The Ryen Russillo Podcast - Trent Dilfer on the Truth About Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields. Plus: Losing in Life and in CFB, and NFL Awards

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

Russillo shares his thoughts on the College Football Playoff selection (2:00), before talking with Super Bowl champion Trent Dilfer about the Chiefs' win over the Saints, an impressive effort by Jalen Hurts in the Eagles' loss to the Cardinals, Carson Wentz most likely remaining benched for the remainder of the season, Trent's top-five QBs for the next five years, top draft prospects Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields, and more (17:00). Then Ryen hands out his NFL awards for Week 15 (59:00) before answering some listener-submitted Life Advice questions (1:14:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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when you want the real deal like a good neighbor, State Farm is there. Here is the plan. By the way, reminder, everyone, NBA, not an NBA on this one. We are doing a full-blown NBA preview, all 30 teams, over-unders, myself, Bill Simmons, House, that's going to come out tonight into tomorrow morning. So depending where you are, either subscribe to my podcast, subscribe to Bill's podcast,

you're going to get a full, like, I know that thing's going to go two hours, NBA preview. So because we have that NBA one with Bill coming out, I'm not going to do a Wednesday. But to make up not doing a Wednesday for you, I am going to do a full Christmas recap. We're going to tape that Christmas night, and then it'll be out late, late Christmas night, depending on where you are, or early Saturday morning back on the East Coast. So that's the plan. And, you know, that's how this week has all come together. So it's still three pods for me, but one's a preview with Bill, and then we'll get to the NBA content at the end of the week.

So that's the plan. Okay. For this podcast, Trent Dilfer, he's going to be great. He's going to join us very shortly. We're also going to do life advice. And I have the NFL awards a little bit later, but I'm starting with one of my favorite rants. Okay. The teams are in, the arguments are out. We've got the four teams, Alabama, Clemson, Ohio State, and Notre Dame. I'll tell you, I struggle with Ohio State like a lot of you do. They're 6-0. It's weird. It's weird all over the place this year. Is there part of me that thinks if it were a different team that were 6-0, Big 10 champs, they might not be in? Well, it also depends on what else I'm comparing it to Ohio state. I test. I feel like the ice I test looked a little bit better at the beginning of the year than it did. Now I know what Buckeyes fans are going to say, Hey, we're missing 20 plus

players in a lobby. Yeah, I get it. I get it. Look, you control the Northwestern game, even though it looked weird at times, but the same excuses you're using are the same excuses other teams would be using for different times. They didn't look as good. Hey, you're in, I'm not going to argue against it. I'm just not. I just have a fundamental problem where I go, am I buying into the Jersey here in the brand a little bit more? And that leads us perfectly to Notre Dame because there's a lot of Notre Dame arguments out there that nobody likes. Hey, they're in because of brand. People aren't paying enough attention to the Clemson win the first time. And this omits, it depends on what you'd be like. If you hate Notre Dame,

you just don't want them in. You're going to make a million arguments about why they shouldn't be in because we're all biased to some degree, some excessively so. And then you have me who went to Vermont who'd like to think, you know what? I like to at least think I'm telling the truth here and not totally biased and how I see these things. But if there's one thing that we do know about it, year seven of the playoff is we don't like it. We really don't like it this year, but we didn't like anything. Okay. We didn't like computers when they did it with the BCS. And then all these other teams, we felt like were left out. We don't like the media more than ever right now. So we don't like the AP voting being a part of it. And they took themselves out of the

BCS process. So they still had the coaches poll and the Harris poll and all these other polls. And you look at the coaches poll and be like, these guys are way worse than the media is. So we can't even look at them. And then there were all these other polls where it was like X players and weird stuff going on. And you're like, what the hell is that thing? So we didn't like the old system where we just named somebody. We didn't like the BCS.

We didn't like anybody that voted for it. And now that we have a room with just over 10 people, we definitely don't like that. Why? Because we don't trust people that make the decisions. We just don't. And we have good reason not to, whether it's a politician who you don't believe in, which feels like a lot of them to me, or as we've had a bit of an HOA run, a content run here on this podcast, you're like, well, wait, why is that the decision? Why are you guys doing this? Whether it's your school, whether it's your workplace, and all of a sudden you'll be like,

well, wait a minute, why did you guys decide that? Because we inherently don't trust the people making those decisions because let's face it, life is a maze of trying to avoid getting fucked over because it happens to us. Sometimes it's major big picture things that I'm not trying to minimize, but I also think there's all these little things that happen along the way that just add up and it pisses us off. We put up this defensive mechanism where when anything is announced or decided, we think immediately the people behind it are corrupt and I don't blame you. Okay. Now I don't have a strong argument for number four. I just don't. Notre Dame, if you, if you don't like them, you're going to say, well, they don't have a strong argument for number four. I just don't. Notre Dame, if you don't like them, you're going to say,

well, they didn't have Trevor Lawrence. And honestly, I think it was the defensive front missing people for Clemson more than it was Trevor Lawrence because the offense was fine. You're just going to argue against them. And then what you're also going to say is the decision makers wanted Notre Dame in because they're a brand. If you're an Oklahoma fan, I watched all the games this year, and I think Oklahoma right now, I might pick them against Ohio State. But you know what,

Sooners fans? You lost twice. I don't want to hear it. If it's a one loss and a better conference that wins a conference championship against maybe another team that isn't that profile, maybe I'll put the one loss team over an undefeated team. But when you lose twice, the losses eventually have to mean something. So I don't want to hear it from you. The group of five teams. Yes. You're getting screwed over sort of. I really think they're two different sports. And an example of that would be Florida, Florida, who everybody likes to make fun of hung in there with Alabama. It looked like they were going to get run out of the building in the first half. Do you think Cincinnati would do that? I know Coastal Carolina wouldn't.

I'm not trying to be dismissive of Cincinnati. This podcast, I think very early on, was like, hey, do you watch Cincinnati Army? They're pretty good. Like I said that. Now, do I think they're so good that they should be the fourth team? I think we also like disruption in this process because we're mad at the process. So it's not that you're pro-Cincinnati. It's just you're anti all these other teams because you feel like it's the same teams

over and over and over again, and that it's rigged, and that it's not that you're pro Cincinnati. It's just you're anti all these other teams because you feel like it's the same teams over and over and over again, and that it's rigged and that it's only Alabama, that it's only Clemson, that it's, you know, Oklahoma getting in, not winning games. Same thing for Notre Dame, LSU got in, um, you know, Washington, Oregon, and then of course, Ohio state's won this whole deal. Here's a real simple hint for all the other programs that are mad, that feel like it's just five teams that get into the playoff all the time. Just go undefeated and win your conference. You'll definitely get in.

Just win a power five conference. Go undefeated. No one's stopping USC from going 13 and up. Just do that and we'll get some different teams in. But these have been the better teams in the recruiting rankings. Bear that out. But to the point of the group of five, I'm not anti group of five. I'm just pro-reality. And the reality is at no point would Cincinnati line up against

a three and five team like LSU. Florida loses to LSU. They're massive favorites at home. LSU's playing their third string quarterback who really should have been their first string quarterback. And they're missing all sorts of players, receivers and tight ends opting out. That LSU team, as bad as it's been this year, probably has 20 pros on that team. There's no scenario. Hell, I don't even know if the scenario is the case for a three and five big 10 or certainly not Pac-12 team, but there's no scenario in a group of five game

where Cincinnati like, ah, we're playing the fifth or sixth place team in this conference. Yeah, they have 20 pros also. So yeah, I think that matters. It matters to me. It doesn't matter as much to you because you're a fan of Cincinnati and I'm not even telling you you're wrong. In one game, one game situation, maybe Cincinnati is able to beat one of these teams, but it's clear the committee, they're not out to get you. They just don't want to include you. But it gets back to constantly thinking you're getting fucked over. That it can't be as simple as schedule. It has to be because the entire system is out to get me. And it's not even just a group

of five people. Think about Jimbo Fisher. Jimbo Fisher, who's out now, said, quote, no team in SEC history has lost but one game and not been in it. The other leagues, I love them all, but if we can't play in this league and be in the playoff, something's wrong. Okay. Jimbo Fisher, let's remind you, won a national title with Florida State in 2013. If you remember Florida State fans, because you do, because you were really fucking brutal to deal with that year in 14, your team was winning games, but you weren't as impressive. There was a lot of stuff going on down there. People were more critical of Florida State because guess what? You've won a title and now our expectation of you is to be just as good, but Jameis didn't play as well. There's just a lot of stuff going on that a lot of people talked about over and over and over again. And Florida state Twitter went crazy about all these conspiracies where you're one of the big boys. You just won a title. And by the way, they got into the playoff that year and got smoked by Oregon. But think about what Jimbo Fisher said just now about the sec part of this and think about what he said six years ago in an interview about the SEC and the ESPN conspiracy that he believed in when he was in the ACC.

I think I asked Jimbo Fisher why Florida State seemed to have so many doubters nationally. Because one, ESPN gets the money in the SEC. And two, we were so dominant last year. ESPN has money in the SEC. Now, I remember this so well because Jimbo came by later on and he was in studio with Van Pelt and I, and I said to him, I go, Coach, I understand where your motives are, but when you stir up an entire fan base with a quote

about how the ESPN SEC deal means that we're just going to be more critical, we're more critical of Florida State because we hold you to a higher standard after a title, just like we do with every other team from any other conference. So when you say it's the ESPN SEC relationship, when ESPN has all of these relationships with all of these major programs because of the conference TV deals, you're just working people up. Like, do you understand that? And Jimbo cut me down perfectly. I was actually surprised. He just looked at me and said, oh, good to know.

So there was going to be no dialogue. He ended any idea of any kind of dialogue whatsoever, but it was still true. I was right then. He was wrong. Just like he's wrong now. This isn't,

why was the SEC ESPN deal part of the conspiracy when you were in the ACC, but now it isn't because was the SEC ESPN deal part of the conspiracy when you were in the ACC but now it isn't because Notre Dame gets in I don't really want to argue Notre Dame and A&M because I already know what your arguments are going to be I could make just as strong a case for each team as I could against but I don't really feel like doing it because I'm not super passionate about it but what I am passionate about is getting back to us as fans, getting back to our lives and getting back to

Jimbo Fisher, who was 75 million, still thinks that everyone is out to get him because that's what life is about. I'll repeat it. We're always waiting for that little moment where we're going to get fucked over coming around the corner because it's always there. We deal with it in our everyday lives, whether it's the HOA guy who emails in, I'm going through my own HOA thing right now. $25 fines a day because I didn't have my emergency contact information for a house I haven't lived in in years. And they keep sending the mail to the wrong new house. I was like, hey, can we figure out a way to do this? Sorry, on vacation.

Well, you know, those fines are going by $25 a day because I don't have a contact card filled out. Yeah, you should have done it. Yes, I should have. Yes, A&M should have gone undefeated, right? I should have handled my business, but I also shouldn't be getting screwed over like this. But it happens constantly for you young kids out there with your credit scores that don't know any better. Yeah, that two free tickets to the American Express card and a $500 credit limit when you show up on campus, it's cool to have that in your wallet. We used to have wallets yeah, that two free tickets to the American express card and a $500 credit limit. When you show up on campus, it's cool to have that in your wallet. We used to have wallets back in the day. I did it getting the card. The irony is I got the two plane tickets. I never used them because I didn't have enough money to actually, if I landed do anything once I got somewhere, but then you go,

wait, how's this credit score thing work? Oh, that's what they do. I never got sent a bill. I'm like, Oh, I guess that bill's gone. No, the bill never goes away. They just sent it the wrong address. Again, these things happen and I'm making small examples. But think about buying a house. You have a price in mind. You have a number you're approved at.

But guess what your realtor's likely doing? Telling their realtor what you're approved for. And their realtor's probably telling your realtor, like, yeah, they're actually getting divorced. Are they going to move this thing now? Is that nasty? No, but it's part of the whole thing of life where you're like, wait, do you have my back or what's actually going on here? Mortgage companies, you save, you want your little slice of the American dream. You've got your 20% down payment. Cause that's, everybody's told you you've picked out the house.

You've been approved. Everybody's agreed on a price. And then the mortgage company says, Hey, you know, we'd really love 25% down at the last minute stocks. For those of you that didn't understand the wash sale rules, how horrifying was that in the beginning? You're like, wait, wash sale. What the hell is that? Again, it's still kind of our fault, but it's a horrifying thing. Once you discover these things, you're like, what? Why? Oh, so I'm going to get killed on this. And there's smaller things. Okay.

In my business, every one of us that's on air think our agents aren't doing a good enough job. I am very happy to ICM right now for my agents that are listening. But everyone on air, and we're slightly delusional about this. We think our agents just could do better. And at the very extremes are like our agents, this guy's fucking me over. Now the agents think we're all crazy, but it happens and it's happening to you depending on what kind of job you have. But some of you say you're in sales. You think you're putting up good numbers and you're like, there's that guy, that guy, Jeff, he's got an office. And it might be because I think he might

have played lacrosse at Taft with the CEO's kid. Like, is he getting over on me? Does he have a better deal than I do? And then you can work yourself up and start believing all of this stuff when it might not even be true because it does always happen. Whether it's your food order being wrong or your kid on a youth team and you think the coach is screwing your kid over, not getting him enough time. And maybe it's just because you're a crazy parent. I remember when I discovered the hotel parking thing, when I was like, wait, every time I check my bill, which I didn't do until my thirties, because I was like, I want to get out of here. I'd be like, wait, parking 38 bucks. I didn't even have a car.

Oh, sorry, sir. We'll take that off. Like, wait, is this normal? And it is normal. They do it all the time. Subscription programs. It's a great business model because nobody cancels them. Banks, bills. Do you guys ever do the deal when you're broke? Like I did in my 20s where if you were just above that equator of a zero balance and they let the huge transaction go through, even though it's the newest one, so that that way all the transactions that were happening before it that were smaller all add up to more fees. And you're just thinking, okay, this is partly my fault, bad out-of-conference schedule, but I still want to blame somebody else because that's not fair. It's constant. It's buying a car and wondering not, hey, am I going to get screwed over? It's how bad am I going to get screwed over? And then go back

and checking research and seeing the car for a different price. You're like, damn it. It happened again. Security deposits. I remember I rented a place, vacation place. Yes, I was in my twenties. I don't deserve the benefit of the doubt, but I remember like, hey, we did a good job. Yes, we raged for three days, but we didn't break anything.

We're good. We cleaned the whole place out. That's great. Hysterical realtor crying, saying, sorry, we have to keep your deposit. You broke their couch. It was a local rental. I found out later because I was from the place that they had this like trick couch that they would break the frame on to keep your 500 bucks every time. And you're like, you know what? I actually cleaned the place and I'm 23. Nobody expected that out of me. I didn't expect that out of me. I tried to do the right thing

and I'm still getting fucked over. So when your football team doesn't get in because they aren't good enough, you might be right, but you certainly believe you're right because you're used to it happening to you all the time. So why would football be any different? Because sometimes you're just a guy on the couch with a $20 teaser, hoping the sub shows up without Mayo, trying to figure out why your ex-girlfriend has an Instagram set to private when she's supposed to be on a girl's trip to Tulum. He's one of the best to talk football with. We all know that. It's Trent Dilfer, long NFL career and the head coach out in Tennessee as well, Lipscomb. So let's start here. The headline game was Kansas City, New Orleans. I don't think any of us are shocked that Kansas City wins that game. New Orleans, valiant effort. Breeze gets back out there. I want to start with something that we saw on the broadcast, and that was the way the coverage was for New Orleans. Romo started talking about adjustments that Mahomes would be making with his receivers, and he basically was asking some of them to stop their in-cuts and just stop, sit down, and find that soft spot. stop their in cuts and just stop, sit down and find that soft spot.

So what is that actually like? Can you give me an example, the listener's example story of the things that you see as a quarterback and how that conversation works out? And I mean, does it always work out? Is it as simple as saying to your receiver, Hey, stop, or let me go back shoulder on you, which wasn't probably as prevalent when you guys played as it is now, because you just get away with it. But help me understand that adjustment in the game, how that conversation works. Okay.

So it starts in training camp. You have your base concept. So, you know, everybody's different. But say you go in to the season, I'll use an arbitrary number of 100 passing concepts. That might be a little high for some, but it might be low for others. All of them have rules so you have let's say it's a three by one being three receivers on one side one receiver on the other you're going to run a vertical clear out by your number three receiver you're tied in your number

two is going to run like an eight yard pivot and your number one your outside guy is going to run like 14 to 16 yard wrap in route behind it. Basic concept, almost everybody uses it. Everything has rules. You rep it a hundred times, but in the course of training camp, you might say, hey, you know, we're going to play a team that passes off the vertical to backside safety and wants to jump the dig route by the front side safety. If that happens and you see that starting to, you know, you start wrapping in that hole and you see that frontside safety driving, I'm going to see it too. And I just want you to pull up and I'm going to put a ride on your numbers. I don't want you to keep running it.

Okay, so you do that for every route. That's why practice is so important. That's why walkthroughs are so important. That's why communication between quarterbacks and skill guys are so important. Meetings are important. It's all important, right? But what happened yesterday was the the saints were pattern matching so what that means is they're not necessarily playing

a coverage they line up in a coverage but as the route evolves they practice against these routes that the chiefs are running and they match them so they say oh okay number three goes vertical that means i'm going to drive number two, and the frontside safety is going to drive number one, and they're going to pass off number three in the backside safety. I know this sounds dorky, except that these conversations that Patrick and his receivers had in training camp, there was no training camp, so let's call it early in the season as they're installing, or last year maybe.

Or going out a driveway and just saying, hey, let's go over some stuff, right? Yeah, absolutely. That's why these park workouts were important. That's why when these guys went to other places and hit out were important because these are the conversations you're having. It's not throwing catch like the media makes it sound out. Okay, we're going to wherever Montana and they're playing catch. No, they're not. They're going to Montana and they're talking about all these different situations that could come up in the course of the season and making sure they touch base on them and then work the actual adjustments.

So they go to the sideline, and they say, oh, okay, this is what's happening. They're not playing cover six like we thought they were going to. They're pattern matching everything. So when you get to the top of your route instead of running in and running into where that safety's driving put on the brakes and turn into more of a curl route and the ball will be out of my hand by the time you're getting to the top and there's this nice little window in there and the safety's driving to an area that he thinks you're going but you're not going to be there so when everybody wants to say oh hey that cat's got that cat yeah that happens sometimes there's some man coverage where it's cat versus cat but a lot of

times it's these complex adjusting match zones that are going on that the communication on the sideline you have to adjust for that and then you've got to trust a rep that you got on this maybe three months ago is gonna be able to execute a high level on a Sunday afternoon. Who do you have the most trust in that you knew? Shannon Sharp. Shannon, my life changed when I got with Shannon Sharp. So I had played with some really,

and again, they weren't superstar receivers in Tampa, but they're good, solid football players, make good relationships. And, you know, we weren't that productive in the passing game.

So I didn't really know what graduate-level football looked like until I got to Baltimore, as was Shannon. And Shannon would have a shallow cross and be like, hey, Trent, I'm going to release underneath the end of this time. So the Will Linebacker thinks that he's sitting there waiting for me on the shallow cross, I'm going to be by him before he sneezes. So trust me on this. Even though it's zone, I'm going to run by him before he sneezes. So trust me on this, even though it's zone, I'm going to run through the zone. Well, I had never been around anything

like that. A shallow cross, the Will Linebacker dropping zone meant the shallow cross would pull up and turn into a hook. Not for Shannon. We would run a play where he'd run like an arc release or a wide release, sit route at about eight yards. And he would say, hey, I'm going to get to the top. And if that guy's on my inside shoulder, I'm going to speed cut this out. I'm like, what? You're running a hook route. You're going to speed cut it? Like, man, he's like, trust me, he's inside.

That means the sand linebacker is taking the running back to the flat. And I'm going to speed cut out of that. Hit me on the front shoulder. I'm going to get another 10 to 12 before the safety back. And it was great for me in training camp. I was the backup in training camp but I got a lot of ones reps to work with these guys called Cadre Isma was another guy Cadre Isma was a fast guy but a really smart guy too and he would talk about hey verse cover two when I'm running a dig if I

inside release on the corner he's going to fall me in so at the top be patient I'm going to show a little corner move to get the safety to go higher to widen the corner just trust me throw in that empty void and i'll make the corner move and i'll come in there and it was the first time in my career where i had these guys who could just post snap on the fly based on what they saw and then when i got to seattle the west coast offense obviously i became very very good at that mat. Matthew Hasselbeck and I talked a lot with our receivers about it. Daryl Jackson became really good. Bobby Ingram, an underrated receiver, slot guy.

He was really one of those tough inside Patriot-type slot guys before the Patriots had those guys. And he would run a lot of routes that we would call a sit route. We called an option route at eight yards but he would run nine different variations of it based on what he saw as he started to run the route so and a lot of times that would change in game so the best passing teams are able to make these adjustments in game on the sideline sometimes in the huddle sometimes it would be in the huddle hey bobby they've been playing a lot of hard outside technique on you trying to funnel you into the help safety the whole safety you got

to give them something different at the top say that in the huddle and next you know he's out there he's running like a inside fade release and then putting the brakes on and coming back inside to create more space before that inside safety could come and make a playoff. There was another part of that game where the lead up with Breeze and being hurt, the broken ribs, and for anybody that's had broken ribs, I'll tell you, it's one of the most painful things ever. It's just like you're at a moment where you can't breathe, and

it hurts. It's not the breathe. It's going to the bathroom. That is the most miserable experience ever with broken ribs. I don't know if anybody's ever told you this. I know this is a G-rated podcast. To go sit on the toilet is one of the worst experiences of your life when you have broken ribs.

What's normally a very enjoyable experience, if you handle it correctly, becomes this terrible experience with broken ribs. I can understand we're talking contractions here. Uh, right, right. No, I mean, look, I've been lucky enough. My father's had broken ribs twice and he was talking to me about it the whole time. Cause he's just like, there's no way five weeks later, this guy feels this good. And I go, okay, it's either that he doesn't feel good and they cleared him anyway. It also could be that he's had probably better medical treatment dad than you have for the last five weeks, but they put on the flak jacket or whatever what did

i mean he got off to one of the worst starts of his career i guess you could argue at the end that they they made a late drive there that looked better i think we know that it has a lot more to do with game and situation but what's the worst before we get to the breeze part of it what's the worst injury you've ever played with well i played a lot of bad ones bro um the worst you felt coming out of a tunnel uh the worst i felt come out of tunnel was an intercostal tear which is the rib lining and a broken rib um and i tried to play three weeks after it. That and then when I broke a bone in my back and tried to play week two. You know, your adrenaline gets you through some of it. And you convince yourself that you can be everything you normally are because you want to be a tough guy but in

reality your brain is completely focused on the pain and not on the stuff you should be doing and that's why i'll give drew a little bit of a hall pass is he's a true tough guy he's one of the greatest players ever played the position he's also fighting for his job a little bit he wants to be the quarterback going into the playoffs. And he says, well, I've done this before. I can do it again. And you get in the game and you're saying, okay, I can do this. You convince yourself, you're self-talk. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good until you're not. And then all you're thinking about is, oh my gosh, what did I get myself into? I'm just in survival mode instead of thrive mode and i think that's what happens to a lot of tough guys when they try to play i know what happened to me multiple times is you want

to do it for your chance it's not a it's not a narcissistic thing it's uh i want to be there for my teammates thing because i'm the guy and with a better chance if i'm playing if i'm playing well um but you get into this fight versus the bigger dude. They're like, oh, my gosh, I didn't know this guy knew martial arts. He's going to kick my butt. And that's how you feel in the game. Like, oh, I thought I could handle this, but all my brain is focused on is how much I hurt and how much I can't do. Okay, I got to find another way to do it then.

Well, if I can't throw the deep out well then i gotta look at the deep out pump it and maybe throw the shallow cross crap it's third and 12 the shallow cross isn't gonna give us the first down it's just a secular pattern you get into in game where you're trying to compensate because you're playing hurt and it's a it's a tough one man i now that i'm a coach i think about if i had a player who was trying to do that, would I let him play? Because there's part of it where you want the guy to be able to show up for his teammates and get the pelts on the wall and be heroic. And then there's a reality piece to it where he's not going to do the things I need him to do for us to be successful. And I think that's what Sean Payton faced yesterday.

I think that's what Drew kind of got into in that game. This is something I'm going to do a little bit later because it would make a great radio tease, but I'm not ready to do it. I guess I'm just, I'm a little worried about what I've seen from Tua. It's also the way they're not using him that scares me. Sometimes I feel like they don't trust him. So I'll just ask it this way. Is there any version of this in five years

where Jalen Hurts ends up being the better pro quarterback than Tua? No chance. And I get it. I'm in the bias Tua camp because I've known him forever and I helped him redraft all that stuff. If I've never met the kid and only watched tape, there's zero chance of that.

Jalen, so I was bullish on Jalen coming out. I thought he could be an NFL quarterback given time. He's definitely got some mechanical issues. He's going to miss some gimmies. He's not a pure passer. He's more of a butcher-type passer, a guy that has the big physical horsepower arm, not necessarily the finesse passer.

He's going to help the run game. He's a fantastic leader. He's a tough guy. He's all the stuff that I thought, you know, you add all of it up, add all of it up, and there's a chance, put it in the right system, this guy can thrive in the NFL. Tua's a generational talent. He does stuff you can't teach.

Now, I get it. You watch the games, and he's more in a managerial role, and I see that, and that's what they need to be. They're not uberly talented offensively. They're also playing very close to the vest. They're a three-phase complementary team. They're trying to maximize every single opportunity they get. The fact that he can do that when he's coming from a situation where it was kind of pedal to the metal, wide open, push the ball down the field all the time actually is a compliment to it because many highly aggressive passers, many guys that are uber talented and are very comfortable with high risk

stuff. When you ask them to kind of pull back the reins and play a more managerial role, they can't do it. It's just not in their DNA. Tua can do it. And I think that's, it says a lot about them.

They will build this thing around. They will, again, he's what, six, five starts into this. I know. I understand.

It's, it's super, I'm not even off of the Tua thing. I just don't like... I don't think they're built to take the deep shots that made him so special, the way he works, saves things, and how... Right. They just don't do the stuff that I loved at Alabama. And they have to get

there to get the most out of Tua. Absolutely. They're not going to do this, but they asked me to come in, and being a consultant, I would say the number one thing you have to do is go get rugs or go get not rugs. Waddle, waddle,

go get whoever the twitchiest fastest, best doubt Smith. Uh, I keep using Alabama guys, but there's other guys too in college football. Go get one of these guys. That is a beat beat type player, road runner type player.

And let's start building the four-vertical package in and mastering it because if it's called Seattle and Alabama, we actually at our place, we name it Tua after Tua because he might be the best four-vertical passer I've ever seen at any level.

And it's not in the offense. It's just not in the offense. But you've got to have the right people to do it. I think what the Dolphins are really smart is they don't force a square peg into a round hole. They don't say, oh, we need to run this concept because the quarterback's good at it. They say, when we have the people, we're going to run concepts that we have the people that can maximize them. And right now, they don't have the people to do the forward or go back. So Wentz is a backup maybe for the rest of the year.

His contract tells you he's going to be a starter against somewhere. I don't know if that's, that is in Philadelphia again, depends on who you talk to and all the different ramifications. There's a lot of teams that you can figure out a way to make stuff happen financially. But the, the part of it,

this has become very much like some of these other topics where it's, there's a Jalen camp now and there's a Wentz camp. And the Wentz camp is like this ridiculous. The Jalen camp is like, I never want to hear from this guy again. And the fact that Wentz, there was a report coming out Sunday. I don't know if that was by him. I don't know if that was by design to have it be out before the game. That's what the anti-Wentz people will tell you.

Again, I don't know what to believe with this. But it's going to suck to be a backup. It's going to suck to be really good at one point and then be the franchise guy. I feel like you're going to be there for 10 years. What is that like being a backup. It's going to suck to be really good at one point and then be the franchise guy. I feel like you're going to be there for 10 years. What is that like being a backup? And you were never the Wentz level of almost MVP in the max money NFL deal, but to have to suck up the fact that you're so disappointed. I know it's your job. I know you're all paid, but that's going to be a brutal thing to deal with. I actually can speak to this one pretty well. You're right, I was an MVP caliber,

but in Tampa in 97, I was the first quarterback to take the Bucs to the playoffs in 17 years. I went to a Pro Bowl. 98, had big expectations. I didn't play great, but we also didn't have a very good offensive system, so it was disappointing. And in 99, I get benched and eventually hurt and have to watch Sean King play and kind of take the team.

And I heard Dan Orlowski say something this morning on Get Up that is really true. As quarterbacks, you invest so much in this thing. And when you're the guy for so long, you take ownership of it. It's your team. It's your guys. There's a bond that's bigger than just being the quarterback. And then when that gets taken away from you and you see another guy, it's like, it's like your wife cheating on you. You know, it's, you, it's so painful. It's so devastating to have so much poured into something and then see another person take ownership of it. And, um, I, it was one of the more painful experiences of my career. I try really, really hard not to be bitter about anything in life.

I think bitterness only hurts the person that's bitter. If there's one area of bitterness that maybe I haven't let go of in my entire life, and you know my life's been very complicated. It's that moment. It's that moment when I remember saying, I could be playing, I should be playing. These are my guys. I'm better than that guy.

And yet it's his team now. And I knew it. Like I knew it at the moment. I'm never, this is never going to be my team again. And Carson's going through that and it's brutal. Um, do you have to fake it? I mean, do you have to fake it? Yes. You fake it big. Well, you have to be, you gotta be a good teammate, you know, team, team, team, team, team. Um, you sign up for something bigger than yourself. Uh, and that's hard as a, as a pro player, that's harder than a college player, high school player. But even as a pro player, you're signing up for it is ultimately about the team.

And if my new role, I have to be something that I haven't been in six years and Carson, what is five years for him. Um, if I gotta be something that I haven't been for a while, but it helps the team, then I gotta do it. And my character and, and, uh, is on the line here. And I got to make sure that I'm all in for the team. And it's brutal. I mean, it is, you wake up in the morning game day and you're dreading the game. You're dreading it. It's the last thing you want to be a part of because you know, for three and a half hours,

every camera's going to be on you. You have to fake it until you make it. But you also have to be authentic to your teammates and be helping the guy that's playing. I remember being in Oakland. We were really good, and we got smoked by the Raiders in Oakland. And Sean was really struggling. And I had to be there on the sidelines with the pictures. Back then, we didn't have iPads.

We just had the printed pictures. We'd be going, okay, Sean, listen. You can make something out of this game. Here's the picture. Here's the coverage. Here's what they're doing. You haven't seen this yet. It's not that big of a deal.

You have the tools to fix this in-game. And trying to help him be successful when I knew him being successful was to my demise. I mean, I did it with Matthew Hasselbeck. Matthew did it with me. Matthew was benched. I became the dude in Seattle. It was my gig until I got hurt. I was going to be there for 10 years, go to multiple Pro Bowls, play my best football

if I wouldn't have gotten hurt. And Matthew had just been humiliated. Got traded, was the guy, didn't play very well offseason. I get all the money. Now he's sitting there as my backup and he's on the sidelines. This is why I respect him so much. And he's on the sidelines helping me as if he's a coach. And he knows the more successful I am, the lesser his career is going to be. Yet he's still helping me be successful in game. I mean, it's one of these weird dynamics in the NFL that if you get the quarterback room right, it can be really good.

If that guy that's struggling has poor character and is the backup, it could be a disaster for your team too. It could be cancerous. Okay. Looking at the young QBs as we like to all the time, I teed you up a bit on this. I don't know if you're definitive on it, but if you were just looking at not just the young guys, but I mean, five years isn't that much. I don't like when people say the next 10

years because then everybody just picks all the young guys. But the next five years, do you have your list of who you would want at quarterback? You sent me this to prepare for it and I didn't. I hate less. I'll do it for you because I like you so much. No, no, I'll do it. Now, Patrick will still be, Mahomes will still be one of the best guys for the next five years.

Probably the best. I think Josh Allen is proving he's going to be one of those guys. I'm blown away by him. It's unbelievable, man. I still can't wrap my brain around it. And I was, you know, listen, I got credit this week for being one of the guys that wasn't hard on him pre-draft, but I was still hard on him.

I mean, I was like, this is going to be a three-year project. This guy has elite horsepower. This guy has elite gifts. He's tough. He's smart. He's everything you want. I can see why you're drafting him, but be patient. Yeah, we didn't have to be you want. I can see why you're drafting him. But be patient.

We didn't have to be very patient. But still, there aren't many quarterback success stories where it looks bad for two years, and now we're talking about your franchise. Like, hey, you guys are probably good now for 10 years. That's how I know people want to push back. I just didn't think he was very good for a long time. Like, I thought he was Trubisky level. Different.

But it felt like, oh, you know what? You're probably going to have to go back to the drawing board on this guy here again. I actually thought there were moments where he was so good against Dallas in the Thanksgiving game. I think he got too much credit for being close in one of the Pats games. I was like, he didn't really play that well. To me, he's a completely different guy.

And it's unbelievable. Because I don't think you see that very often where it's two years of starts where you're like, I don't know what we have here. Dude, our quarterback part is solved. Yep. So those two, Herbert, probably more. No kidding. Yeah.

I talked to a couple of their coaches last week just to verify what I'm seeing, and they're blown away. They're blown away by the work already is how he figures stuff out i use this term all the time figured outness i think it might be the greatest gift a human can have is figured outness just figure stuff out um he's got figured outness he's tough uh he's really growing into a leader like he's he leads his own way he's not a guy that's gonna throw chairs and be all volatile with his leadership, but he connects with his teammates.

He's really earned the respect of the veterans and how he's connected. And then instincts. And this is the one that every year on my evaluation sheets, there's this instinct box, and it's so subjective. But I think this is where guys that have played the position maybe have a little bit better evaluation of quarterbacks because you can kind of see when a guy has instincts. You're like, oh, wow, I remember being in that position. How did he see that? How did he feel

that? How did he know that was going to happen? That guy has good instincts. His instincts are off the charts, which I didn't really see a ton of at Oregon. So Herbert would be three. I still think Deshaun Watson, I think he's a generational type player. He's just surrounded in a bad situation this year. If they get that thing right, I'd put Deshaun Watson on that list. That's four.

And then I'm going to use my bias here because I believe in the kid, but I also believe in the franchise right now is Tua. I'd put him as five. All right. You gave us a list. Okay, so somebody that other people would have on their list, probably, I don't know, five would be high when he hasn't played a game yet, but that's Trevor Lawrence. The Trevor Lawrence story, heading to the Jets.

We all know it. Jets win the game. Now Jacksonville's in the driver's seat. Is Trevor Lawrence unfuck-up-able? I love that. When you said that, I didn't know if you spelt it right when you said it. I wasn't sure I was. I didn't know. I didn't like my chances of saying it in the first take, but that's

what I want to know because there are plenty of quarterbacks that are, but he's the cleanest prospect we've had since Andrew Luck. No, he can still be jacked up. Okay. I used to say this when I was doing the ESPN thing. It's the most influential position in sport. It's also the most influential position in sport. It's also the most dependent position in sport.

You can't be LeBron James, the quarterback. You can't put the team on your back. I know. Deshaun is challenging that right now, but you're right. Deshaun is unbelievable, and I hate watching it sometimes. Yes, but you're seeing why you can't.

Exactly. Perfect. I'm so glad you brought that up. If he goes to a place with a offensive with poor offensive vision, so much of it's scheme based in the NFL. So much of it is, okay, what are we going to do scheme wise to get the most from the least and the best from the best? How are we going to maximize our people? How are we not going to put them in a position to fail?

How are we going to build the people around him? If he goes to a place that doesn't protect him with a solid offensive line, I think it starts there. You don't have to be the best, but you got to be solid and they got to fit. Your five guys have to fit what you're trying to do from a protection plan standpoint and a run game standpoint. If you don't have two other dynamic top 50 players in the league, so usually a runner and a pass catcher, that can be a tight end and a runner. That can be a receiver and a runner, but you got to have the runner and the pass catcher. Then you need kind of the guy 100 to 200 as your number two, whether that's a tight end, that's a slot guy, whatever it is.

If you don't have that, yeah, he can be screwed up. He is fantastic. So I am as bullish on Trevor as anybody I've known since he was 15 years old. He does have flaws. Okay. So. Whoa, what are they? The narrative started going a direction about, I don't know, 12 months ago where you're like,

oh, he has no flaws. He's perfect. No, he's not. He's super long. Okay. So he's super long in his delivery. Big front stride, ball goes way back, left arm gets real wide. He's found a way because he's such an elite athlete to quicken that up, but it's still really long. So when you watch him at Clemson in tight, when the pocket gets shoved up in his lap is when you see a lot of

his errors because he's so long the antithesis to that is to uh Aaron Rodgers um who else is super twitchy um Russ nobody else is coming to me right now but guys that can play like literally in the small in a in a phone booth in London you, those phone booths are even tighter than American phone booths. Yeah, sure. Yeah. They're like phone booths in general are on the decline, but yeah, I get it. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? No. Um, it guys that can play in those tight quarters cause they rotate so well, they're not distal meaning long. Then they have more physical confidence when the pocket gets pushed back into them. So I think that's one. And again, these are not death sentences.

This is taking the hottest chick in the world and trying to find some flaws in her. Okay, so put it in context. He's long. He also is more of a half field guy. You know, what they do at Clemson is so RPO-based, they split the field in half on almost every single play. And most of the time, he's throwing to his primary guy.

Now, he does a good job getting to two as well. So, I remember when I did RG3, RG3 his entire career at Baylor threw to number two six times. Six. Dude, it's unbelievable. And I always, Baylor fans can't understand why I bring up Baylor all the time,

but Baylor is the best example when it was Bryles of the easiest concepts to read. And again, if you're Bryles and that staff, you go, hey, we're putting up 50. What's the problem? And you go, absolutely.

But from the quarterback evaluation, whether you're saying it, Louis Riddick being in studio with me once, I go, what's the problem? What's the problem? He goes, it is the least applicable to Sunday of any offense you will ever see in college football. And so when I point that out, and again, this is my entry level understanding of it, there is a huge difference. And we're seeing it. Like I think of it with field. Sometimes at Ohio state, I was higher on him before. And now that was like, Hey,

wait, why is there a safety now on the one? Like what the hell? I usually just throw that it's the post and it's a touchdown. Why, why is there another guy there now? And it's, it's messed him up a little bit. So I'm just, I guess I'm expanding on what you're talking about. Cause I'm just so glad that you've said it because there are times with Clemson again, you was usually number one is always an NFL guy for them anyway, but there's something to be said about trying to figure out what the second and third reads are, because you're going to have to figure that part out of it. And that's why there's so many misses at the position. Yep. So, and again, please, I don't want anybody to take this wrong. Trevor does a nice job of getting the two, but he gets to two when it's in front of him. So if you're

listening to this right now, think of taking a football field, you're the middle of football field and split it in half, and you're going to throw the ball to your right. And you're going to have a, it's called a corner route by your inside receiver. So he's going to go eight steps and go to the corner. And then your outside guy is going to run four steps up and sit or come in. It's a basic smash on step. Okay. Everybody at every high school in America, college, pros runs.

All right. So you're looking at the corner. You want to throw the corner. I got a great arm. I can throw the corner, college, pros, runs. All right, so you're looking at the corner. You want to throw the corner. I got a great arm. I can throw the corner. No, I can't. They got soft. Okay, the other guy's right in front of me.

Okay, he's literally standing right in front of me. He's in my vision. Okay, I'm going to throw it to him. Trevor does a really good job at those either ors. I'm either going to throw it there or there. High, low. Low, high. In, out.

You know, those basic two-man concepts, and most of what they do are two-man concepts. The other thing they'll do on third down is, okay, if you see we're going to work the right side, but if you see an extra player, a safety, a linebacker, somebody else, go to the right, then get your eyes back to the left. If you have a one-on-one with a really talented player, throw him the ball. So no matter how you look at it, I'm splitting the field in half, and I'm sticking to that side of the field. It's what they do that's really successful.

They've got better willies and joes than most people do, so they can be really successful at it. In the NFL, some of it's changed. So in my day, you didn't have very many of those. You typically had to read boundary to boundary. Football evolves so much. You can play 80% of your day in the either or world. But that 20% is what gets you to the Super Bowl.

That 20% is what makes you Patrick Mahomes. Right now, Josh Allen, I can't believe I'm saying that, but Josh Allen. And that's why Goff looks so bad some Sundays. Yes, Goff is a half-field guy. He's an action guy, reads half the field most of the time. You can totally learn this, but to say that Trevor's going to step in day one and look like one of the top five guys in the league,

I find a hard time believing that. There's still going to be some growth that has to happen. You have to tweak him mechanically. You don't have to fix him. You have to just tweak him and over time, bring wide and tighten it up. And that's very doable. You have to put pressure on him to read boundary to boundary and get him uncomfortable how he reads defenses so that he can evolve into a sideline sideline passer the other thing is this he gets overly confident with his arm he has a very good arm he doesn't have the greatest arm in the history of football. He has a very good arm. On a scale of 1 to 10, he's got an 8. He tries to make throws that are 10 throws too often.

And what you're going to see is when his receiver isn't so superior to the corner he's throwing against or the safety is now from the Patriots instead of Boston college, you're going to start writing checks. Your body can't catch. And I think that's all of us that have big arms. We have to learn the hard way because we've been able to make, you've been able to do stuff for so long that you can't be convinced you're not going to be able to do it in the NFL until you can't do it in the NFL. And I think that's the biggest thing when people talk about Patrick Mahomes and him sitting for the one year. I think the biggest thing that Patrick learned, number one was protections. He had to learn protection schemes and that handled the

one in the scrimmage. Number two was that he has the greatest arm ever, but even he doesn't try to make every single throw because he sat there and watched and said, Ooh, I would have tried to make that at Texas Tech. That wouldn't have worked. And he got to see it and he learned from somebody else making the mistake instead of him making it himself. Is it okay if we title this podcast,rent dofer doesn't like trevor lawrence here's why because that'll do better for my numbers you're an asshole i qualified my statements like 19 times i love the kid i mean i know you do i know you do but you pointed out some things that you know like this is fine this is fine to do we haven't heard

it we just haven't heard it from anybody yet i said this on call this morning too i don't think the gap is as big as everybody's saying between trevor um and here's why um i had a guy really respect the nfl call me last week and be like i'm watching fields tape i'm early to the to the party here and he's blowing me away he's everything um he's opposite of what i've been told he is. And I said, yeah, you know, I've been kind of saying that, but I've been quiet about it. Let me watch the tape. So I, you know, I'm on vacation. So I'm sitting here in front of the fire and I put on three games of Justin. I'm like, Whoa, this guy's really grown. Now the other day he didn't play for him.

Well, I get that, but you watch his tape and he's doing stuff that people say he can't do. Tight window throws, steep outcuts, getting to number two, sometimes getting to number three, seeing the field more horizontally, maybe having wider field vision, handling the pocket. He's not just when he gets pressure jumping up and using his four or five speed and his 230-pound frame to go run. He's actually manipulating the pocket, getting through progressions.

He's running their mesh concept really well. It's a really hard concept to reach up, multiple crossers. You've got to see tradeoffs, and you've got to see horizontally and vertically. So I was really impressed with it. And what I think is going to happen, I think this is the bigger part of this conversation. Don't trust me. I'm an old, washed-up high school coach. But the only guys that have really done the work right now are the TV guys.

So Jeremiah, who's amazing. McShay, who's amazing. These guys are great. They're both really good at the quarterback position, too, which is shocking because most times the TV guys aren't great at the quarterback thing. The NFL guys haven't done the work. So they're trying to find a way to get to game time as an organization. They're dealing with COVID. They're dealing with injuries.

They're dealing with roster adjustments. They're dealing with not playing their home stadiums. They're dealing with all the stuff. Don't lie to yourself, fan, and think that the NFL crowd is sitting there studying fields and Lawrence all day. They're doing the same thing me and you were doing, Ryan. They're watching it on TV. And they're going, oh, yeah, that guy does this really good. That guy does that really good. Oh, he's not very good at this. When they start doing the work and they start really diving deep, deep, deep into every single snap and the why

between the why and every single snap, I think you're going to see the gap close between Lawrence and Fields and it's going to be one of those either or. I'm fine with either one of them. They're both going to be in trouble in the NFL. I'm good with either one. I felt that way.

I'm going to let you go, but I felt that way earlier on when I started saying, hey, I don't know that that gap is that big. And then I guess the, I mean, we can sit here, we can blame Kobe and we can talk about, everybody's going to use the excuse that you offer them. I just felt like there were some more throws where fields, it was just, he was so used to certain routes being wide open. And then when they stopped being open,

he would still make the throw. And then it would be like, what the hell? How did that not work out? And you're going, well, wait a minute. Like they, they figured some things out too. And that was, that was the only thing that made me go, Whoa, because I think the physical stuff that fields is more impressive than a lot of these guys. It just is.

And you're not wrong. And I don't think, you know, you're not wrong with what you saw, but when you start watching the game tape, you see that happen in week two. And then in week three in the second half he's fixed it and i'm like whoa last week he tried to jam that thing in there have you watched the northwestern tape yet i haven't i watched he played off on tv in my opinion he did on tv and i know that that's i mean that's what drives me crazy about my job is that i spend all this time talking about this stuff and i'm never seeing it from the way i'm

supposed to actually see it but it was clear with the drops coverage against them. And it's a good secondary Northwestern. It screwed them up a little bit. And the sooner they got off a passing, the quicker they would have won that football game. And they were in control because they ran all over him. But again, you're right.

Unless I see it and see what decisions he might've actually had a great game because he wasn't, he wasn't taking the bait, you know, but I don't know. I don't know. The one thing Ryan's done a really good job of, Ryan's done a lot of great things at Ohio State,

but one thing I would say they've evolved with since Irvin left is passing first. Meaning we're going to create some space in this defense by showing some complex passing concepts and they have the best wide receiving recruiting bosses year after year. So they have really talented guys.

But Justin's been exposed to a lot of the passing. He's not going to go to the NFL and be like, oh, I've never done that. Or what are you talking about there? I've never seen this concept. They've actually introduced him to a lot of passing concepts. And I think that's going to serve him well. And he's going to learn. Both of them are going to learn. Okay? Both of them are going to learn. As great as Burrow was before he got hurt, he still learned a lot and made some really dumb mistakes.

Herbert, as phenomenal as he's been, he still gets tricked often. Like when you watch the game day, ooh, he got away with that one. Oh, he didn't see that. Or wow, they They really scheme that one up. Well, so he had, didn't have to see what was going on backside or, or while that running back saved him from a corner cap, he had no idea that guy was coming. So they're all learning on the fly. You say, can they be screwed up? They can be screwed up if they don't have a system that protects them early on while they're learning this stuff. I'm probably going to shorten this whole interview by 20 minutes,

so I just would have said that. If they don't have a system that protects them from what they don't know while they're learning, they can be screwed up. That's the great Trent Dilfer. He joins us about once a month here on the podcast, and I want you to get back to your vacation. So thanks, man. Thanks, brother. Appreciate you.

Our NFL Awards and Bill Tom Legacy update. We got those. But first, 2020 is the year of cancellations. And as the holidays arrive, we'll be saying farewell to one more tradition, work holiday parties. But it turns out most of us never really liked those parties anyway.

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is Miller Time with the people who you actually want to have a beer with. To give work holiday parties a proper send-off, Miller Lite is teaming up with visual artist Alex Prager for a full exhibit called

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and 3.2 carbs per 12 ounces. It's awards time, week 15. The first award is the She's All That award and it goes to the Tampa Bay Bucks. Now, the She's All That line has been used a few times. This isn't the most original thing do you remember she's all that that came out in 99 kyle freddie prince jr young fpj yeah in the mix in the cut van gundy in the cut um yeah great movie for those that don't remember basically

freddie prince jr super hot because he was i mean he still holds up pretty well i think i mean not josh demel levels but he's holding up. And let's see here. He was the cool guy. His girlfriend dumped him for a guy that was going to be like a star or was the star in some reality TV show where I think he actually in the movie leaves for the road rules challenge, which, you know, I don't even know how that copywriting stuff works. But shout out to the movie producers to get that done. But there's a nerd girl and she's a nerd because she has glasses on. And everyone in 1999 that was a girl that had glasses was a nerd. She was an artist. And then because he breaks up, he takes on a bet that he can make her

homecoming queen or prom queen. I think it's prom queen. And then they actually fall in love. So I'm sorry I ruined the movie for you, but if you couldn't see that coming, I don't even know how you make it through any analogies on this podcast. And the reason it goes to the Tampa Bay Bucs is that sometimes it looks really bad and it looked really bad against Atlanta. They're down 17-0 at the half. And I'm like, wait, this team,

now I picked the Saints to make it to the Super Bowl, but I think we put the Bucs in that group based on expectations, personnel, and Brady. I still think he's pretty good. I'm not saying, you know, he's the best or anything like that, but I still think he's pretty good. And yet they're down 17 half to, to Atlanta. I'm like, what? So that was kind of the version of a football team wearing the glasses. They take the glasses off and they come back. Now, a positive thing for Bucs fans here is they

were four and three this season. They are four and three now this season after falling behind by at least 10 points, they were two and 35 in those games of James Winston. All right. That's a, that's a nice number there. They're nine and five. So you think, Hey, that record's pretty good. Statistically, the defense is still holding up. So maybe there's a lot to like here.

Maybe they can go on a bit of a run, but the problem is we've done this with them and we've done this with them where we've been harder on them because again, it gets back to our original expectations of what they could be as a team. But when you look back at the results, you're like, oh, that's not that bad. They lost the Rams, that defense.

And we'll get to that jets part of this a little bit later. They lost to the chiefs. They actually made it competitive. You know, the first game of the saints was good. The second one wasn't very bad. You know, the bears loss was close.

Yeah. But I'm reminding you that the Buccaneers were the art student with glasses, because if you go back and remember what it felt like in the moment, they did lose to what at the time was that number one NFC Bears team. Yeah, they were the number one seed at 5-1. That didn't feel real at the time. Yes, the Bucs had a lot of penalties,

but that's just a game they shouldn't lose. They have the rematch with New Orleans. We're excited about it. It's arguably one of Brady's worst statistical games he's ever had. But if you really look at some of the picks and how he was doing some of the stuff, it was like, this is so bad. I just got to get the ball up in the air and it was a disaster. So they get smashed in that one and we were all watching it. They had 250 yards of offense against the Rams. They were down 17, nothing to the Chiefs like that. Remember all the Tyree kill stuff that was happening? So when it's looked bad, it's actually looked pretty bad. And some of you guys like girls with glasses. I do too,

sometimes, but you know, really it's not the glasses. Who are we kidding? So what I'd ask you is, is as great as another comeback is for the Bucks, it's cool. You took your glasses off, but I may be more attracted to you now, but are we going to get along? You know, that's what we never knew about that movie is things are better now. It looks like she got with a stylist, which wasn't part of the script, but is it going to hold up long? Are we going to have the same views on raising our kids? You want to homeschool? Maybe I don't. Um, I like my kid to play sports. You want to homeschool. Maybe I don't.

I like my kid to play sports. Maybe you don't. I was worried about the long-term ramifications of that relationship because the foundation wasn't strong the same way, even though a comeback for the Bucs again is really good. There are moments where I think long-term, are we going to be able to work this out? It's kind of like the Bucs were the first hour of that movie. We were like, okay, yeah, great comeback. But what was with the shades? This is the Greeny Tease Award. And really

what it is is stuff I'd like to ask, but I'm kind of afraid to. Now, if you don't know Mike Greenberg, how do you not? Greeny is incredibly talented, as good at driving a show as anyone I've ever been around in the business. I consider him a friend, so I don't want him to think that I'm making fun of him, because I'm not. I'm making fun of the Greeny Tease in that when I worked at ESPN, there were people that are absolutely obsessed with teasing.

And yes, teasing ahead to the next topic is smart. You don't want to just sit there and say, all right, we're going to go to commercial. We'll be back in six and a half minutes because everybody's just going to change the channel on you. What you're always trying to do with a strong tease was make sure somebody was like, oh, maybe I'll stick around. And as you know, as consumers of radio, talk radio is probably how you landed on my podcast, but you would have those moments. You go, wow, that was pretty good. Or I'm really interested.

Maybe I'm going to sit in the car, right? That was always the goal. We'd have these meetings and talk about your show. And you'd say, you got to get that person to stay in the car because they got to hear what's coming up next so badly. And because Greeny was so good at it that I think the rest of us were held to the standard of like, yeah, keep doing that. But then I would go, do you guys actually care about any of the stuff we say in the middle of the tease? Like, hey, welcome back. eight minutes coming up next and i swear to you i think some people cared more about teases than anything else because i'd like to ask if i were doing a radio show i would do this i wouldn't just say hey is jalen hurts better than tua tango valoa could jalen be better than tua that's not as good of a tease A greeny tease would be a Saban decision, won a national championship, but did week 15 in the NFL prove it was the wrong call?

You're like, wait, what? What is he saying? This is a verbal mystery. I'm stuck. I'm just knocking my head into a wall in the dark. I know I'm supposed to pick up my kid at daycare, but fuck it. I have no idea what he's talking about.

And so I eventually, because management would love it when I would do this, not be like, hey, I think you guys are a little too into the teases and not so much into like the eight minutes in between. Did you listen to that last segment I did? I just did an entire segment mapping out how Durant to Golden State is going to work out involving Dallas because I have this all sourced

out because the person was like, look, Durant's either going to say yes or he's not. If he says yes, this is what we're going to do and Bogut and Harrison Barnes and all these pieces and the trades and this is it. I just did eight minutes mapping out the entire Kevin Durant to Golden State Warriors plan before it happened and that's exactly what happened. entire Kevin Durant Golden State Warriors plan before it happened. And that's exactly what happened. And I'm like, eh, tease could have been better. I'm like, look, some of these teases are anticipation followed by disappointment.

I was like, so you don't care if I tease it and I don't follow through on the tease. They're like, no, no, you always need to follow through on the tease. I'm like, yeah, but some of these teases are so absurd. Like, it's not really, there's no payoff because the sentence is crazy. But the topic itself is kind of a letdown. And they're like, hey, man, you just need to tease better. So that was always a philosophical thing that I never quite understood in radio. So I'm just going to say it, but I'm afraid to. What if Jalen ends up being better than Tua?

Jalen was terrific in that Arizona loss. He was. And my biggest thing with him was one read and two decisions. And the second one was always run. And I actually think we saw that a lot against the Saints. What he did in goal line situations. How many of you are so frustrated with your goal line offense? The third and goal, you've tried to, you tried the fade, you try to run it up the middle, and then you try to fade again. And you're just like, God, Jalen's mobility without always going for the run, got him two touchdowns, just moving around. I know they lost the game.

And I know this sounds nuts because the way Jalen and Tua will always be linked. But as much as I love Tua coming out of the draft and I know they won again, I'm concerned. I'm concerned with how he looks because the greatest thing with him was those deep shots and they just haven't had it. And I've been through all those numbers with Gusecki. The tight end is the deep threat. And I don't know what the update is because he didn't play and all that kind of stuff. I'd look at some of those yards per catch stuff and I'd go, wait, where are the deep threats here? When that was the great thing with Tua. And he also had like five NFL guys he was thrown into in Alabama. His skill guys are better at Alabama than they are with Miami Dolphins. It's not even debatable.

So yes, I'm a little worried about it. It's a tease. I'm not ready to sell that tease though. So there you go. That's my tease story. The final award is the Both Ways Award. We could have called this the Dion Award or some other things that I was probably going to stay away from. But this is for the people that want one thing and complain about the other thing. A very good example of this is social media with player safety versus bad calls. You want player safety, but as soon as somebody gets flagged for a bad helmet-to-helmet, meaning it didn't really look helmet-to-helmet or the defensive player was in an impossible situation, the offensive player lowers himself, or maybe it was more shoulder than it was helmet, then you freak out about the bad calls. I'm just going to say it again for all the player safety, the tribe, the player safety tribe out there. If you are that worried about player safety, you're going to have to accept some bad helmet to helmet calls. If you haven't figured that out yet,

I don't know what the hell you're doing on Sunday. All right. And I just don't understand bad call all day long stuff. It just, it doesn't do much for me. The reason I bring that up is that's because Jets fans, Jets fans want it both ways and they're miserable. Okay. And they want to share their misery with you. I'm not saying they shouldn't be miserable. I mean, it's a brutal franchise. But every week, you want to bitch about Adam Gase, which is fine. You want to bitch about the roster. You even throw Joe Douglas into this thing, which I think is entirely unfair

because Joe Douglas hasn't been there that long. It looks like a couple of his early decisions are going to work out. And, you know, the crazy thing with the Jets is they've actually had more moments where you're like, man, is this team starting to compete a little bit more? And that's the other thing, is the players don't care about draft picks. The players want to go out there and win. So taking the NFL is just harder to do unless you're going to just start having receivers play quarterback.

And maybe the Jets will do that the last two weeks. But you're seeing signs of the things that we're supposed to like in football, that a team hasn't quit, that they have some fight, that there's more guys in the roster. You're like, hey, you know who's showing up? You know who's playing a little bit better? Because that Jets roster has had moments where it felt like it was the worst 53-man roster in the entire NFL. So Joe Douglas doesn't deserve to be shrapnel in this anti-Jets thing, but the Jets fans want to share their misery with you all the time because of how bad it's going. And then they win and they beat a good Rams team. That doesn't make any sense. Teams favored by 17 or more are like 58 and four in the, however, the tracking

goes back. Sanda was sharing that stat with us. And I guess like, I look at this and then the Jets win and now they might not get Trevor Lawrence. And then all the Jets are miserable about that, too. So pick one. Pick one is my point. You have to pick one. You can't scream about the Jets and how terrible an organization it is and how embarrassed it is the whole time. And then when they actually show you the fight, the things that are supposed to matter.

Granted, look, they should lose the rest of the games. They should go 0-16. They should do everything they can to get Trevor Lawrence, but the players aren't on board with that because they don't care. The contracts are too short. They're just not going to do it. Those guys coming out of the tunnel every Sunday actually still want to win football games.

And so for whatever reason, I actually hope Trevor Lawrence goes to Jacksonville. I do because there's just so many media members that are linked to the Jets somehow. I'm tired of it. I don't want to I don't want to hear from you anymore. Sulk in the corner. And the next time you bitch about how bad you have it because your team sucks and they actually win, you don't get to bitch about that, too. Updated Tom and Bill legacy rankings. It's heating up.

It is heating up. Bill eliminated from the playoffs the first time since the last time Tom wasn't there. Remember the Pats. Somebody's going to fall for this and it's so stupid, but I will let you get caught up in the web. The year the Pats won 11-5, they didn't make the playoffs because everybody in the division played bad

NFC and AFC West teams and those divisions were terrible and that's why all those teams had those wins and that's why people used to argue Bill could do it without Brady. When in fact, it was because the schedule was really, really easy. And at 11-5, they were still out of the playoffs. So this actually would have been the first time the Pats were eliminated from the playoffs if Brady had played the entire team and not gotten hurt against Kansas City.

So it would have been like a 20-year run of winning the division, which is absolutely insane. It's insane. You can try to diminish it however you want. No. So if Brady hadn't gone anywhere. So to be totally serious, Brady's one. Although if Brady were to play poorly, he's like a week away from a

Giselle-induced, influenced haircut. So alright, I'm going to say Tom won. Still alive for the playoffs. Bill too. I could see Bill having to wait an extra year to get into the Hall of Fame because of this, just based on this week alone. Hey, life advice in a moment, but basketball is back in this season. My man, Charles Barkley, has joined the FanDuel team.

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I'm telling you, even when I'm just checking lines for stuff that we're doing for the pod, now that I've been using FanDuel this much, I'm like, okay, this is super easy to navigate. Okay. The withdrawals are fast. I'm doing a fantasy thing with Bill and some other guys here at the ringer. So we're going to be using that. And the payouts are quick in as little as 24 hours. Odd boosts and specials. There are so many different ways to bet now, and FanDuel just makes it kind of fun. There's just creative stuff you can look at,

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That's right. They'll give you up to $1,000 back if you don't win. And when you do win, FanDuel pays you your winnings in as little as 24 hours. You don't have to track down some shady bookie for your money. Wow. I don't even know if I feel safe saying that. Just do me a favor. When you download the FanDuel Sportsbook app, please sign up

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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. It is lifeadvicerr at gmail.com. Okay.

Here we go. How to get better with money in my 20s. If I only knew. If I could ever go back in time. I do think a lot of us do that. I know I do it. Where I'm like, if you could start over at like 1993 and you knew what you knew now, and then I'll go, well, what if, why don't I just try to predict the future over the next five years? Like just do it right now. Cause there's going to be a moment when I'm 50 where I go, man, if I had known what I know now at 45, well, it's right now. So what are some of those guesses? That's a fun little exercise, or maybe you shouldn't do it. Okay. Back to the email. So what are some of those guesses?

That's a fun little exercise, or maybe you shouldn't do it. Okay, back to the email. I'm from Calgary, and in the first year of a two-year post-degree diploma, I've got an undergraduate degree already. All right, so grad school. The field I'm entering shows modest earning potential, nothing crazy, but I should be able to get to a decent life if I grind hard enough. My question is, when you're at this stage of life, how do you deal with financial uncertainty and figuring out how to get better with money while enjoying your 20s? I'll just give you, I'm the last person to map out your money deal in your 20s, or maybe that makes me the best person for it. All right. Our guy says, I like to party. Sweet. Travel and gamble from time to time. Nothing out of control, but I'm 24 and I want to get after it for a while longer while also not

wanting to set myself back to the future. Since I'm in school, having money to do any substantial investing isn't really an option. But I feel like every time I turn on the TV, I'm getting a Questrade ad telling me now is the time to start saving for the future. Well, it's an ad. Of course, they're telling you that you need to start using their company for stuff. All right. So don't get freaked out. Those 401k ads, they do that on purpose. Some of the older listeners right now, you know, your IRAs, you know, you did start it a little bit late. You're kind of like, man, what's my retirement number? They do that to scare the shit out of you, not to help you. All right. So our man says, I know the adult answer is to stop

getting loaded with my friends and cool it on the blackjack every now and then, but I don't want to look back 20 years from now and think I laid low so I could possibly retire a year earlier. I've definitely gotten better with these as I've matured, but this is something that just continues to prove, or do you really have to make conscious efforts to get better at this? Okay. All right. All right. So that last part, again, this is something that just continues to improve. First of all, you're 24. So the positive is you're actually even thinking this way. And I use this a lot with like, Hey, like our guy in the email about, am I the asshole at the office? It was like the fact that you even wrote that email and are asking these questions like that itself is a really good thing. So our emailer here is worried about these things and that's good. But I would, I would

tell you at 24 and you're not making any money now and you want to have enough money to go away for a weekend you know when things are normal or hang out with your buddies and all that kind of stuff i personally um i wouldn't worry about saving right now i just i just wouldn't if the idea that if you cut all these corners and limit all the fun stuff from 24 to 26, that all of a sudden, like when you're 61, it's going to be all the difference in the world. It just isn't. And you don't know what kind of money you're going to make or not make. And if you make less than you think, then you'll probably figure it out. Now, what I would do, because it sounds like you care about this stuff, I would open up an IRA. I would figure out the best ones for you. If you're 24, I bet you have a friend. I don't know. Talk to somebody older.

And I'm not telling you I have this mapped out perfectly. But the sooner you start your IRA, whether you can do it through your company, which is basically if you're not doing it with your company, you're throwing away money because the matching and the tax part of it. Uh-oh. For some of you that are with um, that, that can, for some of you that are with companies, I think some of you guys that are with bigger companies and actually look at the HR stuff and pay attention to it. But like that first time when you learn like,

Hey, if you're not putting into your 401k, knowing that the company matches, you're just absolutely throwing away money and you're not hiding money. It's not hiding, but putting money in a fund that, that what's not going to be taxed, although you can't touch it for a long time.

So you seem to care about these things. The ads are getting to you. So to start the clock on the saving part of it, I would research any of those things and try to get that started earlier. Because take it from me, somebody who had it a lot later than I wish, but I just didn't have any money. I just didn't have any money. later than I wish, but I just didn't have any money. I just didn't have any money. So the idea that I was going to put a couple grand away in a 401k every year when I'm making 12, 25, 25, 25, and 30 grand a year, it just wasn't going to happen. It just wasn't. I mean, it wasn't like I was living the high life anyway. It just, I'm sorry. Like I didn't, I didn't have like,

it was check to check, man. And that, that money didn't exist. So I don't know what your situation is. So, um, you know, some people are going to listen to this and say, stop going out. I don't believe that. I would say you're 24, have fun, hang out with your friends. Don't stress about it. You're, you're probably not going to end up going broke because you didn't save $1,200 this year at 24 years old. All right. That if you go broke, I don't think it's going to be because of that. It sounds like Kyle wants to jump in here, which I would love to hear from. I was going to say bars are important to me too. And, um, I just say be like the fact that he brought it up means that he probably does look at the morning and like, wow, I really put a dent in

what I got with that. I just say be efficient. Like you don't have to try all the different bars, like make buddies with your, with a bar and tip well a couple of times. And once they know your situation, they're not going to charge you for every drink and you can leave paying $40 instead of 120 when it gets away from you. That's all I'd say. It made a big difference for me once I made those inroads. It also sounds like a bar that may go out of business 120 to 40. I'm Hey like it is what it is like some people just don't tip and those bartenders are like well they're never gonna tip me but this guy gave me 40 and like that's that's cool people used to always say that because they were like oh

you must not pay for anything as a bartender you're like actually you get the bartender tax and you pay way more and it's just it's this dumb thing where it's like, oh, hey, your $100 tab, I'm going to charge you $5, but you have to leave $200. And maybe it's $68, but it's like, it's not $200, you know, at the new bar that you waited in line to get into and it took forever to get a drink

and whatever. And it's like, it somehow costs you $170 and it's like, you can leave your other place for $68 and buying your friends rounds. It's nice. Yeah, maybe that's a plan. It's nice. Yeah. Maybe that's a plan. That's a plan there too.

Um, but the simplest way to sum this whole thing up is that I, I doubt the financial corners that you'd be cutting now to, to sacrifice the fun stuff with your friends. Like it's great. You have friends, you want to do cool stuff with them to decide to not do any of those things. And thinking that you're just going to be so much better off in 40 years financially,

I don't know. I have some friends that think saving from day one was the most important thing. One of the guys opened a small business. If he hadn't saved from day one out of college, then he probably wasn't going to be able to open that business. I have another friend that's doing better than most everybody. He was like, I didn't save a dime in my twenties because I felt like the payoff was going to be there. I personally felt like the payoff was going to be there for me, even though it didn't make any sense. But I also didn't go on trips with buddies because I couldn't, I just couldn't afford it. So I wasn't even saving money and turning down trips with buddies. I didn't, I didn't have money to save and I didn't have any, like, and then it sucks too

because then your friends stop inviting you to stuff. Like I have a weird phase there where I was so locked into everything I was doing and I was broke that I wasn't even getting invited to stuff anymore

because they're like, yeah, we're so close, bro. Like you can't go. And then you're kind of like, well, can't you just invite me and have me tell you I'm broke? And then, you know, I'll feel better about it.

And it was like, well, we didn't want to tell you because we knew you would say no. Were you going to be able to say yes i'm like no i'm like okay we we skipped a whole step there so stop crying about it i bet you there's some people listening to that advice that were like that's terrible all right older listener here i'm 51 i've been married 21 years no children and my wife and i are both physicians struggling through the pandemic, working long, stressful hours. Well, thank you for everything you're doing. I only mentioned that because a few years ago, she cheated on me, but we eventually

worked it out mainly for financial reasons, and our relationship has changed, but she's a good person, and I do love her. She's a third. Oh, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Okay. Dot, dot, dot. All right. So again, this is about his wife.

We worked it out mainly for financial reasons and our relationship has changed, but she's a good person. I do love her. Dot, dot, dot. A 30 year old nurse at work. Who's a single mom of a six year old with a deadbeat ex. Who's an absolute smoke show. The ex or the nurse. Is this guy saying that her ex-husband is really hot? No. Oh no. That's not what he's doing. He's saying the nurse is very attractive. Okay. She's been really aggressive pursuing me. We haven't been physical, but she's definitely an emotional friend with sexting benefits

who unfortunately I'm falling for hard and we have crazy chemistry. Question, blow up my marriage for someone with baggage that would ultimately fail, but I feel like I'm living a real life rom-com or stay in my missionary style, milquetoast marriage with financial stability. Are my feelings a product of the stressful situation I'm in? Um, and cloudy or legit age old question, but never, uh, the less difficult any advice is appreciated. First of all, I don't, um, there's, there's a lot that I don't know in this clearly. First of all, the less difficult any advice is appreciated. First of all, I don't, um, there's, there's a lot that I don't know in this clearly. First of all, the thing I do know is you are going to end up

hanging out with this nurse. There's no question. I can already tell. Um, when you say she comes with baggage, I hope you're not saying that's the six-year-old. It sounds like you might be because you're pretty forward in this email. Um, here's what i would ask you if you're both close if you're 51 and you're both doctors and you stayed together for financial reasons what did you guys buy like 10 houses i imagine with no kids at 51 if you've been in the medical field both of you have made plenty of money gotta be a boat he's worried about losing the boat no all right so this is he's obviously gonna do it he's he's clearly going to do it you're already texting where they're like this you've put yourself in this position to have it continue the chemistry may be crazy but it may all be physical and therefore when you do it and it's going to be great for like

a month, and then there's going to be like sort of a letdown and then you may feel guilt. Um, but if you said your wife already cheated on you, maybe you're looking at like, Hey, sorry, looks like I did it too. I guess we're even, which is never the way that that conversation would go down. I'm almost thinking like, if you're this bored with your wife, but you love her, do you love her as a friend or you do love her as a partner or just love the convenience of it, but you're clearly bored. I don't know. Can you be honest with your wife and just say, not about the smoke show nurse yet, but just go, Hey, what are we doing? Are we in this together because we want to spend the rest of our lives together? Are we in this because of convenience?

And are you in it right now for, now for dependent reasons because you're both physicians going through a pandemic too, which I think is probably part of it. So I don't know if you could, I mean, this is probably, this might be the worst advice I've ever given out, but like a preemptive, like I'm not telling you to divorce your wife and hook up with a nurse, but I feel like that's what I'm saying. I don't understand the financial part of it. If you only got back together for financial reasons and the relationship never been the same since your wife cheated on you, why are you with her in the first place? Why can't you just go, hey, look, this is your money. This is my money. We have no kids. See you later. And now you're dating a nurse who's 20 years younger than you,

which seems to be something I think we can pretend guys listening to like, oh, that's not cool. A lot of guys would think that was cool. So, oh, maybe that's, but if you don't want to do that, if you don't want to feel the guilt about your wife, you have to stop texting. You can't do that to yourself where you're putting yourself in a situation where you're constantly texting with somebody that you know you shouldn't be texting with because then it's just going to lead to what's going to happen anyway which is why you're going to end up hooking with this nurse there's no doubt i would put money on this um but the the texting part like oh it hasn't been physical oh it's this you you can't keep putting yourself into situations where you're constantly battling

temptation and i know as a guy, for those of you that are older, younger guys are like, what the hell are you talking about? But for older guys, especially older guys that may have had a decent run when they were younger, I'm not saying like an NBA run, but maybe like a Friday night bartender run where you want to know if you still have it. And all of a sudden you're getting attention from the cute the cute girls picked you and you're like oh my god i still have it and now your ego feels better and there's like this weird validation i do think women have this but i think men need it more i think men need it especially men like you were the cool guy in college you're the cool guy in your neighborhood in the city, you know, in your twenties, there's, there's this part of you that'll be like,

oh, did I lose it? Is it gone? I used to have it. And that's why guys will start texting and they don't think they're not doing anything wrong. And then you're just like, I can't stop thinking about this person. And now you've completely, you know, change your focus from the relationship that you're coming to at home, um, for this new, this new person. And now you've completely changed your focus from the relationship that you're coming to at home for this new person. And some of you guys start this process because you know you're going to leave your wife anyway. You just know you're going to, or the wife is going to leave you. I'm entering in this new conversation with this other person because it's new, it's exciting, I have attention, but also because I'm not going to be with this person anymore. So I think that's the first thing you need to figure out.

Are you actually going to be, do you plan on being with your wife? It doesn't sound like, it sounds like it's sort of okay. And I don't know enough from this email to know how you feel. Like if you weren't with your wife, would you care? You sound like you're, you're settling a bit here for, you haven't mentioned, I mean, you did say you still love her but i don't know like you got past the cheating part of it but you said it's never the same so i think we all know what's gonna happen here just a reminder make sure you check out the bill simmons feed bill simmons house myself nba preview over unders all sorts of stuff and this was uh definitely more challenging you to do the over unders just math alone 30 different times you're like wait 42 wins is what

so make sure you check that out and please as always spread the word subscribe to the Ryan Russo podcast on the ringer podcast network and Spotify thank you Thank you.