Colin previews the Super Bowl matchup between the Chiefs and the 49ers and why all eyes are on Brock Purdy. He tells you why he was right about Bill Belichick and wrong about LeBron James. Plus, USC head coach Lincoln Riley joins the show to explain what we can expect from Caleb Williams in the NFL and what he saw from Patrick Mahomes back in college when he coached against him at Texas Tech.
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It is a Monday, What a storm, wet, Wendy wild in Los Angeles Monday. It's the Herd. Wherever you may be and however you may be listening. Thanks for making us part of your day. One hour from now, plenty of both. Where Colin was right, where Colin was wrong. This week, one more football game left then I don't know, We'll have to figure stuff out. Watch a lot of NBAT this weekend, some college rooots as well.
Jmax.
It is Super Bowl Week officially, and we're staying here. Little you and I go to a little party on Wednesday, flying back. Yeah, I gotta be quiet about that. But the point is, I don't want to make it about Mahomes and brock Purty, but there is an interesting number out there I'll get to in a few minutes that I'm interested your thoughts on him. Is it forty seven and a half the total? No, I actually really think we're gonna have a low scoring game. So I was thinking about this. When we evaluate Patrick Mahomes, we've already put him in the all time Ish class five, six, seven, eight, l Way, Marino, Brady Manning. But when we evaluate him, he entered the league with such a bang. Remember his first year starting, fifty touchdown passes, first year rookie year, really really starting. Only Brady and Peyton Manning had done that. There was the left handed throw, the side arm throws, the sixty yard launches with ease, the Houdini escapes under pressure, and he won a ton. So that's what we initially saw. That's what we believe he is. I've said this though about Mahomes and Michael Jordan. The great thing about Michael Jordan, much of Michael Jordan's game was highly predictable. Mid range scored twenty of us four of his thirty two points about three to four times a game. He do something truly elite that only mj could do, and that has always been the secret sauce with Mahomes. He doesn't miss the easy stuff. He hits all his layups, and believe me, that's like thirteen to fifteen completions a game. If he goes, you know, twenty four for thirty two. But here's what he's become adding to that, and this is with a weak receiving corps, the weakest receiving corps of his career. Saw this stat this weekend. PFF Patrick Mahomes had zero turnover worthy plays in the playoffs, but he also avoids minor mistakes. He already led the NFL regular season with the lowest rate of what they call negatively graded dropbacks ten percent. During the playoffs, he's got it down to six point three. Conversely, brought Perty's rate of negatively gredded dropbacks twenty three percent in the playoffs so far for two home games. By the way, would be the worst rate of all quarterbacks with two hundred dropbacks in the season. So let me add to that. So Mahomes is not throwing it further or more often left handed. He's just throwing it smarter. But to really contextualize those numbers, the gap between Mahomes and Purty, Purty played two home games was a favorite in both and faced two really bad defenses, Detroit's egregiously bad in Green Bay's hit and miss bad. Mahomes against the number four defense at their place, Buffalo and against the number one defense Baltimore at their place. Both defenses thrive on turnovers, and he had zero, zero turnover worthy plays. Not at home like Purdy, not against bad defenses, no, no, no, on the road against elite defenses. By the way, he was also worthy to go against Miami, but that was at home, albeit minus twenty seven degrees. So Mahomes now is the only great quarterback in the league where you get this remarkable upside with virtually no mistakes. It would be like having the best power hitter in baseball and he never strikes out. It's and I'm I know what you're saying, you're just picking on Perdy. No not, but you have to contextualize it. Raven's defense there, Buffalo's defense there minus twenty seven degrees, zero zero turnover worthy plays and only six percent out of one hundred of negatively graded dropbacks. That is beyond that is that's the best driver on the PGA Tour, also the best putter. It was called Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods made more Clutch Potts when he was on that tear, and he was the best guy off the tee and he had good irons. That's what you're looking at. So you know, I love Jim Harbaugh. And one of the reasons I like him the NFL is a copycat league, and as the league is zigging, he is zagging. First of all, there's a story that he is really interested in Saquon Barkley, the running back. This is interesting. So first of all, remember that fatalism. Jay McK and I were talking about this, I swear to God for three months. Everybody said, nobody pays running backs, it's outrageous. My takeaway was nobody paid guards forever, tight ends and safeties. Why is it outrageous with running backs? The truth is, though many coaches love them, offensive coaches, not just old school guys. Guys like Shanahan made a big deal for Christian McCaffrey. McVeigh loves that offense. Despite all the movement, Mike McDaniel Miami with San Francisco's run game coordinator. Many of the top offensive guys in this league, Mike McDaniel, McVeigh, Shanahan, love the run game first. But what I love about Harbaugh more than everything is that the NFL is a copycat league, and he will zig or zag when you're doing the opposite. He doesn't believe in anything other than authentically his football DNA people forget this. At Stanford, when he asked quarterback easily in the country, they ran the ball more than they threw. At Michigan last year led college football with forty rushing touchdowns with the forty nine ers over the course of those four years, they were the number two rushing team. He loves He preaches physicality, and so one of the things he sees with Justin Herbert is that Herbert's become very much like Josh Allen in previous years. He can only win by shootout and they depend on him too much. I saw this stat this morning. This blew me away. In Justin Herbert's career, he has the third most pass attempts per game over the four years, but more than any current quarterback. The only quarterbacks that threw more in his four years big Ben retired and Brady retired. That Justin Herbert throws to Paul more than any current NFL quarterback yards attempt I'm saying attempts per game. The Chargers are so overwhelmingly tied to Herbert throwing. So what does Harball want to do? Get him a star back? What is? What does he want to do? Create physicality? The way to beat Patrick Mahomes is not to out Mahomes. Mahomes, it's to keep Patrick on the field. He had Andrew Luck ran more than past Niners, ran more than past So it cracks me. Yeah, the first leak with Harrorball he wants a running back. Tachy's glasses of milk and physicality one two three ABC. That's what he does. I asked him last week, how do you make your teams so physical so quickly? Wherever you go?
Guys get are good at football, you know if they the player that knows what to do, how to do it, where to align, you know, plays the technique properly.
Uh.
And then you combine that with being a superior athlete, and then you know, then you really have it. So you know, we can all we can all control, uh, you know, being being the kind of player that knows what to do and how to do it and when to do it, and then train, you know, just good old fashioned hard work, training yourself to be, you know, a good athlete, a better athlete, a superior athlete.
I do think it's interesting though. The first I wouldn't call the leak. The first story that comes out NFL moving off running backs, Harbaugh all take Saguon Barkley. By the way, I think Austin Eckler a little bit of a free agent. Barkley is the better player. Both have had some injury, get banged up, but Barkley would be your choice. They don't have a lot of cap space, so they'll have to move people. So just a little sample of what Harbaugh is gonna do. So this weekend, Lincoln Riley is gonna be joining us this hour. His great quarterback Caleb Williams should be the number one pick. I imagine will be the number one pick. Also, some Lebron trade rumors on the market. I don't get it. We'll talk to Chris Mannicks who wrote a story about it. I watched the Lakers play the Knicks entire game on Saturday night. I thought it was a great game. Now, Julius Randall didn't play, Og didn't but you know it's the NBA. Nobody's got their full line up Vanderbilt. I don't think Jared Vanderbilt play for the Lakers, But I will say this about the Lakers is that they're a weird team where they've been housed by the Hawks, the Rockets, and then they'll go out and beat Oka. See. I watched them Saturday night, and I thought to myself, I don't know what you're gonna get for Lebron if you want to trade him. But they went to Boston and New York and went to and zero in those games. I'm not sure what people expect in Los Angeles are around the league. I thought that I watched both of those games. I thought that were great in bulb of them.
By the way, Darvin Ham coming up awesome game strategy against Jalen Brunson shut him down in the fourth quarter. Lakers look kind of good, Colin, I don't know.
Yeah, for the record, Anthony Davis has to be the best defensive player in the league, really good, absolutely has to be. Didn't even really score, didn't do much offensively and controlled the fourth quarter of my guy, Austin Reeves. Huh, he was pretty good. The damn good he was.
Be sure to catch live editions of the Herd weekdays and noon eastern nine am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
All right, we do it every Monday. Where Colin was right, Where Colin was wrong, there's plenty of bath In. Here we go.
Where Colin was right.
Bill Belichick did not land any of the top eight jobs. And I said, if personnel decisions go through Bill, you can't hire him. Go to his last seven or eight drafts in New England when he had major pull, almost all of them bad. He doesn't appear to be as collaborative as the mcveigh's and the Shanahans, or even the older Andy Reid. And I think collaboration is what everybody is looking for. That's why so many of these young coaches got hired. They work well with others.
Where Colin was raw well.
On January fifteenth, I said, Cliff Kingsbury's going to the Raiders. He did, and now he's no longer with the Raiders. I thought it was finalized. It wasn't. It was a contract snaffoo. He's going to Washington. For the record. I think it's a great get by both the Raiders, and now it's a great get for Washington. Don't understand the criticism. I think he's one of the really sharp play callers in the NFL. Maybe he's not a head coach, maybe he's not going to hold some guys accountable. Dan Quinn will I love what washing did over the last three or four days.
Where Colin was right.
I said a month ago, I thought Jalen Brunson was the best star of the New York Knicks had had since Patrick Ewing. He just got voted into the All Star team. They're channing MVP. He's averaging over twenty seven a game. They've won nine of ten. I think the only weakness the Knicks have, and Julius Randall and Og were out, they feel like they need another score of Jalen Brunson's cold at the end of a game. But Brunson's intelligence, his toughness, He's got that villanova DNA right overlooked tough kid, absolute leader, plays with intensity. You get the same performance every night. Love him. All of this is absolutely deserved.
Where Colin was raw.
My initial reaction is the Kansas City Chiefs should be favored in the Super Bowl, and they were a two to a two and a half point dog, and they still are forget the Mahomes pretty situation. Andy Reid with extra time is a wizard. And I think Kansas City's defense is actually the best defense in this game. But Vegas knows something. The betters know something, because I think Kansas City wins and they're still even the wise guys. San Francisco is still the favorite.
Where Colin was right.
Baker Mayfield, MVP of the Pro Bowl Games. I had said Friday, of the three free agent quarterbacks Kirk Cousins, Tannehill or Baker, I thought he was the best available. He's the one I would sign seven years younger. I also said I'd sign him over Justin Fields, he's more consistent. I also said I'd take him over Russell Wilson if I had to pay Russell's contract. If you go look what Mayfield did in Tampa, He's become very predictable, mid nineties passer rating, gonna get twenty twenty two touchdown passes and oh, by the way, completes about sixty four percent of his passes. I think he's matured. I think he's the best quarterback not in the draft on the market.
Where Colin was raw.
Well, I've been preaching about this offensive reveel lotion in football. And then there were eight coaching openings and five went the defensive coaches. So the last ten coaches in the Super Bowl have all been offense overwhelmingly. The last let's see thirty two playoff wins. Thirty two of the last like forty playoff wins have come from offensive coaches. It's around there, twelve and twenty one, twelve and twenty two nine after the Super Bowl this year, but nobody's listening to me.
Where Colin was right.
I've been saying this college head coaching. There's a reason Chip Kelly's name is being banteed about. There's a reason Boston College head coach became a coordinator between the two recruiting periods, the transfer portal and the NIL. It's no fun unless you're a massive brand. You end up spending all your time recruiting your own players to stay. The coach that left Boston College said, there's just less time to coach for it's all about the portal, the NIL. I want to coach football. College football has got to get this right. Sab And gone, Harbaugh gone. Chip Kelly rumored, I do not think this drip drip of coaches leaving college is going to end soon. Where Colin was raw, Chris Mannis will join me in a couple of minutes. He had a story the Lakers should consider trading Lebron. I'm not sure I get it. He's their leading scorer, most consistent offensive player, and leading assist guy. Anthony Davis is a Bellweather defender. Austin Reeves is good, but hot and cold. I also think, and I'm not one of these, got to be loyal to everybody in sports, but he really saved, let's be honest, kind of a crumbling franchise that was really bad in the Lake, Kobe Bryant's final several years. I can't wait to hear from Chris. There's a lot of noise out there about Lebron being traded at the deadline. We'll get to that in a second. Where Colin was row, Ben Johnson I thought was the best young coordinator on the market offensively, and I thought he was taking the Washington job. That's what people had set out east, and he passed on it. He passed the year before, apparently on Carolina. It's possible I heard he didn't interview. Well, it's also possible he's got coordinator DNA. Maybe he just wants to be a coordinator. Not everybody's meant to be the president. Some people are vps, but a little surprised that Ben Johnson wouldn't take the gig. He probably argues, I like what I have in Detroit. This team's going nowhere. I've got a top ten quarterback. And if I don't get Caleb Williams, what's the point of going or Herbert Chargers Harball got it? What's the point of leaving Colin Wright Colin wrong?
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I saw this. Brian Costello writes to The New York Post. You say he's very credible.
I've known him for like twenty years.
Good.
Yah, Yeah, he's good, does a good job yeah yeah, yeah yeah. And he had a story today I had disagree with his premise. He said the Jets are absolutely right to cater to Aaron Rodgers' preferences. The Athletic wrote an article last week very critical of Aaron and Nathaniel Hackett. But my takeaway is, how about we have a new rule in the NFL. Owners own GMS, GM coaches, coach and players play. When Belichick tried to take over GM duties not good. When Jerry's medaled, Jerry Jones not good? Aaron brings Alan Lazard not good. Do you know how hard it is to be a great quarterback? You don't have time to be watching personnel tape? You know how hard it is to be a great coach a GM? I mean owners, You can be a bad owner very quickly. This is not a knock on Aaron. I disagree with the premise. Just let everybody do their job now. I do think you get these rare instances where you get a Jim Harbaugh or Pete Carroll comes into the NFL out off of coaching college football at an elite program, where you get like this three year window where Harball really knows college personnel, and for the next two or three drafts the Chargers should lean heavily on Jim Harbaugh's opinion on personnel. You go back to Pete Carroll, Jimmy Johnson when he came out of college Oklahoma State and Miami. His first three years in the NFL, they were working people. They just knew the college players better. Pete did. Hardball will but but I mean it's hard enough. Aaron's got rehab, He's got to be a leader, he's got to be a quarterback. This whole idea that you should lean on people to do things beyond what they do, I just don't. I don't buy into it. Look at all the instances in the NFL where people try to wear two hats. Tell me where it works. Owners meddling never works. Coaches trying to be gms the way Kansas City does it is the right way. Brett Veach is the GM really shrewd He and Andy have a great relationship. He's going to say Andy, we need this, this, this, and Andy will tell him I need this, this, this, And they're collaborative. They work together. The minute it's not collaborative, or you give a player or a coach or a GM too much influence in somebody else's pot, it just doesn't work. It just doesn't work. I mean, I don't think it works, be honest, in the NBA, and you have tiny rosters. I mean, in the NBA you got two draft picks. Maybe you make a trade deadline move. I mean, think about how few moves you make in the NBA. Tell me all the coaches in the NBA that are just I mean as good as the Warriors are. Think about this. Think about how good the Warriors are. Wiseman pick kaminga pick they almost landed DeAndre Jordan, thankfully they didn't. And they're making one or two moves a year. And Bob Myers is excellent and Steve Kurz brilliant. So NFL I can have nine, ten to eleven picks, like I don't want my coach thinking I know these guys. I just don't think most NFL coaches on a Saturday night are sitting around watching ACC football. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe that's what a lot of these coaches do. But if you get a good GM, let him GM. The other thing is people are conspiracy theories are very funny on this Cliff Kingsbury stuff. Cliff Kingsbury took the Raider job and there was a contract. I wouldn't say dispute, but there was a contract issue and he went to Washington. I wouldn't make too much out of it. More than that, I think Kingsbury's really good. I thought what he did at Arizona in a division with McVeigh twice a year, Shanahan and Pete Carroll. The fact that he got Arizona to the playoffs, I thought was a remarkable With that somebody that knows him well. USC football coach Lincoln Riley, entering your surved year with the Trojans, joined us live first of all, Lincoln, how you do it? I've had you and Jim Harball on the last two days, so it's good for me. I want to start with this. I've always liked Cliff. I think he's a very clever play caller. I think he gets along with people. He's been a head coach, so he knows what you go through in some of the vagaries of being a head coach. He goes to Washington. I think it's a great fit with he and Dan Quinn. What don't I know about Cliff? Take me behind the scenes on what he does that you really like?
Yeah, I think, you know, I think the energy and confidence level that he brings to the staff, that he brings to the players that he's around. He's got really got an infectious energy about him and always has been, and a guy that's just very, very impactful. And I think about, you know, Coach Quinn and those guys going out to Washington to restart that thing, and I think Cliff is the perfect guy to bring along with him because he's going to bring that and he's going to bring, as you said, a pedigree and a proven track record of success. And I think it's going to be I agree. I think it's a great fit. I think he and Coach Quinn will work really really well together and it's gonna be fun to see what those guys doing.
Dan Dan's a tough guy, and I think Cliff is just brings that academic side. He's so clever. You know, what are the criticisms I heard about Caleb Williams And I kind of rolled my eyes. We forget in our space. These are twenty one to twenty two year old kids. I was not capable of being a number one pick physically or emotionally out of a rack. You wouldn't have wanted to draft me out of flunk the interviews. But when I look at Caleb, I'm like, I like that he went into the stands. I like that it hurts. I like that he cares. And by the way, what I don't want is indifferent that I have no interest in. When you hear the criticisms of him, and he's not a perfect player, are any of them valid? The emotional stuff he can be moody, any of it valid to you?
I'm like you, I would rather gout. You know, care too much and not enough? And and Caleb is a tremendous competitor. He really wants to win. He does wear his emotions on his sleeve. But he is who he is, and he's he's confident in his own skin. And I think as a quarterback and as a potential leader of a franchise, you want somebody that is that that's not trying to be somebody else that they're not. And I feel like Caleb Is has always been that way. And yeah, like you said, listen, this guy's got there's a lot a lot left in front of him. I mean, he's in the last four years, he's played two and a half years of football. He's got so much more to learn, so much more room to grow. I think him getting in the right situation, with the right coaches, the right kind of development will be key because he's obviously got the ability, he's got the desire to be great, he's got the competitiveness. So now all he needs is a great situation. I believe he'll truly take off.
Did you know he'd be this talented when you went to him in high school?
I knew athletically he was that talented. The first time I got to go watch him throw the ball, I thought he threw the ball a lot better than than what people thought. And I thought he was really improving on that. And that's just continued throughout his career. And and now he's kind of on that next part of the journey, which is he can do most of the things physically. It's it's you know, run in the locker room. Yeah, it's it's it's the different game situations that you're in, being able to find different ways to win or attack, how different people are going to play you defensively, learning to play with different skill sets. I mean, it's it's kind of that next part of journey. And I think he's gonna just like he has all these other areas in his career, He's going to continue to climb.
Fourth highest winning percentage only Ryan Day, Kaylin de Boren, Kirby smart hire in college football with fifty games coach, So you move to the Big Ten. I hear this all the time. Oh, USC has got to go play in the Big ten. I'm like, you know, it rains out here too. We're okay, not every day is eighty four degrees. But if you had to make adjustments within your roster, Lincoln, are there some Big ten adjustments you have to make?
I think there's just adjustments that you have to make when you're climbing from where we were two years ago to where we want to be and where we expect to be. And I think that's just the natural evolution of building a national championship level roster and program and so a lot of me thinks that whether we were going into the Big ten or staying in the Pac twelve, that we would have been making the same improvements and adjustments regardless. And so we know there's going to be some new challenges, some new opportunity unities. We just got done playing in what was probably the best league in the country this year. Ye, and obviously there's gonna be a lot a lot more, you know, great challenges ahead, But you know, we're kind of focused on our progression. We know that as we build this, we're building it with the idea to win national championships, and to do that you have to be able to compete with and beat anybody. And so for us, it's more about the climb here at USC and then we'll play whoever they put on the schedule minute left.
First time you saw Patrick Mahomes in college, what did you make of it?
I thought he was remarkable. We played them a few times also when I was at Oklahoma. We were way more talented than them, and he just willed them into staying in the games with us that they probably had no business being in. And yeah, I just I remember, you know that we had the great game with him versus Mayfield in twenty sixteen and pat through for seven hundred plus yards, and I was just I'd never seen anything like in my life, and so yeah, been pretty cool seeing what he's doing right now.
Yeah, seven hundred yards, that's that's a day. That is well the day it's Big twelve football. There were a lot of five hundred yard days. That was the sport there. All right, Lincoln Riley third year, fourth highest winning percentage, Caleb Williams Cliff Kingsbury updates as al as coach. Good seeing you too, brother, Thanks calling all right, Lincoln Riley. Who's got Kingsbury takes? He knows them well. I don't understand the people criticizing Kingsbury. Dan Quinn is alpha. I mean, Dan is make some noise. Kingsbury's not a guy that's gonna confront players. That was the knock in Arizona. Sometimes wouldn't hold guys who got a little loose accountable. But as a play caller, Cliff was great. He is. I had two executives yesterday in the league text me after I had gone out there and said Kingsbury to the commanders, they're like that, that's a good fit, Like he and Dan Quinn. If they get the right quarterback, that's gonna work.
So when we're in Vegas this week, come to the casino with me, and let's go put a future's bet Washington to win the NFC East.
We surely can.
Find it somewhere, but I'll take it.
I'll take a flyer on it.
Remember, somebody wins that division every year. Different let's you're the Cowboys. I think Washington's gonna be very live next year. To be a guy.
I completely agree. Whether they get Caleb or Drake May. It's just weird. Dan Quinn got to a super Bowl. He was a winning coach in Atlanta. Kingsbury won in Arizona. What are you guys talking about