December 3, 2024 • 34 mins
Colin compares each of the quarterback performances from Bo Nix and Jameis Winston on Monday Night Football and how Nix has the demeanor to be a franchise QB while Winston is an unpredictable wild ride. He ranks the top 10 teams in the NFL after week 13. Plus, 7-time Super Bowl Champion Tom Brady joins the show to talk about the late hit on Trevor Lawrence and Michigan's upset of Ohio State
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three Eastern nine am to
noon Pacific. Find your local station for the Herd at
Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every
day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Fox Sports Radio
or FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin cowher
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
All Right, it is a Tuesday at Tom Brady in
one hour Tuesday Live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd
wherever you may be and however you may be listening.
Thanks for making us part of your day. Nick Right,
Tom Brady, Mark Sanchez, Herd Hierarchy in one hour full show,
(00:47):
jam Stack Show. So you know Jimmy Johnson Jmack was
on our show, How wat You Go? And one of
the things he said, and this is one of his montros,
is that you lose a lot more games in the
NFL than you win. And that was Jameis Winston and
(01:08):
Cleveland last night. First downs Cleveland had more passing, first
downs Cleveland. Third down efficiency Cleveland was better. Fourth down
Cleveland was better. Passing yards, Cleveland was better. Possession dominate
time of possession. Cleveland was better. Yeah, they had those
pick six things. You lose a lot more games than
(01:28):
you win. And Jameis Winston was exhibit a. Last night,
bow Knicks never took a sack. Jamis Winston took a
couple of beauties, like really badly time sacks. Bow Knicks
had two picks. One was a deflection, one was like
a change of possession downfield of punt. Jamis had two
(01:49):
or pick six is in one in the end zone.
So sometimes a quarterback needs to be boring and manage
the game. Jamis Winston is never boring. He's evil Canieval
at quarterback. He's a w fucking bachelor party. He's a
parachutist who forgets his parachute. Those skydivers don't last long.
Bo Knicks, however, as a rookie, had a sense of
(02:10):
timing when to let it loose and when not to
And last out last night was a shootout, and shootouts
happened in the NFL. And Jameis Winston, of his eighty
five snaps, you went wow with about a dozen of them,
and then you went uugh with about four to five
of them. Now bow Knicks had just sixty six snaps.
(02:34):
He had a couple of wows, but it was mostly
there we go at a quarterback. There you go, slide,
get down, get the first down again. Very few wows,
but bo Nicks didn't really have a Oh no, and
that's Jamis's career. I'd argue, Jamis Winston is arguably the
(02:56):
most talented quarterback in this league. I would never build
around no, thank you. He would drive you nuts also,
And I thought this was really telling. And I've said
this before. A coaching staff will tell you what they
think of your young quarterback by what they allow him
to do. It's almost like with your kids. You will
(03:19):
tell me how much you trust your kids by what
you allow them to do. Sean Payton multiple times with
a lead against Miles Garrett and the Cleveland pass rush,
Sean Payton allowed bow Nicks multiple times to drop back
deep in his end zone. He trust the kid. That
to me was telling Jamis Winston's a quarterback with a
(03:42):
ton of talent, size arm, nobody trusts him. Sean Payton's
like kid, let her rip go down the field, roll
out and Cleveland with a lead. He's a rookie. Yeah
it's okay, And to me, that was telling. And everybody
keeps asking, well is Denver for folks? Look at the
boxes that playoff teams that win games. Check head coach
(04:06):
Denver a plus quarterback, capable pass rusher, Nick Benito, elite
offensive line, PFF ranks Denver number two weapon, I love
Courtland Sutton cornerback best in the league. Every playoff box
they check coach, quarterback, pass rusher, weapon, o line, elite
(04:28):
corner check, tech check check. I could argue Kansas City
didn't have all those boxes checked. Now they've got Mahomes
and it's only bow Knicks. But this was a classic example.
This game didn't look anything like Denver thought it was
gonna look like. And bow Knicks didn't have a lot
of wow. But he didn't have six Eh, what was that?
(04:50):
Here's Sean Payton.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
After some games go maybe in a direction you think
they're gonna go. Obviously that one went in a much
different direction. It was good to get the win. That's
important because we're in this you know, we're at that
time of the season into December here where all these
things matter, and you know we were able.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Okay, So if you look at the playoff picture, the
Broncos get a bye, and then they get a host Indianapolis,
the closest AFC team to them in the playoff hunt.
They'll be favored in that game and should be Denver
at eight and five week off, perfect timing off a win,
(05:32):
feeling good, hosting an offense that can't throw the ball
with any consistency Indianapolis. I think Denver wins goes nine
to five. And again, if you ask yourself, are they
for real? Do they check the six boxes? They check
all of them. Little young at quarterback, but sixty one
(05:53):
college starts makes you feel pretty good about that. In
the way Peyton Letts bow Nicks run around in the
end zone tells me all I need to know. He
trusts him in big spots. Okay, so I said this yesterday.
I think j Mack brought this up. We were talking
about is the Bears a good job? Well, so Kevin
(06:15):
Warren the president. They could have hired Jim Harball last year,
but Jim Harbor didn't like Kevin Warren. Kevin Warren used
to run the Big Ten. They don't like each other,
and so that's not gonna happen. And you, you know,
so you just kind of retain Matt Eberflus, who you know,
came into the season on the hot seat, so hot
he's gone. But yesterday Kevin Warren made a pitch that
(06:38):
this is a really good job, and he may be right.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
We're going to have plenty of salary cap space, we
have a young, talented roster, we have strong draft capital
in the upcoming draft, and we have a quarterback in
Caleb Williams who's shown he is very special and in
the right environment, he can become even more special than
he already has shown. You look up all of these elements.
(07:07):
As we sit here today, we are in a unique situation.
This will be the most coveted job in the National
Football League this year.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Now, at first I thought, give me a break, mccaskey's
never had a four thousand yard quarterback. And then I
started thinking, well, there were questions about the Chargers, but
they had the quarterback right. There were questions for years
and years the Spanos family, Uh, they're cheap chargering. I mean,
there was a lot of stuff about the Chargers. They
(07:39):
moved to La played in a small stadium, Is it right?
And all of a sudden You're like, yeah, they got
the coaching staff right if they had the quarterback. So
I thought about the job opening Chicago, the Jets, the Saints,
probably the Jaguars, the Cowboys. I tend to think the
Giants in Cincinnati should retain their coaches. Not sure if
they will, but I would so. If you're talking about
(08:01):
what did Jim Harball what was he attracted to? It's quarterback.
And the two best would be Chicago and Jacksonville. Now
the Jaguars have the younger, richer ownership. That is something.
And also the Jaguars plan a much easier division. Whoever
gets that bears job. Good luck against Green Bay and
Detroit that have stacked young, ascending rosters, and good luck
(08:24):
with Minnesota, who they may have the best coach in
the division. But I was thinking about these two jobs
in Chicago, if you win, and I think coaches have
to have healthy egos. The great ones do the Sean Payton,
the Belichicks, the Vraybuls, Andy Reid. You know, I mean
the best coach is McVeigh Shanahan. There's a confidence. You know,
(08:45):
some will say arrogance, but I think it's a confidence.
And here's the thing about Chicago. If you win in Chicago,
You're a rock star. Chicago had Oprah and Michael Jordan
and Ditka and Mayor Daily and Wrigley Field and Belushi
and Farley. Jacksonville, Hey, they're opening a Chipotle next Wednesday.
(09:06):
I mean even if you win there, I mean, Jacksonville's
where mobsters go to hide. Chicago was the mob like
it matters more. Chicago historically, architecturally, politically, it's big. Chicago
is big. Yeah, the division is going to be really tough,
(09:30):
but I mean Trevor Lawrence or Caleb Williams, Trevor Lawrence
is on what his fourth injury. Even when Jacksonville's been good,
the whole country's like, can we get back to the
Steelers and Patriots and Manning and Brady and winning games?
Like Chicago matters. It's dysfunctional. Their politics and their sports
are dysfunctional. Their history's fascinating. I just think there's a
(09:56):
rock star quality to it. And if you look at
what the best coaches generally look at, and this is
why the Jets job is dicey. Not only do you
not have a young, ascending quarterback, you've got an old,
prickly one and Aaron Rodgers who's increasingly expensive in Dallas.
I like Dak. Everybody likes Dak, but as the highest
paid player, he's at BB plus quarterback coming off another injury.
(10:21):
I think Chicago's the best job for a lot of reasons,
and one of it coaches have egos, and if you
hit it in Chicago, you're big, and that matters. There
are certain franchises the late John Madden used to tell
our management all the time, certain games sound big. Green
Bay against the Niners. Who knows whose quarterback it sounds big,
(10:48):
Ravens Steelers, even when Kenny Pickett played, it sounds big.
The Bears can't get quarterback right. If the Bears are
playing Green Bay tomorrow, they could be oh, you'd be like, oh,
it's a Packers and the Bears playing. And I think
that stuff matters. And for that I do think. And
Caleb Williams and Montez sweat Jalen Johnson, Keenan Allen col
(11:12):
come at DJ Moore, I think it is the best
job I've reconsidered. I mean, also, I get Caleb for
three more years minimum on a rookie contract. That matters too.
I've already paid Trevor Lawrence and he's expensive. And has
it lived up to a contract. So I think the
Bears is the best job. J Mac.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Love when you have a good Reconsider why I slept
on it, especially after I present the fact you did,
and I was a little dire, and I, you know,
it's just been such a mess there.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And then I went home and I thought about it,
and I thought, boom, check check check check. I like
their players, we both like their talent. We both like
their tight end receivers. We thought a year ago they
thought their tackles were good enough. Now they regress badly
under a defensive coach. My guest says, if you get
the right coach, it's like Denver by the Way two
(12:07):
years ago, before Sean Payton got there, we thought the
broncos O line was a good left tackle and nonsense,
pff has it number two? Well that's Sean Payton. He
got at the top ten last year. Now he's got
at the top too. Andy Reid, by the way, is
constantly rebuilding the online in Kansas City. They always find
a solution by the trading deadline or November. So I
kind of think it's the best gig.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
So the New Orleans Saints job is open. You know
that division is going to be winnable every year because
nobody's good. But is there any talent on the Saints
compared to the Bears. It's night and day.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It's not even close. I think the You know, I
would rather have a different ownership group in Chicago, but
I don't know. I mean, And also, the Bears have
again they've got the eleventh pick, and if you look
at their schedule, they'll probably end up with the eighth
or ninth pick. And this draft is considered very top heavy,
so that many people are saying there's only about ten
(12:59):
to twelve for first round players this year. The Bears
will get another one.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
I mean again, Raiders job could be open. I mean,
Pierce has got him, he's fighting, they're fighting hard. He
seems clueless. Is that a good job compared to the Bears.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Well, I get I will the Raiders is interesting. I
get Brock Bowers, who is the best young tight end
I've ever seen. He's a tight end. I get Max Crosby,
an elite pass rusher, and I get Colton Miller left tackles.
So there are three boxes. Star weapon, left tackle, pass rusher. Okay,
so I have a new GM who has a history
oft drafting pretty well. I mean, Harball took over the Chargers.
(13:33):
They got some good players, so there's some boxes there.
I like. But if you don't have a quarterback. Now,
the hit rate for quarterbacks is going up over the
last six to seven years. More than more of these
guys are not only hitting, but the guys that failed
Gino Darnold Baker, they're being reborn with better offensive coaching
than ten years ago. So I just think if I
(13:55):
have Caleb for four years, I don't have to pay
him in this roster. I'm gonna deal with Lions and
the Packers excellence. That's a better job.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and neon eastern nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
FS one and the iHeartRadio app heard Hierarchy Now go
the top ten NFL teams according to College Number ten.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, Seattle's not gonna win shootouts. They're zero to five
if they're asked to score, if they give up more
than twenty five points, and Gino Smith has been sacked
nineteen times in the last four games. He throws too
many picks. But I like the coaching staff. I like
their perimeter, talent at wide receiver and corner. Their pass
rush better than it was in previous years. They're a
(14:44):
top ten team. I don't know if they can win
a playoff game maybe, but I'll put Seattle at ten,
number nine. I like Denver. I think they have one
of the best coaches, maybe the best coach after Andy
Reid in the NFL. They've won five of seven games.
Their only losses the ball Timore in Kansas City bo
Nicks eight and three over his last eleven games, does
(15:05):
not make a lot of mistakes. Their offensive line quietly
Sean Payton an offensive coaches rebuild it in two years.
PFF has it at number two, Denver at nine, number eight, Baltimore. Listen,
they're only team in the league averaging four hundred yards.
Mark andrews Lamar Jackson's a Flowers, Dereck Henry. There's a
(15:26):
lot to like. Special teams. Bit of a liability now,
justin Tucker. It's called age mid thirties. In the back
end of the defense outside of Kyle Hamilton, worries me.
I'm gonna put them there. They're scoring defense is bottom
quarter of the league, so that worries me. It's like
having a bad bullpen. You can outplay people and lose games.
I have Baltimore at eight, number seven, Sammy Darnold. Eventually
(15:50):
I was right. He's a baller. Leads the NFL with
forty six completions of twenty plus yards. This is not
a dink and dunk offense. They will throw the ball
down the field. Weavan O'Connell is really a spectacular coach.
They are seven and one in one score games. That's
not just Darnold, that is coaching. Vikings at seven, number
(16:11):
six Pittsburgh Steelers. I think they're ceilings a little bit low,
but they're five and oh against teams that are five
hundred or better. It's a classic Mike Tomlin recipe. His
teams have always played well as underdogs or backed into
a corner. Russell Wilson say what you want passer rating
in the fourth quarter of one hundred and twenty. He's
(16:33):
good when it matters, And to me, that's a team
that can win a playoff game. Or two. Number five
Green Bay, they're still a tad young. Are they a
super Bowl team? Poy does Jordan Love have a whipman.
He's got some talent. They become a power run team now.
They play at Detroit Thursday. I actually kind of like
him in that spot. They're top five and total offense
and rushing offense. They become more of a power running
(16:54):
team now with Josh Jacobs, and I'm here for it.
I do feel there's still a year off Green Bay
at five.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Number four.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Okay, my final four teams are the teams I think
can win a Super Bowl. Kansas City Listen, he's been
sacked Patrick Mahomes has five times in back to back games.
I don't like the protection right now at offensive tackle.
They're getting Isaiah Pacheco back that helps play action. They
eleven and one in one score games. Their point differential
is the lowest ever for an eleven to one team.
(17:24):
I don't love that, but I trust Andy Reid, Mahomes, Kelsey,
Chris Jones and Spags. I have him at four, number three.
Detroit's getting banged up on the defensive end. That worries me.
Third toughest schedule remaining. Will they get knocked out of
the perch and will Philadelphia to be a number one seat.
They've led by ten plus points in ten of eleven games,
so they usually play with a lead probably won't be
(17:45):
like that in the playoffs. I think Thursday is fascinating.
I have Detroit at three, number two Philadelphia. They figured
out Jalen Hurts. Jalen Hurts twenty touchdowns one pick in
his eight game winning streak. I don't want him throwing
thirty times. I don't want Brady's and Mannings throwing forty times.
They've figured it out. By the way, this team's nine
to zero when aj Brown plays. I've never seen a
(18:06):
great team led by a receiver, but they don't lose
when he plays. I have Philadelphia at two, number one Buffalo.
I think it's the best version of Buffalo. I like
that they have James Cook Dalton Kincaid. They've missed multiple
good players during this stretch. I love Josh Allen, and
he's matured. He's not as reckless as he once was.
(18:26):
I think they have their best offensive line, their best
running game. When Josh first got there, all their best
players felt like defensive guys. Now I think many of
their best players are offensive guys, and they're getting healthier
on the defensive side. Let's put Buffalo at number one again.
I generally, in my herd hierarchy think about three to
four teams can hoist a trophy. I don't think Green
(18:48):
Bay can or Pittsburgh they're darn close at five and six, respectively.
And with that, Tom Brady twenty three years, seven rings,
most Super Bowl wins, passing yards, touchdowns, you know what. Okay,
so you know I'm I'll get to Michigan Ohio State
because I won't be able to wipe the smile off you.
(19:09):
That was nuts. I want to start with this, the
late hit on Trevor Lawrence. So I got mixed emotions.
I want my quarterback to have some mobility, but I
also think you leave the pocket, Tom, and you're a
running back. Where are you on this hit?
Speaker 4 (19:28):
That's a great question.
Speaker 8 (19:29):
I've watched obviously been a part of the NFL for
a long time, and I remember there was an instance
there's I'll start by saying there's mixed emotions that I
have about it as well. I remember in two thousand
and one, I think we played at Buffalo and I
slid late and Nate Clements was the corner for the Bills,
and he came up out of the secondary and absolutely
(19:51):
crushed me. My helmet went flying off and I got
back and I ran to the huddle, and I had
a lot of teammates that came up to me the
next day and said, Dude, these.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Guys are coming.
Speaker 8 (20:00):
You got to get rid of that football, and if
you're going to slide, you better get down. These guys
are coming to get you. And it was a great
kind of learning experience for me because I realized that
when I'm out of that pocket, things were moving a
lot faster for me. And the defense is trying to
be very aggressive, and over time, the NFL has obviously
done a lot of things to protect players and player
(20:22):
health and safety. It's been on and on and on,
and the only aspect that I think is very challenging,
and certainly for Trevor Lawrence, nobody wants to see anybody
get hurt, but it is also the reality of a
very physical sport.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
That we play.
Speaker 8 (20:36):
But the only way defensive players have to be aggressive.
That's their nature. I always tried to be aggressive on offense.
We tried to block aggressively, and at the same time,
the defense.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Tries to tackle aggressively.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
So I don't know, there's an aspect to me that
I think the quarterbacks and the certainly the quarterbacks need
to take better care of themselves. I've seen Josh Allen
running a lot. I see Lamar Jackson running a lot,
and it's a great skill set to have. A lot
of times I wish I had that skill set. And
at the same time, when you run, you put yourself,
oh yeah, in a lot of danger. And when you
(21:09):
do that, I don't think the onus of protecting an
offensive quarterback who's running should be on a defensive player.
I don't think that's really fair to the defense. So
if you slide and it's you know, everyone can argue
was it black and white or was it just a
gray area? Do you slide late? Or is it unnecessary
roughness or is it a late hit? You know, to me,
(21:30):
a late hit is very late. You know, there's quarterbacks
that I see running in tiptoe on the sideline and
they're not even out of bounds and they get hit
as they're starting to step out of bounds and there's
a penalty flag thrown. So the aspect again for a
play caller, there's more design runs for quarterbacks ever now
than in the history of the NFL. So are we
(21:51):
really trying to protect quarterbacks? Because if you are trying
to do it through the rules. Then why are the
offensive coordinators not protecting their quarterbacks by keeping them under
the pocket and not designing as many quarterback runs. So
I think there's just it's gone to a point where
there's really and everyone would label a certain player as
a dirty player.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
You know, I don't like that one bit.
Speaker 8 (22:14):
I you know, maybe they find or penalize a quarterback
for sliding late, you know, and say, look, if we
don't want these hits to take place, we've got to
penalize the offense and the defense rather than just penalize
the defensive player for every single play that happens when
there's a hit on a quarterback.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I said this last week. I said, you know,
I was thinking about this. Go back to Lombardi. The
dynasties in league history are Green Bay with Lombardi, Steelers,
Patriots Chiefs Ravens have always been great, and then the
Niners in Dallas and as you know, going up in
the Bay. I joke that Mark Twain used to say
(22:54):
that the coldest winner he ever spent was a summer
in the Bay, and Dallas gets ice storms. There's never
been a warm weather dynasty and I'm watching the Niners
play the Bills, and Tom, the Bills look like when
you're eight years old and it snows for the first
time and you go with your friends in the backyard.
They were having the time of their lives. And I
think it matters. I think Buffalo now with James Cook. Tom,
(23:18):
did you feel yeah, when you played Peyton scc Dome team,
did you feel it was an advantage?
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Absolutely?
Speaker 8 (23:27):
I felt like that was a great advantage that we
always had, which is why those regular season games were.
If they were in Foxborough, they were obviously advantage for us.
But if it was early in the season, the weather
wasn't that critical. I think you used the weather to
your advantage. And I even when I went to Tampa,
I would say there was an advantage being a warm
weather team playing against a team that was coming from
the north of the Northeast. So you use what you
(23:49):
have to an advantage, and that's you because your body
acclimates to it. I saw in that Niner Bill game
there were a lot of forty nine er players that
were slipping on the turf, yeah, and not a lot
of Bills players that were slipping on the turf. And
the point is is when you're in those environments, you
know exactly what shoes to wear, You know how many
layers that you have to put on in order to
get the job done. So when you have those climates,
(24:13):
that's what you try to play too. I knew for me,
I knew how many hand warmers I needed in my
quarterback pouch per ten degrees. For every ten degrees that
the weather dropped below seventy, I'd put one heat pack.
So if it was you know, forty degrees, it would
be sixty to fifty forty degrees. I'd put three heat
packs just to keep a consistent temperature for my hands.
(24:35):
So those are all the things you learn over time,
through a lot of trial and there through a lot
of days in practice. And that's where you get a
home field. So if you're Buffalo or the Chiefs and
you play in this cold weather year round, you better
believe you have an advantage playoff time when a team
that comes from a warmer climate comes and plays you
at your home stadium.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So I'm watching bow Nicks last night. Now he had
sixty one college start. That helps a lot. You did
not have this as an advantage. You had a defensive
coach a defensive culture, do your job. There was some
rigidity to the culture. You were in offensively until Moss
arrived and you broke every record. But I watched bo
(25:15):
Nicks and you know what I took from it? Tom
last night, my one takeaway Sean Payton with a lead
against Miles Garrett, had this kid thrown from the end
zone and I'm like, wow, that that there's no babysitting there.
That's what you could do. You don't let rookie quarterback.
That was my takeaway was Okay, Sean, totally trust this kid.
(25:37):
What was your takeaway watching them?
Speaker 8 (25:40):
That's a great point. And it's the trust that a
coach has in a player. You can it manifests itself
all the time. I can always tell when I watch
a play caller try to manage a game from the
sideline and he's trying to manage the risk. And when
you have a quarterback where you feel like, you know what,
I know he's going to make the decisions, well, then
you can actually go out there and you don't have
to manage. It's hard to manage a quarterback because you're
(26:01):
in the eye of the storm. On every play you
touched the ball seventy snaps. So when you have a
quarterback that you're trusting is making good decisions, well, then
you want to give them more opportunities. So and I
see that with a lot of play callers as well,
when they do trust them. Let's spread, let's be an empty,
let me give you five different options, let me get it,
get you out there on the perimeter to make good throws.
(26:22):
I'm going to have you manage end of game situations.
That takes a great developmental coach, and I would say
Sean Payton certainly is that. He's a phenomenal coach and
a quarterback that wants to embrace that opportunity to learn
a skill set of how to manage a game. Not
just hey, coach, what's to play? Tell me what to do? Coach,
(26:43):
tell me the play? But why are we calling that play?
Why are we in this situation? Why don't we understand
the why behind what we're doing? How do we beat
man coverage, how do we beat zone coverage? Why are
we calling this play in this situation? And then okay,
I understand why you're doing that. So if we don't
get the look we want, I can manage the play
as a quarterback and get to the next down while
(27:05):
still making a positive play.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So Michigan has beaten Ohio State four straight times, and
I do believe one time last year Michigan just had
far better players. They were stacked. But generally I think
Ohio State has an edge in personnel. It can be slight,
but I do feel they feel more sec than Big
ten the way they recruit, But the difference is definitely
(27:28):
Michigan's had an identity with Harbaugh early, middle, and late,
and he just handed that identity to his new coach.
Ohio State's talented, but I don't know what they are.
And I think to myself, you've told me this, and
so was Edelman that every Patriot team had a different identity.
I feel like I've been watching Ohio State for five years.
(27:50):
I'm like, yeah, they're talented, what are they? How do you?
How did Belichick create it? How do you create Because
there's a lot of coaches recruit in college, the great
ones urb you know, the Urbans and the Knicks create
the identity and recruit. How do you do it?
Speaker 8 (28:08):
I think a lot of is you define the type
of player that you want, and you define the type
of team you want to build, and then you find
players that have those skill sets physically and those values
kind of mentally, emotionally. Michigan is a very tough, hard
nosed team. They run the ball very well. You know,
they haven't been great throwing the ball. But if I
looked at Ohio State strengths and we says they have
(28:30):
a great seven on sevent team, they got guys that
can throw the ball to in the second half, they
don't even target their best players. So to me, it's like,
I may as well be out there playing receiver for
Ohouse State. I can't run, I couldn't catch, but it
doesn't matter if you don't throw me the ball, just
like they didn't throw a lot of their best players
to the ball in the second half of that game. So
whenever we got to big games, let's say the Super Bowl, ye,
(28:52):
you'd say there's seventy plays left in the game. In
our season, the entire six months of work, seven months
of work is going to come down to seventy plays.
What do we want those seventy plays to look like?
And then you reverse engineer it and you say, okay,
we're going to want forty passes and thirty runs well,
what forty passes do we want? We could design one
hundred and fifty of them if you want. Now, there's
(29:14):
one hundred and ten of those that won't get called.
So why don't we just dial it down and dial
it back to the only the specific ones where best
players are going to touch the ball doing the best
things that they do. And we're going to go out
like that. If we lose, we lose. If we win,
you great, But we're not going to lose doing things
that we don't do well. And I think the coaches,
(29:36):
Coach Belichick would always say coaches lose games and players
win games. And he didn't mean to say that coaches
are not valuable. Coaches need to put their players in
a position to win. They do instruct you, they give
you this is the plan. It's up to the coach
to clearly identify a plan every week about how you're going.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
To win the game.
Speaker 8 (29:55):
We would come in on a Wednesday morning. I thought
the best thing that Coach Belichick did a lot of
them was he would clearly define for offense, defense, and
special teams, this is how we're going to win the
game this week. Don't worry about last week, don't worry
about next week this unique challenge. Yet we have today
or excuse me, on a Sunday. We're gonna deal with
(30:17):
that based on these three or four areas on each
side of the ball and in the kicking game, and
if we execute in these areas, we're going to give
ourselves a great chance to win. It doesn't mean we're
guaranteed to win, and there's times where we can misevaluate
what those things are. I'll never forget we played the
Chiefs once and we doubled. I think Travis Kelcey a
bunch and not Tyreek Hill. Maybe the one of the
(30:39):
early times we played Tyreek Hill and he went for
like one eighty or two hundred something crazy. He came
in the next day and he says, the guys, we're
never doing that again.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
We screwed that up.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
If we play these guys again, we know who we're
gonna double, and it's going to be Tyreek Hill. So
it's just you gotta have some formula for what you're
trying to accomplish. What's the bulls eye that we need
to hit and we need to get, you know, the
coaches to deliver that to the players in all three
phases of the game for them to go out there
so that they have something to hit. And if they
(31:10):
do that and you identify it clearly, I think you
give your team a great chance to win.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
So Nick Wright was on before me and he posed
this question. So, Kansas City's eleven and one and they're
winning by payper thin margins. So of all your teams,
the team that blew people out was the Randy Moss teams.
There's no ring. You're three to four team. You were
winning close games, and so this Chiefs team is the
(31:38):
closest to your team. I want you to take me back.
People keep saying, well, the Chiefs are lucky, and I'm like, timeout,
that block field goal, that was coaching, third down efficiency,
that is coaching. I don't want to hear luck. That's
even Rubik's cubes and roulette. There's some strategy to it. Right.
Did you feel that three to four team, did you
(31:59):
feel like, you know, what close game, we're winning it.
We're just better than everybody at it.
Speaker 8 (32:05):
Definitely I think that, Look, you're gonna have a close games,
You're gonna blowouts. To win the close games is always
the mark of a really good team to win when
you're not playing your best football is the mark of
a very good team. I just think the Chiefs are
so dangerous because if it's a one score game in
the fourth quarter and Patrick has the ball, he just
(32:26):
he's incredible. He comes, not that he comes like because
he comes to life all day long, but he's so
dangerous because then he has four downs late in the
game where you got to stop him for four downs,
not three. And that's a dangerous aspect for any defense
you have to kind of pull away from. And that
they're a hard you know, it's a hard team to
pull away from because they do such a good job defensively.
(32:46):
So I think when they transition from really this great
offensive team, and I would say when Patrick first started,
they weren't as good on defense. Now they have a
tremendous defense. They got Spags as a phenomenal coach. He's
got them playing well defensively. Patrick is going to manage
the game so well. He's going to throw to the
open guy when it's He's got Travis out there that
(33:07):
is going to make the right decisions.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
And the big moments like we've seen time and time again.
Speaker 8 (33:11):
So they have a group of players that that organization
does so many things the right way. They're going to
be tough to beat in the playoffs. I don't care
who they play, where they play, it's it's it's a
lot like the teams that I played for at the Patriots.
If you were going to beat us, man, you had
to beat us. We weren't going to beat ourselves.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Hey, was vrabel a good sport? When you texted him
after the Michigan win? Did he take it?
Speaker 7 (33:32):
Well?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Bet he didn't, did he?
Speaker 8 (33:36):
I have very little comments on that because a lot
of the times braves will somehow figure out how to
turn it on you and then you're the you know,
you're the jerk that texted him, So sometimes I lay
back on him. But he's a typical Ohio State guy.
Let me say that.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, they're all the same, Tom, believe me, I've worked
with him. The Michigan guys bring a different level of
the class. I'll just say that.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
There we go.
Speaker 8 (34:00):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, great seeing you man, hey Colin, Great
seeing you buddy, Great being on your show.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I appreciate it, all right,
Thanks for listening to the Best of the Herd podcast.
Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox
Sports Radio in noon to three Eastern nine am to
noon Pacific. Find your local station for the Herd at
Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every
day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Fox Sports Radio
or FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
This is the Best of the Herd with Colin cowher
on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (00:26):
All Right, it is a Tuesday at Tom Brady in
one hour Tuesday Live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd
wherever you may be and however you may be listening.
Thanks for making us part of your day. Nick Right,
Tom Brady, Mark Sanchez, Herd Hierarchy in one hour full show,
(00:47):
jam Stack Show. So you know Jimmy Johnson Jmack was
on our show, How wat You Go? And one of
the things he said, and this is one of his montros,
is that you lose a lot more games in the
NFL than you win. And that was Jameis Winston and
(01:08):
Cleveland last night. First downs Cleveland had more passing, first
downs Cleveland. Third down efficiency Cleveland was better. Fourth down
Cleveland was better. Passing yards, Cleveland was better. Possession dominate
time of possession. Cleveland was better. Yeah, they had those
pick six things. You lose a lot more games than
(01:28):
you win. And Jameis Winston was exhibit a. Last night,
bow Knicks never took a sack. Jamis Winston took a
couple of beauties, like really badly time sacks. Bow Knicks
had two picks. One was a deflection, one was like
a change of possession downfield of punt. Jamis had two
(01:49):
or pick six is in one in the end zone.
So sometimes a quarterback needs to be boring and manage
the game. Jamis Winston is never boring. He's evil Canieval
at quarterback. He's a w fucking bachelor party. He's a
parachutist who forgets his parachute. Those skydivers don't last long.
Bo Knicks, however, as a rookie, had a sense of
(02:10):
timing when to let it loose and when not to
And last out last night was a shootout, and shootouts
happened in the NFL. And Jameis Winston, of his eighty
five snaps, you went wow with about a dozen of them,
and then you went uugh with about four to five
of them. Now bow Knicks had just sixty six snaps.
(02:34):
He had a couple of wows, but it was mostly
there we go at a quarterback. There you go, slide,
get down, get the first down again. Very few wows,
but bo Nicks didn't really have a Oh no, and
that's Jamis's career. I'd argue, Jamis Winston is arguably the
(02:56):
most talented quarterback in this league. I would never build
around no, thank you. He would drive you nuts also,
And I thought this was really telling. And I've said
this before. A coaching staff will tell you what they
think of your young quarterback by what they allow him
to do. It's almost like with your kids. You will
(03:19):
tell me how much you trust your kids by what
you allow them to do. Sean Payton multiple times with
a lead against Miles Garrett and the Cleveland pass rush,
Sean Payton allowed bow Nicks multiple times to drop back
deep in his end zone. He trust the kid. That
to me was telling Jamis Winston's a quarterback with a
(03:42):
ton of talent, size arm, nobody trusts him. Sean Payton's
like kid, let her rip go down the field, roll
out and Cleveland with a lead. He's a rookie. Yeah
it's okay, And to me, that was telling. And everybody
keeps asking, well is Denver for folks? Look at the
boxes that playoff teams that win games. Check head coach
(04:06):
Denver a plus quarterback, capable pass rusher, Nick Benito, elite
offensive line, PFF ranks Denver number two weapon, I love
Courtland Sutton cornerback best in the league. Every playoff box
they check coach, quarterback, pass rusher, weapon, o line, elite
(04:28):
corner check, tech check check. I could argue Kansas City
didn't have all those boxes checked. Now they've got Mahomes
and it's only bow Knicks. But this was a classic example.
This game didn't look anything like Denver thought it was
gonna look like. And bow Knicks didn't have a lot
of wow. But he didn't have six Eh, what was that?
(04:50):
Here's Sean Payton.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
After some games go maybe in a direction you think
they're gonna go. Obviously that one went in a much
different direction. It was good to get the win. That's
important because we're in this you know, we're at that
time of the season into December here where all these
things matter, and you know we were able.
Speaker 4 (05:10):
To do that.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
Okay, So if you look at the playoff picture, the
Broncos get a bye, and then they get a host Indianapolis,
the closest AFC team to them in the playoff hunt.
They'll be favored in that game and should be Denver
at eight and five week off, perfect timing off a win,
(05:32):
feeling good, hosting an offense that can't throw the ball
with any consistency Indianapolis. I think Denver wins goes nine
to five. And again, if you ask yourself, are they
for real? Do they check the six boxes? They check
all of them. Little young at quarterback, but sixty one
(05:53):
college starts makes you feel pretty good about that. In
the way Peyton Letts bow Nicks run around in the
end zone tells me all I need to know. He
trusts him in big spots. Okay, so I said this yesterday.
I think j Mack brought this up. We were talking
about is the Bears a good job? Well, so Kevin
(06:15):
Warren the president. They could have hired Jim Harball last year,
but Jim Harbor didn't like Kevin Warren. Kevin Warren used
to run the Big Ten. They don't like each other,
and so that's not gonna happen. And you, you know,
so you just kind of retain Matt Eberflus, who you know,
came into the season on the hot seat, so hot
he's gone. But yesterday Kevin Warren made a pitch that
(06:38):
this is a really good job, and he may be right.
Speaker 5 (06:43):
We're going to have plenty of salary cap space, we
have a young, talented roster, we have strong draft capital
in the upcoming draft, and we have a quarterback in
Caleb Williams who's shown he is very special and in
the right environment, he can become even more special than
he already has shown. You look up all of these elements.
(07:07):
As we sit here today, we are in a unique situation.
This will be the most coveted job in the National
Football League this year.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
Now, at first I thought, give me a break, mccaskey's
never had a four thousand yard quarterback. And then I
started thinking, well, there were questions about the Chargers, but
they had the quarterback right. There were questions for years
and years the Spanos family, Uh, they're cheap chargering. I mean,
there was a lot of stuff about the Chargers. They
(07:39):
moved to La played in a small stadium, Is it right?
And all of a sudden You're like, yeah, they got
the coaching staff right if they had the quarterback. So
I thought about the job opening Chicago, the Jets, the Saints,
probably the Jaguars, the Cowboys. I tend to think the
Giants in Cincinnati should retain their coaches. Not sure if
they will, but I would so. If you're talking about
(08:01):
what did Jim Harball what was he attracted to? It's quarterback.
And the two best would be Chicago and Jacksonville. Now
the Jaguars have the younger, richer ownership. That is something.
And also the Jaguars plan a much easier division. Whoever
gets that bears job. Good luck against Green Bay and
Detroit that have stacked young, ascending rosters, and good luck
(08:24):
with Minnesota, who they may have the best coach in
the division. But I was thinking about these two jobs
in Chicago, if you win, and I think coaches have
to have healthy egos. The great ones do the Sean Payton,
the Belichicks, the Vraybuls, Andy Reid. You know, I mean
the best coach is McVeigh Shanahan. There's a confidence. You know,
(08:45):
some will say arrogance, but I think it's a confidence.
And here's the thing about Chicago. If you win in Chicago,
You're a rock star. Chicago had Oprah and Michael Jordan
and Ditka and Mayor Daily and Wrigley Field and Belushi
and Farley. Jacksonville, Hey, they're opening a Chipotle next Wednesday.
(09:06):
I mean even if you win there, I mean, Jacksonville's
where mobsters go to hide. Chicago was the mob like
it matters more. Chicago historically, architecturally, politically, it's big. Chicago
is big. Yeah, the division is going to be really tough,
(09:30):
but I mean Trevor Lawrence or Caleb Williams, Trevor Lawrence
is on what his fourth injury. Even when Jacksonville's been good,
the whole country's like, can we get back to the
Steelers and Patriots and Manning and Brady and winning games?
Like Chicago matters. It's dysfunctional. Their politics and their sports
are dysfunctional. Their history's fascinating. I just think there's a
(09:56):
rock star quality to it. And if you look at
what the best coaches generally look at, and this is
why the Jets job is dicey. Not only do you
not have a young, ascending quarterback, you've got an old,
prickly one and Aaron Rodgers who's increasingly expensive in Dallas.
I like Dak. Everybody likes Dak, but as the highest
paid player, he's at BB plus quarterback coming off another injury.
(10:21):
I think Chicago's the best job for a lot of reasons,
and one of it coaches have egos, and if you
hit it in Chicago, you're big, and that matters. There
are certain franchises the late John Madden used to tell
our management all the time, certain games sound big. Green
Bay against the Niners. Who knows whose quarterback it sounds big,
(10:48):
Ravens Steelers, even when Kenny Pickett played, it sounds big.
The Bears can't get quarterback right. If the Bears are
playing Green Bay tomorrow, they could be oh, you'd be like, oh,
it's a Packers and the Bears playing. And I think
that stuff matters. And for that I do think. And
Caleb Williams and Montez sweat Jalen Johnson, Keenan Allen col
(11:12):
come at DJ Moore, I think it is the best
job I've reconsidered. I mean, also, I get Caleb for
three more years minimum on a rookie contract. That matters too.
I've already paid Trevor Lawrence and he's expensive. And has
it lived up to a contract. So I think the
Bears is the best job. J Mac.
Speaker 4 (11:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (11:36):
Love when you have a good Reconsider why I slept
on it, especially after I present the fact you did,
and I was a little dire, and I, you know,
it's just been such a mess there.
Speaker 1 (11:47):
And then I went home and I thought about it,
and I thought, boom, check check check check. I like
their players, we both like their talent. We both like
their tight end receivers. We thought a year ago they
thought their tackles were good enough. Now they regress badly
under a defensive coach. My guest says, if you get
the right coach, it's like Denver by the Way two
(12:07):
years ago, before Sean Payton got there, we thought the
broncos O line was a good left tackle and nonsense,
pff has it number two? Well that's Sean Payton. He
got at the top ten last year. Now he's got
at the top too. Andy Reid, by the way, is
constantly rebuilding the online in Kansas City. They always find
a solution by the trading deadline or November. So I
kind of think it's the best gig.
Speaker 7 (12:28):
So the New Orleans Saints job is open. You know
that division is going to be winnable every year because
nobody's good. But is there any talent on the Saints
compared to the Bears. It's night and day.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
It's not even close. I think the You know, I
would rather have a different ownership group in Chicago, but
I don't know. I mean, And also, the Bears have
again they've got the eleventh pick, and if you look
at their schedule, they'll probably end up with the eighth
or ninth pick. And this draft is considered very top heavy,
so that many people are saying there's only about ten
(12:59):
to twelve for first round players this year. The Bears
will get another one.
Speaker 7 (13:02):
I mean again, Raiders job could be open. I mean,
Pierce has got him, he's fighting, they're fighting hard. He
seems clueless. Is that a good job compared to the Bears.
Speaker 1 (13:13):
Well, I get I will the Raiders is interesting. I
get Brock Bowers, who is the best young tight end
I've ever seen. He's a tight end. I get Max Crosby,
an elite pass rusher, and I get Colton Miller left tackles.
So there are three boxes. Star weapon, left tackle, pass rusher. Okay,
so I have a new GM who has a history
oft drafting pretty well. I mean, Harball took over the Chargers.
(13:33):
They got some good players, so there's some boxes there.
I like. But if you don't have a quarterback. Now,
the hit rate for quarterbacks is going up over the
last six to seven years. More than more of these
guys are not only hitting, but the guys that failed
Gino Darnold Baker, they're being reborn with better offensive coaching
than ten years ago. So I just think if I
(13:55):
have Caleb for four years, I don't have to pay
him in this roster. I'm gonna deal with Lions and
the Packers excellence. That's a better job.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and neon eastern nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
FS one and the iHeartRadio app heard Hierarchy Now go
the top ten NFL teams according to College Number ten.
Speaker 1 (14:21):
Well, Seattle's not gonna win shootouts. They're zero to five
if they're asked to score, if they give up more
than twenty five points, and Gino Smith has been sacked
nineteen times in the last four games. He throws too
many picks. But I like the coaching staff. I like
their perimeter, talent at wide receiver and corner. Their pass
rush better than it was in previous years. They're a
(14:44):
top ten team. I don't know if they can win
a playoff game maybe, but I'll put Seattle at ten,
number nine. I like Denver. I think they have one
of the best coaches, maybe the best coach after Andy
Reid in the NFL. They've won five of seven games.
Their only losses the ball Timore in Kansas City bo
Nicks eight and three over his last eleven games, does
(15:05):
not make a lot of mistakes. Their offensive line quietly
Sean Payton an offensive coaches rebuild it in two years.
PFF has it at number two, Denver at nine, number eight, Baltimore. Listen,
they're only team in the league averaging four hundred yards.
Mark andrews Lamar Jackson's a Flowers, Dereck Henry. There's a
(15:26):
lot to like. Special teams. Bit of a liability now,
justin Tucker. It's called age mid thirties. In the back
end of the defense outside of Kyle Hamilton, worries me.
I'm gonna put them there. They're scoring defense is bottom
quarter of the league, so that worries me. It's like
having a bad bullpen. You can outplay people and lose games.
I have Baltimore at eight, number seven, Sammy Darnold. Eventually
(15:50):
I was right. He's a baller. Leads the NFL with
forty six completions of twenty plus yards. This is not
a dink and dunk offense. They will throw the ball
down the field. Weavan O'Connell is really a spectacular coach.
They are seven and one in one score games. That's
not just Darnold, that is coaching. Vikings at seven, number
(16:11):
six Pittsburgh Steelers. I think they're ceilings a little bit low,
but they're five and oh against teams that are five
hundred or better. It's a classic Mike Tomlin recipe. His
teams have always played well as underdogs or backed into
a corner. Russell Wilson say what you want passer rating
in the fourth quarter of one hundred and twenty. He's
(16:33):
good when it matters, And to me, that's a team
that can win a playoff game. Or two. Number five
Green Bay, they're still a tad young. Are they a
super Bowl team? Poy does Jordan Love have a whipman.
He's got some talent. They become a power run team now.
They play at Detroit Thursday. I actually kind of like
him in that spot. They're top five and total offense
and rushing offense. They become more of a power running
(16:54):
team now with Josh Jacobs, and I'm here for it.
I do feel there's still a year off Green Bay
at five.
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Number four.
Speaker 1 (17:02):
Okay, my final four teams are the teams I think
can win a Super Bowl. Kansas City Listen, he's been
sacked Patrick Mahomes has five times in back to back games.
I don't like the protection right now at offensive tackle.
They're getting Isaiah Pacheco back that helps play action. They
eleven and one in one score games. Their point differential
is the lowest ever for an eleven to one team.
(17:24):
I don't love that, but I trust Andy Reid, Mahomes, Kelsey,
Chris Jones and Spags. I have him at four, number three.
Detroit's getting banged up on the defensive end. That worries me.
Third toughest schedule remaining. Will they get knocked out of
the perch and will Philadelphia to be a number one seat.
They've led by ten plus points in ten of eleven games,
so they usually play with a lead probably won't be
(17:45):
like that in the playoffs. I think Thursday is fascinating.
I have Detroit at three, number two Philadelphia. They figured
out Jalen Hurts. Jalen Hurts twenty touchdowns one pick in
his eight game winning streak. I don't want him throwing
thirty times. I don't want Brady's and Mannings throwing forty times.
They've figured it out. By the way, this team's nine
to zero when aj Brown plays. I've never seen a
(18:06):
great team led by a receiver, but they don't lose
when he plays. I have Philadelphia at two, number one Buffalo.
I think it's the best version of Buffalo. I like
that they have James Cook Dalton Kincaid. They've missed multiple
good players during this stretch. I love Josh Allen, and
he's matured. He's not as reckless as he once was.
(18:26):
I think they have their best offensive line, their best
running game. When Josh first got there, all their best
players felt like defensive guys. Now I think many of
their best players are offensive guys, and they're getting healthier
on the defensive side. Let's put Buffalo at number one again.
I generally, in my herd hierarchy think about three to
four teams can hoist a trophy. I don't think Green
(18:48):
Bay can or Pittsburgh they're darn close at five and six, respectively.
And with that, Tom Brady twenty three years, seven rings,
most Super Bowl wins, passing yards, touchdowns, you know what. Okay,
so you know I'm I'll get to Michigan Ohio State
because I won't be able to wipe the smile off you.
(19:09):
That was nuts. I want to start with this, the
late hit on Trevor Lawrence. So I got mixed emotions.
I want my quarterback to have some mobility, but I
also think you leave the pocket, Tom, and you're a
running back. Where are you on this hit?
Speaker 4 (19:28):
That's a great question.
Speaker 8 (19:29):
I've watched obviously been a part of the NFL for
a long time, and I remember there was an instance
there's I'll start by saying there's mixed emotions that I
have about it as well. I remember in two thousand
and one, I think we played at Buffalo and I
slid late and Nate Clements was the corner for the Bills,
and he came up out of the secondary and absolutely
(19:51):
crushed me. My helmet went flying off and I got
back and I ran to the huddle, and I had
a lot of teammates that came up to me the
next day and said, Dude, these.
Speaker 4 (19:59):
Guys are coming.
Speaker 8 (20:00):
You got to get rid of that football, and if
you're going to slide, you better get down. These guys
are coming to get you. And it was a great
kind of learning experience for me because I realized that
when I'm out of that pocket, things were moving a
lot faster for me. And the defense is trying to
be very aggressive, and over time, the NFL has obviously
done a lot of things to protect players and player
(20:22):
health and safety. It's been on and on and on,
and the only aspect that I think is very challenging,
and certainly for Trevor Lawrence, nobody wants to see anybody
get hurt, but it is also the reality of a
very physical sport.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
That we play.
Speaker 8 (20:36):
But the only way defensive players have to be aggressive.
That's their nature. I always tried to be aggressive on offense.
We tried to block aggressively, and at the same time,
the defense.
Speaker 4 (20:46):
Tries to tackle aggressively.
Speaker 8 (20:47):
So I don't know, there's an aspect to me that
I think the quarterbacks and the certainly the quarterbacks need
to take better care of themselves. I've seen Josh Allen
running a lot. I see Lamar Jackson running a lot,
and it's a great skill set to have. A lot
of times I wish I had that skill set. And
at the same time, when you run, you put yourself,
oh yeah, in a lot of danger. And when you
(21:09):
do that, I don't think the onus of protecting an
offensive quarterback who's running should be on a defensive player.
I don't think that's really fair to the defense. So
if you slide and it's you know, everyone can argue
was it black and white or was it just a
gray area? Do you slide late? Or is it unnecessary
roughness or is it a late hit? You know, to me,
(21:30):
a late hit is very late. You know, there's quarterbacks
that I see running in tiptoe on the sideline and
they're not even out of bounds and they get hit
as they're starting to step out of bounds and there's
a penalty flag thrown. So the aspect again for a
play caller, there's more design runs for quarterbacks ever now
than in the history of the NFL. So are we
(21:51):
really trying to protect quarterbacks? Because if you are trying
to do it through the rules. Then why are the
offensive coordinators not protecting their quarterbacks by keeping them under
the pocket and not designing as many quarterback runs. So
I think there's just it's gone to a point where
there's really and everyone would label a certain player as
a dirty player.
Speaker 4 (22:12):
You know, I don't like that one bit.
Speaker 8 (22:14):
I you know, maybe they find or penalize a quarterback
for sliding late, you know, and say, look, if we
don't want these hits to take place, we've got to
penalize the offense and the defense rather than just penalize
the defensive player for every single play that happens when
there's a hit on a quarterback.
Speaker 1 (22:32):
So I said this last week. I said, you know,
I was thinking about this. Go back to Lombardi. The
dynasties in league history are Green Bay with Lombardi, Steelers,
Patriots Chiefs Ravens have always been great, and then the
Niners in Dallas and as you know, going up in
the Bay. I joke that Mark Twain used to say
(22:54):
that the coldest winner he ever spent was a summer
in the Bay, and Dallas gets ice storms. There's never
been a warm weather dynasty and I'm watching the Niners
play the Bills, and Tom, the Bills look like when
you're eight years old and it snows for the first
time and you go with your friends in the backyard.
They were having the time of their lives. And I
think it matters. I think Buffalo now with James Cook. Tom,
(23:18):
did you feel yeah, when you played Peyton scc Dome team,
did you feel it was an advantage?
Speaker 4 (23:26):
Absolutely?
Speaker 8 (23:27):
I felt like that was a great advantage that we
always had, which is why those regular season games were.
If they were in Foxborough, they were obviously advantage for us.
But if it was early in the season, the weather
wasn't that critical. I think you used the weather to
your advantage. And I even when I went to Tampa,
I would say there was an advantage being a warm
weather team playing against a team that was coming from
the north of the Northeast. So you use what you
(23:49):
have to an advantage, and that's you because your body
acclimates to it. I saw in that Niner Bill game
there were a lot of forty nine er players that
were slipping on the turf, yeah, and not a lot
of Bills players that were slipping on the turf. And
the point is is when you're in those environments, you
know exactly what shoes to wear, You know how many
layers that you have to put on in order to
get the job done. So when you have those climates,
(24:13):
that's what you try to play too. I knew for me,
I knew how many hand warmers I needed in my
quarterback pouch per ten degrees. For every ten degrees that
the weather dropped below seventy, I'd put one heat pack.
So if it was you know, forty degrees, it would
be sixty to fifty forty degrees. I'd put three heat
packs just to keep a consistent temperature for my hands.
(24:35):
So those are all the things you learn over time,
through a lot of trial and there through a lot
of days in practice. And that's where you get a
home field. So if you're Buffalo or the Chiefs and
you play in this cold weather year round, you better
believe you have an advantage playoff time when a team
that comes from a warmer climate comes and plays you
at your home stadium.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
So I'm watching bow Nicks last night. Now he had
sixty one college start. That helps a lot. You did
not have this as an advantage. You had a defensive
coach a defensive culture, do your job. There was some
rigidity to the culture. You were in offensively until Moss
arrived and you broke every record. But I watched bo
(25:15):
Nicks and you know what I took from it? Tom
last night, my one takeaway Sean Payton with a lead
against Miles Garrett, had this kid thrown from the end
zone and I'm like, wow, that that there's no babysitting there.
That's what you could do. You don't let rookie quarterback.
That was my takeaway was Okay, Sean, totally trust this kid.
(25:37):
What was your takeaway watching them?
Speaker 8 (25:40):
That's a great point. And it's the trust that a
coach has in a player. You can it manifests itself
all the time. I can always tell when I watch
a play caller try to manage a game from the
sideline and he's trying to manage the risk. And when
you have a quarterback where you feel like, you know what,
I know he's going to make the decisions, well, then
you can actually go out there and you don't have
to manage. It's hard to manage a quarterback because you're
(26:01):
in the eye of the storm. On every play you
touched the ball seventy snaps. So when you have a
quarterback that you're trusting is making good decisions, well, then
you want to give them more opportunities. So and I
see that with a lot of play callers as well,
when they do trust them. Let's spread, let's be an empty,
let me give you five different options, let me get it,
get you out there on the perimeter to make good throws.
(26:22):
I'm going to have you manage end of game situations.
That takes a great developmental coach, and I would say
Sean Payton certainly is that. He's a phenomenal coach and
a quarterback that wants to embrace that opportunity to learn
a skill set of how to manage a game. Not
just hey, coach, what's to play? Tell me what to do? Coach,
(26:43):
tell me the play? But why are we calling that play?
Why are we in this situation? Why don't we understand
the why behind what we're doing? How do we beat
man coverage, how do we beat zone coverage? Why are
we calling this play in this situation? And then okay,
I understand why you're doing that. So if we don't
get the look we want, I can manage the play
as a quarterback and get to the next down while
(27:05):
still making a positive play.
Speaker 1 (27:07):
So Michigan has beaten Ohio State four straight times, and
I do believe one time last year Michigan just had
far better players. They were stacked. But generally I think
Ohio State has an edge in personnel. It can be slight,
but I do feel they feel more sec than Big
ten the way they recruit, But the difference is definitely
(27:28):
Michigan's had an identity with Harbaugh early, middle, and late,
and he just handed that identity to his new coach.
Ohio State's talented, but I don't know what they are.
And I think to myself, you've told me this, and
so was Edelman that every Patriot team had a different identity.
I feel like I've been watching Ohio State for five years.
(27:50):
I'm like, yeah, they're talented, what are they? How do you?
How did Belichick create it? How do you create Because
there's a lot of coaches recruit in college, the great
ones urb you know, the Urbans and the Knicks create
the identity and recruit. How do you do it?
Speaker 8 (28:08):
I think a lot of is you define the type
of player that you want, and you define the type
of team you want to build, and then you find
players that have those skill sets physically and those values
kind of mentally, emotionally. Michigan is a very tough, hard
nosed team. They run the ball very well. You know,
they haven't been great throwing the ball. But if I
looked at Ohio State strengths and we says they have
(28:30):
a great seven on sevent team, they got guys that
can throw the ball to in the second half, they
don't even target their best players. So to me, it's like,
I may as well be out there playing receiver for
Ohouse State. I can't run, I couldn't catch, but it
doesn't matter if you don't throw me the ball, just
like they didn't throw a lot of their best players
to the ball in the second half of that game. So
whenever we got to big games, let's say the Super Bowl, ye,
(28:52):
you'd say there's seventy plays left in the game. In
our season, the entire six months of work, seven months
of work is going to come down to seventy plays.
What do we want those seventy plays to look like?
And then you reverse engineer it and you say, okay,
we're going to want forty passes and thirty runs well,
what forty passes do we want? We could design one
hundred and fifty of them if you want. Now, there's
(29:14):
one hundred and ten of those that won't get called.
So why don't we just dial it down and dial
it back to the only the specific ones where best
players are going to touch the ball doing the best
things that they do. And we're going to go out
like that. If we lose, we lose. If we win,
you great, But we're not going to lose doing things
that we don't do well. And I think the coaches,
(29:36):
Coach Belichick would always say coaches lose games and players
win games. And he didn't mean to say that coaches
are not valuable. Coaches need to put their players in
a position to win. They do instruct you, they give
you this is the plan. It's up to the coach
to clearly identify a plan every week about how you're going.
Speaker 4 (29:54):
To win the game.
Speaker 8 (29:55):
We would come in on a Wednesday morning. I thought
the best thing that Coach Belichick did a lot of
them was he would clearly define for offense, defense, and
special teams, this is how we're going to win the
game this week. Don't worry about last week, don't worry
about next week this unique challenge. Yet we have today
or excuse me, on a Sunday. We're gonna deal with
(30:17):
that based on these three or four areas on each
side of the ball and in the kicking game, and
if we execute in these areas, we're going to give
ourselves a great chance to win. It doesn't mean we're
guaranteed to win, and there's times where we can misevaluate
what those things are. I'll never forget we played the
Chiefs once and we doubled. I think Travis Kelcey a
bunch and not Tyreek Hill. Maybe the one of the
(30:39):
early times we played Tyreek Hill and he went for
like one eighty or two hundred something crazy. He came
in the next day and he says, the guys, we're
never doing that again.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
We screwed that up.
Speaker 8 (30:49):
If we play these guys again, we know who we're
gonna double, and it's going to be Tyreek Hill. So
it's just you gotta have some formula for what you're
trying to accomplish. What's the bulls eye that we need
to hit and we need to get, you know, the
coaches to deliver that to the players in all three
phases of the game for them to go out there
so that they have something to hit. And if they
(31:10):
do that and you identify it clearly, I think you
give your team a great chance to win.
Speaker 1 (31:15):
So Nick Wright was on before me and he posed
this question. So, Kansas City's eleven and one and they're
winning by payper thin margins. So of all your teams,
the team that blew people out was the Randy Moss teams.
There's no ring. You're three to four team. You were
winning close games, and so this Chiefs team is the
(31:38):
closest to your team. I want you to take me back.
People keep saying, well, the Chiefs are lucky, and I'm like, timeout,
that block field goal, that was coaching, third down efficiency,
that is coaching. I don't want to hear luck. That's
even Rubik's cubes and roulette. There's some strategy to it. Right.
Did you feel that three to four team, did you
(31:59):
feel like, you know, what close game, we're winning it.
We're just better than everybody at it.
Speaker 8 (32:05):
Definitely I think that, Look, you're gonna have a close games,
You're gonna blowouts. To win the close games is always
the mark of a really good team to win when
you're not playing your best football is the mark of
a very good team. I just think the Chiefs are
so dangerous because if it's a one score game in
the fourth quarter and Patrick has the ball, he just
(32:26):
he's incredible. He comes, not that he comes like because
he comes to life all day long, but he's so
dangerous because then he has four downs late in the
game where you got to stop him for four downs,
not three. And that's a dangerous aspect for any defense
you have to kind of pull away from. And that
they're a hard you know, it's a hard team to
pull away from because they do such a good job defensively.
(32:46):
So I think when they transition from really this great
offensive team, and I would say when Patrick first started,
they weren't as good on defense. Now they have a
tremendous defense. They got Spags as a phenomenal coach. He's
got them playing well defensively. Patrick is going to manage
the game so well. He's going to throw to the
open guy when it's He's got Travis out there that
(33:07):
is going to make the right decisions.
Speaker 4 (33:08):
And the big moments like we've seen time and time again.
Speaker 8 (33:11):
So they have a group of players that that organization
does so many things the right way. They're going to
be tough to beat in the playoffs. I don't care
who they play, where they play, it's it's it's a
lot like the teams that I played for at the Patriots.
If you were going to beat us, man, you had
to beat us. We weren't going to beat ourselves.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Hey, was vrabel a good sport? When you texted him
after the Michigan win? Did he take it?
Speaker 7 (33:32):
Well?
Speaker 1 (33:35):
Bet he didn't, did he?
Speaker 8 (33:36):
I have very little comments on that because a lot
of the times braves will somehow figure out how to
turn it on you and then you're the you know,
you're the jerk that texted him, So sometimes I lay
back on him. But he's a typical Ohio State guy.
Let me say that.
Speaker 1 (33:52):
Yeah, they're all the same, Tom, believe me, I've worked
with him. The Michigan guys bring a different level of
the class. I'll just say that.
Speaker 5 (33:59):
There we go.
Speaker 8 (34:00):
Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, great seeing you man, hey Colin, Great
seeing you buddy, Great being on your show.
Speaker 4 (34:05):
I appreciate it, all right,
Hosts And Creators
Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.