There's a Cubs gang. And we all fall under the Bears umbrella. And to see this happen in the way we've seen it happen before, it's just, it's painstaking to say the least because Mondays aren't fun around here when the Bears lose and it's not going to be a fun Monday through Saturday for that organization. Do you think Nagy makes the season then? Do you think he lasts? I do. This isn't a group that fires people in the middle of seasons, even when they're supposed to be. Like the Mark

Trestman era was, I won't say it's as bad as it gets because I've seen some bad stuff. But when Mark Trestman lost the locker room pretty much two weeks into the season, you thought to yourself, all right, they're not buying into the CFL guy stuff. So what are you going to do here? And he had another year, you know. So I don't believe that Matt Nagy is going to be fired. I would be surprised if he would be fired, but I wouldn't disagree with it because yesterday, to me, is a culmination of things. You know, you've had enough quarterbacks. And now do I want you to ruin this one? Do I want you to not protect this one? Do I want you to not roll the pocket and play to his strengths? You already got that with Mitch Trubisky, right?

If this guy is a highly idealized version of what Mitch Trubisky should have been, you know, Mitch had his one year in North Carolina. This guy's two time offensive player of the year in the Big Ten. That's a damn good conference, right? So if you can't get what you need to get out of him going forward, these next two or three weeks are going to be very, very key, not only for Matt Nagy, but I think for Justin Fields, too, because we saw it with Zach Wilson. Zach Wilson got hit a whole bunch in that first game. Second game, Zach was moving around. What happened? Three interceptions in the first half. So you got to be very careful with these guys. You got to play to their strengths.

And I don't think Matt Nagy wants his system to be the star instead of his players starring in a system that is built around them. That sounds personal. And I'm not saying you're wrong. You know what I mean? But to say that I don't want to adjust what I'm doing to tailor this to his strengths, like that in itself, that's true,

then he shouldn't be in the building. I mean, if you've watched Bears football, and I know a lot of people haven't and don't need to. I watched the whole game yesterday because I wanted to see him and because DirecTV jammed me up until the fourth quarter. And at that point, I think I'd had it pretty discovered. Yeah. I mean, look, the protection I'd had it pretty discovered. Yeah. I mean, look, the protection for anybody that's listening,

protection was terrible. The protection schemes for what they were trying to do didn't make a ton of sense. We could talk about the lack of motion. We could talk about the personnel groupings and all that different stuff. My point in the opening, again, was that, hey, Fields wasn't good. I mean, it was pretty bad.

But I'm not like sitting here going, now I have a full evaluation of who Justin Fields is after a bad game where it didn't look like anything was matched but that's a pretty damning statement if that's true that naggy would rather not adapt to then you know but again these guys are stubborn so go ahead these these are the results though i mean you know whether it be andy dalton or nick foals oroles or Mitchell, Mitchell Trubisky, Matt Nagy, when he first got here was celebrated coach of the year, right? I mean, we, we, we saw the offensive prowess. He came out in that first game against the green Bay Packers, which was a loss on Sunday night football. He ran the T formation.

Everybody's like, yeah, we finally got an offensive coach here in the city. And since then the offenses stayed the same and the points per game have gone down now if bobby massey and charles leno jr are that important to your offense in terms of tackles then all right cool you know what i mean then that you got it player i can't argue with you right but but if we're talking about a guy who's supposed like for instance the bill belichick's the greg popovich's of the world we've seen great coach i'm not saying that matt negi is supposed to be them or is them but we've seen great coaches adapt right we've seen great coaches in football air it out when they got to run the ball and when they when their offense says you know what we can't we don't have it as efficient a passing

game as we used to we gotta we gotta we gotta run this thing greg popovich we've seen the space and pace and we've also seen hey we're gonna dump dump it down low and give Tim Duncan or whoever the ball 20 straight times because that's what we have to do to win. Now, this is a guy who said, I'm not going to come here, run twice and pass, you know, run, run and then pass and then punt. Like he said this to Chicago media before. OK, so if your offense is telling you, you don't have to run, run and then pass and then maybe punt. That's what it is to win the game. on top of it your general manager went out and spent a whole bunch of money and draft capital on on the likes of Khalil Mack you know they re-signed Akeem Hicks I mean you drafted Roquan Smith you got to follow the money the money is on the defensive side of the football you know Allen Robinson is

trying to get paid this is the lowest output that he's had in in the first three weeks of his career he's got 84 yards in three games so you got to know where your strengths are. And I feel like he's the kind of guy that if they win or when they won, it was, hey, look at how cool my system is. And now when you're taking your lumps, you got to pull it back and say, okay, not just hand over play calling duties, because that's what's going to happen. Bill Lazor at some point is going to be given the play calling duties like this. This has happened before in this regime, in this run with this crew, with Matt Nagy. So I feel like his system has to be the star because when they do win or when they are successful, he can sit back and say,

hey man, I know how to do this. When he first got here, Ryan, the Mitchell Trubisky era started with this offense being the 101 version, right? Like it was a college, you know, there was college courses. This is just the offense in the 101 version. Well, guess what, man? We are in community college now. We are sitting here with a cafeteria of bad frozen pizzas waiting to go to some psych class that ain't going to get you a job.

That's what's happening right now with Matt Nagy's offense. And the proof is in the pudding, like 48 yards. That's impossible. 11 of us can go out there and get 40 yards, maybe 35, 48. The biggest play was a 44 yard pass interference play when Justin Fields said, fuck it and threw it down the field because he was tired of getting his head beat in. Like they ran misdirection one time and that was on sack number seven. Like Jadavion Clowney and Miles Garrett was sitting there like, wait, you're going to

get the dude that's cooked in Jason Peters and put him in front of me. And then Jermaine O'Fetty, who's bounced around and then put him in front of me and think all I got to do is get to that point. There's no launch angle difference. Like Justin fields was playing andy dalton's game plan and and and the national pundits and everybody out there looking like there isn't such thing as out of town stupid right like we don't watch everybody else's games and when we tune into we were tuning when we tune into somebody else's games go okay i got it i got three hours of what i needed to see.

Fans have been watching this for three years. And then he says in the press conference, Ryan, well, it's about the whys. We got to go figure out the whys. Well, guess what, player? The why might be you. At some point, the why has to be you, right? If every roommate you got is a bad roommate, you might be the bad roommate. So I'm sitting back in the cut waiting for Matt Nagy to come out because

Tuesday's going to come around and we're going to talk about talk about it again and it's gonna be we're all to the lions well no tell me what the why was tell me what you found out because if if there's one thing that's for sure this organization cannot they can't withstand another broken offense broken quarterback people not wanting to come here because the offense sucks, or having to pay more to wide receivers and more to tight ends and more to tackles and pay over what you want to pay, market value, because of what's happened here offensively. It's just not a good feeling right now.

There's nothing to follow up on that. That was terrific, man. I'm angry, brother. I'm angry. I'm angry. I'm angry. I'm smiling. I'm smiling to keep from crying right now. That was really well done. The full go with Jason Goff out of Chicago, part of the ringer in Spotify,

new podcast. Happy to have him, man. Thanks. Thank you, man. Now I get to go talk to Derek Jones. Let's do a little college football roundup here after another week where we have the uncertainty I think

we were all looking for. That's been now kind of the storyline the last couple weeks, but now it's official. Let's start it though with a little shout out to Arkansas aka our Kansas. If Les Miles is listening, they went 0-16 in SEC play 2018-2019, and they just beat Texas A&M.

Now, A&M's got their own problems if you watch that game. Calzada, who we've talked about a quarterback in for Haynes King, he struggled against Colorado, made a big throw, though, so they win that game, looked better the week after that. It's very clear. Calzada happens to go against this SEC West lineup. I don't know. And I also just don't

understand why coaches do this to some of these guys. Like, alright, hey, we want you to throw it out here in the flat. And when the kid's not looking at anything else and throws it out to the flat for a loss, it's like, hey, completed the pass. That's why some of these guys are like, oh man, he's completing 71% of his passes. But is he looking at anything that's going on? Again, this is somebody who

is a freshman. We're talking not that far removed from high school, so I try not to be as critical as I get a little bit older because it's a really big spot and Ernie looks like he's so flustered out there. But Arkansas' defense has dudes, and even with Jefferson, their quarterback, going down and missing

a good chunk, which is where A&M can get back into this. I don't think A&M is anybody you have to worry about at this point. I think Arkansas is very real, and we're going to find out very soon here against a team in Georgia whose offense has picked it up again against lesser opponents, but we know is loaded with pros on defense. I watched the entire Notre Dame-Wisconsin game. We've got Notre Dame now ranked ninth. Notre Dame's offensive

line and Jack Cohn to start this game, it was ugly. But the problem is Graham Mertz, quarterback for Wisconsin, who to remind everybody is like one of the most highly talented quarterbacks, highly touted, most talented, whatever, quarterbacks to come in to Madison because most of those guys aren't going to end up there. I know that's shocking as much as I love Madison. But he is now against unranked teams 5-0, 10 touchdowns, zero turnovers responsible for. Against the ranked teams, Mertz is 0-5 with two touchdowns and 14 turnovers that he's responsible for.

The biggest takeaway I had from this is that both quarterbacks, I'm not going to take either of these teams all that seriously. Now Wisconsin has two losses. But Notre Dame even undefeated at this point. I mean, I guess you get a little excited for Drew Pine, the freshman from Connecticut. Shout out. But between the O-line problems for Notre Dame and that cone,

I just, I don't know. I don't really see it. So I almost, in a weird way, I think Notre Dame eventually is going to lose to somebody here, so you don't have to worry about the playoff part of this. Oklahoma. They beat West Virginia at home, and this was a tough one. I love West Virginia.

I do. I love the way they play defense. We see some weird Big 12 stuff here. We're not used to this. Oklahoma's defense is good. West Virginia had a couple guys in the edge all game long. It was so much fun to watch, which is a big problem for Spencer Rattler's quarterback who was running around the entire day now he was running around the offense wasn't going it's weird to see Oklahoma look like this they've had three offensive outputs this season which I think are like three of the

five worst since Lincoln Riley showed up in 2015 Caleb Williams is the backup to Spencer Rattler. He's a five-star kid who's the number one quarterback in his class. So as Oklahoma's offense continues to underwhelm, which is not anything you ever expect out of Norman, there were chants for, we want Caleb from the Sooner fan base. They're chanting to Spencer Rattler in the sideline, we want Caleb. It wasn't all on Rattler. Again, the offensive line, which is a weird thing. We'd expect, hey, weapons

everywhere for the Sooners. They're going to pit up big points. It's not entirely fair to think, okay, wait a minute, they got two guys that went number one and another guy in Hurts who's starting for NFL games. The Rattler love has been falling off for the last couple weeks. I can't imagine anybody would have him number one on any of the mocks. There's probably two or three quarterbacks that are probably ahead of him. And who knows where that's going to be

after the season is over. But the we want Caleb chance, we're aggressive. Oklahoma's still at number six here in the country. And this is another point. I used to do this with Scott all the time, where we would talk about different things that we saw, and we'd make an observation. And it'd be like, there's a difference between something happening and something actually being a thing. And I'm not even sure where this is right now. But I swear, of all these Elite 11 guys, and these camps, and these seven-on-sevens, and all this stuff, and everything's clean, and your high school team's so much better than everybody else. Not to say you never get pressured throughout your entire high school career, but I think when the guys start getting a little bit bigger, and there's some of these QBs that are still young, and Rattler's just only into his second year of actually playing, which is another weird thing because last year didn't count. I think Rattler actually has three years of eligibility left,

but could then also declare for the draft, which is probably what he's going to do. Again, it's an observation, and I'm not even sure that I'm right about this. Does it feel like we see some of these higher profile quarterbacks come in that look clueless against pressure just because they're just not used to it? They're not used to being pressured this often.

They don't know. Everybody's thinking, hey, we're going to do this drop. We're going to send out this many guys in our routes. These are all the different things that we're going to do. And it's like, yeah, okay, but I'm not used to these big guys chasing me around. Usually it's a little easier. I think you're seeing that with some of the kids that come in. But again, Spencer's been around long enough,

but he probably has never been pressured like this consistently throughout his life. One more thing that I want to get to, and that is, well, we could talk about Clemson's offense. They're probably out of the playoff. I mean, probably, again, I don't think there's much of a chance they get back in there. It's also the same thing for the ACC, the Pac-12, where Oregon would have to stay clean through this entire thing, and I'm not even sure that that's going to happen.

I mean, Clemson's now missing their big D tackle. Skalski left that game. I still can't believe DJ at quarterback, they're this bad offensively, and they are. How about this? You want to go yards per play? Here's who Clemson's ahead of nationally right now.

Louisiana, Monroe, Southern Mississippi, Colorado, Connecticut, Akron, Navy, and then Clemson. Clemson is 124 on yards per play offensively this season. That's good luck finding a more unlikely stat a month into the college football season. I don't know. So we've covered that. ACC could be done. Pac-12. I just don't know if Oregon's going to stay clean for 13 games. I just don't. I hope they do. I don't know if it's going to happen. Finally, this. I said it last week

and I'm bringing it up again here. Maybe Penn State is the best team in the Big Ten. We're going to find out more about both them and Iowa when they face off in Iowa. That's October 9th. The Ohio State

part, they get a big win. CJ didn't play in this game. I think CJ would have lit up the opponent this week. But when we looked at the Penn State win against Auburn, I was like, you know, great atmosphere. Game day's there. It's a national broadcast. You're beating an SEC team.

Bo Nix has no chance in hell to be consistent enough, I think, to win that game in half and golly. But what is it for Penn State? Because did they beat the fifth best team in the SEC, the sixth best, the seventh? Because if you watched Auburn barely beat Georgia State this weekend, but by the way, Nix got benched. He was replaced by TJ Finley, who was at LSU last year, who lost his job to Max Johnson. I'm a little surprised Finley got to start ahead of Max, but look, he's on Auburn now. I'm not surprised Finley replaced Bo Nix. But again, Auburn almost lost at home to Georgia State, who's now one and three. So if you're thinking about who Penn State beat in the SEC, Bama's ahead of Auburn, Georgia is, Florida is. Arkansas is. A&M, TBD, I don't know.

LSU, depending on the possession, they can look great, and they can also not look great. Mississippi State I think is okay. I think Kentucky is okay. And then look, Ole Miss. Offensively, it's scary. So, I mean, there's an argument that Penn State beat a team that's closer to being 10th best in the SEC than certainly 5th best.

And also, shout out to Oregon State. They go into the L.A. Coliseum. They're 3-1 with John Smith. It's their first win at L.A. since 1960. It always blows my mind whenever I see those numbers. You're like, okay, so that hasn't happened in 60 years, but it did this weekend for USC. 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. Life advice is

lifeadvicerr at gmail.com Okay, here we go. Listen to the show for years. I want to get your take on what the limits of my involvement in my son's 10-year-old soccer team should be. To set the stage, I guess his son has a medical issue. Let's just say asthma. Okay. He has fun being out there.

We have no expectations for an athletic career. Main issue is the coach. He's a volunteer coach and dad of one of the kids on the team. He's a nice guy, but I think ultimately he has some insecurities. He told me what his job was and immediately followed up by saying it's a really tough job. But he clearly just doesn't know anything about coaching soccer, how to manage 10 kids, which in his defense is extremely difficult. He has no organization at all. He has no plan for practice. Then during practice, he will frequently lecture the kids for extended periods about game situations

and then follow up with a drill that does not reinforce the game situation discussed. Probably the most offensive thing he did was send an email to the whole team telling everybody that he needed to be on time for practice at 5.30 because he was mad people were showing up late. Only for him to show up the next day after 5.30, spent 25 minutes setting up the field and talking to the assistant coach about what they want to do. Every practice has started this way. Humble braggler, I played on the top five D1 team. Woo. Currently active duty military and have personally coached

juniors. I only say this to explain that I've seen a wide variety of coaching leadership styles. No, I don't think that's a humble brag at all. I think it sets good context for the email. Honestly, the most effective teaching I've ever seen was a hip-hop dance lesson that I took once on a whim. My wife was a second grade teacher and principal at an inner city school, so she understands kid management well and we talk about it a lot. I previously emailed them and the assistant offered to help

out at practice, which he was happy to accept. But to say his control of the group is infuriating is an understatement. And again, my son is having fun out there, so I can't complain much. But there are very good athletes on the team and they have only developed worst habits over the past three, four weeks of

practice. There's not been one pass Oh, wait. There's not been one pass. Oh, wait, there has not been one pass attempted in a game. He says there's not been one pass attempted in a game. Too late to apologize. A long email wondering your thoughts, how I should proceed. Unfortunately, I only have limited time to help out. Look, I think this is a very common thing. Even without having kids, I know the deal enough because I've had friends that were coaches. I know the times my father called the coaches that I had when I was younger and no one likes it ever. No one ever likes it. All the coaches think every parent is fucking crazy and every parent thinks the coach

sucks. It is the agent-client relationship for on-air people. Every one of us that's on-air thinks our agents don't do enough and they should be doing more. And almost every one of our agents is like, this fucking guy's delusional. All right? And I don't know that anybody's right

or anybody's wrong. It's just the way it is. And the coaching youth sports thing, I never hear good stories ever about any of it. So my first instinct would be, hey, you said it twice. Your kid's having fun out there.

So all right, they're not developing. And he's late. And I guess you guys never pass. There's a real ISO heavy approach here. But if you said your son's having fun twice, isn't that the whole point? And so it's all right. It's one bad youth coach. You're not going to have this coach beyond this season or whatever the season is. You might even have two coaches in the same year.

And it's going to be really frustrating for you as a former athlete who played pretty high level soccer here to watch all this stuff happen. But if you don't have the time yourself to take it over and fix it, then there's not really much you can do. I mean, it's just every single parent out there, when you get your kids into youth sports, there are going to be a bunch of coaches that just aren't good at it. And then you can talk about the insecurity part of it. I was lucky enough in the basketball stuff where my father coached me. But it was funny because it wasn't like I got hooked up. I actually was the one.

And we laugh about it. And I even started to figure out at a young enough age where it didn't bother me that much. But when he would want to yell at somebody on the team, he would yell at me to yell at them. And I first, I'd be like, what, what is he talking about? Like, I didn't do that. And then we talked about it. And then I always thought it was really funny, but he didn't favor me. If anything, he probably went out of his way to make sure no one thought he was favoring me, but there were always parents that would call the house. But the problem is my dad was like 6'5 and played in college a little bit.

So it was going to be like a hard guy to tell him that he was wrong about basketball from a bunch of suburban parents. But then I guess there was another father that wanted to help out. And my father, I know he didn't really want to do it but he did it just because he thought it was like the right thing to do so that wasn't entirely his op his operation and then even his kids we could tell the other guy that came by to help like didn't have any clue he didn't know what he was talking about so like even the kids can understand it sometime but i would i would do two things i would take a deep breath and be like, if your kid is having fun and you can't fix this right now, I think you got to step back and accept this. And the other part of this would be, because I was guilty of having this happen with me and it

happened a lot, don't poison the kid. Don't get the kids together or talk to your son about it where even if you're right, I think it really sucks when you poison the kids and have them all knowing that their coach sucks, which happened to me a lot too, where you'd be with the other parents and they would just constantly talk about how much your coach sucks. And then you're this young and you're so impressionable. And you just start thinking like, oh, yeah, this guy does suck. And this, you know, look, even if he's late, even if he's not doing drills, even he's still donating his time to go ahead and do all of this stuff.

And you're probably going to move on from fairly soon anyway, if I understand anything about the way youth sport tiers work. This guy's going to be in your rear view very quickly so I'm sure there's plenty of people that disagree with me on this one but I don't know I feel like it's the most repetitive thing ever all the time in that

people are constantly mad at the youth coach no matter what and the youth coach just always thinks parents suck. I don't know. Kyle, do you ever volunteer? Salvation Army once.

I had to clean a bunch of roller skates. Get out of a traffic ticket. Yeah, yeah. That was it. I played youth soccer for a little bit, but I think I was done by the time I was in fifth grade. I was on the red team when I finished my final season. So Rudy?

I thought about this a lot, like, you know, future, having kids, and obviously I care about sports and I'm super competitive. So I'm like, am I going to be that annoying competitive parent who like wants to, yeah. But no, I feel like I have the self-awareness where I'm not going to do that. But I think this guy has to understand, like this isn't like the Barcelona. Yeah, but no, I feel like I have the self-awareness where I'm not going to do that. But I think this guy has to understand like this isn't like

the Barcelona Youth Academy, man. Like you've you said it to your you said it yourself in the email. Like there's no like aspirations of college or pro for your son here. If he's having fun, I think you need to just let him have fun. Maybe the coach is overwhelmed.

Maybe just say, hey, offer him up a couple of tips. I don't know, like unless he's kind of a hard on, you don't want to talk to him. But I wouldn't really disturb this too much because at the end of the day,

if the kid's having a good time, then just leave him alone, man. Just let him live his life. I don't really know what the other – what's the other play here? Demand – You stage a coup and you take over. Yeah, that's what you do. But he even said he doesn't have the time for it. What are you going to do, demand he resign? We'll get a press time for it. Like, what are you going to demand? He resigned?

We'll get a press conference out there. We'll say that you want to spend more time with your family. I mean, everybody's 10. Everybody's 10. I know it sucks. I'm confused about the no passing. That's a problem. You should be like, hey, we should get some passing drills going on in each practice session

and maybe bump that from zero to like five a game because that doesn't make any sense. I would ask it this way is there anything people have spent more time caring about that ultimately they will never care about in the future than what your kid does in a youth game like you care about it so much in the moment and you already know years removed like none of that meant anything now there's plenty of you out there that are parents that actually think your kid's going to get a scholarship

but I would say maybe have a backup plan but alright I got to do this other one here because we get this one a lot and I don't know that we've done it for a long time alright big fan of the pod recently did 13 because we get this one a lot and I don't know that we've done it for a long time. All right. Big fan of the pod, 59193. Recently did 13 dead hang pull-ups. Pretty sweet.

That does sound pretty fucking sweet, man. A 31-year-old single dude, fully aware of my receding hairline. I will be taking the plunge to bald life in the near future. I would love to get your tips for making the switch. A few things I'm thinking about on my short list. Keep it together physically. I already have short and bald going for me, so I need to stay in good shape. I would agree. Add the beard. I never really rocked a full beard, but maintaining some well-groomed stubble could help. Agree on that too. I had a beard before I shaved my head for years and years just because I kind of liked it. But I don't know. I haven't been clean shaven, razor shaven in I don't know how long.

I think I did it once for a TV show and I regretted it immediately. Get a tattoo. I've thrown this one around in my wrong years. This might be a bit drastic. Look, I get it. Sleeves can look cool. I saw a guy the other day with a sleeve and I was like, man, that does look kind of cool. I'm not going to do it. I'm not saying don't do it. Sleeves can look cool. I saw a guy the other day with a sleeve and I was like, man, that does look kind of cool. I'm not going to do it. I'm not saying don't do it. I'm not saying don't do it, but I do think there'll be a window where this generation is going to get older and

people are going to be in nursing homes with full-on neck tats and stuff. It's going to be pretty crazy. All right. It'd be great to hear anything you could add to this list from a physical perspective, but also how to respond to people who act regularly or react regularly. I feel like I don't have much more than, yeah, I'm bald. Yeah. There's not really much you can do, man. I mean, it's funny how people can obsess over how we have to worry about everybody's feelings now, which isn't remotely um realistic and most of the people that i think that do that are for the most part pretty hypocritical like if you're somebody who like has this public stance or whatever i i'm almost positive i can sift through your bullshit

and find something that you've done be like hey that didn't seem to be very nice even though this is the shit you're preaching all the time on instagram um but i guess people can change anyway uh the the bald thing is weird because it's almost like that's still an unprotected one like that one's not protected by today's uh social defense mechanisms where it's like holy shit you're bald fucking loser like you know what i mean like it's it can basically happen i don't think getting called like getting called fat now is is more offensive than bald although skinny people have never never had anybody defending them like it's like hey you shouldn't call people fat they're like well people call me a skinny grail like no one no one cares but the bald thing they are they're

under uh protected group of society. So you're right. It's going to suck. I mean, it sucked when I started to have the bald spot. And people were just okay making fun of it all the time. All the time. It used to happen to me on radio shows, a TV show. Was that Van Pelt though?

Was that Van Pelt? Because he was already bald. He wanted you to come home for a while. And I think you held out longer because you basically didn't want to listen to him. No. It went on way before that like we had a younger boston talk show where all the guys were really young and they had this girl call in it was supposedly like we were going to go on a date but it wasn't and then the other host said i sport a flesh-colored yarmulke to all the sporting events or something so it was

it was really fucking nasty yeah that's kyle hey kyle simmer down i've never heard that before wow every once in a while you just hear something clever i'd never heard that one before i guess i haven't been out in the world long enough but that one is funny it shows me like i wanted to slap the kid around a little bit after saying it because Cause he used to, I just remember being like, are you fucking serious? Like I'm going to lose my hair. I'm the one that's going to go bald. Like,

and I'm trying to be on TV. Like this is ridiculous. And it was happening. Like the bald spot just grew so fast. Like right before I even turned 30, I was like, can I go bald later? Like everybody else does.

And on top of everything else. But, um, it sucked, man. It used to bother me so much i'd get really bummed out about it and yet no one had any problem having it be their go-to to fuck with you even like friends you know you couldn't be like hey are you an alcoholic cheating on your wife like nobody

thought that would be cool to say to somebody when you catch up but if they said to you hey rosillo sweet fuck. And granted, I think there are some people that are like, good, fuck him. Fuck Rosillo. So glad he has a bald spot. You know, dick. So I don't, I'm with you. But I can only tell you this.

As soon as I just finally said, I'm sick of this, you know, because I get a haircut from this woman. And she's like, oh, no, it looks fine. It looks fine like it doesn't look fine and i don't know i don't know what it was i just said screw it i'm done with it but you're right sruti the van pelt part always pissed me off because he had this this absolute joy in his face every time he'd catch it at a different angle he was so happy that was happening and he couldn't hide it at all and it that pissed me off too because i'd be like you're rooting for this and then it was like you had a soul patch and fucking pete campbell look forever and you're giving me shit because i haven't given yet and what you don't realize

is until you actually do it like i don't even think about it anymore i don't even think about it so should i have done it sooner? Yeah, but I wasn't ready. And if you're not ready, you're not ready. And that's okay. It's not coming back. I don't think, you know, I tried a few different things. I never went like the full reseeding route.

I thought about it. I've had a couple of friends that did it. It looked like it worked out. So some ways I'm like, you know what? I'd rather have hair. I also realized too that like my profile of being a single guy isn't i don't know if it's awesome or terrible like hey how old is he now what the fuck he's never even been engaged um how wait where's his house oh okay you know that's his

house okay you know like i you know i don't but i also know this that if i'm talking to somebody and i'll admit like i don't really date anybody my age, there's going to be a girl that's younger than me that will be like, Ugh, this fucking guy's got like, I'm not all the way bald, but yeah, I have a bald spot that now with a shaved head down, you don't really see unless you see it. So it looks like I just have close crop, but then it's like no no he's like he's like bald and on the top and there's going to be women i talk to that are never going to fuck with that ever ever ever they should be like no why would i do that when there's people with hair um so my point is it's like it's just parts of it that suck there's nothing you can do about it nothing you can do about it but worrying about things that you can't again you know control what you control i i love this advice i'll never forget wick rosebeck bought the celtics we were becoming close and i said you know

it's too bad you don't have this guy and he just looked at me like i was the dumbest guy ever he's like yeah why would i worry about that we don't have that guy okay so moving on like we don't have that guy on the team and we're not going to get them. So why would I spend any time of my day worrying about that kind of thing or fantasizing about having this option that's not obtainable? Like, why would you do that? And so once I shaved it off, I don't know. I just, I, it is, it's a weird thing. It's just like, oh, cool. I don't have to think about this anymore. It's just all out there. So if you're listening to this and you're on the fence, I'm not telling you to do anything that you're not ready for. I can just tell you that once I did it, I was like, oh shit. Like I'm not, I'm not hoping somebody doesn't see the angle of the back of my head.

It's just out there. It also helped to be a little taller or jacked. You guys can work on one of those. I remember the day that you shaved it and it was jarring. It was wild. Now, the idea of picturing you with hair is insane to me. I think you look...

The good thing for this guy too and you, Ryan, is the bald beard look is a good look. I would say it's a top 10 dude look. There's too many guys doing it, honestly. I'd like a few guys to scale back. So when you say, oh, girls aren't interested in you because you're just going to say no immediately because you don't have hair. I don't know.

I kind of feel like the bald beard thing is in right now and is cool. So it's going to be jarring at first for this guy. But then, I don't know. People are going to figure it out. And then you're going to end up looking like like you're going to look good in the long run and it'll be fine but uh i want to go back to something you said you said would you if you could get hair today you would have hair yeah i think i would be better suited for some of the tv stuff that i was planning on doing but again i'm not a dspn anymore

i'm never going to work there again i wouldn't imagine so I don't I just think that there's I don't know I think there was a way that I mean let's be honest if I were a better looking guy they would have used me for more NBA stuff no question but I also you know would fuck it up

too I'd have like a pretty unkempt beard and a little bit of neck hair. It's like, you know, you're on ESPN, buddy. Like, what are we doing here? And then by the end of it, they were so desperate to have me on because they didn't have anybody in Bristol anymore. They were using me all the time. So maybe that doesn't have as much to do with it. But I mean, it's just something you got to accept, you know, like when somebody isn't that attractive and they're like, I wish I was a model,

you probably have different goals. And I'm not telling you nobody likes the bald look, but I know that it's one of those deals. It's going to be part of it. Would you want... I mean, you can't really do the bald girlfriend thing because it's not all that realistic. Kyle, do you have anything to add to this or no i don't really have much to add this is one of those

stay aways for me although it seems like he's not worried about his friends bothering him like it seems like he doesn't feel like he has shit had friends because he didn't really mention that so that's cool at least you can like you don't have that kind of friendship my my friendships aren't that way so it's nice that he... No, but he brought up a really good point at the end. It was like, how do I respond? I don't know what it is about losing your hair. People are very okay, even people you're not even that close with,

being like, holy shit, bro, you're losing your hair. You're like, okay, yeah. I mean, there's not really much you can do. I mean, you can start beating everybody up at work, but that's probably not going to work out for you. The corporate world frowns on that kind of thing um and then if you act too defensive then it's like oh look at this guy look how defensive he is look i'm just telling you for anybody that's in their 20s you're losing your hair it fucking sucks nobody's like oh you know what i was kind of cool with it i mean unless you wanted to be

bald and shaved head okay but most guys are like are you fucking serious and it's a bummer man so i'm not like advocating for mental health awareness for guys in their 20s losing their hair but if you're one of those guys with a full head of hair that like decides to take a jab at a guy that's losing his hair especially in his 20s go fuck yourself go back to your cubicle you know what i mean so yeah that guy's just insecure about something else though i mean that's what that is i you know if you're a guy that's cool with that and i don't know it's that's beyond ball busting because losing your hair is not like some of the examples you said before were pretty extreme losing your hair is like kind of in that safe

zone where it sucks enough to like makes fun of somebody about it but it's you can make fun of them and it's not going too far. It's in that weird zone. I don't know, but if you do do that, that's kind of a dick move, man. Come on. There's probably something else going on with you. I had somebody who was this creepy anchor, which I know is rare, but he went to my girlfriend at work at ESPN

and was like, because he was married, he's a miserable fuck, and he had a family and he was always trying to cheat on his wife, and he was dumping trying to cheat on his wife and he was dumping on me being like i can't believe you pick him out of everybody here considering he's bald and she told me but she didn't tell me until after he was gone so you know i mean that's the kind of stuff i still obviously know who it is now but i would just be like how could you be cool saying that to somebody about somebody else?

But it was his own weird deal of like wanting to like, that was his, that was his way of working her. It's crazy. I know. I know. Right. That's why,

that's why I would say this, like whenever anybody asks about confidence or self-confidence and all that kind of stuff, and it pertains to this a little bit, we're going really long here. So I apologize, Kyle, we'll be done in a minute. But, um, or self-confidence and all that kind of stuff. And it pertains to this a little bit. We're going really long here. So I apologize, Kyle. We'll be done in a minute.

But just picture everyone that you interact with in life and just go like, there's stuff that this person is really lacking confidence in. There's somebody that gets into this person's head. It isn't me, but there's someone that this woman has in her past that she's, she just, you know, is devastated about. There's someone in this guy's past that just runs this dude. So whenever you have these interactions where you have to like deal with somebody who, you know, maybe has the upper hand on you. I like to go through this exercise of thinking about all the people that he knows doubt him deep down

or who it is in his past that just owns him emotionally and never assume that anyone is self-confident as they want to pretend that they are. It's a really good exercise. So if you're bald and somebody's making fun of you, just try to play a little game where you're like,

I wonder how that guy's life sucks though secretly. I don't know if we helped anybody today on this one. Okay, I think we're done here. Thank you to Kyle and of course Steve. I'll talk to you in one second Thank you.