The Ryen Russillo Podcast - The MVP Race, the Confusing Steelers, and the Jets' Botched Reset With Mike Sando. Plus, NFL Week 16 Awards.

Episode Date: December 28, 2020

Russillo gives out his NFL awards for Week 16 (5:00) before talking with The Athletic's Mike Sando about the MVP race between Patrick Mahomes and Aaron Rodgers, the Steelers' tumultuous season, the Seahawks' win over the Rams, the Jets losing the no. 1 pick in the 2021 draft and how that affects their offseason, the 2021 NFL coaching carousel gearing up, and more (18:00). Finally, Ryen answers some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:02:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Choose insurance that always brings its A-game. When you want the real deal, like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. We are here for you. I hope everybody had a great Christmas weekend into the New Year's run here. What are you doing for New Year's, Kyle? I didn't even ask you. Same thing I did for Christmas.

Sticking around, trying to fill my cart with an Xbox and just playing the old Xbox in the meantime. So what are you doing you just you're checking to see available yeah i'm just looking at the ps5 no it's xbox it's xbox i once i made the switch to the xbox 360 i never looked back but i i'm not going to stress myself out yeah i'm not going to stress myself out about it but you know i'm i'm perusing and i'm trying to i'm trying to just be there in the right place at the right time what are the secondary market

uh numbers out right now it's more than i'm willing to pay be there in the right place at the right time. What are the secondary market numbers at right now? It's more than I'm willing to pay. My little brother, actually, it's like $900 to $1,200, depending on what. Yeah, my brother actually sold a couple. That was really nice. He couldn't get the family discount, though. Wait a minute. So he flipped a couple?

Oh, yeah. He flips everything. He's like 18 years old back in Poughkeepsie, New York. He flipped a bunch of trampolines when the pandemic started and everyone was going to be home. A bunch of those Walmart like blow up pools like what? Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. He was doing his damn thing. I'm really proud of him. Maybe he should come on life advice and give out some financial investing stuff for your so is he always flush with cash? He's just flipping stuff all the time? Yeah, like, yeah. Cash. Not even in the account. Just cash.

Just bands everywhere? Yeah. Yeah, I'm proud of him. He's doing this thing. He's doing cards, like baseball cards and stuff. Basketball cards. Did you ask him for what maybe if a deal could have been worked out for an Xbox? Because I was looking at the PS5 thing, but I'm... Yeah, he was doing the ps5s he wasn't even he didn't have xboxes so

i haven't played video games in like six or seven months the only time i hadn't played for a couple years as you know i'm a writer so i didn't want to have that get in the way and then once the pandemic hit i was like yeah maybe i'll check it back out again but you kind of liked it you got a little scared backed off i really liked it but i didn't watch any TV in the very beginning of the pandemic. I wasn't watching any television, like nothing. So I would work and I would do this. And then I'd be like,

okay, I'm going to, you know, get back on it and start playing some video games. But then I, I ordered one of the, one of the clancy ones and it wasn't very good and it didn't work. And then I went to get a refund.

And of course, as you know, from my rant from last week, it didn't work out. So I was like, Hey and of course as you know from my rant from last week it didn't work out so i was like hey this thing didn't even download properly it's stuck they were just like all right sorry dude and then uh you know once i moved i was like i'm not gonna set it up because now we have games we've got games so once the games happen i you know it's not really i don't want extra time in front of a television i have other stuff and you're like with the online thing you're like i've been away for so long i'm not

really interested in getting smoked every single time like to get back into it that was definitely part of it and then it's like an older guy you're researching is my television holding me back it's the processing should i get a 40 inch gaming screen you're like okay let's let's not go there so no no offense anybody doing that like you do your thing i'll do mine but there you go that our video game corner, and we're ready to move on. The plan for today, Mike Sando from The Athletic. Really good stuff on his report that he has about Urban Meyer potentially going to an NFL team, how realistic that is,

some of that other stuff. We'll talk Rodgers, we'll talk Mahomes, the MVP race, because it seems like with the Mahomes games the last couple weeks, everybody thinks it's now going to be Aaron Rodgers as the MVP. I've got life advice. There's one that I really like. As soon as I started reading it, I was like, okay. And we're going to start with NFL awards.

So that's where we are. Week 16. The first award is the Tenet Award. All right? The new Christopher Nolan movie. There's no spoilers for the Tenet Award because I'm still not quite sure what happened in that movie. I know that's not original, but I'm serious. I'm not 100% sure.

And that goes to the Pittsburgh Steelers because I'm still not sure about the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now, Tenet, for those worried about it, it's a battle between timelines. There's a guy who's Russian, but it's one of the great thespians of our time, Kenneth Branagh, who's not Russian, he's English. He's in some heavy, heavy stuff, probably on stage. And, you know, you've got Denzel's son as the main character.

What's his name? Washington, obviously. John? John David Washington. Yes, that's right. John David Washington. Off the top rope, Kyle. There. and he's There's some real heavy james bond influence in this one And stuff's going backwards and it's shot beautifully. The music's incredible. It's a nolan film So as soon as you're watching a nolan film, you're like, this is awesome. I want more of this

It's just I don't know how what cameras are using. I don't know what it is But if I ever make anything, that's what I want it to look like. But I'd love for you to understand it. And I don't think I do, and I'm going to watch it again. I don't want to have to watch the Steelers again. But here's where we're at with the Steelers, because when they were down 21-7 at the half, they shouldn't even have had seven, because that was a fumble and then a three-yard drive for the touchdown.

They're likely getting shut out. I think with like a minute or so left, they had 50 yards in the first half, and then they tacked on some late ones. They almost gave up a return that was going to add another touchdown, and it was terrible. It was terrible, okay? And then the broadcast is talking about,

well, they had three games in 12 days. They had, as if no one has a weird week, they had to move their bye week around. Yep, okay, there were some problems there. And it's funny, though, because when the excuse was provided, and why is this team going from 11-0 to now maybe four losses straight, no one's ever done that before in the history of the league. Why is that happening? It, well, you know, is it the schedule? You know, the schedule

hasn't been easy because of those production meetings, guys start talking about it. Hey, this wasn't easy. Okay. I get that. It wasn't easy, but then guess what? And apparently the schedule did not get in the way of this miraculous comeback because the Steelers on paper, we know they can't run the football going into the week. There's a second worst not get in the way of this miraculous comeback because the Steelers, on paper, we know they can't run the football. Going into the week, they're the second-worst rushing team in the league, whether it's yards per game, yards per carry. Their offense actually in the middle of the pack, which is surprising because at one point, I think they're better,

14th in points per game. They don't get sacked a lot because Roethlisberger gets the ball out so quickly. Twelve times he'd been sacked going into that game. We talked about the bye week part of this. Their offense, the metrics, they're 22nd in some of those. By comparison, New England is two spots behind them in offensive DVOA, which is incredible because anybody that's watched the Pats a lot over the last few weeks, especially, they're not very good on offense.

Rushing metrics 30th, passing metrics 21st. So I'm giving you all these different things. hats a lot over the last few weeks, especially they're not very good on offense. Rushing metrics 30th, passing metrics 21st. So I'm giving you all these different things. The last three weeks in rushing, 21 yards against Washington, 47 yards against Buffalo, 86 yards against Cincy. That's 50 yards per game over the last three weeks. All of this stuff. But yet defensively, they're still number one or two in almost everything. So I expected that that defense was still enough to make them really competitive and bring them along.

But they lose to Washington, who then we talked about on this podcast. Hey, you know what? That defense is actually better than I'm giving you credit for. They lose to Buffalo. They go up there, primetime game. Okay, not the end of the world. Buffalo's the second best team in the AFC. Some people think they're better than Kansas City.

But then they lose to Cincinnati. You're like, like okay wait a minute now I have to give up so I don't know why John David Washington is now on a catamaran I don't know why he's with the guy from Twilight I don't think is it Twilight is Rob Pattinson from Twilight you know you're gonna have to help me with all right yes team Jacob does that sound correct sure all right so as i'm watching the movie and i'm thinking do i tell people i don't know what's going on do you kind of know what's going on do you do the radio head thing here where somebody unplugs something and you're like man this fucking band is incredible my god did you hear that note and you're like actually that wasn't the guys were

just plugging stuff in you're like oh okay you know you don't want to be exposed as a total fraud you don't really know what to do and that's where i'm at with pittsburgh because even though they come back and win that game all the things that i thought we knew about them falling off the cliff and you're like i'm not picking them against anybody and they come back against a good colts team all right that's a good colts team some of it was deep shots which romo you could tell was like hey you know what some of these of these passes, you're gonna start throwing them down the field. See if you get those flags. And that's exactly what happened. Steelers great comeback, but I don't know what to do with it. The second award is the coach Bobby Finstock

leadership award. And that goes to Washington starting, not starting quarterback, Dwayne Haskins. All right. Um, I'll give you the full Haskins timeline here. We'll cover it all, but let me at least say this. I'm not a moralist. I've never really been a moralist. I'm more about your commitment to wanting to win, how you treat your teammates. I mean, I don't, I don't expect you to be a raging dick to everybody, but I'm for people that get, I've never been this way as a talk show host, like, all right, somebody did something wrong, you know, and I'm not talking about like really, really bad stuff. I'm saying, you know, minor stuff. I've just never been into, okay, this guy's a horrible person because I also have been around enough people that I know there's plenty of people that

do dumb shit that never get caught that people think are captain america all right so haskins got busted a few times here all right so he got photographed at his girlfriend's birthday party with strippers and so that meant he was fined 40 grand by the team and his captaincy was taken away from him and i still don't think people truly understand how dumb the captaincy thing is for an NFL team when basically every team gives it to their quarterback, even if it's a rookie. So he loses that, even though it was weird that he had it in the first place because it wasn't like he was the clear cut guy because Alex Smith started to turn this team around again with that defense. So he's at the girlfriend's birthday party. He's 23. There were strippers there.

He did not go with the James Harden. was there. He did not go with the James Harden. He was just trying to level up boss girl defense, which didn't work for James Harden, but scoring 44 points did. And Harden's return in that ridiculous game at Portland a couple nights ago. So he had been fined earlier

this year, Haskins, for making a reservation for family friend at the team hotel when they were playing the Giants. So he gets fined 40 grand this week, loses the cap and seat, bent over this. He is named the starter because Alex Smith has this calf injury. And then during that game,

he's benched for Taylor Heineke, who you may remember was actually with Carolina staff. He was at Old Dominion. He threw for like 700 yards. I think Van Pelt and I even had him on the radio show because back then we didn't realize

how ridiculous these offenses were going. Dues are playing with him in the video uh for those that could update the rosters and so in the game the reason why i'm giving him the leadership award is that at fourth and 18 i believe was the play when washington was backed up there was a timeout by carolina and haskins went out onto the field to like give Heineke a pat to be like, hey, go get him. Even the announcers were like, wait, what? What's going on there?

And I can't tell. I think I can tell. I can't tell if it was a, hey, I'm going to do this, or if it's like, I'm going to do this to show everybody how locked in I am still. I'm locked in about this team. I want everyone to see what a leader I am. As everyone knows, let's listen to this podcast. The UCLA kids where the one kid has his head down

and the smaller guard goes and sticks his hand under his chin and pops his head up. I think that's so scripted that I actually don't like that stuff. I'd rather you just not be. I think there's being a leader and then there's wanting to be a leader. No, no, let me rank them this way. The best thing is being a leader and actually being a leader to your teammates and it all being real. Below that is just being a jerk.

And worse than being a jerk is pretending you're not a jerk and yet trying to gain some leadership role. That's the stuff that drives me nuts. So he has this terrible week. And look, there's other stuff, too. Breer had this in his Monday morning quarterback piece today saying that after they beat the, excuse me, they lost to the Ravens by two touchdowns, that in the locker room, and I don't remember if Haskins was celebrating on the field. Some of this was there. This is clearly coming from the team in Brewer's piece. So Brewer must have felt good about writing it.

And that he was celebrating in the field. So I may have missed that. Some of you may remember. I don't remember everything. And then he was also celebrating in the locker room. And the teammates were like, dude, we lost by two touchdowns. And you're celebrating because you threw for 300 yards. And then after this happens, he leaves the facility.

And to give Haskins the benefit of the doubt here, he thought that, well, look, when I got benched, I didn't know I had to stick around. I thought Taylor was going to do that. And they're like, no, starting quarterback has to have media availability. He did end up doing that from home and all that stuff. Now, it all gets back to the one point of this. If you're going to pull a Harden off the field,

come back and drop 44 and 17 on Portland and get away with it because Houston is going to defend Harden more than any. Like, honestly, I want to move to Houston because I had no idea how supportive the community was of anyone that's from there or lives there. So Harden at least came back. Harden didn't get benched for a kid from Old Dominion. So if you're going to do any of that kind of stuff, you have to actually produce. And the other part, again, I don't think he went out there to show true leadership. I think it was a, hey, I need to do something cool in the moment

to make it look like I'm okay with this as my career may be over in Washington. I mean, we don't always know with quarterbacks, right? We don't always know because he hasn't been good. And this is somebody that Louis Riddick said was the best quarterback in that draft class. Louis Riddick said Haskins should go first among all the QBs.

So you never know about these guys. And so far, right now, there's more bad tape and more bad stuff than good stuff for Haskins. The last award before we get to Bill and Tom is the Don't press send Herm Edwards award and Herm said that famously one day on the show I don't know we're I'm not saying he did it with

us first so no one else tell the story no that's not what I'm saying I just remember him just talking about some player that got in trouble for something stupid he was like don't press send don't press send and he kept screaming don't press send all the time. And then it became a thing. I'm watching the Ram struggle again on offense. I'm watching golf who may be the highest paid bad quarterback in the league. I just, there's too many knit games. And this has been going on now for a little while here. If you look at this last stretch, I mean, he was terrible against San Francisco. He had a really good game against Arizona, 351, 47 attempts, kept it clean. And then after that, New England, he didn't need to be great. He was bad against the Jets and he just wasn't that good

yesterday. He had that horrible Miami game. There's just some duds in there. And in the second half, he's getting sacked more, he's throwing more picks, and he's just having some absolute nothing games that have still kept him in it because the defense has really been good. And the defense just couldn't do enough yesterday. Goff has a broken thumb. So I'm really glad I didn't do any sort of anti-Goff tweet, even though I feel like I'm somewhat justified in his level of play and going, yeah, this might be the highest paid bust in the history of the position, but they played in a Super Bowl and now he has a broken thumb. So I'm glad I didn't send that. And maybe I shouldn't even have said any of the things

I just said, but Hey, look, I'm just a guy at home watching the game. Bill Tom, let's do it. I know what you're thinking. Tom has to be one this week. Then a mercy rule. This was little league stuff against the lions. Like Tom, we can't let you go out there. And you're sucks i wanted 100 touchdowns today well we can't let the green team be bummed out in this case it was the lions but how smart is bill as matt patricia the rocket scientists go to detroit get fired team falls apart they don't have no coaching staff anyway. So that thing was a whole disaster. So now as he has still has McDaniels on staff, lost jet fish to Arizona, Nick Serio personnel.

He just, all these openings, the sharks are circling. Bill has the Detroit thing happen against Tom to prop up Tom's self-worth. So he's helping a buddy out there, but also getting people to maybe second guess hiring any of Bill's current staff people. Checkers chess. Bill one, Tom two. Week 16 and just one more week to go. We got Mike Sando from The Athletic who's joined just a few times. And this is a good time to have him because we've got some on-the-field stuff.

We have a lot of really interesting off-the-field stuff as well as his piece up on The Athletic that just came out today about Urban Meyer potentially returning to the NFL. Let's start at least with last night, the last game. That's Aaron Rodgers. If we look at the highest passer rating all time for a season, Rodgers has the lead in 2011, 122.5, Peyton Manning, 04, 121.1, and Rodgers now third all time at 119.4. We know that there were numbers that were showing that he was slipping, but it didn't feel like, especially when you look at the age of some of the other guys, like all of a

sudden he was toast. We know he his second year in this new system what is different what what is happening here because i do think that they were fair i wasn't off of rogers but it was fair to critique that some of the stuff wasn't happening well clearly he's ticked off about that stupid interception he threw because that's going to shave a couple points off of the uh pastor reading and aaron's got that in his head he's got the calculator it updates the pastor reading as the ball is in the air i think think he, you heard him last week, whenever it was, it was great interviews. He was like, you know, can you get to 400 or 500, can you get to 500 touchdowns without going over a hundred interceptions? And it like mattered in his mind. He's like, no, geez, if I throw a hundred more,

then I can only have 12 more interceptions. And I know in that game, he's like, oh, I just wasted one of my 12. So I don't think that he had fallen off physically. Okay. I think that's what people were talking about when the last few years, his numbers weren't as good. I think people were thinking, well, he can't do it anymore. But I have sat there with coaches, without coaches, watched the video. And I've thought even last year, his incomplete passes were better than

almost all the quarterbacks, complete passes in the league. Unbelievable. They left a lot of yardage on the field for whatever reason, a ton of missed opportunities. And I went back and compared the missed opportunity catches in a column before the season compared to like his MVP year. And it was night and day, how many more balls were clanging off of his receiver's hands, deep balls. And we've seen a little bit of that this year. We've seen some of the occasional MBS play down the field that, oh, he should have had.

But I think they've just done a much better job in the passing game as a whole. Maybe it's second year in system, everyone being more familiar, knowing what they're doing. There's just a lot. I think they're executing the passing game at a higher level, and that's him and that's them, but it's a together thing. I don't watch them and go, wow, Rodgers really worked out what he told Pat

McAfee about his leg workout. That's really what it is. I don't know that it's that. I think they're just better as a group. Maybe he's 5% or 10% better, but they're not dropping the ball either. I feel like, and I'll go through that at the end of the year and look at that, but I feel like they're just the whole thing's better, and they're getting more out of him as a result.

Dilfer said his Jordan love. That pick pissed him off so bad that that's why you're getting this guy. I love that story. I'm not saying it's impossible. It just seems, it seems weird for somebody as great as Rogers to now go, okay, now I'm mad because you use this pick and I'm going to sustain this for 17

weeks. Yeah. You know, it clearly we're seeing, do you think more or less of Mike McCarthy based on the last 12 months? You know what I mean? Yeah. I mean, I think there's a possibility that Rogers,

in the last few years of McCarthy, after, you know, really the team around him, I think, had eroded. Special teams, defense were letting him down in the big games. And in the same system a long time, I would buy the idea that a player like that, who's so smart. And like I said, has the password and calculator in his head,

because otherwise he gets bored. This is too easy. I think he could, it could have gotten stale. It could have gotten a little, it could have got a little bored. You can get a little autopilot. You can get a little sloppy.

I have thought like in watching all of his plays last year at times, like the ones he was least impressive on sometimes were the easiest plays, the short one where, you know, maybe he's just not fully dialed into his fundamentals. You know what I mean? I think what I don't know, I wouldn't buy that. It's just Jordan love. I mean, I think that that affects anybody, right? If they hire a new Ryan Rossello or Sando and the guy's in the office every day and everyone's saying how he's going to be good one day, that gets your attention. You know,

I mean, I think there's something to that, but we didn't know how he was going to respond to the new coach, you know, to things going on. I think he's responded pretty dang well. You know, so I think there is some, something to the idea that new coach, whether it's Jordan Love, he's probably a little more dialed in. And now they, you know, they've, they spent some money in free agency on the defense. Um, it's, it's new. I think that probably has gotten them going a little bit. Is he your MVP over Mahomes? Um, I think he would be, you know, and I think I wouldn't have maybe said that a month ago. Um, I think they run two different offenses. I think in some ways, Mahomes has been asked to probably do a little higher degree of

it's on your shoulders and passing the ball more. But at the same time, I thought Rodgers was further along in just the little tiny nuances of the game, just from experience. You can make a better case for Rodgers now. So maybe it comes down to the last week, but I'm leaning that way. How about you? Yeah, I mean, the crazy thing for the Mahomes momentum and recency part of this is obviously Rodgers has been better

in more recent weeks than Mahomes has. The Miami game, two of those picks really weren't on Mahomes at all. So you can look at the interceptions and go, oh, he's starting to leak a little bit. But then they have this, this the opposite of a shootout against an Atlanta team that everybody seems to be able to put points up on and he still finds a way.

And so with that, the numbers are still very similar. Like I was going through the stats and like anything, you can pick some stuff that you want to focus on to go ahead and bang for your guy. But the QBR thing is is almost identical the passer rating rogers has a has a pretty decent lead touchdowns interceptions it's basically the same you know i mean obviously rogers has more touchdowns interception i i don't know i feel like my homes my homes i'm going with the my homes scares me more than Rodgers. So I would still have it as Mahomes.

Yeah, and here's the argument for Rodgers. I hadn't, you know, if I was writing a column on it today, I would spend more time than I did. Just bring it up. Not having you ask the question. But just looking at it here. So usually, like Mahomes has thrown the ball 86 more times for 700 more yards. So there's, that's what I was getting at.

There's kind of a volume component to my homes and Rogers at this, in this office, it's the nature of the Matt LaFleur type of offense, right? There's going to be a little bit more, a lot more of a run emphasis on first and second down. You know what I mean? They've got, they're geared more around the run that Rogers is running more of the type of offense you run when you don't have a great quarterback. We talked about that, I think maybe in the off season. And that's just because it's the way Lafleur wants to do it. So there's in that regard, I think there's more on, there's more volume on my homes and

that's probably where the case can be made for him. I don't think that's how people vote for MVP. You know, I think most people are like, yeah, it feels like it's Rodgers right now. You know what I mean? And I think from that standpoint, that's probably the way it's going to go. So you could argue either one of them. My argument for Mahomes is volume

and maybe we just need to see a little how that efficiency is in the last week. Although really, I guess Kansas City has got nothing to play for, so you're done. Yeah, I mean, I read a Green Bay piece this morning that was like, it's done. Rodgers won the MVP. I was like, wow, that's amazing. You guys are already projecting that really early, so good for you guys.

Congrats. It's amazing, yeah. Yeah, I know. Did you see, they were like, there was also a story about the front office and amazing, you know, and it's like a victory lap in week 15. I mean, they could lose in the first round of the playoff, right. In the second round for all we know. So let's just let it play out. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Look, I like their weapons though,

that there are moments earlier in the season. I'm like, all these guys are good. I mean, beyond Devante Adams, who's who's just on a tear right now. Uh, and then even, you know, the backup running back Dylan having a great game against Tennessee. Okay. Uh, Pittsburgh, I talked about this in my awards. I don't know what to do with them. At 11-0, it seemed like people were very anti them. You actually brought this up.

I think it was you. I hope it was you. If it wasn't, where it was like, hey, are they the worst 8-0 team ever or something like that, where you were comparing them to other ones, and then I went through it, and you were like, no, this isn't the worst. It was surprising to me how anti people were on Pittsburgh because that defense still statistically was right up there with everybody else and I like their their pass catchers um but as they started to lose these games and the Cincinnati loss is the one where you go okay what the hell is wrong with these guys and

they're a half away from being the first team to ever go from 11 and 0 to 11 and 4 and then they come back and have that win against the Colts, I don't know what to do with them because I've never been as anti them or as critical of them as an undefeated team. But now I'm wondering if I picked the Ravens to beat them in the first round. Yeah, so I actually didn't write that one. That might have been Aaron Schatz did a thing, I think. He had been working on it.

I remember him saying that on Twitter. I think it was. 11-0 teams and stuff. You're both so impressive. What I had written at that point was, hey, 11-0, bravo, top defense. You've got a quarterback who we all know. But I compared them to every Super Bowl team of the last 10 years, so 20 teams.

Because the one thing that I couldn't believe as I stacked the teams in my little statistical archive thing here, I was like, one of the things I look at, it's not everything, was like, one of the things I look at, it's not everything, but it's one of the things I look at is what percentage of your passes make explosive games, gains over 15 yards. Cause we know it's hard to have 20 play drives, right? You need to, you need to make big chunk gains. That's football. That's huge. It's always important. And the, the Steelers had the second lowest percentage to like the own 11 jets. Okay. In the league. And that's a total outlier. Like all of the other teams that are good would be,

you know, at least representative, right? You're not going to be historically bad. It was one of the worst percentages for any team in years. Part of that safe throw all the time. So you're not going to have a higher percent and they throw short, But I thought that was the issue was like, offensively, they don't have enough of a run game. They don't really try play action. When they do, you saw yesterday, it's shotgun play action. The guy gets swarmed for a one yard loss. And we're looking at Roethlisberger to throw a throw in third down. I don't like the way their offense is set up. I think they're a fourth and one team that's throwing the wheel route 10 yards down field to the running back because they can't do anything else. And that scares me in a playoff scenario where obviously the pass is still key, but you need to be able to do enough

things. Well, I don't think they do it. Like they do enough things. Well, offensively we're run game explosive pass. We saw it come together a little bit yesterday. But have we seen it enough that we feel like it's going to be there? I don't know. Yeah, that's all fair. But it was kind of funny how it was, well, look at the bye week change and look at the schedule and this all, you know, just the excuse, the excuse, the excuse. And then you go, okay, but then you came back and won the game.

And, you know, people can talk about officiating, which I brought up too. Yeah, it's an unbelievable win because of how they must have felt like, we're going to lose four in a row and be the first team to ever do it. So they're going to be in, as we know. But I don't know how many people. It just feels like a very anti-Pittsburgh vibe out there. At 24-7, if Colts score again and it's a 31-7 game, they're having off-season meetings about their their direction maybe aren't they not about like

they're going to fire the coach but like what are we doing what are we doing who are we and they especially have those seriously my two with all the all the stuff like on paper when it's right and it hasn't been and we've seen this with a lot of units but the amount of resource they put into the offensive line over the years and i mean look dallas is a perfect example i was looking at their depth chart on the offensive line at this like that was I mean, look, Dallas is a perfect example. I was looking at their depth chart on the offensive line at this point. Like that was the epitome of what you would want, you know, tackle to tackle.

And it just hasn't even been close to what they thought they would have. And some of that goes for Pittsburgh as well. And then not be able to execute any of that stuff. But again, they're playing a lot of backups. Okay, Seattle, your team, a team that you know as well as anyone, they've won three in a row.

The Russell Wilson MVP campaign is going to fall short this year. They beat the Jets 40-3, the Washington football team 20-15, the Rams 20-9, Goff with a broken thumb in that one. Jamal Adams, incredible play on Henderson where he goes right to left. I mean, that was an unbelievable play watching it back. But Adams was so excited. He said, we have the best defense in the NFL. That seems excessive.

That was awesome. I enjoyed. So you're right. I live in Stanley area. I used to cover the team. So I've, you know, at the very least, I'm watching every game right for 20 years and I have a good feel for the team.

And Jamal Adams is such a breath of fresh air because most of the guys you've heard of on that defense are, you know, it's really Bobby Wagner, Casey, right? They're, they're at the end, you know, and you're, you're trying to hold on to something that's been gone for three years. So Adams comes in and he's never really won and he's just giddy, you know, and it was kind of i was watching they have like the post game show locally you know and even he's wearing this bright sweater and he was filling up my whole screen and he was just so excited it was like he lit a cigar playoff game

yeah like they had won a playoff game and i get i'll grant him that you know and he did make a great play their defense doesn't even close you know, it's not great. I said this a month ago. They're going to play the Eagles, Giants, Jets, Washington, and now even the Rams are not good offensively, and Goff was hurt. You would expect them to not allow as many points. So I'll give them that. They haven't allowed more than 17 points in one, two, three, four, five games, and that's what should happen when you play really bad offenses,

half of them with backup quarterbacks. But it doesn't mean that they're an upper echelon defense. What it means is if they can get anywhere back to the way they were playing offensively earlier in the year, they can do damage in the playoffs because all you need then is representative defense, right? You don't have to be top five. Just don't be terrible. The thing is, I'm not seeing that offense. I'm still seeing Russell Wilson grinding out there and looking unsure sometimes and doing just enough to beat Goff when Goff has a broken thumb. Well, that's not what they need to win at all. They need to be that team that was having Wilson in the MVP race that was putting up 35 on new England that was putting up 31 on Miami that put up 37 on the 49ers, even in

defeat to the bills, put up 34. I haven't really seen that team. You know, the one team, the one game they've scored what in the last one, two, three, four games, they've scored over 20 points once. And it was on the Jets when the Jets played one of their worst games. I mean, I'm not feeling it offensively. So I'm not ready to endorse yet. Yeah, the Russell Wilson part of it, though, when they're up 13-9, they need it.

I guess you feel like they need it, although the Rams just couldn't do anything. And at the time, we don't know. At least those of us watching at home are like, is this just another disastrous golf game? And we can blame the thumb. He's had other games where it hasn't been the thumb. But Russell on that last touchdown drive conversed two third downs.

You know, he had one to Metcalf where you're like, okay, you know, it just, it was those things where anytime anybody ever wants to doubt him, you're making a mistake. And you're right, the offense, it'd be great if it were back to what it was in the beginning of the year when he's on this absolute tear. It hasn't been that.

But in a playoff game, I've said this now for a couple years, I trust him as much as anyone to find a way to make that third and seven and that kind of play. He had a rollout to his left where he throws that pop-up again. It's that baseball thing that he does.

It's unbelievable. So they may not even have needed it because the Rams couldn't move the football at all. But even though the Adams thing was funny, it's just a team I have a hard time ever writing off because of him. I'm with you. I think what we're seeing too is so,

you know, the amazing fast start, let Russ cook, they were throwing it all over the yard, and then they got a little sideways, right? I mean, they bogged down in the mud and Russell Wilson had some uncharacteristic turnover games. And I think then Pete Carroll pulled the reins in a little bit. They became more, and they got Chris Carson healthy, right?

So they've- But don't you think also that Russ was doing some of this stuff because he knew the defense was terrible. So I thought he actually was like raising his risk allotment. Interesting, yeah. That could have been some of that. that could have been some of that. That could have been some of that. But I think they sort of got humbled a little bit one way or the other

offensively in the middle of the year. And now they're kind of finding out, they're sort of going to find out what they are. And I don't think I've seen enough weeks of it to know for sure, but Pete Carroll's going to have Chris Carson be a part of it in the run game. We're going to have Wilson playing off of that. The defense now able, it looks like, in some of these games to keep the score down. It feels a little bit more like a Pete Carroll type of Seahawks game traditionally

than it feels like the new Russell Wilson Seahawks offense, which is what it felt like early in the year. Do you think if Russ had been asked to, like when Andrew Luck first stepped in, he's throwing like 500 passes and Russell would be throwing in the 300s maybe with that defense. Do you think if Russ were asked to carry a team without that defense, he would be the same quarterback today? That's a great question. Especially if he were nurtured in an environment of past game, let's just say he was with Andy Reid his whole career,

would that be a little bit of an extreme? I think that he'd have better career numbers and would have been able to do it at a high level. I think there are some limitations with him because of his size and ability to see from the pocket that I think are somewhat of a limiting thing in that traditional type of an offense. If he was doing that all the time, I don't think that would be maximizing him the way it could be for Rodgers, let's say. But I think he can do enough of the other things that if you're smart around it like Andy Reid would be,

he could have certainly been in a higher-value and pass offense, and maybe he would have gotten an MVP vote along the way, even though he's not this year, and we're going to have to hear about it next year, as if he should have this year when he shouldn't have this year. They did a great job on it this year. They did an unbelievable job getting the message out, getting the kids out to vote, but there it's just there's stronger candidates there's there's not much he's never

gotten an MVP vote well let's go year by year you can believe it you know I've done it I've done it when you actually do it it's it's one of those classic things where you hear it and everybody goes yeah that's crazy and then it's like did you do any of the work did you do any of the work to realize how not crazy it is it's not yeah i just heard somebody else say it and i now i'm saying on my show so that's what yeah you're asking me to look up this stuff so um by the way for those wondering i think russ eventually figures it out wherever he goes russell wilson would just figure it out wherever he was if he had to throw a time he would still be really good right now i just always whenever anybody is like sort of brought along slowly the approach is always credited for the result.

Like it's only about the approach. It's like, Oh, you know, they brought them along the right way or like my homes. And, you know, people could talk about my homes being disastrous as a practice player in

that first year. I just, I refuse to believe that if my homes were with Philadelphia, we're wondering if he's going to be fixed. You know, I refuse to believe there's a version of Mahomes that gets benched with another football program. And I think Wilson's in that tier of special players who just figured it out.

I just believe that other people disagree. Yeah. Wilson's such a worker and a grinder. You know, I, I, I agree with you on that. I think he's going to be good. And I don't think they withheld it from him early to bring him along as much. No, certainly as a rookie, they did. But I think that's the style Pete wanted to play

when for four or five years in a row, they had the number one scoring defense. Yeah, they didn't need to. 20 to 16. And it all worked. So none of it is to be praised. It was less a reflection of him. He did a great job with that,

and he's done a great job for the most part when they've asked him to do more. I've heard this, and I want to know because you talk to so many people around the league, but I was talking to an executive that said, once Adam Gase gets to game 29-30 with a team, look out. I'm sure that was being said. No, that was a lie. So he's 31 games in.

They've won a couple. So what do the Jets do now? Did Darnold save his job? They don't have the number one pick. We'll get to that stuff in a little bit with the off the field. But what do you make of the Jets? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think, look, projecting college quarterback play to the NFL

is a dangerous thing to do, right? We don't really know for sure if it's going to be Josh Rosen who's really good or if it's going to be Josh Allen or if it's going to be Lamar Jackson before the draft. We don't know for sure. But everybody seems to think, and our eyes seem to tell us, that Trevor Lawrence is on this one level and everyone else is kind of somewhere in between and a higher risk. So given that, if you're not going to pick Trevor Lawrence, then I think part of the calculus is, hey, has this been a disastrous situation for Darnold? Is it really worth taking someone who might just be Darnold with such a high pick when, you know, maybe we could trade that to someone,

sort of almost undo the trade with the Colts the other year, you know, when they, the Colts got those picks and built their line to, to really build our, build up our roster. Cause they have traded away all their best players, right? I mean, they, they tracked the Jamal Adams, Leonard Williams, some of those guys who were going to be good pieces for them. Even Robbie Anderson left. It wasn't considered that good, but it's done better. So they need players.

I think you really could make the case for, you know, Darnold if the new coach really said, hey, you know what? Here I can tell you behind the scenes, here's three ways this guy is going to be in the top half of the league by the end of the year. I could justify that unless we really think one of those other non-Trevor Lawrence's is 50% better, right? Isn't that the calculus?

Yeah, it would also depend on what happens with Gase. I mean, Joe Douglas, I still repeat this, but I don't understand why he gets included in all the Jets' issues. He's hardly been there. Yeah, I don't. And honestly, the early returns are that he kind of has a vision for what he's trying to do, and he's moving on from some people, and he's made some good draft picks.

And I believe, I mean, look, no one really wants to compliment Gaze. They played really hard the last couple weeks, man. And I was so impressed with their defensive front in that Browns game. And I know the Browns were missing every single receiver because of the hot tub. Not a party, but just actual treatment. And they were all exposed, potentially. So the Browns didn't have a lot of offensive options. But just catching glimpse of different series in that game,

I kept coming back to like, man, this is not the Lions out here right now. These guys are playing really hard. Yeah, and they weren't playing the Bucs either. I was noticing that too in this last week. I was like, oh, Minnesota and Detroit looked like this whole coronavirus fatigue of the season got to them. They checked out. They were also playing great teams, or at least great players that needed it. And yet, when I look at the Jets, my criticism of Douglas is, as a rule,

don't give away elite players. They're really hard to find. They won't draft somebody better than Jamal Adams. What are the odds that they will? It's a long shot. Right. Right. Right. So that's my, my criticism of him, not that he should be fired or anything is look to get out of these sticky situations where the player wasn't happy or whatever. We got rid of players who were good and we won't be able to replace him. So he made the team worse in the short term. There were times that everybody wants to focus on Adam Gase and I don't. I mean, to me, Adam Gase didn't have a competitive roster out there to win a game. People are like, yeah, they only use motion a certain percent of the time. I'm like, are you kidding me? Who are their receivers for most of these games? And you saw

late in the year when they got a little healthier or had a little bit better combination, shoot, Flacco looked better than he looked in five years, right? They're scoring 27 points. They're leading by 10 points late in a couple of these games. Um, they won a couple of games. So I, that's not an endorsement to keep gaze, but I think their talent was so horrific offensively, especially for most of the season that nobody would have done well with them. And now we've seen a little bit better later in the year, and you can make it better quickly just by getting at least league average. Look who they had at receiver.

Look what they invested in their offensive line when they paid George Fant and different guys. I mean, the wonder, Darnold, looked like he was never going to play well in the league. Okay, so that leads us to not only the changes there, but the bigger picture here is Jacksonville with the number one pick. And you have the piece up on Urban Meyer. Urban has been linked. I remember last year there was some rumblings among people that would talk about the stuff that maybe the Cowboys would be interested, that maybe he'd be interested in the Cowboys. Give me the sense of the Urban part of your piece, and then we'll talk about the rest of the openings and maybe any liens you have. Yeah. Here's the, here's the thing. Like, you know, when you talk to people in the league, there's no one who's like, uh,

he, well, I didn't talk to everybody in the league, but you know, I talked to six people or whatever. Um, none of them were like, uh, I got such great admiration for who he is and how he does things. I mean, this is the guy that I want to stake my program on. That's not what people are saying. But what people are saying is, if I'm Jacksonville and I can get him in there with Trevor Lawrence, we're going to sell the stadium. It's going to be exciting and then we can figure it out. You know what I mean? And yes, he's a good coach. All that, probably like any college coach or certainly someone who's sort of

that power coach, you're going to have to adapt in the pros. Not everybody can, right? I mean, some guys come in and aren't able to do it. He'd have to do that. We don't know if he would do it well. But you could make the case that wherever he goes, he's going to define the culture there, for better or worse. Maybe in Houston, his culture is better than the one they got.

It'd be the Sports Illustrated piece. That's one of the points that I made. So it kind of depends, I think, who you are, right, as to whether that's appealing. And if you're sitting there in Jacksonville and you're an hour drive from Gainesville, where he had a great record with Florida, that's more exciting than just rolling the dice

on the next guy who might be Zach Taylor or might be Matt LaFleur or might be whoever, isn't it? Isn't that the case to sort of be made for him? Yeah, because he's probably going to do it again. I mean, we can keep getting back to his health. And, you know, I remember talking to him about it at ESPN, and that was after the Florida gig, and then he takes the Ohio State gig. And I mean, he just, as soon as he shows up, at least on a college campus, you're in that

group. You're in that group of five programs that has a chance, because that's what his resume says. It's unbelievable. Yeah, it really is. Like you, you kind of, I don't know that any, anyone, this is a bit different topic, but I want to know what that is. Like, I want to know what is it, what happens when you show up on a campus? Like, what are the things that you notice and say, change this? I mean, the only things I can think of are some of the Saban things that I'd heard about he first went to alabama i've told this story before but i love hearing from the boosters that he was the only guy that was a potential candidate for the job that was like this sucks this is outdated this is terrible this is worse than vanderbilt's turf

you guys and so these boosters were like screw this guy like what does he think he is like we're alabama alabama yeah you know like roll motherfucking tide and this guy like what does he think he is like we're alabama alabama yeah you know like roll motherfucking tide and this guy's dumping all over us and then some other boosters apparently were like this is exactly the point we need a guy to come in here and tell us he was like take this down this poster's old nobody knows like just completely looked at everything they were doing like you guys are living off of the name and your facilities are in the middle of the SEC, which is embarrassing. If you're Alabama, you don't conduct yourself that way. And guess what?

It's perhaps the most impressive run in the history of college football. I mean that in the modern era in the sense of far more competition than what we had in the 40s or Princeton. He's been in four places and never won less than 70-some percent of the games in any one of them. That's somewhere. I've heard that story, but there has to be more depth to it. What do you sit down and say? When Urban was at Florida, it was speed, speed, speed.

Everybody we're drafting that's a skilled guy, we want the fastest guys. And that's what his team looked like. And that's why it's so funny to see some of these other teams be like, how come you guys don't have fast guys anymore? Anyway, that's sort of a rant. But I still don't know that I've ever gotten like, I need an hour-long documentary on how it is that somebody can show up to a program

and then everything is different. People look in the mirror and see something different in themselves. And everybody's rowing in the same direction, not a row the boat reference. Yeah, the two things that I... So I talked to one of his former coaches yesterday who was just said uh a couple things stood out you know one is just he has a great ability to foster the the culture of competition through everything and that is a little bit easier to do in college than pros because you have more reps more players on on your team, deeper rosters, but it's a constant competition thing. And then the other thing was pretty dang good eye for talent, and especially with quarterbacks.

He's just done a great job with that aspect of it, which is obviously critical, right? In college, you've got to win with the better players. So those two things, pretty good places to start. And we've seen the competition thing in a totally different way with Pete Carroll, be a huge hallmark of his program, college and pro and have it work. Yeah. Pete was always, I remember, you know, only when it was a Pats fan before this,

when they had multiple picks and he would draft guys at multiple, like the same position and go, I want competition. I want every single day to be about competition. But I think people know that people can say it and think they're executing it, but you don't, you don't always get the same result. And that's why I'm just so impressed with those guys. And that's why Urban's even brought up.

So you think what? You think this is... Like, we can do the math on the Jacksonville part of it, but how realistic do you think this is? I think we need to... I don't know what his intentions are. I mean, he could be trying to get a new, better role on TV. He could just like to be loved. I don't know what his intentions are, right? I mean, he could be trying to get a

new, better role on TV. He could just like to be loved. I don't know any of that. There's no inside information on that. I mean, this right now is, I think Adam Schefter reporting that two teams have inquired about him. So we, I mean, I believe Adam Schefter, I think he's got a hundred percent track record. So I think there is some interest in him. I think he's probably intrigued by it. I don't know if it's going to happen. I really don't. some interest in him. I think he's probably intrigued by it. I don't know if it's going to happen. I really don't. I mean, I wish I could say there was a way to know. I mean, how would you know, right? How serious are the teams? I think that's sort of impossible to know at this time, but I think Jacksonville makes sense, makes enough sense that I would believe that.

Like, I think there would be a chance. Yeah, I think there's a team of all the openings that we have here. There's going to be an owner in a group that says, what's the price? And who knows? Maybe that check's too big to say no to. And the report by Adam, two teams involved. Well, that's how you get the price going, right? You know what I mean?

So, you know, that's an interesting part of this so does the price get high enough that he's like i'm in maybe there's a price there usually is there usually is and for those that think like oh the the owner's gonna worry about the health part of it all urban has to do is say hey i'm fine like i'll figure it out and then the owner's gonna go good cool like now i have the guy i wanted so i mean it not sounds insensitive of it, but he just, we know how this stuff works. Give me any idea, like taken in any direction that you want to. You've done this comprehensive list of who's interviewed, where they've interviewed, who teams have interviewed. I was going through it this morning.

It is extensive. But we have a lot of turnover here. We have a lot of turnover in the front offices. So this is going to be an off season that is different because of so many openings. It is. It's funny. Yeah.

My process on all these things is I have to like do a thorough, uh, I have to look at everyone who's been hired and all this stuff just to get a sense of the landscape. So that's kind of what I did was like, who even gets hired for these jobs? Cause you think there's five GM jobs open. You think everyone's doing,

you know, doing their damnedest to find out who the absolute best candidates are and look at all of them and bring them in. And when you look at who gets hired, there's a lot of times it's someone who was already there or somebody who knows, knows them and worked there before. And that's how you get Dave Gettleman going to the Giants, right? I mean, they know him. He's an extension of what they've had before. It's how Marty Herney comes back to Carolina, right? I mean, they know he can do the transition, all those types of things.

So what I see is Carolina probably looking at the Cleveland Browns and saying, you know what, they got themselves a young, you know, intellectual type GM and Andrew Barry with kind of an intellectual Ivy League pedigree coach in Stefanski, They work well together. So now I think they will go. I would bet their general manager will sort of speak the analytics game well,

will have a better chance, will be under 45 as opposed to above. You know what I mean? And I think that's what Tepper is going to admire. So we would see that in that case. And I don't know who that is. Is it somebody who's, maybe it's someone who hasn't had the GM type power before. You know what I mean?

It could be somebody from one of these teams that's perceived to have strong analytics, Baltimore, Philly, you know, those types of places, right? I would think would apply for him. So that's where my mind went first. Who else are you thinking about? Well, I don't know. I mean, I wanted to stay a little bit

on some of the Houston thing because I think Breer had a thing about the links of BNME to Watson because Mahomes raved about BNME to Watson. And I don't know, like how long do you have to be mentioned to somebody? about the enemy to Watson? And I don't, I don't know. Like how long do you have to be mentioned to somebody? Is there more to it?

Like, is he not as good at an interview? We don't know that. Like what, what would be the reason why the enemy wouldn't get a shot with somebody like Watson after Mahomes just put together these years? Yeah, absolutely.

The, the interview part of it for sure is a huge part, part of this equation. It's weird this year too, because we're in a Zoom world, right? So like I was talking to a potential GM candidate yesterday, you know, about the idea, is it an advantage or a disadvantage? It sort of levels the playing field when we can all be at our laptop. Like you can't see, we're on a Zoom right now. You don't know that I have three screens right here that can have all the answers to the test, right? Which is good radio prep, but may not be great GM prep. You know what I mean? The GM has got the answers on the, on the board. They can't just start grilling him as easily, you know, get him in the hallway and say, all right, how do you get the salary cap? And he's like, shoot. Uh, you know what I mean? So this is a weird situation. I think on the enemy, here's what I struggle with on hiring. Okay. So we all know that you shouldn't hire someone just because they're a coordinator with the

best offense, right? That's not the way to do it. You're supposed to get the best guy, the best leader, the best manager of people, the best communicator, all that stuff. Why do people say it's unfair that the enemy hasn't gotten a head coaching job? Because he's the number one offense. Yeah.

I think there's another element to it too. Oh, absolutely. No doubt about it. So if he doesn't get a head coaching job, do we know that he's going to be a great head coach? I mean, he's been with Andy Reid, Matt Nagy was with Andy Reid. Would you be hiring the next guy out of there? I think that interview process is critical.

Does he have an ability to sell the program? Not just was he with Andy Reid and had a good year. So is there a way he doesn't get a job? I don't know. I mean, what are they looking for, right? Yeah, but then I think about like, what was Adam Gase like in his two interviews? Absolutely, yeah.

There's no question that Eric B. Enomy should be hired as a head coach based on all the other people that have been hired as head coaches. That's 100% true. No, but it's a really good point that we can't just say, hey, best coordinator, okay, best offense, Boom. This guy's going to get it done. I'll give you an example. I was on a Zoom call this last off season put on by, I think, the Black College Football Hall of Fame and the league. And it's sort of a mentoring opportunity for candidates of color. And they had a lot of, they had people like Art Rooney, John Mara, Jim Caldwell, a bunch of people who've been around the game and for a long time. And then

they had coaches like Robert Sala and Eric Bien-Ami, and they all got to sort of give their spiel. Okay. So when I came, then I got to listen to everybody for 20 minutes and you sort of see what are the cliff notes of the interview? What's sort of the outline of how would an interview go? And I came away from that going, geez, I want to hire solid, I guess. You know what I mean? Whereas I went into it thinking, well, the enemy's clearly ahead of solid. Right. But I, but I came away from it just so impressed and that that may not be even the best criteria, right?

I mean, heck, if you would have watched the introductory press conferences, you would have had Zach Taylor over LeFleur, right? Well, maybe if Aaron Rodgers was playing for Zach Taylor, we'd still have him over him. But you know what I mean. Yeah, yeah. These ways we're forming our impressions

may not even be the right ways, but to me, Sala like really resonated. I was like, just in that, just hearing him go through his 10 or 12 bullet points of what it is to be a coach. I thought he was the best guy. Well,

no one was talking about him a year ago. They're talking about the enemy. That's how almost hard this is. Right. And the best hires have been guys like Mike Tomlin. It was a one-year coordinator on a 6-10 team. The worst hires have sometimes been the guy who's got the number one offense or the guy who's with Peyton Manning or whatever.

It's really hard to do. It's going to be challenging to do this year. There's elements of luck on it because we're going to evaluate. We're going to hire someone off of something they've never done. Yeah, the interview part of it is, is so important because we sit there and we scream, how come this guy, what about this guy? What about that guy? But when you don't know, when you don't sit in the room with the person, um, it's, it's a little, it's a little, I think sometimes like, it's kind of ridiculous that we get as mad as we do about certain people

not being hired. Um, and I'm talking about like anybody who's been successful as a quarter. And I'm not talking about the race part of it. It's it's that, well, you know, do you know, like, do you know what,

I mean, again, I can't imagine what Gase was like in a room. If this is what he's like in every other life, but I just fear there's so much put on the enemy. This is why I wasn't just immediately running the bank and saying the enemy's gonna be great coach he may be i like a lot of things about him what i don't want to have happen is everybody for five years talk about what a travesty it is that the enemy is not hired even

if it is a travesty and then he goes somewhere and isn't a good coach which we don't know if he would be and then people are like the the next B enemy is like, yeah, why are you propping this guy up? Right. Yeah. I think the emphasis should be on the process and the process. And this is what Tony Dungy always says. The process has to be slow it down and really get to know somebody.

Look at all the candidates. Don't rush in to a job. In my research on these gems, I was going back and I was like, do you know that the Chargers rushed into hiring Mike McCoy because they were afraid they were going to lose him? They canceled their interview with Bruce Arians the next week because they didn't want to lose McCoy. They were so impressed by him.

The process is slowing it down so that we can look at Eric Bien-Ami and Robert Sala and five other guys and really know what we're wanting. And us have no better than anyone on the outside of whether this guy's going to be a fit for us. So there's not a surprise. Instead, what happens is people go, oh, shoot, we lost Matt Rule. Let's hire Joe Judge. And Joe Judge, he looks good so far. He may be a great coach, but that's not always the best process is that when you hurry into a role. So I'm evaluating process, whether Biennium gets hired or not. We can look at these situations and see whether a team looks like they're operating in good faith and really can explain why they hired a specific person. If they can do that well, whether it's Biennium or not,

I'm pretty good with it. But they can't always do that. They rush into hires. They don't know why they're hiring someone. And then when a Biennium doesn't get hired or even get a serious look, you're like, that's a bad process. You can check out all of the stuff on the off season movement. All the teams that are going to have openings it's up on the athletic and

that's Mike Sando at Sando NFL. And we're always thankful for his time. Thanks man. Thank you. You want details? Bye. I drive a Ferrari 355 Cabriolet. What's up? I have a ridiculous house in the South Fork. I have every toy you can possibly imagine. And best of all, kids, I am liquid.

So now you know what's possible. Let me tell you what's required. Hey, we'll finish with life advice. A couple NBA things planned for later in the week. We'll probably do NBA on Wednesday and Friday. So not even a weekend. I'm going to hold off on some of my observations here. I need to watch. I've watched almost every team already, so I'm pretty proud of that. But it depends on the night. What if you watch Brooklyn against Charlotte and watch them a different night? It depends on the night. Like, what if you watch Brooklyn against Charlotte and watch them a different night? So, you know, let me hold off.

I usually need 10 to 20 games before I feel good about anything. So I'll wait until we have that. I mean, the Harden thing against Portland is probably the only like really, hey, we could do 20 minutes on this. But I'm kind of sick of talking about Harden, even though I know I'll have to, especially if he gets traded. But he was so out of shape and so productive in that game. It was just fun to watch because McCollum was going nuts, and they were going back and forth, back and forth. And I know Harden screwed up the last play on the pass, but, I mean, he was just ridiculous, and he looks terrible.

I don't know. Did you see any of it, Kyle? No, but I just keep seeing pictures of him. I like it. Uncle Drew. Yeah, yeah. no but i just keep seeing pictures of him i like it uncle drew yeah yeah it just like hey i i could take this league i am so not serious about my commitment to you guys to fitness to none of it 44 right in your eye and a million assists got a couple ridiculous foul calls but hey i'll uh i'll back off i'll back off for right now okay life advice story short, Ryan, this essentially boils down to a real estate question at the end of my email. Cool. Love real estate questions. All right. I'm David.

Okay. He says, use my name. None of it's a secret. 33 years old attorney living in San Diego, got married in 17 and about a year and a half into the marriage. My wife decided she wanted to become an actress. This was a little surprising as she had zero history experience with any kind of acting or theater and was turning 30. I'd be lying if I said I was super excited about this decision. But I did my best to support her. Got a couple rounds of headshots, bought acting books, and eventually got her signed up for acting class in LA that she would drive up to from our place in San Diego several times a week. We know where this is going.

Shockingly fast. God, I love the way this guy puts together a couple sentences. They're just so, like, I'd be lying if I said I was super excited about this decision. It's a good line. Shockingly fast, she seemed to become an entirely different person than who I married. Drinking regularly when she had been 100% sober. Racking up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card debt, getting fired from her job for theft. And within a few months, she was sleeping with a guy in her class. Obviously, we knew that was going to happen. The class she signed up for, oh, this is great. Side note, the class she signed up for was one recommended by Jenna Fisher in her book about pursuing an

acting career. So not only am I down on Pam for all the reasons, Pam, from the office that you've discussed in the past, I blame her about 5% for my own marriage collapsing. I can't believe this guy said use the name, but I like it. He's just like, fuck it. This is me. Take a look. All right. Anyways, we split up in January of this year. So he's about a year out now.

It's been emotionally devastating and her infidelity was something I never saw coming. In March, I moved back in with my parents to try to recover a bit and pay down the credit card debt you get stuck with. So you get stuck with the debt too. That's awesome. The good news is I've made great progress. The only debt I have these days are my student loans. The divorce was final a couple of weeks ago. I am however, still at my parents' house. Now more of the point of my email. See, I like this. He's not asking about when he should start dating again. Cause should have started dating while you were married, apparently. God, that sucks. The great thing is it's not even really what he's asking about. So I feel good about our guy here. More of the point of the email. While I'm in a somewhat better place in my divorce, I'm still frustrated with how much I think about her. I mean, you got like blindsided, blindsided. And then you wonder, wait, this person had this in them the entire time.

I mean, hell, Louis Riddick thought Haskins, as we mentioned before, was the number one quarterback in that draft. Think how bad some of you guys are picking wives, right? Nice. And people get mad about quarterbacks. They just play on Sunday. So, and maybe I would be just as bad at picking out a wife too. So this is not my criticism of you. I just think it's kind of funny where we're like, man, I can be just as bad at picking out a wife too. So this is not my criticism of you. I just think it's kind of funny where we're like, man, I can't believe how bad this GM is.

People are really bad at picking quarterbacks. Yeah, we're also picking, we're pretty bad at the life partner thing. We're like 50% on that too. Actually, the bust rate for wives and husbands is the same as first round QBs last 20 years. Look it up. They get 538 on that. Okay. Although 538 loved the Sixers before the playoffs got started,

so maybe I'll hold off. Okay, so here we go. He still thinks about her. I know that what I need at this point is to restart my social life, which started dying as my marriage declined. It's been basically non-existent since the pandemic. Yeah. I just can't see that really happening as a 33-year-old living at my parents' house. I'm not really excited about paying rent for an expensive one bedroom, and I'm definitely not interested in any roommate situations. I've been thinking about buying a small condo that I could hopefully keep

as a rental in the future. Inventory, however, is very low. And despite the pandemic, prices in the area are at an all-time high. Look, destination, cities, places near water, places outside, activity, all of the prices for real estate, they were already high. Like in my town, it's been on a 10-year run. And you're like, when is this thing gonna slow down? I'm like, great.

And I felt like I was buying it at the very peak. And then things dipped and then they went back up because people were like, look, if I'm stuck at home, I was watching Fauci this morning and he was saying, hopefully things will be back to normal next fall. You know, if that's what has to be done, it has to be done, but I'm not going to lie that it doesn't, it doesn't probably hit you a little hard and go, wait, you know, another, another nine months of this, maybe, I mean, look, if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. But I see you, you, I mean, look, if that's what it takes, that's what it takes. But I see you, you talking about all your different things and that's why the real

estate here in San Diego is what it is because people are like, screw it. I'm just going to go live in San Diego and at least be an outdoors person. If everything is still going to be pandemic, uh, pandemic law here. All right. So prices all the time. Hi. He said he's also short of the 20% down payment. So I'd be paying for mortgage insurance as such. My monthly payment, if I bought a place, would probably be about $500 more a month than if I rent it. So with the mortgage insurance, he's talking about, because that's the thing,

depending on what kind of mortgage product you qualify for. But if you're short of the 20%, you don't have the income, you're probably not going to get some of these specialty loans that are definitely out there for some buyers. Okay. All right. So my question is, what's the best move here? Do I just rent a place for the time being and hope selfishly that the market cools off and I get a better place in the future? Do I just buy a place now, pay the mortgage insurance and hope that prices keep going up and build some equity? Or I just suck it up and stay with my parents longer until I have a cash for 20% down payment. I hate the mortgage insurance thing.

I really do because it's just a waste of money. It's a complete waste of money. And it sounds like the extra 500 bucks is a significant number for you. So I can't believe I'm going to say this because I would have slept on a street before I would have stayed with my parents. That was my priority. My number one priority was get me out of here. I just, that was my priority. My number one priority was get me out of here. And when I had to come home, when I had to come home and that was really more about me than it wasn't anything going home. You know what I'm saying? Like I just was away that I was like, I don't, yeah. What? And I moved home for a couple months when I, yeah, it was like 23 and I just was like, what are you doing? Get out of here. This is ridiculous. Why did you do this move?

And I went right back to the town that I was living in because I was like, if I'm going to be a loser and don't have any plan or don't have any money or don't know what I'm doing, at least it'll be fun because I'll be back with friends and I'll be, you know, whatever relationship and that kind of stuff. That's what was important to me. So even though I get what you're saying, you went through this divorce. It sucks, man. And you want to be able to have that independence for your, your own wellbeing. You want to at least in whatever

version of, of dating, I don't know how you guys are doing this right now with, with everything going on, but, uh, you know, meeting people or whatever. And you think like, you know, maybe there's the independence, you know, your thirties, three, you clearly, you know, you're going through some stuff. It'd be nice to not have to be with your parents, but, but I can't believe I'm going to say this. You didn't once bring up that you don't get along with the parents. So if they do get along with you, a year is a very short amount of time. If you were to say, Hey, from this point, very short amount of time. If you were to say, Hey, from this point, like market down in one year, think how fast time goes by now, right? Especially as you get older, if you were going to say, okay, Jan one, 2021, but if you can suck it up for a year, which also

may be nine months of a pandemic here. And I don't know what any of these projections are. I'm just talking out loud here. And then January 2022, you're going to have saved another 30 to 40 grand. I don't know if that's a real number or not. I'm just throwing stuff out there. And now you don't have to do mortgage insurance, throwing money away. You have your 20% down. I don't know what's going to happen with the market. I mean, imagine there's going to be some sort of correction with some of this stuff. I mean, real estate prices can't just keep going up forever and ever. So to wait out, do I buy now because I'm going to get equity? You don't know that. Do I wait it out so that I can get a lower price? You don't know that. I don't know that. I'm not pretending to know any of those things. But what I'm saying as far as

putting yourself in the best situation financially to buy the house that you want, and maybe something even nicer a year from now, a year is not a very long time to live at home and be with your parents if you get along with them. If you don't and you can't stand that and you need your independence, especially, look, man, you're just married. You went through all this stuff. I have no problem with you making a worse financial decision because what's important to you right now is maybe getting away from them. But for the times that I've thought about finances, where I go, what if you just did this for a year? What if you just downsized everything for a year? This is back when I was younger. You go get a dumpy apartment, cable, internet, two TVs, watch your games, take notes. It's all you do anyway. Why do you need something really nice?

And in Connecticut, I didn't really live in that nice of a place. I didn't. I was just like, whatever, I'm just going to save my money and then I'll have plans later on. So I know a year sounds like a long time, but in a year, it's going to go by really fast and it might be the best decision for you financially. It may not be the best decision for your dating life, but who are you going to date right now anyway?

Okay, this one is really easy, but I'm going to include a story for you. Okay, Ryan, Kyle, if you read this, thanks. All right. Best friend and I went on a trip to celebrate graduating college. One day during the trip, it was my 22nd birthday, and since I wasn't around my family, he told me he wanted to buy me some drinks, and I told him I'd let him. And on the day of my birthday, we ordered some IPAs from a local brewery to try them out. He paid, and we took them back to the house to try them out because of COVID. Okay.

We tried them and almost instantly we stated we did not like them and the unique flavors weren't our style. We both were glad we tried them, but agreed we were not going to finish them due to the taste preference. This is when my buddy apologized for them being bad and I said it was okay. And then I was glad we tried them. He then proceeds to ask me if I could Venmo him and pay him for half since we didn't like them. We were close enough that when he asked, I looked at him and was like, seriously? He kept telling me since we didn't like them, it would be the nice thing to do. Am I a dick for thinking that's kind of not cool? The simplest answer is no, that's not cool. And you're not a dick for asking that. It's not even the paying him back part

because it's not that much money, but I felt like i was put in a weird position i would have paid him back instantly if he hadn't told me and insisted all day he was going to buy me drinks my birthday how should i handle this do i just pay him back so it's done with yes just pay him back all right so um he's wrong you're right pay him back now let's expand this. There's some phrasing in here that I don't quite get. And it may just be you writing the email to include all the details, but I hope you and your best friend don't talk this way to each other. Hey, it's your birthday and I'm going to buy you some drinks. Like, that's understood. It's my birthday. We're 22. We're best friends. You're buying drinks. birthday. We're 22. We're best friends. You're buying drinks. I told him I'd let him. I will let you buy me those drinks. Was he all day being like, I'm going to buy you drinks. It is your birthday. Because then he's just socially awkward if he was talking to that way in the first place and him asking for money on the backside of this actually makes a little bit more sense. So that's just something I'm reading here and feeling out. I could be totally off.

But I'll say this to everyone. Some people are just really, really weird about money. I, um, as a bartender for a long time, we're borderline careless with our money. When it comes to the service industry, we'll buy drinks for everybody. We over tip the whole, Hey, do you get hooked up? No. When you bartend, you actually pay more because you have to like prove that you're, you're down and you're going to, you know, you're going to leave a nice tip for people. So I would never in a million years, buy a round of drinks and then ask people to pay me back. Even when I was poor college kid, even though I guess the first year I bartended, I was 19. So it wasn't always in me, but I just, I'm generous that way with my friends. I'm generous when I don't even have anything. And I wasn't very good with money back then.

That was probably part of the reason, but I would be like, if we get around to Coors Lights, I'd be like, look, you know, well, here you go. Although we didn't really buy rounds a ton when we were really young. When you're really, really young, you know, and you're getting your first experience as being in bars, you know, you're sitting there and be like, well, it's 50 cent draft. Okay. Here's a dollar. Where's my 50 cents? You know, like that's how stupid you are back then. Um, but what you have to always understand is that as screwed up as it is, like he doesn't think it's screwed up at all. So to give him the 15, 20 bucks back for the IPAs, just now you've've noted it you're aware he's a weirdo about money and

you're gonna let it go because i had a friend like this i had somebody who was like this where if we bought rounds he would keep track of the fucking rounds and be like rusulo you didn't you i i'm i bought two and you bought one so you owe me one before the night's over and you're like all right look i'm working on some things currently. And, you know, I'll get back to you. You're like, okay, but don't, don't take off. I'd be like, what do you mean? Don't take off.

Are you, you know, like what the fuck? And this is somebody who then we realized later on that he was just different about money. Now he had money, but he and his family were different about these kinds of things because this is an insane story. We were all seniors and his family came to visit and because they were paying his rent, they were like, that's where we're staying. And they brought everybody like everybody. It wasn't just your mom or your dad coming to visit. And the idea that by the way, my mom or dad would dad would say hey i'm staying at your house with you and your five roommates and we're staying for the weekend there's no way there's no way why would they even want to dude they brought everybody they brought and everybody was really nice okay Okay. So I want this to be, to be clear in case it gets back to him. Um,

which it might not really give a fuck, but it was, it was, it might've been six people, six or seven people in our house and it was six of us. And so dudes are making all sorts of arrangements, you know, trying to make, make sure that everybody was good to go. And they cooked us this massive feast, this massive feast of, of all of this food. And it was incredible. It was like a big Thanksgiving feast for the entire house. Oh yeah. You know what else is really weird too? This is, I'm just adding details to it. I'm not trying to brag. I was dating a girl who was, who was like 25 and she was a fitness instructor from the Virgin islands. And I don't know why she liked me either. So don't worry about it, but she was staying with us that weekend. So we have this big Thanksgiving meal. It's great. Put everything away. And we all had fridges in our room because you got to have a fridging room and they're like we don't have any more room in the fridge like ryan is there any way you can take this

extra stuffing and the stuffing was incredible so i was like yeah absolutely like holy holy shit like i got the tray of stuffing you know that's a big deal when you're 21 you're not sure you know there's your finances at least for me back then were like bitcoin although not in a good way just all over the place although bitcoin apparently now just only goes up um your finances, at least for me back then were like Bitcoin, although not in a good way of just all over the place. Although Bitcoin apparently now just only goes up. Um, so trust me, this is, this is worth it. So we put all this stuff away and they had drove, you know, hours and hours from, from further away to come stay with us. And everybody, you know, it was like nice enough. And look, the family was great. The family was great. There was no issues there, but granted the rest of us,

other than the one roommate, the other five of us were like, this kind of like, this is weird, dude. We're coming back to our place. There's just a million people here. And they had money too. Like they could have got stayed in a hotel and they just didn't. So that night go to bed as many people do. I get a knock on my bedroom door in the morning and it's, it's my roommate's mom. And I hear the knock and I'm, you know, in bed with the girl I'm dating.

And I'm like, what is going on here? You know, in the morning when you're that age, you're like, what's going on here? And she's like, Hey. And I was like, Oh, Hey hey how's it going what's up and she goes can we um we're

leaving i just want to grab that stuffing it's like what she's like yeah the stuffing we left in your fridge um the extra stuffing we're packing up we're headed back home. I was like, oh, you want the stuffing? Yeah, hold on. Let me grab it for you. I handed it to her and I was like, whatever. And I probably went to bed for like two or three more hours. And the girl's like, what happened there? I'm like, I don't think I know yet. I don't think I know what just happened. And then the next day, we're kind of doing an inventory. And one of the guys is like, where's the Turkey from last night? Like we were so excited about all the leftovers and they took all of the leftovers with them home. When they drove home, they drove home with all of the leftovers. So instead of leaving all the leftovers for

six college kids, one of them being their son, they took them all back with them, including like a half a gallon of milk. And the rest of us were like, what the fuck just happened? And we couldn't bring it up to the other guy because he would have gone absolutely berserk on us. But that's my point, is that some people grow up differently about possession, about money, about things, and you're going to come across it all the time. And instead of trying to like diagnose, like what the hell, what did I do? No, you just, more people kind of get it. And then there's a few that don't. And every now and then you're going to run

into somebody that doesn't. I remember a bar that I worked at. It got shut down. And then I was going to be involved. And then I didn't want to be because I didn't like the new owner. He was a total piece of shit. And he proved it because he had never been around the bar industry. And he owns the bar.

He's cashing out the registers. And he's trying to figure out his percent, what kind of number he's at for his liquor sales. And then he starts charging at the door. And he was furious that there was all of these kids in college making like 120 to 200 on a really good night in tips. And he owns the place. He's going to cover the insurance, all the stuff you know supplies the fucking liquor license the rent all of the stuff that he has to deal with and he's like these guys are banking like this kid's a junior and he's making 600 a week bartending at my place so then he decided

that no one should really make more than 40 or 50 dollars as a bartender so he was taking everybody's tips and giving them like 50 bucks. And he thought he was right. Cause he's like, I own this place. I'm on the hook for all this stuff. And these guys are walking out with all sorts of cash. Like their take home per week is like more than what I'm making right now. And he was, again, he wasn't really a bar owner. He owned the building, the bar that I worked in got shut down while he owned the building.

And so then he just said, Hey, I'll just turn the lights on and keep the staff and start raking in the dough. But he didn't know what he was doing. And because I wasn't in the picture anymore, then all the people were going to steal from him anyway. And the guys came back to me. They're like, that place sucks. Now they're like, the guy just takes the tip jar at the end of the night, hands us all 50 and then keeps the rest of it. I was like, yeah, but he thinks is the lesson here is he actually doesn't even think he's doing anything wrong. Just like the guy who asked for money back in the bad IPAs doesn't think he did anything wrong. Just like the family that took all the Thanksgiving food from a bunch of college kids back home for hours while it was warm in the car. Didn't think anything was wrong. It's just that's

sometimes people do stuff and the rest of us are like, what the hell? That's this week's life advice. And, uh, we'll be good to go the rest of the week, Wednesday and Friday. All right? So please subscribe. Tell your friends. Tell people you don't. Thank you. Outro Music