Colin gives his instant reaction to the Los Angeles Dodgers beating the New York Yankees in game 5 to win the World Series!
He congratulates the Dodgers and explains why the Yankees were the inferior team and why Shohei Ohtani deserved to win on baseball’s biggest stage (3:00)
Then, he pivots to the NFL and why out of all his correct predictions, the Pittsburgh Steelers with Russell Wilson are the team that managed to surprise him the most of any team at the NFL’s midseason mark (19:30).
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
The volume. All right, basketball season is here, and there's
only one place to go for tickets, and you know
where that is game Time. They have a new feature
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(00:23):
Game Time gives me a seat preview, offers me a
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(00:43):
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Time today. What time is it? Game Time? All right?
Instant reaction, and then on the back end, some thoughts
on where I was really wrong this football season with
(01:04):
one team in particular. Congratulations to the Dodgers winning their
eighth World Series title. I think I'm very clever headline
Walker Bueller's two days Off Ferris Bueller Walker Anyway, I
love Dave Robbers, who deals because of the Dodgers' payroll
and their commitment to Betts and Freeman and Otani, it's
(01:28):
like an all star team. There's a lot of pressure
on Dave Robbers, and you know, here's a guy with
the Red Sox. Here's a guy that you know, wins
a World Series and then Dodgers as a manager. And
I just think he's a classy guy who's taken a
lot of shit and he did a great job, a
(01:49):
masterful job of not only managing the team, but managing
his resources. Now, I felt very strongly tonight that it
was going to go back to La and the Dodgers
were going to pitch. At least I thought this in
the eighth inning. They were going to pitch Yamamoto and
Walker Buehler, their two best pitchers at home, whereas the
Yankees just expanded Garrett Cole so he's done for the
(02:11):
series and they go on the road. But I really
thought as much as the Dodgers won tonight, I thought
the Yankees, and I thought they were the inferior team.
I thought they gave the game away. And the fifth
innings of the craziest thing I've ever seen. Over the
course of ten minutes, Aaron Judge, with a five to
zhering lead, drops a routine fly ball. It was the
(02:32):
kind of ball that you if you're playing catch with
a friend. He drops a routine flyball, then volpay it short,
short hops a throw to third, and then Garrett Cole,
who had a masterful one hundred and eight pitching performance,
doesn't cover firstpace. It would be a you would think
that was a bad spring training performance. You'd get chewed
(02:55):
out after a spring training game. To be in a
World Series game and have three miscues one after the
other is just insane. Then the game is tied, and
then I felt like the Dodgers were playing loose and
with house money. I mean, at that point, I mean,
you get down five nothing, You're like, okay, we're going
back to La. We got Yamamoto, Yamamoto, We've got Walker Bueller.
(03:17):
This will be it for Garrett Cole. We have a
pitching advantage, hitting advantage, home field advantage. They're not gonna
win four s red against us. That's what it felt
like to me. And it's so all bets are off,
but God and Max Munsey, who was just great in
the NLCS, had a rough world series. Otani didn't hit,
and Dave Roberts, you know, I mean, there are a
(03:39):
lot of people that didn't want Max Munsey coming up,
you know, that final time. So you got Munsey's struggling,
Otani's struggling. And remember Jack Flaherty, who the Dodgers got.
There's a story last week, I think it was in
the La Times where his velocity had come down, so
you know, he he didn't look like, you know, he
had his best stuff. So after the Bullpen lost yesterday,
(04:02):
Flaherty struggling today you're thinking, you know, to me, it
was just like, okay, you're going home, Yamamoto Walker Buller's
stuff is nasty. You're in great shape. I've been taking
notes for four hours. I got so many notes. And
then you know, again the Yankees in the top of
the eighth you got back to back singles by Keithy
(04:24):
Hernandez and Tommy Edmond and then Will Smith walks. You
have no no outs in the bases loaded, and so
you get and then there's a catcher's interference against the Yankees.
So god, it's like the fifth in the eighth. It
was just time after time the Yankees, you know. And
you know, as I said before, I don't watch a
ton of baseball in the regular season. I mean, it's
(04:46):
on in my house with the Dodgers. When I lived
I worked at ESPN back East, I always had the
Yankees of the Red Sox on. It was the Yes
networker Nessen, I watch my local team, right. I kind
of keep track because I used to work for the Padres,
so I kind of keep track of the Padres a
little bit. But this was a game in which the
Yankees just kept giving the Dodgers every break and the
(05:07):
fifth inning and the eighth inning and catchers interference and
airs and free passes, and the Dodgers eventually, you know,
took advantage of it. So you know, it's interesting. Years
and years ago, there's a coach, the late lut Olsen
coach at Arizona. He had great teams in the tournament
and he just could not win a championship. And there
(05:28):
was a lot of years they went in as a
heavy favorite, loss in the first round, and then eventually
they got this team with Miles Simon and a bunch
of freshmen and a bunch of kids, and they won
the National Championship. And it's just so interesting. So many
times with Dave Roberts and the Dodgers, you've got into
the playoffs and you felt really strongly about them, and
they just they kind of unravel and they have a
bad pitching performance this year. I mean, think about it.
(05:51):
In this World Series, Otani dried up. Max Munsey, who
was brilliant in the NLCS, dried up all of a
sudden going into the World Series, fled the velocity dips.
You've already used forty pitchers. You're going into a World
Series coming out of a National League Divisional Series and
a championship series where you had to have bullpen games.
(06:11):
You're just managing resources of all the years to win it.
If you'd written down this script and said, yeah, oh Tony,
it will just be brutal in a series, Max Munsey
will dry up. I mean you'll have basically two starting pitchers.
And Walker Bulder was kind of crossing your fingers because
he's been hurt for a year and a half, two years,
so got that fifth inning. I think all five of
(06:33):
those runs the Dodger scored, I think all five were unearned.
Has that ever happened in a World Series game? Five
hundred runs? Well, it's just it's just crazy, and you
know it's you just never known these championships where they
come from. And I thought it was interesting that the
World Series came down to Garrett Cole being pulled. Not
(06:56):
singularly came down to, but Garrett Cole being pulled in
Game one, got a lot of heat, and then Garrett
Cole not covering first kept that fifth inning going for
the Dodgers. So Garrett Cole, who was, you know, the
the best pitcher in the series for either team, I
think ended up being so crucial, probably pulled a little
(07:16):
early at eighty eight pitches and the Dodgers, you know,
had to go to their bullpen, and good luck against
the Dodgers at Dodgers Stadium with your bullpen. And then
in this fifth inning, you know, he was he was
brilliant tonight, one hundred and eight pitches, but he didn't
cover first base. I mean that just crazy to me.
A guy that zoned in doesn't cover first base, So
(07:36):
I mean, the Dodgers aren't going anywhere. I mean, it's
just so many, so many things went wrong physically for
the Dodgers. I mean Otani's shoulders, collarbone, I mean, what
are the chances of that on a slide to second base.
You're looking at any You're thinking there's no collision. All
of a sudden he grabs his shoulder and you're like,
you gotta be kidding me. The timing's terrible. Ends up.
(07:59):
They didn't need him, So it's easy. I find it's
easy to root for the Dodgers. I think it's a
really classy organization from research and development. They don't miss
on trades. You know, when they call guys up, they deliver.
It's just it's just, you know, Kershaw to Otani to Betts,
to Freddie Freeman's story, to Dave Roberts to the late
(08:23):
Vince Scully and now Joe Davis. You're just it's class
personified as an organization. And you can blame Aaron Boone
and you can blame the defense in the fifth inning,
But I mean, if you really looked at what was happening,
if the Dodgers would have not come back in the
fifth inning, you were going to La to face the
Dodgers best too pitchers, and at some point Otani was
(08:47):
going to get a big hit. I mean, Aaron Judge finally,
Aaron Judge tonight roared back, I mean really roared back tonight.
And despite what happened in the World Series, the Dodgers
three years ago set their sights on Otani and what
a significant upgrade for him personally, because you know, when
(09:11):
you get these star players, it always reminds me to
a lesser version of like Joe Mauer with the Twins
or a Joey Vado with a Cincinnati Reds, where you
just can't you pay him and you can't surround him
with elite players, and the Angels couldn't really do that.
But with the Dodgers, you can have him cleanup, you
can beat him third fourth, You're gonna have Mooky Betts
and Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy, you know, and tremendous
(09:32):
players all around him. He's gonna usually get better pictures.
And it's just I mean, for him to be as
as classy as he was. I mean, this season started
with that you know, gambling story, which could have derailed
the franchise, derailed his career, and he was just poised,
under control, beloved in the locker room, fit right in,
(09:57):
and it feels like they're just certain players. I mean,
it's like Aaron Judge needs to be a Yankee, right
like Otani really needs to be a Dodger. It's nothing
against the Angels, but you know, they're just the Dodgers
have more resources and the Yankees have more resources, and
there's just a handful of teams that can surround these
great players with better players so they get better pitches.
(10:20):
And I just I just thought think of how the
season started pretty bumpy for Otani and it ended pretty bumpy.
But let's not forget what he produced. For a majority
ninety five percent of this season. He was the best
player by a lot, and that's saying something. On a
team with Betson Freeman and Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper
and the amazing players in Major League Baseball, Otani by
(10:43):
a long shot fifty to fifty club was the best
player in baseball. I like how it ends for him
and the Dodgers. So great players eventually have their moment
on a stage like this. The congratulations to the Los
Angeles Dodgers in what was one of the weirdest most
bazz zorro World Series games I've ever seen, and a
(11:04):
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Speaker 1 (12:33):
I don't worry about getting week to week predictions right
because nobody does right. We all. If you can get
fifty five percent of my blazing five picks, I'm more
than happy, and of course I want to get my
picks right. But what I do worry about and take
seriously are the big macro topics over the course of
a football season. Those I think you can You can
(12:54):
hit eighty percent of those if you do your homework.
So I had four or five big topics coming into
this football season. Number one, I said, the Washington Commanders
cleaning House will immediately become a playoff team. So it
looks like I'm right on that. I had pretty good
insight with Cliff Kingsbury, who banged the table for Jaden
Daniels in the draft, and he really felt he was
like a better version of Kyler Murray and he has
(13:16):
been fewer mistakes, more of a leader, and so I
feel really good about that that I got it right.
I also predict that I thought the San Francisco forty
nine ers had peaked and that you'll start to see
flaws and limitations with Brock Purdy in the overall organization,
which is very Christian McCaffrey reliant. I think I was
right on that. I picked the Denver Broncos and Sean
(13:38):
Payton to be the one team the safest bet on
the over underscale. Vegas had him at five and a
half wins. My take is Sean Payton is going to
win you a couple of games, out smarting mediocre coaches,
bow Nicks with sixty one college starts by at least Thanksgiving,
will be a real NFL quarterback, franchise quarterback. I think
he is now, and frankly the AFC's got There's a
(14:01):
lot of winnable games on the Bronco schedule, including two
in division against the Raiders, and so I think I
got that right as well. So Denver Washington San Francisco,
I thought I got right. I think the one I
really got wrong was the Pittsburgh Steelers. I had said
I thought Justin Fields would win the locker room. Now
I think I got that right. But I think one
(14:25):
thing that is very clear, and I'm not talking about
winning a super Bowl. If you go look in the
last three to four years in the NFL, the final
four coaches are all offensive. But to win a playoff
game or two, you know Sean McDermott can do that
as a defensive coach. And I think I think Mike Tomlin,
and we've always studies credible, but I think what Mike
(14:45):
Tomlin has shown over the course of this season, and
I'm I'm wrong on this, is that I always felt
he was a little tone def to offense. But by
pivoting off Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, and Justin Fields who
had a winning record and settling on Russell Wilson, I
think it shows that he is more aware than I
(15:06):
gave him credit for, and defensive coaches can struggle with this,
that he understands the urgency at quarterback. This is why
I banged on Ron Rivera at Washington, who thought Sam
Hall was good enough or Pete Carroll and Seattle. I
thought Geno Smith was good enough. No, they're not. And
I don't think Russell Wilson's good enough to win a
super Bowl. But he is better than Mason Rudolph and
Kenny Pickett and Justin Fields. And I think even though
(15:27):
they were winning, it's hard as a coach when you're
winning to make changes, right, like you're going to disrupt things.
We're four and two. I'm not going to disrupt the
locker room. That takes a pair by Mike Tomlin at
four and two to go in and say, guys, we
should be five and one. We're a better team than this.
And I think the thing about Russell Wilson is that's
(15:48):
really encouraging if you're a Steeler fan, is that Russell
never made a ton of mistakes. He was always elusive,
he was always smart, he took the right risks. But
I think Russell is I think he knows now he's
got he understands sort of what he's become. And I
look at the Steelers and it's sort of Seahawks light
(16:10):
power run game. Marshawn Lynch is better than Nausee Harris
power run game, defensive coach, defensive culture, a couple playmakers
on the outside, good pass rush, good home field environment,
and a really good, tough physical culture. With Seattle and Pittsburgh,
Russell's not as good as he was, but he's also capable.
He's a better quarterback right now than Aaron Rodgers, and
(16:31):
I think he's as good a leader he's I think
he's certainly in the class close to a Kirk Cousins,
who I predicted would win twelve games this year and
be the number one seed potentially with Atlanta. So I
think I was really wrong on Pittsburgh. I think Tomlin
was more aware of the need for urgency on offense.
I thought it took real guts to get rid of
Justin Field's nice kid, liked in the locker room, high ceiling,
(16:54):
but a really low floor. And so I may have
Washington right so far and right and San Francisco right,
but I think I've been wrong on Pittsburgh, that that's
a real team. And you start looking at that schedule, Well,
Cleveland now stinks, Cincinnati's not very good, Baltimore's better. I
think over time, Baltimore's better, but Baltimore is not very good.
(17:16):
On the defensive end. So could Pittsburgh win that division. Absolutely,
I'm gonna favorite Baltimore, but they can win that division.
You know, the very top of the AFC, Kansas City, Buffalo, Houston, Baltimore,
those are very good teams. It gets real squishy in
the middle and really bad on the bottom. But in
(17:37):
the NFC, the middle of the NFC is pretty good.
Arizona can beat anybody with those weapons. Minnesota can play
with anybody with those weapons. The Rams when Puka Nakua,
Matt Stafford, Kyron Williams, Cooper Cup are healthy, they can
play with anybody. So the top of the AFC is
really good. But Pittsburgh could very well be the best
(17:57):
team in the middle, along with the Chargers. And that's
my take is that the Chargers and the Steelers they're
not Kansas City, Baltimore, Buffalo, But because the middle is
so soft in the AFC, I think what I'm seeing
is the Chargers Harbaugh Herbert and the Steelers Tomlin, Russell
Wilson look like clearly the best of the next group,
(18:20):
and that next group should be winning playoff games the volume.
Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
take a moment, rate and review
The volume. All right, basketball season is here, and there's
only one place to go for tickets, and you know
where that is game Time. They have a new feature
called game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show
you only incredible deals on great seats, so you don't
have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. When
I want to go to a basketball game, football game, concert,
comedy show, just click on the event you want to attend.
(00:23):
Game Time gives me a seat preview, offers me a
great deal. I get the best bang for my buck.
Game Time also has the lowest prices guaranteed or they
will credit you one hundred and ten percent the difference.
So take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game
Time Picks. Download their app game Time App ninety seconds,
create an account, use the code colin that's me Coli
(00:43):
in twenty bucks off your first purchase again terms apply
redeem codes Colin Coli in twenty bucks off. Download game
Time today. What time is it? Game Time? All right?
Instant reaction, and then on the back end, some thoughts
on where I was really wrong this football season with
(01:04):
one team in particular. Congratulations to the Dodgers winning their
eighth World Series title. I think I'm very clever headline
Walker Bueller's two days Off Ferris Bueller Walker Anyway, I
love Dave Robbers, who deals because of the Dodgers' payroll
and their commitment to Betts and Freeman and Otani, it's
(01:28):
like an all star team. There's a lot of pressure
on Dave Robbers, and you know, here's a guy with
the Red Sox. Here's a guy that you know, wins
a World Series and then Dodgers as a manager. And
I just think he's a classy guy who's taken a
lot of shit and he did a great job, a
(01:49):
masterful job of not only managing the team, but managing
his resources. Now, I felt very strongly tonight that it
was going to go back to La and the Dodgers
were going to pitch. At least I thought this in
the eighth inning. They were going to pitch Yamamoto and
Walker Buehler, their two best pitchers at home, whereas the
Yankees just expanded Garrett Cole so he's done for the
(02:11):
series and they go on the road. But I really
thought as much as the Dodgers won tonight, I thought
the Yankees, and I thought they were the inferior team.
I thought they gave the game away. And the fifth
innings of the craziest thing I've ever seen. Over the
course of ten minutes, Aaron Judge, with a five to
zhering lead, drops a routine fly ball. It was the
(02:32):
kind of ball that you if you're playing catch with
a friend. He drops a routine flyball, then volpay it short,
short hops a throw to third, and then Garrett Cole,
who had a masterful one hundred and eight pitching performance,
doesn't cover firstpace. It would be a you would think
that was a bad spring training performance. You'd get chewed
(02:55):
out after a spring training game. To be in a
World Series game and have three miscues one after the
other is just insane. Then the game is tied, and
then I felt like the Dodgers were playing loose and
with house money. I mean, at that point, I mean,
you get down five nothing, You're like, okay, we're going
back to La. We got Yamamoto, Yamamoto, We've got Walker Bueller.
(03:17):
This will be it for Garrett Cole. We have a
pitching advantage, hitting advantage, home field advantage. They're not gonna
win four s red against us. That's what it felt
like to me. And it's so all bets are off,
but God and Max Munsey, who was just great in
the NLCS, had a rough world series. Otani didn't hit,
and Dave Roberts, you know, I mean, there are a
(03:39):
lot of people that didn't want Max Munsey coming up,
you know, that final time. So you got Munsey's struggling,
Otani's struggling. And remember Jack Flaherty, who the Dodgers got.
There's a story last week, I think it was in
the La Times where his velocity had come down, so
you know, he he didn't look like, you know, he
had his best stuff. So after the Bullpen lost yesterday,
(04:02):
Flaherty struggling today you're thinking, you know, to me, it
was just like, okay, you're going home, Yamamoto Walker Buller's
stuff is nasty. You're in great shape. I've been taking
notes for four hours. I got so many notes. And
then you know, again the Yankees in the top of
the eighth you got back to back singles by Keithy
(04:24):
Hernandez and Tommy Edmond and then Will Smith walks. You
have no no outs in the bases loaded, and so
you get and then there's a catcher's interference against the Yankees.
So god, it's like the fifth in the eighth. It
was just time after time the Yankees, you know. And
you know, as I said before, I don't watch a
ton of baseball in the regular season. I mean, it's
(04:46):
on in my house with the Dodgers. When I lived
I worked at ESPN back East, I always had the
Yankees of the Red Sox on. It was the Yes
networker Nessen, I watch my local team, right. I kind
of keep track because I used to work for the Padres,
so I kind of keep track of the Padres a
little bit. But this was a game in which the
Yankees just kept giving the Dodgers every break and the
(05:07):
fifth inning and the eighth inning and catchers interference and
airs and free passes, and the Dodgers eventually, you know,
took advantage of it. So you know, it's interesting. Years
and years ago, there's a coach, the late lut Olsen
coach at Arizona. He had great teams in the tournament
and he just could not win a championship. And there
(05:28):
was a lot of years they went in as a
heavy favorite, loss in the first round, and then eventually
they got this team with Miles Simon and a bunch
of freshmen and a bunch of kids, and they won
the National Championship. And it's just so interesting. So many
times with Dave Roberts and the Dodgers, you've got into
the playoffs and you felt really strongly about them, and
they just they kind of unravel and they have a
bad pitching performance this year. I mean, think about it.
(05:51):
In this World Series, Otani dried up. Max Munsey, who
was brilliant in the NLCS, dried up all of a
sudden going into the World Series, fled the velocity dips.
You've already used forty pitchers. You're going into a World
Series coming out of a National League Divisional Series and
a championship series where you had to have bullpen games.
(06:11):
You're just managing resources of all the years to win it.
If you'd written down this script and said, yeah, oh Tony,
it will just be brutal in a series, Max Munsey
will dry up. I mean you'll have basically two starting pitchers.
And Walker Bulder was kind of crossing your fingers because
he's been hurt for a year and a half, two years,
so got that fifth inning. I think all five of
(06:33):
those runs the Dodger scored, I think all five were unearned.
Has that ever happened in a World Series game? Five
hundred runs? Well, it's just it's just crazy, and you
know it's you just never known these championships where they
come from. And I thought it was interesting that the
World Series came down to Garrett Cole being pulled. Not
(06:56):
singularly came down to, but Garrett Cole being pulled in
Game one, got a lot of heat, and then Garrett
Cole not covering first kept that fifth inning going for
the Dodgers. So Garrett Cole, who was, you know, the
the best pitcher in the series for either team, I
think ended up being so crucial, probably pulled a little
(07:16):
early at eighty eight pitches and the Dodgers, you know,
had to go to their bullpen, and good luck against
the Dodgers at Dodgers Stadium with your bullpen. And then
in this fifth inning, you know, he was he was
brilliant tonight, one hundred and eight pitches, but he didn't
cover first base. I mean that just crazy to me.
A guy that zoned in doesn't cover first base, So
(07:36):
I mean, the Dodgers aren't going anywhere. I mean, it's
just so many, so many things went wrong physically for
the Dodgers. I mean Otani's shoulders, collarbone, I mean, what
are the chances of that on a slide to second base.
You're looking at any You're thinking there's no collision. All
of a sudden he grabs his shoulder and you're like,
you gotta be kidding me. The timing's terrible. Ends up.
(07:59):
They didn't need him, So it's easy. I find it's
easy to root for the Dodgers. I think it's a
really classy organization from research and development. They don't miss
on trades. You know, when they call guys up, they deliver.
It's just it's just, you know, Kershaw to Otani to Betts,
to Freddie Freeman's story, to Dave Roberts to the late
(08:23):
Vince Scully and now Joe Davis. You're just it's class
personified as an organization. And you can blame Aaron Boone
and you can blame the defense in the fifth inning,
But I mean, if you really looked at what was happening,
if the Dodgers would have not come back in the
fifth inning, you were going to La to face the
Dodgers best too pitchers, and at some point Otani was
(08:47):
going to get a big hit. I mean, Aaron Judge finally,
Aaron Judge tonight roared back, I mean really roared back tonight.
And despite what happened in the World Series, the Dodgers
three years ago set their sights on Otani and what
a significant upgrade for him personally, because you know, when
(09:11):
you get these star players, it always reminds me to
a lesser version of like Joe Mauer with the Twins
or a Joey Vado with a Cincinnati Reds, where you
just can't you pay him and you can't surround him
with elite players, and the Angels couldn't really do that.
But with the Dodgers, you can have him cleanup, you
can beat him third fourth, You're gonna have Mooky Betts
and Freddie Freeman and Max Muncy, you know, and tremendous
(09:32):
players all around him. He's gonna usually get better pictures.
And it's just I mean, for him to be as
as classy as he was. I mean, this season started
with that you know, gambling story, which could have derailed
the franchise, derailed his career, and he was just poised,
under control, beloved in the locker room, fit right in,
(09:57):
and it feels like they're just certain players. I mean,
it's like Aaron Judge needs to be a Yankee, right
like Otani really needs to be a Dodger. It's nothing
against the Angels, but you know, they're just the Dodgers
have more resources and the Yankees have more resources, and
there's just a handful of teams that can surround these
great players with better players so they get better pitches.
(10:20):
And I just I just thought think of how the
season started pretty bumpy for Otani and it ended pretty bumpy.
But let's not forget what he produced. For a majority
ninety five percent of this season. He was the best
player by a lot, and that's saying something. On a
team with Betson Freeman and Aaron Judge and Bryce Harper
and the amazing players in Major League Baseball, Otani by
(10:43):
a long shot fifty to fifty club was the best
player in baseball. I like how it ends for him
and the Dodgers. So great players eventually have their moment
on a stage like this. The congratulations to the Los
Angeles Dodgers in what was one of the weirdest most
bazz zorro World Series games I've ever seen, and a
(11:04):
pretty quick series where a stack roster despite all the
injuries won. Does your favorite NBA player have what it
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Speaker 2 (11:56):
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Speaker 1 (12:33):
I don't worry about getting week to week predictions right
because nobody does right. We all. If you can get
fifty five percent of my blazing five picks, I'm more
than happy, and of course I want to get my
picks right. But what I do worry about and take
seriously are the big macro topics over the course of
a football season. Those I think you can You can
(12:54):
hit eighty percent of those if you do your homework.
So I had four or five big topics coming into
this football season. Number one, I said, the Washington Commanders
cleaning House will immediately become a playoff team. So it
looks like I'm right on that. I had pretty good
insight with Cliff Kingsbury, who banged the table for Jaden
Daniels in the draft, and he really felt he was
like a better version of Kyler Murray and he has
(13:16):
been fewer mistakes, more of a leader, and so I
feel really good about that that I got it right.
I also predict that I thought the San Francisco forty
nine ers had peaked and that you'll start to see
flaws and limitations with Brock Purdy in the overall organization,
which is very Christian McCaffrey reliant. I think I was
right on that. I picked the Denver Broncos and Sean
(13:38):
Payton to be the one team the safest bet on
the over underscale. Vegas had him at five and a
half wins. My take is Sean Payton is going to
win you a couple of games, out smarting mediocre coaches,
bow Nicks with sixty one college starts by at least Thanksgiving,
will be a real NFL quarterback, franchise quarterback. I think
he is now, and frankly the AFC's got There's a
(14:01):
lot of winnable games on the Bronco schedule, including two
in division against the Raiders, and so I think I
got that right as well. So Denver Washington San Francisco,
I thought I got right. I think the one I
really got wrong was the Pittsburgh Steelers. I had said
I thought Justin Fields would win the locker room. Now
I think I got that right. But I think one
(14:25):
thing that is very clear, and I'm not talking about
winning a super Bowl. If you go look in the
last three to four years in the NFL, the final
four coaches are all offensive. But to win a playoff
game or two, you know Sean McDermott can do that
as a defensive coach. And I think I think Mike Tomlin,
and we've always studies credible, but I think what Mike
(14:45):
Tomlin has shown over the course of this season, and
I'm I'm wrong on this, is that I always felt
he was a little tone def to offense. But by
pivoting off Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, and Justin Fields who
had a winning record and settling on Russell Wilson, I
think it shows that he is more aware than I
(15:06):
gave him credit for, and defensive coaches can struggle with this,
that he understands the urgency at quarterback. This is why
I banged on Ron Rivera at Washington, who thought Sam
Hall was good enough or Pete Carroll and Seattle. I
thought Geno Smith was good enough. No, they're not. And
I don't think Russell Wilson's good enough to win a
super Bowl. But he is better than Mason Rudolph and
Kenny Pickett and Justin Fields. And I think even though
(15:27):
they were winning, it's hard as a coach when you're
winning to make changes, right, like you're going to disrupt things.
We're four and two. I'm not going to disrupt the
locker room. That takes a pair by Mike Tomlin at
four and two to go in and say, guys, we
should be five and one. We're a better team than this.
And I think the thing about Russell Wilson is that's
(15:48):
really encouraging if you're a Steeler fan, is that Russell
never made a ton of mistakes. He was always elusive,
he was always smart, he took the right risks. But
I think Russell is I think he knows now he's
got he understands sort of what he's become. And I
look at the Steelers and it's sort of Seahawks light
(16:10):
power run game. Marshawn Lynch is better than Nausee Harris
power run game, defensive coach, defensive culture, a couple playmakers
on the outside, good pass rush, good home field environment,
and a really good, tough physical culture. With Seattle and Pittsburgh,
Russell's not as good as he was, but he's also capable.
He's a better quarterback right now than Aaron Rodgers, and
(16:31):
I think he's as good a leader he's I think
he's certainly in the class close to a Kirk Cousins,
who I predicted would win twelve games this year and
be the number one seed potentially with Atlanta. So I
think I was really wrong on Pittsburgh. I think Tomlin
was more aware of the need for urgency on offense.
I thought it took real guts to get rid of
Justin Field's nice kid, liked in the locker room, high ceiling,
(16:54):
but a really low floor. And so I may have
Washington right so far and right and San Francisco right,
but I think I've been wrong on Pittsburgh, that that's
a real team. And you start looking at that schedule, Well,
Cleveland now stinks, Cincinnati's not very good, Baltimore's better. I
think over time, Baltimore's better, but Baltimore is not very good.
(17:16):
On the defensive end. So could Pittsburgh win that division. Absolutely,
I'm gonna favorite Baltimore, but they can win that division.
You know, the very top of the AFC, Kansas City, Buffalo, Houston, Baltimore,
those are very good teams. It gets real squishy in
the middle and really bad on the bottom. But in
(17:37):
the NFC, the middle of the NFC is pretty good.
Arizona can beat anybody with those weapons. Minnesota can play
with anybody with those weapons. The Rams when Puka Nakua,
Matt Stafford, Kyron Williams, Cooper Cup are healthy, they can
play with anybody. So the top of the AFC is
really good. But Pittsburgh could very well be the best
(17:57):
team in the middle, along with the Chargers. And that's
my take is that the Chargers and the Steelers they're
not Kansas City, Baltimore, Buffalo, But because the middle is
so soft in the AFC, I think what I'm seeing
is the Chargers Harbaugh Herbert and the Steelers Tomlin, Russell
Wilson look like clearly the best of the next group,
(18:20):
and that next group should be winning playoff games the volume.
Thanks so much for listening. If you've enjoyed the podcast,
take a moment, rate and review
Host
Colin Cowherd
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