Nick Wright, host of “First Things First” on FS1 joins Colin to chop it up!
They dive into LeBron’s eye-popping career numbers and why those records might never be broken (3:00). In the wake of Frank Reich’s firing by the Carolina Panthers, they take a bird’s eye view of how the league has evolved in recent years and why ever richer NFL owners are stunting the growth of young quarterbacks (8:20)
Finally, they dissect some late game clock management issues by NFL head coaches and why these are mistakes that competent coaches just can’t make (21:00).
(Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.)
Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates! #Volume #Herd
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. In the NBA, the games can change in
an instant, but no matter how the action unfold. Do
you know that DraftKings Sportsbook has you covered? This week?
New customers can score one hundred and fifty dollars instantly
in bonus bets by just betting five bucks on basketball.
(00:22):
How good of a deal is that? From DraftKings sports
Book win or lose you get the instant w instant
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colin COLI and new customers one hundred and fifty bucks
instantly in bonus bets for betting just five The code
is Colin c l I and only on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Download the app code colin. The crown is Yours gambling
(00:45):
problem called one eight hundred gambler or visit www dot
one eight hundred gambler dot net. In New York call
eight seven seven eight hope and y or text hope
n Y four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut,
help is available for problem gambling. Call eighty eight seventy
eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org.
Please play a response on behalf of Boothill Casino and
Resort ks licensee partner Golden Nugget Lake Charles twenty one
plus age berries by jurisdiction Voyden, Ontario. Bonus Betts expired
(01:08):
one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. C Sportsbook
dot DraftKings dot com, slash Basketball terms for eligibility and
deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. Okay, you wanted
to talk about Lebron James so and yeah, yeah, go ahead, Yeah,
So I said on my show today, I said the
Lakers loss wasn't the worst loss in the NBA. Last
(01:30):
night the Clippers faced Denver without Jokich, Murray, and Gordon.
They sat all four of their stars and in the
fourth quarter they were doubled at home.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Is the worst loss of the year though, that's the
Clippers are not going to work, and I feel, I
legit feel badly for Westbrook.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I do.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
He was he actually Colin was playing well for the Clippers,
played well for them at the end of last year,
played well for them in the postseason, was playing well
this year. It's very very clear he can still amazingly.
I didn't think he could be a positive, not a superstar,
(02:10):
but a positive under very specific circumstances, and he had
it with the Clippers. Then they got hardened. It went
exactly back to what he was asked to do as
a Laker, and that player is borderline unplayable. So I
feel bad for USS. The Clippers did this to themselves.
I don't think they're going to be a playoff team,
(02:31):
but the Lakers. Here's the Lebron thing I want to talk.
You ever look at like the old baseball records and
it's like, oh, who has the most complete games in
the season, And it's like, oh, this guy had thirty
eight complete games in one year. You look at some
of these old records and you're like, oh, like Cy
(02:53):
Young had he had five hundred and sixteen wins. It's like, okay, well,
so that's no one's probably getting that. Nobody has. Nobody's
done the very simple math yet. But Lebron last night
passed Kareem for most minutes ever playoffs, regular season combined.
It's over sixty six thousand. His points record and his
(03:17):
minutes record are going to be looked at the way
we look at the nineteen twenties baseball records. They are
going to be so far untouchable. Like I want this
is this and this isn't an opinion. So let's talk
about the points for a second, okay, And the reason
it is is because Lebron checked three boxes as an
(03:40):
ten out of ten of Okay, how old were you
you came into the league? Well, he was basically as
young as anybody possibly can be, So that's a check
mark in his favor. How healthy have you been, Well,
he's been as healthy as any player ever, that's a
check mark. And good, how good were you immediately? As
good as any rookie's ever been? And then by year
two one of the five best players in the league.
(04:01):
So he he's at thirty nine thousand points in change. Okay,
so let's just call it forty thousand for the simplicity
of math, all right. And let's say someone walks into
the league, walks into the league and averages thirty five
points per game from day one of their rookie year. Okay,
(04:23):
And let's say they are incredibly healthy and they play
seventy five games a year without ever missing time. So, okay,
how many years would they have to play if from
day one of a rookie you average thirty five a game.
If you play seventy five games a year. Well, forty
thousand divided by thirty five divided by seventy five equals. Oh,
(04:44):
all you would have to do to pass Lebron jameson
scoring is average thirty five points per game your entire career,
never get hurt, play all every season and play for it.
Let me check fifteen and a half years, it's in
fucking possible, and that it's not even as untouchable as
the minutes after last night he is. It's sixty seven
thousand minutes. Okay, So let's think about that, sixty seven
(05:08):
thousand minutes. Let's say your team made the playoffs every year.
You played deep into the playoffs every year and never
saw So let's say you averaged ninety games a season.
Ninety games a season. All right, let's say you played
did ninety games a season. Let's say you played forty
(05:30):
minutes a night. Ninety games a season, forty minutes a night.
How many years would you have to play? Oh, only
eighteen and a half years of ninety game seasons, forty
minutes a night, never getting hurt. So like, I'm not
even I'm not even right now that interested in the
goat debate anymore. I just know that like some of
(05:50):
these records Lebron is setting, and he set one of
them last night, are going to they're gonna look like
some of Wilt's scoring records, like oh no, no one can
even approach that, Like yeah, And so I mean I
looked at Janis Yannis is forty thousand minutes shy of Lebron, Like, well,
(06:11):
that's then if you added Michael Jordan's career to Jannis's career,
that would give you slightly more minutes than Lebron. Like,
nobody's going to approach these records. Nobody's gonna approach.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I think that's reasonable. So one of the things
that as I look at this NFL season, you know
a lot of people are talking about, oh, the officiating
is the worst ever. No, it's not. That's a complaint
every year. Uh, the game's getting worse. No, it's not.
The ratings are higher than ever, totally. I like Tom Brady.
(06:44):
But Brady came out and said the game's getting worse.
And I said, and this was my take, and I
want you to react to it. I said, the reason
you think the game is getting worse because almost as
a general rule, young people need support more than middle
aged or older people. Their brain doesn't develop Tiller twenty
four to twenty five. Their confidence levels. They're more affected
(07:05):
by criticism when you're seventeen twenty twenty three than you are.
You get to my age, you don't give a shit.
And I said, what's happened? The global wealth has actually
hurt quarterback play. And here's my rationale. So we were
growing up, when you were When we were growing up,
you could be a car dealer. Larry Miller owned the
(07:27):
Utah Jazz, a car dealer with a net worth of
one hundred million dollars. The poorest NFL owners worth like
the McCaskey, Virginia McCaskey over two billion dollars. And by
the way, if she owns the Bears, that's not it
because the Bears would sell tomorrow for probably seven five
half billion dollars or yeah more. Yeah, sure, yeah. So
(07:47):
what has happened? Is it used to be you would
never fire Frank Reich in year one if your net
worth was three hundred million. I'm not gonna write a
twelve million dollar check, Frank, right, But when I'm worth
thirty two billion, I'll easily write a forty million dollar check.
(08:09):
So who's the loser in the frank right firing? It's
bryce new coach, new quarterback coach, new staff by year two.
So what has happened? Increasingly, as the owners have gotten wealthier,
all these firings are rounding errors. The richer they get,
the more the more secluded they are, the more insulated
(08:33):
they are from criticism or punitive action. A bad marketing campaign.
If you owned a car dealership thirty years ago, could
half your net worth. Jeff Bezos gets no publicity, that's positive.
It doesn't matter. He's worth sixty billion. And so owners
fire quicker coach is knowing it's coming. Quicker fire coordinators,
(08:57):
quicker quarterbacks have to win by Thanksgiving of year two
or they get rid of him. Justin fields in the
seventies would get another year. You can't even that's not
even a debate. Now you have to move off him.
And so the reason quarterback play is perceived is worse.
It doesn't make any sense. It's counterintuitive. There's more camps,
there's more coaching. Yeah, there's better quarterbacks. What's happening is
(09:20):
global wealth his created from the ownership down. This domino
effect of absolute impatience. And the loser isn't the coach
because he gets the money when he gets Frank Wright
gets the money and goes to the beach. It's not
the owner. It's not the GMO gets fired. He gets
money and goes to the beach.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The loser is the twenty three year old quarterback who's
got to play with the seventh Justin Herbert's on his
third coordinator and second coach and his third art So.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I have, actually I'm not a very different theory, but
in line with what you're talking about, an experiment I
always wanted to see and I've talked with me In
Jennie about this and we'll never get to see it.
But what would the result be if you took a
(10:15):
like well known media like not god awful, terrible, but
we know he's not a star coach, well known definition
of mediocre head coach. I don't know the example, and
I don't want to name a name. It seems me
but just say whatever the slightly beneath league average while
(10:38):
his career was and an owner said, I am signing
this contract that says you will be my head coach
with full control of your own staff for six years
at a minimum if at any point between now and
six years you get fired. I signed the team over
(11:01):
to you. I'm telling you you you have absolute job secure.
Would that create by a inertia and by the fact
that you can make every decision be forward long term,
thinking all of it instantly, by the by year three,
(11:23):
much less year six, a top six, top eight coaching
staff coach in the league where you're not doing anything impulsively,
you're not doing anything that's that's you know, robbing tomorrow
to pay today because you're worried you're gonna get canned,
and while everyone else is on the treadmill of oh shit,
(11:44):
I gotta save my job. You can have the long
term view and install a culture and a system and
all of it. I really believe that would be better
than what ninety percent of these teams do.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes. And what the benefit of that is that you
could hire a bit better staff. I mean, Carolina, ninety
percent of the good candidates will not even They'll tell
their agent don't call, right.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ben Johnson's not going there any no no chance but
the flip. And in addition, you could.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Build a better staff. I guess you can build a
better staff with your line of thinking, and over the
course of time, the best staff, not just Andy Reid
wins bags is a big part of that staff, right,
So the better staff.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
But also guys that can whatever their culture is going
to be, Like I don't know for certain, I think it,
but I don't know for certain. John Harbaugh and Mike
Tomlin are in a vacuum. Tomlin's pretty damn impressive, let
me use Harball, but in a vacuum a great coach.
(12:49):
But what both of them had was nearly instant Super
Bowl wins, which gave them, at least for the next
half decade, one hundred percent job security, which allowed them
to install one hundred percent of their system and their
culture and whatever learning on the job they needed to
(13:10):
do they could do with safety and security. And now
we look at them as unquestioned great coaches, Like there
is a level of what if you know you're gonna
have the gig and you can do things right or
wrong the way you want to do it and not
have these teams that just massively go back and forth.
(13:32):
The Chargers with Justin Irbay, they have an offensive coach
and Anthony Lynn he's not good enough to hire Brandon
Staley he's about to get run out of town. They're
gonna do everything they can to hire Ben John like
you know what I mean, just the back and forth everything.
So I think, yeah, I do think the the lack
of patience on NFL coaching staffs is bad for everybody.
(13:53):
But my theory on quarterbacks is different one. And this
is where I think Brady got it wrong. I don't
think it's that the play's gotten worse. I think that
the top level play is now so fucking good that
teams are like like in the nineties, Kenny Pickett would
(14:17):
be the Pittsburgh Steelers starter for twelve to fifteen years.
I watched Neil O'donnald play there. You can't tell me
that this guy's not as good as him. They went
to a super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Okay, listen to this. Aaron Rodgers was in his prime,
Matt Stafford close to it. Trubisky made the playoffs twice.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yes, in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
He would be Brian's site for the Brown Yeah, and
start for a decade.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Right. And So what I think is the top level
quarterbacks now that you have some of the best athletes
also playing quarterback, whether it be Josh Allen, or Lamar
or Mahomes who could have played a bunch of sports.
Russell Wilson when he was in his prime. These guys
that teams that have he's fine are always looking for
(15:06):
the next guy and the guy who it's like, ah,
he's fine. If he somehow gets to year seven, is
gonna be pretty good, but you don't want to. They
don't get there, Like golf didn't all of a sudden
get better, worse, whatever it is. He's been the same guy.
He's super accurate. If he's protected, he's not gonna be
(15:27):
able to horn on the ball because he has small hands,
and if you get a pass rusher on him, it's
not gonna work out. But he now has seen so
much more football, done all these things that those weaknesses
are still there, but the strengths are accentuated. Those things
are better. But he almost never got another chance, like
when you have when you have these aliens playing quarterback,
(15:50):
if you have a guy who's average, you're gonna get
rid of him to draft the next guy, and that's
a lottery ticket, which then leads to a lot of young,
raw quarterbacks, which leads to a bad quarterback play.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Finally, there are certain things in sports in business that
are just hard and they're imperfect and there's just no
way to generate perfection. And I think in sports one
of those in the NFL is game clock management. So
(16:30):
when you get to the end of the game, you've
got certain units. Over the course of a game, players
get injured, so you know players you would have used
in sets earlier now can't play. So as games evolve
in the NFL, the later they go, the harder they
are to manage. Analytics Now wasn't really an issue ten
(16:51):
years ago. Now you have to consider analytics. There's the clock.
If you have a young quarterback, they're not as strong
at managing the clock, and so you tend to be
I agreed with you on John Harbaugh against the Chargers,
go for it. In that situation, I would have gone
for it. But it does bring up an interesting because
(17:13):
I think you're too hard on people for game clock management.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I think it's one of those things that unless you've
played football or you've coached, you don't understand. It's like
play by play, how effing hard it is. Andy Reid
was I mean debased for years in Philadelphia, and then
he got Mahomes and nobody talks about it. McVeigh gets clobber. YEP,
when you acknowledge, and there's probably several analogous options here,
(17:41):
that it is one of those things that is probably
much harder than people understand.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I yes, I acknowledge that. I think that is correct,
which is why it just should be farmed out. And
I'm not talking about choosing to go for it all
fourth or not that I do. Listen, I think coaches
are far too conservative in large part on that, and
I understand our broadcasters very often will be like, well,
(18:13):
or the coaches after the game will say, well, yes,
we knew the analytics, but given the circumstances of the game,
blah blah, blah blah. My issue with that is, here's
if that's really what's happening. Oh we know the numbers,
but because this guy was out or this or that,
we went the other way? How come this My entire
(18:35):
football life has never happened. Oh yeah, we knew the numbers,
said we have to punt here, but given the circumstances
of the game, we've said, f're fucking going for it.
That never happens, and never in my life has it
been like, oh yeah, all the numbers say do the
conservative thing, but we're gonna be extra aggressive because it circumstances.
So to me, coaches are far too conservative. But that
(18:58):
has to be the decision the head coach. I do
believe you can't farm that out. You can give them
the information. You can talk to him when it's not
during the week. That needs to be your general on
the battlefield making that call. The timeout stuff, Colin, the
clock management stuff, Colin is blackjack, and there's only one
(19:19):
right way to play it. Let me give you a
four instance that I bet, I honestly believe twenty nine
of thirty two NFL head coaches would fail this test.
There is a very specific and it might only come
up once a year if ever, scenario where if you
(19:39):
are trailing and you are trying to stop the clock
and the other team's trying to run it out, you
do not want to call timeout on the north side
of the two minute warning. When is it and why?
And the answer to that question is and people listening
thinking they're like, well, let me think, Papa, it's very
(19:59):
very specific. If there is between about two forty two
and two forty seven exactly that much time left in
the half and you only have one timeout, you one
hundred percent should not use it because the average play
(20:20):
is going to take between two to five seconds, and
whether you call your time out there or not, that
the two plays later is going to happen on the
other side of the two minute warning. So if you
save it, you can then save thirty nine seconds on
the other side of the two minute warning if you
have multiple and if people are like, that's confusing, and
(20:43):
get out a piece of paper and write it down
and track it out. I promise I'm right. It's a
very unique spot, but you got to know it. You've
got to know the ways that to give yourself the
best option. A thing that super sharp coaches started to
do a couple years ago was, oh, shit, if the
(21:03):
other team we have two timeouts and it is second
and one, we're going and we're trying to stop them.
We're going to pretend to jump off sides and hope
they accept the penalty because the odds are they're getting
this first down on one of the next two plays anyway,
(21:23):
and we just want it to be untimed like Vrabel
did that, Belichick did that, and now coaches have called
into it. There are certain things that if in the
fog of war, the head coach can't handle all of it,
then hires some kid that played Madden their whole life
and figured it out when they were high and seventeen
years old, like I did. I'm listen. I do happen
(21:46):
to be brilliant, but this is not part of my brilliance.
This is part of me gambling on Madden in a
dorm four years and just understanding these little quirks. And
so I've joked forever before I hired an NFL head coach, like,
We're going to a casino and I'm gonna watch you
play blackjack for two hours, and if you make one mistake,
I'm not hiring you. If there's one time where you're like, eh,
(22:08):
I know you have a seven and I have a sixteen,
but I'm gonna stay Okay, you're not gonna be my guy.
Fourth downs are not that black and white. Clock management
is so that stuff. I won't give any quarter on
fourth down stuff. I like the harball thing. Sorry I'm ranting.
You touch on a passionate point for me. I think
coaches super overvalue going up six points. I actually don't
(22:32):
know that in the final ninety seconds. I'd rather be
up six than three. And I know that sounds ridiculous,
But if you're up six, the other team has to
score a touchdown. Is in four down territory four down
all the whole time, You know what I mean. They
are going perma aggression. Up three, they're gonna be a
(22:57):
little more conservative, They're gonna once they getting field goal range,
they're definitely kicking it. All of that, and either way,
up three or six, a touchdown beat you. So the
harball thing I thought was insane. I'm like, you're up three,
a first down wins the game, if you need one yard,
if you kick a field goal, a touchdown beat you
(23:18):
either way. Like that one killed me. Like I do
think coaches far too often don't just ask themselves the
question I would always be asking myself, which is, if
I were coaching the other team, what am I rooting for?
And if I'm playing Lamar Jackson and I have Justin Herbert,
no matter how he's been playing, am I rooting for
(23:39):
them to be able to make it to where Justin
Herbert never touches the ball again? Or am I rooting
for them to put a kicker on the field? And
guarantee justin Herbert touches the ball again. Of course I'm
rooting for that to do the opposite. Harball's usually pretty
good about that. I thought he screwed it up Sunday,
but it didn't matter.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
It didn't actually agree with you on that, all right, Buddy,
Good Show, Mark Cuban, Jim Harball, Lebron James, Melika andrews Uh.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Milika andrews Man and like, you know what, hold on.
I'm gonna say one last thing on that and the
Melika thing. I and I want to be Christian respectful
here because I don't know Melika at all and she
doesn't need me defending her. But the amount of of
(24:28):
shit that women in our field take from these creeps
on the internet, and then you add to it the
amount of like part of the stuff with Milika has
a really really that I'm not going to get into,
like dark racial connotation about her, her life and her
(24:52):
upbringing that touches close to home for me that I feel,
really really is really cruel. Well, I listen. I don't
know if she listens to the volume. Everyone should listen
to the volume, but if she doesn't, if someone who's
listening to this or seeing this is in her circle.
Please let her know that those of us, her colleagues
(25:14):
that maybe haven't said anything because you're not trying to
draw more attention to these creeps on the internet have
her back. She's a star and from all accounts, incredibly
hard worker. And all these people coming after her for
some old nonsense. I think it is really really really gross.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Social media can be really really really gross. I mean,
that's the truth of it.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Not to me, man, Everybody loves me so believable. I
can't believe it. Nobody's ever sent a mean tweet about me,
Nobody ever makes fun of my hair, my nose, anything.
It just universally approved, just like you, Colin, thank you
for having me. I'll talk to you.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So the volume
The volume. In the NBA, the games can change in
an instant, but no matter how the action unfold. Do
you know that DraftKings Sportsbook has you covered? This week?
New customers can score one hundred and fifty dollars instantly
in bonus bets by just betting five bucks on basketball.
(00:22):
How good of a deal is that? From DraftKings sports
Book win or lose you get the instant w instant
Download the DraftKings Sportsbook app now. Please use the code
colin COLI and new customers one hundred and fifty bucks
instantly in bonus bets for betting just five The code
is Colin c l I and only on DraftKings Sportsbook.
Download the app code colin. The crown is Yours gambling
(00:45):
problem called one eight hundred gambler or visit www dot
one eight hundred gambler dot net. In New York call
eight seven seven eight hope and y or text hope
n Y four six seven three six nine. In Connecticut,
help is available for problem gambling. Call eighty eight seventy
eight nine seven seven seven seven or visit CCPG dot org.
Please play a response on behalf of Boothill Casino and
Resort ks licensee partner Golden Nugget Lake Charles twenty one
plus age berries by jurisdiction Voyden, Ontario. Bonus Betts expired
(01:08):
one hundred and sixty eight hours after issuance. C Sportsbook
dot DraftKings dot com, slash Basketball terms for eligibility and
deposit restrictions, terms and responsible gaming resources. Okay, you wanted
to talk about Lebron James so and yeah, yeah, go ahead, Yeah,
So I said on my show today, I said the
Lakers loss wasn't the worst loss in the NBA. Last
(01:30):
night the Clippers faced Denver without Jokich, Murray, and Gordon.
They sat all four of their stars and in the
fourth quarter they were doubled at home.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Is the worst loss of the year though, that's the
Clippers are not going to work, and I feel, I
legit feel badly for Westbrook.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
I do.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
He was he actually Colin was playing well for the Clippers,
played well for them at the end of last year,
played well for them in the postseason, was playing well
this year. It's very very clear he can still amazingly.
I didn't think he could be a positive, not a superstar,
(02:10):
but a positive under very specific circumstances, and he had
it with the Clippers. Then they got hardened. It went
exactly back to what he was asked to do as
a Laker, and that player is borderline unplayable. So I
feel bad for USS. The Clippers did this to themselves.
I don't think they're going to be a playoff team,
(02:31):
but the Lakers. Here's the Lebron thing I want to talk.
You ever look at like the old baseball records and
it's like, oh, who has the most complete games in
the season, And it's like, oh, this guy had thirty
eight complete games in one year. You look at some
of these old records and you're like, oh, like Cy
(02:53):
Young had he had five hundred and sixteen wins. It's like, okay, well,
so that's no one's probably getting that. Nobody has. Nobody's
done the very simple math yet. But Lebron last night
passed Kareem for most minutes ever playoffs, regular season combined.
It's over sixty six thousand. His points record and his
(03:17):
minutes record are going to be looked at the way
we look at the nineteen twenties baseball records. They are
going to be so far untouchable. Like I want this
is this and this isn't an opinion. So let's talk
about the points for a second, okay, And the reason
it is is because Lebron checked three boxes as an
(03:40):
ten out of ten of Okay, how old were you
you came into the league? Well, he was basically as
young as anybody possibly can be, So that's a check
mark in his favor. How healthy have you been, Well,
he's been as healthy as any player ever, that's a
check mark. And good, how good were you immediately? As
good as any rookie's ever been? And then by year
two one of the five best players in the league.
(04:01):
So he he's at thirty nine thousand points in change. Okay,
so let's just call it forty thousand for the simplicity
of math, all right. And let's say someone walks into
the league, walks into the league and averages thirty five
points per game from day one of their rookie year. Okay,
(04:23):
And let's say they are incredibly healthy and they play
seventy five games a year without ever missing time. So, okay,
how many years would they have to play if from
day one of a rookie you average thirty five a game.
If you play seventy five games a year. Well, forty
thousand divided by thirty five divided by seventy five equals. Oh,
(04:44):
all you would have to do to pass Lebron jameson
scoring is average thirty five points per game your entire career,
never get hurt, play all every season and play for it.
Let me check fifteen and a half years, it's in
fucking possible, and that it's not even as untouchable as
the minutes after last night he is. It's sixty seven
thousand minutes. Okay, So let's think about that, sixty seven
(05:08):
thousand minutes. Let's say your team made the playoffs every year.
You played deep into the playoffs every year and never
saw So let's say you averaged ninety games a season.
Ninety games a season. All right, let's say you played
did ninety games a season. Let's say you played forty
(05:30):
minutes a night. Ninety games a season, forty minutes a night.
How many years would you have to play? Oh, only
eighteen and a half years of ninety game seasons, forty
minutes a night, never getting hurt. So like, I'm not
even I'm not even right now that interested in the
goat debate anymore. I just know that like some of
(05:50):
these records Lebron is setting, and he set one of
them last night, are going to they're gonna look like
some of Wilt's scoring records, like oh no, no one can
even approach that, Like yeah, And so I mean I
looked at Janis Yannis is forty thousand minutes shy of Lebron, Like, well,
(06:11):
that's then if you added Michael Jordan's career to Jannis's career,
that would give you slightly more minutes than Lebron. Like,
nobody's going to approach these records. Nobody's gonna approach.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Yeah, I think that's reasonable. So one of the things
that as I look at this NFL season, you know
a lot of people are talking about, oh, the officiating
is the worst ever. No, it's not. That's a complaint
every year. Uh, the game's getting worse. No, it's not.
The ratings are higher than ever, totally. I like Tom Brady.
(06:44):
But Brady came out and said the game's getting worse.
And I said, and this was my take, and I
want you to react to it. I said, the reason
you think the game is getting worse because almost as
a general rule, young people need support more than middle
aged or older people. Their brain doesn't develop Tiller twenty
four to twenty five. Their confidence levels. They're more affected
(07:05):
by criticism when you're seventeen twenty twenty three than you are.
You get to my age, you don't give a shit.
And I said, what's happened? The global wealth has actually
hurt quarterback play. And here's my rationale. So we were
growing up, when you were When we were growing up,
you could be a car dealer. Larry Miller owned the
(07:27):
Utah Jazz, a car dealer with a net worth of
one hundred million dollars. The poorest NFL owners worth like
the McCaskey, Virginia McCaskey over two billion dollars. And by
the way, if she owns the Bears, that's not it
because the Bears would sell tomorrow for probably seven five
half billion dollars or yeah more. Yeah, sure, yeah. So
(07:47):
what has happened? Is it used to be you would
never fire Frank Reich in year one if your net
worth was three hundred million. I'm not gonna write a
twelve million dollar check, Frank, right, But when I'm worth
thirty two billion, I'll easily write a forty million dollar check.
(08:09):
So who's the loser in the frank right firing? It's
bryce new coach, new quarterback coach, new staff by year two.
So what has happened? Increasingly, as the owners have gotten wealthier,
all these firings are rounding errors. The richer they get,
the more the more secluded they are, the more insulated
(08:33):
they are from criticism or punitive action. A bad marketing campaign.
If you owned a car dealership thirty years ago, could
half your net worth. Jeff Bezos gets no publicity, that's positive.
It doesn't matter. He's worth sixty billion. And so owners
fire quicker coach is knowing it's coming. Quicker fire coordinators,
(08:57):
quicker quarterbacks have to win by Thanksgiving of year two
or they get rid of him. Justin fields in the
seventies would get another year. You can't even that's not
even a debate. Now you have to move off him.
And so the reason quarterback play is perceived is worse.
It doesn't make any sense. It's counterintuitive. There's more camps,
there's more coaching. Yeah, there's better quarterbacks. What's happening is
(09:20):
global wealth his created from the ownership down. This domino
effect of absolute impatience. And the loser isn't the coach
because he gets the money when he gets Frank Wright
gets the money and goes to the beach. It's not
the owner. It's not the GMO gets fired. He gets
money and goes to the beach.
Speaker 3 (09:39):
The loser is the twenty three year old quarterback who's
got to play with the seventh Justin Herbert's on his
third coordinator and second coach and his third art So.
Speaker 2 (09:51):
I have, actually I'm not a very different theory, but
in line with what you're talking about, an experiment I
always wanted to see and I've talked with me In
Jennie about this and we'll never get to see it.
But what would the result be if you took a
(10:15):
like well known media like not god awful, terrible, but
we know he's not a star coach, well known definition
of mediocre head coach. I don't know the example, and
I don't want to name a name. It seems me
but just say whatever the slightly beneath league average while
(10:38):
his career was and an owner said, I am signing
this contract that says you will be my head coach
with full control of your own staff for six years
at a minimum if at any point between now and
six years you get fired. I signed the team over
(11:01):
to you. I'm telling you you you have absolute job secure.
Would that create by a inertia and by the fact
that you can make every decision be forward long term,
thinking all of it instantly, by the by year three,
(11:23):
much less year six, a top six, top eight coaching
staff coach in the league where you're not doing anything impulsively,
you're not doing anything that's that's you know, robbing tomorrow
to pay today because you're worried you're gonna get canned,
and while everyone else is on the treadmill of oh shit,
(11:44):
I gotta save my job. You can have the long
term view and install a culture and a system and
all of it. I really believe that would be better
than what ninety percent of these teams do.
Speaker 1 (11:55):
Yes. And what the benefit of that is that you
could hire a bit better staff. I mean, Carolina, ninety
percent of the good candidates will not even They'll tell
their agent don't call, right.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Ben Johnson's not going there any no no chance but
the flip. And in addition, you could.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Build a better staff. I guess you can build a
better staff with your line of thinking, and over the
course of time, the best staff, not just Andy Reid
wins bags is a big part of that staff, right,
So the better staff.
Speaker 2 (12:29):
But also guys that can whatever their culture is going
to be, Like I don't know for certain, I think it,
but I don't know for certain. John Harbaugh and Mike
Tomlin are in a vacuum. Tomlin's pretty damn impressive, let
me use Harball, but in a vacuum a great coach.
(12:49):
But what both of them had was nearly instant Super
Bowl wins, which gave them, at least for the next
half decade, one hundred percent job security, which allowed them
to install one hundred percent of their system and their
culture and whatever learning on the job they needed to
(13:10):
do they could do with safety and security. And now
we look at them as unquestioned great coaches, Like there
is a level of what if you know you're gonna
have the gig and you can do things right or
wrong the way you want to do it and not
have these teams that just massively go back and forth.
(13:32):
The Chargers with Justin Irbay, they have an offensive coach
and Anthony Lynn he's not good enough to hire Brandon
Staley he's about to get run out of town. They're
gonna do everything they can to hire Ben John like
you know what I mean, just the back and forth everything.
So I think, yeah, I do think the the lack
of patience on NFL coaching staffs is bad for everybody.
(13:53):
But my theory on quarterbacks is different one. And this
is where I think Brady got it wrong. I don't
think it's that the play's gotten worse. I think that
the top level play is now so fucking good that
teams are like like in the nineties, Kenny Pickett would
(14:17):
be the Pittsburgh Steelers starter for twelve to fifteen years.
I watched Neil O'donnald play there. You can't tell me
that this guy's not as good as him. They went
to a super Bowl.
Speaker 1 (14:29):
Okay, listen to this. Aaron Rodgers was in his prime,
Matt Stafford close to it. Trubisky made the playoffs twice.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
Yes, in the seventies.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
He would be Brian's site for the Brown Yeah, and
start for a decade.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
Right. And So what I think is the top level
quarterbacks now that you have some of the best athletes
also playing quarterback, whether it be Josh Allen, or Lamar
or Mahomes who could have played a bunch of sports.
Russell Wilson when he was in his prime. These guys
that teams that have he's fine are always looking for
(15:06):
the next guy and the guy who it's like, ah,
he's fine. If he somehow gets to year seven, is
gonna be pretty good, but you don't want to. They
don't get there, Like golf didn't all of a sudden
get better, worse, whatever it is. He's been the same guy.
He's super accurate. If he's protected, he's not gonna be
(15:27):
able to horn on the ball because he has small hands,
and if you get a pass rusher on him, it's
not gonna work out. But he now has seen so
much more football, done all these things that those weaknesses
are still there, but the strengths are accentuated. Those things
are better. But he almost never got another chance, like
when you have when you have these aliens playing quarterback,
(15:50):
if you have a guy who's average, you're gonna get
rid of him to draft the next guy, and that's
a lottery ticket, which then leads to a lot of young,
raw quarterbacks, which leads to a bad quarterback play.
Speaker 1 (16:05):
Finally, there are certain things in sports in business that
are just hard and they're imperfect and there's just no
way to generate perfection. And I think in sports one
of those in the NFL is game clock management. So
(16:30):
when you get to the end of the game, you've
got certain units. Over the course of a game, players
get injured, so you know players you would have used
in sets earlier now can't play. So as games evolve
in the NFL, the later they go, the harder they
are to manage. Analytics Now wasn't really an issue ten
(16:51):
years ago. Now you have to consider analytics. There's the clock.
If you have a young quarterback, they're not as strong
at managing the clock, and so you tend to be
I agreed with you on John Harbaugh against the Chargers,
go for it. In that situation, I would have gone
for it. But it does bring up an interesting because
(17:13):
I think you're too hard on people for game clock management.
Speaker 3 (17:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (17:17):
I think it's one of those things that unless you've
played football or you've coached, you don't understand. It's like
play by play, how effing hard it is. Andy Reid
was I mean debased for years in Philadelphia, and then
he got Mahomes and nobody talks about it. McVeigh gets clobber. YEP,
when you acknowledge, and there's probably several analogous options here,
(17:41):
that it is one of those things that is probably
much harder than people understand.
Speaker 2 (17:48):
I yes, I acknowledge that. I think that is correct,
which is why it just should be farmed out. And
I'm not talking about choosing to go for it all
fourth or not that I do. Listen, I think coaches
are far too conservative in large part on that, and
I understand our broadcasters very often will be like, well,
(18:13):
or the coaches after the game will say, well, yes,
we knew the analytics, but given the circumstances of the game,
blah blah, blah blah. My issue with that is, here's
if that's really what's happening. Oh we know the numbers,
but because this guy was out or this or that,
we went the other way? How come this My entire
(18:35):
football life has never happened. Oh yeah, we knew the numbers,
said we have to punt here, but given the circumstances
of the game, we've said, f're fucking going for it.
That never happens, and never in my life has it
been like, oh yeah, all the numbers say do the
conservative thing, but we're gonna be extra aggressive because it circumstances.
So to me, coaches are far too conservative. But that
(18:58):
has to be the decision the head coach. I do
believe you can't farm that out. You can give them
the information. You can talk to him when it's not
during the week. That needs to be your general on
the battlefield making that call. The timeout stuff, Colin, the
clock management stuff, Colin is blackjack, and there's only one
(19:19):
right way to play it. Let me give you a
four instance that I bet, I honestly believe twenty nine
of thirty two NFL head coaches would fail this test.
There is a very specific and it might only come
up once a year if ever, scenario where if you
(19:39):
are trailing and you are trying to stop the clock
and the other team's trying to run it out, you
do not want to call timeout on the north side
of the two minute warning. When is it and why?
And the answer to that question is and people listening
thinking they're like, well, let me think, Papa, it's very
(19:59):
very specific. If there is between about two forty two
and two forty seven exactly that much time left in
the half and you only have one timeout, you one
hundred percent should not use it because the average play
(20:20):
is going to take between two to five seconds, and
whether you call your time out there or not, that
the two plays later is going to happen on the
other side of the two minute warning. So if you
save it, you can then save thirty nine seconds on
the other side of the two minute warning if you
have multiple and if people are like, that's confusing, and
(20:43):
get out a piece of paper and write it down
and track it out. I promise I'm right. It's a
very unique spot, but you got to know it. You've
got to know the ways that to give yourself the
best option. A thing that super sharp coaches started to
do a couple years ago was, oh, shit, if the
(21:03):
other team we have two timeouts and it is second
and one, we're going and we're trying to stop them.
We're going to pretend to jump off sides and hope
they accept the penalty because the odds are they're getting
this first down on one of the next two plays anyway,
(21:23):
and we just want it to be untimed like Vrabel
did that, Belichick did that, and now coaches have called
into it. There are certain things that if in the
fog of war, the head coach can't handle all of it,
then hires some kid that played Madden their whole life
and figured it out when they were high and seventeen
years old, like I did. I'm listen. I do happen
(21:46):
to be brilliant, but this is not part of my brilliance.
This is part of me gambling on Madden in a
dorm four years and just understanding these little quirks. And
so I've joked forever before I hired an NFL head coach, like,
We're going to a casino and I'm gonna watch you
play blackjack for two hours, and if you make one mistake,
I'm not hiring you. If there's one time where you're like, eh,
(22:08):
I know you have a seven and I have a sixteen,
but I'm gonna stay Okay, you're not gonna be my guy.
Fourth downs are not that black and white. Clock management
is so that stuff. I won't give any quarter on
fourth down stuff. I like the harball thing. Sorry I'm ranting.
You touch on a passionate point for me. I think
coaches super overvalue going up six points. I actually don't
(22:32):
know that in the final ninety seconds. I'd rather be
up six than three. And I know that sounds ridiculous,
But if you're up six, the other team has to
score a touchdown. Is in four down territory four down
all the whole time, You know what I mean. They
are going perma aggression. Up three, they're gonna be a
(22:57):
little more conservative, They're gonna once they getting field goal range,
they're definitely kicking it. All of that, and either way,
up three or six, a touchdown beat you. So the
harball thing I thought was insane. I'm like, you're up three,
a first down wins the game, if you need one yard,
if you kick a field goal, a touchdown beat you
(23:18):
either way. Like that one killed me. Like I do
think coaches far too often don't just ask themselves the
question I would always be asking myself, which is, if
I were coaching the other team, what am I rooting for?
And if I'm playing Lamar Jackson and I have Justin Herbert,
no matter how he's been playing, am I rooting for
(23:39):
them to be able to make it to where Justin
Herbert never touches the ball again? Or am I rooting
for them to put a kicker on the field? And
guarantee justin Herbert touches the ball again. Of course I'm
rooting for that to do the opposite. Harball's usually pretty
good about that. I thought he screwed it up Sunday,
but it didn't matter.
Speaker 1 (23:55):
It didn't actually agree with you on that, all right, Buddy,
Good Show, Mark Cuban, Jim Harball, Lebron James, Melika andrews Uh.
Speaker 2 (24:05):
Milika andrews Man and like, you know what, hold on.
I'm gonna say one last thing on that and the
Melika thing. I and I want to be Christian respectful
here because I don't know Melika at all and she
doesn't need me defending her. But the amount of of
(24:28):
shit that women in our field take from these creeps
on the internet, and then you add to it the
amount of like part of the stuff with Milika has
a really really that I'm not going to get into,
like dark racial connotation about her, her life and her
(24:52):
upbringing that touches close to home for me that I feel,
really really is really cruel. Well, I listen. I don't
know if she listens to the volume. Everyone should listen
to the volume, but if she doesn't, if someone who's
listening to this or seeing this is in her circle.
Please let her know that those of us, her colleagues
(25:14):
that maybe haven't said anything because you're not trying to
draw more attention to these creeps on the internet have
her back. She's a star and from all accounts, incredibly
hard worker. And all these people coming after her for
some old nonsense. I think it is really really really gross.
That's it.
Speaker 1 (25:32):
Social media can be really really really gross. I mean,
that's the truth of it.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Not to me, man, Everybody loves me so believable. I
can't believe it. Nobody's ever sent a mean tweet about me,
Nobody ever makes fun of my hair, my nose, anything.
It just universally approved, just like you, Colin, thank you
for having me. I'll talk to you.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So the volume
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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