November 14, 2024 • 62 mins
John dives into how it's time that we all start giving Nick Sirianni his flowers for what he's done in Philly. John also reacts to the news that the Colts have gone back to Anthony Richardson to be the teams starting quarterback and how he feels that Richardson has likely learned his lesson about taking himself out of a game. Later, he talks about the importance of teams hanging onto draft picks and not trading them away for nothing.
Lastly, John answers your questions in this episode's mailbag segment.
5:54 - Nick Sirianni is a good coach
15:22 - The Colts go back to AR
26:25 - Importance of draft picks
40:37 - Netflix and the NFL
45:43 - Mailbag
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. What is going on everybody? How are we
doing my people? Hopefully everyone's doing well, having a great day.
(00:22):
We got a big football game the night. We had
an excellent game last week the Bengals and the Ravens.
This week there's even more in the line because unlike
the Bengals, both these two teams have good records. So
we got the Eagles seven and two against the Kamis
that are seven and three. Nick Sirianni's got a squad,
they're hot, and they've won five straight games. The offense
(00:43):
last couple of games have been rolling, and the Commanders
it's a big moment. You know, they don't have as
much pressure on them as obviously the Eagles, giving the
expectations coming into the season, but you win this, the
division is on like Donkey Kong between the two teams.
If they lose this, I think it's fair to say
the Eagles are probably gonna cruise to winning the East.
(01:05):
And honestly, at eight and two, they'd be in a
great position to just be in the mix for the
number one seed. So it shows you a lot and change.
We will dive into that game. We'll also fire around
the NFL. We had Anthony Richson's back. JJ McCarthy you
know needed another surgery. The forty nine ers locked up
Diamado or Lenor to a long contract, and some other
(01:25):
football stuff as well as the Middlecoff mailbag at John
Middlecoff at John Middlecoff as the Instagram fire in those dms.
Stucky will be on tomorrow, so if you want to
be in the weekend mail bag, we usually put that
out on Saturday. Fire into those dms just my Instagram
and we'll have another big mail bag out on Saturday
morning as well. A lot of content, so a lot
(01:47):
of stuff on YouTube, a bunch of stuff this week
on The Bears obviously have had a tumultuous little stretch.
Keen Allen had a quote today about Shane Walldro and
was like, hey, two nice, I'm a guy, so I
don't think anyone's losing sleep there, But I don't know
if the Bears are gonna look much different. We'll dive
in with stuck you for Friday show about how we're
(02:09):
gonna gamble against them, the Jets, and there's some teams
that feel like auto bets against but I don't know
if there's an interim OC boost like there is an
interim coach, but make sure you subscribe to the podcast
if you listen on to Collins feed. Other than that,
I had my video guy texting me. We got to
set up some different some more golf content so that
(02:29):
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I got some ideas, got a text. You'll see it
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today last minute tickets low as prices guarantee. I think
we got to give our boys, Sirianni some love. You know,
(03:58):
sometimes when you grow to a figure that becomes so polarizing,
it's hard to shake. Like in a weird way, the
dude had had a lot of success, but last year
ended so crazy, and then this year the moment with
the Browns fans, or when he's playing the Browns with
the home fans, it was like everyone talked about him
(04:20):
and I'm guilty too, Like he's Jim tom Sulla and
then you look up and he's hosting Thursday Night Football
and his team seven to two, and over the last
four games they have outscored their opponent one hundred and
twenty seven two forty nine and twenty three of those
points came against the Jags were they were up twenty
(04:40):
two to nothing. So in his four game winnings, I
guess five game winning streak. But if you remove that
Browns game, which got weird, he's averaging over thirty points
a game as a head coach, team looks good. I
said it coming into the season. And one thing and
I learned this every year, but definitely I am going
to when we discuss in August next year, you're how
(05:01):
important your head coaches? I mean betting on the Saints
when Dennis Allen was their head coach? What was I doing? Like?
How insane was I? So when you're head coach or
even saying like my take should have been, Yeah, the
Bears they have some talent, but you know, they're probably
six win team, and I think I was probably closer
like they can win eight nine games. They're not winning
(05:23):
eight nine games with Matti Eberfluss, What the fuck was
I talking about. The thing with Siriani is like, I
don't think he's a great head coach, but they have
such a well run organization. They have so much talent.
They add two really good coordinators and adding Saquon Barkley,
their offense is loaded. So if Jalen is just solid,
if you add Saquon and he's healthy, like they're gonna
(05:45):
be a dominant offense. They just are because you got
a j. Brown is one of the best wide receivers.
You have DeVante Smith, who's one of the best young
players in the league. They have a really good tight end,
Saquan's an elite back. An offensive line like they draft
those guys every single year, so even when guys get injured,
they are able to mix a match and they have
an elite offensive line coach who probably makes my guess,
(06:06):
Jeff Stalllin makes a couple of million dollars. So this Siriani,
while he's very fun to talk about, Like he wins
tomorrow and the Eagles are favored, he'll be eight and
two and they will be right on the heels with
the Detroit Lions headed into the stretch run of the season,
So we could make fun of him all we want,
and he takes a lot of shit. Here's the one thing, though,
when you work in Philly as a head coach, you
(06:29):
do like it's a tough place to play. Like he's
been feeling pressure the moment he started, you know whatever,
four years ago. So like all the pressure in this
game is on the Eagles, all of the pressure, one
hundred percent of the pressure is to win this game
at home. You could argue there's even more pressure on
the Washington owner than there is on the actual team,
(06:53):
because that's an underrated elephant in the room that the
dude that owns the Sixers also owns the Commanders. And
I've said this before forever the Commanders were such a
joke with Dan Sneyder it didn't matter. But they're not
a joke anymore. Now they're good. And now it's like, wait,
you own our basketball team, but you own like the Commanders.
(07:13):
If they just are good now for the foreseeable future,
which I think you'd be hard pressed to argue against them,
I don't know, being good for a while, that this
rivalry is gonna be a little weird for the dude.
It's like, wait, you're trying to take out our football team,
our price possession. I mean, the Eagles in Philly are
the equivalent of like Alabama football and Tuscaloosa, or LSU
football in Baton Rouge and the other sports are massive,
(07:35):
but there is nothing like this football team. And after
I think everyone was on edge about a month ago, rightfully,
so it was getting weird. You gotta be feeling pretty good.
I know you've been beating the crap out of bad teams,
but that's the key. You've been beating the crap out
of bad teams. And I remember when the Bears did,
and everyone's like the Bears. It's like, let's see Caleb
(07:55):
play against some good teams like I have seen the
Eagles guys. When they're playing well against other high level competition,
it works. And I think tomorrow I like the Eagles,
kind of big like I like them and the points.
It wouldn't shock me at all if they win this
game by ten plus points. And listen, I think Washington's
playing with house money. They have had a phenomenal season.
(08:19):
I mean they really have. It's already a win. They've
won seven games. Their quarterback looks like a future star.
Currently he's got nine touchdowns only two picks. He got
another four rushing. Their schedule actually sets up pretty nice.
They still play the Cowboys twice, who just stink. They
still play the Titans, they play the Saints like they
(08:41):
could get rolled in this game. And still very very
conceivable that they get to eleven wins. But I'd argue
if they went ten and seven in Jayden's rookie year,
and whether that got them the sixth seed or the
seventh seed, that's one of the more impressive seasons, especially
the franchise that they just took over, we have seen
(09:01):
in a long long time. Really, I mean remember like
when Dan Campbell got to Detroit with Jared Goff, they
went three and thirteen. They were really really bad. Usually,
like these turnarounds take a little while. Adam Peters who
came from the forty nine ers, like I saw him
and John Lynch when they got there in seventeen, they
were horrendous football team for two years before they broke
(09:24):
out in twenty nineteen and were in the Super Bowl.
So if Washington wins ten games gets to the playoffs,
standing ovation as a football fan, what a season. But
like this is the type game and I listen I know,
like Dan Quinn and Jaden and the team don't feel
like this, but this is just a reality. They're playing
(09:44):
with house money in this game. All of the pressures
on Philly, and I do think Nick Sirianni has with
you know, his team have just quieted everyone. Like people
in Philly are coming into this game excited, not like
on the fence of something bad's gonna happen. The expectation
coming into this building is we're gonna kick ass and
(10:07):
take names and if they play well, it's crazy, how
you know? This is part of sports. It's very fickable.
We'll talk about Anthony Rigson. Things can change very very quickly.
And at the end of the day, Sirianni is gonna
be judged in the playoffs, especially if he doesn't have
the number one seed. Like, what's it gonna take for
him to get a contract extension. Does one playoff win
(10:28):
get it for him? I don't know, does two? It'd
be hard to not give a guy contract extension if
he took the team to the NFC Championship game, especially
if you had to go on the road to Detroit
and lose, like you'd be an underdog in that game.
But I think if you're an Eagles fan, you're feeling
pretty good. You're young players. I mean, Cooper de Jean's
making plays. Obviously, the two defensive linemens starting with Jalen
(10:49):
Carter has been awesome. Nolan Smith has been a factor,
Nikobe Dean. I mean, these are young core guys on defense,
and we know how awesome the offense can look. So
in the let's face it, I would say two of
the best, if not the best, especially when you factor
in the price. Offseason additions have been Derek Henry and
Saquon Barkley. I mean, those guys have been certified ass kickers.
(11:13):
They have been unstoppable forces. And well, Derek's, you know,
probably a Hall of Famer and definitely add into that
resume if he was, and he's much closer now and
will be if he plays like this for a couple
of years with the Ravens. No one's ever argued that
Saquon's not a Hall of Fame talent, right. The argument
when what's his name drafted of number two overall, wasn't
(11:34):
like this guy's one of, if not the best player
in the draft. It's do you draft a running back
that high? And I understood more so, like, yeah, I
don't think you draft a running back that high, but
when you're the Eagles and you get an opportunity to
get a guy with a chip on his shoulder, it's
it's just made their offense so much more well rounded.
And he's just he's just an elite game changing player.
(11:56):
So I like the Eagles in this game. I'm excited
for this game. I mean, last week was awesome. Ravens Bengals.
You get these division games. Obviously the Bengals record isn't good,
but we know, like when they play like that, they
are tough out and I would expect a very very
entertaining game. And this is the good part about you know,
the league wanting I mean they're in bed with Amazon,
(12:19):
but wanting to make this real is you give them
better games. And I think as the season went on
years ago in this package, these games were such a joke.
The matchups were so terrible, and now they're pretty good.
Like there's just no disputing this is a good matchup.
So I go to next week, you know the game
is so we got Washington at Philly this week. Next
(12:41):
week we got Pittsburgh at Cleveland, which I guess could
be worse. Then we got Thanksgiving games. Then Week fourteen
we got Green Bay at Detroit. That's pretty freaking unbelievable.
One thing that this league does a good job of
is the game after thanksgi They take two of the
best teams on Thanksgiving Day and make them play the
(13:05):
next Thursday. So you get a Thursday game, then you
get another Thursday game, but it's actually a normal week.
And then the week after Lions Packers is Rams at
San Francisco. I mean, that's pretty good. Back to back
stretch talk. In early December the Colts. I've been saying
this for a while, is it is so difficult to
(13:28):
be a head coach. You have so many crazy, difficult decisions.
It's like any human you ever meet in management when
you just talk about you know, a CEO, a CFO,
someone in a very powerful position, they're really getting paid
to make constant decisions. Like in terms of actual tangible
work on a daily basis, it's hard to quantify. They
(13:51):
are paid to make decisions. That's what Dan Campbell, Andy Reid.
I mean, every head coach in the NFL is doing
constantly all day, every day. And there are four or
five you make on a weekly basis, which are game
changing decisions. And it's so easy as an assistant coach
to be like, yeah, we should bench this guy, we
need or we need to reinsert this guy in the
(14:13):
starting lineup. I've been there. Everyone has those opinions, scouts, uh,
position coaches, the coordinators, but it ultimately falls on the
head coach, slash the GM to be the decision maker,
not to give a suggestion, but the one that gives
the final say on we're doing this or we're not
doing this. So it's like, oh, my suggestion would have
(14:34):
been correct, Well would you have made that decision in
that spot? I don't know, and no one ever knows.
And that's why, you know, the more experience you have
doing something, the more confidence you have in whatever you're doing,
I think, the better and the more equipped you are
to make decisions. And this Anthony Richardson situation got weird.
They had to bench them, so it wasn't even the
(14:57):
right decision. They had no choice. They would have lost
the team. The choice was made for him the moment
he tapped out, and Ryan Kelly, their star center, said
after the game, like, that's not acceptable. We had a
talk with him, it was like, yeah, he's sitting down.
Then the decision becomes like okay, then it's back on
your play. A couple weeks later. Why, over the last
(15:19):
two games, Joe flacco'stron four interceptions and you've lost both games.
So it's like, if you're gonna lose games, there's no
point in playing Joe Flacco. Right. If you play this
game against the Jets, who are fucking terrible, who are
just an absolute embarrassment to the sport, and you lose
with Joe Flacco one at four and seven, your season's
(15:42):
over and two it feels like you wasted the opportunity. Right,
So you're playing the Jets and you're Shane Stike and
you go. The Jets defense is horrendous. They can't stop anybody. Well,
our running backs of baller and we feel comfortable that
he can go for one twenty one to thirty on him,
no problem. Well, the one thing our quarterback actually does
(16:04):
pretty well is run the ball. So if we reinsert
Anthony Richardson, here's what I would do if I was
Shane Ssykin. And I don't pretend they're like no more
football than him, but like I did see a guy
who most of us consider one of the best offensive
coaches in the league, insert Malik Willis into a game
Week two this year and win with them throwing way
(16:26):
less than twenty passes. Why not have a game plan
that limits what you ask him to do? And I've
seen a lot of Colts fans get mad at Shane
Sykin because they go, why is he asking him to
throw the ball so much? Like, I don't know, honestly,
just hand the ball off, run the ball and throw
it occasionally, And to me, that would be the game plan.
(16:49):
Anything less than like thirty rush attempts between Anthony Richardson
and Jonathan Taylor against the Jets is a massive failure. Honestly,
you should probably be about thirty five to forty and
that includes the other running backs on the team as well.
This should be a game we're gonna try to win
seventeen to ten. The Jets offense stinks, control the clock,
(17:10):
and run the ball basically every play. Hey Jets, we're
gonna run the ball. We don't think you could stop it.
Why do you think that? Because you can't? I mean,
and this is a pretty big moment for Shane Sichin's career,
because if Anthony Rigson comes back and he keeps doing
the same things he's been doing and they're just throwing
it all the time, he's really inaccurate. I think we
(17:30):
got to start asking ourselves, like, is he a little
over his head as a head coach, because I know
he's a good play caller, but as a play caller,
there's way less on your table. You know. It's like,
now that I'm getting married and I've lived with them
for a couple of years, you realize there are positives
to having someone else in the house. You can balance
what she has to do what I have to do.
(17:52):
So like she's good at some things, I'm good at
some things. I don't have to do it all. If
you live in a house all by yourself, literally everything's
on you, the cooking, the cleaning, the putting this away,
the laundry, everything, and as a coordinator, like all you
have to do is focus on a couple of things
because other people handle that stuff. As the head coach,
it all falls on you and you just have to wonder.
(18:16):
I think this is gonna be a big time, Like
if I own the Colts, this is kind of a
defining moment. Like Anthey. Richardon even said, like, listen, I
needed that. I'm glad that happened. Everything he said was right,
and like, I don't know if he's coached up to
say the right things, but listen, his quotes were right
on par with what you would want. So you got
to take a step back, got take a deep breath,
(18:36):
got a little sense of humility. I saw a play
last week where they got a first down. He was
into the game. I forget who it was. I think
a receiver could have been Jonathan Taylor, and he was
right on the sideline. He's right there with him, so
he was excited. So you just hope, like you know,
you just sometimes take a deep breath. And he also,
like Shane Syde, can get a chance at redemption. Best
part about life, you know, another day comes up. If
(19:00):
you're miserable today, tomorrow's a new day. Right. If you
fucked up today, tomorrow's a day to not and get
it moving in the right direction. The world moves on.
So I'm actually excited to watch this. And as a gambler,
if this is not a bet, I would bet. I
would basically take any team beside maybe like the Panthers
(19:24):
and the Giants right now against the Jets, and I
just wouldn't even bet those games, not saying that they
wouldn't cover. But you give me points with any team
in the NFL beside like three or four of them,
I would say, like this Cowboy Cooper Rush version the
Panthers the Giants, I think you're giving me more than
(19:45):
a field goal. And this morning it was like three
and a half four points, automatic bet, auto bet. You
just bet against the Jets. And I think I saw
Rogers say today that he plans on coming back next year,
and I think a lot of people think he would quit.
I just think, like, if you can still physically play,
even if you're not the same. I understand he's made
(20:05):
a lot of money. He's I'm sure he's got a
lot in the bank. There are only so many places
where you can make thirty five forty million dollars a year,
and that's what he's making right now. So if you're like,
well I could my body can still handle it? Should
I make another forty million dollars a year? Because you
make the forty million dollars whether you win six games
(20:25):
or whether you win eleven. But he's no dumb. He like,
I'm probably never making forty million dollars a year doing
a job. Maybe I'll make an over investments, or maybe
it's some building I bought, But I think it's as
black and white as that. On top of like, listen,
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(20:51):
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Speaker 1 (22:25):
I'm guilty of this is during the trade deadline or
during the offseason. Like hey, so and so team traded
for this player. It cost them a fifth round pick,
it cost them a sixth round pick. Why didn't my
team trade for that guy? We were unwilling to give
up the pick. And I understand that argument. Always it's like,
(22:49):
are we serious? Most of these fifth round picks are
not only not going to make the team, no one's
ever going to hear these guys. Maybe they'll be on
the practice squad. The problem is enough guy, yes, turn
into diamidor leonor who Sherman's had on his podcast, who
the forty nine Ers four years ago drafted in the
fifth round. He was picked one seventy two. Yesterday, the
(23:13):
forty nine Ers gave him a five year, ninety two
million dollar contract extension that on average is a little
over eighteen million dollars a year. Now, I haven't seen
all the details of the guarantee or whatever, but I'm
sure it's not nothing. It's a real contract. Why, he's
a real player. He's a high end starter at outside corner.
(23:33):
He can also play nickel, and you can move him
all around. He's a very very good player. And he's
the reason that after this season they'll probably you know,
Charvarius Awards an unrestricted free agent. He won't be on
the team next year. And like when teams think about
trading a fourth to fifth sixth round pick for established players,
(23:56):
they weigh like, well, what if we get our next
starting corner. I was with the Eagles when Jason Kelsey
was drafted in the sixth round. He was a starting
center for well over a decade. And obviously you would
say Lenore and clearly Kelsey are tend to be outliers,
but there are enough guys that become longtime starters on
(24:18):
the third day of the draft that are the reason
these gms hesitate, especially on good teams, right because if
I'm the Chiefs, if I'm the Bills, if I'm the Ravens,
getting a guy in the fourth or fifth round that
starts for me for three years is by far the
(24:39):
number one economic advantage I can have when I have
a high priced team, because I get a starting player
for essentially the minimum for like seven eight, nine hundred
thousand dollars, and if then that guy becomes a good
player like Lenore, it's like I struck oil. It truly
is incredible, because even the five year, ninety two million
(25:01):
dollar contract, if you factor in his first four years
in the league over like even if he doesn't make
it the full nine let's say he plays eight years
for the forty nine ers, just cost average that over
that period of time. Like I draft Nick bos or
Miles Garrett number one or number two, and then I
give him one hundred plus million dollars. I still paid
(25:23):
him a lot of money when I drafted him really high.
But when I draft these guys, you know, really low
in the draft and I hit, it's it's found money.
And these examples happen every single year, and the good
teams take advantage of those rounds. It's boring even to
me at this time on TV on Saturday in the
(25:45):
draft because you never know, because a guy that you
liked in college gets drafted in the fourth round might
not even make the team, and a guy you know
nothing about might become their next starting safety for the
next eight years and get fifty million dollars in three
years from now. That's what makes the draft so fun.
It's one of the great unknowns. You have no fucking
(26:07):
clue who's gonna be sweet. Clearly, if the NFL, and
this is like we always say in exact science analytics,
I nothing's ever gonna change because there's no chance on
God's green earth that did not. If Diamadoor Leonore, if
every team in the league had any idea, he'd be
half as good as he turned out. To be he
would have made it past like pick forty. But that's
(26:32):
never gonna change, and that's always what makes the discourse
leading up to the draft. And then after the draft,
I heard I saw a clip with Dean Sanders yesterday
and he was arguing with some people over you know,
the recruiting classes, and he had actually a pretty good point.
He's like, everyone gets on us, you know, for being
so aggressive in the transfer portal. But let's just say
I signed twenty freshmen out of high school, right, twenty freshmen,
(26:57):
So during their freshman year, let's say three or four
of them play for the team. The other let's say
sixteen guys red shirt. Well, the following spring, during spring practice,
if it's pretty clear that maybe twelve of those sixteen
guys are not even close to playing either, what's gonna happen.
(27:19):
They're gonna enter the transfer portal. So those guys that
we just invested a year in and use scholarships on
the previous year are now gone heading into their second year.
So we have found a balance of maybe less high
school guys that we think have a really good chance
to play right away and being really aggressive in the
(27:39):
transfer portal that the plan is to plug and play
the majority of those guys, and even if they don't
end up starting, we know they can play on special
teams or whatever. It's like, what prime makes a lot
of sense at That's pretty good logic, and I think
you just have to adapt your way of thinking when
it comes to the draft. Rizzy was talked was talking
(28:02):
with Florio and he essentially had a line, you know,
he's the interim coach right now for for the Saints.
He's the guy that clogged the toilet on his his
coaching debut, which I think anyone would gladly take a
clogged toilet coaching debut victory over a non clogged toilet loss.
So it was it was well worth. It makes for
(28:23):
a great story. And listen, you know you probably ate
a big dinner, eat a big breakfast, got the got
the nerves flowing, you know, Trinka, you know large cold
brew and you know you gotta you gotta clear out
the pipes. Nothing like a good feeling of clearing out
the pipes on game day morning after after a nice
you know, large coal brew from Starby's. But he essentially
(28:43):
said that the reason a lot of special teams coaches
don't truly get the opportunity either to interview for a
head coaching job or when they interview, or never taken
that seriously because owners and gms love to win the
press conference. You get way more credit if you hire
the number one defensive coordinator or the number one offensive
(29:06):
coordinator or some star college guy. And he's not wrong.
It's a very big deal after you fire a coach
to have a positive press conference. That's a fact. But
I started thinking about think how stupid it is, and
I I was in the Bay Area when Jim tom
Sula gave his press conference. It is by far the
(29:29):
most outrageous experience in the history of sports for a
non game. It was like, what just happened? And that
obviously reflected everything that was about to happen all time
disaster joke, just bad higher. I mean, it's the worst hire,
I'd argue in the history of the league, especially when
you factor in you essentially fired Jim Harbaugh for Jim
tom Sula. Like Sirianni's was bad. But obviously, since like
(29:54):
sirian went to Super Bowl, Syrian has been the playoffs.
Sirianni's headed back to the playoffs is gonna probably win
the division game, so no one even cares about your
press conference. But I do think you get so caught
up on a press conference, which is essentially on day
one of the guy's employment, when ideally you're hiring this
guy for the next five to ten years. And I
(30:14):
do wonder sometimes, like things are fickle, right, Things change
all the time in sports, in society, in our personal lives.
Like you grow, you just your views and your desires change,
Like that's part of life. You're up, you're down. You
have different outlooks on different things. And sometimes when something
(30:37):
like sexy offensive coordinators are really in vogue, and there
are a lot of them, those guys are going to
get hired, especially when you just factor in the economics
of the league. You're like, well, who makes the most money?
We like the quarterback? Well, who coaches the quarterback? Well,
the guy, you know, the offensive coordinator, usually a quarterback guy.
You're like, well, shouldn't we make that guy the head coach?
Like there is a lot of logic behind that, and
(30:58):
you go like, who's the best head's currently in the NFL?
Like Andy Reid, Well, what's he do? Well, he's an
offensive guy, play caller, quarterback genius, Like, well, wouldn't you
want that? Yeah, well, there's also been Belichick. He's a
defensive guy, but he actually was pretty good dealing with Brady.
And then the other guy, you know, Bill Walsh, who
was also a quartered Like it makes sense, but you
(31:19):
also have to go off. It's like a draft. What
are your options? Right? Like, who are your options? And
you go, well, beside Ben Johnson, it's not a great crop.
Even though I think Liam Collen's pretty impressive and I
think he will be in this mix for sure, but
you go Kubiak, that star is dimmed, Slowick, that star
is clearly dimmed. And then you also got Belichick and
(31:41):
Vrabel And I think it got so hot with Kyle
and McVeigh, but it does feel like most of his
best guys got hired, right His best crew with Kyle
was McVeigh. Lafleur like that happened, and you've seen other
guys like Robert Sala, lafleur brother who went with him,
you know, flame out pretty quick. Demiko like was a
(32:05):
coaching star, already hired, Kevin O'Connell, already hired, Rahem Morris,
already hired, Mike McDaniel already hired. Like that crew's kind
of taken. Now, I guess you can go to the
new crew. You're like, well, would you be interested in
Brian Greasy, You'd be like, well, what's his background? Well,
played quarterback in the NFL. His father quarterback in the
(32:26):
NFL for one of the great teams of all time,
the Miami Dolphins, undefeated, played for Don Shula. Yeah, he's
gonna check the boxes. But I also think, like, I
wonder if Steve Spagnola gets some interviews this offseason, because
we know Vrabel's gonna get some interviews this offseason. We
know Belichick's gonna get some interviews this offseason. I mentioned
(32:48):
this the other day, like keep an eye on Kirby
Smart this offseason. So you just I would go into
these situations and it's kind of crazy to me, And
this is why the Bear should fire Eberflus. You essentially
fire a guy January one, and then you just talk
to a guy a couple times, and then you just
make him the head coach of your organization. Like, I
(33:11):
don't care how many frames of reference in people you
call or how many times you google this guy's stats.
As a coordinator feels like not enough information like Starbucks.
I read this article on the Wall Street Journal the
other day that the dude they hired from Chipotle, the
CEO from Chipotle, went to Starbucks, and a couple months
before he went to Starbucks, they were clearly talking to him.
(33:36):
And he would go to random Starbucks, whether it be
in a mall, whether it be in the corner of
a shopping center, and he would just talk to baristas
and ask them questions and pick their brain. And he
did this for months, just acquiring information. This is well
before he took the job. And my guess would be
(33:59):
is like, and they say this a lot that sometimes
coaches interview the team as much as the team interviews
the coach, which I will would imagine is going to
happen with guys like Rabel Belichick. It happened sometimes in college, right,
I would imagine it happened with Lincoln and Brian Kelly
when they left Oklahoma and Notre Dame to go to
(34:20):
LSU and USC. Obviously those haven't worked, but they didn't
need to leave. And I think like when he took
the job at Starbucks, he felt pretty confident that like, Okay,
I see some things here that can be fixed, and
I think this is plausible, right. Obviously, they made him
very rich man. They gave him a signing bonus like
(34:41):
he was an athlete. They let him move the headquarters
down to Newport Beach like it was a great deal.
But sometimes you just take a great deal, even if
it's a situation that you can't win. You know. I
asked Lincoln Riley how that went. I mean, they gave
him a hundred and twenty million dollars, did Lincoln if
they would offer him sixty million dollars? I got news
for you. Lincoln Riley still at Oklahoma, so he's like
he just went simply for the money, where Brian Kelly
(35:03):
got paid a lot of money. But I think it's
pretty clear Brian Kelly thought he could win a national
championship at LSU, and do you know what, it turns
out like it's actually easier in a twelve team playoff
to do it at Notre Dame, who is gonna make
the playoffs with a fucking loss to NIU And LSU
is not gonna sniff the playoffs. So I just think
we got to be careful about like, and I'm not
(35:26):
saying I wouldn't be inclined and try to hire these
offensive guys, Like I would interview Brian Greesey. I would say, well,
who's mcveay's right hand guy right now on offense? Who's
Lafleur leaning on? In Green Bay? I would want to
interview those But I would go into these situations open minded,
like who is the best candidate because winning the press conference?
(35:46):
Think how irrelevant that is? Like, does any Green Bay
Packer fan remember Matt Lafleor's press conference? I don't remember
Kyle Shanahan or Sean mcvay's press conference. Did Kansas City
win the press conference when they hired Andy Reid a
couple weeks after he just got fired from Philadelphia? I
(36:06):
doubt it. Does any Chiefs fan remember that press conference?
Of course? Not that opening press conference is so irrelevant.
I don't know anything about Rizzy, but if he's clearly
as impressive, it's like, seems like a pretty high level guy.
I'd interview him. Why not? And like you said, like
obviously some special teams coach Joe Judge went bad, some
(36:28):
have gone well, John Harball, I would say Joe Judge
a good example, clearly over his head John Harball was
not and last, but not least, Netflix, they've sold out
their ads on Christmas. And I think, you know, for
most of my life, the NFL really had one holiday,
(36:51):
and that was Thanksgiving, in which they still own. Like
Thanksgiving Day, they're sitting around and football's on in the background.
Maybe you go for a depending on how old you are, right,
maybe you're outside messing with your buddies. The older you get,
maybe you're inside and drinking with your family. As you
get kids, maybe you're outside playing in the front yard.
But football is on the TV at least in my
house since as long as I can remember, since I
(37:14):
was a young kid, and that was back in the
day when maybe there were two games. Then they've added
this third game and you just got football on the TV.
And that was their day. And Martin Luther King Day
was the NBA's day, and Christmas was the NBA's day.
And the NFL has come flying in and said, no,
mass those are my days. I've stolen those days. I mean,
(37:35):
you look at Christmas, that is now the NFL's territory.
That's their real estate. Christmas Eve also their real estate
New Year's depending on where it falls they're going to
play on that day, and I think Netflix is the
perfect partner for this because the Jake Paul Mike Tyson
fight is happening this weekend. I was supposed to happen
(37:56):
a while ago, and then Tyson got injured. He's fifty
eight years old. I think your first reaction is like,
that's kind of stupid. Though I've watched a couple Jake
Paul's fights and listen, I kind of like stupid sometimes
I'm gonna watch. I watched Mike Tyson. I think the
fight Roy Jones. I think it was like the pre
(38:16):
fight for when Jake Paul. Forget who Jake Paul was fighting,
not whole Cogan, but like some famous random guy and won.
But I'm pretty sure that Tyson and Roy Jones Junior fought.
That's when it was pay per view. I bought it.
I remember thinking, like, God, I think Tyson, you know,
at the time he was like fifty five or fifty four.
I actually thought he looked pretty good, and who knows
(38:38):
fifty eight. It's clearly hard for him to train his
body injuries and stuff. But the point is that thing's
gonna get a lot of eyeballs. The Tom Brady Roast
was a major, major success. And that's the thing with
the NFL is it's like the ultimate just kind of event,
even though it's just a random regular season games, because
(39:00):
football games always feel big because there aren't that many of them,
and there's always a build up to those games. There
was a build up to the Roast which far exceeded
my expectations. There's obviously been a long build up to
this Tyson Jake Paul fight, which you can convince me
anything's gonna happen, but guess what it's gonna It's gonna
(39:20):
get me interested. It's gonna get me to watch. Honestly,
might even bet on it. Don't even hate Mike Tyson
in the upset, but I think that this the NFL
and Netflix feel like they're kind of made for each other.
Right now, Okay, let's bang out a couple of Middlecoff
(39:43):
mailbag questions. You guys know the drill at John Middlecoff.
At John Middlecoff is the Instagram firing those dms. Get
your questions answered here on the show. Start with special
k Uh not the drug. I think that's just a
fine I'm looking young man with all the talent coming
(40:04):
out at quarterback each year. Well, the quarterback market eventually regress,
leading teams just restarting every five years instead of the
ill advised large contract to Trevor Lawrence or Daniel Jones.
I get teams don't want to lose players for nothing,
but you're not telling me it would be better to
pay Quinn you ers five million a year and surround
(40:27):
them with good coaching and talent, then pay a marginally
better brock Purty fifty million dollars a year in a vacuum.
Dak or Derek Carr are better than bo Nicks, but
they're not ten times better like what they're being paid.
It depends who you're talking about here. The chances that
Quinn yours is ever remotely close to as good as
(40:50):
brock Purty in the NFL, I would say, is slim.
The nun now, I think when you start getting into
the Dak and Derek Carr and even Brock, who's I say,
a better version of those guys. And Derek is not
as good now but was once you know, the year
that he got paid, he was in the MVP discussion.
And obviously Dak has been, you know, a top five
(41:10):
MVP candidate, you know, on given years, but I think
we've always viewed him as somewhere between, like the eighth
to twelfth quarterback. It is hard to replace that guy.
To me, if you have Daniel Jones, like I'm moving on,
and I totally agree with you. I would rather just
draft a new quarterback take my chances than pay Daniel
Jones forty million dollars a year. But when I get
(41:31):
Brock perty or Dak who are not Lamar, Josh, Allen
Herbert and Patrick I it's very, very difficult for me
to move off that player. Like I understood what the
Cowboys did. It's extreme, it's a lot of money, But like,
is anyone coming into this draft better than Dak Prescott?
(41:51):
The chances that Shador Sanders will be as good as
Dak Prescott, the chances that cam Ward will be as
good as Dak Prescott, Like I would bet against them
all not being as good. Quinn yours, Carson Beck, I mean,
to me, he's like an undrafted free agent. But you
know what I mean, maybe one of them will be.
But if you're just playing the odds, like if I
could have Dak Prescott as my quarterback for fifteen years now.
(42:14):
The difficult part is, and this is where you are right,
is once you start paying a lot of money to
your quarterback, it does become more difficult to build your team.
And that's where the pressure on drafting is really really high.
It's why the Chiefs they've drafted really really well, like
the forty nine ers. You know, they don't pay a quarterback,
but they have a shitload of guys's making a lot
(42:34):
of money. Well, they have a lot of like third, fourth,
fifth round guys that start on their team all over
and that helps, you know, like Juwan Jennings seventh rounder,
Pony third rounder, safeties, fifth round, corners, fifth round. I mean,
it just it helps. So you just got to draft well.
(42:56):
Obviously it gets even put into more question once they
pay Brock. But I do understand, like Jared Goff, Brock purty,
Like I do think there's a line you could argue
Derek carrs on the other side of the line, Daniel
Jones definitely is Trevor Lawrence. They just didn't even need
to pay, Like I would have just waited another year.
I don't understand what the rush was Colts fan here,
(43:18):
such a shit show quarterback. I mean, what the hell
are we doing? Why did we ever? Bench Richardson? What
are your thoughts? Is it time for the Colts to
clean house? I talked about it on the podcast. You know,
I don't think they had a choice. When he tapped
out and he was playing bad, they would have lost
their locker room. And that's the thing that's easy for
(43:39):
us to stay on the outside, you know, talking heads
on podcasts and on television shows, and those fifty guys
inside the locker room, especially their high end players, like
this is bullshit, This cannot happen, and so they had
to make a move, and it's easy to go, well,
it just was he was playing bad. But I think
when he tapped out, he needed to take a breather,
(44:03):
like this will never be tolerated in this sport, in
this league ever. And I think reading his quotes today,
I think he understands that, or at least I think,
you know, a couple of weeks away, realize I think
there's been a tough spot. I think the problem is
if they go back to Anthony Richardson and let's say
(44:23):
they end up going eight to nine and missing the
play or seven to ten and missing the playoffs, like
Shane Sykeen said, a you're gonna fire him? Probably not. Well,
it's like, well what about Chris Baalt, Well, you're gonna
fire your GM, hire a new GM and make him
more With Shane Stikeen, that's a little weird. Usually doesn't
(44:44):
work that way. And if you do lose the rest
of the season, do you know what the number one
question is, especially if Anthony Richisons all over the place, Well,
he doesn't just get he's not on scholarship anymore. Where
when the offseason again, he's just the starting quarterback like
those days would be over. So then it's like, well,
(45:05):
do we pay a little bit more for a guy
to come in and compete? And who is that player?
Like we don't just sign Flacco or Gardner Minshew in
the off season to be the backup. We almost have
to pay more to get a guy to come in
and be competitive. Well, what if the Saints move on
from Derek Carr, Like, do we sign him and have
an open competition? That's where I think gets really complicated,
(45:26):
and that's where this whole thing could unravel. And if
anything in Richardson sucks, like if he's just not good
enough and he can't be a starting quarterback. I think
they'd all be not this year, but over the course
of the next what fourteen to fifteen months? A lot
of question marks in that building. This from Eric some
(45:50):
nice words, Barry guy. Anyways, my question is how does
Brian Kelly escape media criticism. This guy's a total fraud.
He totally wasted Jayden Daniels plus other elite talent on
the team. Is this guy currently the most overrated college coach?
I never liked him after the whole let's execute our
(46:11):
players quote. I get that he was joking, but would
you rather win a top tier coach say something so clownish?
I didn't mind that quote just because it's such a cheesy,
like dad joke. It was clear what he was saying.
I think he didn't waste Jaden Daniels like Jayden was
incredible under his watch. You know, he's an offensive guy,
(46:33):
and if he hires the wrong defensive coordinator, like any
offensive head coach, they're gonna have a lot of problems.
The Chiefs got a lot better on defense when Andy
fired Sutton and went to Steve Spagnola. So who your
coordinator is? If you hire the wrong guy and it
doesn't work, you're screwed. But I think that loss at
home was pretty embarrassing. It was pretty bad and it's
(46:57):
hard to shake that now. Is he the biggest fraud now?
I think the question mark moving forward is Brian Kelly.
What is his ceiling? Because part of the reason he
left Notre Dame to go to LSU was to have
a national championship ceiling. Couldn't have it at Notre Dame.
Why because they just can't get the certain players into
(47:17):
school because of academics that you can get in at LSU,
you can get it at Alabama, then you can get
into Texas, you can get it into Texa A and m
Ohio State can get into whoever the fuck you want.
Notre Dames. It's hard for him. The academic requirements are different, which,
to me at this point in time in twenty twenty five,
like who cares if it's like, hey, we can get
(47:39):
this wide receiver who does not meet our academic requirements,
but Alabama, LSU, Georgian Ohio State won them. But he
really likes Notre Dame. It's like, yeah, let's waive that shit.
But hey, that's just me, not mister academia here. I
don't know. I think if he wins out goes nine
to three wins a bowl game, it's just gonna be
(48:02):
defined the next couple of years. Can he make a
playoff run? Three straight coaches? LSU have won national championships
three straight coaches, and I'd say, beside Nick Saban, the
other two aren't really viewed as geniuses in Less Mild
and at Ojeron. So I think there's gonna be a
lot of pressure on him the next couple of years.
I don't think he's a fraud. I think he's a
(48:24):
pretty good coach. Is there a ceiling? It kind of
feels that way, like you know might like listen, I'm
not trying to be an asshole here, but I think
Lincoln Riley's got a lot more fraud smell coming from
his operation Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly's had some bad losses
and helped Brian Kelly lost to Lincoln Riley, but I
would rather have Brian Kelly than Lincoln Riley. I have
(48:44):
a question. I'm an Eagles fan and I want to
talk about the Cowboys. You have already mentioned that the
Saints could hire Aaron Glenn as their new head coach
due to the fact that the team knows him. With
the same line of logic, could the now Boys try
to hire Kellen Moore from the Eagles just to keep
Prescott happy as well as Jerry being able to control him.
(49:09):
The reality is, if you work for Jerry Jones, whether
you're McCarthy, whether you're Jason Garrett, whether you're Kellen Moore,
whether you're any coach, even Bill Parcells, Jerry's going to
have a large, large role and going to be much
more involved than the majority of owners. So if Bill
Belichick was hired by Jerry, it's not like Jerry's like, hey, hey, Bill,
(49:31):
I'll just see on Sundays, Like Jerry's still coming in
the office. Jerry still got takes and opinions, And I mean,
maybe Bill would be big enough to be like, hey, Jerry,
you're worth billions of dollars. You fucking achieved the American
dream from just some kid on the Arkansas football team
(49:51):
in the sixties to a guy that owns the Dallas
Cowboys and his families, whose sons children's chill 's children
won't ever even think twice about getting the most expensive
steak at the steakhouse. Hell they'll get wagou delivered to
their house on door dash and they'll pay even extra
(50:13):
to make sure that shit's still hot when it arrives.
You made it, But could you please just not call
into the radio station every week during the season. I
just I don't think I'm asking too much here. Would
that Would that be possible? And I think he would
be the only guy that could pull that off. I
think Kelvill Moore is a good coach. I know people
(50:35):
have been critical over them over the years. Maybe I
have a soft spot because I saw him play at
Presnel State and I just know his story and I
know the you know, the coach that kind of developed
him in Chris Peterson, and I thought he did a
good job, you know, his first couple of years with
Mike McCarthy. Obviously, what's going on right now in Philly,
but it crossed my mind, like, yeah, I think one
(50:57):
million percent did. Jared Jones would talk to Kellen Moore,
and I think he would be more inclined, Like, let's
face it, who is Jerry hired in the past. A
lot of guys that he's known, right, Jimmy Johnson, He
knew Jimmy Johnson. There were college teammates. Jason Garrett like
(51:17):
was his guy. Mike McCarthy was a little out of
left field for Jerry honestly, a little unconventional. You could
argue that if the season end of to day and
the Eagles offense keeps crushing it, Kellen Moore might be
their number one choice, might be their number one choice.
(51:42):
Good call. I don't talk about that enough. Just a
thought on Anthony Richison. Could you see a transition to
tight end? I don't know if he has the hands
for it, and the blocking game might be a struggle,
but the boy can run. He's a menace in the
open field. In a long time quarterback. I can't imagine
(52:03):
he has extensive knowledge of the route trees. Wild thought,
but he has the size. He just might not want
to do it. Logan Thomas, who was the quarterback at
Virginia Tech who got drafted in the NFL as a quarterback,
made the transition. It was actually pretty good. Terrell Pryor
made the transition to wide receiver was pretty good. I mean,
(52:25):
obviously the number one thing you know he's going He's
not going to be a blocking tight end. He would
be like a I mean he would be a flexed out,
athletic tight end who would be a route guy, right,
We're not asking him to be George Kittle here. I
just I don't know about his hands. I mean, does
he have I couldn't even begin to guess. You know,
some guys, it's like sometimes you see a guy throw
(52:46):
a double pass, like, holy shit, he's got a great arm.
You're like, oh, yeah, he was a high school quarterback.
And then sometimes you see a double pass and you're like,
that is that the worst throw I've ever seen? I
can't believe they let him throw. It's one of those
with you know, a transitional player, because I'm with if
he just if his accuracy is just going to be this,
he is so big and athletic and strong that you
would have to try another position if he could catch,
(53:09):
you would say, some offensive skill position. If he couldn't,
I mean, could he play like outside linebacker? I don't know.
I would say that even that that is asked, that
that is a question mark. November thirteenth, twenty twenty four.
Chris Ballard has to just throw up in his mouth
that someone could ask that question and people like could
(53:32):
have a conversation about it. If I would have told
him two years ago, not even two years ago, twenty
twenty three, April whatever the draft was, twenty fifth, twenty six,
that within eighteen months people are gonna be able to
have a conversation like could this guy play another position?
He would throw up in his mouth, fall out of
his chair, aka not make the pick. Hey, John, I
(53:57):
gotta say I have grown to love the Pod this season.
I don't think I've missed an episode. I don't know
how to get mailback, how to get a mailbag question in?
But I'm curious. I work for a search firm and
an executive recruiting. Soft skills are the difference and a
key factor in a higher As a former scout, how
(54:20):
much does someone weigh soft skills way into your evaluation
for the quarterback? That is a good question, I'll be honest.
I gotta look up the examples of soft skills just
so I what are seven soft skills? So just cognitive stuff, teamwork,
(54:44):
problem solving, communication, critical thinking, time management, interpersonal. So what
would a hard skill be in a white collar job
would be my question, because obviously you know a hard
skill in football would be your and your soft skill
would be I think what we would consider character, you know,
(55:07):
everything from academics to dealing as a teammate. I would
say that is as a quarterback, it's one You've got
to be able to play. So I'm evaluating you as
a player like there's a baseline to make it to
the NFL, and then once you exceed that baseline, I
nitpick you on the film, But I once you exceed
(55:29):
the baseline of like this guy's an NFL talent, I
would say the soft skills of all the intangible stuff,
the critical thinking being a teammate, interpersonal skills. Leadership is
the number one thing the scouting department tries to lock down,
and it's the number one thing when you are going
into these programs. I'm trying to learn about the person,
(55:53):
not the player, because ultimately, like let's say my team's
gonna be drafting in the top ten and I'm the
Way Coast scout or I'm the National scout, Obviously my
grade on the player is important and for me to
have conviction on Shadoor Sanders. But when it comes to
me and I've gone through Colorado multiple times and they go, well,
(56:16):
let's talk about shador the kid, I better be able
to talk about the person longer than the player, And
I've said before like that is going to be kind
of unique. Now, it might not matter if Deon Sanders
gets like the Raider Cowboy job and they draft him
like the right up, it's Deon's kid. But if another
(56:38):
team's interested, and they're all going to be interested, like
I got to know the guy really well, and it's
hard to get that information right. You're using the coaches,
you're using the coordinators, you're using the trainers, you're talking
to the doctors, you're talking to his teammates, you're talking
to the academic people. I mean, hell to you go
to town and you start talking to the people that
own the bars, people that own the clubs. You just
(57:00):
try to talk to every single human possible about the guy.
You know, the longtime athletic department executives that have seen
countless other NFL prospects come through, what they think about
them ultimately, what defines I mean, clearly, there are some
players that don't live up to their draft billing because
they weren't as talented as you thought, but they still
(57:22):
play in the league for a decade. And what separates,
in my opinion, most people that have longevity and success
in the NFL would be again, I'm not as like
locked in with the corporate lingo as the soft skills.
I never use that terminology. You know, in the scouting world,
we just call it character. You know, in the world
(57:43):
I live in, I just say judging a person, I
would say that that is a determinating factor of most
guys intelligence, ability to take football knowledge to the field,
work on your football stuff, you know, be addicted to
studying the game offseason as well. Obviously that's also you know,
(58:05):
sometimes I think we make fun of and laugh at
tight End University or the Pass Rush Summit, right George
Kittle's Wearn't tight End you and him and Greg Olsen
think how incredible that is that they get Kittle, Travis Kelcey,
(58:26):
Greg Olsen, all these great tight ends who take all
the young guys around the NFL and they just spend
three or four days together in Nashville talking ball, like
talking their craft. Same thing with the Pass Rush Summit
with Von Miller and Max Crosby. You know that in
most of our industries that's viewed as like an incredible
(58:47):
networking event, and a networking event is just about meeting
other people because ultimately, like if I'm Trey McBride, just
knowing George Kittle doesn't change my but getting to know
him and having him teach me how to become a
great player improves my career. It's like knowing Colin and
(59:07):
being able to run a question by him or two
if I have one, is a big deal. And I
think this stuff's really cool. And in football, you know
when you're not on the team once the season goes,
but in the off season, like a lot of these
guys trained together, and it's a game changer. These guys
when I was a kid used to like reach out
to Jerry Rice about training and they'd want to run
(59:28):
the hill and they'd all fail because that hill would
take out a lot of men except Jerry. And I
think Torell Owens can handle it as well. But I
think it's pretty cool. So I think soft skills with quarterbacks.
But it's hard, and I think you would I would
imagine you know this as well. Things you can't quantify,
(59:52):
right if I told you I'm a sales guy, it's like,
you know, last year, I'm staying within the same industry
and I can bring my accounts like I have ten
million dollars worth of business. It's it's quantifiable. It's like, well,
I got ten million dollars and our company gets to
keep ten percent of that. So I'm gonna bring a
million dollars revenue to the table, right, Like that's that's
(01:00:15):
black and white. But then if I find that guy
that's bringing ten million dollars in one million revenue, and
let's say I have a small company, that's a huge addition.
But I'm like, well, he happens to be the biggest asshole.
Everyone hates him, No one wants to deal with him
beside his clients, like he's gonna come into the office
every day. He's a pain in the ass. Or you
(01:00:36):
could hire this guy a little younger, not his experienced,
but his future, this personality. It's like, I think this
guy can sell quadruple what he's already sold. He's already
bringing five hundred grand to the table, so he's bringing
half as much in revenue. But I believe in this kid,
and I think just you can just tell he's got
(01:00:58):
you know, this is hot, and his hair is on
fire and he is ready to roll, and this fucking
guy wants it. And I'd bet on this guy having
two million dollars in business in five years. Right, you
project the future, and that's kind of what the draft is.
Sometimes you go, yeah, this guy's better right now, but
(01:01:20):
like in the next five years, I believe in this guy.
I think that's part of life, whether you're hiring people,
people you associate with. I think sometimes when you're dating someone,
it's about the future. You got to be able to
think past tomorrow or next week. And this gets back
to talking about coaches, like you want to win the
press conference, or you want to hire the best coach
(01:01:40):
because you wanted to win the press conference, Like you
would never hire Dan Campbell by say, the Lions feel
pretty good about that hire. And you just gotta have
a balance of and there's unknown like obviously there gets
to some people just have a better gut feel of
what works and what doesn't. And I think at different
positions that stuff matters less. Right, Like I like my
(01:02:00):
defensive linemen to be fucking nuts. It's not a position
where I need Rhodes scholars. It's a position of violence.
It's a position of I need people to be a
little off their rocker, right, same with linebacker, Like I'm
not looking to find Gandhi right, but as a kicker,
(01:02:21):
long snapper and a punter like I'm not looking at
have any problems, so your character better be zero in
terms of like, no issues, any issues, you're gone. This
is a long winded way of saying stuff's hard. Appreciate
everyone listening. See you guys tomorrow after Thursday night game,
so have a good day. Audios. The volume
The volume. What is going on everybody? How are we
doing my people? Hopefully everyone's doing well, having a great day.
(00:22):
We got a big football game the night. We had
an excellent game last week the Bengals and the Ravens.
This week there's even more in the line because unlike
the Bengals, both these two teams have good records. So
we got the Eagles seven and two against the Kamis
that are seven and three. Nick Sirianni's got a squad,
they're hot, and they've won five straight games. The offense
(00:43):
last couple of games have been rolling, and the Commanders
it's a big moment. You know, they don't have as
much pressure on them as obviously the Eagles, giving the
expectations coming into the season, but you win this, the
division is on like Donkey Kong between the two teams.
If they lose this, I think it's fair to say
the Eagles are probably gonna cruise to winning the East.
(01:05):
And honestly, at eight and two, they'd be in a
great position to just be in the mix for the
number one seed. So it shows you a lot and change.
We will dive into that game. We'll also fire around
the NFL. We had Anthony Richson's back. JJ McCarthy you
know needed another surgery. The forty nine ers locked up
Diamado or Lenor to a long contract, and some other
(01:25):
football stuff as well as the Middlecoff mailbag at John
Middlecoff at John Middlecoff as the Instagram fire in those dms.
Stucky will be on tomorrow, so if you want to
be in the weekend mail bag, we usually put that
out on Saturday. Fire into those dms just my Instagram
and we'll have another big mail bag out on Saturday
morning as well. A lot of content, so a lot
(01:47):
of stuff on YouTube, a bunch of stuff this week
on The Bears obviously have had a tumultuous little stretch.
Keen Allen had a quote today about Shane Walldro and
was like, hey, two nice, I'm a guy, so I
don't think anyone's losing sleep there, But I don't know
if the Bears are gonna look much different. We'll dive
in with stuck you for Friday show about how we're
(02:09):
gonna gamble against them, the Jets, and there's some teams
that feel like auto bets against but I don't know
if there's an interim OC boost like there is an
interim coach, but make sure you subscribe to the podcast
if you listen on to Collins feed. Other than that,
I had my video guy texting me. We got to
set up some different some more golf content so that
(02:29):
that'll be up on YouTube. Gotta lock in some dates.
I got some ideas, got a text. You'll see it
sooner or later, but make sure you subscribe to that
YouTube channel. And before we dive into some football, let
me tell you about my friends, my partners, and the
official ticketing app of this podcast, Game Time. Here's the
thing with Game Time. What do you want to do?
(02:51):
Do you want to go to a game? College pro?
Do you want to go enjoy yourself? Is your team
making a playoff push? Do you want to go to
an NBA game and an HL game? Games? They are
Television does not do them justice. It really does not.
Went to my first one a couple of years ago,
I'm like, this is awesome. Then Salt Lake City stole
the NHL team here, which whatever. I had only gotten
(03:14):
to one game and I don't even pretend to be
a fan. But if you live in an area with
an NHL team, I highly recommend go into a game,
especially if you got a little kid that they would
really enjoy it. I mean it was something I wish
I would have done more, definitely when I lived in
Philly and when I lived in the Bay Area when
the Sharks were good. But you want to go to
a concert a comedy show, do it, and do it
(03:36):
on us because it's the easiest app to use. Take
the guests. We're out of buying tickets with game Time.
Download the game Time app, Create an account and use
the code John for twenty dollars off your first purchase
terms apply again, Create an account and redeem the code
John for twenty dollars off. Down the game Time app
today last minute tickets low as prices guarantee. I think
we got to give our boys, Sirianni some love. You know,
(03:58):
sometimes when you grow to a figure that becomes so polarizing,
it's hard to shake. Like in a weird way, the
dude had had a lot of success, but last year
ended so crazy, and then this year the moment with
the Browns fans, or when he's playing the Browns with
the home fans, it was like everyone talked about him
(04:20):
and I'm guilty too, Like he's Jim tom Sulla and
then you look up and he's hosting Thursday Night Football
and his team seven to two, and over the last
four games they have outscored their opponent one hundred and
twenty seven two forty nine and twenty three of those
points came against the Jags were they were up twenty
(04:40):
two to nothing. So in his four game winnings, I
guess five game winning streak. But if you remove that
Browns game, which got weird, he's averaging over thirty points
a game as a head coach, team looks good. I
said it coming into the season. And one thing and
I learned this every year, but definitely I am going
to when we discuss in August next year, you're how
(05:01):
important your head coaches? I mean betting on the Saints
when Dennis Allen was their head coach? What was I doing? Like?
How insane was I? So when you're head coach or
even saying like my take should have been, Yeah, the
Bears they have some talent, but you know, they're probably
six win team, and I think I was probably closer
like they can win eight nine games. They're not winning
(05:23):
eight nine games with Matti Eberfluss, What the fuck was
I talking about. The thing with Siriani is like, I
don't think he's a great head coach, but they have
such a well run organization. They have so much talent.
They add two really good coordinators and adding Saquon Barkley,
their offense is loaded. So if Jalen is just solid,
if you add Saquon and he's healthy, like they're gonna
(05:45):
be a dominant offense. They just are because you got
a j. Brown is one of the best wide receivers.
You have DeVante Smith, who's one of the best young
players in the league. They have a really good tight end,
Saquan's an elite back. An offensive line like they draft
those guys every single year, so even when guys get injured,
they are able to mix a match and they have
an elite offensive line coach who probably makes my guess,
(06:06):
Jeff Stalllin makes a couple of million dollars. So this Siriani,
while he's very fun to talk about, Like he wins
tomorrow and the Eagles are favored, he'll be eight and
two and they will be right on the heels with
the Detroit Lions headed into the stretch run of the season,
So we could make fun of him all we want,
and he takes a lot of shit. Here's the one thing, though,
when you work in Philly as a head coach, you
(06:29):
do like it's a tough place to play. Like he's
been feeling pressure the moment he started, you know whatever,
four years ago. So like all the pressure in this
game is on the Eagles, all of the pressure, one
hundred percent of the pressure is to win this game
at home. You could argue there's even more pressure on
the Washington owner than there is on the actual team,
(06:53):
because that's an underrated elephant in the room that the
dude that owns the Sixers also owns the Commanders. And
I've said this before forever the Commanders were such a
joke with Dan Sneyder it didn't matter. But they're not
a joke anymore. Now they're good. And now it's like, wait,
you own our basketball team, but you own like the Commanders.
(07:13):
If they just are good now for the foreseeable future,
which I think you'd be hard pressed to argue against them,
I don't know, being good for a while, that this
rivalry is gonna be a little weird for the dude.
It's like, wait, you're trying to take out our football team,
our price possession. I mean, the Eagles in Philly are
the equivalent of like Alabama football and Tuscaloosa, or LSU
football in Baton Rouge and the other sports are massive,
(07:35):
but there is nothing like this football team. And after
I think everyone was on edge about a month ago, rightfully,
so it was getting weird. You gotta be feeling pretty good.
I know you've been beating the crap out of bad teams,
but that's the key. You've been beating the crap out
of bad teams. And I remember when the Bears did,
and everyone's like the Bears. It's like, let's see Caleb
(07:55):
play against some good teams like I have seen the
Eagles guys. When they're playing well against other high level competition,
it works. And I think tomorrow I like the Eagles,
kind of big like I like them and the points.
It wouldn't shock me at all if they win this
game by ten plus points. And listen, I think Washington's
playing with house money. They have had a phenomenal season.
(08:19):
I mean they really have. It's already a win. They've
won seven games. Their quarterback looks like a future star.
Currently he's got nine touchdowns only two picks. He got
another four rushing. Their schedule actually sets up pretty nice.
They still play the Cowboys twice, who just stink. They
still play the Titans, they play the Saints like they
(08:41):
could get rolled in this game. And still very very
conceivable that they get to eleven wins. But I'd argue
if they went ten and seven in Jayden's rookie year,
and whether that got them the sixth seed or the
seventh seed, that's one of the more impressive seasons, especially
the franchise that they just took over, we have seen
(09:01):
in a long long time. Really, I mean remember like
when Dan Campbell got to Detroit with Jared Goff, they
went three and thirteen. They were really really bad. Usually,
like these turnarounds take a little while. Adam Peters who
came from the forty nine ers, like I saw him
and John Lynch when they got there in seventeen, they
were horrendous football team for two years before they broke
(09:24):
out in twenty nineteen and were in the Super Bowl.
So if Washington wins ten games gets to the playoffs,
standing ovation as a football fan, what a season. But
like this is the type game and I listen I know,
like Dan Quinn and Jaden and the team don't feel
like this, but this is just a reality. They're playing
(09:44):
with house money in this game. All of the pressures
on Philly, and I do think Nick Sirianni has with
you know, his team have just quieted everyone. Like people
in Philly are coming into this game excited, not like
on the fence of something bad's gonna happen. The expectation
coming into this building is we're gonna kick ass and
(10:07):
take names and if they play well, it's crazy, how
you know? This is part of sports. It's very fickable.
We'll talk about Anthony Rigson. Things can change very very quickly.
And at the end of the day, Sirianni is gonna
be judged in the playoffs, especially if he doesn't have
the number one seed. Like, what's it gonna take for
him to get a contract extension. Does one playoff win
(10:28):
get it for him? I don't know, does two? It'd
be hard to not give a guy contract extension if
he took the team to the NFC Championship game, especially
if you had to go on the road to Detroit
and lose, like you'd be an underdog in that game.
But I think if you're an Eagles fan, you're feeling
pretty good. You're young players. I mean, Cooper de Jean's
making plays. Obviously, the two defensive linemens starting with Jalen
(10:49):
Carter has been awesome. Nolan Smith has been a factor,
Nikobe Dean. I mean, these are young core guys on defense,
and we know how awesome the offense can look. So
in the let's face it, I would say two of
the best, if not the best, especially when you factor
in the price. Offseason additions have been Derek Henry and
Saquon Barkley. I mean, those guys have been certified ass kickers.
(11:13):
They have been unstoppable forces. And well, Derek's, you know,
probably a Hall of Famer and definitely add into that
resume if he was, and he's much closer now and
will be if he plays like this for a couple
of years with the Ravens. No one's ever argued that
Saquon's not a Hall of Fame talent, right. The argument
when what's his name drafted of number two overall, wasn't
(11:34):
like this guy's one of, if not the best player
in the draft. It's do you draft a running back
that high? And I understood more so, like, yeah, I
don't think you draft a running back that high, but
when you're the Eagles and you get an opportunity to
get a guy with a chip on his shoulder, it's
it's just made their offense so much more well rounded.
And he's just he's just an elite game changing player.
(11:56):
So I like the Eagles in this game. I'm excited
for this game. I mean, last week was awesome. Ravens Bengals.
You get these division games. Obviously the Bengals record isn't good,
but we know, like when they play like that, they
are tough out and I would expect a very very
entertaining game. And this is the good part about you know,
the league wanting I mean they're in bed with Amazon,
(12:19):
but wanting to make this real is you give them
better games. And I think as the season went on
years ago in this package, these games were such a joke.
The matchups were so terrible, and now they're pretty good.
Like there's just no disputing this is a good matchup.
So I go to next week, you know the game
is so we got Washington at Philly this week. Next
(12:41):
week we got Pittsburgh at Cleveland, which I guess could
be worse. Then we got Thanksgiving games. Then Week fourteen
we got Green Bay at Detroit. That's pretty freaking unbelievable.
One thing that this league does a good job of
is the game after thanksgi They take two of the
best teams on Thanksgiving Day and make them play the
(13:05):
next Thursday. So you get a Thursday game, then you
get another Thursday game, but it's actually a normal week.
And then the week after Lions Packers is Rams at
San Francisco. I mean, that's pretty good. Back to back
stretch talk. In early December the Colts. I've been saying
this for a while, is it is so difficult to
(13:28):
be a head coach. You have so many crazy, difficult decisions.
It's like any human you ever meet in management when
you just talk about you know, a CEO, a CFO,
someone in a very powerful position, they're really getting paid
to make constant decisions. Like in terms of actual tangible
work on a daily basis, it's hard to quantify. They
(13:51):
are paid to make decisions. That's what Dan Campbell, Andy Reid.
I mean, every head coach in the NFL is doing
constantly all day, every day. And there are four or
five you make on a weekly basis, which are game
changing decisions. And it's so easy as an assistant coach
to be like, yeah, we should bench this guy, we
need or we need to reinsert this guy in the
(14:13):
starting lineup. I've been there. Everyone has those opinions, scouts, uh,
position coaches, the coordinators, but it ultimately falls on the
head coach, slash the GM to be the decision maker,
not to give a suggestion, but the one that gives
the final say on we're doing this or we're not
doing this. So it's like, oh, my suggestion would have
(14:34):
been correct, Well would you have made that decision in
that spot? I don't know, and no one ever knows.
And that's why, you know, the more experience you have
doing something, the more confidence you have in whatever you're doing,
I think, the better and the more equipped you are
to make decisions. And this Anthony Richardson situation got weird.
They had to bench them, so it wasn't even the
(14:57):
right decision. They had no choice. They would have lost
the team. The choice was made for him the moment
he tapped out, and Ryan Kelly, their star center, said
after the game, like, that's not acceptable. We had a
talk with him, it was like, yeah, he's sitting down.
Then the decision becomes like okay, then it's back on
your play. A couple weeks later. Why, over the last
(15:19):
two games, Joe flacco'stron four interceptions and you've lost both games.
So it's like, if you're gonna lose games, there's no
point in playing Joe Flacco. Right. If you play this
game against the Jets, who are fucking terrible, who are
just an absolute embarrassment to the sport, and you lose
with Joe Flacco one at four and seven, your season's
(15:42):
over and two it feels like you wasted the opportunity. Right,
So you're playing the Jets and you're Shane Stike and
you go. The Jets defense is horrendous. They can't stop anybody. Well,
our running backs of baller and we feel comfortable that
he can go for one twenty one to thirty on him,
no problem. Well, the one thing our quarterback actually does
(16:04):
pretty well is run the ball. So if we reinsert
Anthony Richardson, here's what I would do if I was
Shane Ssykin. And I don't pretend they're like no more
football than him, but like I did see a guy
who most of us consider one of the best offensive
coaches in the league, insert Malik Willis into a game
Week two this year and win with them throwing way
(16:26):
less than twenty passes. Why not have a game plan
that limits what you ask him to do? And I've
seen a lot of Colts fans get mad at Shane
Sykin because they go, why is he asking him to
throw the ball so much? Like, I don't know, honestly,
just hand the ball off, run the ball and throw
it occasionally, And to me, that would be the game plan.
(16:49):
Anything less than like thirty rush attempts between Anthony Richardson
and Jonathan Taylor against the Jets is a massive failure. Honestly,
you should probably be about thirty five to forty and
that includes the other running backs on the team as well.
This should be a game we're gonna try to win
seventeen to ten. The Jets offense stinks, control the clock,
(17:10):
and run the ball basically every play. Hey Jets, we're
gonna run the ball. We don't think you could stop it.
Why do you think that? Because you can't? I mean,
and this is a pretty big moment for Shane Sichin's career,
because if Anthony Rigson comes back and he keeps doing
the same things he's been doing and they're just throwing
it all the time, he's really inaccurate. I think we
(17:30):
got to start asking ourselves, like, is he a little
over his head as a head coach, because I know
he's a good play caller, but as a play caller,
there's way less on your table. You know. It's like,
now that I'm getting married and I've lived with them
for a couple of years, you realize there are positives
to having someone else in the house. You can balance
what she has to do what I have to do.
(17:52):
So like she's good at some things, I'm good at
some things. I don't have to do it all. If
you live in a house all by yourself, literally everything's
on you, the cooking, the cleaning, the putting this away,
the laundry, everything, and as a coordinator, like all you
have to do is focus on a couple of things
because other people handle that stuff. As the head coach,
it all falls on you and you just have to wonder.
(18:16):
I think this is gonna be a big time, Like
if I own the Colts, this is kind of a
defining moment. Like Anthey. Richardon even said, like, listen, I
needed that. I'm glad that happened. Everything he said was right,
and like, I don't know if he's coached up to
say the right things, but listen, his quotes were right
on par with what you would want. So you got
to take a step back, got take a deep breath,
(18:36):
got a little sense of humility. I saw a play
last week where they got a first down. He was
into the game. I forget who it was. I think
a receiver could have been Jonathan Taylor, and he was
right on the sideline. He's right there with him, so
he was excited. So you just hope, like you know,
you just sometimes take a deep breath. And he also,
like Shane Syde, can get a chance at redemption. Best
part about life, you know, another day comes up. If
(19:00):
you're miserable today, tomorrow's a new day. Right. If you
fucked up today, tomorrow's a day to not and get
it moving in the right direction. The world moves on.
So I'm actually excited to watch this. And as a gambler,
if this is not a bet, I would bet. I
would basically take any team beside maybe like the Panthers
(19:24):
and the Giants right now against the Jets, and I
just wouldn't even bet those games, not saying that they
wouldn't cover. But you give me points with any team
in the NFL beside like three or four of them,
I would say, like this Cowboy Cooper Rush version the
Panthers the Giants, I think you're giving me more than
(19:45):
a field goal. And this morning it was like three
and a half four points, automatic bet, auto bet. You
just bet against the Jets. And I think I saw
Rogers say today that he plans on coming back next year,
and I think a lot of people think he would quit.
I just think, like, if you can still physically play,
even if you're not the same. I understand he's made
(20:05):
a lot of money. He's I'm sure he's got a
lot in the bank. There are only so many places
where you can make thirty five forty million dollars a year,
and that's what he's making right now. So if you're like,
well I could my body can still handle it? Should
I make another forty million dollars a year? Because you
make the forty million dollars whether you win six games
(20:25):
or whether you win eleven. But he's no dumb. He like,
I'm probably never making forty million dollars a year doing
a job. Maybe I'll make an over investments, or maybe
it's some building I bought, But I think it's as
black and white as that. On top of like, listen,
it's probably fun playing football. The NFL season is rolling
(20:51):
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Speaker 1 (22:25):
I'm guilty of this is during the trade deadline or
during the offseason. Like hey, so and so team traded
for this player. It cost them a fifth round pick,
it cost them a sixth round pick. Why didn't my
team trade for that guy? We were unwilling to give
up the pick. And I understand that argument. Always it's like,
(22:49):
are we serious? Most of these fifth round picks are
not only not going to make the team, no one's
ever going to hear these guys. Maybe they'll be on
the practice squad. The problem is enough guy, yes, turn
into diamidor leonor who Sherman's had on his podcast, who
the forty nine Ers four years ago drafted in the
fifth round. He was picked one seventy two. Yesterday, the
(23:13):
forty nine Ers gave him a five year, ninety two
million dollar contract extension that on average is a little
over eighteen million dollars a year. Now, I haven't seen
all the details of the guarantee or whatever, but I'm
sure it's not nothing. It's a real contract. Why, he's
a real player. He's a high end starter at outside corner.
(23:33):
He can also play nickel, and you can move him
all around. He's a very very good player. And he's
the reason that after this season they'll probably you know,
Charvarius Awards an unrestricted free agent. He won't be on
the team next year. And like when teams think about
trading a fourth to fifth sixth round pick for established players,
(23:56):
they weigh like, well, what if we get our next
starting corner. I was with the Eagles when Jason Kelsey
was drafted in the sixth round. He was a starting
center for well over a decade. And obviously you would
say Lenore and clearly Kelsey are tend to be outliers,
but there are enough guys that become longtime starters on
(24:18):
the third day of the draft that are the reason
these gms hesitate, especially on good teams, right because if
I'm the Chiefs, if I'm the Bills, if I'm the Ravens,
getting a guy in the fourth or fifth round that
starts for me for three years is by far the
(24:39):
number one economic advantage I can have when I have
a high priced team, because I get a starting player
for essentially the minimum for like seven eight, nine hundred
thousand dollars, and if then that guy becomes a good
player like Lenore, it's like I struck oil. It truly
is incredible, because even the five year, ninety two million
(25:01):
dollar contract, if you factor in his first four years
in the league over like even if he doesn't make
it the full nine let's say he plays eight years
for the forty nine ers, just cost average that over
that period of time. Like I draft Nick bos or
Miles Garrett number one or number two, and then I
give him one hundred plus million dollars. I still paid
(25:23):
him a lot of money when I drafted him really high.
But when I draft these guys, you know, really low
in the draft and I hit, it's it's found money.
And these examples happen every single year, and the good
teams take advantage of those rounds. It's boring even to
me at this time on TV on Saturday in the
(25:45):
draft because you never know, because a guy that you
liked in college gets drafted in the fourth round might
not even make the team, and a guy you know
nothing about might become their next starting safety for the
next eight years and get fifty million dollars in three
years from now. That's what makes the draft so fun.
It's one of the great unknowns. You have no fucking
(26:07):
clue who's gonna be sweet. Clearly, if the NFL, and
this is like we always say in exact science analytics,
I nothing's ever gonna change because there's no chance on
God's green earth that did not. If Diamadoor Leonore, if
every team in the league had any idea, he'd be
half as good as he turned out. To be he
would have made it past like pick forty. But that's
(26:32):
never gonna change, and that's always what makes the discourse
leading up to the draft. And then after the draft,
I heard I saw a clip with Dean Sanders yesterday
and he was arguing with some people over you know,
the recruiting classes, and he had actually a pretty good point.
He's like, everyone gets on us, you know, for being
so aggressive in the transfer portal. But let's just say
I signed twenty freshmen out of high school, right, twenty freshmen,
(26:57):
So during their freshman year, let's say three or four
of them play for the team. The other let's say
sixteen guys red shirt. Well, the following spring, during spring practice,
if it's pretty clear that maybe twelve of those sixteen
guys are not even close to playing either, what's gonna happen.
(27:19):
They're gonna enter the transfer portal. So those guys that
we just invested a year in and use scholarships on
the previous year are now gone heading into their second year.
So we have found a balance of maybe less high
school guys that we think have a really good chance
to play right away and being really aggressive in the
(27:39):
transfer portal that the plan is to plug and play
the majority of those guys, and even if they don't
end up starting, we know they can play on special
teams or whatever. It's like, what prime makes a lot
of sense at That's pretty good logic, and I think
you just have to adapt your way of thinking when
it comes to the draft. Rizzy was talked was talking
(28:02):
with Florio and he essentially had a line, you know,
he's the interim coach right now for for the Saints.
He's the guy that clogged the toilet on his his
coaching debut, which I think anyone would gladly take a
clogged toilet coaching debut victory over a non clogged toilet loss.
So it was it was well worth. It makes for
(28:23):
a great story. And listen, you know you probably ate
a big dinner, eat a big breakfast, got the got
the nerves flowing, you know, Trinka, you know large cold
brew and you know you gotta you gotta clear out
the pipes. Nothing like a good feeling of clearing out
the pipes on game day morning after after a nice
you know, large coal brew from Starby's. But he essentially
(28:43):
said that the reason a lot of special teams coaches
don't truly get the opportunity either to interview for a
head coaching job or when they interview, or never taken
that seriously because owners and gms love to win the
press conference. You get way more credit if you hire
the number one defensive coordinator or the number one offensive
(29:06):
coordinator or some star college guy. And he's not wrong.
It's a very big deal after you fire a coach
to have a positive press conference. That's a fact. But
I started thinking about think how stupid it is, and
I I was in the Bay Area when Jim tom
Sula gave his press conference. It is by far the
(29:29):
most outrageous experience in the history of sports for a
non game. It was like, what just happened? And that
obviously reflected everything that was about to happen all time
disaster joke, just bad higher. I mean, it's the worst hire,
I'd argue in the history of the league, especially when
you factor in you essentially fired Jim Harbaugh for Jim
tom Sula. Like Sirianni's was bad. But obviously, since like
(29:54):
sirian went to Super Bowl, Syrian has been the playoffs.
Sirianni's headed back to the playoffs is gonna probably win
the division game, so no one even cares about your
press conference. But I do think you get so caught
up on a press conference, which is essentially on day
one of the guy's employment, when ideally you're hiring this
guy for the next five to ten years. And I
(30:14):
do wonder sometimes, like things are fickle, right, Things change
all the time in sports, in society, in our personal lives.
Like you grow, you just your views and your desires change,
Like that's part of life. You're up, you're down. You
have different outlooks on different things. And sometimes when something
(30:37):
like sexy offensive coordinators are really in vogue, and there
are a lot of them, those guys are going to
get hired, especially when you just factor in the economics
of the league. You're like, well, who makes the most money?
We like the quarterback? Well, who coaches the quarterback? Well,
the guy, you know, the offensive coordinator, usually a quarterback guy.
You're like, well, shouldn't we make that guy the head coach?
Like there is a lot of logic behind that, and
(30:58):
you go like, who's the best head's currently in the NFL?
Like Andy Reid, Well, what's he do? Well, he's an
offensive guy, play caller, quarterback genius, Like, well, wouldn't you
want that? Yeah, well, there's also been Belichick. He's a
defensive guy, but he actually was pretty good dealing with Brady.
And then the other guy, you know, Bill Walsh, who
was also a quartered Like it makes sense, but you
(31:19):
also have to go off. It's like a draft. What
are your options? Right? Like, who are your options? And
you go, well, beside Ben Johnson, it's not a great crop.
Even though I think Liam Collen's pretty impressive and I
think he will be in this mix for sure, but
you go Kubiak, that star is dimmed, Slowick, that star
is clearly dimmed. And then you also got Belichick and
(31:41):
Vrabel And I think it got so hot with Kyle
and McVeigh, but it does feel like most of his
best guys got hired, right His best crew with Kyle
was McVeigh. Lafleur like that happened, and you've seen other
guys like Robert Sala, lafleur brother who went with him,
you know, flame out pretty quick. Demiko like was a
(32:05):
coaching star, already hired, Kevin O'Connell, already hired, Rahem Morris,
already hired, Mike McDaniel already hired. Like that crew's kind
of taken. Now, I guess you can go to the
new crew. You're like, well, would you be interested in
Brian Greasy, You'd be like, well, what's his background? Well,
played quarterback in the NFL. His father quarterback in the
(32:26):
NFL for one of the great teams of all time,
the Miami Dolphins, undefeated, played for Don Shula. Yeah, he's
gonna check the boxes. But I also think, like, I
wonder if Steve Spagnola gets some interviews this offseason, because
we know Vrabel's gonna get some interviews this offseason. We
know Belichick's gonna get some interviews this offseason. I mentioned
(32:48):
this the other day, like keep an eye on Kirby
Smart this offseason. So you just I would go into
these situations and it's kind of crazy to me, And
this is why the Bear should fire Eberflus. You essentially
fire a guy January one, and then you just talk
to a guy a couple times, and then you just
make him the head coach of your organization. Like, I
(33:11):
don't care how many frames of reference in people you
call or how many times you google this guy's stats.
As a coordinator feels like not enough information like Starbucks.
I read this article on the Wall Street Journal the
other day that the dude they hired from Chipotle, the
CEO from Chipotle, went to Starbucks, and a couple months
before he went to Starbucks, they were clearly talking to him.
(33:36):
And he would go to random Starbucks, whether it be
in a mall, whether it be in the corner of
a shopping center, and he would just talk to baristas
and ask them questions and pick their brain. And he
did this for months, just acquiring information. This is well
before he took the job. And my guess would be
(33:59):
is like, and they say this a lot that sometimes
coaches interview the team as much as the team interviews
the coach, which I will would imagine is going to
happen with guys like Rabel Belichick. It happened sometimes in college, right,
I would imagine it happened with Lincoln and Brian Kelly
when they left Oklahoma and Notre Dame to go to
(34:20):
LSU and USC. Obviously those haven't worked, but they didn't
need to leave. And I think like when he took
the job at Starbucks, he felt pretty confident that like, Okay,
I see some things here that can be fixed, and
I think this is plausible, right. Obviously, they made him
very rich man. They gave him a signing bonus like
(34:41):
he was an athlete. They let him move the headquarters
down to Newport Beach like it was a great deal.
But sometimes you just take a great deal, even if
it's a situation that you can't win. You know. I
asked Lincoln Riley how that went. I mean, they gave
him a hundred and twenty million dollars, did Lincoln if
they would offer him sixty million dollars? I got news
for you. Lincoln Riley still at Oklahoma, so he's like
he just went simply for the money, where Brian Kelly
(35:03):
got paid a lot of money. But I think it's
pretty clear Brian Kelly thought he could win a national
championship at LSU, and do you know what, it turns
out like it's actually easier in a twelve team playoff
to do it at Notre Dame, who is gonna make
the playoffs with a fucking loss to NIU And LSU
is not gonna sniff the playoffs. So I just think
we got to be careful about like, and I'm not
(35:26):
saying I wouldn't be inclined and try to hire these
offensive guys, Like I would interview Brian Greesey. I would say, well,
who's mcveay's right hand guy right now on offense? Who's
Lafleur leaning on? In Green Bay? I would want to
interview those But I would go into these situations open minded,
like who is the best candidate because winning the press conference?
(35:46):
Think how irrelevant that is? Like, does any Green Bay
Packer fan remember Matt Lafleor's press conference? I don't remember
Kyle Shanahan or Sean mcvay's press conference. Did Kansas City
win the press conference when they hired Andy Reid a
couple weeks after he just got fired from Philadelphia? I
(36:06):
doubt it. Does any Chiefs fan remember that press conference?
Of course? Not that opening press conference is so irrelevant.
I don't know anything about Rizzy, but if he's clearly
as impressive, it's like, seems like a pretty high level guy.
I'd interview him. Why not? And like you said, like
obviously some special teams coach Joe Judge went bad, some
(36:28):
have gone well, John Harball, I would say Joe Judge
a good example, clearly over his head John Harball was
not and last, but not least, Netflix, they've sold out
their ads on Christmas. And I think, you know, for
most of my life, the NFL really had one holiday,
(36:51):
and that was Thanksgiving, in which they still own. Like
Thanksgiving Day, they're sitting around and football's on in the background.
Maybe you go for a depending on how old you are, right,
maybe you're outside messing with your buddies. The older you get,
maybe you're inside and drinking with your family. As you
get kids, maybe you're outside playing in the front yard.
But football is on the TV at least in my
house since as long as I can remember, since I
(37:14):
was a young kid, and that was back in the
day when maybe there were two games. Then they've added
this third game and you just got football on the TV.
And that was their day. And Martin Luther King Day
was the NBA's day, and Christmas was the NBA's day.
And the NFL has come flying in and said, no,
mass those are my days. I've stolen those days. I mean,
(37:35):
you look at Christmas, that is now the NFL's territory.
That's their real estate. Christmas Eve also their real estate
New Year's depending on where it falls they're going to
play on that day, and I think Netflix is the
perfect partner for this because the Jake Paul Mike Tyson
fight is happening this weekend. I was supposed to happen
(37:56):
a while ago, and then Tyson got injured. He's fifty
eight years old. I think your first reaction is like,
that's kind of stupid. Though I've watched a couple Jake
Paul's fights and listen, I kind of like stupid sometimes
I'm gonna watch. I watched Mike Tyson. I think the
fight Roy Jones. I think it was like the pre
(38:16):
fight for when Jake Paul. Forget who Jake Paul was fighting,
not whole Cogan, but like some famous random guy and won.
But I'm pretty sure that Tyson and Roy Jones Junior fought.
That's when it was pay per view. I bought it.
I remember thinking, like, God, I think Tyson, you know,
at the time he was like fifty five or fifty four.
I actually thought he looked pretty good, and who knows
(38:38):
fifty eight. It's clearly hard for him to train his
body injuries and stuff. But the point is that thing's
gonna get a lot of eyeballs. The Tom Brady Roast
was a major, major success. And that's the thing with
the NFL is it's like the ultimate just kind of event,
even though it's just a random regular season games, because
(39:00):
football games always feel big because there aren't that many of them,
and there's always a build up to those games. There
was a build up to the Roast which far exceeded
my expectations. There's obviously been a long build up to
this Tyson Jake Paul fight, which you can convince me
anything's gonna happen, but guess what it's gonna It's gonna
(39:20):
get me interested. It's gonna get me to watch. Honestly,
might even bet on it. Don't even hate Mike Tyson
in the upset, but I think that this the NFL
and Netflix feel like they're kind of made for each other.
Right now, Okay, let's bang out a couple of Middlecoff
(39:43):
mailbag questions. You guys know the drill at John Middlecoff.
At John Middlecoff is the Instagram firing those dms. Get
your questions answered here on the show. Start with special
k Uh not the drug. I think that's just a
fine I'm looking young man with all the talent coming
(40:04):
out at quarterback each year. Well, the quarterback market eventually regress,
leading teams just restarting every five years instead of the
ill advised large contract to Trevor Lawrence or Daniel Jones.
I get teams don't want to lose players for nothing,
but you're not telling me it would be better to
pay Quinn you ers five million a year and surround
(40:27):
them with good coaching and talent, then pay a marginally
better brock Purty fifty million dollars a year in a vacuum.
Dak or Derek Carr are better than bo Nicks, but
they're not ten times better like what they're being paid.
It depends who you're talking about here. The chances that
Quinn yours is ever remotely close to as good as
(40:50):
brock Purty in the NFL, I would say, is slim.
The nun now, I think when you start getting into
the Dak and Derek Carr and even Brock, who's I say,
a better version of those guys. And Derek is not
as good now but was once you know, the year
that he got paid, he was in the MVP discussion.
And obviously Dak has been, you know, a top five
(41:10):
MVP candidate, you know, on given years, but I think
we've always viewed him as somewhere between, like the eighth
to twelfth quarterback. It is hard to replace that guy.
To me, if you have Daniel Jones, like I'm moving on,
and I totally agree with you. I would rather just
draft a new quarterback take my chances than pay Daniel
Jones forty million dollars a year. But when I get
(41:31):
Brock perty or Dak who are not Lamar, Josh, Allen
Herbert and Patrick I it's very, very difficult for me
to move off that player. Like I understood what the
Cowboys did. It's extreme, it's a lot of money, But like,
is anyone coming into this draft better than Dak Prescott?
(41:51):
The chances that Shador Sanders will be as good as
Dak Prescott, the chances that cam Ward will be as
good as Dak Prescott, Like I would bet against them
all not being as good. Quinn yours, Carson Beck, I mean,
to me, he's like an undrafted free agent. But you
know what I mean, maybe one of them will be.
But if you're just playing the odds, like if I
could have Dak Prescott as my quarterback for fifteen years now.
(42:14):
The difficult part is, and this is where you are right,
is once you start paying a lot of money to
your quarterback, it does become more difficult to build your team.
And that's where the pressure on drafting is really really high.
It's why the Chiefs they've drafted really really well, like
the forty nine ers. You know, they don't pay a quarterback,
but they have a shitload of guys's making a lot
(42:34):
of money. Well, they have a lot of like third, fourth,
fifth round guys that start on their team all over
and that helps, you know, like Juwan Jennings seventh rounder,
Pony third rounder, safeties, fifth round, corners, fifth round. I mean,
it just it helps. So you just got to draft well.
(42:56):
Obviously it gets even put into more question once they
pay Brock. But I do understand, like Jared Goff, Brock purty,
Like I do think there's a line you could argue
Derek carrs on the other side of the line, Daniel
Jones definitely is Trevor Lawrence. They just didn't even need
to pay, Like I would have just waited another year.
I don't understand what the rush was Colts fan here,
(43:18):
such a shit show quarterback. I mean, what the hell
are we doing? Why did we ever? Bench Richardson? What
are your thoughts? Is it time for the Colts to
clean house? I talked about it on the podcast. You know,
I don't think they had a choice. When he tapped
out and he was playing bad, they would have lost
their locker room. And that's the thing that's easy for
(43:39):
us to stay on the outside, you know, talking heads
on podcasts and on television shows, and those fifty guys
inside the locker room, especially their high end players, like
this is bullshit, This cannot happen, and so they had
to make a move, and it's easy to go, well,
it just was he was playing bad. But I think
when he tapped out, he needed to take a breather,
(44:03):
like this will never be tolerated in this sport, in
this league ever. And I think reading his quotes today,
I think he understands that, or at least I think,
you know, a couple of weeks away, realize I think
there's been a tough spot. I think the problem is
if they go back to Anthony Richardson and let's say
(44:23):
they end up going eight to nine and missing the
play or seven to ten and missing the playoffs, like
Shane Sykeen said, a you're gonna fire him? Probably not. Well,
it's like, well what about Chris Baalt, Well, you're gonna
fire your GM, hire a new GM and make him
more With Shane Stikeen, that's a little weird. Usually doesn't
(44:44):
work that way. And if you do lose the rest
of the season, do you know what the number one
question is, especially if Anthony Richisons all over the place, Well,
he doesn't just get he's not on scholarship anymore. Where
when the offseason again, he's just the starting quarterback like
those days would be over. So then it's like, well,
(45:05):
do we pay a little bit more for a guy
to come in and compete? And who is that player?
Like we don't just sign Flacco or Gardner Minshew in
the off season to be the backup. We almost have
to pay more to get a guy to come in
and be competitive. Well, what if the Saints move on
from Derek Carr, Like, do we sign him and have
an open competition? That's where I think gets really complicated,
(45:26):
and that's where this whole thing could unravel. And if
anything in Richardson sucks, like if he's just not good
enough and he can't be a starting quarterback. I think
they'd all be not this year, but over the course
of the next what fourteen to fifteen months? A lot
of question marks in that building. This from Eric some
(45:50):
nice words, Barry guy. Anyways, my question is how does
Brian Kelly escape media criticism. This guy's a total fraud.
He totally wasted Jayden Daniels plus other elite talent on
the team. Is this guy currently the most overrated college coach?
I never liked him after the whole let's execute our
(46:11):
players quote. I get that he was joking, but would
you rather win a top tier coach say something so clownish?
I didn't mind that quote just because it's such a cheesy,
like dad joke. It was clear what he was saying.
I think he didn't waste Jaden Daniels like Jayden was
incredible under his watch. You know, he's an offensive guy,
(46:33):
and if he hires the wrong defensive coordinator, like any
offensive head coach, they're gonna have a lot of problems.
The Chiefs got a lot better on defense when Andy
fired Sutton and went to Steve Spagnola. So who your
coordinator is? If you hire the wrong guy and it
doesn't work, you're screwed. But I think that loss at
home was pretty embarrassing. It was pretty bad and it's
(46:57):
hard to shake that now. Is he the biggest fraud now?
I think the question mark moving forward is Brian Kelly.
What is his ceiling? Because part of the reason he
left Notre Dame to go to LSU was to have
a national championship ceiling. Couldn't have it at Notre Dame.
Why because they just can't get the certain players into
(47:17):
school because of academics that you can get in at LSU,
you can get it at Alabama, then you can get
into Texas, you can get it into Texa A and m
Ohio State can get into whoever the fuck you want.
Notre Dames. It's hard for him. The academic requirements are different, which,
to me at this point in time in twenty twenty five,
like who cares if it's like, hey, we can get
(47:39):
this wide receiver who does not meet our academic requirements,
but Alabama, LSU, Georgian Ohio State won them. But he
really likes Notre Dame. It's like, yeah, let's waive that shit.
But hey, that's just me, not mister academia here. I
don't know. I think if he wins out goes nine
to three wins a bowl game, it's just gonna be
(48:02):
defined the next couple of years. Can he make a
playoff run? Three straight coaches? LSU have won national championships
three straight coaches, and I'd say, beside Nick Saban, the
other two aren't really viewed as geniuses in Less Mild
and at Ojeron. So I think there's gonna be a
lot of pressure on him the next couple of years.
I don't think he's a fraud. I think he's a
(48:24):
pretty good coach. Is there a ceiling? It kind of
feels that way, like you know might like listen, I'm
not trying to be an asshole here, but I think
Lincoln Riley's got a lot more fraud smell coming from
his operation Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly's had some bad losses
and helped Brian Kelly lost to Lincoln Riley, but I
would rather have Brian Kelly than Lincoln Riley. I have
(48:44):
a question. I'm an Eagles fan and I want to
talk about the Cowboys. You have already mentioned that the
Saints could hire Aaron Glenn as their new head coach
due to the fact that the team knows him. With
the same line of logic, could the now Boys try
to hire Kellen Moore from the Eagles just to keep
Prescott happy as well as Jerry being able to control him.
(49:09):
The reality is, if you work for Jerry Jones, whether
you're McCarthy, whether you're Jason Garrett, whether you're Kellen Moore,
whether you're any coach, even Bill Parcells, Jerry's going to
have a large, large role and going to be much
more involved than the majority of owners. So if Bill
Belichick was hired by Jerry, it's not like Jerry's like, hey, hey, Bill,
(49:31):
I'll just see on Sundays, Like Jerry's still coming in
the office. Jerry still got takes and opinions, And I mean,
maybe Bill would be big enough to be like, hey, Jerry,
you're worth billions of dollars. You fucking achieved the American
dream from just some kid on the Arkansas football team
(49:51):
in the sixties to a guy that owns the Dallas
Cowboys and his families, whose sons children's chill 's children
won't ever even think twice about getting the most expensive
steak at the steakhouse. Hell they'll get wagou delivered to
their house on door dash and they'll pay even extra
(50:13):
to make sure that shit's still hot when it arrives.
You made it, But could you please just not call
into the radio station every week during the season. I
just I don't think I'm asking too much here. Would
that Would that be possible? And I think he would
be the only guy that could pull that off. I
think Kelvill Moore is a good coach. I know people
(50:35):
have been critical over them over the years. Maybe I
have a soft spot because I saw him play at
Presnel State and I just know his story and I
know the you know, the coach that kind of developed
him in Chris Peterson, and I thought he did a
good job, you know, his first couple of years with
Mike McCarthy. Obviously, what's going on right now in Philly,
but it crossed my mind, like, yeah, I think one
(50:57):
million percent did. Jared Jones would talk to Kellen Moore,
and I think he would be more inclined, Like, let's
face it, who is Jerry hired in the past. A
lot of guys that he's known, right, Jimmy Johnson, He
knew Jimmy Johnson. There were college teammates. Jason Garrett like
(51:17):
was his guy. Mike McCarthy was a little out of
left field for Jerry honestly, a little unconventional. You could
argue that if the season end of to day and
the Eagles offense keeps crushing it, Kellen Moore might be
their number one choice, might be their number one choice.
(51:42):
Good call. I don't talk about that enough. Just a
thought on Anthony Richison. Could you see a transition to
tight end? I don't know if he has the hands
for it, and the blocking game might be a struggle,
but the boy can run. He's a menace in the
open field. In a long time quarterback. I can't imagine
(52:03):
he has extensive knowledge of the route trees. Wild thought,
but he has the size. He just might not want
to do it. Logan Thomas, who was the quarterback at
Virginia Tech who got drafted in the NFL as a quarterback,
made the transition. It was actually pretty good. Terrell Pryor
made the transition to wide receiver was pretty good. I mean,
(52:25):
obviously the number one thing you know he's going He's
not going to be a blocking tight end. He would
be like a I mean he would be a flexed out,
athletic tight end who would be a route guy, right,
We're not asking him to be George Kittle here. I
just I don't know about his hands. I mean, does
he have I couldn't even begin to guess. You know,
some guys, it's like sometimes you see a guy throw
(52:46):
a double pass, like, holy shit, he's got a great arm.
You're like, oh, yeah, he was a high school quarterback.
And then sometimes you see a double pass and you're like,
that is that the worst throw I've ever seen? I
can't believe they let him throw. It's one of those
with you know, a transitional player, because I'm with if
he just if his accuracy is just going to be this,
he is so big and athletic and strong that you
would have to try another position if he could catch,
(53:09):
you would say, some offensive skill position. If he couldn't,
I mean, could he play like outside linebacker? I don't know.
I would say that even that that is asked, that
that is a question mark. November thirteenth, twenty twenty four.
Chris Ballard has to just throw up in his mouth
that someone could ask that question and people like could
(53:32):
have a conversation about it. If I would have told
him two years ago, not even two years ago, twenty
twenty three, April whatever the draft was, twenty fifth, twenty six,
that within eighteen months people are gonna be able to
have a conversation like could this guy play another position?
He would throw up in his mouth, fall out of
his chair, aka not make the pick. Hey, John, I
(53:57):
gotta say I have grown to love the Pod this season.
I don't think I've missed an episode. I don't know
how to get mailback, how to get a mailbag question in?
But I'm curious. I work for a search firm and
an executive recruiting. Soft skills are the difference and a
key factor in a higher As a former scout, how
(54:20):
much does someone weigh soft skills way into your evaluation
for the quarterback? That is a good question, I'll be honest.
I gotta look up the examples of soft skills just
so I what are seven soft skills? So just cognitive stuff, teamwork,
(54:44):
problem solving, communication, critical thinking, time management, interpersonal. So what
would a hard skill be in a white collar job
would be my question, because obviously you know a hard
skill in football would be your and your soft skill
would be I think what we would consider character, you know,
(55:07):
everything from academics to dealing as a teammate. I would
say that is as a quarterback, it's one You've got
to be able to play. So I'm evaluating you as
a player like there's a baseline to make it to
the NFL, and then once you exceed that baseline, I
nitpick you on the film, But I once you exceed
(55:29):
the baseline of like this guy's an NFL talent, I
would say the soft skills of all the intangible stuff,
the critical thinking being a teammate, interpersonal skills. Leadership is
the number one thing the scouting department tries to lock down,
and it's the number one thing when you are going
into these programs. I'm trying to learn about the person,
(55:53):
not the player, because ultimately, like let's say my team's
gonna be drafting in the top ten and I'm the
Way Coast scout or I'm the National scout, Obviously my
grade on the player is important and for me to
have conviction on Shadoor Sanders. But when it comes to
me and I've gone through Colorado multiple times and they go, well,
(56:16):
let's talk about shador the kid, I better be able
to talk about the person longer than the player, And
I've said before like that is going to be kind
of unique. Now, it might not matter if Deon Sanders
gets like the Raider Cowboy job and they draft him
like the right up, it's Deon's kid. But if another
(56:38):
team's interested, and they're all going to be interested, like
I got to know the guy really well, and it's
hard to get that information right. You're using the coaches,
you're using the coordinators, you're using the trainers, you're talking
to the doctors, you're talking to his teammates, you're talking
to the academic people. I mean, hell to you go
to town and you start talking to the people that
own the bars, people that own the clubs. You just
(57:00):
try to talk to every single human possible about the guy.
You know, the longtime athletic department executives that have seen
countless other NFL prospects come through, what they think about
them ultimately, what defines I mean, clearly, there are some
players that don't live up to their draft billing because
they weren't as talented as you thought, but they still
(57:22):
play in the league for a decade. And what separates,
in my opinion, most people that have longevity and success
in the NFL would be again, I'm not as like
locked in with the corporate lingo as the soft skills.
I never use that terminology. You know, in the scouting world,
we just call it character. You know, in the world
(57:43):
I live in, I just say judging a person, I
would say that that is a determinating factor of most
guys intelligence, ability to take football knowledge to the field,
work on your football stuff, you know, be addicted to
studying the game offseason as well. Obviously that's also you know,
(58:05):
sometimes I think we make fun of and laugh at
tight End University or the Pass Rush Summit, right George
Kittle's Wearn't tight End you and him and Greg Olsen
think how incredible that is that they get Kittle, Travis Kelcey,
(58:26):
Greg Olsen, all these great tight ends who take all
the young guys around the NFL and they just spend
three or four days together in Nashville talking ball, like
talking their craft. Same thing with the Pass Rush Summit
with Von Miller and Max Crosby. You know that in
most of our industries that's viewed as like an incredible
(58:47):
networking event, and a networking event is just about meeting
other people because ultimately, like if I'm Trey McBride, just
knowing George Kittle doesn't change my but getting to know
him and having him teach me how to become a
great player improves my career. It's like knowing Colin and
(59:07):
being able to run a question by him or two
if I have one, is a big deal. And I
think this stuff's really cool. And in football, you know
when you're not on the team once the season goes,
but in the off season, like a lot of these
guys trained together, and it's a game changer. These guys
when I was a kid used to like reach out
to Jerry Rice about training and they'd want to run
(59:28):
the hill and they'd all fail because that hill would
take out a lot of men except Jerry. And I
think Torell Owens can handle it as well. But I
think it's pretty cool. So I think soft skills with quarterbacks.
But it's hard, and I think you would I would
imagine you know this as well. Things you can't quantify,
(59:52):
right if I told you I'm a sales guy, it's like,
you know, last year, I'm staying within the same industry
and I can bring my accounts like I have ten
million dollars worth of business. It's it's quantifiable. It's like, well,
I got ten million dollars and our company gets to
keep ten percent of that. So I'm gonna bring a
million dollars revenue to the table, right, Like that's that's
(01:00:15):
black and white. But then if I find that guy
that's bringing ten million dollars in one million revenue, and
let's say I have a small company, that's a huge addition.
But I'm like, well, he happens to be the biggest asshole.
Everyone hates him, No one wants to deal with him
beside his clients, like he's gonna come into the office
every day. He's a pain in the ass. Or you
(01:00:36):
could hire this guy a little younger, not his experienced,
but his future, this personality. It's like, I think this
guy can sell quadruple what he's already sold. He's already
bringing five hundred grand to the table, so he's bringing
half as much in revenue. But I believe in this kid,
and I think just you can just tell he's got
(01:00:58):
you know, this is hot, and his hair is on
fire and he is ready to roll, and this fucking
guy wants it. And I'd bet on this guy having
two million dollars in business in five years. Right, you
project the future, and that's kind of what the draft is.
Sometimes you go, yeah, this guy's better right now, but
(01:01:20):
like in the next five years, I believe in this guy.
I think that's part of life, whether you're hiring people,
people you associate with. I think sometimes when you're dating someone,
it's about the future. You got to be able to
think past tomorrow or next week. And this gets back
to talking about coaches, like you want to win the
press conference, or you want to hire the best coach
(01:01:40):
because you wanted to win the press conference, Like you
would never hire Dan Campbell by say, the Lions feel
pretty good about that hire. And you just gotta have
a balance of and there's unknown like obviously there gets
to some people just have a better gut feel of
what works and what doesn't. And I think at different
positions that stuff matters less. Right, Like I like my
(01:02:00):
defensive linemen to be fucking nuts. It's not a position
where I need Rhodes scholars. It's a position of violence.
It's a position of I need people to be a
little off their rocker, right, same with linebacker, Like I'm
not looking to find Gandhi right, but as a kicker,
(01:02:21):
long snapper and a punter like I'm not looking at
have any problems, so your character better be zero in
terms of like, no issues, any issues, you're gone. This
is a long winded way of saying stuff's hard. Appreciate
everyone listening. See you guys tomorrow after Thursday night game,
so have a good day. Audios. The volume
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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