September 22, 2020 • 35 mins
Clay Travis recaps Monday Night Football, is impressed by the Raiders offense, brings in Dub to talk about being a nervous gambler at the end of the game and discuss college football. Tuesday means that it's time for Petros of AM 570 LA Sports, he's in the house to talk Anthony Davis, Justin Herbert, and more. Plus, Clay recaps his NFL Top 5 Bottom 5 and talks Cam Newton.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Outkicked the Coverage with Clay Travis Live every weekday morning
from six to nine a m. E Stern three to
six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local
station for Outkicked the coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every morning on the I Heart
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(00:23):
Sports Radio. I hope that you are having a fantastic Tuesday,
wherever you may be. I know that if you are
a Raider fan, you are, in fact having a fantastic Tuesday.
We talked to Danny g about that a little bit earlier.
He's too and oh. His team's two O, my team's
two oh. There are eleven two and oh teams right now,
(00:44):
as we finished the eleventh week of this sorry, the
second week of the NFL season, there are eleven teams
that are two and oh. And what's fascinating about this
is from the perspective of making the playoffs, and the
numbers are probably even better now because we're expanding to
seven playoff team is in the a f C and
seven in the NFC. Sixty one point three percent of
(01:05):
teams are going to make the playoffs. Historically, since when
they start off two and oh. Only twelve point six
percent of teams make the playoffs when they start off
oh and two. Now, that wasn't a big swing last
night we had two teams that had already started off
one and oh. But I'm actually intrigued now to see
(01:25):
how the Raiders are gonna look going on the road
against the Patriots because this team, I thought, now as
they get ready for another year of John Gruden, is
starting to come around a little bit more and have
some horses, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.
I love Josh Jacobs. He's one of the best running
backs in the NFL. I really do believe that. Also,
(01:48):
Darren Waller is developing into one of the best tight
ends out there. Yesterday we talked with Todd Ferman and UH.
I've said this before, but we're in a high end
fantasy football league. Big buy in there, twelve of us
in the league. And Furman reached out to me yesterday
before the game with the Raiders and UH and the
(02:08):
and the Saints, and he said, Hey, I've got a
lot of talent at wide receiver. You've got a bunch
of tight ends. Would you be interested in potentially trading
with me, and I was texting with him last night
during the game and I was like, at every quarter,
I was like, hey, my asking price is going up
if I'm gonna decide to move this guy. Because I
got John who Smith as well, I've got a pretty
good team. I got a bunch of tight ends on
(02:31):
on the roster, and I was getting made fun of
for drafting like three or four tight ends because I
was thinking, Hey, you know, I want to have some depth,
and there's decent depth at tight end right now. Uh.
And so Darren Waller was fantastic. Henry Ruggs hasn't put
it all together yet, but he's so fast, that four
to seven speed that you could see at the end
(02:52):
of the game when the Raiders decided to go deep
on that third down in five pass play that there
was just nervousness from the Saints, even though they didn't
necessarily need to be nervous. The throw, even still from
Derek Carr, managed to be too far for Henry Ruggs
to make a play on, but you could see I
(03:13):
think it was Malcolm Jenkins was just so nervous about
the idea of Henry Ruggs running right by him that
he grabbed him a little bit. Now, I think you
can argue that that wasn't a past interference call, and
that certainly was the argument that Sean Payton was trying
to make. But I think in the grand scheme of things,
(03:33):
that would probably get called most of the time, and
it was just because he held his arm for so
long as he ran down the sideline. But you think
about Henry Ruggs being able to take the top off
a defense, You think about Darren Waller being able to
get open over the middle. The play action game is
gonna be a legit threat with Josh Jacobs at running back,
and then you start to piece all those different aspects together,
(03:57):
the hunter Renfro's of the world who can make plays
as well. It was a decent offense, and we know
that the Saints have had historically a very good defense,
and the Saints really didn't have much of a chance
of stopping the Raiders. Saints got out to attend nothing lead,
but looked a little wobbly doing it, and then the
Raiders just came in and took complete control and they
(04:19):
effectively dominated down the stretch of this game, put it
away and then made what I thought was a little
bit of a risky move deciding to kick with Carlson.
Uh dub, I know you're a gambler like I am.
We were both on the Raiders. Were you sitting there
watching this saying no, no, no, go ahead and punt deep,
make them go ninety yards in a minute because I
(04:41):
had visions of either a missed field goal or a
blocked kick, and then Drew Brees only having to go
fifty yards down the field. I don't know what the
analytics experts would say. Maybe the play is the right
one that grew and made, because if you make a
field goal from that distance with that kicker, the game
is over and there's no more factors involved with it
(05:01):
at all. But I'm not gonna lie from a gambling perspective,
I was sitting there saying, punt, punt, punt, Yeah, I'm
with you. And there was a couple of instances in
last night's game where the Raiders, you know, kind of
got away with shooting themselves in the foot. There was
the goal line, Jacobs tried to leap over the top,
he bobbled the ball, he was able to get it back,
and then on the very next play on the snap,
exchange the balls on the ground, they get it back
(05:23):
again and then score to Waller on fourth and goal.
So we dodged a bullet there first of all. So
I'm already got the bad you know, bad beat vibe
juju going on in my head. And I went to
Auburn and I watched Daniel Carlson kicking Auburn, and he
is a great kicker, Don't get me wrong, but I've
seen Gus mills On trot out Daniel Carlson for a
fifty five yard field goal or whatever it is, countless times,
(05:45):
and I've just been burned by it plenty of time.
So in my head, I was thinking, Okay, here we
go again. They're gonna kick it at lower me hold.
Though he split the uprights right down the middle, there
was never really a doubt. So uh, props to John
Gruden for having faith in his kicker, and a kicker who,
if we remember, has bounced around a little bit since
he came to the league. He's found a home in
Vegas and it looks like he's on the right track.
(06:08):
I'm on a hot streak right now gambling. I gave
out six picks. I'm gonna try to do a six
pack every Friday for the NFL. Maybe I'll do it
on Thursday for the NFL, since I do my college
football gambling picks usually on Friday as we roll into
the weekend, and so maybe I'll do it on Thursday.
But I went five and one in those that I
(06:28):
gave out to you over the weekend, and then one
again last night, and now I'm nervous because I'm posting
my picks for the first weekend in college football on Wednesday.
I don't know about you, Dub, but I look at
the college football slate and I'm already starting to bet it.
But it's so hard to predict what's going to happen
in college football. It feels like to me because college
(06:48):
football has been way more impacted so far by you know,
missed players, COVID related concerns. I feel like in college
football in general, the home crowd matter so much more.
And so I look at all these matchups and I'm like, man,
this is a more difficult gambling universe than maybe what
I'm used to, whereas the NFL seems like much more
(07:10):
at an efficient market. I feel like you can find
lines that you love in college football, but it's harder
to do that this year because of all the craziness. Yeah,
I feel like this year, I mean, information is by
far the biggest factor when trying to play some of
these college bets. Because I saw on Twitter yesterday Virginia
Tech coach Flinte he was talking about his upcoming game
(07:33):
against NC State and he flat outset, I hope we're
even able to play. That's how much concerns they have.
So and the first thing I did is I went
to my book. I looked at a NC State was
plus nine, and I took it because either they're gonna
have a way less kids that are that aren't playing
than that usually will and it will be a big
advantage FRENCY State, or it's gonna be a fair line.
So I figured, I why not lock in the plus eight.
(07:54):
So that's that's the only play I have right now.
But in terms of my other players, I mean, usually
I like to get him in early in the week,
but now, I mean I feel like I have to
wait till about an hour before kickoff and and go
from there. Yeah, and you know, we talked about this
a little bit with Joel clad on the Monday edition
of the program, But what's wild about college football? Because
Joel remember was on the road. He had already arrived
(08:17):
at at his at his situation there to be ready
for the game. He was at Baylor, and suddenly they
come in thirty minutes late for the meeting. And he
told that story yesterday about how they ended up missing
that game. Right, they don't find out un till they're
already flown from California to Waco and they're sitting there
ready to do the game. And so as you kind
(08:39):
of project going forward, that's gonna be I think occurring
every now and then. It's why, honestly, I think it's
so important that the Big twelve, the A c C,
and the SEC have got weeks built into their schedule
so that if they don't end up playing UH that week,
they have the ability to re kind of reschedule it.
(09:00):
Whereas the Big Ten and the Pack twelve, if they
end up playing there's so many different things that can
go wrong that it's gonna be uh, it's gonna be
a challenge for them to get it all in. Yeah,
I think having those those windows in the SEC where
they have, you know, room for error, I think it's
gonna be huge and the Big Ten and other conferences
they just simply don't have that. So we might see
a situation where the Big Ten winner, maybe it's Ohio State,
(09:21):
maybe they're six and oh what you enjoyl kind of
mentioned yesterday, Yeah, and uh. And it puts a premium
obviously on games like Ohio State at Penn State in
terms of their overall impact. And I also wonder how
committed the bad teams are gonna be to making sure
that they play all their games. And so let's pretend
you're Illinois or let's pretend your Rutgers and you're not
(09:43):
expected to be very good. Well, you can come into
the first two or three games like, oh, we're gonna
prove everybody wrong. But by the time you get to
game five, by the tame time you get to game six,
how many guys are gonna be fully committed to wanting
to play. I think that's a that's an inter staying,
an intriguing challenge. All right, when we come back, we're
gonna talk about that very factor. What's going on in
(10:05):
the PAC twelve and more, Also, what's going on with
the Lakers. What do we expect coming out of the
charger situation? Given how good Justin Herbert looked, and many
more topics For our buddy Petros Papadekas from A M
five seventy l A Sports, the Petros and Money Show,
he joins us every single Tuesday. This is outkicked the
(10:27):
coverage with Clay Travis Petros Papadegas at the old p
A M five seventy l A Sports while the successful
Petros and Money Show. He is in the house with
us right now. Petro's I'm actually curious on this. Were
you watching when Anthony Davis hit his three to give
the Lakers a two oh series a lead or were
(10:49):
you potentially watching the football game that was going on
at the same time. Well, I was in a TV
studio and you know what that Okay, we we saw
all of it, and people are certainly excited about it.
But it seemed like in l A today more people
were excited of just about seeing the Death Star and yesterday,
(11:09):
I mean last night, and everybody wanted to see what
was going on with the Raiders is they're kind of
Los Angeles as de facto football team. But the Lakers
thing is is a big deal. It's it's probably going
to become a bigger deal, but at the same time,
it's not here. And the biggest star I keep telling
(11:30):
you every time that we talk about this, the biggest
star in NBA basketball in l A Is Staples Center,
and who is there and the scene around that downtown
area when the Lakers are doing this well. And frankly,
we haven't seen that in about ten years in town,
(11:52):
and we haven't seen it this year either. So there's
certainly something missing, and anybody that tries to act like
there's not is fooling themselves. But there are people excited
and I did happen to see it live. I kind
of was offended by the Anthony Davis is a Laker
now tweets because frankly, he was a Laker last summer
(12:16):
when they traded for him. And there's been a lot
of guys who have been Lakers. Some have had great success,
some have not had this much success, Some are forgotten
and some will be remembered forever. But the in the
moment rhetoric of rooting in in our sports world, as
always you know me, Clay, a little annoying. Uh Yeah,
(12:37):
there's no doubt that it can be a little bit annoying,
almost as annoying as the Pack twelve ridiculousness. And I
know you've been fired up about this for a while now,
but as you sort of look around, he now we
know the Big Ten's coming back. There's talked, the mount
in the West is going to come back. Even the
MAC is talking about coming back. And it seems like,
based on the most recent storylines that there's probably a
(13:00):
very good chance that the PAC twelve will be playing,
maybe by Halloween, although who the heck knows at this point.
How would you assess the overall status of the PAC
twelve right now, particularly because there was a story out
yesterday afternoon that said Pack twelve officials gave themselves I
don't know if you even saw this, gave themselves bonuses
(13:20):
before they furloughed or laid off half of all the
Pac twelve employees. I mean, this conference has has not
looked good throughout this entire process. And you can criticize
the Big Tent, right, people can criticize the Big Tent,
but at least the Big ten players, the fans, uh,
the athletic directors, the coaches, they all fought as hard
as they could for this for the league to actually
(13:42):
play the pac twelve kind of just meekly accepted the
fact that they weren't gonna be able to play, and
there was there's a guy in Oregon who writes at
the Oorgonian and and works on the radio. He's like
the voice of Oregon, John Kanzano, and he's been sing
this for years. That's the thing about this, Clay. What's
(14:04):
the status of the Pack twelve? You asked me. I
have to ask you in regards to what because it's
not really about the pandemic. The pandemic just pulled more
of a sheet off of it and showed you how meek,
which is a great word to describe them they really are,
and how much they need the Big ten just to
walk across an open field. It's amazing. And given that
(14:28):
they're the West Coast and they brag about the West
Coasts innovativeness, uh and all the different things that they
have at their fingertips in the San Francisco Bay area
at the Silicon Valley and all that they they've made
no in roads, even though they said they have the
best testing and doctors. They didn't make any announcements about
it till long after everybody else did so. But The
(14:52):
problem really is, it's not the pandemic, it's it's a
decade ago. The one thing the Big ten does, even
though it's been a dumpster fire for the last couple
of months, is serve as schools. Rutgers makes a buttload
of money being in the Big ten with Ohio State.
The one thing the Pac ten Pack twelve doesn't do
is serve its schools. It does a terrible job of that.
(15:14):
And that's been a decade long problem. And we know
the two reasons. I always tell you, USC is terrible
and they don't pull their weight as the flagship, and
the TV deal is even worse to where after a
decade there's a hundred million dollar gap between the Oregon
States of the world and the Mississippi States of the world.
So this is just further further proof of that. The
(15:36):
thing that bothers me the most, Clay, and you understand
this is a guy who has to put out content
every day, not just on the radio and TV but
the website, which which takes up a lot of your time.
I know, and there is so much wasted space and
inches of writing about this testing and that and the
(15:56):
Pack twelve and Kate Clay Helton was working behind the
scenes and blah blah blah. All of that is complete. BS.
There's only one reason the Pac twelve is playing, or
trying to play, or moving towards playing, and that is
because everybody else is playing and they are being pressured
into it. It has nothing to do with any of
(16:18):
the rhetoric that comes out. Well now we haven't No,
you have no clarity that you didn't have six weeks ago,
and it's just very It's sad, but it's also indicative
of West Coast football, especially for the last decade, which
is a day late and a buck short. So if
(16:38):
you are let's pretend, I mean you were a Pack
twelve athlete at one point in time. One of the
questions that I get asked frequently by people is, Hey,
what do you think as you go forward in this
universe of recruiting and everything else? Would you think differently
about going to a Pack twelve school compared to an
A C C or an SEC A Big twelve school.
(17:00):
And I raised that as an issue because kids today
are less geographically constrained than they might have been when
you and I were growing up, and certainly when our
dads were growing up. And the reason why I bring
that up is I think it's because they're able to
stay in touch with friends a lot easier, so you
don't Maybe maybe I'm wrong on this, but I wouldn't
think you necessarily get as homesick as you did before
(17:20):
because you can face time with your friends wherever you are.
You never feel like you're that far physically away because
of the contact. But do you think this has a
lasting impact or do you think in two years most people,
assuming we you know, have gotten through the coronavirus and
everything else. This is a story, but kids have short
memories and it's not actually going to impact decisions. It's
(17:41):
a great question, and obviously I can't answer it. But
the football world, as you know, covering football season by season,
you know, the previous year begets the next year, you know,
like the Bible, so everything works off of the you know,
year to year. The interruption is a huge unknown. Now,
(18:02):
there's always going to be that guy in Los Angeles
that is a great player who was never going to
go anywhere else but USC And to a lesser degree,
there's that guy in in the city of Seattle from
time to time. But that's kind of been my message
to you from the get go in this it's about
it's it's not about what's right or wrong, it's not
(18:25):
about any of that. Who's to say. What it's about
is leverage for the future, and football is about keeping
up regionally, and god knows if that's the case, we're
way behind already. But the message being sent is these
places around the country take football more seriously than where
you live. All the great football players, many of them
(18:48):
are in southern California right here. It's the most fertile
recruiting ground in the in the world year in and
year out, along with dear Texas and Florida. But everybody
knows is about California players. It's it's not a secret.
And if you're in Oklahoma, if you're in Clemson, if
you're in Alabama, you're telling everybody in the football world
(19:10):
and Indian Ohio State and we're more serious about playing
football than the places and then where you're from. And
it's a pretty clear message, and it's kind of hard
to argue. And that's the other thing about this. You know,
all of these coaches, to a man, they're all vagabonds.
And the guys talking about science in Arizona and Arizona State,
(19:32):
or Oregon or whatever they'd be, they'd be saying, well,
we just can't wait to play. If they were in
any you know, if they were at Wake Forest right now,
they just it's just regional rhetoric. So all of it
is is it's it's so obvious to me and so
damn tiresome of what we have to go through to
get where we're supposed to get, you know what I mean. Yeah,
(19:54):
Regional rhetoric, by the way, would be an incredible name
for a college football podcast because basically all we do
is sit around and our you about oftentimes teams from
a regional basis. It's the last great fashion of of regionalism. Um,
that's the beauty of our sport. Said it like that
because that's the but it's also what's holding us back
in this unprecedented time. I'm sorry that I said it
(20:16):
that I hate all the commercials with the slow piano
and the people on the I can't if I see
another one of those, I'm gonna kick a hole in
my Westinghouse TV. But the point is I just, Uh,
in these times which are very very odd, Uh, you're
right to say that you know. I mean, we love
(20:37):
college football because it's so haphazard, because Stanford and Old
Miss have nothing in common and they could play in
a really fun game. Like that's what we love about
the sport. That regionalism and the personality of the coaches
and the place and the history of the school. Now
in that cauldron is a lot of problematic stuff, but
(20:58):
I don't think we should forget at as we're sitting
here tearing our sport apart every single week, all of
this incongruity is is kind of what we like about
the sport. From yelling about the BCS too, how many
teams should be in the College Football Playoff? Yeah it is,
uh that is interesting too to think about as well. Um,
speaking of of interesting, so what do you think ultimately
(21:21):
ends up happening? Like the Pact twelve comes back October
thirty one, and I know they haven't been in the
playoff very often. But one of the challenges that both
the Big Ten and the Pact twelve are gonna face
is given the fact that the Playoff Committee College Football
Playoffs Selection Committee is making their decisions on December twenty,
they aren't creating any leeway at all for themselves in
the event that they have issues on a school or
(21:42):
they have to cancel, or they have to reschedule, and
and so you could end up with a school like
USC playing, you know, four or five games as opposed
to seven or eight. Same thing could happened to Ohio
State through no faults of their own. How does this
thing play itself out? Because the SEC, the A C
C in the Big Twelve are going to have a
bunch of weeks built in where things don't have to
(22:03):
go perfect. It seems to me like the Pack twelve
and the Big Ten have painted themselves into a corner
where basically everything has to go perfect for their teams
to be able to play in the playoffs, and there's
no doubt about it. Hence the sense of urgency to
try to get back and play once all these other
conferences watched in horror while college football started to be
played across the country weekend and week out. I mean,
(22:25):
that's why we are where we are. It has nothing
to do with mitochondria, itters, surge testing, or anto gin
or any of this stuff that they're writing about. I
don't know what the testing protocol is in the Sun Belt.
It's probably just they grabbed your balls and you cough.
But either way, I mean, they're playing. But none of
this is happening in a vacuum, Clay. I mean, the
(22:47):
ESPN has a deal with the Pack twelve. Who has
a deal with the Big Ten, Who has a deal
with the College Football Playoff? Who has a deal with
the SEC? You has a deal with the A, C, C.
And and so on and so forth in the in
the Big twelve. If I didn't mention it, So everybody's
going to get married and we'll all scream and yell
about whose resume is correct in an even more haphazard year.
(23:12):
But that's how it's going to play out here the
because no one was going to wait for the Pack twelve,
so they got to get off their ass and play
some games and fulfill their promise to these kids. And
it's kind of sad because all of this could have
been done weeks ago, but because people are too scared
on the West Coast to step up and take the
slings and arrows. My radio partner said it quite well,
(23:35):
you know, why didn't Clay Helton say anything? He was
too scared to say anything and be attacked on Twitter,
you know, on the West Coast. Instead, they hid behind
their players and had their players right a letter, which
is so also and shameful, But that's what a lot
of these coaches are scared of the political backlash year.
I don't think there's any doubt. Also, Clay Hilton isn't
exactly on super solid ground, and as a Pack twelve coach,
(23:57):
maybe Pete Carroll could have been more spoken. If this
had happened in let's say two thousand five, and USC
was the straw that stirred the drink in college football,
maybe he would have been able to be outspoken like
Ryan Day in Ohio state where although I still think
you probably would have had some sort of cultural shenanigans
going on where there's a difference between the average person
who's paying attention to what goes on in l a
(24:19):
that's different than Columbus, Ohio, or Birmingham, Alabama, or places
where college football is in many ways the heartbeat of
a region. Well that becauseuld be crazy about this too, Quay.
It's like just real quick about the state stuff and like,
well they can't the state won't even allow the look.
Giant Hollywood studios have had an exemption since March all
(24:40):
kinds of people have a government lobby and get exemptions
for all kinds of crap. You're gonna tell me you
can't exempt Stanford, cal s c U C l A,
Fresno State, Davis in San Diego State, which well somehow there, Yeah,
I was gonna say, somehow they're managing to keep in
l A. I mean, I'm I'm assuming that the Rams
and the UH and the Chargers are practicing somewhere in
(25:04):
the vicinity of California, not to mention the forty nine ers,
and they're getting exemptions to be able to play, So
you're not an l they would they probably would have them.
But it is funny the Rams are up in Ventura
County and the Charges are down in Orange County. I mean,
didn't the Lakers get an exemption a long time ago
to start being able to use their facility? And Elo
(25:24):
Brothers Studios has had an exemption since March. It's you know,
Disney has an exemption. These places are gigantic business parks.
All kinds of businesses have lobbies and extensions within the government,
which is why you know this should have been happening
behind the scenes. If Larry Scott had any influence with
anybody months ago, with the governors and that. But he
(25:46):
has no cloud, if not a leader, And that's why
we are where we are for the last ten years.
And the worst part about it is we've seen how
bad it is for ten years. You hear stories about
Larry Scott and the PAC twelve taking bonuses and furloughing
everybody or paying uh billions of dollars in rent and
all this crap, and still no one acts, No one
(26:07):
does anything. University presidents don't do anything, the A d
s don't do anything. We just sit here and wait
for it to solve itself, like a bunch of idiots
in an insane asylum. How would, by the way, how
would you assess the overall l A sports market right now?
With the Rams looking really good there too. And oh,
I'm gonna get to a quick question about Justin Herbert
(26:28):
here in a minute, and everything that was said by
Anthony Lynn about his decision on who was going to
be the starter in the next game. But you've got
this beautiful stadium that is open that nobody is allowed
to be in. You've got the Lakers who are right
now in the middle of a Western Conference run where
they haven't been in since two thousand and ten, I think,
I mean, it's been a while since the Lakers were there. Uh,
and you certainly have ten years. You have the Dodgers,
(26:50):
who are going after their first World Series title since
and I think it's gonna sneak up on a lot
of people. But the baseball regular season doesn't have that
many games left and then boom, we're gonna be into
crazy postseason. All the guys tried to cancel baseball like
the two months ago, Baseball the lost that battle. Yeah,
they lost that battle, And not only is baseball going
(27:12):
to be playing, but we're going to have a bigger
I think sixteen teams in the Major League Baseball post season,
more than we've ever seen before. Yeah, the Dodgers are
starting to shake people loose, and they have. They're they're
the best team in baseball right now, and a lot
of people are excited about that. We've talked about the
bubble and all that, and that's popping off and really
the biggest story in l A and the most watched game,
(27:35):
believe it or not. And I was shocked when I
saw it, and I rarely talked about ratings, but this
one was pretty telling, was Justin Herbert, was that this
kid ended up starting the game. No one knew he
was going to start. It was a surprise, and they
were hanging with and beating the world champs at At
Sophie and everybody kind of tuned in for that, and
(27:58):
that was pretty interesting that that became the story of
the day. L A loves a shiny new toy. Uh,
they do indeed. Um, what did you think about the
What do you think about Justin Herbert, who I know
you watched played quite a bit at Oregon. I thought
he was pretty phenomenal in his first start, especially given
he didn't have a lot of lead up to the
fact that he was going to be playing. Went out,
I thought was fairly dominant and made one bad decision,
(28:21):
and now Anthony Lynn is like, oh, there's no way
he's going to start in week three. That surprised me
that he's gonna stick with Tyrod Taylor. What do you
think and how would you assess his performance based on
what you would have expected given all the games you
watched him play at Oregon. Well, he definitely stretched the
field a lot more than Tyronne Taylor did in the
first game. He's got a canon. Yeah, but you know,
(28:43):
it's one thing to have a cannon. It's another thing
to stand up and throw it in your first NFL
football game, you know. And then that's what he looked
like the player I saw in college. And that's one
of the great compliments you can pay a guy. You know.
I'd say the same thing about Joe Burrow when I
saw him last week of it, and and then the
next week. Uh, I was really impressed with him. He's
(29:05):
got a big, beautiful body like Cam Newton. He knows
how to use it in the run game. He's athletic,
he's nimble, and he's not scared to stand up and
throw it down the field. He's, like you said, he
made a bad decision. They're going to have a lot
of ups and downs with him. But whatever Coach says,
and he came on the show yesterday and talked about it.
But and Coach is a pretty straightforward guy, and he
cares about tenure and and saying the right things and
(29:28):
sending the right message to the guys on the team
that are veterans. But overall of this is their first
round pick, their top ten guy. This is the anointed
future of the Chargers franchise here in l A, at
least for the time being, unless you're going to pull
a Josh Rosen, and it certainly doesn't look like that's
the case right now after the small sample size we have,
(29:48):
and eventually this kid's got to be the starter. I'm
surprised that he was first out of the tunnel. I mean,
other than Burrow after I thought Tula would be the
first guy out. But you think about how the Chargers
just the way they were offensively in Cincinnati, and the
receivers they were open, and the tyrod was having a
hard time finding him. Then he had a hard time
(30:10):
breathing before the game and they took him to the
hospital and all these weird circumstances, and justin Herbert just
looked like and I'm sure I'll have setbacks and all that,
but he looked he looked like the guy that people
talked about he could be in the NFL. They protected
him very well with the run game, and obviously there's
no one in the stadium and all those weird different
(30:30):
variables this year, but also no preseason, and it's hard
to tell about a quarterback until he's in and out
of the huddle and the clock's running and he's directing
traffic out there and improvising when the bullets are live,
and like you said, I was really impressed. Appreciate the time.
Petro's Papadakis. We will talk to you next week. Enjoy
all the games in the meantime. By the time we
come back, we'll probably have baseball basically set for the postseason.
(30:52):
We'll see whether the Dodgers can be on a run. Uh,
and we'll talk to you again. I appreciate him a man,
just happy I didn't get bumped like a Supreme Court guy.
Or that's Petros Badge is at the old p on Twitter.
When we come back, we'll break down the final thoughts
on Monday Night Football. This is outkicked the coverage with
(31:15):
clat Travis. I want to tell you as as we
finish off NFL Week two. I ran through this to
start off the program, but if you missed it, I
like to do top five bottom five on this show
to let you know how I would assess the overall
(31:35):
landscape of the NFL. My five best teams right now
in order, the Ravens, the Packers, the Seahawks, the Rams,
and the Cardinals. My five worst teams, the Bengals, the Dolphins,
the Eagles, the Giants, the Jets, anything dub that stands
out to you there and you think, oh, you're wildly
off there. Well, I think I understand that Kansas City
(31:57):
didn't look all that impressive on Sunday, But yeah, I'm
judging them only based on this year, not based on
what we expected to see. It's kind of what I
do with my top ten. And by the way, I'm
excited to start back up my writing on college football
with the SEC Roaring Back, where I give you my
my top ten every single week, and what I try
to do is judge only based on the games we've seen.
(32:19):
So if you were judging based on the games that
you've seen with Patrick Mahomes so far, you would say, oh,
there's no way he's gonna be bad at all. There's
no way that the Chiefs are gonna be anything other
than one of the five best teams. But if you
watch them play against the Chargers, I don't think there's
any way to argue that they've been one of the
best teams, one of the five best teams so far
(32:40):
in the NFL this year. That's a fair point. And uh,
you know, I might have to agree with you on that.
I do like Seattle being the top five. If you
remember last year, I was a bit of a Seahawks
hate his believer. But the way that I mean, but
the way they've opened up the playbook so far, and
maybe they have to because Pete Carroll knows maybe that
his defense isn't good to speed, so maybe that's part
of that reason. But that offense, I mean, it looks
(33:00):
literally unstoppable. But one team I kind of jotted down
a quick five one team I slid into number five
was the team that the Seahawks beat on Sunday night
and the Patriots. Patriots. Still, yeah, you're an Auburn fan.
I don't know if we talked about this a lot.
I mean, I don't think Cam could look any better
than he looked in his first two weeks for the Patriots.
(33:22):
And what's amazing to that about about that to me
is usually the Patriots kind of slinked their way right
into the season. They're not that good in September, they're
just okay in October, and then by the time it
gets to be November in December, the Patriots are rounding
into great form, which I think is a credit to
Bill Belichick and the staff that he has put together there.
(33:42):
But already, to me, the Patriots look really good with Cam.
In fact, you can make an argument that their performance
on Sunday Night against the Seahawks was better than any
performance that we saw from Tom Brady in that offense
all last year. Yeah. I was thinking to myself watching
that game on Inday night, if Tom Brady is quarterback
in this team trying to keep up with the Seahawks offense,
(34:04):
I just couldn't see a way that they would be
in that game. But Cam Newton, I gotta be honest
with you, that was probably the sharpest I've ever seen him,
minus that one interception he through where he kind of
got lazy with his feet and his shoulders. Minus that throw,
I've never seen Cam Newton throw the ball like that ever.
I mean, he threw a forty four times, completed thirty
of them, almost four yards passing, ran for two touchdowns
(34:26):
for a second straight week, and had the Patriots poised
on the final play of the game before he got
somersaulted to do to do what we thought he was
gonna do, which has run the football in and find
a way to score. Uh So, Top five, bottom five
one last time here Ravens, Packers, Seahawks, Rams, and Cardinals.
Number one the Ravens to the Packers, three, the Seahawks
(34:50):
for the Rams, five the Cardinals. I'm a big believer
that the NFC West has looked incredible so far. Bottom
five Bengals, Dolphins, Eagles, Giants. Je AT's kind of difficult
right now to figure out where the bottom five teams are,
and frankly, it's gonna be difficult to figure out who
the top five are as well. We appreciate all of
you hanging out with us, believe it or not. Only
(35:11):
one week left in the Major League Baseball season. We'll
be talking about the playoffs starting in Major League Baseball soon.
We got the NBA going on, the Lakers trying to
close out the Nuggets effectively. I know the Nuggets have
come back from to three one series deficits, but tonight
the Lakers trying to make it three oh and effectively
I believe punched their ticket to the NBA Finals. The
Lakers a prohibitive favorite to win the NBA title this year,
(35:34):
and much more still coming. This is an absolute sporting
buffet so much to enjoy. Thank you for spending part
of your time with us. Download the podcast don't miss
a second. Thanks to Jason Whitlock. Thanks to Petros Papadegas,
this has been OutKick on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure
to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay
(35:54):
Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific
Outkicked the Coverage with Clay Travis Live every weekday morning
from six to nine a m. E Stern three to
six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local
station for Outkicked the coverage at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every morning on the I Heart
Radio app by searching fs are you're listening to Fox
(00:23):
Sports Radio. I hope that you are having a fantastic Tuesday,
wherever you may be. I know that if you are
a Raider fan, you are, in fact having a fantastic Tuesday.
We talked to Danny g about that a little bit earlier.
He's too and oh. His team's two O, my team's
two oh. There are eleven two and oh teams right now,
(00:44):
as we finished the eleventh week of this sorry, the
second week of the NFL season, there are eleven teams
that are two and oh. And what's fascinating about this
is from the perspective of making the playoffs, and the
numbers are probably even better now because we're expanding to
seven playoff team is in the a f C and
seven in the NFC. Sixty one point three percent of
(01:05):
teams are going to make the playoffs. Historically, since when
they start off two and oh. Only twelve point six
percent of teams make the playoffs when they start off
oh and two. Now, that wasn't a big swing last
night we had two teams that had already started off
one and oh. But I'm actually intrigued now to see
(01:25):
how the Raiders are gonna look going on the road
against the Patriots because this team, I thought, now as
they get ready for another year of John Gruden, is
starting to come around a little bit more and have
some horses, particularly on the offensive side of the ball.
I love Josh Jacobs. He's one of the best running
backs in the NFL. I really do believe that. Also,
(01:48):
Darren Waller is developing into one of the best tight
ends out there. Yesterday we talked with Todd Ferman and UH.
I've said this before, but we're in a high end
fantasy football league. Big buy in there, twelve of us
in the league. And Furman reached out to me yesterday
before the game with the Raiders and UH and the
(02:08):
and the Saints, and he said, Hey, I've got a
lot of talent at wide receiver. You've got a bunch
of tight ends. Would you be interested in potentially trading
with me, and I was texting with him last night
during the game and I was like, at every quarter,
I was like, hey, my asking price is going up
if I'm gonna decide to move this guy. Because I
got John who Smith as well, I've got a pretty
good team. I got a bunch of tight ends on
(02:31):
on the roster, and I was getting made fun of
for drafting like three or four tight ends because I
was thinking, Hey, you know, I want to have some depth,
and there's decent depth at tight end right now. Uh.
And so Darren Waller was fantastic. Henry Ruggs hasn't put
it all together yet, but he's so fast, that four
to seven speed that you could see at the end
(02:52):
of the game when the Raiders decided to go deep
on that third down in five pass play that there
was just nervousness from the Saints, even though they didn't
necessarily need to be nervous. The throw, even still from
Derek Carr, managed to be too far for Henry Ruggs
to make a play on, but you could see I
(03:13):
think it was Malcolm Jenkins was just so nervous about
the idea of Henry Ruggs running right by him that
he grabbed him a little bit. Now, I think you
can argue that that wasn't a past interference call, and
that certainly was the argument that Sean Payton was trying
to make. But I think in the grand scheme of things,
(03:33):
that would probably get called most of the time, and
it was just because he held his arm for so
long as he ran down the sideline. But you think
about Henry Ruggs being able to take the top off
a defense, You think about Darren Waller being able to
get open over the middle. The play action game is
gonna be a legit threat with Josh Jacobs at running back,
and then you start to piece all those different aspects together,
(03:57):
the hunter Renfro's of the world who can make plays
as well. It was a decent offense, and we know
that the Saints have had historically a very good defense,
and the Saints really didn't have much of a chance
of stopping the Raiders. Saints got out to attend nothing lead,
but looked a little wobbly doing it, and then the
Raiders just came in and took complete control and they
(04:19):
effectively dominated down the stretch of this game, put it
away and then made what I thought was a little
bit of a risky move deciding to kick with Carlson.
Uh dub, I know you're a gambler like I am.
We were both on the Raiders. Were you sitting there
watching this saying no, no, no, go ahead and punt deep,
make them go ninety yards in a minute because I
(04:41):
had visions of either a missed field goal or a
blocked kick, and then Drew Brees only having to go
fifty yards down the field. I don't know what the
analytics experts would say. Maybe the play is the right
one that grew and made, because if you make a
field goal from that distance with that kicker, the game
is over and there's no more factors involved with it
(05:01):
at all. But I'm not gonna lie from a gambling perspective,
I was sitting there saying, punt, punt, punt, Yeah, I'm
with you. And there was a couple of instances in
last night's game where the Raiders, you know, kind of
got away with shooting themselves in the foot. There was
the goal line, Jacobs tried to leap over the top,
he bobbled the ball, he was able to get it back,
and then on the very next play on the snap,
exchange the balls on the ground, they get it back
(05:23):
again and then score to Waller on fourth and goal.
So we dodged a bullet there first of all. So
I'm already got the bad you know, bad beat vibe
juju going on in my head. And I went to
Auburn and I watched Daniel Carlson kicking Auburn, and he
is a great kicker, Don't get me wrong, but I've
seen Gus mills On trot out Daniel Carlson for a
fifty five yard field goal or whatever it is, countless times,
(05:45):
and I've just been burned by it plenty of time.
So in my head, I was thinking, Okay, here we
go again. They're gonna kick it at lower me hold.
Though he split the uprights right down the middle, there
was never really a doubt. So uh, props to John
Gruden for having faith in his kicker, and a kicker who,
if we remember, has bounced around a little bit since
he came to the league. He's found a home in
Vegas and it looks like he's on the right track.
(06:08):
I'm on a hot streak right now gambling. I gave
out six picks. I'm gonna try to do a six
pack every Friday for the NFL. Maybe I'll do it
on Thursday for the NFL, since I do my college
football gambling picks usually on Friday as we roll into
the weekend, and so maybe I'll do it on Thursday.
But I went five and one in those that I
(06:28):
gave out to you over the weekend, and then one
again last night, and now I'm nervous because I'm posting
my picks for the first weekend in college football on Wednesday.
I don't know about you, Dub, but I look at
the college football slate and I'm already starting to bet it.
But it's so hard to predict what's going to happen
in college football. It feels like to me because college
(06:48):
football has been way more impacted so far by you know,
missed players, COVID related concerns. I feel like in college
football in general, the home crowd matter so much more.
And so I look at all these matchups and I'm like, man,
this is a more difficult gambling universe than maybe what
I'm used to, whereas the NFL seems like much more
(07:10):
at an efficient market. I feel like you can find
lines that you love in college football, but it's harder
to do that this year because of all the craziness. Yeah,
I feel like this year, I mean, information is by
far the biggest factor when trying to play some of
these college bets. Because I saw on Twitter yesterday Virginia
Tech coach Flinte he was talking about his upcoming game
(07:33):
against NC State and he flat outset, I hope we're
even able to play. That's how much concerns they have.
So and the first thing I did is I went
to my book. I looked at a NC State was
plus nine, and I took it because either they're gonna
have a way less kids that are that aren't playing
than that usually will and it will be a big
advantage FRENCY State, or it's gonna be a fair line.
So I figured, I why not lock in the plus eight.
(07:54):
So that's that's the only play I have right now.
But in terms of my other players, I mean, usually
I like to get him in early in the week,
but now, I mean I feel like I have to
wait till about an hour before kickoff and and go
from there. Yeah, and you know, we talked about this
a little bit with Joel clad on the Monday edition
of the program, But what's wild about college football? Because
Joel remember was on the road. He had already arrived
(08:17):
at at his at his situation there to be ready
for the game. He was at Baylor, and suddenly they
come in thirty minutes late for the meeting. And he
told that story yesterday about how they ended up missing
that game. Right, they don't find out un till they're
already flown from California to Waco and they're sitting there
ready to do the game. And so as you kind
(08:39):
of project going forward, that's gonna be I think occurring
every now and then. It's why, honestly, I think it's
so important that the Big twelve, the A c C,
and the SEC have got weeks built into their schedule
so that if they don't end up playing UH that week,
they have the ability to re kind of reschedule it.
(09:00):
Whereas the Big Ten and the Pack twelve, if they
end up playing there's so many different things that can
go wrong that it's gonna be uh, it's gonna be
a challenge for them to get it all in. Yeah,
I think having those those windows in the SEC where
they have, you know, room for error, I think it's
gonna be huge and the Big Ten and other conferences
they just simply don't have that. So we might see
a situation where the Big Ten winner, maybe it's Ohio State,
(09:21):
maybe they're six and oh what you enjoyl kind of
mentioned yesterday, Yeah, and uh. And it puts a premium
obviously on games like Ohio State at Penn State in
terms of their overall impact. And I also wonder how
committed the bad teams are gonna be to making sure
that they play all their games. And so let's pretend
you're Illinois or let's pretend your Rutgers and you're not
(09:43):
expected to be very good. Well, you can come into
the first two or three games like, oh, we're gonna
prove everybody wrong. But by the time you get to
game five, by the tame time you get to game six,
how many guys are gonna be fully committed to wanting
to play. I think that's a that's an inter staying,
an intriguing challenge. All right, when we come back, we're
gonna talk about that very factor. What's going on in
(10:05):
the PAC twelve and more, Also, what's going on with
the Lakers. What do we expect coming out of the
charger situation? Given how good Justin Herbert looked, and many
more topics For our buddy Petros Papadekas from A M
five seventy l A Sports, the Petros and Money Show,
he joins us every single Tuesday. This is outkicked the
(10:27):
coverage with Clay Travis Petros Papadegas at the old p
A M five seventy l A Sports while the successful
Petros and Money Show. He is in the house with
us right now. Petro's I'm actually curious on this. Were
you watching when Anthony Davis hit his three to give
the Lakers a two oh series a lead or were
(10:49):
you potentially watching the football game that was going on
at the same time. Well, I was in a TV
studio and you know what that Okay, we we saw
all of it, and people are certainly excited about it.
But it seemed like in l A today more people
were excited of just about seeing the Death Star and yesterday,
(11:09):
I mean last night, and everybody wanted to see what
was going on with the Raiders is they're kind of
Los Angeles as de facto football team. But the Lakers
thing is is a big deal. It's it's probably going
to become a bigger deal, but at the same time,
it's not here. And the biggest star I keep telling
(11:30):
you every time that we talk about this, the biggest
star in NBA basketball in l A Is Staples Center,
and who is there and the scene around that downtown
area when the Lakers are doing this well. And frankly,
we haven't seen that in about ten years in town,
(11:52):
and we haven't seen it this year either. So there's
certainly something missing, and anybody that tries to act like
there's not is fooling themselves. But there are people excited
and I did happen to see it live. I kind
of was offended by the Anthony Davis is a Laker
now tweets because frankly, he was a Laker last summer
(12:16):
when they traded for him. And there's been a lot
of guys who have been Lakers. Some have had great success,
some have not had this much success, Some are forgotten
and some will be remembered forever. But the in the
moment rhetoric of rooting in in our sports world, as
always you know me, Clay, a little annoying. Uh Yeah,
(12:37):
there's no doubt that it can be a little bit annoying,
almost as annoying as the Pack twelve ridiculousness. And I
know you've been fired up about this for a while now,
but as you sort of look around, he now we
know the Big Ten's coming back. There's talked, the mount
in the West is going to come back. Even the
MAC is talking about coming back. And it seems like,
based on the most recent storylines that there's probably a
(13:00):
very good chance that the PAC twelve will be playing,
maybe by Halloween, although who the heck knows at this point.
How would you assess the overall status of the PAC
twelve right now, particularly because there was a story out
yesterday afternoon that said Pack twelve officials gave themselves I
don't know if you even saw this, gave themselves bonuses
(13:20):
before they furloughed or laid off half of all the
Pac twelve employees. I mean, this conference has has not
looked good throughout this entire process. And you can criticize
the Big Tent, right, people can criticize the Big Tent,
but at least the Big ten players, the fans, uh,
the athletic directors, the coaches, they all fought as hard
as they could for this for the league to actually
(13:42):
play the pac twelve kind of just meekly accepted the
fact that they weren't gonna be able to play, and
there was there's a guy in Oregon who writes at
the Oorgonian and and works on the radio. He's like
the voice of Oregon, John Kanzano, and he's been sing
this for years. That's the thing about this, Clay. What's
(14:04):
the status of the Pack twelve? You asked me. I
have to ask you in regards to what because it's
not really about the pandemic. The pandemic just pulled more
of a sheet off of it and showed you how meek,
which is a great word to describe them they really are,
and how much they need the Big ten just to
walk across an open field. It's amazing. And given that
(14:28):
they're the West Coast and they brag about the West
Coasts innovativeness, uh and all the different things that they
have at their fingertips in the San Francisco Bay area
at the Silicon Valley and all that they they've made
no in roads, even though they said they have the
best testing and doctors. They didn't make any announcements about
it till long after everybody else did so. But The
(14:52):
problem really is, it's not the pandemic, it's it's a
decade ago. The one thing the Big ten does, even
though it's been a dumpster fire for the last couple
of months, is serve as schools. Rutgers makes a buttload
of money being in the Big ten with Ohio State.
The one thing the Pac ten Pack twelve doesn't do
is serve its schools. It does a terrible job of that.
(15:14):
And that's been a decade long problem. And we know
the two reasons. I always tell you, USC is terrible
and they don't pull their weight as the flagship, and
the TV deal is even worse to where after a
decade there's a hundred million dollar gap between the Oregon
States of the world and the Mississippi States of the world.
So this is just further further proof of that. The
(15:36):
thing that bothers me the most, Clay, and you understand
this is a guy who has to put out content
every day, not just on the radio and TV but
the website, which which takes up a lot of your time.
I know, and there is so much wasted space and
inches of writing about this testing and that and the
(15:56):
Pack twelve and Kate Clay Helton was working behind the
scenes and blah blah blah. All of that is complete. BS.
There's only one reason the Pac twelve is playing, or
trying to play, or moving towards playing, and that is
because everybody else is playing and they are being pressured
into it. It has nothing to do with any of
(16:18):
the rhetoric that comes out. Well now we haven't No,
you have no clarity that you didn't have six weeks ago,
and it's just very It's sad, but it's also indicative
of West Coast football, especially for the last decade, which
is a day late and a buck short. So if
(16:38):
you are let's pretend, I mean you were a Pack
twelve athlete at one point in time. One of the
questions that I get asked frequently by people is, Hey,
what do you think as you go forward in this
universe of recruiting and everything else? Would you think differently
about going to a Pack twelve school compared to an
A C C or an SEC A Big twelve school.
(17:00):
And I raised that as an issue because kids today
are less geographically constrained than they might have been when
you and I were growing up, and certainly when our
dads were growing up. And the reason why I bring
that up is I think it's because they're able to
stay in touch with friends a lot easier, so you
don't Maybe maybe I'm wrong on this, but I wouldn't
think you necessarily get as homesick as you did before
(17:20):
because you can face time with your friends wherever you are.
You never feel like you're that far physically away because
of the contact. But do you think this has a
lasting impact or do you think in two years most people,
assuming we you know, have gotten through the coronavirus and
everything else. This is a story, but kids have short
memories and it's not actually going to impact decisions. It's
(17:41):
a great question, and obviously I can't answer it. But
the football world, as you know, covering football season by season,
you know, the previous year begets the next year, you know,
like the Bible, so everything works off of the you know,
year to year. The interruption is a huge unknown. Now,
(18:02):
there's always going to be that guy in Los Angeles
that is a great player who was never going to
go anywhere else but USC And to a lesser degree,
there's that guy in in the city of Seattle from
time to time. But that's kind of been my message
to you from the get go in this it's about
it's it's not about what's right or wrong, it's not
(18:25):
about any of that. Who's to say. What it's about
is leverage for the future, and football is about keeping
up regionally, and god knows if that's the case, we're
way behind already. But the message being sent is these
places around the country take football more seriously than where
you live. All the great football players, many of them
(18:48):
are in southern California right here. It's the most fertile
recruiting ground in the in the world year in and
year out, along with dear Texas and Florida. But everybody
knows is about California players. It's it's not a secret.
And if you're in Oklahoma, if you're in Clemson, if
you're in Alabama, you're telling everybody in the football world
(19:10):
and Indian Ohio State and we're more serious about playing
football than the places and then where you're from. And
it's a pretty clear message, and it's kind of hard
to argue. And that's the other thing about this. You know,
all of these coaches, to a man, they're all vagabonds.
And the guys talking about science in Arizona and Arizona State,
(19:32):
or Oregon or whatever they'd be, they'd be saying, well,
we just can't wait to play. If they were in
any you know, if they were at Wake Forest right now,
they just it's just regional rhetoric. So all of it
is is it's it's so obvious to me and so
damn tiresome of what we have to go through to
get where we're supposed to get, you know what I mean. Yeah,
(19:54):
Regional rhetoric, by the way, would be an incredible name
for a college football podcast because basically all we do
is sit around and our you about oftentimes teams from
a regional basis. It's the last great fashion of of regionalism. Um,
that's the beauty of our sport. Said it like that
because that's the but it's also what's holding us back
in this unprecedented time. I'm sorry that I said it
(20:16):
that I hate all the commercials with the slow piano
and the people on the I can't if I see
another one of those, I'm gonna kick a hole in
my Westinghouse TV. But the point is I just, Uh,
in these times which are very very odd, Uh, you're
right to say that you know. I mean, we love
(20:37):
college football because it's so haphazard, because Stanford and Old
Miss have nothing in common and they could play in
a really fun game. Like that's what we love about
the sport. That regionalism and the personality of the coaches
and the place and the history of the school. Now
in that cauldron is a lot of problematic stuff, but
(20:58):
I don't think we should forget at as we're sitting
here tearing our sport apart every single week, all of
this incongruity is is kind of what we like about
the sport. From yelling about the BCS too, how many
teams should be in the College Football Playoff? Yeah it is,
uh that is interesting too to think about as well. Um,
speaking of of interesting, so what do you think ultimately
(21:21):
ends up happening? Like the Pact twelve comes back October
thirty one, and I know they haven't been in the
playoff very often. But one of the challenges that both
the Big Ten and the Pact twelve are gonna face
is given the fact that the Playoff Committee College Football
Playoffs Selection Committee is making their decisions on December twenty,
they aren't creating any leeway at all for themselves in
the event that they have issues on a school or
(21:42):
they have to cancel, or they have to reschedule, and
and so you could end up with a school like
USC playing, you know, four or five games as opposed
to seven or eight. Same thing could happened to Ohio
State through no faults of their own. How does this
thing play itself out? Because the SEC, the A C
C in the Big Twelve are going to have a
bunch of weeks built in where things don't have to
(22:03):
go perfect. It seems to me like the Pack twelve
and the Big Ten have painted themselves into a corner
where basically everything has to go perfect for their teams
to be able to play in the playoffs, and there's
no doubt about it. Hence the sense of urgency to
try to get back and play once all these other
conferences watched in horror while college football started to be
played across the country weekend and week out. I mean,
(22:25):
that's why we are where we are. It has nothing
to do with mitochondria, itters, surge testing, or anto gin
or any of this stuff that they're writing about. I
don't know what the testing protocol is in the Sun Belt.
It's probably just they grabbed your balls and you cough.
But either way, I mean, they're playing. But none of
this is happening in a vacuum, Clay. I mean, the
(22:47):
ESPN has a deal with the Pack twelve. Who has
a deal with the Big Ten, Who has a deal
with the College Football Playoff? Who has a deal with
the SEC? You has a deal with the A, C, C.
And and so on and so forth in the in
the Big twelve. If I didn't mention it, So everybody's
going to get married and we'll all scream and yell
about whose resume is correct in an even more haphazard year.
(23:12):
But that's how it's going to play out here the
because no one was going to wait for the Pack twelve,
so they got to get off their ass and play
some games and fulfill their promise to these kids. And
it's kind of sad because all of this could have
been done weeks ago, but because people are too scared
on the West Coast to step up and take the
slings and arrows. My radio partner said it quite well,
(23:35):
you know, why didn't Clay Helton say anything? He was
too scared to say anything and be attacked on Twitter,
you know, on the West Coast. Instead, they hid behind
their players and had their players right a letter, which
is so also and shameful, But that's what a lot
of these coaches are scared of the political backlash year.
I don't think there's any doubt. Also, Clay Hilton isn't
exactly on super solid ground, and as a Pack twelve coach,
(23:57):
maybe Pete Carroll could have been more spoken. If this
had happened in let's say two thousand five, and USC
was the straw that stirred the drink in college football,
maybe he would have been able to be outspoken like
Ryan Day in Ohio state where although I still think
you probably would have had some sort of cultural shenanigans
going on where there's a difference between the average person
who's paying attention to what goes on in l a
(24:19):
that's different than Columbus, Ohio, or Birmingham, Alabama, or places
where college football is in many ways the heartbeat of
a region. Well that becauseuld be crazy about this too, Quay.
It's like just real quick about the state stuff and like,
well they can't the state won't even allow the look.
Giant Hollywood studios have had an exemption since March all
(24:40):
kinds of people have a government lobby and get exemptions
for all kinds of crap. You're gonna tell me you
can't exempt Stanford, cal s c U C l A,
Fresno State, Davis in San Diego State, which well somehow there, Yeah,
I was gonna say, somehow they're managing to keep in
l A. I mean, I'm I'm assuming that the Rams
and the UH and the Chargers are practicing somewhere in
(25:04):
the vicinity of California, not to mention the forty nine ers,
and they're getting exemptions to be able to play, So
you're not an l they would they probably would have them.
But it is funny the Rams are up in Ventura
County and the Charges are down in Orange County. I mean,
didn't the Lakers get an exemption a long time ago
to start being able to use their facility? And Elo
(25:24):
Brothers Studios has had an exemption since March. It's you know,
Disney has an exemption. These places are gigantic business parks.
All kinds of businesses have lobbies and extensions within the government,
which is why you know this should have been happening
behind the scenes. If Larry Scott had any influence with
anybody months ago, with the governors and that. But he
(25:46):
has no cloud, if not a leader, And that's why
we are where we are for the last ten years.
And the worst part about it is we've seen how
bad it is for ten years. You hear stories about
Larry Scott and the PAC twelve taking bonuses and furloughing
everybody or paying uh billions of dollars in rent and
all this crap, and still no one acts, No one
(26:07):
does anything. University presidents don't do anything, the A d
s don't do anything. We just sit here and wait
for it to solve itself, like a bunch of idiots
in an insane asylum. How would, by the way, how
would you assess the overall l A sports market right now?
With the Rams looking really good there too. And oh,
I'm gonna get to a quick question about Justin Herbert
(26:28):
here in a minute, and everything that was said by
Anthony Lynn about his decision on who was going to
be the starter in the next game. But you've got
this beautiful stadium that is open that nobody is allowed
to be in. You've got the Lakers who are right
now in the middle of a Western Conference run where
they haven't been in since two thousand and ten, I think,
I mean, it's been a while since the Lakers were there. Uh,
and you certainly have ten years. You have the Dodgers,
(26:50):
who are going after their first World Series title since
and I think it's gonna sneak up on a lot
of people. But the baseball regular season doesn't have that
many games left and then boom, we're gonna be into
crazy postseason. All the guys tried to cancel baseball like
the two months ago, Baseball the lost that battle. Yeah,
they lost that battle, And not only is baseball going
(27:12):
to be playing, but we're going to have a bigger
I think sixteen teams in the Major League Baseball post season,
more than we've ever seen before. Yeah, the Dodgers are
starting to shake people loose, and they have. They're they're
the best team in baseball right now, and a lot
of people are excited about that. We've talked about the
bubble and all that, and that's popping off and really
the biggest story in l A and the most watched game,
(27:35):
believe it or not. And I was shocked when I
saw it, and I rarely talked about ratings, but this
one was pretty telling, was Justin Herbert, was that this
kid ended up starting the game. No one knew he
was going to start. It was a surprise, and they
were hanging with and beating the world champs at At
Sophie and everybody kind of tuned in for that, and
(27:58):
that was pretty interesting that that became the story of
the day. L A loves a shiny new toy. Uh,
they do indeed. Um, what did you think about the
What do you think about Justin Herbert, who I know
you watched played quite a bit at Oregon. I thought
he was pretty phenomenal in his first start, especially given
he didn't have a lot of lead up to the
fact that he was going to be playing. Went out,
I thought was fairly dominant and made one bad decision,
(28:21):
and now Anthony Lynn is like, oh, there's no way
he's going to start in week three. That surprised me
that he's gonna stick with Tyrod Taylor. What do you
think and how would you assess his performance based on
what you would have expected given all the games you
watched him play at Oregon. Well, he definitely stretched the
field a lot more than Tyronne Taylor did in the
first game. He's got a canon. Yeah, but you know,
(28:43):
it's one thing to have a cannon. It's another thing
to stand up and throw it in your first NFL
football game, you know. And then that's what he looked
like the player I saw in college. And that's one
of the great compliments you can pay a guy. You know.
I'd say the same thing about Joe Burrow when I
saw him last week of it, and and then the
next week. Uh, I was really impressed with him. He's
(29:05):
got a big, beautiful body like Cam Newton. He knows
how to use it in the run game. He's athletic,
he's nimble, and he's not scared to stand up and
throw it down the field. He's, like you said, he
made a bad decision. They're going to have a lot
of ups and downs with him. But whatever Coach says,
and he came on the show yesterday and talked about it.
But and Coach is a pretty straightforward guy, and he
cares about tenure and and saying the right things and
(29:28):
sending the right message to the guys on the team
that are veterans. But overall of this is their first
round pick, their top ten guy. This is the anointed
future of the Chargers franchise here in l A, at
least for the time being, unless you're going to pull
a Josh Rosen, and it certainly doesn't look like that's
the case right now after the small sample size we have,
(29:48):
and eventually this kid's got to be the starter. I'm
surprised that he was first out of the tunnel. I mean,
other than Burrow after I thought Tula would be the
first guy out. But you think about how the Chargers
just the way they were offensively in Cincinnati, and the
receivers they were open, and the tyrod was having a
hard time finding him. Then he had a hard time
(30:10):
breathing before the game and they took him to the
hospital and all these weird circumstances, and justin Herbert just
looked like and I'm sure I'll have setbacks and all that,
but he looked he looked like the guy that people
talked about he could be in the NFL. They protected
him very well with the run game, and obviously there's
no one in the stadium and all those weird different
(30:30):
variables this year, but also no preseason, and it's hard
to tell about a quarterback until he's in and out
of the huddle and the clock's running and he's directing
traffic out there and improvising when the bullets are live,
and like you said, I was really impressed. Appreciate the time.
Petro's Papadakis. We will talk to you next week. Enjoy
all the games in the meantime. By the time we
come back, we'll probably have baseball basically set for the postseason.
(30:52):
We'll see whether the Dodgers can be on a run. Uh,
and we'll talk to you again. I appreciate him a man,
just happy I didn't get bumped like a Supreme Court guy.
Or that's Petros Badge is at the old p on Twitter.
When we come back, we'll break down the final thoughts
on Monday Night Football. This is outkicked the coverage with
(31:15):
clat Travis. I want to tell you as as we
finish off NFL Week two. I ran through this to
start off the program, but if you missed it, I
like to do top five bottom five on this show
to let you know how I would assess the overall
(31:35):
landscape of the NFL. My five best teams right now
in order, the Ravens, the Packers, the Seahawks, the Rams,
and the Cardinals. My five worst teams, the Bengals, the Dolphins,
the Eagles, the Giants, the Jets, anything dub that stands
out to you there and you think, oh, you're wildly
off there. Well, I think I understand that Kansas City
(31:57):
didn't look all that impressive on Sunday, But yeah, I'm
judging them only based on this year, not based on
what we expected to see. It's kind of what I
do with my top ten. And by the way, I'm
excited to start back up my writing on college football
with the SEC Roaring Back, where I give you my
my top ten every single week, and what I try
to do is judge only based on the games we've seen.
(32:19):
So if you were judging based on the games that
you've seen with Patrick Mahomes so far, you would say, oh,
there's no way he's gonna be bad at all. There's
no way that the Chiefs are gonna be anything other
than one of the five best teams. But if you
watch them play against the Chargers, I don't think there's
any way to argue that they've been one of the
best teams, one of the five best teams so far
(32:40):
in the NFL this year. That's a fair point. And uh,
you know, I might have to agree with you on that.
I do like Seattle being the top five. If you
remember last year, I was a bit of a Seahawks
hate his believer. But the way that I mean, but
the way they've opened up the playbook so far, and
maybe they have to because Pete Carroll knows maybe that
his defense isn't good to speed, so maybe that's part
of that reason. But that offense, I mean, it looks
(33:00):
literally unstoppable. But one team I kind of jotted down
a quick five one team I slid into number five
was the team that the Seahawks beat on Sunday night
and the Patriots. Patriots. Still, yeah, you're an Auburn fan.
I don't know if we talked about this a lot.
I mean, I don't think Cam could look any better
than he looked in his first two weeks for the Patriots.
(33:22):
And what's amazing to that about about that to me
is usually the Patriots kind of slinked their way right
into the season. They're not that good in September, they're
just okay in October, and then by the time it
gets to be November in December, the Patriots are rounding
into great form, which I think is a credit to
Bill Belichick and the staff that he has put together there.
(33:42):
But already, to me, the Patriots look really good with Cam.
In fact, you can make an argument that their performance
on Sunday Night against the Seahawks was better than any
performance that we saw from Tom Brady in that offense
all last year. Yeah. I was thinking to myself watching
that game on Inday night, if Tom Brady is quarterback
in this team trying to keep up with the Seahawks offense,
(34:04):
I just couldn't see a way that they would be
in that game. But Cam Newton, I gotta be honest
with you, that was probably the sharpest I've ever seen him,
minus that one interception he through where he kind of
got lazy with his feet and his shoulders. Minus that throw,
I've never seen Cam Newton throw the ball like that ever.
I mean, he threw a forty four times, completed thirty
of them, almost four yards passing, ran for two touchdowns
(34:26):
for a second straight week, and had the Patriots poised
on the final play of the game before he got
somersaulted to do to do what we thought he was
gonna do, which has run the football in and find
a way to score. Uh So, Top five, bottom five
one last time here Ravens, Packers, Seahawks, Rams, and Cardinals.
Number one the Ravens to the Packers, three, the Seahawks
(34:50):
for the Rams, five the Cardinals. I'm a big believer
that the NFC West has looked incredible so far. Bottom
five Bengals, Dolphins, Eagles, Giants. Je AT's kind of difficult
right now to figure out where the bottom five teams are,
and frankly, it's gonna be difficult to figure out who
the top five are as well. We appreciate all of
you hanging out with us, believe it or not. Only
(35:11):
one week left in the Major League Baseball season. We'll
be talking about the playoffs starting in Major League Baseball soon.
We got the NBA going on, the Lakers trying to
close out the Nuggets effectively. I know the Nuggets have
come back from to three one series deficits, but tonight
the Lakers trying to make it three oh and effectively
I believe punched their ticket to the NBA Finals. The
Lakers a prohibitive favorite to win the NBA title this year,
(35:34):
and much more still coming. This is an absolute sporting
buffet so much to enjoy. Thank you for spending part
of your time with us. Download the podcast don't miss
a second. Thanks to Jason Whitlock. Thanks to Petros Papadegas,
this has been OutKick on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure
to catch live editions about Kicked the coverage with Clay
(35:54):
Travis week days at six am Eastern three am Pacific
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