The Herd with Colin CowherdColin looks at the Lakers taking another loss and why this team has little hope for the future despite having LeBron James and Anthony Davis. He believes the rocky finish to Aaron Rodgers' career with the Packers has been totally predictable. He examines the divorce between Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson and why they'll eventually realize they needed each other. Plus, Ryen Russillo from The Ringer joins the show casting doubt on Rodgers retiring from the NFL and if there’s any way the Lakers can save their season.
Thanks for listening to the Best of Herd podcast. Are you sure to catch us live every weekday from twelve to three eastern, nine to noon Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and FS one. Find your local station for the Herd at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us live every day on the iHeartRadio app by searching Herd. This is the Best of the Herd with Colin Cowhern on Fox Sports Radio. Ah, here we go on a Thursday, live in Los Angeles. It's the Herd wherever you may be, however you may be listening iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio FS one. One hour from now, Greg co Sell. If you play fantasy football, if you bet on football, or you just love the sport, nobody breaks it down. Get you behind the film. What's really happening? What's really on that field? Greg co Sell in one hour from now, Sha mak Lebron's it again. Limping off the floor. Lakers oh and nine against the team they share a building with in their last nine meetings, the LA Clippers and nine. Tough start of the season for the Lakers. It is it's early. It's not over, but it's early. Yeah, it's over. So here's how bad it was. For the Lakers. Lebron played really well, Anthony Davis played really well, Russell Westbrook played really well, and they still got housed against the Clipper team that didn't have their best player, Kawhi Leonard. They were down seventeen were the Lakers in the first quarter, and all their stars, they're Hall of famers, they all played well. Of all the big brands in America right now, the Yankees, Notre Dame Football, Duke Basketball, Celtics, Green Bay Packers, forty nine Ers, you know whatever, the big brands aren't America. None is as hopeless today and has a bleaker few then your Los Angeles Lakers. They're not good now. The futures bleak. I mean, they have no draft capital coming up in the next few years, they don't have any young ascending stars, they don't have a front office with a history of clever trades, and they don't have any cap space and an ownership group that doesn't want to pay a penalty on that stuff. So the Lakers did with Lebron James what Cleveland did and what Miami did. Cleveland actually did it twice. They gave the franchise to Lebron, and if you give the franchise to Lebron. Here's what happens. He does not playing with He like playing with young players, So you have to get rid of your young players. First thing he did when he got to LA, all the young guys, get him out of here. He pretended like he liked Kyle Kuzma. He faked like he liked Lonzo Ball. He got him out of here. So your roster gets much older. Remember in Miami it was like Mike Miller and Shane Battier and Ray Allen and not as Haslam. It gets old fast. So that's what Lebron does. I don't want to play with young guys, so you got you gotta get rid of your young guys. I know, I know you were developing them in Cleveland, and developing them in Los Angeles and developing them in Miami. You gotta get rid of them. And Lebron doesn't care about draft picks, so you kind of you get rid of those. Trade whatever you gotta do to get veteran players. And it's all good when Lebron was in his prime, but now he's out of it. Hurt a lot, not available a lot. Oh yeah, has a rookie head coach Eric Spoelstra was not around, ty Lou's not around. Got a rookie head coach could be good? Well, I have no idea. I have no idea. If Darvinham's good, it seems like a good guy. But this is what Miami did. And it took Miami. And that's with Pat Riley, with a great owner, with a great coach. It took them four to five years to rebuild the draft capital, get emerging, ascending young players, become a consistent playoff team. And that's with Spolstra, Riley and a great owner and a great culture. Lakers right now don't have any of that, any of it to lake your fans understand this. You are staring down the barrel at a decade of irrelevance, and you've mostly been irrelevant for eight to nine years before Lebron. Does everybody get how urgent this is? So you got you got two tradeable stars, I mean like you could get something for them, Anthony Davis and Lebron. The reluctance to move Anthony Davis it is beyond me. I don't get it. I've been on this for two years. Move him. You think he's gonna get through the season. Without an injury. Really move him as soon as you can. But I also think, and they don't have the courage to do it. You got to consider what are you gonna do with Lebron? I mean, they're not going to trade him before he breaks Kareem's all time scoring record. That'll probably be in January, trading deadlines in February. You have to consider it, don't you. You're not winning within him. You don't want to play with young players. Is it gonna get older? I mean the Lake don't have any versatile athletic wing defenders. They don't have any shooters. I mean, you're not close. Big brands have always had a huge advantage in American sports. I mean, Obj, what a shock He's leaning to the Cowboys. It helps especially young athletes. They want to They want to get marketing money and social media money. Don't want to go to the Detroit Lions. You want to go to big brands want to go to big cities. OBJ wanted to come to La OBJ was in New York. OBJ wants to go to Dallas. I mean, Buffalo's got the better team. He probably ends up in Dallas. The star Jerry Jones, the marketing so you should as a big brand Michigan football, you can pay for Jim Harball. It's attractive to Jim Harball. Jim Harball ha been in the Super Bowl. Jim Harball has not taking the job at two Lane Cincinnati. When you're a big bit Lincoln Riley USC's FOIGN eight, they get Lincoln Riley. If Arizona Football is FOIGN eight, would they get Lincoln Riley. No, you have a huge vantage being a big brand, especially with athletes and oftentimes with coaches, because once it gets rolling, I mean LSU got Brian Kelly an hour later, they're really good. Takes a little longer to grow Central Michigan, right, And so you're staring down the barrel here of problems. I mean, to me, the solution is you've got two tradeable pieces. I'd move one now, I'd consider another one later. I mean, don't you have to Well, Lebron's in year twenty. You can't talk about it, you can't make a phone call. You're not going to move him before the Kareem records broken. But to people understand, what you're looking at here is this is bleak. Nine straight losses to the Clippers. Kawhi's not planning most of them, and we think the Clippers are underachieving. The Lakers are now easily the second best team in their own building. Lebron after the game asked about the rough start. The team is just in a tough spot right now, being to a nine. Really, so yeah, CAUs for sure. Right, So it's a preamble the question, so what how do you manage the idea of Darvin telling you he told us to take care of your body versus the urgency that you feel being a leader of a team that needs to get some wins. I mean, I mean, in order for you to be productive for your teammates, you have to take care of your body. You know that. Don't mean extract yourself from the game of basketball. You can always be thinking about what you could do better. We're watching a game in them all. You're gonna get the film from the coach of staff. You can ask for the film anyway, to always just keep your mind engaged. I'm not anti Lakers, I'm really not. I'm anti a franchise that doesn't appear to have a plan. What are we doing here? It's not working, It's getting worse, not even close to as good as the other team you share are building with. All right, so this story was kind of predictable. We've told you when Aaron came out and criticize those receivers. Criticize teammates and co workers with discretion, Okay, be very judicious with it. ESPN's Jeremy Fowler, very good reporter, wrote in his latest Insider column, Rogers has created tension in the locker room by painting the Packers young d receivers, young wide receivers as scapegoats for the team's problems. Fowler noted that it is not sitting very well with some and that Rogers was absent from much of the offseason yet seems unhappy with the development of his young teammates. So, as always, this story got out because people wanted it out in that locker room. Be careful criticizing teammates publicly. Aaron Rodgers also had another story yesterday that came out. I didn't see it until this morning, he said, quote, I don't give a blank. He swore that any of these experts on TV what their opinions are, Well, okay, great, then why do you keep talking about it? It is interesting, though, Aaron's gonna turn thirty nine here pretty quick. The end is in sight, and careers I have found they end how you think they're going to end. Tom Brady's is ending how you thought it would end. You can't pull him from a football field. He's still in the foxhole, fighting like mad, barking at teammates, wants to win over everything else. Of course, that's how Brady's career is going to end. Jay Cutler couldn't get along with anybody exactly, He couldn't get along with anybody in his prime. Big Ben fell off a cliff physically. Of course he did because he wasn't committed when he was in his prime. Even wide receivers. T O at the end was bouncing around. Nobody really wanted him yet. Larry Fitzgerald at the end class dignity, elegance and still pretty productive, left on his terms. Of course, Aaron is ruggling at the end, Teammates upset with him, prickly about the media, getting defensive. I don't care what they say about me. Of course, this is how it's going to end. Now, I'm not talking to end is like a year away, but it's close. And what happens is when that aging quarterback decides I'm going to take the most money available. Then he plays with a less talented roster and a less flexible team, and all those flaws get exposed and become more flammable. He's always been prickly. Now he's losing, he's more prickly. He's always been a little defensive. Now he's losing, he's more defensive. How many times this year is he going to say he doesn't care about what anybody says? Then stop saying it, Stop being a dead to do it, Rocky finger pointing, It is remarkable how often careers end exactly how you think they would end. And it's close, and you know it's close. How do I know it's close because Aaron said he's not playing well into his forties. He said it not me. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays and noon Eastern a Empacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app. Brady and Belichick and their divorce took the high road. Pete Carroll and Russell Wilson are not taking the high rold it. You know it's been a simmering Clearly, this was a simmering, heated relationship for multiple years the rumors. The reporting was on point and true. There was no fake news here. Russell didn't think he was getting enough credit. Pete didn't think he was getting enough credit. And now they're taking shots at each other. Now they're fighting over a wrist band. Here's Pete Carroll first. If you notice, you know it's going off the wristband. You know, that's a big help. It's smoothed things out, spit things up, clean things up, and that's that's part of it too. And you know we never did that before. Um, there's resistance to that, so we didn't do that before. M Russell Wilson then was asked about Pete Carroll's comment and had this to say, I don't I don't know exactly what he said, but um, but I think you know, I won a lot of games there without one on the risk of put you know, and uh, I didn't know winning or losing mattered if you were a ristband or not. But I think that uh, you know, you know, do whatever it takes to make sure that we're rolling and moving and everything else. A few times I've definitely won a ristband and being on the game plan and what we have called and all that stuff. Listen, Like most things, both are true. Pete probably didn't feel that Russell Wilson appreciated Marshawn Lynch and Pete's amazing defense. It's probably true. And Russell thought, dude, you were fired two times before you got to Seattle. You got a losing record in Seattle until I got here. I was the catalyst, not your great defense. It was so great? Why didn't win before I was here? And Russell was right? But it's interesting. Brady initially won the divorce, but don't you think this morning privately probably misses the coaching and the expertise of Belichick. I mean, Pete Carroll initially won this divorce. He has won it through nine weeks. But we all kind of have a feeling, don't we that Geno Smith will lose in the playoffs, get out played, will hit his ceiling, probably regress a little. Seattle will draft a quarterback and maybe reach in their draft and will probably miss because we may not have a great quarterback in this draft. There's there's clearly no Trevor Lawrence justin Fields. I don't believe there's no Andrew Luck for sure. And four to five teams that draft a quarterback in the first round, don't get a great quarterback. So it's likely statistically historically that Seattle misses and then Pete in a couple of years is going to be sitting there losing and thinking in the playoffs. Man, I could use a playmaker at quarterback like russ So, And I think Russell Wilson today is now realizing there's a lot of bad coaches in this league. Pete's one of the few great ones. So there's two things to take from this, in my opinion. Number one is neither side generally wins a divorce forever. Both will have successes and failures. And the second thing is you really got to appreciate in sports when you are great. Hopefully Pete and Russell enjoyed every win and every second of their greatness. It closes and shuts down very quickly in pro football. Pete's went in the divorce. Now Brady won the divorce initially, You don't win it forever, Pete. At some point it's gonna meet a little bit of a wall with Gino Smiths in the NFC. Don't you think maybe it's possible, maybe he'll lose to Philadelphia? Watched Jalen Hurts making plays with his feet and maybe loses to somebody else in football. Maybe they get to the Super Bowl and he loses to Josh Allen making plays and Patrick Mahomes the playmaker or Joe Burrow, and he thinks, man, I wish I had that talent, and he did. Russell Wilson was unbelievable for an eight year stretch. I don't think he's washed. Maybe he's not as good as he was, but I think Pete eventually he's gonna have to draft a quarterback to replace Gino. And don't forget about one great quarterback per draft. And Seattle now is not gonna have a top fifteen pick Seattle. Seattle went in too many games. And so my guess is Seattle, with those first couple of picks, they're gonna pick guys that can play and start, maybe a center, maybe a receiver, maybe an outside linebacker, and they're gonna have to go get a quarterback in the second or third round that's not as talented, but it could hit, but you don't want to. You don't want to pound the table when you're on top for too long. It turned on Tom Brady real fast, he's holding on for dear life in Tampa. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd week dayson noon Easter not a Empacific. So I gotta get the Dallas Cowboys credit, which I rarely do on this show. Ezekiel Elliott came out and said, we want ob J. Jerry Jones said we want ob J. Micah Parson says, help us get to the Super Bowl. OBJ can pick the team he wants to go to, and the Cowboys are smart. They're giving him what he really likes, love and attention. And if you're Dallas, why not. This is the best defense you've had in a decade, probably as good a roster as you've had in several years. The NFC's never been weaker. I've been knocking green Bay forever. Green Bay tends to think good is good enough, and no, it's not to win Super Bowls. And so Philadelphia has added pieces, and Minnesota has added a great piece. The Niners added McCaffrey, Kansas City and Buffalo are adding pieces. Is Dallas in that class? They probably think they are. OBJ fills a need they need more juice on the outside. And the other thing is and Jerry Jones is now I think he's eighty years old, seventy nine, eighty years old. This stuff unravels fast. I mean the Rams are now in disarray. Best team in the league, in disarray last year, right right last year, end of the year, best team I thought they'd repeat, And I was like, where are their weaknesses? Disarray? Tom Brady the Bucks just the depleted, injury riddled, at times poorly managed mess. Also another reason to go for it. Jalen Hurts is not going to get worse. Right Like, Jalen Hurts is still in the ascending, ascending space. Year and a half may be entering prime space. The New York Giants, I mean, they're they're way better than we thought. What if they move off Daniel Jones and go get a competent playoff quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo or better they make a move on it. You think I'm crazy. Look at the quarterbacks that I've moved around this league in the last three or four years. So, I mean, we like everything about the Rams. We like the owner of the GM, the coach, the quarterback, the star defensive lineman. They're in disarray. The stuff doesn't It unravels very fast? In this league. So I love what Dallas is doing. I'd be a hypocrite. I criticize Green Bay all the time. Green Bay's good. They think that's good enough. Man, You look at that trading deadline. Who went and got pieces in the off season. You know, Buffalo gets Von Miller and then they're like, you know what, we need another running back that can catch. They go get one of those, all right, And Philadelphia adds a pass rusher. San Francisco adds another back to Kyle Shanahan's offense. Minnesota adds an unbelievable tight end which draws double teams away from Justin Jefferson. So everybody's adding some juice. I think OBJ to Dallas is a perfect fit. This was Jerry Jones earlier in the week. Odella is someone that we have all the appreciation in the world for what he is as a competitor. To know that as a cowboy star on that hellman, when he puts his own could look pretty good. Mike is saying go get him. Zeke this week said go get him? Makes sense? It is, you know, is Dallas in that Super Bowl bubble with the top teams. I think they're close. I think their defense is really good. I think they hammer green Bay this weekend. Although taking points usually works in the NFL, but now we find out Green Bay's locker room guys are not happy with Aaron. That thing could unravel really really fast. Hey, what's up everybody. It's me three time Pro Bowl Little Barrington and I couldn't be more excited to announce a new podcast called A Point Game. What is a point Game? You asked, along with my fellow Pro Bowl t J. Hushman Zata and Super Bowl champion. Yep, that's right, Plexico Burrs. You can only name a show with that type of talent on it. Up on Game We're going to be sharing our real life experiences loaded with teachable moments. Listen to Up on Game with me, lebar Arrington, t J. Hushman Zatta, and Plexico Birds on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast from. It's not that I don't think Philadelphia is good. I do, but the question becomes, you know, isn't sustainable. They've got a little bit of a feel of that fourteen in two Baltimore Ravens team, where it's a unique offense. We had some doubts about the quarterback, and a lot of people did. And then all of a sudden, the team says we're gonna go all in and build around this unique offense. And it is hard to defend it's unique. It's hard to replicate it practice, and it does feel like it plays better with a lead than playing from behind. Lamar early playing from behind, there was criticism, you know, Jalen Hurts his two and nine in his career playing trailing at halftime. You know, But by the way, Baltimore has been wildly successful. But the question with the Philadelphia isn't whether they're going to get to the playoffs, is are they gonna do? You know, one, two, three, four? Can they win multiple playoff games? Jimmy Johnson and I think everybody likes Philadelphia, but Jimmy Johnson brings up the question about sustainability. Can you play from behind? Here's Jimmy, I think this is the best Cowboys team that I've seen. I'm still not one huncent sold on Philadelphia. Yeah, the ant sees down. I think the Cowboys have as good a shot, in fact, a better shot than most of anybody there. And it'll come down to that. Christmas Eve game against the Eagles. Why aren't you totally sold on Philly yet? If you look at Philadelphia, they run a little different style of offense that gives people problems right off the bat, and most of their scoring comes early, especially in the second quarter. But once a team adjust to that different style the second half they're playing them, you can go. And the other thing is a team playing him for the second time will be that better prepared for him. I think it's a reasonable criticism. It's not even a criticism, it's just a here's you know, the Baltimore team, it was a hyper athletic, mobile quarterback. At people had doubts. The teams like, we like you and we're gonna build around you. And the first full year that Lamar could start, the first full year, he pops. The second full year, Jalen Hurtsey pops. Now, Jalen wasn't as highly coveted as Lamar was as a pro prospect, and so Lamar is probably more you know, I think he's more gifted. You know, he's a top ten quarterback and so and then all of a sudden you start seeing and hearing like, well, can they play from behind? Because in this league you know, Baker Mayfield was great with the lead late and it's a totally different league. Mahomes is a great plan from behind, right Like, that's the difference between winning super Bowls and right now Philadelphia is in that we think we can win the Super Bowl. Class. So I do seem, you know, some similarities to Baltimore, where they're all in on this quarterback. They played downhill. It's hard to prepare for. And as much as I love Lamar, I'm the ultimate Lamar defender. Now he's got one playoff win, and so you know, I'm interested to watch Philadelphia. I don't doubt anything about them. It's more about I feel like I've seen little bits and pieces. It's very, very difficult. We went back yesterday. You have to go back to two thousand and six, where the last team in the league to be undefeated won the Super Bowl, and in many instances the last team to go undefeated that was the Colt They went nine to zero. A lot of these teams did better than the Colts in the regular season, the winning streak was longer, and they got whacked in the first round. So you got to go back to two thousand and six where regular season greatness, longest undefeated team equaled a super Bowl in Philadelphia has already won a recent super Bowl. They're not in this thing to get to the playoffs and win a playoff game. One more Herd. The Herd streams twenty four hours a day, seven days a week within the iHeart. Do you app search her to listen live or on demand whenever you like? So? I led the show saying I'd move a D. But do you have to eventually consider moving Lebron James Now? They're not going to move him before he breaks Kareem's all time scoring record, and because of the extension he signed. I've just been informed you can trade him after the playoffs. But I do think it's interesting. Do you kind of recalibrate as a franchise and do you say to yourself, it's not working with him. I think you have to consider everything. Ryan Rossello, the Ringer the Ryan Rosselo Podcast joining us. Maybe I'm too harsh. I don't see a lot of draft capital. I don't see ascending stars, even the teams that aren't great. I watched like Cleveland. I'm like, oh my god, what a future Utah. I'm like, man young players, a lot of draft picks. Big brands, as you know, have an advantage. I think it's bleak. I think it's bleak now. I think it's bleak in the future. Do you see glimmers of hope? No? I mean, you're right, it is very bleak. You know, we were talking a little bit in the pre show about like all these big, big marketable franchises. It's like the Colin Fund, right, if this were a hedge fund, I would be like, man, your fund's taking a beating because you know, all these marquee things. So look, they're gonna miss the Apia. They're gonna miss the playoffs for the eighth time in probably ten seasons. Unless something really unheard of would have happened this year. I don't blame you know, them going all in on Anthony Davis, even though that trade and the price that you look at retroactively, like, man, that was a lot of stuff to give up for him. He won a title, and Anthony Davis, still a twenty nine years old, like, despite his injury history when he played, looked like a top ten guy with a chance to be a top five guy. And it's just it's gotten worse and worse, even though some of the raw numbers are pretty good. So I understand what they did on those fronts. The Westbrook thing, everyone's to blame, whether it's Lebron, whether it's Polenko, whether it's part of ownership, because I don't know that they were one hundred percent on it. Because now he's a forty million dollars plus guy that's basically a role player, a coming off the bench, which is the best role for him. That they're finally doing it that way and supposing what they're trying to do before. But I mean, this is kind of just what happens, like you don't happen just because you're the Lakers. You don't have the right to always be good and always be competitive, and the windows a lot smaller, and the future is a lot worse because Davis is looking like a terrible bet as he ages out here, which I'm one of the biggest David supporters, Colin. I understood some of the flaws, but this is like the worst case scenario of him, and he was supposed to help carry Lebron into this later phase of his career and that's not happening. Yeah, So let's let's shift to the NFL. So Jamack has said this, you know, Pete's already you know, taking shots at Russell Wilson. It's like, could you pretend, you know, could you be at least Belichick although he may have been simmering with Tom sometimes you know, it's kind of above it all. What do you make of that? Like Pete Carroll publicly like this is the third shot at Russell? What do you make of it? First of all, I love it, Okay, I love it because, look, you want to talk about like I was very early on every time I would hear Russell Wilson talk, I'm like, what is going on? Why it's going? Like? What this is? Like it was the rule of threes. He would say three things and then he would sort of laugh at you and be like do you even know how you're finishing your sentences? Like this is crazy? And yet he was winning all the time, and he's an awesome quarterback. I always defended him as a quarterback. But what you're realizing now is that when you were in the building with him all the time. Yeah, we saw when you were within the building with him every day, it was probably tough to deal with, Okay, but you could accept it because he was such a special quarterback. Just this season, we're not even halfway through the season. Carol's mentioned something for like, as you said the third time the wristband thing Tyler Lockett after they won a game, was like, it's kind of great when no one cares about the credit. You had a podcast with your guy, Richard Sherman and Marshawn Lynch joking that they wanted to reach out to him but they couldn't get in touch on them because they had to go through a manager like ju We had Tucker the kicker from Baltimore making fun of Russell Wilson on a plane, like a kicker was making fun of this guy. So I think this is a collection of that. It got really tough to deal with. And Russell Wilson the same as like Aaron Rodgers when they complained about their their plight. I'm like, man, you you need to be on a worst team for me to have more sympathy for you. And still were winning games. And because it wasn't all about Russell Wilson, it wasn't all about the growth that he had for himself. You know, Look, it's cool to be driven man, and Russell. Wilson's an incredibly driven guys, incredibly successful. He's you know, I don't know what's gonna happen. I can't believe he's going to continue to be this bad as he's been at Denver Colin. But like his movement out of there was about making it more about himself. Yeah, and if you're his coach and you're his teammate, you're like, you know, for the most part, this all kind of work. But because you're not winning MVPs or you're not chasing Brady like, we're the problem. So I have no issue with it because I think it's very honest and it's probably a very reserve version of what this relationship was really like, was somebody that was thinking about himself more than he was thinking about the team. Yeah, that's a great point. We've had four different You're right, we've had four different comments, all on different aspects, and generally speaking, it's hard to criticize somebody publicly. So when people are willing to come out publicly and in drag Russell a little, there is truth to it. Now. I said something yesterday and I don't remember all of it, but I said already already I mean, we're a day out. I don't remember, but I said, it is weird. It's a lot. I'm very busy. So Dodgers this year, best regular season team ever, first round out. There was a Tampa Bay Lightning team. If I watched hockey, best team ever, swept first round, Ravens fourteen and two, caught fire, couldn't win a playoff game, Phoenix Suns last year. The regular seasons, not the playoffs. It's not I mean, Peyton Manning says, there's three seasons, regular season, divisional games and playoffs. He's like, it's totally different. And I look at Philadelphia and I'm like, they're not really playing from behind. There's not a lot of close games. That's what the playoffs are. Like. I love what I'm seeing, but it if it unraveled in the first round, would you be shocked? No? It seems entirely unfair to say that, though, But I'm with you, and I think it's the same as whenever you're doing your college football rankings that you view veer towards something that feels established, right. We complain when we see other teams and players get the benefit of the doubt, but then we are all just as guilty of it. You know, we give teams to benefit of the doubt, and I think with Hurts and his progression, and you're seeing how good he's been this year, you're probably doing the same thing that everybody else that isn't an Eagles fan, that isn't emotionally invest in it. Where I'm going big spot if they're even on the road in the NFC, you know, can Hurts go toe to toe with one of the marquee guys at the position, unless you believe that he already is that I would need more than half a year to go. Yep. I put him right there with all these other quarterbacks. It's a lot like an NBA team, like, Okay, you have a really good record, we'd like you cool, you play a little defense. Do you have a top ten guy can get you buckets when everything else is falling apart late in a playoff game? Right, Because if you don't have one of those guys, I'm probably not going to pick you to go very far. Ye. Their turn their turnover differential is so good, they're so far beyond the rest of the league Colm that I'm almost like, wait, is that actually a bad sign? Because that'll even itself out at some point. They're talented, the defense is great. Hurts and the coaching staff deserve all this credit for creating a version of offense now where everybody seems to be on the same page. They're really really good. But to go half a season like if Hurts has been like this for three years, I'm not I'm pushing back on this entirely. I just for me, it's it's very hard for me to jump right in when I haven't seen it from that position for a little bit longer time. So I don't do a show without Aaron Rodgers at least Labor Day through February. I couldn't believe it. When I got to run down, I'm like, wait, we still this is like ripken for me. I think it's twelve shows in a row. That's like we're doing it again, so let's go. So Jeremy Fowler's like, yeah, the young receivers are now all ticked off at Aaron, And I said earlier, you're people's careers and kind of like you thought they would, like Ben fell off, a Cliff Westbrook fell off, a Cliff Brady still holding on fighting forever. You know it broke up his family, and I'm like, yeah, of course that's how it ends. Jay Cutler. Nobody liked him. Yeah, they didn't like him when he played, when he was at his prime. And I look at Aaron and I think to myself, of course it's gonna end like this. It's all prickily and he's defensive and he's do you think he's called? Let me ask you this, how close do you think he is to saying I'm over this, I am over not landing free agents. I'm over I think everybody thinks they're close and then they're not, Like our business is hilarious. Like I remember, I think I got to ESPN in two thousand and six and they were talking about the lineup and they were like, you know, Golik's probably gonna be out of here soon. Like what You're like, Yeah, you know, once his kids are out of high school and everything. It's like everybody thinks they're leaving these awesome jobs, and then you never do. So every NFL player I've ever known, they all want to return or after February, right, and then they start hitting the weights and then they start thinking about like man, you know, and then July the they're back to it and they miss it all this stuff. So like Rogers has done a great job of crafting this story that he's had it so bad. What I love about this is that the receivers like millennials. Because somebody said something to me the other day, and I'm not trying to be like, oh guy, millennial or whatever. Somebody said something the other day. I was like, well, I'm just speaking my truth. I'm like, what the hell does that mean? Like you're just you just rebranded somebody being honest with somebody else. It's supposed to be this insightful revelation. Be like, no, no, man, I you can't push back on this because I am speaking my truth. I'm like, what if I think your truth is nonsense? So the point is, like I loved that the younger dudes on this team got this story out because they were like, we're sick of this, Like every week we're losing, and it's just you're just dogging us the whole time, and you weren't in training camp. So maybe it'd be a workforce dynamic that could drive Rogers crazy. But I just I always think people float this stuff out there. These people at the top of the business, the people that are incredible in their industry, and they start thinking like, hey man, I don't need this anymore, Like I'm gonna do something else. And then the reality of like what is it. What's the other thing that you're gonna do? Like, what's the other thing you can try? It's gonna be awesome, you know, and unless it were Jeopardy, which was ridiculous, like oh man, he really grinded. He was. You know, It's like, I don't I don't think these guys ever really truly want to leave until they're told they have to leave. Yeah. Yeah, I said on the air last week, I'm dying on the air I'm not going anywhere. Last yeah. I mean you you're like throwing low eighties. Now you're Jamie Moyer on the end, you know, you getting guys out, and I'm you know, I've had a couple of drinks of your life, you know, not for long. And then I see something. You resign a new deal. So you're the same guy. You and Rogers are more like than you ever realized. And Ryan knows me he actually does. All right, buddy, I might stop down an MB tonight if you're around left, grab a bigger, A good scene. Man, the hornets are on. Sorry, al right, okay,
