The Dan Patrick ShowDan reacts to the latest college football rankings and the committee’s decision to rank Alabama ahead of Miami. College football insider Pat Forde discusses the latest in college football and describes what it was like to be pepper sprayed at the end of the Michigan-Ohio State game. And former NFL HC, Jason Garrett details the latest in the NFL and who he thinks has been the best comeback story in the league this season.
You are listening to the Dan Patrick Show on Fox Sports Radio.
The college football rankings seemed to dominate the headlines from last night. So Alabama's back in, Miami is out, and you have.
Some buys here with Boise Steak.
You have Oregon, SMU and Texas and that's subject to change, all right. See poll question for the first hour is going to be what well? I think we start with the college football playoff. The t Doubs sent in a couple that are fun.
Alabama will ultimately make the twelve team playoff because dot dot dot they deserve to be in or their Alabama.
Okay, I would say it has a little bit more to do with their Alabama.
The brand is going to get you in.
And there was a whole lot of word salad going on last night with Who's my guy Who's running the playoff committee?
Ward Emmanual.
So he was talking about these conference championship games coming up this wen he was on with Rhys Davis and this is what's happened. College football had conference championship games because it was a cash grab. Now you don't have to have that. You have a twelve team playoff, not a four team playoff. When the four team playoff, not everybody was sharing in all the monies, and now you have teams that can go to a conference championship, and the teams and the conference's benefit, well, they don't want to screw up what happens with the twelve team playoff by having one of their teams lose in a conference championship game. So it feels like they're slowly trying to diminish or get rid of conference championship games. So here is ward manual the College Football Selection Committee chair.
Any team that is not playing right now, we don't have a data point to rearrange where we have those teams ranked, and so that is set in terms of how we see them going into the final week of championship week. There's nothing that's going to change, Reese for us to evaluate them any differently than we have now. Those teams who are not playing cannot be adjusted in terms of where they are compared to other teams that are not playing. But the championship teams, we will evaluate that data point to determine if there's needs to be any movement based on how the performance of the game goes.
Would you like some ranch dressing with that word solid because I have no idea what we're talking about here. I think it's just a polite way of saying, hey, if you're in, we want to keep you in, just don't get blown out. And if you're out, you got no shot of getting in unless somebody gets blown out.
Yeah, Seeton.
It feels like, if Paul correct me if I'm wrong, it feels like he was saying, the teams who are not playing this weekend, they're set. Sorry, not a lot we could do for you, but if you are playing this weekend, maybe we'll see some movement. It was a lot of words to say basically that, yeah, Pump.
I think Seaton's right. It was very He took a long way to get there, and even Reese pushback, are you saying that this weekend doesn't matter that much? And he kept not saying it didn't matter, but didn't say it mattered very much. For example, if Georgia gets waxed by Texas, I think they can go down. Can they go down to past Ole, miss which gets ol missing? That's confusing. If if SMU gets loses in any way, I think they're out. And then a team like Miami's back in, I think.
Yeah, it side.
I think.
All I know is I pushed for the twelve team PLAYFF. We got the twelve team PLAYFF. It was going to mean more games, had more meaning late in the season. I got that. The other part of that I can't be responsible for. The grown ups are supposed to take care of that. Miami's upset. You know what, Miami, you got upset. That's why you shouldn't be upset. You lost two of three. Once again, you can handle your future. I would say control your own destiny, but you can't do that. But you could win. If you beat Syracuse, then we're not in this position. You lost to Syracuse. Okay, you lost to Georgia Tech. Okay, yeah, poem.
But Miami fans, if I'm going to be pro Miami for a minute here, just take that play that role. Miami lost to a Syracuse team that had eight wins going in. They were an above average team, right, Oklahoma got I'm sorry, Alabama got murdered not literally by Oklahoma, and average team this year wasn't even close. Alabama's resume in November is getting waxed against Oklahoma, beating Mercer, which does not count, and a decent win over Auburn. They didn't help themselves in November. They hurt themselves.
Alabama's a brand that you used to be a brand, right, not anymore. And you lose to Syracuse. Win the game, yes, Syracuse is good.
Win the game.
I mean Old.
Miss looses to Florida. Florida of course, started to play a whole lot better. I mean South Carolina might be playing as good as anybody right now. It's not fair, I know that, but it's not meant to be fair. It's about entertainment. It's getting brands in there, unfortunately, but I like that you have Boise State in there, Arizona State's in there, SMU's in there.
It's a lot of fun.
But if I look at these conferences, SMU wasn't in the ACC last year, Arizona State wasn't in the Big twelve last year, Oregon wasn't in the Big ten last year Texas. Like, we're seeing these teams that just came into conferences winning these conferences, and I know you start to look at resumes and we're eventually going to get to the pro model. It might be the Premier League model. I'd love to have relegation, or it might be the NFL model. We're eventually going to get to that. There's so much money to be made. It's just like March madness. You know, when we had the commissioner or the NCAA commissioner on Charlie Baker on he was talking about maybe we add four more teams, six more teams. Okay, didn't make headlines. You go to ninety six. Now all of a sudden, you're gonna get people going, wait a minute, it's gonna be watered down. Yes, yes it is. You might say it's already watered down. But college football went from two teams to four teams to twelve teams. And I'm already told that we're probably going to fourteen teams as early as next year.
That's how quickly this is happening. Wait, aren't there contracts in place?
Oh yeah, in pencil. They can't do that, first of all. Okay, there's contracts put in place, so that will never happen. This's the problem when college football people are doing. You know, that's still a source subject with me. See, these insiders came after me. There's there's the pageantry of the bull games, and I go, dude, you got a lottery ticket right in front of you.
You're holding a lottery ticket. They're going to change college football. What about the pageantry? What about the bowl games?
Well, wait a minute, there's contracts. I know, what about the contracts.
You had people who were covering these meetings and missed this story. I'm not even in there, and I was told by an impeccable source on this. But they were going to do with the college playoffs and it proved to be true. And now they're going to go to fourteen just because of the math. There's so much money being made here and you're discussing college This is what they want. Just so you know, they love that you're discussing college football.
There's controversy. People are upset. It's not fair.
They want you to talk about their sport. When there were two teams playing, maybe you complained about the third team, fourth team didn't make it the fourteen playoff, Maybe it was the fifth team or sixteen. Now you have twelve, and now you're talking about maybe eighteen schools that can discuss where they should be, should they get a buy, should they be in?
Why aren't they in?
Now we're going to go to fourteen, and then we're going to go. Who knows after that, it's just going to happen. It's trying to stay. You know in mainstream media that you discuss this like the Heisman race is over. There's no race whatsoever. You want to talk about what's going to happen in college football? Alabama's going to go to Notre Dame right now, bingo, two brands can't go wrong with that. You're going to have some weird matchups, but it's going to be great. This is what college football wants. They want you to talk. I mean, March madness. What are you talking about? You know the sixty ninth team is going to complain. You're like so wide, who cares this?
You care?
More teams, more schools, more opinions, more conversation, more dialogue. That's what you want. Everybody's dwarfed by the NFL. You know, Baseball has this golden knit bat that just came out. Baseball just wants to be talked about Juan Soto six hundred million dollars like that's everybody's fighting for airspace here.
That's it. It's what you want.
You don't want to get left behind, and college football has done a great job kind of reinventing itself and it's just getting started.
This is going to expand, it's it's going to.
Go in directions where you go, wait a minute, here, what are we doing In five years from now, We're going to look back and go, dang. College football moved at a rapid not a glacier base. This is moving moving fast, and that's what's happening because of the money that's involved. Look at the NFL all player safety. How about an eighteenth game? Sure, oh you know, we'll have one game in London? Okay, maybe two games. How about one in Germany? How about one in Dublin? How about one in Rio. It's all moving fast. Everything's moving fast. WNBA, let's expand more teams. Everybody wants to have a team.
Now.
Caitlin Clark is to the WNBA what Gretzky was to the NHL. He expanded hockey southern part of the United States. Who would have thought it's because Gretzky, Caitlin Clark. Everybody wants a franchise. Now, this is what sports is doing. This is happening right in front of us. Now you can say, is this the Golden Age? Well, that's an open to your interpretation. But this is where we're going. It's about money. It's always been about money. Eight seven seven three DP Show email address DP at Danpatrick dot com Twitter handle A TP show First Hour brought to you by a tire rack dot com, the official tire expert at the Danpatrick Show. Go to tiraq dot com the tire decision Guide, full lineup of Pirelli tire special offers, free road hazard protection, mobile tire installation. Tire rack dot com is the way tire buying should be. Any other pole questions you said, Todd had a few of them, Seaton.
You said, many other pole questions.
Yes, you know what, how about we do it after the break, after the Yeah, we want to control the quarter hours.
What we want to do. We just won one of them. Take that.
I used to have a radio person who was always criticizing us of how we did our show. And even when I talked about ESPN, they go.
You're giving away your ratings. You're talking about ESPN. I go, I worked there for eighteen years. I used to get emails.
You guys broke to Ely. You broke two minutes Toily. You got to control the quarter hour. Now we gotta just be entertaining.
I'm just I'm just doing a show. I'm just doing a show.
Funny because those older radio bosses are like, hey, it wasn't really like that, and our current radio bosses are like, yes, that's exactly what you're supposed to be doing is winning the quarter hour.
What's wrong with you?
Yes, break two minutes.
We just we none of that has changed. We just dominated right here.
What do you do?
Yes?
Please win quarter hours? That's how I keep my Job's wrong with you? I don't even understand it.
I'm like, all right, whatever, you know, just tell me when I'm supposed to go to commercial break.
You can't talk about ESPN. I can't.
This person thought that because I was talking about ESPN, they were gonna tune over to ESPN Radio.
Like the listeners of our show weren't aware of ESPN and you were alerting them to their presence.
Wait is there ESPN Radio? I'm flipping over.
There and I'm like, oh my god, all right, we're just getting started, just getting started. How's morale, Marvin, how you feeling today?
Blessed beyond belief?
Yeah, you're you're ekon Husky's Gotler coming up today tonight let's go going to be a close one.
No more Hawaii.
Thank goodness, you know that was I'm sure that wasn't a fun flight back home.
Connecticut wants to be the best team in every other state except for Hawaii.
They don't recognize it as a state anymore.
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to listen live.
He might be the first guest we've had on who has been pepper sprayed, at least officially pepper sprayed. I'm not sure recently pepper sprayed. He's Pat forty from Sports Illustrated and he was there in Columbus, Ohio State and Michigan. How does it feel to get pepper sprayed?
Penn?
It doesn't taste good, Dan.
My food review of pepper spray is not overwhelmingly positive. It really didn't get in my eyes as much. I was wearing glasses and maybe that'll help. But it got in my mouth and it's it's unpleasant, that's for sure. Mostly I was like, what the hell is actually happening here? And then people started reeling out of there with you know, their eyes watering and choking and everything. I was like, Oh, we've just been pepper sprayed. It's a new college football achievement for me.
I you know, when's college football, so it should be doctor pepper spray.
You know, with the big sponsor, you can use that if you want.
How did it get to the point where pepper spray was needed after that game?
I'm not sure. It felt to me a little like an overreaction. I mean it was it was violent in there, for sure. I didn't get all the way into the middle of the octagon as it were, but I mean there were punches, kicks being thrown, people getting bloodied.
But I thought that this could.
Have been handled without all of a sudden guys wearing sheriff jackets just turning around and spraying wide swaths.
So I don't know.
I think it was an overreaction to a couple of teams overreacting.
Okay, does college football look at this bigger picture? We've seen a recent outbreak in planting the flag here? Does college football care about this? The NCAA care to act upon this?
Yeah, college football cares for sure, or the NCUBAA would probably like to care. But it's basically been kicked out of college football. The conferences don't like the look we've served from some commissioners and some other people that think it's a bad look. It'll be one of those you know, January NCAA Convention, Spring Conference meetings, talking points, and they'll kick it around. I wouldn't be surprised if they come up with some sort of fine structures, or if they come up with a and it's going to be conferenced by conference, but a legislation of like you don't bring your flags on the road, or you got to put your flags in the locker room with five minutes left in the game or whatever.
You can't have nice things, Dan, if you can't play nicely, all right.
Your reaction to the latest rankings, I.
Thought Miami got screwed. It's close. It's not like this is, you know, the biggest Travis Dew we've ever seen. But I would have had Miami ahead of Alabama. But we've seen historically Alabama gets in the SEC, gets what it wants. Greg sank all but planted his flag in October saying this has to go incredibly well, and I think a lot of people took that as marching orders of we better get all of our teams in that deserve to get in, maybe even some that don't deserve to get in.
Yeah, I wonder, and I said this when it happened. The SEC is going to get in at least three schools. Like it almost feels like, all right, we're going to sign up for this. We're going to play along with you, but you better be fair to us. At the end of the year. Alabama is getting in because of their brand. Miami used to have a brand. They don't have a brand anymore. How much of a factor do you think that that has played in.
I think it's undeniable. I mean, I can try to deny it, but I don't believe it. I think the Alabama brand is so strong that losses for them seem to matter less. Certain wins even seem to matter more. It may just mean more. That The point where I thought, not necessarily that the fix is in, but that they were excessively enamored with the Alabama brand was two weeks ago when they beat Mercer, an FCS team had moved up three spots. They moved up three spots in the rankings by beating Mercer. Then they lose by three touchdowns to Oklahoma, but Ward Manuel comes out and says, well, Miami wasn't playing well at the end, was Alabama playing well?
No, I don't know what goes on in those meetings.
I don't know if, like, are there directives that go on when the committee gets together.
We all don't know what goes on in the meetings.
And that's one of the biggest frustrations of this really is just a lack of real knowledge. It'd be great to have a camera in there, to have a reporter in there, to have something in there to tell tell the public what actually does happen. What are the discussion points? What you know, where are the tension points? And yes, what are the what what's the discussion level of how's this going to look or how's this going to play? Those things I would love to know, but we don't really have an accurate summation of that.
We also have gotten to a point where and these commissioners know they don't want to play in a conference championship game because of the risk it was a money grab for these conferences. Well, now the money's available in the twelve team playoff, they want to slowly diminish what these conference championship games mean, certainly for the Big Ten.
And the SEC.
So how do you do that where you kind of you can't eradicate, but how do you diminish them? Therefore, don't you know these games don't really mean that much other than you're going to win your conference championship, right, I don't know.
It's a difficult one because they're addicted to the money from that. They're addicted to the money period from all sources. But they like the money that comes with this. They also they like the celebration of the league court of sort of stage that it gives them. The Big ten networks are going to do nothing but talk about and laud the league for two days in Indianapolis. The SEC network's going to do the same thing in Atlanta, the ACC network will do the same thing in Charlotte. The leagues like that, and they like the money. So I don't know how you separate that and diminish the conference championship more. I've never liked the conference championships. I thought they were double jeopardy for the best teams, had chance for a fluky outcome, a chance for injuries. But now you're right, with the playoff and the way we've got it structured, it's even less important and probably more damaging, although you can at least safeguard to a degree, which I think they're trying to do here, that both teams in your conference championship are probably getting in to the playoff.
He's Pad forty from Sports Illustrated senior writer. The teams that are on the bubble who could be bounced this weekend most likely?
Yeah, I mean Alabama's rooting hard for SMU because if Clemson wins, Alabama theoretically could be out, but the committee could also just find another way to keep Alabama in and bounce SMU. So the ACC Championship game, I think is really where it's at. The Mountain West Championship game between Boise and UNLV is interesting, you know. I mean, can Boise hold on to a top four seed and a first round by and probably kick the Big twelve into playing a first round road game with a champion of that league. So those are the two spots, the ACC and the Mountain West games, I think are the two that where there's really some actual tension about what might happen.
What do you think changes about the playoffs next year.
I would suspect, whether it's next year, whether it's twenty twenty seven, more likely that the first round buys do not go to four conference champions, that they will go to the four highest rank teams. I think the Big ten and SEC will say, okay, enough of that, we let you stay in our tournament, Big twelve in acc but you in Mountain West or whoever, but you're not getting the buys, and they will try to take all of.
Those any chance. Travis Hunter wins the Heisman unanimously.
No, I don't think so. I think there's a decent support for Ashton Genty, who's a great player. I think Travis Hunter wins, and probably wins by a considerable margin. But I think Ashton Genty, and especially if he puts up two hundred yards Friday night, you know, that'll probably help him some more. Again, I don't think Travis Hunter loses, but I don't think it's an absolute landslide.
Yeah, because I argued that Shador Sanders has has kind of quietly, which is hard to say about Colorado and being Dion Sun quietly had an unbelievable season, and that nude can take some punishment he gets hit. Travis Hunter is exciting and the potent show is wonderful. You know, I was making a case Genty and Shadoor, what they've meant to their teams probably more valuable than Travis Hunter is to Colorado.
Is that crazy to say?
Well, no, I mean you can make that argument. I would say Travis Hunter might be more valuable because he does indeed play two positions. But Shrroy Sanders has been unbelievable. I mean, if he's in the top three, he deserves it. Your point about him getting hit and taking it is well made, because that is one tough quarterback. He takes a pounding, he gets sacked a lot, he holds the ball, he doesn't bail out on plays. It's impressive what he's done this year. He's a really, really good player.
Best running back that you ever saw, I mean, Genty is getting into that Barry Sanders territory with these numbers. Barry did it, of course, you know, against better competition probably, but best running back you ever saw.
In person in college, I would say Adrian Peters, and he was just unbelievable at Oklahoma. Now you know all time, I mean Barry Sanders, you watched him, and it was like watching a magician or like an adult playing with children where nobody could just catch him. He just made you look silly. So those two come to mind. Walter Payton, of course, but I didn't see him in college.
You know.
I love the way Walter Payton just defeated tacklers. But genty Genty's legit.
Man.
He's got size and he's just got great feet, I mean his feet. He reminds me of l Danian Tomlinson that that comparisons maid can catch the ball as well, and he's just he's a heck of a player.
Great to talk to you, and are you going to the a SEC title game?
I am, yes, gonna go see if Clemson can drop something in the punch bowl.
What do you think the chances are you get pepper sprayed again? I think much lower, Okay a horseshoe, much lower.
But I might be back in the horse shoe if I have a first round game and I'll be bringing protecting here.
How safe is Ryan Day in your opinion?
I think he's relatively safe if he wants to be safe. If he doesn't want to go, I think he might be willing to reconsider how much he wants to be there, but I don't see.
Oh, hold on that.
Ryan Day may say, you know what, I don't want to be under this microscope anymore.
Yeah, I mean, I don't think that's out of the question, that this has become almost an untenable situation.
If he can get another job that wants to pay him ten million dollars a.
Year, what about urban Meyer coming back to Ohio State.
Let's not I don't think so. I don't think that would happen ross Byorck. I think the new ad there, if he were to get the chance to make a hire, I think he would want to establish his own sort of signature on the program.
Yeah, because I think the people who got rid of urban Meyer aren't there at Ohio State anymore.
They're not.
No, that's true. I mean it would be a fresh slate. But I still I'm not sure. I think ross Byork has enough ambition that he was like, I'm not bringing back a guy that's going to be you know, just immediately dwarf me.
He's patent forty, he's not afraid of your pepper spray, and he could.
Be coming to a stadium near you. Thank you, pat Thank you. That's bad forty.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Dan Patrick Show weekdays at nine am Eastern six am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Jason Garrett a busy man. He was on the call Miami Green Bay on Thanksgiving and had notre Dame a couple of weeks ago. Football Night in America analyst former Cowboys head coach Chargers Chiefs coming up on Sunday Night on Peacock. You can see him there as well. You want to start college football, you want to talk NFL football.
You're in charge.
You decide what if we use the college format, like when we ranked teams in the NFL, and in accordance to that, you had playoff matchups, So the Chiefs could be playing somebody from you know, the NFC in the playoffs as opposed to the Apes, Like who's the number one seed? Who'd be the Oregon in the NFL? Right now, I still think Detroit's the Oregon. They've been really good, they've been dominant. The concern with them though, is the injury thing on defense. But that's a little bit of the Florida State argument from last year.
Right you know, they win all their games, they put their backup in they continue to win. But you know, we don't think they're good enough. But I do think what they've done on the field over the course of the year. They're number one.
It feels like the Eagles are an underdog story. It feels like Buffalo is an underdog story. How does that happen when you're two of the three best teams in the NFL right now?
Well, I don't know how it happens, but they're both really good and I love I love what Philly's done. Philly is a really talented team across the board. If you look at their offensive line, their defense of line, their skill players. They're playmakers. Saquan is an MVP candidate for me. And it's amazing what they've done. If you think about ten and one last year and then an epics slide. They were horrendous at the end of last year and there were some real issues in that organization and for them to write the ship like they have started two and two this year. But I give a lot of credit to Nick Sirianni. I give a lot of credit to Vic Fangio and Kellen Moore for on either side of the ball. Just getting those guys playing the right way and playing up to their talent, and there's a really good feeling there. I was in Buffalo on Friday. There's an amazing feeling in Buffalo. The quarterback is off the charts. I just love the vibe they have in that building. And again, you know, talk about two coaches Sirianni and McDermott, guys who are really underappreciated. I mean, Sean McDermott. They've won the division five years in a row, They've been to the playoff seven out of eight years, and I think they got a lot of young players on that team, and they're just understanding that winning is the most important thing, and everybody's just diving into their roles. And of course they get the snow game Sunday night and they go have a heck of a lot of fun and kind of show that to the world. But I just love both those teams. Again, I don't know if they're underdog stories or not, but they're damn good.
Who does Josh Allen remind you of?
You know, when I was I shouldn't say growing up because he's not that much older than I am, but I had so much admiration for John Elway. I'm in high school, he's in college at Stanford, and then he goes on to play in the NFL, and I'm like, I've never seen anybody like this. His ability to run and throw and make plays and he just was incredible. And so when you have guys like that in your life, Marino Elway, some of those guys, it's like nobody can ever compare to them. But when you pull back, I'm like, here reminds me of a version of John ell His ability to run the ball, throw it all over the place, and for years he was putting buffalo on his back, and now they're better around them and he doesn't feel like he has to do that all the time, but in the big moments he does just like Elway used to. So that would be my comparison right now, both elite, elite players.
Yeah, I could see Cam Newton as well in there with John Allen. I mean they run, They ran in a more physical way than Elway did. But I don't know if you see those comps as well well.
Well for me with Cam, I think Cam, you know, go back to Cam in college. I mean they're running quarterback power, you know, I mean he's in behind these guys. I mean it's like, you know, nineteen twenty four four horsemen type stuff. And you know, for me, he's I see the effectiveness as a runner like Cam. Cam I thought was unique that way, and I just think Josh is I think he's a passer. His ability to throw the ball from the pocket out in space, I just think a cut above Cam for me throwing the ball.
We were talking about comeback Player of the Year. Now here's a couple of our candidates, Russell Wilson, Sam Darnold. Now we're not talking about an injury. It's more perception. Saquon Barkley. Could he be up for comeback Player of the year. Out of those three, who would you pick or if you have another.
Well, I think there are three great candidates, and I'll hit Russell first. If you think about what's happened with Russell over the last couple of years, I think a lot of people said, you know, he's probably done, He's close to being done. I can see why Pittsburgh takes a shot at him. Maybe they can revive him. They don't give him a huge contract. Let's kind of see what happens there and for him to play as well as he has, and you know, the other day was big, this was it. Hey, Pittsburgh, let's play great defense. Let's run the ball. He threw for four hundred and fourteen yards in that game. Now is Cincinnati good on defense? Not really right now? So I get that, But I thought they'd go into that game hammer them. Russell make a couple of big plays in the passing game, Pittsburgh wins the game with their defense. That was not the game. So it's not like they're winning despite him. I mean, he's a major contributor to it. And if you think about comeback player, where have they been? He wasn't in a good place the last couple of years. He's revived himself. The darnld story is fantastic, and I think it's a really good story for a lot of teams. When you think about young quarterbacks, you thrust them into a situation when they're young, it's not a real good situation. They got to do it all themselves. They're still learning how to play. And these guys get resurrected. And you and I have talked about this before about Tom Brady. So many things he's done. You know, at the highest level in the NFL. But for him to play till he's forty five, for Drew Brees to play until he's forty, Aaron Rodgers, Philip Rivers, all of these guys. The runway for quarterbacks is a lot longer than it used to be. And I think, you know, the way we protect quarterbacks these days is contributed to that. But this idea that you can take a guy who has ability, who's the right kind of guy, who's been in a bad place, and he can he can revive himself and resurrect himself. Because these guys are going to play much longer. I think that's an important story to tell. And I'm gonna hit the last one because I love him to death. The sa Quand story is just off the charts for me. I mean, the devise of the running back. You can't pay running backs. They're done when they're twenty seven. You know, watch the Eagles play. I mean, he's an incredible player, and he might be the single most important player in contributing to what I was talking about earlier with Philly. He's an amazing guy. Everybody's behind him, and again, I think beyond his ability on the field and it's production. He's bringing energy to that organization. That's that's really making a difference.
Talking to Jason Garrett, NBC Football Night in America analyst, It'll be the Chargers and the Chiefs on Sunday Night, speaking of protecting the quarterback the Trevor Lawrence hit. Does the NFL look at the sliding portion of this and if so, what kind of modifications do you think the NFL should make on them?
Well, I think they have to look at it. Everyone has the right intentions here, you know, player safety and all the rules changes they've made at all positions, how we do things in the off season, training camp, practice, all of that, and then in relation to the quarterback. I think these are all really good things to do. But now you're in that little gray area that these quarterbacks are sliding later and later and later, they know they're getting protected, they get to the sideline, they fake like they're going out, and they make twenty more yards. I mean, there's all these things, so so I think they have to guard against that. I heard somebody saying, you know, hey, maybe we should penalize the offensive guys. Maybe that's the only thing you truly can do. And I get that. I'm not quite there yet, but I do think they have to allow guys to hit these these quarterbacks, and the hit on Trevor Lawrence egregious. I agree with the punishment all of that, but there's a lot of gray there for the for these defensive players and you can see them playing hesitantly. So I wouldn't be opposed to some kind of penalty for a quarterback if he if he clearly is trying to dupe the defender and not just getting down.
I mentioned this yesterday and we were just kind of throwing stuff against the wall. But you know when a player is going to signal for a fair catch on a punt, then you know you can't hit him. If a quarterback is getting ready to slide and holds his one hand up like you are signaling that I'm giving myself up. Or if Patrick Mahomes is dancing down the sidelines he doesn't put his hand.
Up, you blast him.
Can you ask a quarterback to protect himself You'll be running with the football. You just put your hand up. You've signified that I'm not going to keep running. It's a white flag. What's the possibility of that being put into play?
I think it's a hell of an idea, I really do. I do think it's different than a punt returner. You're in that environment. As a punt returner, you're by yourself as the ball goes up there, and you're really there's no restriction on you being able to do that. Picture some of these guys in the middle of traffic on the sidelines. Now I got to stick my hand up. Oh you didn't. You didn't stick your hand up. Now I can blast you. I think that gets a little dicey. I don't think that. I don't think the environment's quite as clean. But you know, I've seen college games where these guys start their dive early.
Well Kenny Pickett did it, and then oh god.
That was just It's just they change the rule though, Jason, the next week they change that rule in college football. But you're right, but somebody's gonna blast Mahomes one of these days because he gives that I'm going out of bound and I'm not. I'm going to dance down the side. You can see defenders they have no idea what to do with Mahomes.
Yeah, and people lose sight of the fact that these these decisions, these guys are making are happen and split seconds. You know, we watch the replay and we say, oh, he could have hit him, Oh he should have targeted. I'm like, do you guys understand how fast a play happens in football? It's ridiculous. And so you're asking these guys. You know, the receiver who catches it and he's right there. Then at the last second he drops his head six inches and it goes from this glancing blow. Do you hit I'm like, you know, it's really it's hard on these guys. So I think we need to be more understanding of that as they go forward. But I think penalizing a guy who's intentionally doing it, I don't know that that's a bad way to go.
How would you handle Justin Tucker if you were his head coach.
I would absolutely stick with him. I'm not opposed to bringing a guy in on the practice roster and having a guy kick as well. You know, at the end of the day, all decisions are made in the best interests of the football team. And I don't care how much success in history you have together. You know, Justin Tucker understands that he understands that he has to make kicks. So it's a little bit for me, like a lot of people say, with these young quarterbacks, oh, if you sit him down, he's done. John Elway said last week, Hey, the best thing that ever happened to me was after the fourth game my rookie year, they benched me. And now John Elway has to respond, and he responds in a way that he becomes one of the all time greats. And so you're seeing that with Bryce Young, You're seeing that with Anthony Richards, and these guys are responding and if they don't respond, you got the wrong guy playing quarterback. So I bring that up just to say, justin Tucker's been around this league forever. He understands the Raven's got to win. He's got to make his kicks. So so to bring a guy in to say, hey, if we're not doing this, this guy's kicking on the side. This gives us the best chance. I don't see that as an issue. I don't see that as a problem. But I like what John Harbaugh's done. You stick, you stick with him and and and you say, hey, you're our kicker. But at some point, you know, we got to make the decisions best for the team, and maybe that's that's the way you dip your toe into that decision.
How does a kicker forget out to kick?
You know, it's it's I'm not I'm not a kicking guru by any means, so I don't. I don't mean to suggest that I am. But it's a highly precise operation. When you think about snaphold kick, they're so good at it. The ability for a long snapper to snap it in a way where it's eight yards deep and he's going to hit the holder with the lace on his top hands so he can put it down. I mean, it's like it's like elite stuff. And I think the same thing goes for kicking mechanics. You know, if the foot is the toe of the foot is you know, an inch too wide, and that opens up your hips too much, and then you overcompensate, you come back the other way, you know. I think that's the kind of stuff that happens, not unlike a golf swing. Right, you know, you're not hitting it right, hey, the club face is open. Then I compensate. Now I'm hooking it. You know, all that kind of stuff. I think that's what's going on. There's a lot of moving parts. But nobody knows kicking more than Justin Tucker. I mean, this is the greatest kicker of all time. So I'm certainly hopeful that he can find the key because they need him coming down to stretch. There's no doubt about that.
Notre Dame will win the national title if what.
Two things. If they continue to play great defense. A little bit sloppier the other day against us SEE, but they've been a fantastic defense, one of the best defenses all year long. So if they continue to do that and play through their defense in their running game, and then Riley Leonard can make a couple of plays, I think they can win. They're gonna win in an old school fashion, but I think they can do it.
How does the team become tougher.
You have to do tough things to be tougher. I think the first thing is you got to bring the right kind of people in. You know, there's a great John Madden expression. He said, you know, for years in Oakland, we weren't a good tackling team, and we worked very hard at tackling, and then Jack Tatum was available to come from Ohio State, and we said, you know, we're gonna draft Jack Tatum. He was an incredible tackler, and all of a sudden our team became a better tackling team. So I do think it starts with who you bring into the building. But you have to do tough things. And unfortunately in this day and agent in pro football, because of the stuff talking about before with player safety, they've taken away the offseason program. You can't have padded practices. All of those things that help make teams tough. You do a lot less of that these days. But I think you have to put pads on. I think you have to be physical in practice. You have to compete, challenge guys, and just make that part of who you are. That team in Detroit that we're talking about before, Dan Campbell, Baltimore, Andy Reid, Jim Harball, all those teams that are tough, the teams that are playing the best right now, they do hard things in practice and it shows up on Sundays.
Take the money out of this, but you have to make a decision.
Next year.
You could start Jamis Winston or Deshaun Watson in Cleveland.
Oh, Jamis Winston, Yeah, I think that Deshaun Watson experiment should be over In Cleveland, and they need to move on. I don't know how they do it, how they pay him or don't pay them, have to navigate the situation where you know the salary cap hit is at a minimum. But I would absolutely play Jameis Winston. Jamis is not a perfect quarterback, but he's certainly revived their team, and I just think there are too many issues with DeShawn Deshaun was a hell of a player at one point in his career, but he's not the same guy. And maybe he needs another new place with not a big two hundred and thirty two million dollars guaranteed contract to start his career over again. But I don't think he should be the quarterback in Cleveland.
Hypothetically, have you ever been told to play somebody that you didn't want to play.
I don't know that I've been directly told that. To be honest with you, there.
Is directly Have you been told?
Yeah, I mean I think there's philosophy. You know, this comes up with coaches sometimes. You know, older players are more reliable. Older players have experience, they know how to play. They can help you win in the short term, but sometimes you got to pull back. As an organization and say, this guy's a progress stopper. He's going to let us play better now, but in the long run, this guy will play better, and we got to take our lumps. So I think I don't know that it's been directly, but you pull back philosophically as an organization, and sometimes you have to make some of those decisions, and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. The evaluation's wrong. One of the issues I have with the NFL right now that I experienced a few different times, and I see it a lot in the NFL is just because they're young, just because we drafted them, doesn't mean they deserve to play. They have to earn that right too. So in a quest to be younger and play younger guys, you got to make sure they're earning it along the way.
Good stuff, have fun on Sunday night. Thanks for joining us as always, You're the best. Thanks Dan, that's Jason Garrett.
