December 24, 2024 • 49 mins
Mike Harmon and Dan Beyer, in for Jason Smith, react to an absolute snoozer of a Monday Night Football game. Mike explains what the NFL MVP race and the College Football Playoff have in common. Pete Fiutak of CollegeFootballNews.com joins the guys to break down the first round of the CFP. Plus, the guys celebrate Festivus with a special Fantasy Football Airing of Grievances!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is the best of the Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Great eggs and welcome in. Another beautiful week begins here
the Jason Smith Show with Me Mike Harmon. Now Jason
Smith tonight has big voice. Bob had to tell you
Stan Bayer in his stead my tag team partner, longtime
colleague here at Fox Sports Trade and of course the
I Watch Your Flex podcast that we dial up multiple
times each and every week, making you a little bit smarter,
(00:51):
sometimes making ourselves look a little less so. But Dan
keeps me on even keel and we're almost through the
end of the regular season. We'll have an airing grievances later, Dan,
But you're fresh off a flight, fresh off the Midwest,
the skies, the highways, the byeways.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
How it all go, fresh off the snow, the chill.
The ears still haven't popped, Mike, But this is fun.
I love when you and I get together, and as
you said, we get together on the I Want Your
Flex podcast. But there is always something just a little
different when I'm in for you. I don't know if
it feels dirty, if it feels like maybe like I
know that you're with Jason Smith, but I'm kind of
(01:27):
like cheating.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
So it's this.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Secret sort of thing. But I'm happy to be here
for the next four hours.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, you know what's an open secret? Four hundred affiliates nationwide,
the IHEA radio app. I mean global global, I mean
just putting it out in everybody's face. Twenty one nothing
your Monday night football score. Not really aesthetically pleasing in
any sense of the world we're in at this point.
Josh Jacobs with his sixty four yards and a touchdown
(01:52):
Jordan Love pedestrian one p. Thirty six and one, but
a yeoman like effort against an overmatched, undermanned, and frankly discombobulated, pathetic, underprepared.
What other word can I use to describe what the
Saints have put together?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I have no idea I have no idea why the
NFL would say this is what the audience wants on
Christmas Eve Eve it. It doesn't make sense in a
flex situation and keeping this game in like it didn't
make sense at the beginning of the season to think
that in Week sixteen the Saints would have anything to
(02:29):
play for, whether Derek Carr was healthy or not healthy.
I don't know why the NFL would want to schedule
a game like this. Well, actually I do, because they
want to make the Packers seem great. Oh, they want
the Thursday they or they want the Monday night football
lore and the cold weather and they want that look
for their broadcast because everybody loves wintery mix and watching
(02:52):
those games on TV. That's the exact reason that they
did it. They loved it when it was snowing in Cleveland,
they loved it when it was knowing in Buffalo. And hey,
late December, right before Christmas, let's go to Green Bay.
Who should we put against them? The Saints. You said
it on the list in the studio. I said it
on the list in our studio. Worst team in the
(03:13):
NFL at the beginning of the season. They've overachieved Dan,
they have overachieved and we thought that in Derek Carr,
and they don't even have him tonight.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Why this game is being played on the Monday night.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I have no idea except for the NFL trying to
push their conspiracy and having some winter Wonderland fun for
the Green Bay Packers.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
In the end, it is a TV show, so we
we get that. So if you get a little bit
of a weather element to it, that it gives folks
something extra to watch. In this case, it's fantasy playoff
games and whether they cover the robust fourteen or fourteen
and a half point number that was put up for
the Packers here obviously Jordan Love and Josh Jacobs, and
(03:55):
maybe you decided to delve down into those wide receivers.
I wouldn't touch them with the football, even in a
plus matchup, because which guy's gonna get fed? You have
no idea. We talked about it a little in the podcast.
You were en route to your homeland, as Ian and
I sat down. It's like, you look at some of
(04:15):
the numbers when you go to Jaden Reed, you really
love him great, he's got fifty catches, right, not on
a week to week basis, trying to guess who's gonna
get fed outside of Jacob's has been a miserable construct
and even today, hey Musgrave's back, that doesn't matter. He
is still Tucker Craft. Go go ahead and get him
involved a bunch. But to your point about you know
(04:37):
the Packers and what they are, You've got history, so
you always get to give people a nice little history
lesson out of your league when you go to lambeau Field.
The pageantry, the pomp and circumstance and everything. Yeah, the Saints,
I mean they're not only missing Car. There's no a Lave,
there's no Kamara. Carr was still having a really good
season despite the chaos, inconsistency and just futrid play around him.
(05:01):
But all that to say, yeah, and we're flexing everything else.
We're putting in a mini It might as well be
the Emirates Cup Light with those four teams that are
playing Saturday and Wednesday, and yet this game stands alone. Hell,
we fletched out the Cowboys out of a game, right
right right like, but nothing sacred. Let's keep the Saints though.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Let's make sure that the Saints and Packers stays in
the spot that it needs to remember the days of
the Aints. Yeah they are the Ain't nobody good playing tonight,
That's who they are. They're not the Aints. It's just
ain't nobody good playing for the Saints tonight. And that's
the mess that we get and should we expect twenty
four to nothing? This is just this is a three
hour parade, like there's nothing to worry about. Guarantee people
(05:48):
will be leaving in the fourth quarter because now you've
got Christmas plans, you don't want to be stranded out
at night. But there's no reason for this game. I
know that you can't a week out change a Monday
night game, but still to the point of what we
thought the Saints were going to be at the beginning
of the year, Mike and now with an interimed coach,
and I know they went on a mini run, you know,
a few weeks back.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Still not enough worthy.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Enough to keep this as a Monday night game, except
for the hope of snow and for the great vibes
that you get from playing a game at Lambeufield in December.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, I mean, Rizzy doesn't match the the heat and
genesis of social media clicks like his guy the Rizzler man.
It's close because I've seen those side by sides at
points and he does get a little fiery on the sideline,
but I don't think it has the same juice. But
for the Packers, man, you're going to be an eleven
win team taking care of business. Yeoman like defense as
(06:43):
we talked about on the pod, but bringing it to
everybody here in this space. You know, finally all the
turnovers that we'd been projecting and waiting for with this
defense coming in Spain. I think it was the twenty
seventh tonight earlier on one of the more inexplicable fumbles
you'll see, where it was like someone was gonna about
to get mugged. And I do not make light of
(07:04):
people getting robbed. It is a very real thing. But
it's the Hey, here's my wallet. That's what Rattler did
with the football. As the defender went to take he
just kind of flipped it up into no man's LANs
like he's gonna everything.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, just take it, keep me safe.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
He still got run through into the end of the turf.
Later was the beneficiary of one of the worst roughing
the passer calls I've seen all season long, which is
a whole other referendum on refereeing. That needs to happen,
as well as if you were going to have the
you know, the everybody does, the Czar of Sports end
of year. What would I change? Yeah, officiating really needs
(07:38):
some something. I don't know how and what, but yeah,
it's it's gone into a really bad space. Fortunately it's
a blowout, so one or two miss calls or bad
clock work aren't gonna matter here. But the Packers roll
on in what has been a nondescript game.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Maybe maybe this will come out on the airing of
grievances as well, all the thoughts about officiating, but on
art I Want Your Flex podcast. A few weeks back,
maybe a month or two ago, we went down the
list of teams that we thought could win the Super Bowl.
And I'm not trying to rain or snow on Green
Bay's parade at all with the Monday night game and
(08:19):
saying that the NFL purposely put them here because Mike,
you could attest to it that I felt Green Bay
was a legit Super Bowl contender. And when I was
back home in Wisconsin this past week, I had aunts
and cousins in saying, how do you think the Packers
are gonna do. My opinion really means nothing, but I
do believe in this team as a legit possibility to
(08:44):
win Super Bowl fifty nine. When you look at how
things in the NFC are shaking out. I just don't
think tonight tells us anything about them.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Oh no, we don't learn anything. This is a get in,
do your job, try to get out healthy. That's it.
Make sure so because as long as Josh Jacobs is
running as he is, and right now Jordan Love is
on a streak, and I don't want to jinx it,
but it's four plus games without a pick. Like he's
taking care of the football sure, right, which is one
of the big, big caveats to a lot of players,
(09:12):
Like all right, there's great explosive plays and opportunities, and
he spreads the ball around a ton, as we've spoken of.
I mean, just go down what their stats were coming
into this week sixteen finale. Here is that you've got
a number of guys at twenty five to thirty forty catches.
You don't have a guy that needs to be fed
one hundred and fifty times, And that's the greatness of
the team. Does that work forever? Maybe? Maybe not, But
(09:34):
Watson at one point probably should have been hit for
a touchdown. Now Love found another option that got him
a first. How often can you do that before someone
feels like they need to be fed, whether it's contract
incentives or just hey, trying to put stuff on tape
because I got to get paid too, and fractures there.
But for the moment, you're up twenty four to nothing
(09:55):
and moving forward. But you look at the NFC as
a whole. Jalen Hurts went out with a concussion, what
does that mean for a week? For two weeks for
their end of the season. You go down the list.
In Minnesota, you've got Sam Darnold. Great story. Everybody keeps saying, yeah,
but like he's, you know, a thirty five year old
(10:19):
guy that's been weaving his way throughout the league. No,
he's still a young guy, came in young. Yes, he's
bounced a bit. That's more circumstance, I think than him necessarily.
But he's found the right spot. And you've got a
defense playing lights out football. You roll through the Lions.
Does the attrition eventually hit them?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
May not.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Defense, they've lost so many guys that were starters and
David Montgomery thinks he's gonna have the Festivus miracle and
be able to play issuing surgery. I don't know that
whether that happens or not. But you know you've got
all that to say that, that's pretty much your your bubble, right,
I mean, the way someone's getting in, But are they
(11:02):
a contender or not. I don't know how much I
believe in the Rams or or the I don't get
in deeper.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I don't think the Rams can win the Super Bowl.
I do think the Rams are the team you don't
want to play. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I think that's simple enough where I don't think they're
gonna run through the NFC and end up in New Orleans.
But if I'm sitting there at Green Bay and I'm
the sixth seed, is the wild card because of the
greatness of Detroit and Minnesota so far this season, going
to LA and facing the Rams maybe isn't as ideal
(11:37):
as another possibility, like being able to face of being
able to face the winner of the NFC South, whoever
that may be. Like, there's a distinct advantage for the
fifth seed wild card playing the fourth seed in the
NFC South, But I don't think that the I think
Green Bay could go to LA and handle the rams,
(11:58):
but I just don't think it's the fact that we
think automatic victory when it comes to that scenario.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Can't wait to see how many folks got some extra
dollars or Christmas bonuses at their jobs in Wisconsin to
come back out to Los Angeles for an early January vacation.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Tell you what, Las Vegas and the warm weather, they're
ready to go.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Let's get out of.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
There find their way, is no question about it. Dan
Byer in for Jason Smith tonight. You see him are
and hear him with Doug Gottlieb Midday's The Red Zone
Radio two to five Pacific time here on Sundays at
Dan Meire on Fox. Of course, he's always with me
on the iWatch Flex podcast find me over at Swollen Dome.
Oh and Blue Sky, Blue Sky.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Dan already sent out the pre show tweet.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
If you call it a tweet, I don't know post.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Post X, I don't know what it is. Yeah, and
I met Mike Carmen over at Blue Sky as well.
So all of that to say, we've got a lot
on the show tonight. We'll dive into some of those
fantasy good and bad stories out of Week sixteen. Wrap
up what we saw as we head towards the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Grantingson Welcome he to Tower two. Jason Smith Show with
Me Mike Harmon here live Fromthtirac dot Com, Fox Sports
Radio Studios. No Jason Smith tonight, it is stead my guy,
Dan Byer, I watch a Flex podcast, longtime friend and
co host here at Fox Sports Radio. You hear him
in mid days with Doug Gottlieb and Cavino and Rich
(13:33):
and then on Sundays leading the Way, making you smarter
and getting you through the NFL Late Slate on Red
Zone Radio two to five Pacific, alongside Carrie Rhoads and
mercifully Dan. We're about to put a bow on Week
sixteen of the National Football League season. At some point
I would have been Duke on the sideline if I
(13:53):
was a staff member of the Saints.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Do the damn doe.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's Don thirty four nothing f.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, this wasn't this wasn't good from the get go,
and not that we had high expectations. No manning cast
for this tonight, and father, that is that is now
my litmus test for how important this Monday night football
game is. And so think about this when there is
no manning cast and it's the Saints, their dad's team, Yeah,
(14:24):
their hometown team.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Have they consoling him for three hours?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Dad tells you everything you need to know about what
this matchup was and how it played out to fruition.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Now I felt bad. So rookie out of Notre Dame
caught a ball earlier tonight for the Saints and they
said his name on the radio as I was coming in.
I don't know who that is. Kevin Austin Jr. Came
into the game with eight catches ninety eight yards. Because
you're in context, right, uniforms and for me, some of
(14:56):
it goes to rookie cards and all of that kind
of stuff, bridging in my card memorabilia kind of world.
So like, you see the names, you've got them in
the uniforms whatever. And then I'm like, Saints, I mean,
I know we're going digging a little deeper because we're
at the end of the season and I run a
number of injured guys whatever, but it was like, it
was just that moment where I went, I don't know,
(15:17):
And it's like, I guess maybe if I sat and
thought about it long enough, maybe I would have gotten
back to to Notre Dame. But no, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I never would have been.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And he also wears number eighty one, and I can't
remember any Saints that even wore eighty one to go
and think of who that player could have been, Like,
you know, Chris Olave wears twelve, Well so did Marcus Colston,
and so maybe if you're looking at the Saints and
(15:46):
you're like, oh, it looks like ough, it's a Lave,
it's not Marcus Colston. You know guys that wear the
jersey of a previous player, and sometimes you're like the Raiders,
they assigned thirty four to someone on whoever wears thirty
four in the Raider uniform is gonna be Bo Jackson.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
kJ Wright, when he played a little bit for the Raiders,
wore thirty four and it was so weird to see
somebody else in that uniform. But when you even wear
eighty one, Mike, I didn't even know if a Saints
another Saints player that wore eighty one rea.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Anyway, we're gonna go down the list because I was
able to find it. Okay, the last one to do
it was Nick Vannette.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
In twenty one Ohio state tight end. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Uh now this isn't by uh sortied year to year,
but go through. You got Doug Atkins way back in day,
Ozazer akeem wide receiver many years ago, Randall Hill How
about Scott Slutsker, No, he was a tight end out
of Iowa.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Don't have it going back even in that Iowa tight ends.
I got, I know Joe Horn eighty seven, Eric Martin
was eighty four, and going back to those eighties and
nineties Saints team. By the way, I was at a
Saints Packers game in nineteen eighty nine and green Bay
trail twenty one and nothing came back and won thirty
(17:08):
five thirty four. Don mccowsky hit sharp from three yards
out and the extra point was good. The extra point,
of course, by Chris Jackie, and green Bay won thirty
five to thirty four. But Mike doesn't mean that they
didn't stop Dalton Hilliard, who still had forty three yards
on thirteen carries another good name from the past in
(17:31):
the New Orleans Saints.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's good. We just really Daltre twenty one, big big
hug right there. Mccallis for twenty six.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, yep, this Ruben Mays was thirty six. Nice eighty
one just Drew Blanks. So maybe Kevin Austin can make
it his number.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
He could become that guy. We'll be interestingly observing that
as we go. Hey, broadcasting live from the tyrack dot
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(18:08):
coming towards the end, packers trying to see if they
can't pad their turnover stats a little bit more. We'll
give you updates. Flowing out of that, we'll recap Week
sixteen from the real and fantasy world of the good
and the bad, the ugly as that went on. But
I asked the question as we finished the first hour
of the show. You know what's the college football Playoffs
(18:28):
and the NFL MVP Award have in common? Probably should
have thrown it out at Swollen Dome as a host,
all right, filling the blanks.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, I was curious and where you were going with it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It comes down to a one word answer, winning, winning.
So for the National Football League MVP Award, it's been
kind of declared, right, it's a two man race. Here's
Josh Allen, Here's Lamar Jackson. Sekwan Barkley may set the
record for most yards in a season, and with Jalen
(19:00):
Hurts now potentially questionable for Week seventeen, maybe it does
open the door for Barkley to creep back in. But
historically it's been a quarterback award Dan, So that's where
we sit, and with.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
The Bills schedule, it doesn't feel like Josh Allen would
be able to lose it in the next two weeks
with the Jets and Patriots to wrap it up.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
So that's that's the word I come to. And I
said it on Baltimore Radio. I'm sure they got some
great response last week, like Justin Tucker may have cost
your guy the MVP Award because as brilliant as Lamar
Jackson has been, you've lost five games. You may win
the division, you may go on to playoff greatness, but
(19:40):
winning still has to count and be part of the equation.
And you could caveat it out all you wanted, like,
well they didn't you know, it wasn't his fault, this
that the other, I get it. Nineteen eighty seven, Andre
Dawson was the MVP on a last place Cubs team.
Go back to Ernie Banks thirty years prior to both Cubs.
How about that? Ah and not your because you know,
(20:00):
me being a White Sox guy, I don't wanted to
play out, but they were great and they're with absolutely
unless it's not. But the idea just being like we've
seen it where you can go and win. You know,
even Jerry West, we talk about it all the time.
Can't you be the m v P on a losing team?
But generally it's been reserved for winning that the stats
(20:21):
will be great because there's nothing in Josh Allen's stat
line that's gonna say, wow, well he had a you know,
mediocre year and you're giving it to him. And I
understand the argument, the pro lamar argument of fatigue, Uh,
you know that may set in. I'm like, you just
want to give it to somebody else who's having a
great year whatever else, But in the end, winning has
(20:44):
to matter. And I tie that to college football, Dan,
because you know Kirk Kurbstreet, who's one of the pre
eminent voices of college football. Right, he's considered a grand
poobah kind of guy. Number one chair. Everybody knows, even
if you don't care about college football, daughters know who
the hell he is because of his dog, right, so
everybody knows who Kirk rb Street is. So he goes
(21:06):
in and does this answer with Linda Cohen the other
day talking about, you know, the selection process and going forward.
This is obviously after Indiana gets stomped by Notre Dame.
We had Jack Kaiser on the show. You can find
the podcast to that captain linebacker and what highly decorated
(21:28):
you know, mister and Indiana football. That stuff joined us.
But after that game and the early results, because we
on Saturday, we had more of the same, right smush.
They were plucky and showed signs of light, but couldn't
put the ball in the end zone. Right, two pick
sixes and it gets away against Penn State, Texas rolls
(21:49):
over Clemson and then Ohio State Tennessee, which is the
game nobody seems to want to include when they do
the how bad the games were somehow that one's okay,
I don't know if it's I don't have an SEC
logo on me, so I'll just say it they sucked too, Okay,
So if we're gonna do the uh, you know, winning,
because that was Herbstreet basically went on to say, Hey,
(22:10):
winning shouldn't be seen as the only thing, and it
never really has been, right, it's it's a big part
because you should be winning. But then if we're gonna
start going down this face of because he started to
go into schedules, it's like, yeah, okay, I understand that
to a point if you lose three games, and obviously
he was referring to in the era Alabama being left out. Okay,
(22:33):
let's just call it what it is. Alabama hammered Mercer
at the end of November, okay, and the end of November,
when everybody else playing conference games or whatever, they get
a week off to play Mercer and then they come
out and got shellacked by Oklahoma in a game that
was never close. Oh, by the way, what was Oklahoma's record, Dan,
It's right, five hundred, nice and even five hundred, not
(22:56):
getting ahead, not falling behind. Right in the media part
of the curve. Vanderm what was their record when they
lost to them? Gosh, they're a five hundred team. Yeah,
there you go. That's two of them. And then add
number three. You got the hat trick. You lose, and
I understand, you know, Danny White from Tennessee was like,
we should go back to all computers. That was before
(23:16):
they got shellacked by Ohiah State. But all of that
to say, you're never finding the perfect equation to this.
But to try to dismiss winning a team goes eleven
and one, you can't go and say in August, all right,
give me an honest assessment of what your team's gonna do.
I think we could be a ten win team. All right, now,
here's your schedule, Go do it. That's not how we
(23:37):
do things.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
This this is opening the Pandora's box of a twelve
team playoff? Are there twelve good enough teams to put
in a playoff? And if we can't figure out who
the actual twelve are, then why are we expanding in
the first place. Well, we know why we're expanding because
it's more money. That's the reason why it happens. But Mike,
you know it's it's it's funny because I think that
(24:00):
your point is well put and I think what Herbstreet
is completely missing in all of this. And this isn't
meant to criticize Indiana or support Alabama's case. It's the
point of I don't think the committee really looks at wins.
I actually think that he's off base with it. I
(24:21):
think that what they do is they look at the
loss column and that's the number that they look at,
and they see and they see one, because that's how
they used to do it when they were splitting hairs
and trying to get who four, five, and six were,
because you would have a logjam of one loss teams.
And if you're splitting hairs, yeah, maybe it should come
(24:43):
down to the loss, but it isn't splitting hairs. And
I think that the perfect example they can't remember who
pointed out and it may have been on social media,
but they're determining how good the SEC was and how
they compared to all these other conferences is look at
how quickly we forgot about Georgia Tech Georgia and how
(25:04):
Georgia Tech took Georgia.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Uh should have won the game.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I mean basically they should have won the game in
Athens and they were unable to do it. But Georgia
Tech was in prime position, takes them to overtime, had
opportunities to win, could not do it. That told me
that the third, you know, fourth best ACC team as
we look at it, is competing with the top of
(25:31):
the SEC and so like so for people to just
sit there and say, yeah, the SEC is it's just
a better league. Well, your prime team, your top team
that ended up now then winning your conference was just
taken to the wire a few weeks ago in overtime
by a team in another power conference that didn't even
(25:53):
play in a championship game. So like that right there
should tell you that the the the playing field is
so level. And Mike, I don't know how how we
would ferret out right now on how you would decipher
who would be one, two, three, and four if we
stayed in that fourteen playoff. But I think the bigger
problem is just I don't know if they're going to
be twelve teams worthy enough to get into a bracket.
(26:14):
I'm afraid of what we're going to see because all
of the higher seeded teams were also then playing at home.
That's not as easy for a lower ranked team or
a lower team, and I think that's why we got
the results. So we ended up getting.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, there's a million other legs that flow out of this.
Man think George's not playing with their starter. A year ago,
we might have had a discussion, right, absolutely, right, Hey,
all of a sudden, you don't have your top guys,
So what happens there? And when you go to twelve
or fourteen or sixteen or whatever? We end up getting
ballooning this out to Yeah, waters it down. We're getting
(26:48):
to two three, four loss teams, and what happened should
have happened. You're supposed to decisively win when you're at
home if you're a top seeded team. Yes, acting shock
that some of this stuff happened. How it happens a
whole other thing. Pee feuw Tech's gonna join us in
a minute. I was disappointed that all the humorous of
(27:10):
Indiana curb stomping, all the little little h parts in
the weaker parts of the schedule, that suddenly he had
had to play up, and he cowered because he didn't
want the final score to look so bad. Yeah, that
that rubbed me the wrong way, But overall, I think
we got what we should have anticipated in these games. Absolutely,
(27:32):
you flex in front of a home crowd, by the way,
the home crowd part of it, How great is that?
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Yeah? It was?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
How cool is it to see Tennessee in Columbus, no
matter how many of their fans were weren't there, whether
it was Niland North or not, the fact is it
was just neat to see them on the other sideline
in that sort of atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Very cool environment. We'll talk with pe Fu Tech with
his first leans and odds and now all that fun
stuff coming, but taking a look back at the games
that we had. He's Dan Byer in for Jason Smith.
That Dan Byer on Fox. Find me over at Swollen Home.
Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmon rolls out here at
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Now it's time to head out to the Hotline, joining
us as he does each and every week. A rare
Monday edition of his appearance it's our guy, Pete feu Tech.
He's the publisher the Grand Pooba the Legend college Footballnews
dot com, where you find him at petefeutech in the
Twitter verse as well, Pete, Merry Christmas brother, good to
(28:44):
talk to you.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
On How are you guys doing great?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
We're good. The Monday night game has finally mercifully ended,
so we can put a bow on all the Packers
clinch of playoff spot. And the Saints are still really
bad at football, so we move on to that. You
and I can do the long therapy session about the
Bears another time. But look, first weekend of the college
football playoff in the books, what's your main takeaway from it?
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Bet on the teams that have other players. It's this
is kind of weird. It's a weird bowl season because
the games are strange, the teams aren't nearly the same
that everyone's opting out. It'll be interesting to see as
we go forward when we do have the you know,
the bigger, better college football playoff games coming up, and
(29:36):
you know today there is there's a good one. I mean,
Frensloe State in northern Illinois was entertaining even if the
players were there, so you have to kind of look
and search for the good in this ball season, because
it's pretty bad. It's just bad bad college football at
this point, and hopefully it'll get better. We keep going,
(29:57):
getting a.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Lot a little it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I think people thought that the first round of the
college football playoff was bad, But my question to you,
Pete is this, should we have expected anything different from
the first round of the college football Playoff?
Speaker 5 (30:11):
No, and in fact it was. I'm kind of under
the take that it's not only is it bad, it
was necessary because part of this is it's it's the
college football playoff now is not going to be like
what we're used to its playoffs where you can't. College
football is just a different sport. It's not like the
NCAA tournament where you can just kind of get hot
from three and go on a run. You know, you can't.
(30:34):
It's not like the pros where there's really not that
huge of a talent disparity between the teams, just you know,
one or two guys maybe the team has a right
year or something. But once they're in the playoffs, everyone's
kind of really good. In college football, the have and
have not. The chasm between the two is so massive
that it's just it's it's literally different leagues in different levels.
(30:58):
When you get to you know, some of these teams
and programs which has all have all the money and
all the resources, and these others who just don't. And
so maybe there can be an upset once here or there,
but you're not gonna have a Cinderella run. I mean,
think of it this way. In the ten years of
the college fourteen college football playoffs, there really has not
(31:19):
been It really wasn't ever one just crazy weird conference
championship upset. Out of the fifty that there were from
the Power five levels at the time, there just wasn't
anything that was really really a big outlier. And then
in the college football Playoff, TCU over Michigan is the
one that is the only one that was kind of
(31:40):
the wow, where did that come from? And then reality
came to breakfast when Georgia got a hold of TCU
in the next round. So we're just not going to
get those. But the point being that in this new
expanded thing, okay, you know if you win eleven win
games and as a Big ten team you kind of
should be in it. You went eleven games as a
is the ACP team. Okay, you kind of should be
(32:02):
in it. You got your chance, you get to prove
yourself and then you know, the better teams win and
then we can all move on. But it's just about
getting that shot as opposed to you know, an Alabama
or an Ole Myth who lost three games. We already
saw what these teams can do.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Hey, Pete that that was one of the big rumblings
back and forth slap fighting Saturday and then talking heads
including Herbstreet doing the Hey, winning shouldn't be you know,
we shouldn't go old school with winning as I unless
somehow we're gonna have coaches have to be honest in
sending in an assessment of their squad, going, boy, we're
(32:39):
really good, you know, on a scale of one to ten,
how good are you? And then we do scheduled generators.
You're not fixing that part of the equation.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Ever, You've got to have a part of this where
you can win your way in. You've got to have
some mechanism that says, hey, look, you know, if you
maybe it doesn't work out, but if you're a Boising
state or in Arizona, you win your conference championship, Yeah,
you get to be in the college football playoffs with
a chance. Again, this was you know, in the fourteen era.
(33:08):
This is where the ucfs were always complaining and you know,
even Florida State last year, you know, beyond being everyone
being mad over oh how could we be left out?
Even though it was the right call, it was that
wait a minute, we just didn't even get our shot.
And so now you get a chance to have your
chance and what the first round does? It just it
just eliminates it. Now, all right, we know now you
(33:28):
we have closure on this. Now let's move on.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Now.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
I think that you were still got a couple of
kids that at the kids stable here at Boise State
in Arizona State. But wow, Oregon versus Ohio State, Georgia
versus Notre Dame, We're gonna stop kidting around here pretty
soon and these are going to be the real games.
But you got to get through this first wave to
get there. And the problem with the whole oh well,
we're just going to go on talents and well based
(33:54):
on what I mean. Remember, you know, you know Auburn
lost the cow you know, you know LT's you lost
to usc you know, Ole miss lost the bad Kentucky
team this year, Kentucky loses to Louisville. You know, Florida
got waxed by Miami. I mean it's just not, oh, well,
these teams are obviously better. Well not the Alabama team
that showed up against Oklahoma. That team won very good.
(34:17):
So it all seemed easy. But you got to take
this is this is the argument back in the BCS
days and the Poland bol days. You got to take
the eye test away, because if you just go by
eye tests, not everyone watches all the college football games.
So if you see one team that's beating up another team, like, oh,
that team's good. Meanwhile, like you said, it's kind of
hard to tell if you really know the ins and
(34:39):
outs of each team schedule.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Okay, So with all that being said, I'm not going
to give you a multiple choice.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
We're just gonna throw some stuff out there for you, Pete.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Does it get solved if the SEC goes to nine games?
Do we weed even more of the bad teams out?
Do we find out more if we go to divisions?
Do we need teams to schedule three power you know,
non conference games? How do we start out the factor?
How do we get away with this? How do we
(35:09):
chart a new course, if you will, in what we
now think is going to be the new landscape of the.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
College What got lost in the Herb Street Unplugged you
know show the other night and he's great when he's rolling,
he's is that college Football Playoff Committee? Do your job?
I mean, part of the problem with all this is,
you know, they're very sincere. They really do want to
put together the best at twelve you know, teams possible.
They really really have no ulterior motives here other than
(35:36):
wanting to do this right. The problem is these are
real people with real jobs and lives and stuff. They
kind of watch college football, and there's certainly college football
and dignitaries and they're in the business. But are they
able to really hammer down on the you know, well,
what does it mean that this team walks to this
team even though you know the Notre Dame for example,
(35:58):
anybody says, well they lost the North. If you if
you watched Northern that Northern Illinois game and then watch
Nordon the rest of the way, that wasn't nor name
being bad or an indictment.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
That was a.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
Weird, just complete crazy outlier of a bad game plan
in the game Notre Dame's still really awesome, you know,
but the problem is then Nor Dame got on Peacock,
and you know, plus they don't have any great, you know,
big high profile games that since that nobody really watched them,
so it's kind of hard to go by. So what
you really need to do is the College Football Playoff
Committee has got to not be afraid. And last year
(36:32):
they took so much heat for what would turned out
through the exact right call in a perfect storm on
that four. They didn't want that heat this year. And
what Herb Street kind of hinted that was like, well,
they kind of went, well, we're gonna put SMU in here,
so we just don't want to hear it this year.
And that was technically, and according to the president of
the College Football Playoff Ranking for the first ten years,
(36:53):
the totally wrong move to do, because what they really
always used to do is say it's all about the
conference champions, which means Clemson should have been ranked ahead
of SMU. You do that, right, all of a sudden,
you get the rankings get better and the steedings get better,
and then you start to have a better playoffs.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Pete. As we look at it, from what we watched
in the first round of the playoffs. The one game
that did kind of stand out. Penn State puts a
hurt on SMU what it's all said and done, But boy,
there were some anxious moments early in that one.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Huh yeah, yeah, that was not pretty. Look it's again,
SMU was just it's this is you had to prove it.
You had to show in that game and all these
other games that Clemson wasn't very good this year. Again
it was fine, Tennessee's fine, but this was the moment
you showed that, yeah, that's Ohio State. I can't convince you.
(37:45):
Look it wasn't about Tennessee. And Tennessee fans are in
the bag and Big Ben fans are like, oh hah,
that's that's Ohio State. That's the team that should have
showed up against Michigan. So now you get these teams,
which with a Penn State with a Texas you know,
with Ohio State, with a Notre Dame, with three weeks
off to rest, and a full focus on an inferior
(38:09):
team with inferior talent that includes Tennessee when I compared
to Ohio State, and all of a sudden, all those
good teams. You see their fresh legs, You see how
fast those teams were moving. That was just those are
rested teams that knew exactly what to do. Now, let's
see what Georgia looks like. Let's see what Oregon looks like,
because those teams also have the rest and the focus,
(38:30):
and it's going to be a pretty interesting second round
in a week or so.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Does Ohio State have any edge knowing that they played
Oregon so close and where maybe there's no guarantee they
make the field goal if Will.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
Howard slides in time?
Speaker 1 (38:45):
But is there an edge in playing such a close
game against the devon team of the country.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
This is the one part that I don't have, which
is maybe, yes, Ohio State is the best team in
the country. It should win the national championship. But I
think that just because it's Oregon and it hasn't done
it before, It's like, Okay, it's Oregon. This is fun,
but we know it's gonna happen. Eventually, they're gonna go
Oregon and they're okay, they're very good, and then they
lose in the really really big game. This team might not.
(39:15):
Dylan Gabriel is the veterans quarterback. This team does have
NFL talent, This team does have the lines, this team
does have the guys who can hang with Georgia, who
can hang with Ohio State, And so at this point,
you know, yes, you do have those you know three
Texas has the speed. They just it's Texas. It's not
(39:35):
gonna happen, you know how this team rolls. And then
Penn State just doesn't have the study enough offense. But
that defense is really good. So it really is or
I mean we're just all this kind of looking for well,
we're familiar with Ohio States and you know, Georgia's and
those types of teams winn it. Maybe Oregon's just that good,
and maybe they come out and do something big. But
(39:55):
if the Rose Bowl isn't for the national championship, it's
gonna really it's the the winner of that game to
the skin it.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Longtime friend of the show, it's Petefutech College Footballnews dot com.
Where you find them at Pete Futech in the Twitter ears. Pete,
we want to thank you for stopping by here on
a Monday. I know it's a little off the normal schedule,
but always a pleasure to talk to you and thanks
for all the friendship and insights through the year. Absol,
all right, we'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Brother.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Thank you. At Pete feud Tech joins us each and
every week giving us his assessment of the first weekend
of this college football playoffs and beyond. I was gonna
press him a little more on the Preston Stone not
going into the game for SMU and then transferring to Northwestern,
because I think everybody's lying in the locker room. If
you're suited up, you should be ready to play and
(40:46):
be ready. It goes back to the quitting thing we
were talking about before, and trying to tell me that
when you're getting housed in a playoff game that you
never were going to pull that emergency lever and put
him into the game. Said, well, by time we thought
of about it, it was too far gone. I don't know.
It seems kind of dubious to me.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Time for the airing of the Grievances that annual part
because it is actually Festivus today and the Seinfeld Lore
December twenty third, So everybody get together and pass around
the metal poll and air out who's done you wrong
for fantasy purposes in Bush, You're welcome to dive in
in here if you've got one or two people, or
(41:36):
just a situation in general that has peeved you to know.
And Dan, would you like to start? Is there someone
in particular on your list that gets you absolutely?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And I actually feel silly for thinking this way, but Mike,
you know you sometimes talk yourself into drafting a player
or expecting good things from that player.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Oh yeah, that was the with me with.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Romandre Stevenson of the New England Patriots. And if you
look at Romandre Stevenson and what he's done this year,
eight hundred yards, seven touchdowns, it's not awful, but it's
also not great. And it's not that I expected great
things from Romandre Stevenson. It's that I talked myself into
drafting Romandre Stevenson. And Week one they go out, they
(42:24):
beat the Bengals one hundred and twenty yards in a touchdown.
This baby's gonna take off. You know why, Mike, Because
New England is gonna run the football. They just gave
him a contract in this offseason. You think they're giving
him a contract if they're not gonna use him. Girod
Mayo is gonna be an upgrade over Bill Belichick, at
least in the short term, because it's a new voice
(42:44):
and new blood. And when you play Drake may you
just lean on that running game. And Romandre Stevenson, at
times just in and out of the lineup, never cracked
one hundred yards again. And in the week that I
then decided to bench him, he scored two touchdowns against
the New York Jets.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
So I know it's a.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Little off the board, but Romando Stevenson is my thorn
in my side for my I hopes for fantasy for
fantasy football on this Festivus holiday.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
The old I send you to Heaven before I send
you to Hell, go back and watch at Simpson's side,
show Bob and quoting all sorts of great musicals of
the past. Jonathan Taylor with his thirty nine point eight
this week, fantastic right two uter plus three touchdowns. He
did miss a couple of games. He's he's right now
running back twenty in.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Pp Hardley just pouring one out for all the fantasy
teams that drafted.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
That was Jodon Taylor. That was a very good sound
effect that you added in there. I don't even know
how you did that. Breze Hall a guy who would
have been drafted as RB two, RB three, or RB
four in most leagues. He's currently RB sixteen.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Oh gosh. I had hopes it hopes for him as well.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Jets and the great expectations thereof CJ. Stroud. We talk
about games that matter going into week seventeen, this mini
four team, let's hang out and play some games down
the stretch.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
C J.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Stroud is QB eighteen.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
I had and we thought. We thought now with Stefan
Diggs and Nico Collins and obviously the devastating entry to
take Dallas past weekend, but they're best friends. You thought
the rapport would be there. It has not been.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, it's a team. Actually, you know, I thought they'd
put up some points. It was fearful of the offensive line.
Those fears were were well founded. But on our board
over there, in addition to thinking New Orleans would be
the worst team in the league, my out on a
limb was that Houston would miss the playoffs because I
thought the rest of the division would actually show up
and guess what it did not three of the worst teams.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
With terrible decision made Jonathan Taylor turning it on in
Week sixteen.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
He gave you that one, and look they still had
a glimmer of hope for a long while. Hey Bursch,
you got anybody you'd like to add to this list
or a scenario an airing of grievances?
Speaker 6 (44:56):
Yeah, definitely a few. I mean, after tonight, the entire
New Orleans Saints are I have to air my grievances
on that franchise as a whole for being so awful
offensively that I came into a semi final matchup basically
tied tonight. I had Tucker Craft, my opponent had the
Packers defense, and he in essence, had the New Orleans
Saints offense just feeding him points. So no, I lost
(45:19):
that one as as a whole over the season. Travis
Etn is definitely somebody who came into the seasons as
a solid second round running back, started off the season
fine and then got hurt, and once he got hurt,
he really disappeared offensively. Tank Bigsby really got into the
mix in Jacksonville, and he turned quickly into somebody who
(45:42):
you didn't feel like you could bench him at the once.
He started to struggle early in the season, and then
it got to the point where you're like, I can't
start him. There's no way you can't start him with
any level of confidence.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Do you want to fund with numbers out of that? Yeah,
RB's thirty eight and thirty seven big is one point
eight points better than atn for the season.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
That is terrible.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
That is terrible, and I think on behalf of plenty
of other owners. Of course, the Christian McCaffrey situation doomed
a lot of people from the start of the season. Also,
do you guys remember Brandon at YUK time, he's a
player in the NFL. He's still on the forty nine ers.
He had the whole contract dispute and then got hurt
(46:26):
and was never seen of again.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
Yeah, he submarined a team for me.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Do we have a Tyreek Hill? Did we mention Tyree?
Speaker 3 (46:34):
He's on the list?
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Certainly k metcalfe knee injuries, and I felt Jackson's with
a jigbo would emerge and he has this season and
it's almost been a little bit at the expense of
DK Metcalf. I thought it would be at the expense
of Tyler Lockett, but DK Metcalf has not been the performer,
(46:56):
especially down the stretch here. Finally got into the ends
against Minnesota, but hadn't scored since mid October prior to that,
and to go along with the knee injury, to go
along with just his totals, he had been a disappointment.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
WR thirty three, going with our CJ. Stroud Nico Collins
back to number twenty two, So a lot of that
related to injuries, So shows you how effective he was
when he played. Mike Evans missed a couple of games
and has been a beast in several others, but still
only WR nineteen on the year. He's just behind Tyreek
(47:32):
Hill in that regard. And then the last quarterback I
wanted to mention him because he got benched and even
if you didn't expect that you'd have dominance week to week. Actually,
I'll take two. Kirk Cousins twentieth on the year heading
into tonight, even with all those weapons and everything that
had been assembled for him, and then Jordan Love tonight
(47:53):
against the Saints thirty four to off in your final
eleven point five points. He is QB seventeen on the year.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Sam Laporta was a guy that at the tight end position.
Oh absolutely number one coming into the season. Gotta love Laporta.
And then he scores in the fake trip game against
the Bears when I was eliminated weeks prior.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
There you go. He at least got you one there.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
So did have the two touchdown, three catch, six yard
game this year.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
They're very reminiscent of the old Jerome Bettis five carries,
one yard, three touchdown stat line from many years ago.
He's Dan Bayer. Thanks Bersch at Ryan Bursche here. Check
out his podcast Everything He's Got Going Dodger related as
we get ready for the end of the silly season,
money flying about He and Bo Benson, Moncie belangyas they've
(48:41):
got you covered on all the highs and lows of
the that season. Where can they find the podcast Bursch.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
As the sick podcast of the Dodger Zone and thankfully
not many lows anymore.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
There you go, nice, all positivity looking down at the
rest of creation, like my beloved White Sox over under
on wins in forty nine and a half for twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Oh the over, Yeah, absolutely the over. It's a new
day on the South Side of Chicago.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Well, I wish I had your optimism
Thanks for listening to the best of the Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is the best of the Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Great eggs and welcome in. Another beautiful week begins here
the Jason Smith Show with Me Mike Harmon. Now Jason
Smith tonight has big voice. Bob had to tell you
Stan Bayer in his stead my tag team partner, longtime
colleague here at Fox Sports Trade and of course the
I Watch Your Flex podcast that we dial up multiple
times each and every week, making you a little bit smarter,
(00:51):
sometimes making ourselves look a little less so. But Dan
keeps me on even keel and we're almost through the
end of the regular season. We'll have an airing grievances later, Dan,
But you're fresh off a flight, fresh off the Midwest,
the skies, the highways, the byeways.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
How it all go, fresh off the snow, the chill.
The ears still haven't popped, Mike, But this is fun.
I love when you and I get together, and as
you said, we get together on the I Want Your
Flex podcast. But there is always something just a little
different when I'm in for you. I don't know if
it feels dirty, if it feels like maybe like I
know that you're with Jason Smith, but I'm kind of
(01:27):
like cheating.
Speaker 4 (01:28):
So it's this.
Speaker 1 (01:28):
Secret sort of thing. But I'm happy to be here
for the next four hours.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
Well, you know what's an open secret? Four hundred affiliates nationwide,
the IHEA radio app. I mean global global, I mean
just putting it out in everybody's face. Twenty one nothing
your Monday night football score. Not really aesthetically pleasing in
any sense of the world we're in at this point.
Josh Jacobs with his sixty four yards and a touchdown
(01:52):
Jordan Love pedestrian one p. Thirty six and one, but
a yeoman like effort against an overmatched, undermanned, and frankly discombobulated, pathetic, underprepared.
What other word can I use to describe what the
Saints have put together?
Speaker 1 (02:08):
I have no idea I have no idea why the
NFL would say this is what the audience wants on
Christmas Eve Eve it. It doesn't make sense in a
flex situation and keeping this game in like it didn't
make sense at the beginning of the season to think
that in Week sixteen the Saints would have anything to
(02:29):
play for, whether Derek Carr was healthy or not healthy.
I don't know why the NFL would want to schedule
a game like this. Well, actually I do, because they
want to make the Packers seem great. Oh, they want
the Thursday they or they want the Monday night football
lore and the cold weather and they want that look
for their broadcast because everybody loves wintery mix and watching
(02:52):
those games on TV. That's the exact reason that they
did it. They loved it when it was snowing in Cleveland,
they loved it when it was knowing in Buffalo. And hey,
late December, right before Christmas, let's go to Green Bay.
Who should we put against them? The Saints. You said
it on the list in the studio. I said it
on the list in our studio. Worst team in the
(03:13):
NFL at the beginning of the season. They've overachieved Dan,
they have overachieved and we thought that in Derek Carr,
and they don't even have him tonight.
Speaker 4 (03:22):
Why this game is being played on the Monday night.
Speaker 1 (03:24):
I have no idea except for the NFL trying to
push their conspiracy and having some winter Wonderland fun for
the Green Bay Packers.
Speaker 3 (03:32):
In the end, it is a TV show, so we
we get that. So if you get a little bit
of a weather element to it, that it gives folks
something extra to watch. In this case, it's fantasy playoff
games and whether they cover the robust fourteen or fourteen
and a half point number that was put up for
the Packers here obviously Jordan Love and Josh Jacobs, and
(03:55):
maybe you decided to delve down into those wide receivers.
I wouldn't touch them with the football, even in a
plus matchup, because which guy's gonna get fed? You have
no idea. We talked about it a little in the podcast.
You were en route to your homeland, as Ian and
I sat down. It's like, you look at some of
(04:15):
the numbers when you go to Jaden Reed, you really
love him great, he's got fifty catches, right, not on
a week to week basis, trying to guess who's gonna
get fed outside of Jacob's has been a miserable construct
and even today, hey Musgrave's back, that doesn't matter. He
is still Tucker Craft. Go go ahead and get him
involved a bunch. But to your point about you know
(04:37):
the Packers and what they are, You've got history, so
you always get to give people a nice little history
lesson out of your league when you go to lambeau Field.
The pageantry, the pomp and circumstance and everything. Yeah, the Saints,
I mean they're not only missing Car. There's no a Lave,
there's no Kamara. Carr was still having a really good
season despite the chaos, inconsistency and just futrid play around him.
(05:01):
But all that to say, yeah, and we're flexing everything else.
We're putting in a mini It might as well be
the Emirates Cup Light with those four teams that are
playing Saturday and Wednesday, and yet this game stands alone. Hell,
we fletched out the Cowboys out of a game, right
right right like, but nothing sacred. Let's keep the Saints though.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
Let's make sure that the Saints and Packers stays in
the spot that it needs to remember the days of
the Aints. Yeah they are the Ain't nobody good playing tonight,
That's who they are. They're not the Aints. It's just
ain't nobody good playing for the Saints tonight. And that's
the mess that we get and should we expect twenty
four to nothing? This is just this is a three
hour parade, like there's nothing to worry about. Guarantee people
(05:48):
will be leaving in the fourth quarter because now you've
got Christmas plans, you don't want to be stranded out
at night. But there's no reason for this game. I
know that you can't a week out change a Monday
night game, but still to the point of what we
thought the Saints were going to be at the beginning
of the year, Mike and now with an interimed coach,
and I know they went on a mini run, you know,
a few weeks back.
Speaker 4 (06:10):
Still not enough worthy.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
Enough to keep this as a Monday night game, except
for the hope of snow and for the great vibes
that you get from playing a game at Lambeufield in December.
Speaker 3 (06:19):
Yeah, I mean, Rizzy doesn't match the the heat and
genesis of social media clicks like his guy the Rizzler man.
It's close because I've seen those side by sides at
points and he does get a little fiery on the sideline,
but I don't think it has the same juice. But
for the Packers, man, you're going to be an eleven
win team taking care of business. Yeoman like defense as
(06:43):
we talked about on the pod, but bringing it to
everybody here in this space. You know, finally all the
turnovers that we'd been projecting and waiting for with this
defense coming in Spain. I think it was the twenty
seventh tonight earlier on one of the more inexplicable fumbles
you'll see, where it was like someone was gonna about
to get mugged. And I do not make light of
(07:04):
people getting robbed. It is a very real thing. But
it's the Hey, here's my wallet. That's what Rattler did
with the football. As the defender went to take he
just kind of flipped it up into no man's LANs
like he's gonna everything.
Speaker 4 (07:16):
Yeah, just take it, keep me safe.
Speaker 3 (07:18):
He still got run through into the end of the turf.
Later was the beneficiary of one of the worst roughing
the passer calls I've seen all season long, which is
a whole other referendum on refereeing. That needs to happen,
as well as if you were going to have the
you know, the everybody does, the Czar of Sports end
of year. What would I change? Yeah, officiating really needs
(07:38):
some something. I don't know how and what, but yeah,
it's it's gone into a really bad space. Fortunately it's
a blowout, so one or two miss calls or bad
clock work aren't gonna matter here. But the Packers roll
on in what has been a nondescript game.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
Maybe maybe this will come out on the airing of
grievances as well, all the thoughts about officiating, but on
art I Want Your Flex podcast. A few weeks back,
maybe a month or two ago, we went down the
list of teams that we thought could win the Super Bowl.
And I'm not trying to rain or snow on Green
Bay's parade at all with the Monday night game and
(08:19):
saying that the NFL purposely put them here because Mike,
you could attest to it that I felt Green Bay
was a legit Super Bowl contender. And when I was
back home in Wisconsin this past week, I had aunts
and cousins in saying, how do you think the Packers
are gonna do. My opinion really means nothing, but I
do believe in this team as a legit possibility to
(08:44):
win Super Bowl fifty nine. When you look at how
things in the NFC are shaking out. I just don't
think tonight tells us anything about them.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Oh no, we don't learn anything. This is a get in,
do your job, try to get out healthy. That's it.
Make sure so because as long as Josh Jacobs is
running as he is, and right now Jordan Love is
on a streak, and I don't want to jinx it,
but it's four plus games without a pick. Like he's
taking care of the football sure, right, which is one
of the big, big caveats to a lot of players,
(09:12):
Like all right, there's great explosive plays and opportunities, and
he spreads the ball around a ton, as we've spoken of.
I mean, just go down what their stats were coming
into this week sixteen finale. Here is that you've got
a number of guys at twenty five to thirty forty catches.
You don't have a guy that needs to be fed
one hundred and fifty times, And that's the greatness of
the team. Does that work forever? Maybe? Maybe not, But
(09:34):
Watson at one point probably should have been hit for
a touchdown. Now Love found another option that got him
a first. How often can you do that before someone
feels like they need to be fed, whether it's contract
incentives or just hey, trying to put stuff on tape
because I got to get paid too, and fractures there.
But for the moment, you're up twenty four to nothing
(09:55):
and moving forward. But you look at the NFC as
a whole. Jalen Hurts went out with a concussion, what
does that mean for a week? For two weeks for
their end of the season. You go down the list.
In Minnesota, you've got Sam Darnold. Great story. Everybody keeps saying, yeah,
but like he's, you know, a thirty five year old
(10:19):
guy that's been weaving his way throughout the league. No,
he's still a young guy, came in young. Yes, he's
bounced a bit. That's more circumstance, I think than him necessarily.
But he's found the right spot. And you've got a
defense playing lights out football. You roll through the Lions.
Does the attrition eventually hit them?
Speaker 4 (10:38):
May not.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
Defense, they've lost so many guys that were starters and
David Montgomery thinks he's gonna have the Festivus miracle and
be able to play issuing surgery. I don't know that
whether that happens or not. But you know you've got
all that to say that, that's pretty much your your bubble, right,
I mean, the way someone's getting in, But are they
(11:02):
a contender or not. I don't know how much I
believe in the Rams or or the I don't get
in deeper.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
I don't think the Rams can win the Super Bowl.
I do think the Rams are the team you don't
want to play. Does that make sense?
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Sure?
Speaker 1 (11:16):
I think that's simple enough where I don't think they're
gonna run through the NFC and end up in New Orleans.
But if I'm sitting there at Green Bay and I'm
the sixth seed, is the wild card because of the
greatness of Detroit and Minnesota so far this season, going
to LA and facing the Rams maybe isn't as ideal
(11:37):
as another possibility, like being able to face of being
able to face the winner of the NFC South, whoever
that may be. Like, there's a distinct advantage for the
fifth seed wild card playing the fourth seed in the
NFC South, But I don't think that the I think
Green Bay could go to LA and handle the rams,
(11:58):
but I just don't think it's the fact that we
think automatic victory when it comes to that scenario.
Speaker 3 (12:03):
Can't wait to see how many folks got some extra
dollars or Christmas bonuses at their jobs in Wisconsin to
come back out to Los Angeles for an early January vacation.
Speaker 1 (12:15):
Tell you what, Las Vegas and the warm weather, they're
ready to go.
Speaker 4 (12:19):
Let's get out of.
Speaker 3 (12:20):
There find their way, is no question about it. Dan
Byer in for Jason Smith tonight. You see him are
and hear him with Doug Gottlieb Midday's The Red Zone
Radio two to five Pacific time here on Sundays at
Dan Meire on Fox. Of course, he's always with me
on the iWatch Flex podcast find me over at Swollen Dome.
Oh and Blue Sky, Blue Sky.
Speaker 4 (12:40):
Dan already sent out the pre show tweet.
Speaker 3 (12:42):
There you go.
Speaker 4 (12:43):
If you call it a tweet, I don't know post.
Speaker 3 (12:45):
Post X, I don't know what it is. Yeah, and
I met Mike Carmen over at Blue Sky as well.
So all of that to say, we've got a lot
on the show tonight. We'll dive into some of those
fantasy good and bad stories out of Week sixteen. Wrap
up what we saw as we head towards the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (13:01):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (13:12):
Grantingson Welcome he to Tower two. Jason Smith Show with
Me Mike Harmon here live Fromthtirac dot Com, Fox Sports
Radio Studios. No Jason Smith tonight, it is stead my guy,
Dan Byer, I watch a Flex podcast, longtime friend and
co host here at Fox Sports Radio. You hear him
in mid days with Doug Gottlieb and Cavino and Rich
(13:33):
and then on Sundays leading the Way, making you smarter
and getting you through the NFL Late Slate on Red
Zone Radio two to five Pacific, alongside Carrie Rhoads and
mercifully Dan. We're about to put a bow on Week
sixteen of the National Football League season. At some point
I would have been Duke on the sideline if I
(13:53):
was a staff member of the Saints.
Speaker 5 (13:56):
Do the damn doe.
Speaker 3 (13:57):
It's Don thirty four nothing f.
Speaker 1 (14:00):
Yeah, this wasn't this wasn't good from the get go,
and not that we had high expectations. No manning cast
for this tonight, and father, that is that is now
my litmus test for how important this Monday night football
game is. And so think about this when there is
no manning cast and it's the Saints, their dad's team, Yeah,
(14:24):
their hometown team.
Speaker 3 (14:25):
Have they consoling him for three hours?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Dad tells you everything you need to know about what
this matchup was and how it played out to fruition.
Speaker 3 (14:34):
Now I felt bad. So rookie out of Notre Dame
caught a ball earlier tonight for the Saints and they
said his name on the radio as I was coming in.
I don't know who that is. Kevin Austin Jr. Came
into the game with eight catches ninety eight yards. Because
you're in context, right, uniforms and for me, some of
(14:56):
it goes to rookie cards and all of that kind
of stuff, bridging in my card memorabilia kind of world.
So like, you see the names, you've got them in
the uniforms whatever. And then I'm like, Saints, I mean,
I know we're going digging a little deeper because we're
at the end of the season and I run a
number of injured guys whatever, but it was like, it
was just that moment where I went, I don't know,
(15:17):
And it's like, I guess maybe if I sat and
thought about it long enough, maybe I would have gotten
back to to Notre Dame. But no, I didn't.
Speaker 4 (15:25):
I never would have been.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
And he also wears number eighty one, and I can't
remember any Saints that even wore eighty one to go
and think of who that player could have been, Like,
you know, Chris Olave wears twelve, Well so did Marcus Colston,
and so maybe if you're looking at the Saints and
(15:46):
you're like, oh, it looks like ough, it's a Lave,
it's not Marcus Colston. You know guys that wear the
jersey of a previous player, and sometimes you're like the Raiders,
they assigned thirty four to someone on whoever wears thirty
four in the Raider uniform is gonna be Bo Jackson.
Speaker 3 (16:03):
That's it.
Speaker 1 (16:03):
kJ Wright, when he played a little bit for the Raiders,
wore thirty four and it was so weird to see
somebody else in that uniform. But when you even wear
eighty one, Mike, I didn't even know if a Saints
another Saints player that wore eighty one rea.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
Anyway, we're gonna go down the list because I was
able to find it. Okay, the last one to do
it was Nick Vannette.
Speaker 4 (16:22):
In twenty one Ohio state tight end. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Uh now this isn't by uh sortied year to year,
but go through. You got Doug Atkins way back in day,
Ozazer akeem wide receiver many years ago, Randall Hill How
about Scott Slutsker, No, he was a tight end out
of Iowa.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
Don't have it going back even in that Iowa tight ends.
I got, I know Joe Horn eighty seven, Eric Martin
was eighty four, and going back to those eighties and
nineties Saints team. By the way, I was at a
Saints Packers game in nineteen eighty nine and green Bay
trail twenty one and nothing came back and won thirty
(17:08):
five thirty four. Don mccowsky hit sharp from three yards
out and the extra point was good. The extra point,
of course, by Chris Jackie, and green Bay won thirty
five to thirty four. But Mike doesn't mean that they
didn't stop Dalton Hilliard, who still had forty three yards
on thirteen carries another good name from the past in
(17:31):
the New Orleans Saints.
Speaker 3 (17:32):
That's good. We just really Daltre twenty one, big big
hug right there. Mccallis for twenty six.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
Yeah, yep, this Ruben Mays was thirty six. Nice eighty
one just Drew Blanks. So maybe Kevin Austin can make
it his number.
Speaker 3 (17:47):
He could become that guy. We'll be interestingly observing that
as we go. Hey, broadcasting live from the tyrack dot
Com to studios. Tyrat dot com will help you get there.
And I'm Matt selection fast, free shipping, free road protection
and over ten thousand recommended his dollars. Tire rack dot
com is the way tire buying should be. This one
(18:08):
coming towards the end, packers trying to see if they
can't pad their turnover stats a little bit more. We'll
give you updates. Flowing out of that, we'll recap Week
sixteen from the real and fantasy world of the good
and the bad, the ugly as that went on. But
I asked the question as we finished the first hour
of the show. You know what's the college football Playoffs
(18:28):
and the NFL MVP Award have in common? Probably should
have thrown it out at Swollen Dome as a host,
all right, filling the blanks.
Speaker 4 (18:35):
Yeah, I was curious and where you were going with it.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
It comes down to a one word answer, winning, winning.
So for the National Football League MVP Award, it's been
kind of declared, right, it's a two man race. Here's
Josh Allen, Here's Lamar Jackson. Sekwan Barkley may set the
record for most yards in a season, and with Jalen
(19:00):
Hurts now potentially questionable for Week seventeen, maybe it does
open the door for Barkley to creep back in. But
historically it's been a quarterback award Dan, So that's where
we sit, and with.
Speaker 1 (19:11):
The Bills schedule, it doesn't feel like Josh Allen would
be able to lose it in the next two weeks
with the Jets and Patriots to wrap it up.
Speaker 3 (19:19):
So that's that's the word I come to. And I
said it on Baltimore Radio. I'm sure they got some
great response last week, like Justin Tucker may have cost
your guy the MVP Award because as brilliant as Lamar
Jackson has been, you've lost five games. You may win
the division, you may go on to playoff greatness, but
(19:40):
winning still has to count and be part of the equation.
And you could caveat it out all you wanted, like,
well they didn't you know, it wasn't his fault, this
that the other, I get it. Nineteen eighty seven, Andre
Dawson was the MVP on a last place Cubs team.
Go back to Ernie Banks thirty years prior to both Cubs.
How about that? Ah and not your because you know,
(20:00):
me being a White Sox guy, I don't wanted to
play out, but they were great and they're with absolutely
unless it's not. But the idea just being like we've
seen it where you can go and win. You know,
even Jerry West, we talk about it all the time.
Can't you be the m v P on a losing team?
But generally it's been reserved for winning that the stats
(20:21):
will be great because there's nothing in Josh Allen's stat
line that's gonna say, wow, well he had a you know,
mediocre year and you're giving it to him. And I
understand the argument, the pro lamar argument of fatigue, Uh,
you know that may set in. I'm like, you just
want to give it to somebody else who's having a
great year whatever else, But in the end, winning has
(20:44):
to matter. And I tie that to college football, Dan,
because you know Kirk Kurbstreet, who's one of the pre
eminent voices of college football. Right, he's considered a grand
poobah kind of guy. Number one chair. Everybody knows, even
if you don't care about college football, daughters know who
the hell he is because of his dog, right, so
everybody knows who Kirk rb Street is. So he goes
(21:06):
in and does this answer with Linda Cohen the other
day talking about, you know, the selection process and going forward.
This is obviously after Indiana gets stomped by Notre Dame.
We had Jack Kaiser on the show. You can find
the podcast to that captain linebacker and what highly decorated
(21:28):
you know, mister and Indiana football. That stuff joined us.
But after that game and the early results, because we
on Saturday, we had more of the same, right smush.
They were plucky and showed signs of light, but couldn't
put the ball in the end zone. Right, two pick
sixes and it gets away against Penn State, Texas rolls
(21:49):
over Clemson and then Ohio State Tennessee, which is the
game nobody seems to want to include when they do
the how bad the games were somehow that one's okay,
I don't know if it's I don't have an SEC
logo on me, so I'll just say it they sucked too, Okay,
So if we're gonna do the uh, you know, winning,
because that was Herbstreet basically went on to say, Hey,
(22:10):
winning shouldn't be seen as the only thing, and it
never really has been, right, it's it's a big part
because you should be winning. But then if we're gonna
start going down this face of because he started to
go into schedules, it's like, yeah, okay, I understand that
to a point if you lose three games, and obviously
he was referring to in the era Alabama being left out. Okay,
(22:33):
let's just call it what it is. Alabama hammered Mercer
at the end of November, okay, and the end of November,
when everybody else playing conference games or whatever, they get
a week off to play Mercer and then they come
out and got shellacked by Oklahoma in a game that
was never close. Oh, by the way, what was Oklahoma's record, Dan,
It's right, five hundred, nice and even five hundred, not
(22:56):
getting ahead, not falling behind. Right in the media part
of the curve. Vanderm what was their record when they
lost to them? Gosh, they're a five hundred team. Yeah,
there you go. That's two of them. And then add
number three. You got the hat trick. You lose, and
I understand, you know, Danny White from Tennessee was like,
we should go back to all computers. That was before
(23:16):
they got shellacked by Ohiah State. But all of that
to say, you're never finding the perfect equation to this.
But to try to dismiss winning a team goes eleven
and one, you can't go and say in August, all right,
give me an honest assessment of what your team's gonna do.
I think we could be a ten win team. All right, now,
here's your schedule, Go do it. That's not how we
(23:37):
do things.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
This this is opening the Pandora's box of a twelve
team playoff? Are there twelve good enough teams to put
in a playoff? And if we can't figure out who
the actual twelve are, then why are we expanding in
the first place. Well, we know why we're expanding because
it's more money. That's the reason why it happens. But Mike,
you know it's it's it's funny because I think that
(24:00):
your point is well put and I think what Herbstreet
is completely missing in all of this. And this isn't
meant to criticize Indiana or support Alabama's case. It's the
point of I don't think the committee really looks at wins.
I actually think that he's off base with it. I
(24:21):
think that what they do is they look at the
loss column and that's the number that they look at,
and they see and they see one, because that's how
they used to do it when they were splitting hairs
and trying to get who four, five, and six were,
because you would have a logjam of one loss teams.
And if you're splitting hairs, yeah, maybe it should come
(24:43):
down to the loss, but it isn't splitting hairs. And
I think that the perfect example they can't remember who
pointed out and it may have been on social media,
but they're determining how good the SEC was and how
they compared to all these other conferences is look at
how quickly we forgot about Georgia Tech Georgia and how
(25:04):
Georgia Tech took Georgia.
Speaker 4 (25:08):
Uh should have won the game.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
I mean basically they should have won the game in
Athens and they were unable to do it. But Georgia
Tech was in prime position, takes them to overtime, had
opportunities to win, could not do it. That told me
that the third, you know, fourth best ACC team as
we look at it, is competing with the top of
(25:31):
the SEC and so like so for people to just
sit there and say, yeah, the SEC is it's just
a better league. Well, your prime team, your top team
that ended up now then winning your conference was just
taken to the wire a few weeks ago in overtime
by a team in another power conference that didn't even
(25:53):
play in a championship game. So like that right there
should tell you that the the the playing field is
so level. And Mike, I don't know how how we
would ferret out right now on how you would decipher
who would be one, two, three, and four if we
stayed in that fourteen playoff. But I think the bigger
problem is just I don't know if they're going to
be twelve teams worthy enough to get into a bracket.
(26:14):
I'm afraid of what we're going to see because all
of the higher seeded teams were also then playing at home.
That's not as easy for a lower ranked team or
a lower team, and I think that's why we got
the results. So we ended up getting.
Speaker 3 (26:25):
Yeah, there's a million other legs that flow out of this.
Man think George's not playing with their starter. A year ago,
we might have had a discussion, right, absolutely, right, Hey,
all of a sudden, you don't have your top guys,
So what happens there? And when you go to twelve
or fourteen or sixteen or whatever? We end up getting
ballooning this out to Yeah, waters it down. We're getting
(26:48):
to two three, four loss teams, and what happened should
have happened. You're supposed to decisively win when you're at
home if you're a top seeded team. Yes, acting shock
that some of this stuff happened. How it happens a
whole other thing. Pee feuw Tech's gonna join us in
a minute. I was disappointed that all the humorous of
(27:10):
Indiana curb stomping, all the little little h parts in
the weaker parts of the schedule, that suddenly he had
had to play up, and he cowered because he didn't
want the final score to look so bad. Yeah, that
that rubbed me the wrong way, But overall, I think
we got what we should have anticipated in these games. Absolutely,
(27:32):
you flex in front of a home crowd, by the way,
the home crowd part of it, How great is that?
Speaker 4 (27:37):
Yeah? It was?
Speaker 1 (27:39):
How cool is it to see Tennessee in Columbus, no
matter how many of their fans were weren't there, whether
it was Niland North or not, the fact is it
was just neat to see them on the other sideline
in that sort of atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (27:52):
Very cool environment. We'll talk with pe Fu Tech with
his first leans and odds and now all that fun
stuff coming, but taking a look back at the games
that we had. He's Dan Byer in for Jason Smith.
That Dan Byer on Fox. Find me over at Swollen Home.
Jason Smith Show with Mike Carmon rolls out here at
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (28:22):
Now it's time to head out to the Hotline, joining
us as he does each and every week. A rare
Monday edition of his appearance it's our guy, Pete feu Tech.
He's the publisher the Grand Pooba the Legend college Footballnews
dot com, where you find him at petefeutech in the
Twitter verse as well, Pete, Merry Christmas brother, good to
(28:44):
talk to you.
Speaker 5 (28:45):
On How are you guys doing great?
Speaker 3 (28:48):
We're good. The Monday night game has finally mercifully ended,
so we can put a bow on all the Packers
clinch of playoff spot. And the Saints are still really
bad at football, so we move on to that. You
and I can do the long therapy session about the
Bears another time. But look, first weekend of the college
football playoff in the books, what's your main takeaway from it?
Speaker 5 (29:12):
Bet on the teams that have other players. It's this
is kind of weird. It's a weird bowl season because
the games are strange, the teams aren't nearly the same
that everyone's opting out. It'll be interesting to see as
we go forward when we do have the you know,
the bigger, better college football playoff games coming up, and
(29:36):
you know today there is there's a good one. I mean,
Frensloe State in northern Illinois was entertaining even if the
players were there, so you have to kind of look
and search for the good in this ball season, because
it's pretty bad. It's just bad bad college football at
this point, and hopefully it'll get better. We keep going,
(29:57):
getting a.
Speaker 4 (29:57):
Lot a little it.
Speaker 1 (29:58):
I think people thought that the first round of the
college football playoff was bad, But my question to you,
Pete is this, should we have expected anything different from
the first round of the college football Playoff?
Speaker 5 (30:11):
No, and in fact it was. I'm kind of under
the take that it's not only is it bad, it
was necessary because part of this is it's it's the
college football playoff now is not going to be like
what we're used to its playoffs where you can't. College
football is just a different sport. It's not like the
NCAA tournament where you can just kind of get hot
from three and go on a run. You know, you can't.
(30:34):
It's not like the pros where there's really not that
huge of a talent disparity between the teams, just you know,
one or two guys maybe the team has a right
year or something. But once they're in the playoffs, everyone's
kind of really good. In college football, the have and
have not. The chasm between the two is so massive
that it's just it's it's literally different leagues in different levels.
(30:58):
When you get to you know, some of these teams
and programs which has all have all the money and
all the resources, and these others who just don't. And
so maybe there can be an upset once here or there,
but you're not gonna have a Cinderella run. I mean,
think of it this way. In the ten years of
the college fourteen college football playoffs, there really has not
(31:19):
been It really wasn't ever one just crazy weird conference
championship upset. Out of the fifty that there were from
the Power five levels at the time, there just wasn't
anything that was really really a big outlier. And then
in the college football Playoff, TCU over Michigan is the
one that is the only one that was kind of
(31:40):
the wow, where did that come from? And then reality
came to breakfast when Georgia got a hold of TCU
in the next round. So we're just not going to
get those. But the point being that in this new
expanded thing, okay, you know if you win eleven win
games and as a Big ten team you kind of
should be in it. You went eleven games as a
is the ACP team. Okay, you kind of should be
(32:02):
in it. You got your chance, you get to prove
yourself and then you know, the better teams win and
then we can all move on. But it's just about
getting that shot as opposed to you know, an Alabama
or an Ole Myth who lost three games. We already
saw what these teams can do.
Speaker 3 (32:17):
Hey, Pete that that was one of the big rumblings
back and forth slap fighting Saturday and then talking heads
including Herbstreet doing the Hey, winning shouldn't be you know,
we shouldn't go old school with winning as I unless
somehow we're gonna have coaches have to be honest in
sending in an assessment of their squad, going, boy, we're
(32:39):
really good, you know, on a scale of one to ten,
how good are you? And then we do scheduled generators.
You're not fixing that part of the equation.
Speaker 5 (32:46):
Ever, You've got to have a part of this where
you can win your way in. You've got to have
some mechanism that says, hey, look, you know, if you
maybe it doesn't work out, but if you're a Boising
state or in Arizona, you win your conference championship, Yeah,
you get to be in the college football playoffs with
a chance. Again, this was you know, in the fourteen era.
(33:08):
This is where the ucfs were always complaining and you know,
even Florida State last year, you know, beyond being everyone
being mad over oh how could we be left out?
Even though it was the right call, it was that
wait a minute, we just didn't even get our shot.
And so now you get a chance to have your
chance and what the first round does? It just it
just eliminates it. Now, all right, we know now you
(33:28):
we have closure on this. Now let's move on.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Now.
Speaker 5 (33:31):
I think that you were still got a couple of
kids that at the kids stable here at Boise State
in Arizona State. But wow, Oregon versus Ohio State, Georgia
versus Notre Dame, We're gonna stop kidting around here pretty
soon and these are going to be the real games.
But you got to get through this first wave to
get there. And the problem with the whole oh well,
we're just going to go on talents and well based
(33:54):
on what I mean. Remember, you know, you know Auburn
lost the cow you know, you know LT's you lost
to usc you know, Ole miss lost the bad Kentucky
team this year, Kentucky loses to Louisville. You know, Florida
got waxed by Miami. I mean it's just not, oh, well,
these teams are obviously better. Well not the Alabama team
that showed up against Oklahoma. That team won very good.
(34:17):
So it all seemed easy. But you got to take
this is this is the argument back in the BCS
days and the Poland bol days. You got to take
the eye test away, because if you just go by
eye tests, not everyone watches all the college football games.
So if you see one team that's beating up another team, like, oh,
that team's good. Meanwhile, like you said, it's kind of
hard to tell if you really know the ins and
(34:39):
outs of each team schedule.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
Okay, So with all that being said, I'm not going
to give you a multiple choice.
Speaker 4 (34:45):
We're just gonna throw some stuff out there for you, Pete.
Speaker 1 (34:48):
Does it get solved if the SEC goes to nine games?
Do we weed even more of the bad teams out?
Do we find out more if we go to divisions?
Do we need teams to schedule three power you know,
non conference games? How do we start out the factor?
How do we get away with this? How do we
(35:09):
chart a new course, if you will, in what we
now think is going to be the new landscape of the.
Speaker 5 (35:14):
College What got lost in the Herb Street Unplugged you
know show the other night and he's great when he's rolling,
he's is that college Football Playoff Committee? Do your job?
I mean, part of the problem with all this is,
you know, they're very sincere. They really do want to
put together the best at twelve you know, teams possible.
They really really have no ulterior motives here other than
(35:36):
wanting to do this right. The problem is these are
real people with real jobs and lives and stuff. They
kind of watch college football, and there's certainly college football
and dignitaries and they're in the business. But are they
able to really hammer down on the you know, well,
what does it mean that this team walks to this
team even though you know the Notre Dame for example,
(35:58):
anybody says, well they lost the North. If you if
you watched Northern that Northern Illinois game and then watch
Nordon the rest of the way, that wasn't nor name
being bad or an indictment.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
That was a.
Speaker 5 (36:09):
Weird, just complete crazy outlier of a bad game plan
in the game Notre Dame's still really awesome, you know,
but the problem is then Nor Dame got on Peacock,
and you know, plus they don't have any great, you know,
big high profile games that since that nobody really watched them,
so it's kind of hard to go by. So what
you really need to do is the College Football Playoff
Committee has got to not be afraid. And last year
(36:32):
they took so much heat for what would turned out
through the exact right call in a perfect storm on
that four. They didn't want that heat this year. And
what Herb Street kind of hinted that was like, well,
they kind of went, well, we're gonna put SMU in here,
so we just don't want to hear it this year.
And that was technically, and according to the president of
the College Football Playoff Ranking for the first ten years,
(36:53):
the totally wrong move to do, because what they really
always used to do is say it's all about the
conference champions, which means Clemson should have been ranked ahead
of SMU. You do that, right, all of a sudden,
you get the rankings get better and the steedings get better,
and then you start to have a better playoffs.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
Pete. As we look at it, from what we watched
in the first round of the playoffs. The one game
that did kind of stand out. Penn State puts a
hurt on SMU what it's all said and done, But boy,
there were some anxious moments early in that one.
Speaker 5 (37:23):
Huh yeah, yeah, that was not pretty. Look it's again,
SMU was just it's this is you had to prove it.
You had to show in that game and all these
other games that Clemson wasn't very good this year. Again
it was fine, Tennessee's fine, but this was the moment
you showed that, yeah, that's Ohio State. I can't convince you.
(37:45):
Look it wasn't about Tennessee. And Tennessee fans are in
the bag and Big Ben fans are like, oh hah,
that's that's Ohio State. That's the team that should have
showed up against Michigan. So now you get these teams,
which with a Penn State with a Texas you know,
with Ohio State, with a Notre Dame, with three weeks
off to rest, and a full focus on an inferior
(38:09):
team with inferior talent that includes Tennessee when I compared
to Ohio State, and all of a sudden, all those
good teams. You see their fresh legs, You see how
fast those teams were moving. That was just those are
rested teams that knew exactly what to do. Now, let's
see what Georgia looks like. Let's see what Oregon looks like,
because those teams also have the rest and the focus,
(38:30):
and it's going to be a pretty interesting second round
in a week or so.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Does Ohio State have any edge knowing that they played
Oregon so close and where maybe there's no guarantee they
make the field goal if Will.
Speaker 4 (38:43):
Howard slides in time?
Speaker 1 (38:45):
But is there an edge in playing such a close
game against the devon team of the country.
Speaker 5 (38:51):
This is the one part that I don't have, which
is maybe, yes, Ohio State is the best team in
the country. It should win the national championship. But I
think that just because it's Oregon and it hasn't done
it before, It's like, Okay, it's Oregon. This is fun,
but we know it's gonna happen. Eventually, they're gonna go
Oregon and they're okay, they're very good, and then they
lose in the really really big game. This team might not.
(39:15):
Dylan Gabriel is the veterans quarterback. This team does have
NFL talent, This team does have the lines, this team
does have the guys who can hang with Georgia, who
can hang with Ohio State, And so at this point,
you know, yes, you do have those you know three
Texas has the speed. They just it's Texas. It's not
(39:35):
gonna happen, you know how this team rolls. And then
Penn State just doesn't have the study enough offense. But
that defense is really good. So it really is or
I mean we're just all this kind of looking for well,
we're familiar with Ohio States and you know, Georgia's and
those types of teams winn it. Maybe Oregon's just that good,
and maybe they come out and do something big. But
(39:55):
if the Rose Bowl isn't for the national championship, it's
gonna really it's the the winner of that game to
the skin it.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
Longtime friend of the show, it's Petefutech College Footballnews dot com.
Where you find them at Pete Futech in the Twitter ears. Pete,
we want to thank you for stopping by here on
a Monday. I know it's a little off the normal schedule,
but always a pleasure to talk to you and thanks
for all the friendship and insights through the year. Absol,
all right, we'll talk to you next week.
Speaker 4 (40:23):
Brother.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Thank you. At Pete feud Tech joins us each and
every week giving us his assessment of the first weekend
of this college football playoffs and beyond. I was gonna
press him a little more on the Preston Stone not
going into the game for SMU and then transferring to Northwestern,
because I think everybody's lying in the locker room. If
you're suited up, you should be ready to play and
(40:46):
be ready. It goes back to the quitting thing we
were talking about before, and trying to tell me that
when you're getting housed in a playoff game that you
never were going to pull that emergency lever and put
him into the game. Said, well, by time we thought
of about it, it was too far gone. I don't know.
It seems kind of dubious to me.
Speaker 2 (41:04):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (41:14):
Time for the airing of the Grievances that annual part
because it is actually Festivus today and the Seinfeld Lore
December twenty third, So everybody get together and pass around
the metal poll and air out who's done you wrong
for fantasy purposes in Bush, You're welcome to dive in
in here if you've got one or two people, or
(41:36):
just a situation in general that has peeved you to know.
And Dan, would you like to start? Is there someone
in particular on your list that gets you absolutely?
Speaker 1 (41:47):
And I actually feel silly for thinking this way, but Mike,
you know you sometimes talk yourself into drafting a player
or expecting good things from that player.
Speaker 4 (41:58):
Oh yeah, that was the with me with.
Speaker 1 (42:01):
Romandre Stevenson of the New England Patriots. And if you
look at Romandre Stevenson and what he's done this year,
eight hundred yards, seven touchdowns, it's not awful, but it's
also not great. And it's not that I expected great
things from Romandre Stevenson. It's that I talked myself into
drafting Romandre Stevenson. And Week one they go out, they
(42:24):
beat the Bengals one hundred and twenty yards in a touchdown.
This baby's gonna take off. You know why, Mike, Because
New England is gonna run the football. They just gave
him a contract in this offseason. You think they're giving
him a contract if they're not gonna use him. Girod
Mayo is gonna be an upgrade over Bill Belichick, at
least in the short term, because it's a new voice
(42:44):
and new blood. And when you play Drake may you
just lean on that running game. And Romandre Stevenson, at
times just in and out of the lineup, never cracked
one hundred yards again. And in the week that I
then decided to bench him, he scored two touchdowns against
the New York Jets.
Speaker 4 (42:59):
So I know it's a.
Speaker 1 (43:00):
Little off the board, but Romando Stevenson is my thorn
in my side for my I hopes for fantasy for
fantasy football on this Festivus holiday.
Speaker 3 (43:10):
The old I send you to Heaven before I send
you to Hell, go back and watch at Simpson's side,
show Bob and quoting all sorts of great musicals of
the past. Jonathan Taylor with his thirty nine point eight
this week, fantastic right two uter plus three touchdowns. He
did miss a couple of games. He's he's right now
running back twenty in.
Speaker 1 (43:28):
Pp Hardley just pouring one out for all the fantasy
teams that drafted.
Speaker 3 (43:32):
That was Jodon Taylor. That was a very good sound
effect that you added in there. I don't even know
how you did that. Breze Hall a guy who would
have been drafted as RB two, RB three, or RB
four in most leagues. He's currently RB sixteen.
Speaker 4 (43:46):
Oh gosh. I had hopes it hopes for him as well.
Speaker 3 (43:51):
Jets and the great expectations thereof CJ. Stroud. We talk
about games that matter going into week seventeen, this mini
four team, let's hang out and play some games down
the stretch.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
C J.
Speaker 3 (44:04):
Stroud is QB eighteen.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
I had and we thought. We thought now with Stefan
Diggs and Nico Collins and obviously the devastating entry to
take Dallas past weekend, but they're best friends. You thought
the rapport would be there. It has not been.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
Yeah, it's a team. Actually, you know, I thought they'd
put up some points. It was fearful of the offensive line.
Those fears were were well founded. But on our board
over there, in addition to thinking New Orleans would be
the worst team in the league, my out on a
limb was that Houston would miss the playoffs because I
thought the rest of the division would actually show up
and guess what it did not three of the worst teams.
Speaker 1 (44:42):
With terrible decision made Jonathan Taylor turning it on in
Week sixteen.
Speaker 3 (44:46):
He gave you that one, and look they still had
a glimmer of hope for a long while. Hey Bursch,
you got anybody you'd like to add to this list
or a scenario an airing of grievances?
Speaker 6 (44:56):
Yeah, definitely a few. I mean, after tonight, the entire
New Orleans Saints are I have to air my grievances
on that franchise as a whole for being so awful
offensively that I came into a semi final matchup basically
tied tonight. I had Tucker Craft, my opponent had the
Packers defense, and he in essence, had the New Orleans
Saints offense just feeding him points. So no, I lost
(45:19):
that one as as a whole over the season. Travis
Etn is definitely somebody who came into the seasons as
a solid second round running back, started off the season
fine and then got hurt, and once he got hurt,
he really disappeared offensively. Tank Bigsby really got into the
mix in Jacksonville, and he turned quickly into somebody who
(45:42):
you didn't feel like you could bench him at the once.
He started to struggle early in the season, and then
it got to the point where you're like, I can't
start him. There's no way you can't start him with
any level of confidence.
Speaker 3 (45:53):
Do you want to fund with numbers out of that? Yeah,
RB's thirty eight and thirty seven big is one point
eight points better than atn for the season.
Speaker 4 (46:04):
That is terrible.
Speaker 6 (46:05):
That is terrible, and I think on behalf of plenty
of other owners. Of course, the Christian McCaffrey situation doomed
a lot of people from the start of the season. Also,
do you guys remember Brandon at YUK time, he's a
player in the NFL. He's still on the forty nine ers.
He had the whole contract dispute and then got hurt
(46:26):
and was never seen of again.
Speaker 3 (46:28):
Yeah, he submarined a team for me.
Speaker 4 (46:30):
Do we have a Tyreek Hill? Did we mention Tyree?
Speaker 3 (46:34):
He's on the list?
Speaker 1 (46:35):
Certainly k metcalfe knee injuries, and I felt Jackson's with
a jigbo would emerge and he has this season and
it's almost been a little bit at the expense of
DK Metcalf. I thought it would be at the expense
of Tyler Lockett, but DK Metcalf has not been the performer,
(46:56):
especially down the stretch here. Finally got into the ends
against Minnesota, but hadn't scored since mid October prior to that,
and to go along with the knee injury, to go
along with just his totals, he had been a disappointment.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
WR thirty three, going with our CJ. Stroud Nico Collins
back to number twenty two, So a lot of that
related to injuries, So shows you how effective he was
when he played. Mike Evans missed a couple of games
and has been a beast in several others, but still
only WR nineteen on the year. He's just behind Tyreek
(47:32):
Hill in that regard. And then the last quarterback I
wanted to mention him because he got benched and even
if you didn't expect that you'd have dominance week to week. Actually,
I'll take two. Kirk Cousins twentieth on the year heading
into tonight, even with all those weapons and everything that
had been assembled for him, and then Jordan Love tonight
(47:53):
against the Saints thirty four to off in your final
eleven point five points. He is QB seventeen on the year.
Speaker 1 (48:02):
Sam Laporta was a guy that at the tight end position.
Oh absolutely number one coming into the season. Gotta love Laporta.
And then he scores in the fake trip game against
the Bears when I was eliminated weeks prior.
Speaker 3 (48:15):
There you go. He at least got you one there.
Speaker 1 (48:17):
So did have the two touchdown, three catch, six yard
game this year.
Speaker 3 (48:21):
They're very reminiscent of the old Jerome Bettis five carries,
one yard, three touchdown stat line from many years ago.
He's Dan Bayer. Thanks Bersch at Ryan Bursche here. Check
out his podcast Everything He's Got Going Dodger related as
we get ready for the end of the silly season,
money flying about He and Bo Benson, Moncie belangyas they've
(48:41):
got you covered on all the highs and lows of
the that season. Where can they find the podcast Bursch.
Speaker 6 (48:49):
As the sick podcast of the Dodger Zone and thankfully
not many lows anymore.
Speaker 3 (48:53):
There you go, nice, all positivity looking down at the
rest of creation, like my beloved White Sox over under
on wins in forty nine and a half for twenty twenty.
Speaker 4 (49:02):
Oh the over, Yeah, absolutely the over. It's a new
day on the South Side of Chicago.
Speaker 3 (49:07):
Well, I wish I had your optimism
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Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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