Best of Outkick the Coverage for Jan 08, 2020

Clay Travis keys in on a Divisional Round NFL playoff games that he thinks is flying under the radar and has an intelligent discussion about race in the NFL, in connection with coaching searches. The voice of the Titans, Mike Keith, joins Outkick on the 20th anniversary of the Music City Miracle and looks back on the huge win over the Patriots and previews the divisional matchup vs. Baltimore! 

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of out Kick the
Coverage podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
morning from six to nine am Eastern three to six
am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for OutKick the Coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every morning on the I Heart
Radio app by searching f s R. This is the
best of OutKick the Coverage with Clay Travis on Fox

(00:22):
Sports Radio. I hope all of you are having a
fantastic Wednesday, wherever you may be across this great country
or across this great land. We have got uh much
to discuss as we moved throughout the show today, but
I believe at the top of the list not a surprise,

(00:45):
the four divisional round playoff games. As they move closer
and closer to arriving, I'm looking at them more and
more and wondering if we're underrating the chances of the
Green Bay the Green Bay Packers and the Seattle Seahawks
in their game, which looks to be the most competitive

(01:09):
of all the games that are going on this weekend. Um,
we talked about this a lot, right, I mean the
fact that of the eight teams that are in the
playoffs right now, remaining seven of them were not in
the playoffs at this time last year. And in fact,
if you look at the quarterbacks in this UH this

(01:31):
year's playoffs, whether it is Kirk Cousins with the Vikings,
whether it's Jimmy Garoppolo with San Francisco forty Niners, whether
it's Ryan Tannehill or or Lamar Jackson and the Titans
and the Ravens game, or Deshaun Watson who just won
his first ever playoff game, and Patrick Mahomes, who, while

(01:51):
he's been impressive, has only won one playoff game so
far in his career. Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers are
both Super Bowl winning quarterbacks who are looking to get
that second Super Bowl to forever imprint themselves on the
DNA of the league. And I feel like Aaron Rodgers

(02:15):
in particular this year is completely under the radar, And
I'm not sure whether that's wrong because the Packers haven't
been that impressive. Their schedule when you look at their results, UH,
particularly against teams that were good enough to make the playoffs,
has not been very good. But most years when Aaron

(02:37):
Rodgers is in the postseason, he is completely drowning in
media coverage and hype and expectation. This year, the Packers
went thirteen and three, and I feel like Aaron Rodgers
has been under the radar all year, and as a result,
I keep looking at this Packer Seahawks game game and

(03:00):
feeling like, whoever wins this game is going to find
their way into the Super Bowl now, whether it's the
Packers or the Seahawks may have to go on the
road against the forty Niners, although I like the Vikings
quite a bit as a seven point underdog going up
against the forty Niners because I think Kirk Cousin is

(03:21):
gonna be playing with house money, so I think there's
also a decent possibility that whoever wins this Green Bay
Seattle game is going to be hosting the NFC Championship game,
because I think there's a decent chance of the Vikings
go on the road and beat the forty Niners, even
though the forty Niners are the favorite to win the
NFC right now. But I feel like we aren't spending

(03:45):
that much time on Russell Wilson because the Seahawks down
the stretch run of the season didn't perform that great
and we're not spending hardly any time on Aaron Rodgers,
because while the Packers are winning, they haven't been winning
in really a spectacular or fashion. They've been sort of

(04:05):
choking people out right, Like it hasn't been a really
solidly impressive performance by the Packers down the stretch run
of the season, even though they finished thirteen and three
and got to buy. And I'm guilty of this as well,
because I expected for the Saints to beat the Vikings
and then for the Saints to go up to Lambeau

(04:26):
and handle the Packers without that much difficulty, and so
I didn't really spend that much time thinking about the
Packers making a run here. And the same thing kind
of of the Seahawks, because with the injuries they have
at running back and Beast Mode and everything else, this
offense has felt like at some point there's just gonna

(04:48):
be too much on Russell Wilson's shoulders and he's not
gonna be able to carry the team like he's been
doing all season long, or you expect for some of
the luck to finally run out, given how many close
games the Seahawks have won, how many times Russell Wilson
has made a late play. But if you look at
these guys histories and the fact that they've both won

(05:11):
Super Bowls and how unproven just about everybody else is
in this, uh, this playoff group. You got Lamar Jackson
who's never won a playoff game. You got Deshaun Watson,
who just narrowly won his first ever playoff game. You
got Patrick Mahomes who's only won one playoff game I
believe it is in his career. Ryan Tannehill, who just

(05:33):
won his first ever playoff game and didn't play very
well on the road against the Patriots, Jimmy g who
is never in his career started a playoff game before.
And Kirk Cousins, who, after being maybe the most criticized
player in the entirety of the NFL, finally won a
playoff game. I mean, we're talking about a substantial difference

(05:56):
between the experience factor for Aaron Rodgers and for Russell
Wilson compared to everybody else. And it's why I keep
coming back to this game and saying, you know what,
I kind of like whoever wins this game to make
a run to the Super Bowl. And frankly, I like
the Seahawks as a four point underdog to cover. I'm

(06:18):
not sure I like them to win, but I think
this game is gonna be super close down the stretch.
It's gonna be your afternoon slash evening game on Sunday,
and I think of the four games that are going on,
it's probably the one we should be giving the most
attention to that we're probably ignoring to a large degree
because of perceived flaws that exist between the Packers and

(06:43):
the Seahawks. I want to bring in the crew and
see if anybody else agrees with me that usually if
you have two Super Bowl winning quarterbacks going head to
head in the postseason, this game is just drowning in hype.
Do you agree with me, Danny G that this game
feels like it's under the radar, despite the fact that

(07:03):
Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers are by far the two
most accomplished quarterbacks remaining in the postseason. Yeah, if you
go back to our top five bottom fives all throughout
the year, that's right. A lot of people, including you,
weren't buying into the Packers at all for a majority
of the season. The Packers were kind of under the radar,
So I think that has a lot to do with

(07:24):
what you're talking about. Now. This um playoff style of
football we always hear about has a lot to do
with the run game, as we saw last weekend with
Derrick Henry and Dalvin Cook. So I think the difference
in this game is going to be the other eron
Aaron Jones. Yeah. I don't know if a lot of
people know this, but he scored nineteen total touchdowns. I
feel like he's under the radar to I mean, yeah,

(07:45):
that's team Uh. That's a great point about the success
that he had. I feel like this entire Packer team,
and I bet there's a lot of Packer fans listening
to us right now kind of nodding, because it's not
as if the path. If you aanked teams for just
typical attention that they get, the Patriots are up there,
Cowboys are up there, Steelers and the Packers. Probably if

(08:09):
you were ranking the four teams in the NFL that
typically get the most hype every year, I would say,
in no particular order, that's the four, right, the Steelers,
the Packers, the Patriots, and Uh. And you really break
down those teams and usually the Cowboys obviously, usually those
four teams are getting the most attention out there. Well,

(08:31):
the Packers have a buy They've got a Super Bowl
winning champ still in Aaron Rodgers. They went thirteen and three,
as you just mentioned, They've got a pronounced strong running
game as well. And I'm guilty of this also, I
just haven't bought into them all year, and boom, here
they are Aaron Rodgers Russell Wilson going head to head
with six relatively unaccomplished so far, uh in the postseason

(08:55):
quarterbacks remaining otherwise, and I feel like we're overlooking these guys,
dub Are you buying into this that that that that
somehow the Packers and the Seahawks are under the radar
in some sense as we come down the stretch run
of the divisional playoffs. Well, I agree with everything you
just said, and especially with what Danny g just said
about you know, people overlooking the Packers, and there's been
people that have overlooking have overlooked the Seahawks all season,

(09:17):
including myself, because I think you know, when well, when
you look at their points difference on the year, the
Seahawks are plus seven through the whole season and the
Packers and it is wild for them to have such
a good record and for them to be where they
are right now, and the Packers aren't great their plus
sixty three but a little bit better. But I think
these two teams are probably the two most overlooked slash

(09:40):
overrated teams all season if you look at the numbers,
but when when you boil it down to its core,
this is Russell Wilson versus Aaron Rodgers. And if this matchup,
you know, before the postseason started, you say, hey, we're
gonna have Russell Wilson traveling to Green Bay to take
on Aaron Rodgers and the Packers and lambeau Field for
the Divisional round with a chance to make the NFC
NFC Championship Game. I think everything single person in America

(10:02):
would have taken that and ran with it because this
is gonna be I think it's gonna be a great game.
And I think it is kind of strange how this
game seems to be getting overlooked by so many people. Well,
I mean, think about it. If this were a Sunday
night football game, for instance, or a Monday night football
game where you had this game on a stage by itself,
it would be incredibly hyped up. And this is obviously

(10:24):
infinitely bigger because it's going on in the divisional round
of the playoffs in the NFL, and the other six
quarterbacks are not anywhere near as accomplished as these two guys,
and I feel like it's maybe a little bit under
the radar and people just aren't buying in to the
idea that this could be the year where Aaron Rodgers
gets a second super Bowl or Russell Wilson gets a

(10:45):
second super Bowl. Now, I know, we kind of treat
a quarterback who wins a super Bowl as a made man,
and so the other six guys out there, hey, if
they could find a way to win a super Bowl,
it changes their career forever. There's no doubt the difference
between zero and one for super Bowls is seismic, is monumental,

(11:06):
is massive. But the difference between being a guy who
wins one super Bowl and being a guy who wins
multiple super Bowls is also pretty transcendent when you think
about the way that we contemplate the careers and when
they're over. Russell Wilson still relatively young, but how many
better opportunities than now is Aaron Rodgers gonna get for

(11:27):
the rest of his career. I don't know how many
more years he's gonna play, but it's hard to have
a better situation than this. If you're Aaron Rodgers, You've
got a home playoff game where you're a favorite to
potentially advance and be UH in the NFC Championship game
against either a Jimmy Garoppolo or Kirk Cousins, who have

(11:48):
never been in anywhere near a game that big UH
in their lives. This is pretty pretty monumental for both
both Aaron Rodgers and for Russell Wilson as well. Eddie,
you're a fan of the Steelers, so you know what
it's like to be, you know, a team that's kind
of perpetually under the microscope, like I was saying, with

(12:08):
the Cowboys, the Steelers, the Patriots, and the Packers. Seems
like that always is the case. Are you with me
that this Packer team feels super under hyped relative to
what they've delivered so far this year? Yeah? I think
it's because Aaron Rodgers hasn't been the Aaron Rodgers were
used to sing. Whether it's been because of the new
offensive philosophy with Matt Lafleur in there, or it's because

(12:29):
he probably has the best running back he's ever had
in his career. But whatever the cases, he you know,
he hasn't been talked about in any kind of m
VP discussion or anything like that. Um he's certainly gonna
have to make some plays though, if if they're gonna
be a team that would advance to the Super Bowl.
But I think Fox is thrilled to have this matchup.
You know, you could argue that, you know, Deshaun Watson
against Patrick Mahomes might be uh more exciting quarterbacks, but

(12:51):
as far as established quarterbacks and guys who have done
it a long time and obviously, as you mentioned, have
each one a Super Bowl, then Seahawks Packers, I think
is is definitely a game that Yeah, I just think
about it in the context of let's say, for my
uh my television show we do with walk it In,
um I I and and also the way people react.
Usually a quarterback who's won a Super Bowl remains wildly

(13:15):
overhyped for the rest of his career if he's the
reason that they won the Super Bowl, right, um So
maybe you can give a little bit of an exception
for Nick Foles because he came and although we get
a lot of attention to Nick Foles, but he kind
of came in, you know, put the cape on, came
in as the backup quarterbacks found a way to get
the Super Bowl. But Russell Wilson and Aaron Rodgers are

(13:37):
the reasons why their teams won the Super Bowl, and
they're going head to head with a chance to advance
to the NFC Championship Game. And again, I think there's
a decent chance that the Vikings could go on the
road and pull off what would be a pret decent
upset against the forty niners, but still not as big
of an upset as they already pulled off over the

(13:58):
Page over the Saints. And also I believe Kirk Cousins
getting that first playoff win one reason why I'm betting
on Cousins, uh for the Vikings to go on the
road and keep it close against the forty nine ers.
Why I think that Ryan Tannehill will go on the
road and keep it close against the Ravens, and why
I like Deshaun Watson to a certain extent as well

(14:20):
on the road against the Chiefs. Not necessarily for any
of those guys to win, although it wouldn't stun me,
but to keep it closer, because I think that there
is a big psychological impact to getting your first ever
playoff win. It's hard to get a playoff win. We
have oversold the ease with which playoff wins can occur
sometimes by looking at guys like Tom Brady, for instance,

(14:43):
who's been to nine Super Bowls. The Bills haven't been
to a second round, haven't won a playoff game in
twenty five years a single playoff game. For a lot
of quarterbacks, winning a playoff game is a monster deal
to be able to do it just once, and once
you do it, the way of the world almost comes

(15:05):
off your shoulders in the short term, because, yes, the
pressure gets ratcheted up again if you managed to make
it to the Super Bowl or you're playing to win
an a f C or an NFC championship game. But
I feel like in the divisional round, if you get
that first playoff win, you can kind of take a
breath and maybe go out and play a little bit
relaxed in a way that you weren't able to in

(15:28):
the wild card round. So I like Tannehill on the
road with the Titans. I like Deshaun Watson on the
road with the Texans, And I also like uh Kirk
Cousins on the road with the Vikings because all of
those guys just got their first ever playoff win, and
I feel like they're gonna play well even though they're
all a touchdown or more underdogs. Roberto, what about you?

(15:50):
Do you feel like maybe we should be paying more
attention to this game between the Packers and the Seahawks
given what Wilson and Rogers have accomplished compared to the
other six quarterbacks. Yeah, definitely, you know, both of them
super Bowl winning quarterbacks. And when we do our top
five bottom five always have Seattle and Green by lower
there on the top five. But it's also because you know,
we saw we saw the Packers go to San frances

(16:12):
gonna get smoked earlier during the year, and then Seattle
hasn't been the typical dominant team that we see them
be at home. I think that's the reason why it's
been sold underplayed this game. Yeah, the Seahawks have been
great on the road. I think I believe they are
eight and one on the road. And usually we talk
about the Seahawks in that incredible home field advantage that
they have, but they actually have been very mediocre at

(16:34):
home and stellar on the road, which potentially bode well
for them, and how well things could go on Sunday
night when they travel up to the frozen tundra in Lambeau,
uh To to take on Aaron Rodgers and company. Be
sure to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with
Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific

(16:55):
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio Divisional
round of the NFL Playoffs Inching Closer and closer, We're
gonna talk to the voice of the Titans as their
game inches closer against the Ravens on Saturday night. We
have been talking all about the NFL for the first
two hours of the program. We'll be talking about the
NFL for another hour of this program. Two new coaches

(17:17):
that have been hired. Carolina Panthers get UH Matt Rule
from Baylor and the Giants get Uh the Judge from
the wide receiver special teams coordinator over the past several
years with the new England Patriots. Uh. That leaves only
the Cleveland Brown job, with Mike McCarthy having been hired

(17:38):
with the Dallas Cowboys as well. That is three white
guys there is a certain segment of the population that
is fired up because UH, the NFL season hiring off
season is primarily going to be filled by white head coaches.
Will wait and see what happens with the Cleveland Browns.
My bet would be that they are going to go
uh with uh with probably somebody who's gonna end up

(18:00):
getting fired, because everybody who gets hired by the Browns
ends up getting fired. But I think that they will
go with the offensive coordinator from the New England Patriots
whose name is immediately escaping me right now, But everybody
knows exactly who I'm talking about. That's the problem. You
haven't talked about so many different names. Uh, he's gonna
get the job. That would be my guests as who's
the next Browns coach is going to be? All right?

(18:21):
So uh now there is a big point of discussion
about the head coaching UH positions and racial diversity among
NFL head coaches. UH, the Rooney rule in particular, Marvin
Lewis gets the interview UH down in Dallas, doesn't seem
to be really that considered for the job because it
seems like they want Mike McCarthy and then you have

(18:42):
Eric b enemy who's the offensive coordinator for the Chiefs,
and he doesn't get the job offer at least so
far based on how things have gone. And by the way,
Josh McDaniels is obviously the guy who I'm talking about
from the Patriots, who I believe will end up being
the head coach of the Browns before all is said
and done. So my argument he or is an interesting one. Uh.

(19:02):
It is this NFL teams are so obsessed with winning
that race really doesn't factor in very much, in my opinion,
in their decision making. Let me give you an example.
If a field goal kicker is bad and he gets released,

(19:22):
and a team has an audition for a field goal kicker,
and they bring in five guys, and they interview those
five guys, and they take them out on the field
and they have them kick field goals. I don't think
there's a single person out there listening to me right
now that believes that a team is intentionally picking a
guy who is not going to be the best person

(19:45):
they think to kick field goals for them. Right Their audition,
their process is so highly competitive. They're trying to find
the best possible talent for that position to fill and
we certainly believe that to be the case across the
entirety of the NFL, that the goal is to find
the best possible guy, and if you don't find the

(20:07):
best possible guy, then you are going to lose. And ultimately,
the NFL is maybe better than almost any other sport
in America, a meritocracy, and that means that the best
man gets the job. Now, it's also simultaneously true that
NFL teams do not reflect what America looks like. Right

(20:30):
there's this big talk now of we want to be
diverse and inclusive, we want our teams to reflect what
America looks like. Where well, NFL teams are around black,
and only twelve percent of the population as a whole
is black. So NFL teams wildly over index for black

(20:51):
football players compared to what they would do if they
reflected America. In fact, if an NFL team reflected America,
it would be around six white, it would be around
percent Hispanic, it would be around twelve percent black, you know,
five percent Asian, whatever the full population of America looks

(21:11):
like right now. And if you want to take it
even further, you could have somebody come out and say, hey,
I'm buying an NFL team, and my NFL team is
gonna perfectly reflect America. That means half my team, over
half my team, fifty one percent of my team is
gonna be female, is gonna be male. And everybody out
there listening to me right now would be like, well,

(21:32):
that would be ridiculous. Women aren't good enough to play
in the NFL. So if you had an NFL team
that perfectly reflected America, you might never score a touchdown
for an entire season. You could have a team that
perfectly reflects America, but it wouldn't necessarily score a touchdown.
My point is, talent is not a hundred percent reflected

(21:56):
based on race. Right. If it were, then let's leave
women out of the equation and say, okay, well, no
women are good enough to play in the NFL. I
don't think that's sexist. I think that's true. Doesn't mean
that there might not be at some point in time
a woman who's good enough to play in the NFL,
But so far there hasn't been. So Automatically, when we're
deciding who's gonna play in the NFL, we're eliminating half

(22:18):
of the population in the world, and saying they aren't
good enough to play football. They don't have the biological
construct to play football. They're not big, strong and fast enough. Right,
by and large, doesn't mean it can't happen. Doesn't mean
at some point in time there can't be a woman.
But right now there has never been one. And maybe
one day they'll be a kicker. Maybe someday else there'll

(22:39):
be another position. Right now, there hasn't been one. There
hasn't really been a woman who's close, right, Okay, doesn't
mean it can't happen. Does mean that I think it's unlikely, okay,
And the people that do get NFL jobs, they tend
to end up being huge percentage black, which is wildly
over indexed relative to the pop elation. In other words,

(23:02):
if everybody was a hundred percent evenly talented in football,
only twelve percent of football players would be black. So
that means that like or eight percent of all football
players that are black would lose their jobs, and you
would have white people, Asian people, and Hispanic people. I

(23:22):
don't think anybody is making that argument, right. I don't
think anybody out there is arguing that every NFL team
is not trying as hard as they possibly can to
get the best possible roster to win games. So wouldn't
the same be true for coaching. I understand the point

(23:43):
of the Rooney rule and wanting to make sure that
you have as wide of a tryout as possible. In
other words, that you want to bring out to use
my kicker example earlier, you want to make sure that
you're bringing in as many people as you possibly can
who are potentially the best kicker for your job, or
the best quarterback for your job, or the best running

(24:04):
back or whatever the position is. You want to make
sure you're not missing anybody. That's really the purpose of
the draft, right. The purpose of the NFL draft is
we need a standardized mechanism by which every single person
who wants to be able to be a NFL player
has an even playing field. We're gonna bring everybody to

(24:24):
the combine. We're gonna put you in your underwear, we're
gonna measure you, we're gonna get all your data, we're
gonna put you into the mix, and then we'll let
individual teams make decisions based on the draft that they
think will make their teams the best. If we believe
that NFL teams are doing all of that to be
as competitive as possible, and that the market is going

(24:48):
to dictate that they are going to be able to
find the best possible talent. In other words, it would
stun you if an XFL team were able to be
better than an n FELT team, Right, the market would
not allow that to happen because the best salaries go
to the best players in the NFL. Every NFL team

(25:10):
would wax every XFL team in this new league, because
the best talent is on the NFL teams, and every
NFL team is maniacally competing to win the best possible
manner that they can. If that is true, and you
believe it, and I think most of you do, for
virtually every position on the field, why would you not

(25:34):
also believe that's true for coaching. Now you can say
that teams are making bad decisions for coaching, just like
some teams make bad decisions when it comes to drafting
quarterbacks or drafting any position, drafting in general. But the
intent and the goal is to get the best possible
person in for that job, all right, for that head job.

(25:57):
And once the person who has the head coaching job,
is it, what's the person who has the head coaching
jobs job to get the best possible coaches underneath him
so that he can ensure that he is winning as
many games as possible, because that's the only way that
he keeps his job, And the only way that a

(26:17):
GM keeps his job is to have as good of
a coaching staff and as good of a playing staff.
So that's the approach that I come to it. If
I believe that the NFL is a meritocracy when it
comes to finding the best possible players, why would I
also not believe that the NFL is a meritocracy when
it comes to finding the best possible coaches. Now want

(26:41):
to bring in the crew I laid out my argument.
I think that almost all of you would agree that
with me, that the goal of every NFL team is
to find the best possible players, and that the goal
of a head coach is to find the best possible
assistant coaches, and that the goal of the GM and
an owner is to find the as possible head coach.
So why would we believe that all of the best

(27:04):
players are getting hired and all of the best coaches
are not. Wouldn't that defeat the entire purpose of the team.
Who wants to jump in first. I don't mind. I'll
say that. I think it comes down to opportunity. You're
comparing corners and coaches. One is athletic dominance, which would
be corners playing in the NFL. The other is brains

(27:26):
and leadership. We know in our country that some minorities
still face different challenges getting their foot in the door.
I say, I'm cool with what you're saying, as long
as the entry level opportunities are equal at the amateur level. Well,
I didn't. I don't know that. Uh. And that is
the question that I asked earlier That is more intriguing
to me than the way the end result comes out.

(27:48):
It is what's the entry point? And so who gets internships?
Who gets these introductory seven thousand dollar a year jobs,
Like That's the part that I would be intrigued by. Right.
And then the other question is in theory, if you
want to look at race. In theory, head coaching jobs
are open to everyone. Right, Black people only represent twelve

(28:13):
of the population. I think they represent around ten percent
of head coaches right now. Shouldn't the head coaching percentages
roughly approximate the overall black percentage of the population. In general.
I mean, I'm just asking that quit Like theoretically, every like,
the number of people who can play quarterback in the

(28:33):
NFL is relatively low. The number of people who can
run a four five and play in the NFL is
relatively low. The number of people who have the brain
power to coach football is high. Right, there are a
lot more people who can you know, like, who can
coach a football game on the sideline wearing a headset

(28:53):
than can run a four five. Right, The percentage of
the population that can run a four or five versus
the percentage of the pop relation that can stand on
the sideline and call a play is substantially different. So
that is intriguing. But my big question here is it
would be a big flaw in the NFL if there
were this huge collection of otherwise would be Bill Belichick

(29:16):
level coaches and they aren't getting opportunities. Eddie or dub
In Er or Roberto any thoughts on that, Like we all,
I don't think there's a single person out there right
now who disagrees with me that the NFL has the
best football players in the world because they pay the best,
because they go out and they find the best talent

(29:37):
because they have the best development of that talent everything else.
It would be a big flaw in the NFL system
if they have the best players and they're not getting
the best coaches. In fact, it would be a huge
problem purely from a business perspective, because it would lead
to more losses than you should and the goal from

(29:58):
a business perspective in the NFL is to win as
many games as possible. I just think that this is
more of an ownership issue, is is it not? And
I'm not saying that the owners are necessarily racist, but
I can't help but refer to the quote that I
saw about Panthers owner David Tepper and what he said

(30:18):
about part of the reason why he hired Matt Rule,
and it was I mean, it was anecdotal and it
was humorous, but I think maybe it also speaks to
a larger point where he said he dresses like me,
and he had a job like me, and he had
to work for everything that he has gotten. So, in
other words, David Tepper saying he relates to Matt Rule,

(30:39):
you know, because of there's certain things and maybe he
doesn't relate to the enemy. That's an interesting argument, but
the point would be that temper has become a billionaire
by recognizing market inefficiencies. Right. But I mean, if you
become wildly successful in this country today, you typically have

(30:59):
wrecky nized a market inefficiency. And what I mean by
that is, let's take it outside of the world of sports.
The reason why Jeff Bezos is filthy rich and founded
Amazon was he saw the Internet coming and he said,
oh my god, there's gonna be a huge market place
online for people who want to buy things. And Walmart
and Target and you know, Kroger and all these other

(31:22):
retailers already exist and they have their advantage, but I'm
going to have an advantage on them, and I'm gonna
beat Walden Books and Barnes and Noble and all the
book retailers that would have existed back in And the
reason why I used that as an example is he
recognizes market inefficiency. So if you are an owner, and

(31:43):
it's an interesting point. If you are an owner, you
have been great probably in some way you could have
inherited your money, all right, so we can start there
like you might have been born on third base and
just gotten wealthy by virtue of your birth. But most
people who end up owning teams and buy teams make
the money themselves, which means they've recognized market inefficiencies. So

(32:05):
if that is true, then you would theoretically be able
to take advantage of other owners racism to go out
and hire a guide that they wouldn't hire, which would
lead to you winning more games. In other words, leaving
aside the morality that I think most people would agree
that judging somebody based on the color of their skin,

(32:27):
either pro or con, is a bad decision. If you
actually were not racist and your other NFL owners were racist,
you would be able to hire a coach that they
might not consider, which would lead to you winning more
games than they would right. So that that that This

(32:48):
is why I believe in market based economics in general,
because if there is a market inefficiency, you recognize it,
and you uh and you exploit it. I'll give you
an example here. Sean McVeigh may well have been a
market inefficiency. The Rams hired him and had such immediate

(33:08):
success with his offensive system that everybody else said, damn,
I want my own Sean McVeigh. It was like back
in the day when the Internet bubble was going on.
Everybody knew the Internet was gonna be a thing. But
maybe you bought pets dot Com instead of Amazon dot Com. Right,
pets dot Com goes bankrupt, entire thing blows up, Amazon

(33:31):
dot Com turns into one of the biggest businesses in
the world. Um, if you are willing to take a risk,
you may have a better result. And maybe that is
the case that teams are willing to take. Two. If
you want to build on your argument, Eddie, you could
make the argument that teams are willing to take bigger
risks with players than they are with coaches. And that

(33:55):
might that might be an interesting argument about why the
coaching universe isn't getting its best possible talent because there's
a risk averse nature in the NFL when it comes
to hiring coaches that doesn't exist when it comes to
hiring players. In other words, somebody might well hire Antonio
Brown as a wide receiver to be an employee, but

(34:16):
they wouldn't hire him to be a leader, right. Um,
And and that maybe is an argument, But my argument
in general is it would be a big flaw in
the NFL market if we all believe that every single player,
you know, whatever it is, the fifty three team, fifty

(34:37):
three times thirty two. What is that hundred players? Whatever
it is, those are the best sixteen hundred or eighteen
hundred possible football players. But we also don't have the best,
let's say, two hundred coaches in the NFL. That would
be a big flaw because you're paying all this money

(34:58):
to players and not getting the best coaches to develop them.
And I'm not claiming to know some easy solution here,
but a lot of people just look at results and
they complain about them. What I'm saying is, if the
NFL doesn't have the best two hundred football coaches in
the country, Leaving aside, you know the fact that obviously

(35:19):
a lot of the best coaches are also in college football, right,
because you can make a lot of money in college
football and everything else. But if coaching is not getting
the best four or five hundred at both college and pros,
then it's a broken system. And the Rooney rules suggests
that the system is broken and it needs to be
in some way remedied. We don't ever have a Rooney rule,

(35:40):
and never have had a Rooney rule for on field
jobs in sports, right. There's never been somebody who says, like, oh,
we need to apply the Seahorn rule. Before you hire
a cornerback, you have to bring in a white cornerback
and see whether or not he's good enough to play
corner because the assumption is, in sport words, the best

(36:01):
man gets the job. NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL,
Major League Soccer, ep L, whatever sport it is, there's
no hiring requirement predicated on race, and no interview requirement
predicated on race. So what I'm asking is, and I

(36:21):
think it's a big question. I'm not claiming to know
the answer, just asking you guys to think about it.
Why do we all presume does anybody disagree? Does anybody
disagree that the best eighteen hundred football players in America
are in the NFL right now? No, Yeah, that's obvious,
I mean, right, And I don't think anybody would disagree
that the best, whatever the math is, four hundred and
fifty players are in the NBA right now. Now. You

(36:43):
might be on the margin, you might say, oh, well,
these fifty guys who are the next fifty best players,
they should be in the NBA, and maybe the bottom
fifty players in the NBA shouldn't have the contracts they do, right,
But in general, they're fifteen NBA teams. The best five
hundred players in the world of basketball are in the NBA.

(37:04):
There's not somebody like I couldn't just go out right
now and be like, Hey, I'm going to create my
own pro basketball team and I can find twelve or
fifteen guys and we can go beat the Lakers or
the Clippers or the Celtics, whoever it is. Like that
would be impossible because the market works and we find
the best talent and the best players and they funnel

(37:25):
themselves into the pros. So if we believe that the
market works when it comes to players, why do we
not believe the market works when it comes to coaches?
And again, I'm not saying that I have the answer.
I'm just I want you to think about that. There's
never been a suggestion in my life that I can

(37:47):
remember where somebody said, hey, before the before the Lakers
are allowed to draft, we need to make sure that
they bring in the best Asian basketball play years in
the world to interview them before they sign Lebron James
for free agency. So why do we presume, I think correctly,

(38:10):
that all of the best players in the world find
their way to the best jobs in the world when
it comes to playing a sport. But we don't presume
that the best coaches get the jobs, because wouldn't it
be a huge market inefficiency and flaw if the most
talented people for coaching weren't also getting the jobs. Maybe

(38:33):
we should start a combine for coaches. I mean, it's funny, right,
I mean, what answer is Because it's easier to quantify
for the average person, Like if you and I sit
and watch Lebron James play compared to an average college player,
Lebron James is a lot better than him, and our

(38:54):
brains are able to watch them play basketball and say, oh,
Lebron's better. But cod ching is harder to quantify in
terms of success, which is why, like I believe that
Bill Belichick is a great coach, I believe that Bill
Belichick would not put bad coaches on his coaching staff

(39:15):
because that makes his job more difficult, and because I
believe that Bill Belichick knows who good coaches are. Now
you can argue that owners are unqualified to be hiring
coaches because they don't have any clue what a good
coach actually is, and that that's why the system is flawed,

(39:38):
But the best way to figure out who good coaches
are is theoretically to ask other coaches who they think
are good coaches. And that's typically what the interview process
is about. So I just want you to think about it.
There's a lot of people who want to jump around
and make arguments and scream and argue racism and everything else.
My my position would just be, if there is a

(40:01):
situation where the best coaches are not getting jobs, then
it is a structural flaw in all of pro sports
or sports in general. Wouldn't that flaw be a such
a massive flaw that it would undercut the entire purpose
of sports, which is to win as many games as possible. Anyway,

(40:24):
just think about it. Not trying to get y'all fired up,
just trying to think about it from an intelligent perspective.
Nobody questions the best athletes get the jobs across all
of sports. Why do we question whether the best coaches
get the jobs. Be sure to catch live editions about
kick the Coverage with Clay Travis weekdays at six am
Eastern three am Pacific. First Animal Thunderdome of the Week,

(40:47):
First Animal Thunderdome maybe of the year. I don't know
if we've done one in yet. Que the music, boys,
ladies and gentlemen. I'm just glad. I was scared, boys
and girls. I thought he thought I was like this

(41:07):
gynormous piece of chicken diarm times. I had to my
this is animal thunder dog, all right, Danny g what
you guy for me? You are correct sir. This is
the first animal thunderdome of Let's start in Maine where
a man was bitten in the face by a rabid fox.

(41:29):
That seems like a rough way to go trying to
uh keep this fox away from him by using his cane. Unfortunately,
this older guy he stumbled and he fell without the
support of his cane, and he was bitten in the face.
That same day, the news station there says that three
dogs were treated for being bitten by the same fox.

(41:52):
So crazy fox on the loose there in Maine. The
article says, in true main fashion, this eighty eight year
old fox him it was bitten in the face, held
onto the fox. He was able to fight with it, struggled,
but he held onto it in a headlock until the
police arrived. Policeman arrived to the scene, shot and killed
the fox. They're calling this guy a hero because obviously

(42:15):
this fox was doing damage there in your late eighties, Clay,
do you think you will be wielding a cane? Uh?
You probably hope by make it to the late eighties. Oh,
but I don't get attacked by a by a fox.
By the way, I've got this one this. I don't
know if this has you have this one on your list.
But a woman who was out scuba diving with her

(42:36):
husband did you hear about this in Australia? Uh? She
was scuba diving and her husband just jumped in the
water when he was attacked by a great white shark
and killed in front of her. She issued a statement
about her husband, describing him as quote a kind, gentle
strong man, saying she doesn't want the shark responsible for

(42:59):
his to be killed. Uh and uh, this is uh.
He and I were at home in and on the ocean.
We would go out diving on our boat whenever we could.
We were always aware of the risks and often told
each other if we were attacked by a shark that
would just be unlucky. Uh and uh so this is
pretty wild. Did you guys see this this story? Like, Uh,

(43:22):
this guy jumps in his wife is watching from the boat,
and he got killed right then and there in Australia
by the great white shark as soon as he jumped in.
Another one from Australia. Here from Brisbane, UH. Single mother
nearly died after being bitten in her bed by a
venomous snake. Happens all the time. Man. Here's the thing though,

(43:43):
she thought that it was her five year old Maltese
Shitsu mix freckle, because she woke up with blood on
her arm and the dog was barking. The nurse, it says,
who's a single mother of a two year old, had
two small red puncture marks on her right arm, but
assumed freckle had on her and scratched her in the
middle of the night, so she went back to sleep.

(44:03):
Hours later, she woke up in excruciating pain. She was
rushed to the hospital where she had a seizure, fell
unconscious and she almost died. She got there just in time.
Experts have identified now the snake as a poisonous yellow
faced whip snake. There are so many different types of poisonous.
Like the one thing I will say, if you get

(44:25):
bitten by a snake and it's poisonous in the United States.
We know, like you recognize the name, like somebody's like, oh,
I got bit by a rattlesnake, or I got bitten
by a copper head or like, you know, like you
can run through pretty much. There's only what six or
seven different snakes and we hear them and we're like, oh, yeah,
I know, that's a you know snake, it's poisonous. You
don't want to get bitten by that. Like the number

(44:46):
of snakes that are poisonous in Australia seems to be
like in the hundreds, what did you say, that snake
was called a whip snake. Yeah, it's like a yellow
pit but noise ever heard of that? Yeah, yellow faced
whip snake. No, I mean that seems gets unfair. The
number of snakes they can kill you that nobody's ever
heard of in Australia is off the charts. Yeah. They
did an IVY drip to flush out her system. Saved

(45:09):
her life. She says. Now I have major anxiety, nightmares
and I can't sleep. I jump at everything. If someone
touches me, I jump out of my skin. No kidding,
I mean, I don't know I'd ever be able to
sleep again if I got bitten by a poisonous snake
or a snake, or even if in the bed at all,
like I I would never. I don't know that I'd
ever recover from that. I don't know that I'd fall

(45:30):
asleep at night. All right, Let's go to Zimbabwe. Another crocodile.
It's of course another one, and another fisherman. This guy
was able to fight off this huge croc, but he
had most of his leg torn to pieces, major flesh wounds.
Is thirty one year old fisherman. He was attacked from
behind by the croc as he was fishing at night

(45:51):
and as Zimbabwe Lake. It seems like a lot of
these people who get killed by crocodiles are making very
questionable life choices. Yeah. Well, like we talked about last week,
they do have to fish for survival. But not at
night though, right, Yeah, I mean you would think that
maybe you would decide. I I'm not an expert on
you know, like how you know, like if you're in

(46:12):
a rural area, you know at night it's super dark. Right,
It's not like you're in New York City or you're
in Miami or l A or something like that. Right.
I can only imagine that being out on a Zimbabwe
lake is basically pitch and black, So why you would
make the decision to need to go do it then
doesn't make a lot of sense to me. It seems

(46:33):
like a very poor choice. A couple of details in
this story. Besides that major leg injury, he had one
of his fingers bitten off as he was defending himself.
It took five hours for this man to reach a hospital.
They had to take him by boat to get help,
and when he got to the hospital, they did not
have an operating room available, so they had to cut

(46:54):
off the damaged flesh while he was still awake. Well,
there you go. When you think you're having a rough
start to your day. Did you get attacked by a crocodile,
have to wait five hours to get to a hospital,
and then get to the hospital and they didn't have
the necessary supplies in order to be able to operate
on you. Probably not. Your life's not that bad to
begin with. You weren't having to fish at night in

(47:16):
Zimbabwe and a crocodile infested lake, so your life's really
not that bad. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports
talk lineup in the Nation. Catch all of our shows
at Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I
Heart Radio app joined now by Mike Keith, he's the
voice of the Titans. He called potentially the death of
the Patriot dynasty with Belichick and Brady maybe maybe never

(47:40):
playing together again. We'll have to wait and see what
happens in Foxborough. Uh, what was that vibe like in
the stadium, Mike did did Patriot fans seem stunned that
their season and maybe their dynasty came to an end
in that method, in that manner, did you get that
vibe in the inside the stadium? They walked out very quietly.

(48:02):
It had started to pour rain, and it was almost
kind of fitting in that way because they were I
think they were dumbfounded that it was over and the
realization was setting in that maybe they had seen something
for the last time. And you know, that's a that's
a group of people that obviously through the years with
the Bruins and the Celtics and the Red Sox, um

(48:27):
they have seen final acts and they have seen those
sorts of moments, but none like this because they had
never you know, since the Red Araback days of the
Celtics at least, they had never known anything quite like this. Um,
this has been I think the most remarkable run in
modern sports history. And you know, we'll see if it continues.

(48:51):
Maybe it will, maybe it want But to answer your question, Clay, yeah,
I think they got it. I think they understood that
this was really really signific freaking and it had that
feel of more than just a loss. It did have
that feel of more than just a loss. On the
other side, did it have that feel of more than
just a win for the Titans? In other words, when

(49:12):
the Titans made their run to the Super Bowl back
in the day, they had the Music City Miracle that
they pulled off, which was improbable, and then they followed
it up with two more wins to get to the
super Bowl. They end up a yard short, as everybody
out there who's an NFL fan knows, But the win
in the Music City Miracle had a feel of more
than a win, and it kind of propelled the Titans
franchise for the next several years as a Super Bowl contender.

(49:35):
Is this more than a win for the Titans in
the same way that it was more than a loss
for the Patriots? Yes, I mean it clearly is because
what it is is a credibility win at the very least. Uh,
there are some people who you would listen to talking
about the game with the build up, who would have
thought the Music City miracle play was more likely than
the Titans winning in Foxborough in the playoffs. And I

(49:58):
get it because I mean, it just it just has
not happened. And so there's a credibility to this. There's
a credibility to the Mike Rabel program now more than
what there was. There's a credibility to the franchise being
more than just nine and seven four years ago. Now,
how big I think starts to be determined by this week.

(50:21):
If you can follow this, then then suddenly that becomes
even bigger. And I mean, let's face it, this is
gonna be a much bigger challenge from a football standpoint.
I think the Titans believed they would go in and
win against the Patriots. I don't think that was false. Bravado,
you probably can pick up sometimes on when it's real

(50:42):
and when it's not. Do you think the Titans expect
as a team, as an organization to go on the
road and beat the raven Saturday night? I think they
haven't in their mind that if they here, here's where
they were going into New England. They thought if they
went in and did their thing, if they went and
played their games, they thought they'd win the ball game.

(51:02):
They were very confident in the game plan, They were
confident in what the coaching staff had put in front
of them. They believe in what they're doing. They certainly
believe in their running back and believe in their quarterback,
and the defense has a lot of confidence. So they
had that feeling. I think they'll go to Baltimore the
same way. Why would you not right now, you've won

(51:25):
eight of your last eleven. You know, you've played really
good football for the last two months. Even even in
the losses, you didn't really lose momentum. You know, you
didn't play just horribly to the point where you said, uh,
you know, you're you're you're kind of doing something from
a consistent style standpoint on offensive defense that allows you

(51:46):
to travel. So I think they'll be very confident. I
think the feeling though, and and I mean I think
from the outside, the inside wherever is this is a
much better football team this week in terms of what
they are face think these Ravens are historically good with
their twelve Pro bowlers in their rushing offense and what

(52:07):
Lamar Jackson has done. I mean, it's a it's a
vastly different challenge. You could be good this week, Clay
and still not win, but you better be good to
even have a chance. Talking to Mike Keith, he's the
voice of the Tennessee Titans. Uh, one of the big
issues the Titans had on defense getting a guy back
was a Dory Jackson. He didn't practice yesterday. I don't

(52:30):
know what's going to happen there today. I don't know
if that was just letting him rest. What do you
hear about and what do you think about the health
status of the Titans, obviously mark ingram at running back
as a big part of the story for the Ravens
on the Titan side, what do you anticipate in terms
of their health status. Well, the nice thing about a
Dory is he he's veteran enough at this moment, having

(52:52):
spent three years in the league, that he's practiced a lot.
I mean, if he can do some things today, tomorrow
and Friday. Even if he can do some things tomorrow
and Friday, he should be fine. To give you a
number of snaps. And that's a and that's the key
is you just need to get some snaps out of
him because he changes the dynamic of the whole unit.

(53:14):
In the secondary. He can play that outside position, they
can move other people around when they don't have him.
They're not just down one guy. They're down one guy
and then they're lesser at two or three other spots
because they're moving people to cover his absence. So I mean,
it's a it's a huge deal for the Titans. Uh.

(53:36):
He is not the only reason they won the other
night in New England, but his presence was a big
reason for it for the defense to have confidence in
running what they wanted to do. I feel like Derrick
Henry nationwide is still a little bit under the radar,
in particular in his NFL status, and that's because he
hasn't really had until last night or last weekend, a

(53:59):
really big signature game where people said, holy cow, this
guy something special. I know, he's the NFL's leading rusher.
Uh do you buy into that? And how would you
compare Derrick Henry to a guy that a lot of
people got to know over the years because of the
big games that he played in Eddie George, who was
another workhorse back in the Titan backfield. I think people

(54:21):
still know Derrick Henry better from Alabama then then there
than they do with the Titans. I'm like you, I
think they're starting to know him. Remember that game was
in prime time on Saturday night. The whole country saw it, people, right,
and that's that's really the first time that's happened this
season for Derrick Henry. All of his work has been

(54:44):
on regional games and things of that sort. That the
Titans last prime time game was September the nineteenth in
Jacksonville on a Thursday night, and if I'm not mistaken,
that one was only on NFL Network. So this team
has not gotten that kind of exposure. And now as
the story gets out on Henry, more and more people

(55:06):
are seeing him nationally. The comparison to Eddie George is
very obvious because of the size thing. I think this
kid is a much more natural back. He has moves,
he has better speed. Eddie George's heart was the most
special part of his game, his relentlessness. This young man
has much more natural talent and the breakaway ability, to

(55:30):
me is the big difference. Eddie could break away if
he got in the open field. This kid can get
himself to the open field and can go. He's he's
really a special football player to watch. You have. We're
talking to Mike Keith one of the most iconic calls
of all time with the Music City Miracle. It's now
been twenty some odd years since that happened. Is this

(55:50):
win against the Patriots you've called all of them, You've
been calling him for over twenty years now. Is it
the biggest win that the Titans have had since the
Super Bowl run? No, the biggest win was the Baltimore
win after the two thousand three season in the playoffs.
This is the biggest win since that one because you'll

(56:12):
remember at that time, we couldn't beat Baltimore, and you know,
we had a better We took a better team into
Baltimore that day. Steve McNair was the m v P.
They had beaten us five in a row, had cost
us the two thousand We we still think super Bowl.
I think I think that game in Nashville on January seventh,

(56:33):
two thousand one was actually that year's Super Bowl. And
and so I think from that standpoint that you know,
there was a lot to that, but this is the
biggest win since then. I think for the for the Titans,
We're gonna figure out how big it is again based
on what happens going forward. The Music City Miracle was
twenty years ago today, and yeah, I know right, And

(56:57):
I think the reason that it says I conic as
it was is the Titans went twenty two days after that,
they beat Indianapolis, they beat Jacksonville, they played the Great
Super Bowl against the Rams. Without that play, the next
twenty two days just doesn't happen. And so now what

(57:19):
we see is is what comes from this from the Tights. Yes,
it's a it's a credibility when it's a big deal,
but where do they go from here? Do they take
that next step? They're trying to make an a f
C championship game for the first time in seventeen years.
So that's what this week is all about. This. You know,

(57:39):
this would be a much bigger upset this week, Um,
this game in Baltimore would be a much bigger upset
than the win over New England was outstanding stuff. As always,
He's Mike Keith, voice of the Titans twenty years ago today,
one of the most iconic calls in NFL history. I
didn't even know that music. City of Miracle. Thanks my man. Thanks.
Be sure to catch live editions about kick At coverage

(58:00):
with Clay Travis weekdays at six am Eastern three am
Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio
app