October 27, 2025 • 51 mins
Former NFL scout John Middlekauff is reacting LIVE immediately following the Week 8 Sunday Night Football matchup between Micah Parsons & the Green Bay Packers vs. Aaron Rodgers & the Pittsburgh Steelers. John kicks off by reacting to Jordan Love's dominant 2nd half performance that led to a road win against his former Packers QB mentor Aaron Rodgers and the Steelers. Next, John discusses the Atlanta Falcons loss to the Tua & the struggling Miami Dolphins. Following that, John reacts to New York Giants losing Cam Skattebo to a gruesome ankle injury in a loss to the Philadelphia Eagles. John then comments on New York Jets QB Justin Fields comments in his postgame presser after the team's first win vs. the Cincinnati Bengals. John reacts to the Indianapolis Colts dominant win vs. Cam Ward and the Tennessee Titans and comments on whether Texas Longhorns head coach Steve Sarkisian should consider taking the job next year. John then debates whether the New England Patriots or the Buffalo Bills will win the AFC East. John wraps up reacting to LSU firing their head coach Brian Kelly.
05:56 - Packers-Steelers
21:51 - Dolphins-Falcons
26:00 - Giants-Eagles
31:01 - Jets-Bengals
32:41 - Titans-Colts
38:14 - Patriots or Bills win the AFC East?
39:22 - LSU fires Brian Kelly
Follow John on Twitter, Instagram and YouTube for the latest.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. What is going on everybody? John middlecop three
Now podcasts. Hopefully everyone is doing well. We got a
(00:22):
lot of football to get into because the Green Bay
Packers get their revenge on Rogers destroy the Pittsburgh Steelers
in the second half win by ten. We will dive
into that game. Jordan Love kind of look like Rogers
in his prime. Scataboo shattered his ankle. The Atlanta Falcons
organization got shattered today by the Dolphins. We got Brian
(00:42):
Kelly got fired, so we will dive into it all.
A lot going on in the football world, as I
do every Sunday. Went on with Coward earlier today, so
you can check that out as well on YouTube or
on the podcast streams. But got a good show coming
up for you, so make sure you subscribe wherever you
may listen. If you listen on Collins Feed, make sure
you subscribe to three and Out feed. We also got
(01:04):
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miss a thing. We will be live on that YouTube
channel type of my name, John Middlecoff three and Out
after the Monday night game Chiefs hosting the Commanders Little
Mariota First Mahomes. So watch our bald brother Dan Quinn
(01:25):
try to get his franchise off the map because the
commanders are kind of in shambles based on last year.
But we will be live after that, as we are
after every primetime game. But before we dive into some football,
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redeem the code John for twenty dollars off. Swipe tap ticket,
go download the game Time app. Today the Green Bay Packers.
(02:50):
That was really impressive. That's the best half of football
and really just I would say the best game. I
know they started a little sluggish, but they're on the
road against the pack the Steelers after they had a
mini by given that they played last Thursday, like you're
at a disadvantage, that's the best performance they've had, I
don't know in thirty thirty five forty days since the
(03:13):
first couple weeks of the season. And it was all
about the quarterback in the offense. If Jordan Love is
gonna play like that, this team can win the AFC
because here or excuse me, the NFC. Right when your
offense is that dynamic, we know how good Tucker Craft is.
Romeo Dobbs is I think excellent. Jacobs is just a
(03:34):
war daddy. I go to battle with that guy any
day of the week. Twice on Sundays. Their offensive line
is good. We know how good their play caller is.
Christian Watson came back and had a big play tonight.
And we've been saying this, and a lot of you
guys have been reaching out being like, what's la Floor's deal?
Why is he so conservative with Jordan Love? And I
don't know if something clicked. Obviously, they were down at
(03:56):
halftime and they came out of the gates. They forced
to three and out and on their next three possessions
it was touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. In this ball game, it's
a wrap like the the The Steelers aren't coming back
from that. And to me, the success of this team
is gonna go as far because if they have a lead,
(04:18):
their pass rush is gonna dominate. Micah is one of
the more naturally gifted pass rushers. We've seen him like
the Internet age. You give me up ten points, second,
third and long guaranteed passing positions. He is a dominant force.
You saw Jeff Halfley tonight, moving him all over the place.
On third downs, they had him like starting at linebacker
(04:40):
and running up He's such a versatile chess piece. And
the rest of their defensive linemen, obviously with Sean Gary,
they have incredible amount of players who can create pressure,
starting with one of the best. But it's about getting
a lead, and that's how they're gonna tee off and
that's they're gonna they're gonna dominate. But to me, offense
(05:00):
like it's the best performance Jordan Love has had in
a long long time. Obviously, tied a Packer record with
Brett Fahv for twenty straight completions, and he was dealing
the ball all over the place. I mean, one thing,
in this offense, you're gonna get some pretty basic quick
reads ball out of your hand, and if you're accurate,
(05:21):
there's gonna be a lot of easy completions. But tonight
there were two plays. The one where he stands in there,
I guess he doesn't quite stand in there, but he's
kind of backpedaling as there are multiple defenders bearing down
on him, and he throws a fifty to fifty ball
up to Tucker Craft, who, let's face it, probably not
a fifty to fifty ball, it's probably more eighty twenty
(05:41):
for him. He makes the play and he takes it
for like sixty or seventy yards the play where Elliott's
leg got snapped, and then there was another play where
he scrambled to his right, threw across his body down
the field, overthrew a leaping defender, and hit Christia Watson
for a huge explosive play. If he's going to bring
that to the table, like this is a Super Bowl contender,
(06:04):
And that was the first time I would imagine a
lot of Packer fans agree like him and Lafleur were
just perfectly in sync. And let's face it, the irony
of the night is that's how Rogers looks just dominated.
His final numbers tonight were twenty nine of thirty seven
for three hundred and sixty yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.
(06:26):
That wasn't Aaron Rodgers like performance. And I give Aaron
some credit because he even talked about it. When they
drafted Jordan Love, he did not want to treat him
like he was treated and by all accounts their relationship
is really good, and Jordan Love gives him a lot
of credit for including him and forcing him to be
part of it. And I think Jordan loves driven Packer
(06:50):
fans somewhat mad because they have seen in that first year,
by the end of the season him look like Aaron Rodgers,
and then last year was all over the map. And
I think a lot of that has to do with
him getting injured early in the season, and then this year,
let's face it's been clunky. It's just been bizarre. Like
people keep asking me, what do you think. I'm like,
I don't know. You just watch them and something's off,
(07:12):
and then you see tonight and let's face it, part
of it is the Steelers defense is not good. But
when you play a defense that isn't good, if you
are good, you eviscerate them, You annihilate them. And I
can imagine that's what they're saying at halftime, like these
guys can't cover us, what are we doing? And they
flipped a switch and they came out. And I do
(07:34):
think that's the type performance that can kind of ignite
a season, because the other thing, if you're the Packers
right now, you go, that's our ceiling. We know our
past rush is ceiling because we've seen it throughout this season.
We have seen Mike a dominate. We have seen Rashaan
Gary play at an elite level. We trust those guys
and Jeff Hafley and the rest of the unit, like,
(07:56):
we feel good about it, especially if we have the lead.
The question mark has been offense and the quarterback, Like,
what's going on? Well, that's the ceiling. And if that's
the ceiling, you go, why can't we compete to be
the number one seed and win this division? And then
you look at the division you go, the Bears, you're
a fraud. I mean, your quarterback's not very good. You
(08:16):
just lost a Snoop hunt Lee on the road to
a team that was one and five and had a
million injuries all season. Even the guys today that were
back had not played well early in the season. And
you kind of got worked in that game because your
quarterback was atrocious. And then Minnesota has a million injuries
and a major problem at quarterback. They literally don't have one.
(08:37):
So you go, that was a team that was in
our way, literally beating us last year. See you guys,
so it's us versus alliance. There are foe and we
beat them earlier this season. Lions clearly aren't going to
go away, but like this is two This is a
two horse race, and I think both these two teams,
(08:58):
I would imagine Lafloor, Dan Campbell, the organizations are thinking,
we win this division thirteen to fourteen wins, we have
a good shot at the number one overall seat. Obviously,
the Eagles took advantage today of the Giants, but I
still think they have some question marks against better teams.
You know, the Rams in Seattle are good, but they're
gonna beat up on each other. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers
(09:22):
are five and two and have it a very impressive season,
but they got a million injuries and they just lost
Mike Evans essentially for the season. So it is wide open.
And if you're the Green Bay Packers, you made this
massive trade to get Micah Parksons to be in this position,
and for a couple of weeks there it felt like
what is going on? They were winning some games, but
(09:42):
like that tie against the Cowboys, how did that happen?
And then you watch a game like tonight, You're like,
that shouldn't happen. We're way better than most of these teams.
Because you saw them playing Pittsburgh and Listen, I think
these last couple of weeks brings Pittsburgh. I think we
have to look at them a lit little bit through
a different lens, right, But it was like, Okay, this
(10:02):
is I would have said coming into this game, I
don't know how high Pittsburgh ceiling is, but they should
double digit win team and win the division. And then
you watch tonight you go, They're not even close to
the level of the Green Bay Packers because their offense
isn't explosive enough and their defense isn't good. And I
think that was the big thing, is like their defense
(10:24):
wasn't good Lafleur Jordan Love Pedal of the Medal, and
they just eviserated them. They can't cover anybody. You saw
it last week and then you saw it tonight. And
when your pass rush isn't just dominating, it's like, listen,
no one's acting like Durrell Reeves, Dion Sanders and uh,
I'm trying to Chris Harris Junior is their slot guy.
(10:47):
No one acts like the Packer secondary is some all
time great unit. But their pass rush, linebacker play, it's
just really good. And you're watching the Pittsburgh Steelers, You're like, hey,
what's the easiest way to make average defensive back play
look good? A pass rush? You watch the night Jordan
Love was just slinging that thing around and it's not
all just him getting rid of the ball after one step.
(11:09):
So if you can't cover people in the NFL, especially
in their conference, look who they gotta play in big
games would be Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Indiana Jones, I mean,
Justin Herbert, Like, I can't take you seriously, it hasn't
even got cold yet for your quarterback who's actually played
pretty good. The problem when you watch the Pittsburgh seel
(11:30):
is like you watch the Packers, you go, they're very
well rounded, right, they got multiple wide receivers, a sweet
tight end. They always have a good offensive line. Defensively,
good defensive line, good linebackers. Their DB's plays a unit.
You watch, you go, well, you're paying DK one hundred
and fifty million dollars. Okay, I get it. He looks
like Terrell Owens. Doesn't exactly play like him. You would
(11:54):
like a little more for what you're paying, but still
freak show. Any game when he's on can take over.
So it's like, I don't I don't agree with the move.
But I understand it. You got no other wide receivers,
you got a bunch of tight ends, and you got
Jalen Warren, and they did a good job tonight like
explaining because I'm like, God, he's feel like he's running
(12:15):
a little harder, how hard he trained and in Hawaii
carrying the soccer nets. But it's like that's he would
be an unreal number two back, but they kind of
have to treat him at times like the number one back.
So your running game isn't that great. Your passing game
is limited to essentially one wide receiver. One of your
tight ends should probably be an offensive tackle, So you
(12:37):
have no explosive passing game. So the moment the Packers
flipped it and they got up, especially by more than
a touchdown, the Steelers are not built for that. They
have no shot to come back. It's whatever, sixteen to
seven for the Packers at halftime, it's like they're not
out of it. They'll be fine. If you reverse that,
Steelers would be screwed. They are not built the comeback.
(13:01):
And for a long time, and we could litigate this
some other time about Aaron Rodgers' comebacks never been his
strong point something coward is hammered for years. Derek Carr
famously actually has way more comebacks than Aaron Rodgers. I
think a lot of people would say for a lot
of his career he was not losing. Agree. I think
some people would say it's just not really stink. But
(13:22):
at forty one years old, like, I'm not putting tonight
or last week on him, but he does like at
that age you need some help. And defensively the Steelers,
like Tomlin's a defensive guy, and the defense is now
getting worse and worse of the week. It's not even
cold outside yet you can't just depend like TJ. Wat's
not Miles Garrett. He's not just gonna have four or
(13:45):
five sacks a game. And these last couple of weeks
you're like, I'd like a little more. What are the
other guys? And there's just nowhere to be found. How
many times Love wasn't sacked tonight? Think about that. Obviously
Love has some mobility, but wasn't sacked. You had ten
days off, I'll give you a little bit of pass
on the Thursday night game. Your road team a little older,
(14:07):
tough spot. Obviously, not a great loss to lose, to
Joe Flacco. But still, but then you get ten days
off at home you can't sack them one time. That's
that's pretty crazy. I mean it really is. And then
on the flip side, it was like they were just
feasting on Aaron as that game went on, they were
all over his ass and I'm watching the Steelers are going.
(14:31):
A reason that I started to believe in you a
couple weeks ago was like, well, you have the formula
of the pass rush. That just translates like that works.
You don't have to have the best marketing. If you
have great food, people gonna talk about it and people
gonna show up at your restaurant. You can have some deficiencies.
But if you've got TJ. Watt some of the other
guys all over the quarterback all the time, like, your
(14:51):
defense can be pretty good. I'm watching now it's like, yeah,
it's non existent. You're paying premiums for guys that aren't
producing premiums. And now all of a sudden, like the
Bengals gotta be kicking themselves if they don't blow a
fourteen point lead the day in the fourth quarter to
Aaron Glenn and Justin Fields. They had four wins, same
(15:12):
as the Pittsburgh Steelers. So yeah, I mean, I just
think the Steelers, man, I don't think they're a player away,
and I would imagine they'll try to do something here
at the deadline, but I don't know if that fixes much.
This is a very flawed team, and listen to the
AFC is clearly not as good as it's been the
last couple of weeks or years. But I don't see
(15:32):
this team doing much. They're just gonna flip a switch
like Jalen Ramsey, TJ. Watt, some of these guys are
just gonna become like their prime version of a couple
of years ago as it starts getting freezing cold outside now.
Based on their division, you know, when you start one
to five, you got a pretty big hole to dig
out of. But the easiest way to dig yourself out
(15:54):
of a hole is to drop the shovel. And that's
kind of what the Ravens did today. Pretty sure. They
mentioned that the Ravens get the Dolphins this Thursday. So
let's take a look at the Ravens schedule. They get
the Dolphins Thursday night, then they get the Vikings, who
do not have a quarterback. Then they get the Browns,
who also do not have a quarterback. Then they get
(16:17):
the Jets, who again needed a miracle to come back
against the Bengals. Then they get the Bengals. I thought
the Ravens were dead, but once the way it played
out today, like I don't trust the Bengals because I mean,
their defense just sucks and the Steelers just have issues.
(16:39):
So massive win by the Packers, very very impressive performance
by Jordan Love and Matt Lafleur. And listen, you go
in at halftime like players and coaches they love saying
like there's no such thing as halftime adjustments, which is
true because you're constantly adjusting every time you come to
the sideline, but there is like everyone, take a deep breath.
(17:01):
We kind of re message, we kind of get a
reorganized viewpoint of where we want to attack. And clearly,
what was ever said, what was ever tweaked coming out
of the locker room worked because that Packer team looked
like the team that most people after a couple of
weeks that could win the Super Bowl, and we hadn't
seen it for a while. And Lafleur, the coaching staff,
(17:24):
they deserve a lot of credit. And if you're Mike Tomlin.
Feels like we're spinning the wheels again, kind of starting
to feel like it's felt the last couple of years
does have the inevitable nine to ten wins, one and
done and then it's like, oh yeah, just browl it
back again. We'll just keep paying you. I mean, James
Franklin got got cammed, Brian Kelly got canned. We're seeing
(17:45):
and listen, I'm not acting like Mike Tomlin's resume isn't
better than those guys, but like, what was James Franklin's problem?
Could never beat anyone good? Now it feels like Mike Tomlin,
like if we go a decade with him never winning
a playoff game and just getting the nine wins, like
that's no longer an accomplishment anymore. It's impressive relative to
a lot of bad coaches, but it's like, what's your ceiling?
(18:08):
We know what your floors. Your floor's good, but are
we going nowhere? Because if you're just going nowhere, I
don't quite understand the point of this anymore. And it
feels like we're headed toward that moment in January again
when it's just like they lose in the first round
of the Bills or the Chiefs or the Colts by
(18:29):
like fourteen points and we just go or here again,
what are they gonna do? Today's show is brought to
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eight caps off with the Commanders headed to Arrowhead and
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(18:50):
the Chiefs big, obviously, the Commanders rolling out their backup quarterback.
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Speaking of a team that's here again, A lot of
people think I hate the Falcons. I don't know any
(20:37):
of these people like, I have nothing personally against them.
I truly don't even care. I just had to take
a couple of years ago, like I just don't see
it with this organization and their owner. I remember last
year put himself in the Hall of Fame. Was kind
of funny, but also was kind of an indictment of
like what's going on here? Like this feels a little
out of whack, you know. Then they hired Raheem Morris,
(21:00):
who immediately came in and listen, I didn't make this
story up. He did. He was asked, why do you
have so many coaches on your staff? He had twenty six,
which I'm pretty sure was a record in the NFL,
and he said, because I plan on training guys so
when we win and lose our coordinators and lose our
(21:22):
position coaches to become coordinators in other places, we have
the replacements already on staff and we don't need to
train from scratch. And he even admitted, like that's a
pretty arrogant thing to say, but I believe in what
we're doing and we're gonna win. Well, last year they
didn't win, they didn't make the playoffs. This year they're
three and four and I looked up today it was
(21:44):
the fourth quarter and they're playing the Miami Dolphins, who
is the laughingstock of the NFL. There is nobody who
is getting consistently made fun of more than Mike McDaniel
and his franchise. And he was up thirty one to three.
Nigo John. They didn't have their starting quarterback. I said,
(22:04):
I know they had their backup. Who is the highest
paid backup. I'm not talking about a starter that got
bench during the season. I'm talking about a guy going
into the season that was the number two quarterback. He's
making almost thirty million dollars and we've seen all around
the league. The forty nine ers won four games with
Mac Jones. Like, listen, I win or lose the game,
(22:28):
but you should be able to compete with the guy
that you're paying twenty seven point five million dollars. Not
only could they not compete, they got steamrolled. And it
does feel a little bit starting with Rich McKay with
the GM, with Raheem, with this whole operation, they have
just taken a bunch of money with all these coaches,
with this Kirk Cousins contract, which is gonna go down
(22:49):
as one of the worst ones of all time. I
like Michael Pennix, but there weren't many people that agreed
with them, thinking he was a top ten pick. I
was actually more inclined to agree with them, but it
clearly has not worked. Everything they have done has been
a complete disaster. I don't see it. The owner's mid eighties.
(23:11):
How everyone in their entire job and you talk about
a place that just needs to get the light, you know,
flipped and the whole place just blown up. I would
say Atlanta and everyone involved in that situation, from the
GM to the coaching staff is in major, major trouble
because lose to Kyle Shanahan Sunday Night football on the road,
(23:32):
like a lot of people have had a similar fate.
Lose a home to Tua in the Miami Dolphins with
the backup quarterback that you're paying thirty one or I
mean twenty seven point five million dollars too, was really
a sight to behold. I'm trying to look see if
I can find the box score here because I wanted
(23:57):
to see. I think I just gippeded Toua's final numbers,
which Tua tongko I Looa, who got bench last week,
who had sounded like Mike, who has been pretty optimistic,
had almost given up on with his press conference earlier
in the week, had six incompletions and four touchdowns. I
(24:23):
just I think that's the most embarrassing outcome in recent memory.
To be down thirty one to three to the Miami
Dolphins thirty one to three and have two or throw
four touchdowns on you to four different guys. That's crazy.
(24:43):
Speaking of crazy, for a split second, I looked down
and then I looked back up and I saw Jackson
Dart freaking out, and you knew it wasn't good. So
I immediately tax the group tax I'm like, who was that?
And they're like, Cam, I couldn't watch. I would imagine
it had a similar vibe to Fred Warner ankle point
(25:04):
in the wrong way. I think Skataboo's already gotten surgery tonight.
That's a devastating blow. And I've been pretty consistent. I'm like, hey,
they got a lot of positive momentum even in this game.
Skataboo scores in early touchdowns like seven to seven, then
it's fourteen to seven, but you're like, god, the I
don't know if the Giants are gonna cover or not,
but I just it just felt like they were just
kind of being frisky today and just a lot of
(25:26):
momentum even My wife calls them the frat boys. Like
the frat boys. She's like, yeah, the Scataboo in the quarterback.
They just got something cool going on. The Eagles gave Scataboo.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
The fucking Philadelphia Eagles fans seventy thousand gave him a
standing ovation when he got carted off. Cause there's not
a human alive that likes football that doesn't like watching
a running back lower his head every single time and
try to run people over.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
It's like universally respected. I've said this before. I got
asked all the time over the last eight months, had
think Campbell do in the NFL? How do you think
camp will do in the NFL? Every single person I
know around here that's a big ASU fan, number one
thing they ask, and I was kind of wrong. I'm like,
I just don't know if you can run people over
in the NFL. And not only was he running people
over in the NFL, he just looked like a good player.
(26:13):
It was like him and dark even without neighbors, like listen,
this is a this is a consumable team. And the
moment his ankle pointed the other way and he got
card off, yeah, I mean, it just felt like, listen,
it's not like they were gonna make the playoffs anyway,
or even probably win like eight games, but they were
a watchable team. They were a team that just had
something going for him. It felt like it all ended
(26:35):
and you felt as the game was going and day
Ball is losing, as you know what on the sideline,
He's no dummy. He knows it too. I've been adamant
I would just give day Ball an extra year and
just kind of let this play out with Scataboo, let
neighbors come back. The problem is this thing now that
you're losing him the momentum, it's going to get so ugly,
(26:58):
so ugly that you're just gonna look up and it's
a four or five win team and it's gonna feel
just like a disaster all season long. So I that
was a devastating blow for the job security of the
GM and the head coach. I mean it really was.
And this is I've said this forever when whenever someone
asked like do you do you miss it? Do you ever?
(27:19):
Would you ever do it again? Do you ever wish?
When I've been a podcaster now for almost a decade,
I feel very fortunate that not only I was born
to do what I'm doing right now. But the thing
that I could never get over, well, I was in it.
And the thing that still kind of gives me the
hebgb's when I think about it, was if you're working
for a team, coach, GM, front office, owner, whoever associate
(27:44):
with the team, would someone gets injured. Like in most
of our industries, obviously, there are things that are out
of our control. Right if a law has passed that
impacts our business, if someone were in business with cancels
a contract or something, I mean, listen, things, I don't
care what you do, you could have unforeseen circumstances. There
(28:04):
is nothing like in the sport of football, just knowing, yeah,
more than likely we're just gonna lose a player a game.
Go to training camp, yeah more than likely we're gonn
to lose three or four people to major injuries during practice.
And it's just part of the business. But it's something
that's still like I can't imagine being day ball Brian
Joe Shane, the ownership, the fans, that feeling of just
(28:27):
watching someone there and knowing he's screwed his literally, his
foot is pointing the other way, his season is over.
If anything, we just cross our fingers knock on wood
that he's completely fine next year, but you just never know.
I mean, I've seen what Fred Warner, you see with Scattaboy.
I hope. I love those two guys, But like, I
(28:50):
don't care how much progress we've made in modern medicine,
there are still just human ligament like elements to people's
bodies that some things aren't as fixable as others, and
it just really really sucks. And I just can't imagine,
Like I don't know how if you're Joe Shane or
Brian Dabole you even sleep at night tonight. And I
(29:13):
would imagine they don't really because they realize, like they
probably were feeling pretty good, like, hey, we've got some momentum.
Probably even if we just get like a fake extension,
we'll get another year. I think that dramatically changes it
because I think it'll just feel so much uglier. And
you know Bill Poleon's famous line of like you listen
(29:34):
to the to the fans, you'll be sitting with them.
The reality is the fans now have more juice than
they've ever had because it's the noise is so loud,
it's impossible to not hear it, even justin fields who listen.
He's not a good player. But I've said this since
watching him in Chicago, the way Poles handle that situation
(29:56):
last year getting bench for Russell Wilson, who just stinks.
I'd rather have some fields running around than watch Russell
Wilson play. But even he said he found himself this
week in a closet crying, and he wasn't trying to
throw a pity party. If you go watch his press conference,
it was actually pretty moving. And I just think as
(30:17):
being a human being, like you see the owner say
that about you, even if you're speaking some truth, but
it just feels like your whole professional career, your whole
credibility as an athlete, is just crumbling. And this is
what I give these guys a lot of credit for.
You just got to keep your head up and you
just got to keep pounding, which is easy to say,
(30:39):
but it's much harder to execute in real life. Like, yeah,
just keep just keep swinging. And I'm a big believer
in that. Just keep swinging. Sometimes it's easier than others,
but you gotta like put another foot forward and just
keep moving forward. And I'll give him credit, like he's
he's pretty mentally tough. Now, obviously the Bengals who were
just troushing on defense, honestly was even paying close attention
(31:01):
to the game because I thought the Bengals were blowing
them out. It was like, the Bengals are about to
be four and four. They got a bunch of just
positive momentum going with their offense, scoring a bunch of points.
Then all of a sudden, they go for two and
they get the ball back and they score again. You're like, oh,
they're gonna lose, and they did so. Uh props to
Justin Fields for just keeping his head high. Uh what
else is going on watching the Colts and the Titans.
(31:26):
One Jonathan Taylor is having just two years ago, it
was McCaffrey. Last year, it was Saquon. This year is
Jonathan Taylor, who just looks like the best offensive player
in football, who's just an unstoppable force. Now, they did
show a highlight during the Nance Romo game and they
came back and Nance had a comment like, uh yeah,
(31:48):
pretty pathetic effort there by the defense. And you know,
Jim Nantz is not This isn't Sean McDonough. He's not
slinging a bunch of takes, Like if you watch Sean
McDonough call a game, he has a fucking take on everything, Like, hey, bro,
you're not the analyst. I don't need your take on
every situation. But I think he views himself as like
a play by play guy slash podcaster. That is not
(32:08):
Jim Nantz's thing. He'll add his opinion every once in
a while, but he's old school broadcaster. Jonathan Taylor's big
run and he came back basically saying they quit. I
don't think he's wrong. The Titans not only have quit,
they are terrible. I mean they are an atrocious football team,
which the Indianapolis Colts blew him out. I don't even
(32:29):
know what the final score is. It was a lot
too little. One thing that kind of went viral yesterday
(32:49):
was that Steve Sarkisian would not only be interested in
going to the pros, like he'd be interested in the
Titans job. And I don't know Diana seeing me that well,
we've DMed a couple of times, asked her to come
on the show, probably like six months ago. I like her.
I know people that know her that like her. I
don't think look, she gets real information. But I also thought,
(33:11):
like middle end of October, he still got SIXCEP, you know,
five games left because he hadn't played. The miss stated,
I don't know if he'd put this out there yet,
so I was like, I think the timing was a
little off. He came out after they pulled out a
game out of you know what I mean. They had
no business. They were down seventeen points to the fourth quarter,
(33:32):
end up winning in overtime. Arch statistically played his best
game of the season. He got a concussion. Sark was pissed,
and Jimmy Sex didn't and Ed Manowitz, who I used
to work with in Philly, was now Jimmy Sex's right
hand man and represents Sark and Lane and Billy Napier
and all these guys. They put out a statement yesterday
(33:54):
basically saying like this is bullshit, which Sarkat said is unprecedented.
Jimmy Sex, that Sexton is rumor king. He wants the
rumors out there. But clearly they didn't put this one
out because he never would have posted that. But Steve
Sarkisian is not leaving Texas where he makes like eleven
million dollars and as a coaching staff, especially teams coach
(34:16):
is making a million, his coordinators are making two or three,
probably beside Ohio State, the highest paid coaching staff in America,
and from a roster standpoint, probably one of the highest
paid rosters. The University of Texas in twenty twenty five
is a much better job than the Tennessee Titans, not
even close. Tennessee doesn't have that much talent. I like
(34:40):
cam Ward of Miami, but it's hard to totally judge
him in this situation. You couldn't feel confident taking that job.
Like cam Ward's a player. You also know when you
work in a school, the ad the presidents of Boosters, like,
obviously you're dealing with a lot of different people, But
how's that in different than the Titans. They have a
(35:00):
football guy from Packers, Chad Brinker, who's now the president.
They have a GM from the Chiefs who's now the GM.
And they got an owner who doesn't even live in
Tennessee who is very active and very emotional and always
telling you to fire people. It is a pretty jumbled up,
fucked up situation. So I'm not trying to dispute that
(35:23):
Sark has no interest ever in moving to the NFL
even after this season, because there is a chance. It
also crossed my mind that if you're sark, you're like,
I don't want to be the guy to have to
tell the Manning family their nephew, their son is not
welcome back at the program. He's not gonna get started anymore.
That would be a tough situation. I don't want to
(35:44):
be that guy, so instead I'll just jump ship, which
is what crossed my mind. But then when he refuted
it like that, I thought he's been in the final
four of the last two years. Program is having a
quote unquote down year. There's probably still gonna win nine games.
They'll be fine, big pick. Sure he's gonna go to
the Titans. I love Nashville, got married there. I love
that city. The NFL team right now is a choke.
(36:08):
I think Eddie George, I don't even know where he's coaching,
put out a statement or someone ask him. In an interview,
he said, the last couple of years of firing all
these people have set back the organization a decade. Like
we make fun of a lot of different places, Miami included.
Titans are bad man, and they got a lot going on.
So he's coaching at Bowling Green. I just think I
(36:33):
can't imagine there'd be a lot of people. Brian Callahan
was making three million dollars a year three. That's like
what Sark's offensive coordinator makes. Sark calls the place too,
but he like, what are we talking about? This is
the Titans? Are they pay nothing? Ask Mike Vrabel if
he's happy that he's gone. So that part of that
(36:54):
report was like, Sark is not taking the Titans job.
Sark might be interested in, like the Eagles job. Start
could be interested in, like the Packers job. He's not
leaving Texas for the Tennessee Titans. Pats and Bills. I
think we got a pretty interesting little like I would
have felt pretty confident started the season that Bills were
(37:15):
the biggest lock in America to win that division. I
don't know. Pat's schedule sucks. The Bills still got to
play the Chiefs this upcoming a week. This is why
you pay a lot for a head coach. I said
this forever with the Chargers, I'm like, just pay for
a real guy. Open up your checkbook. Now. That's the
(37:36):
thing with this offseason, It's like, who are those guys
like it doesn't really feel like there's a Vrabel, But
when you have the opportunity and you have a bad coach,
go get that guy because it immediately changes his franchise.
The Pats were one of the worst teams we've ever
seen last year. They were atrocious, and now they're just
(37:58):
gonna win thirteen games. They went from that bad to
like twelve or thirteen wins. And listen, their schedule is
conducive to some extra wins. Even if they were playing
a hard schedule, they probably win ten all because they
have a legit vision and a CEO head coach that
knows what he's doing. Tilet's diving in the Brian Kelly situation.
(38:21):
I watched that game last night and I put this
out on the Everything app as a you know, twenty
milligram gummy Deep just slamming my Stanley in some popcorn
when LSU when they came out in the second half,
and A and M just bludgeon them and went from
down a couple points to up double digits within twenty
(38:45):
minutes of real time. He went, this is over, Like
there are things anyone who's listening to this that's had
a bad breakup that's been divorced. There are things that
get said in a personal relationship, especially with a significant
we're human beings, we argue, but there are lines that
if they're crossed, there's no coming back from. And anyone
(39:08):
that's ever been in a relationship that when something gets said, like,
there's no crossing back over those words. And I felt
like that third quarter of the Brian Kellyerra who was
like the divorce is on, Like it's just over. There's
no one in the program. There's not there's no players,
(39:28):
there's no coaches on the staff, and most importantly, there's
no the booster slash the fans that can ever look
at this man and take him seriously. And there were
a couple videos that went viral of him screaming at
his assistant coaches. One he screamed at a special teams
coach basically for kicking it to the star punt returner
slash wide receiver for the A and M he took
(39:51):
in the house and he said if essentially like if
you do that again, you will lose your job, or
punting it to him will cause you to get fired
or something like that. That and he also screamed at
the offensive coordinator who, like I think, at the end
of the first half, through a ball in the flat
when they didn't have any timeouts, he got tackled. It's like, Brian,
you're the CEO head coach, so you're not a play caller.
(40:13):
You're the CEO. So every time something comes through the headset,
a play call on offense, you know what you can do.
I don't like that. Let's do something else that doesn't
make sense here because of this situation. Or you know,
when you're on the headset and they're about to punt
and you hear, hey, whatever the punt call is, we
cannot punt it to this guy, or I don't know,
before punt runs out there, you look at the special
(40:36):
teams coordinator and you fucking tell him kick the ball
out of bounds. You are the boss. There is no
one on that sideline above you. So what I hear, like,
you know he made some bad hires. He's the head
coach and the CEO head coaches this are screaming at
coordinators for awful play calls. Do you know what they're
(40:59):
allowed to do? Say, don't do that. I don't need
you to make the play call, but you should know
the playbook and say that doesn't make sense here, and
you could say, John, that's just micromanaging. I'm not saying
do it every single play, but in big critical situations
if you hear something, especially like punning it to a
(41:21):
explosive player, going this doesn't make sense, I don't want
us to do this, and you know what, that special
teams coach says, no problem, coach, we won't do that.
But instead he just starts screaming at people. And you
could tell last night as it was unraveling and he
was just screaming at people like he's just lost. He
doesn't know what to do. Because at the end of
(41:42):
the day, you know what, turns out he's not any
of that. He's actually not some critical schematic genius. I'm
not saying I ever thought he was, but whatever his
version is, at sixty three sixty four years old, he's
just completely the overseer. You watch highlights of Nick Saban
at practice up until he retired with the DBS, with
(42:04):
the defensive coordinators, making calls, telling assignments based on certain coverages.
That defense was Nick Sabin's baby, and offensively, when he
wanted something, he told the coordinators run the ball here.
Part of his bull ups with Lane is because he
told him to run it and laying gull passes, but
(42:26):
he didn't wait till after the play called to scream
at him. I just don't know what Brian Kelly was doing.
And I'll tell you what he was doing. He was
a guy that actually was just kind of cashing it in.
And we've all known people that have done this, people
that are over their job. And some of those people
might make twenty dollars an hour, some around America make
(42:47):
six figures. Some of them we talked about this. I
remember when I first got hired at Frozen State, one
of Pat Hill's big messages to the team was, don't
be a union worker. Don't just clock in and clock out,
because when that becomes your mentality, when you just are
at work, you're not even that in tune to it
(43:08):
in the first place. Take ownership of your role, whatever
that is. If you're a starting linebacker, if you're a
special teams guy, if you're a backup trying to become
a starter. And you watch Brian Kelly and he just
went did he just take this job because of money?
Did he truly take this job because he thought he
had to take it to win a national championship. Did
(43:28):
he take it because he was just kind of bored
of Notre Dame because his fit in the South obviously
did not work, which really really matters. And at the
end of the day, his teams were just not that good.
I mean, say what you want, his teams at Notre
Dame looked a lot better than his teams at LSU
that now he looked destined to win. I think he
(43:49):
went eight and four last year looking he was going
to go eight and four again. Even two years ago
when he had Jaden Daniels, Brian Thomas and Malik Neighbors,
he went nine to three. It didn't even feel like
he was close to the upper tier in the SEC.
But what got him fired, like what got James Franklin fired,
is when he started losing new teams. And James was
(44:10):
worse because he was losing to Northwestern in UCLA. But like,
they can't take Brian Kelly seriously when Vanderbilt, Ole, Miss
and Texts, A and M have all passed you Now,
I also think there's this element of, you know, between
Brian Kelly and James Franklin. They paid the two combined
(44:31):
over one hundred million dollars to pay them to go away.
And one time in my life when I got fired
from radio, I think I had three months left on
my contract and I don't know I made eighty grand
but whatever they had to pay me, I forget whatever
the number was, but it was I don't know, fifteen
thousand dollars, and I remember thinking, like, God, is pretty cool.
I'm just gonna get paid for three months to not
(44:52):
work and listen, I'm pretty ambitious guy. I like to work.
But I just remember that feeling of like, God, this,
I got a couple months to just figure things out,
which at that time that was a lot of money
to me. I mean, it was really impactful, you know,
I can't even fathom. And Brian Kelly's been making millions
of dollars for fifteen plus years, right since he's been
(45:17):
at Notre Dame. I've been a starting salary. If we
look back at two thousand and whatever year, that would
have been nine or ten, four or five million dollars,
and then he's been making seven, eight, ten million dollars
for the last decade, so he is filthy rich. But
he also felt like a guy who's kind of lost
his fastball, and at the end of the day, Nick
Saban retired not because he lost his fastball, but he's like,
(45:40):
I don't quite at the energy to keep changing with
this changing landscape. Never forget he was going to Totoe
with Jim Harball and an absolutely loaded Michigan team the
year he retired, probably should have won that game, took
a J. J. McCarthy's greatest drive of his career, or
Nick Saban would have been the championship game, and who knows,
maybe he still ends up retiring after that year winner
(46:00):
lose that game. But you watch Brian Kelly and it
just looked like a guy who knew he didn't fit,
who took a job that wasn't the right job for him,
and was making so much money. I mean, he signed
like an NBA contract, you just ride it out till
they fire me, And that's exactly what they did. They
(46:22):
fired him. And some of these coaches come out and
Saban did this with James Franklin. They make it like
this victim pity party, like he really got screws. Like Nick,
you would have fired every fucking person in your path
if they would have lost the games that James lost
over the years against the real opponents, you would have
(46:43):
wanted to kill people. So James didn't get fired overnight.
He got fired after a decade of losing to all
the good teams. Brian Kelly got fired because he couldn't
beat the decent teams, let alone the good ones. And
once you're an outsider, you're done. And now I think
(47:06):
the question mark is we're really gonna learn this offseason
about nil, this money job market, because historically people would
be lined up for LSU and Florida lined up in
this version of Penn State as well. But you just
saw Kurt Signetti, who my guy Tim Skipper that they
(47:29):
had them come back to Earth a little bit, beat
him like one hundred to nothing. Indiana looks fantastic. Vanderbilt
just one another. There's a decent chance of Vanderbilt beats Texas.
They're gonna be in the playoffs, oh miss, more than
like gonna be in the playoffs. Indiana gonna be in
the playoff for back to back years. So historically you
(47:54):
had to go to Florida, you had to go to
LSU to be in the playoffs. In this NIL era,
I don't know, like in the NFL. You got a
pretty good idea, like Titan's job, not a great one,
wouldn't touch it. Packer's job comes open interest. Steeler's job
comes open interest. John Schneider has an opening. Mike McDonald
(48:15):
smart move. I'd go work for him too, Lsu. Historically
an elite job is as good of a job anymore.
I don't know, is just Brian Kelly mailed it in sucks.
You know, if you're them, you go all in for
Lane Kiffin? Do you know what shows you is a
couple of years ago, these teams never would have talked
(48:37):
to Lane. I don't want to say he was toxic,
because his life was I would say on the right
path in the sense of like he had become a
head coach, he had had some success, but I think
there were still a lot of red flags around him
for the way things ended at Alabama. Some of the
stuff that people had heard was going on in Florida.
(48:58):
That feels like it's all going on now. He's cleaned
up his life. Families plays a huge role in his life.
They've all moved back out obviously physically, Like it's one
thing to say you quit drinking. Just look at him
he looks like a guy that quit drinking. You can
see it in his face and just the way he
carries himself, the way he talks, like what he's doing
(49:19):
at all, Miss. I think there's gonna be a bidding
war between these two schools. Now, you could also argue
if whoever loses out, like there are other really good coaches,
but with the amount of money on the line now,
it doesn't feel like people want to take, you know, chances, right,
So it's gonna be hard for some of these lower
(49:39):
tier guys. If I was LSU Florida, I would only
hire people from the Power four. I would only hire
someone who's had like a real job. And I'm not
saying like two Lane or some of these aren't real jobs,
but they can't relate to playing in these powerful conferences
and the pressure that comes along with it at the
(50:00):
end of the day. Like, is Matt Rule a huge
upgrade over James Franklin. Probably not, But like if I
hire one of those guys, they could flame out. Like
worst case scenario, Matt Rule just gets me eight nine,
ten wins, right, So I understand the logic if that's
like your best case scenario or Matt Campbell. But you
take some of these smaller school guys, it could work.
(50:21):
It also could be a disaster because there is no
training ground for what they're dealing with and what we
deal with. And at LSU and Florida, it's basically like
taking over the Philadelphia Eagles. It's basically taking over the
Dallas Cowboys. I mean, is an intense pressure cooker with
(50:41):
the SEC Games at night are the best product football
has to offer. There is nothing better just in terms
of television product than Alabama, LSU, Georgia A, and M
these schools at night under the Auburn under Tennis. See
it is an elite viewing experience from the couch. And
(51:04):
obviously I've never been to one of these games live.
I can't even imagine what it's like live in that place.
In the first half, when there were some turnovers and
LSU looked like they had a chance, I was like, damn,
this is this is pretty sweet. What a tough place
to play. It turns out, actually it's not if you
have better players than them and their coach quits And
now that's being paid fifty million dollars to to basically
(51:27):
pack a shit and get the hell out and LSU
fans I would imagine or universally U Fork and Notre
Dame fans are probably like we told you so, have
a good night, doctor. You soon see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
The volume
The volume. What is going on everybody? John middlecop three
Now podcasts. Hopefully everyone is doing well. We got a
(00:22):
lot of football to get into because the Green Bay
Packers get their revenge on Rogers destroy the Pittsburgh Steelers
in the second half win by ten. We will dive
into that game. Jordan Love kind of look like Rogers
in his prime. Scataboo shattered his ankle. The Atlanta Falcons
organization got shattered today by the Dolphins. We got Brian
(00:42):
Kelly got fired, so we will dive into it all.
A lot going on in the football world, as I
do every Sunday. Went on with Coward earlier today, so
you can check that out as well on YouTube or
on the podcast streams. But got a good show coming
up for you, so make sure you subscribe wherever you
may listen. If you listen on Collins Feed, make sure
you subscribe to three and Out feed. We also got
(01:04):
a YouTube channel, so subscribe to that as well. Never
miss a thing. We will be live on that YouTube
channel type of my name, John Middlecoff three and Out
after the Monday night game Chiefs hosting the Commanders Little
Mariota First Mahomes. So watch our bald brother Dan Quinn
(01:25):
try to get his franchise off the map because the
commanders are kind of in shambles based on last year.
But we will be live after that, as we are
after every primetime game. But before we dive into some football,
you know, we gotta tell you about my friends, my partners.
The official ticketing app of this podcast, Game Time Best
Taken the app in America. Here's the thing. You guys,
want to go to one of these games. You want
(01:45):
to go to a football game. It does not get
any easier to use. You can just search what game
do you want to go? Do you want to go
to a Rams game? You want to go to a
Cowboys game? You want to go to an Eagles game?
You type it in, you pick the event you want
to go. Do you search by the point? Here's the thing.
When you pick your tickets, there's no hidden fees. It
tells you with the final price the moment you click
(02:08):
on the tickets. You know how many ticketing apps you
scroll too, and then all of a sudden you hit
it and then there's an added whatever, ten, fifteen, twenty percent.
You're like, what the hell? That actually wasn't the price.
It's not the way game time roles they factor it in.
You know, the price, easy to use pick any event. Obviously, football,
college or pro cannot recommend them enough. So here's the thing.
(02:29):
Take the guests work out of buying tickets with your
friends at game time. Down the game Time app. Create
an account and use code John for twenty dollars off
your first purchase terms of play Again, create an account,
redeem the code John for twenty dollars off. Swipe tap ticket,
go download the game Time app. Today the Green Bay Packers.
(02:50):
That was really impressive. That's the best half of football
and really just I would say the best game. I
know they started a little sluggish, but they're on the
road against the pack the Steelers after they had a
mini by given that they played last Thursday, like you're
at a disadvantage, that's the best performance they've had, I
don't know in thirty thirty five forty days since the
(03:13):
first couple weeks of the season. And it was all
about the quarterback in the offense. If Jordan Love is
gonna play like that, this team can win the AFC
because here or excuse me, the NFC. Right when your
offense is that dynamic, we know how good Tucker Craft is.
Romeo Dobbs is I think excellent. Jacobs is just a
(03:34):
war daddy. I go to battle with that guy any
day of the week. Twice on Sundays. Their offensive line
is good. We know how good their play caller is.
Christian Watson came back and had a big play tonight.
And we've been saying this, and a lot of you
guys have been reaching out being like, what's la Floor's deal?
Why is he so conservative with Jordan Love? And I
don't know if something clicked. Obviously, they were down at
(03:56):
halftime and they came out of the gates. They forced
to three and out and on their next three possessions
it was touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. In this ball game, it's
a wrap like the the The Steelers aren't coming back
from that. And to me, the success of this team
is gonna go as far because if they have a lead,
(04:18):
their pass rush is gonna dominate. Micah is one of
the more naturally gifted pass rushers. We've seen him like
the Internet age. You give me up ten points, second,
third and long guaranteed passing positions. He is a dominant force.
You saw Jeff Halfley tonight, moving him all over the place.
On third downs, they had him like starting at linebacker
(04:40):
and running up He's such a versatile chess piece. And
the rest of their defensive linemen, obviously with Sean Gary,
they have incredible amount of players who can create pressure,
starting with one of the best. But it's about getting
a lead, and that's how they're gonna tee off and
that's they're gonna they're gonna dominate. But to me, offense
(05:00):
like it's the best performance Jordan Love has had in
a long long time. Obviously, tied a Packer record with
Brett Fahv for twenty straight completions, and he was dealing
the ball all over the place. I mean, one thing,
in this offense, you're gonna get some pretty basic quick
reads ball out of your hand, and if you're accurate,
(05:21):
there's gonna be a lot of easy completions. But tonight
there were two plays. The one where he stands in there,
I guess he doesn't quite stand in there, but he's
kind of backpedaling as there are multiple defenders bearing down
on him, and he throws a fifty to fifty ball
up to Tucker Craft, who, let's face it, probably not
a fifty to fifty ball, it's probably more eighty twenty
(05:41):
for him. He makes the play and he takes it
for like sixty or seventy yards the play where Elliott's
leg got snapped, and then there was another play where
he scrambled to his right, threw across his body down
the field, overthrew a leaping defender, and hit Christia Watson
for a huge explosive play. If he's going to bring
that to the table, like this is a Super Bowl contender,
(06:04):
And that was the first time I would imagine a
lot of Packer fans agree like him and Lafleur were
just perfectly in sync. And let's face it, the irony
of the night is that's how Rogers looks just dominated.
His final numbers tonight were twenty nine of thirty seven
for three hundred and sixty yards, three touchdowns and no interceptions.
(06:26):
That wasn't Aaron Rodgers like performance. And I give Aaron
some credit because he even talked about it. When they
drafted Jordan Love, he did not want to treat him
like he was treated and by all accounts their relationship
is really good, and Jordan Love gives him a lot
of credit for including him and forcing him to be
part of it. And I think Jordan loves driven Packer
(06:50):
fans somewhat mad because they have seen in that first year,
by the end of the season him look like Aaron Rodgers,
and then last year was all over the map. And
I think a lot of that has to do with
him getting injured early in the season, and then this year,
let's face it's been clunky. It's just been bizarre. Like
people keep asking me, what do you think. I'm like,
I don't know. You just watch them and something's off,
(07:12):
and then you see tonight and let's face it, part
of it is the Steelers defense is not good. But
when you play a defense that isn't good, if you
are good, you eviscerate them, You annihilate them. And I
can imagine that's what they're saying at halftime, like these
guys can't cover us, what are we doing? And they
flipped a switch and they came out. And I do
(07:34):
think that's the type performance that can kind of ignite
a season, because the other thing, if you're the Packers
right now, you go, that's our ceiling. We know our
past rush is ceiling because we've seen it throughout this season.
We have seen Mike a dominate. We have seen Rashaan
Gary play at an elite level. We trust those guys
and Jeff Hafley and the rest of the unit, like,
(07:56):
we feel good about it, especially if we have the lead.
The question mark has been offense and the quarterback, Like,
what's going on? Well, that's the ceiling. And if that's
the ceiling, you go, why can't we compete to be
the number one seed and win this division? And then
you look at the division you go, the Bears, you're
a fraud. I mean, your quarterback's not very good. You
(08:16):
just lost a Snoop hunt Lee on the road to
a team that was one and five and had a
million injuries all season. Even the guys today that were
back had not played well early in the season. And
you kind of got worked in that game because your
quarterback was atrocious. And then Minnesota has a million injuries
and a major problem at quarterback. They literally don't have one.
(08:37):
So you go, that was a team that was in
our way, literally beating us last year. See you guys,
so it's us versus alliance. There are foe and we
beat them earlier this season. Lions clearly aren't going to
go away, but like this is two This is a
two horse race, and I think both these two teams,
(08:58):
I would imagine Lafloor, Dan Campbell, the organizations are thinking,
we win this division thirteen to fourteen wins, we have
a good shot at the number one overall seat. Obviously,
the Eagles took advantage today of the Giants, but I
still think they have some question marks against better teams.
You know, the Rams in Seattle are good, but they're
gonna beat up on each other. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers
(09:22):
are five and two and have it a very impressive season,
but they got a million injuries and they just lost
Mike Evans essentially for the season. So it is wide open.
And if you're the Green Bay Packers, you made this
massive trade to get Micah Parksons to be in this position,
and for a couple of weeks there it felt like
what is going on? They were winning some games, but
(09:42):
like that tie against the Cowboys, how did that happen?
And then you watch a game like tonight, You're like,
that shouldn't happen. We're way better than most of these teams.
Because you saw them playing Pittsburgh and Listen, I think
these last couple of weeks brings Pittsburgh. I think we
have to look at them a lit little bit through
a different lens, right, But it was like, Okay, this
(10:02):
is I would have said coming into this game, I
don't know how high Pittsburgh ceiling is, but they should
double digit win team and win the division. And then
you watch tonight you go, They're not even close to
the level of the Green Bay Packers because their offense
isn't explosive enough and their defense isn't good. And I
think that was the big thing, is like their defense
(10:24):
wasn't good Lafleur Jordan Love Pedal of the Medal, and
they just eviserated them. They can't cover anybody. You saw
it last week and then you saw it tonight. And
when your pass rush isn't just dominating, it's like, listen,
no one's acting like Durrell Reeves, Dion Sanders and uh,
I'm trying to Chris Harris Junior is their slot guy.
(10:47):
No one acts like the Packer secondary is some all
time great unit. But their pass rush, linebacker play, it's
just really good. And you're watching the Pittsburgh Steelers, You're like, hey,
what's the easiest way to make average defensive back play
look good? A pass rush? You watch the night Jordan
Love was just slinging that thing around and it's not
all just him getting rid of the ball after one step.
(11:09):
So if you can't cover people in the NFL, especially
in their conference, look who they gotta play in big
games would be Josh Allen, Patrick Mahomes, Indiana Jones, I mean,
Justin Herbert, Like, I can't take you seriously, it hasn't
even got cold yet for your quarterback who's actually played
pretty good. The problem when you watch the Pittsburgh seel
(11:30):
is like you watch the Packers, you go, they're very
well rounded, right, they got multiple wide receivers, a sweet
tight end. They always have a good offensive line. Defensively,
good defensive line, good linebackers. Their DB's plays a unit.
You watch, you go, well, you're paying DK one hundred
and fifty million dollars. Okay, I get it. He looks
like Terrell Owens. Doesn't exactly play like him. You would
(11:54):
like a little more for what you're paying, but still
freak show. Any game when he's on can take over.
So it's like, I don't I don't agree with the move.
But I understand it. You got no other wide receivers,
you got a bunch of tight ends, and you got
Jalen Warren, and they did a good job tonight like
explaining because I'm like, God, he's feel like he's running
(12:15):
a little harder, how hard he trained and in Hawaii
carrying the soccer nets. But it's like that's he would
be an unreal number two back, but they kind of
have to treat him at times like the number one back.
So your running game isn't that great. Your passing game
is limited to essentially one wide receiver. One of your
tight ends should probably be an offensive tackle, So you
(12:37):
have no explosive passing game. So the moment the Packers
flipped it and they got up, especially by more than
a touchdown, the Steelers are not built for that. They
have no shot to come back. It's whatever, sixteen to
seven for the Packers at halftime, it's like they're not
out of it. They'll be fine. If you reverse that,
Steelers would be screwed. They are not built the comeback.
(13:01):
And for a long time, and we could litigate this
some other time about Aaron Rodgers' comebacks never been his
strong point something coward is hammered for years. Derek Carr
famously actually has way more comebacks than Aaron Rodgers. I
think a lot of people would say for a lot
of his career he was not losing. Agree. I think
some people would say it's just not really stink. But
(13:22):
at forty one years old, like, I'm not putting tonight
or last week on him, but he does like at
that age you need some help. And defensively the Steelers,
like Tomlin's a defensive guy, and the defense is now
getting worse and worse of the week. It's not even
cold outside yet you can't just depend like TJ. Wat's
not Miles Garrett. He's not just gonna have four or
(13:45):
five sacks a game. And these last couple of weeks
you're like, I'd like a little more. What are the
other guys? And there's just nowhere to be found. How
many times Love wasn't sacked tonight? Think about that. Obviously
Love has some mobility, but wasn't sacked. You had ten
days off, I'll give you a little bit of pass
on the Thursday night game. Your road team a little older,
(14:07):
tough spot. Obviously, not a great loss to lose, to
Joe Flacco. But still, but then you get ten days
off at home you can't sack them one time. That's
that's pretty crazy. I mean it really is. And then
on the flip side, it was like they were just
feasting on Aaron as that game went on, they were
all over his ass and I'm watching the Steelers are going.
(14:31):
A reason that I started to believe in you a
couple weeks ago was like, well, you have the formula
of the pass rush. That just translates like that works.
You don't have to have the best marketing. If you
have great food, people gonna talk about it and people
gonna show up at your restaurant. You can have some deficiencies.
But if you've got TJ. Watt some of the other
guys all over the quarterback all the time, like, your
(14:51):
defense can be pretty good. I'm watching now it's like, yeah,
it's non existent. You're paying premiums for guys that aren't
producing premiums. And now all of a sudden, like the
Bengals gotta be kicking themselves if they don't blow a
fourteen point lead the day in the fourth quarter to
Aaron Glenn and Justin Fields. They had four wins, same
(15:12):
as the Pittsburgh Steelers. So yeah, I mean, I just
think the Steelers, man, I don't think they're a player away,
and I would imagine they'll try to do something here
at the deadline, but I don't know if that fixes much.
This is a very flawed team, and listen to the
AFC is clearly not as good as it's been the
last couple of weeks or years. But I don't see
(15:32):
this team doing much. They're just gonna flip a switch
like Jalen Ramsey, TJ. Watt, some of these guys are
just gonna become like their prime version of a couple
of years ago as it starts getting freezing cold outside now.
Based on their division, you know, when you start one
to five, you got a pretty big hole to dig
out of. But the easiest way to dig yourself out
(15:54):
of a hole is to drop the shovel. And that's
kind of what the Ravens did today. Pretty sure. They
mentioned that the Ravens get the Dolphins this Thursday. So
let's take a look at the Ravens schedule. They get
the Dolphins Thursday night, then they get the Vikings, who
do not have a quarterback. Then they get the Browns,
who also do not have a quarterback. Then they get
(16:17):
the Jets, who again needed a miracle to come back
against the Bengals. Then they get the Bengals. I thought
the Ravens were dead, but once the way it played
out today, like I don't trust the Bengals because I mean,
their defense just sucks and the Steelers just have issues.
(16:39):
So massive win by the Packers, very very impressive performance
by Jordan Love and Matt Lafleur. And listen, you go
in at halftime like players and coaches they love saying
like there's no such thing as halftime adjustments, which is
true because you're constantly adjusting every time you come to
the sideline, but there is like everyone, take a deep breath.
(17:01):
We kind of re message, we kind of get a
reorganized viewpoint of where we want to attack. And clearly,
what was ever said, what was ever tweaked coming out
of the locker room worked because that Packer team looked
like the team that most people after a couple of
weeks that could win the Super Bowl, and we hadn't
seen it for a while. And Lafleur, the coaching staff,
(17:24):
they deserve a lot of credit. And if you're Mike Tomlin.
Feels like we're spinning the wheels again, kind of starting
to feel like it's felt the last couple of years
does have the inevitable nine to ten wins, one and
done and then it's like, oh yeah, just browl it
back again. We'll just keep paying you. I mean, James
Franklin got got cammed, Brian Kelly got canned. We're seeing
(17:45):
and listen, I'm not acting like Mike Tomlin's resume isn't
better than those guys, but like, what was James Franklin's problem?
Could never beat anyone good? Now it feels like Mike Tomlin,
like if we go a decade with him never winning
a playoff game and just getting the nine wins, like
that's no longer an accomplishment anymore. It's impressive relative to
a lot of bad coaches, but it's like, what's your ceiling?
(18:08):
We know what your floors. Your floor's good, but are
we going nowhere? Because if you're just going nowhere, I
don't quite understand the point of this anymore. And it
feels like we're headed toward that moment in January again
when it's just like they lose in the first round
of the Bills or the Chiefs or the Colts by
(18:29):
like fourteen points and we just go or here again,
what are they gonna do? Today's show is brought to
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Speaking of a team that's here again, A lot of
people think I hate the Falcons. I don't know any
(20:37):
of these people like, I have nothing personally against them.
I truly don't even care. I just had to take
a couple of years ago, like I just don't see
it with this organization and their owner. I remember last
year put himself in the Hall of Fame. Was kind
of funny, but also was kind of an indictment of
like what's going on here? Like this feels a little
out of whack, you know. Then they hired Raheem Morris,
(21:00):
who immediately came in and listen, I didn't make this
story up. He did. He was asked, why do you
have so many coaches on your staff? He had twenty six,
which I'm pretty sure was a record in the NFL,
and he said, because I plan on training guys so
when we win and lose our coordinators and lose our
(21:22):
position coaches to become coordinators in other places, we have
the replacements already on staff and we don't need to
train from scratch. And he even admitted, like that's a
pretty arrogant thing to say, but I believe in what
we're doing and we're gonna win. Well, last year they
didn't win, they didn't make the playoffs. This year they're
three and four and I looked up today it was
(21:44):
the fourth quarter and they're playing the Miami Dolphins, who
is the laughingstock of the NFL. There is nobody who
is getting consistently made fun of more than Mike McDaniel
and his franchise. And he was up thirty one to three.
Nigo John. They didn't have their starting quarterback. I said,
(22:04):
I know they had their backup. Who is the highest
paid backup. I'm not talking about a starter that got
bench during the season. I'm talking about a guy going
into the season that was the number two quarterback. He's
making almost thirty million dollars and we've seen all around
the league. The forty nine ers won four games with
Mac Jones. Like, listen, I win or lose the game,
(22:28):
but you should be able to compete with the guy
that you're paying twenty seven point five million dollars. Not
only could they not compete, they got steamrolled. And it
does feel a little bit starting with Rich McKay with
the GM, with Raheem, with this whole operation, they have
just taken a bunch of money with all these coaches,
with this Kirk Cousins contract, which is gonna go down
(22:49):
as one of the worst ones of all time. I
like Michael Pennix, but there weren't many people that agreed
with them, thinking he was a top ten pick. I
was actually more inclined to agree with them, but it
clearly has not worked. Everything they have done has been
a complete disaster. I don't see it. The owner's mid eighties.
(23:11):
How everyone in their entire job and you talk about
a place that just needs to get the light, you know,
flipped and the whole place just blown up. I would
say Atlanta and everyone involved in that situation, from the
GM to the coaching staff is in major, major trouble
because lose to Kyle Shanahan Sunday Night football on the road,
(23:32):
like a lot of people have had a similar fate.
Lose a home to Tua in the Miami Dolphins with
the backup quarterback that you're paying thirty one or I
mean twenty seven point five million dollars too, was really
a sight to behold. I'm trying to look see if
I can find the box score here because I wanted
(23:57):
to see. I think I just gippeded Toua's final numbers,
which Tua tongko I Looa, who got bench last week,
who had sounded like Mike, who has been pretty optimistic,
had almost given up on with his press conference earlier
in the week, had six incompletions and four touchdowns. I
(24:23):
just I think that's the most embarrassing outcome in recent memory.
To be down thirty one to three to the Miami
Dolphins thirty one to three and have two or throw
four touchdowns on you to four different guys. That's crazy.
(24:43):
Speaking of crazy, for a split second, I looked down
and then I looked back up and I saw Jackson
Dart freaking out, and you knew it wasn't good. So
I immediately tax the group tax I'm like, who was that?
And they're like, Cam, I couldn't watch. I would imagine
it had a similar vibe to Fred Warner ankle point
(25:04):
in the wrong way. I think Skataboo's already gotten surgery tonight.
That's a devastating blow. And I've been pretty consistent. I'm like, hey,
they got a lot of positive momentum even in this game.
Skataboo scores in early touchdowns like seven to seven, then
it's fourteen to seven, but you're like, god, the I
don't know if the Giants are gonna cover or not,
but I just it just felt like they were just
kind of being frisky today and just a lot of
(25:26):
momentum even My wife calls them the frat boys. Like
the frat boys. She's like, yeah, the Scataboo in the quarterback.
They just got something cool going on. The Eagles gave Scataboo.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
The fucking Philadelphia Eagles fans seventy thousand gave him a
standing ovation when he got carted off. Cause there's not
a human alive that likes football that doesn't like watching
a running back lower his head every single time and
try to run people over.
Speaker 1 (25:52):
It's like universally respected. I've said this before. I got
asked all the time over the last eight months, had
think Campbell do in the NFL? How do you think
camp will do in the NFL? Every single person I
know around here that's a big ASU fan, number one
thing they ask, and I was kind of wrong. I'm like,
I just don't know if you can run people over
in the NFL. And not only was he running people
over in the NFL, he just looked like a good player.
(26:13):
It was like him and dark even without neighbors, like listen,
this is a this is a consumable team. And the
moment his ankle pointed the other way and he got
card off, yeah, I mean, it just felt like, listen,
it's not like they were gonna make the playoffs anyway,
or even probably win like eight games, but they were
a watchable team. They were a team that just had
something going for him. It felt like it all ended
(26:35):
and you felt as the game was going and day
Ball is losing, as you know what on the sideline,
He's no dummy. He knows it too. I've been adamant
I would just give day Ball an extra year and
just kind of let this play out with Scataboo, let
neighbors come back. The problem is this thing now that
you're losing him the momentum, it's going to get so ugly,
(26:58):
so ugly that you're just gonna look up and it's
a four or five win team and it's gonna feel
just like a disaster all season long. So I that
was a devastating blow for the job security of the
GM and the head coach. I mean it really was.
And this is I've said this forever when whenever someone
asked like do you do you miss it? Do you ever?
(27:19):
Would you ever do it again? Do you ever wish?
When I've been a podcaster now for almost a decade,
I feel very fortunate that not only I was born
to do what I'm doing right now. But the thing
that I could never get over, well, I was in it.
And the thing that still kind of gives me the
hebgb's when I think about it, was if you're working
for a team, coach, GM, front office, owner, whoever associate
(27:44):
with the team, would someone gets injured. Like in most
of our industries, obviously, there are things that are out
of our control. Right if a law has passed that
impacts our business, if someone were in business with cancels
a contract or something, I mean, listen, things, I don't
care what you do, you could have unforeseen circumstances. There
(28:04):
is nothing like in the sport of football, just knowing, yeah,
more than likely we're just gonna lose a player a game.
Go to training camp, yeah more than likely we're gonn
to lose three or four people to major injuries during practice.
And it's just part of the business. But it's something
that's still like I can't imagine being day ball Brian
Joe Shane, the ownership, the fans, that feeling of just
(28:27):
watching someone there and knowing he's screwed his literally, his
foot is pointing the other way, his season is over.
If anything, we just cross our fingers knock on wood
that he's completely fine next year, but you just never know.
I mean, I've seen what Fred Warner, you see with Scattaboy.
I hope. I love those two guys, But like, I
(28:50):
don't care how much progress we've made in modern medicine,
there are still just human ligament like elements to people's
bodies that some things aren't as fixable as others, and
it just really really sucks. And I just can't imagine,
Like I don't know how if you're Joe Shane or
Brian Dabole you even sleep at night tonight. And I
(29:13):
would imagine they don't really because they realize, like they
probably were feeling pretty good, like, hey, we've got some momentum.
Probably even if we just get like a fake extension,
we'll get another year. I think that dramatically changes it
because I think it'll just feel so much uglier. And
you know Bill Poleon's famous line of like you listen
(29:34):
to the to the fans, you'll be sitting with them.
The reality is the fans now have more juice than
they've ever had because it's the noise is so loud,
it's impossible to not hear it, even justin fields who listen.
He's not a good player. But I've said this since
watching him in Chicago, the way Poles handle that situation
(29:56):
last year getting bench for Russell Wilson, who just stinks.
I'd rather have some fields running around than watch Russell
Wilson play. But even he said he found himself this
week in a closet crying, and he wasn't trying to
throw a pity party. If you go watch his press conference,
it was actually pretty moving. And I just think as
(30:17):
being a human being, like you see the owner say
that about you, even if you're speaking some truth, but
it just feels like your whole professional career, your whole
credibility as an athlete, is just crumbling. And this is
what I give these guys a lot of credit for.
You just got to keep your head up and you
just got to keep pounding, which is easy to say,
(30:39):
but it's much harder to execute in real life. Like, yeah,
just keep just keep swinging. And I'm a big believer
in that. Just keep swinging. Sometimes it's easier than others,
but you gotta like put another foot forward and just
keep moving forward. And I'll give him credit, like he's
he's pretty mentally tough. Now, obviously the Bengals who were
just troushing on defense, honestly was even paying close attention
(31:01):
to the game because I thought the Bengals were blowing
them out. It was like, the Bengals are about to
be four and four. They got a bunch of just
positive momentum going with their offense, scoring a bunch of points.
Then all of a sudden, they go for two and
they get the ball back and they score again. You're like, oh,
they're gonna lose, and they did so. Uh props to
Justin Fields for just keeping his head high. Uh what
else is going on watching the Colts and the Titans.
(31:26):
One Jonathan Taylor is having just two years ago, it
was McCaffrey. Last year, it was Saquon. This year is
Jonathan Taylor, who just looks like the best offensive player
in football, who's just an unstoppable force. Now, they did
show a highlight during the Nance Romo game and they
came back and Nance had a comment like, uh yeah,
(31:48):
pretty pathetic effort there by the defense. And you know,
Jim Nantz is not This isn't Sean McDonough. He's not
slinging a bunch of takes, Like if you watch Sean
McDonough call a game, he has a fucking take on everything, Like, hey, bro,
you're not the analyst. I don't need your take on
every situation. But I think he views himself as like
a play by play guy slash podcaster. That is not
(32:08):
Jim Nantz's thing. He'll add his opinion every once in
a while, but he's old school broadcaster. Jonathan Taylor's big
run and he came back basically saying they quit. I
don't think he's wrong. The Titans not only have quit,
they are terrible. I mean they are an atrocious football team,
which the Indianapolis Colts blew him out. I don't even
(32:29):
know what the final score is. It was a lot
too little. One thing that kind of went viral yesterday
(32:49):
was that Steve Sarkisian would not only be interested in
going to the pros, like he'd be interested in the
Titans job. And I don't know Diana seeing me that well,
we've DMed a couple of times, asked her to come
on the show, probably like six months ago. I like her.
I know people that know her that like her. I
don't think look, she gets real information. But I also thought,
(33:11):
like middle end of October, he still got SIXCEP, you know,
five games left because he hadn't played. The miss stated,
I don't know if he'd put this out there yet,
so I was like, I think the timing was a
little off. He came out after they pulled out a
game out of you know what I mean. They had
no business. They were down seventeen points to the fourth quarter,
(33:32):
end up winning in overtime. Arch statistically played his best
game of the season. He got a concussion. Sark was pissed,
and Jimmy Sex didn't and Ed Manowitz, who I used
to work with in Philly, was now Jimmy Sex's right
hand man and represents Sark and Lane and Billy Napier
and all these guys. They put out a statement yesterday
(33:54):
basically saying like this is bullshit, which Sarkat said is unprecedented.
Jimmy Sex, that Sexton is rumor king. He wants the
rumors out there. But clearly they didn't put this one
out because he never would have posted that. But Steve
Sarkisian is not leaving Texas where he makes like eleven
million dollars and as a coaching staff, especially teams coach
(34:16):
is making a million, his coordinators are making two or three,
probably beside Ohio State, the highest paid coaching staff in America,
and from a roster standpoint, probably one of the highest
paid rosters. The University of Texas in twenty twenty five
is a much better job than the Tennessee Titans, not
even close. Tennessee doesn't have that much talent. I like
(34:40):
cam Ward of Miami, but it's hard to totally judge
him in this situation. You couldn't feel confident taking that job.
Like cam Ward's a player. You also know when you
work in a school, the ad the presidents of Boosters, like,
obviously you're dealing with a lot of different people, But
how's that in different than the Titans. They have a
(35:00):
football guy from Packers, Chad Brinker, who's now the president.
They have a GM from the Chiefs who's now the GM.
And they got an owner who doesn't even live in
Tennessee who is very active and very emotional and always
telling you to fire people. It is a pretty jumbled up,
fucked up situation. So I'm not trying to dispute that
(35:23):
Sark has no interest ever in moving to the NFL
even after this season, because there is a chance. It
also crossed my mind that if you're sark, you're like,
I don't want to be the guy to have to
tell the Manning family their nephew, their son is not
welcome back at the program. He's not gonna get started anymore.
That would be a tough situation. I don't want to
(35:44):
be that guy, so instead I'll just jump ship, which
is what crossed my mind. But then when he refuted
it like that, I thought he's been in the final
four of the last two years. Program is having a
quote unquote down year. There's probably still gonna win nine games.
They'll be fine, big pick. Sure he's gonna go to
the Titans. I love Nashville, got married there. I love
that city. The NFL team right now is a choke.
(36:08):
I think Eddie George, I don't even know where he's coaching,
put out a statement or someone ask him. In an interview,
he said, the last couple of years of firing all
these people have set back the organization a decade. Like
we make fun of a lot of different places, Miami included.
Titans are bad man, and they got a lot going on.
So he's coaching at Bowling Green. I just think I
(36:33):
can't imagine there'd be a lot of people. Brian Callahan
was making three million dollars a year three. That's like
what Sark's offensive coordinator makes. Sark calls the place too,
but he like, what are we talking about? This is
the Titans? Are they pay nothing? Ask Mike Vrabel if
he's happy that he's gone. So that part of that
(36:54):
report was like, Sark is not taking the Titans job.
Sark might be interested in, like the Eagles job. Start
could be interested in, like the Packers job. He's not
leaving Texas for the Tennessee Titans. Pats and Bills. I
think we got a pretty interesting little like I would
have felt pretty confident started the season that Bills were
(37:15):
the biggest lock in America to win that division. I
don't know. Pat's schedule sucks. The Bills still got to
play the Chiefs this upcoming a week. This is why
you pay a lot for a head coach. I said
this forever with the Chargers, I'm like, just pay for
a real guy. Open up your checkbook. Now. That's the
(37:36):
thing with this offseason, It's like, who are those guys
like it doesn't really feel like there's a Vrabel, But
when you have the opportunity and you have a bad coach,
go get that guy because it immediately changes his franchise.
The Pats were one of the worst teams we've ever
seen last year. They were atrocious, and now they're just
(37:58):
gonna win thirteen games. They went from that bad to
like twelve or thirteen wins. And listen, their schedule is
conducive to some extra wins. Even if they were playing
a hard schedule, they probably win ten all because they
have a legit vision and a CEO head coach that
knows what he's doing. Tilet's diving in the Brian Kelly situation.
(38:21):
I watched that game last night and I put this
out on the Everything app as a you know, twenty
milligram gummy Deep just slamming my Stanley in some popcorn
when LSU when they came out in the second half,
and A and M just bludgeon them and went from
down a couple points to up double digits within twenty
(38:45):
minutes of real time. He went, this is over, Like
there are things anyone who's listening to this that's had
a bad breakup that's been divorced. There are things that
get said in a personal relationship, especially with a significant
we're human beings, we argue, but there are lines that
if they're crossed, there's no coming back from. And anyone
(39:08):
that's ever been in a relationship that when something gets said, like,
there's no crossing back over those words. And I felt
like that third quarter of the Brian Kellyerra who was
like the divorce is on, Like it's just over. There's
no one in the program. There's not there's no players,
(39:28):
there's no coaches on the staff, and most importantly, there's
no the booster slash the fans that can ever look
at this man and take him seriously. And there were
a couple videos that went viral of him screaming at
his assistant coaches. One he screamed at a special teams
coach basically for kicking it to the star punt returner
slash wide receiver for the A and M he took
(39:51):
in the house and he said if essentially like if
you do that again, you will lose your job, or
punting it to him will cause you to get fired
or something like that. That and he also screamed at
the offensive coordinator who, like I think, at the end
of the first half, through a ball in the flat
when they didn't have any timeouts, he got tackled. It's like, Brian,
you're the CEO head coach, so you're not a play caller.
(40:13):
You're the CEO. So every time something comes through the headset,
a play call on offense, you know what you can do.
I don't like that. Let's do something else that doesn't
make sense here because of this situation. Or you know,
when you're on the headset and they're about to punt
and you hear, hey, whatever the punt call is, we
cannot punt it to this guy, or I don't know,
before punt runs out there, you look at the special
(40:36):
teams coordinator and you fucking tell him kick the ball
out of bounds. You are the boss. There is no
one on that sideline above you. So what I hear, like,
you know he made some bad hires. He's the head
coach and the CEO head coaches this are screaming at
coordinators for awful play calls. Do you know what they're
(40:59):
allowed to do? Say, don't do that. I don't need
you to make the play call, but you should know
the playbook and say that doesn't make sense here, and
you could say, John, that's just micromanaging. I'm not saying
do it every single play, but in big critical situations
if you hear something, especially like punning it to a
(41:21):
explosive player, going this doesn't make sense, I don't want
us to do this, and you know what, that special
teams coach says, no problem, coach, we won't do that.
But instead he just starts screaming at people. And you
could tell last night as it was unraveling and he
was just screaming at people like he's just lost. He
doesn't know what to do. Because at the end of
(41:42):
the day, you know what, turns out he's not any
of that. He's actually not some critical schematic genius. I'm
not saying I ever thought he was, but whatever his
version is, at sixty three sixty four years old, he's
just completely the overseer. You watch highlights of Nick Saban
at practice up until he retired with the DBS, with
(42:04):
the defensive coordinators, making calls, telling assignments based on certain coverages.
That defense was Nick Sabin's baby, and offensively, when he
wanted something, he told the coordinators run the ball here.
Part of his bull ups with Lane is because he
told him to run it and laying gull passes, but
(42:26):
he didn't wait till after the play called to scream
at him. I just don't know what Brian Kelly was doing.
And I'll tell you what he was doing. He was
a guy that actually was just kind of cashing it in.
And we've all known people that have done this, people
that are over their job. And some of those people
might make twenty dollars an hour, some around America make
(42:47):
six figures. Some of them we talked about this. I
remember when I first got hired at Frozen State, one
of Pat Hill's big messages to the team was, don't
be a union worker. Don't just clock in and clock out,
because when that becomes your mentality, when you just are
at work, you're not even that in tune to it
(43:08):
in the first place. Take ownership of your role, whatever
that is. If you're a starting linebacker, if you're a
special teams guy, if you're a backup trying to become
a starter. And you watch Brian Kelly and he just
went did he just take this job because of money?
Did he truly take this job because he thought he
had to take it to win a national championship. Did
(43:28):
he take it because he was just kind of bored
of Notre Dame because his fit in the South obviously
did not work, which really really matters. And at the
end of the day, his teams were just not that good.
I mean, say what you want, his teams at Notre
Dame looked a lot better than his teams at LSU
that now he looked destined to win. I think he
(43:49):
went eight and four last year looking he was going
to go eight and four again. Even two years ago
when he had Jaden Daniels, Brian Thomas and Malik Neighbors,
he went nine to three. It didn't even feel like
he was close to the upper tier in the SEC.
But what got him fired, like what got James Franklin fired,
is when he started losing new teams. And James was
(44:10):
worse because he was losing to Northwestern in UCLA. But like,
they can't take Brian Kelly seriously when Vanderbilt, Ole, Miss
and Texts, A and M have all passed you Now,
I also think there's this element of, you know, between
Brian Kelly and James Franklin. They paid the two combined
(44:31):
over one hundred million dollars to pay them to go away.
And one time in my life when I got fired
from radio, I think I had three months left on
my contract and I don't know I made eighty grand
but whatever they had to pay me, I forget whatever
the number was, but it was I don't know, fifteen
thousand dollars, and I remember thinking, like, God, is pretty cool.
I'm just gonna get paid for three months to not
(44:52):
work and listen, I'm pretty ambitious guy. I like to work.
But I just remember that feeling of like, God, this,
I got a couple months to just figure things out,
which at that time that was a lot of money
to me. I mean, it was really impactful, you know,
I can't even fathom. And Brian Kelly's been making millions
of dollars for fifteen plus years, right since he's been
(45:17):
at Notre Dame. I've been a starting salary. If we
look back at two thousand and whatever year, that would
have been nine or ten, four or five million dollars,
and then he's been making seven, eight, ten million dollars
for the last decade, so he is filthy rich. But
he also felt like a guy who's kind of lost
his fastball, and at the end of the day, Nick
Saban retired not because he lost his fastball, but he's like,
(45:40):
I don't quite at the energy to keep changing with
this changing landscape. Never forget he was going to Totoe
with Jim Harball and an absolutely loaded Michigan team the
year he retired, probably should have won that game, took
a J. J. McCarthy's greatest drive of his career, or
Nick Saban would have been the championship game, and who knows,
maybe he still ends up retiring after that year winner
(46:00):
lose that game. But you watch Brian Kelly and it
just looked like a guy who knew he didn't fit,
who took a job that wasn't the right job for him,
and was making so much money. I mean, he signed
like an NBA contract, you just ride it out till
they fire me, And that's exactly what they did. They
(46:22):
fired him. And some of these coaches come out and
Saban did this with James Franklin. They make it like
this victim pity party, like he really got screws. Like Nick,
you would have fired every fucking person in your path
if they would have lost the games that James lost
over the years against the real opponents, you would have
(46:43):
wanted to kill people. So James didn't get fired overnight.
He got fired after a decade of losing to all
the good teams. Brian Kelly got fired because he couldn't
beat the decent teams, let alone the good ones. And
once you're an outsider, you're done. And now I think
(47:06):
the question mark is we're really gonna learn this offseason
about nil, this money job market, because historically people would
be lined up for LSU and Florida lined up in
this version of Penn State as well. But you just
saw Kurt Signetti, who my guy Tim Skipper that they
(47:29):
had them come back to Earth a little bit, beat
him like one hundred to nothing. Indiana looks fantastic. Vanderbilt
just one another. There's a decent chance of Vanderbilt beats Texas.
They're gonna be in the playoffs, oh miss, more than
like gonna be in the playoffs. Indiana gonna be in
the playoff for back to back years. So historically you
(47:54):
had to go to Florida, you had to go to
LSU to be in the playoffs. In this NIL era,
I don't know, like in the NFL. You got a
pretty good idea, like Titan's job, not a great one,
wouldn't touch it. Packer's job comes open interest. Steeler's job
comes open interest. John Schneider has an opening. Mike McDonald
(48:15):
smart move. I'd go work for him too, Lsu. Historically
an elite job is as good of a job anymore.
I don't know, is just Brian Kelly mailed it in sucks.
You know, if you're them, you go all in for
Lane Kiffin? Do you know what shows you is a
couple of years ago, these teams never would have talked
(48:37):
to Lane. I don't want to say he was toxic,
because his life was I would say on the right
path in the sense of like he had become a
head coach, he had had some success, but I think
there were still a lot of red flags around him
for the way things ended at Alabama. Some of the
stuff that people had heard was going on in Florida.
(48:58):
That feels like it's all going on now. He's cleaned
up his life. Families plays a huge role in his life.
They've all moved back out obviously physically, Like it's one
thing to say you quit drinking. Just look at him
he looks like a guy that quit drinking. You can
see it in his face and just the way he
carries himself, the way he talks, like what he's doing
(49:19):
at all, Miss. I think there's gonna be a bidding
war between these two schools. Now, you could also argue
if whoever loses out, like there are other really good coaches,
but with the amount of money on the line now,
it doesn't feel like people want to take, you know, chances, right,
So it's gonna be hard for some of these lower
(49:39):
tier guys. If I was LSU Florida, I would only
hire people from the Power four. I would only hire
someone who's had like a real job. And I'm not
saying like two Lane or some of these aren't real jobs,
but they can't relate to playing in these powerful conferences
and the pressure that comes along with it at the
(50:00):
end of the day. Like, is Matt Rule a huge
upgrade over James Franklin. Probably not, But like if I
hire one of those guys, they could flame out. Like
worst case scenario, Matt Rule just gets me eight nine,
ten wins, right, So I understand the logic if that's
like your best case scenario or Matt Campbell. But you
take some of these smaller school guys, it could work.
(50:21):
It also could be a disaster because there is no
training ground for what they're dealing with and what we
deal with. And at LSU and Florida, it's basically like
taking over the Philadelphia Eagles. It's basically taking over the
Dallas Cowboys. I mean, is an intense pressure cooker with
(50:41):
the SEC Games at night are the best product football
has to offer. There is nothing better just in terms
of television product than Alabama, LSU, Georgia A, and M
these schools at night under the Auburn under Tennis. See
it is an elite viewing experience from the couch. And
(51:04):
obviously I've never been to one of these games live.
I can't even imagine what it's like live in that place.
In the first half, when there were some turnovers and
LSU looked like they had a chance, I was like, damn,
this is this is pretty sweet. What a tough place
to play. It turns out, actually it's not if you
have better players than them and their coach quits And
now that's being paid fifty million dollars to to basically
(51:27):
pack a shit and get the hell out and LSU
fans I would imagine or universally U Fork and Notre
Dame fans are probably like we told you so, have
a good night, doctor. You soon see you tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (51:45):
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