Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be 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. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Ah, here we go on a Tuesday. So much to talk about live in Los Angeles. It's The Herd wherever you may be and wherever you may be listening from iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio FS one. One hour from now. The Herd hierarchy. There's five teams in this league. I love. I don't know about the rest. Herd hierarchy. One hour from now. J Mac is joining me. Yesterday that was think about this weekend. Carolina destroyed Brady in the Box and Chicago destroyed New England and Foxborough. What makes this lead so great? You have no idea what you're getting. Those are two of the biggest most shocking games of this season. In you know, twenty four hours. Toss in Aaron Rodgers losing to Taylor Heineke, and now you've got Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and potentially Belichick all missing the playoffs. Colin, this is a crazy season. Crazy. Let's start with this. I think it's my job to be a little skeptical and a little cynical. People are always pump and sunshine pr people and bosses, and I'm gonna be a little cynical. Maybe it's not a good quality, but I am I pushed back. I make mistakes, but I'm never stubborn when I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I didn't like Matt Eberflus being hired a defensive coach once again with the Chicago Bears, who have a history of leaning heavily into defense as the league is changing, with a young quarterback and a bad offensive line, and their first two draft picks were a cornerback on a safety, and I didn't like it. But I have never seen Bill Belichick completely utterly out coached for three hours and forty five minutes, all phases, all night. Never seen that. I've seen Belichick lose. I've seen Belichick get blown out. I have never seen Belichick get on like that. Belichick seventy percent of Bill's wins. You remember the Super Bowls, You remember the AFC Championship, seventy percent of his wins are over news staffs, young quarterbacks, he makes some play left handed, and the games aren't competitive. Eberflus did that to Belichick last night, and that was ugly. Now it helps that New England doesn't draft or acquire offensive talent very well, and as the league pivots to an offensive league, the Patriots have looked, to say the least clunky. My only question last night after that game was, Okay, the Bears had a few extra days because they played on Thursday. Is this the new standard? Is this the team that'll go play Dallas? Because every week the Bears, it feel feels like to me are a little better. Is this now the ceiling or the standard? Because and you see this sometimes it's just a magical night. It's very possible, extra prep time with a young quarterback, young old line. It was a magical night. You see it in college football all the time. You see a fifteen point twenty point underdog win. It's a good matchup, they get a couple of breaks early, the other team can't get their quarterback right. It could have just been a magical night. That's entirely possible. But it feels like to me. When you're a rebuilding team, like let's say the Jets, there are certain boxes you want to check right, the quarterback, the left tackle, the edge of rush, or the Jets got the GM right. Joe Douglas has had back to back great drafts. I don't know if the coachs and the quarterback are right. Who knows, but the Jets have checked a box. Joe Douglas GM check. New York Giants are rebuilding. We don't know about the new GM. We'll have to see, you know, the draft picks. But Brian Dayble, the coach check. The Giants have checked the coach box. They got that right. Denver not so sure. And I look at the Bears right now, and I still don't like offensive line. They don't have enough weapons, but they got they got the corner, they got the safety, and I think we can check the coach. This looks like a fundamentally really well coached team. And I gotta tell you something. Last night, justin fields thirteen to twenty one hundred and seventy nine yards eighty five passer rating, it is possible that's what he is a very athletic kid that runs out of the pocket too soon. But can deliver strikes, can get it downfield. I don't know what he is. He doesn't look terribly comfortable in the pocket on a regular basis. But even with him as a defensive coach, Luke getsy the offensive coordinator. I like the game they call. I like the game they call. I mean, think about this, even with that offensive line and limited weapons, they had twenty four first downs, They had the ball for thirty seven minutes and average six yards a pass. So the defensive leaning organization and defensive head coach, that's pretty good. Without offensive line, they even figured that out. But the Bears roster is pretty talent thin on the offensive side. But and I say this all the time, if you hire a coach, can he get his side of the ball right? That Bears defense is playing above itself. I don't think they're that talented. I mean they got a rookie corner, rookie safety. These guys are playing like pro bowlers. So that he has ace that he has figured that defense out. That is a great side. McVay figured out the offense in La immediately, McDermott defense in Buffalo very quickly. And the second thing is Luke getsy the offensive coordinator. I said this three weeks ago. I said it a week ago. He's really clever. Maybe that's part of green based problems. He left the Packers he went to the Bears. I think he's clever. I like what he does. Some of it's smoking mirrors without offensive line, but sometimes you got to use smoking mirrors in life to get by. But I think in this league, getting the coach right in a rebuilding setting is at least thirty percent of the equation. It maybe fifty percent of the equation, and if you don't have the right quarterback, it could be sixty to seventy percent of the equation. But it looks like the Bears hit one out of the park. And I was a cynic and I doubted it, but I'm not stubborn. This is a well coached football team and that is cool. And the Jets got the right GM. The Giants have the right coach, and that is cool. Here's Matt after we had a chance to take a breath during the bye week and really figure out, you know, what we needed to do and needed to adjust what we're doing well and some things we needed to tweak a little bit, and no big, big changes but just some things that to enhance our players skill out goal sets. And I thought we did a good job with him. All right, let's talk New England whatever that was. Whatever that was. So Year one post Tom Brady was Cam Newton. It was a noble effort, but it didn't do much. Year two without Tom Brady it was Mac Jones. Well I got to the playoffs. Year three is the first year no Brady, no Josh McDaniels. It ain't great. It's not good. They don't know, they don't know what they're doing on offense. And here's the thing. Even goats. Belichick's a goat. Even goats have holes. Michael Jordan could very often be hard to play with and revert back to being a ballhog. And then he got Phil Jackson pulled him back a little. Play well with others. As great as Brady is, he has needed a good offensive line. By the way, you want to know the problems in Tampa right now, they lost their Pro Bowl center and both guards. They brought in Shack Mason, but they can't run the football and Tom can't move. That's a big part of it. Tom always had good old lines. He didn't know ys have a great defense in New England. He didn't know as have star receivers always had a good line, always right now, he didn't have one. Belichick, what's his hole. He's a defensive coach, and he's a seventy year old defensive coach, and he doesn't have a great feel for how to I mean, come on, just play Bailey's appy. If he stinks, make the move at half. But you literally start him after a pick, you bail on him. That's not how you do it, mac Jones. The crowd is chanting for Bailey's Appy, just you should have played him from the start. And then if Bailey's Appy stinks, you play mac Jones. But you put mac Jones in when Bailey's Appy's on a two game winning streak and tearing it up, and the crowd's rooting for mac Jones, and mac Jones hears it. And then and then mac Jones throws a pick, you pull him Zappy as a good series or two, the crowd's going nuts. Mac Jones is sitting there in a stadium that nobody wants him on the team. It's not how you handle it. All I know is this is the first year without Brady and Josh McDaniels in this offense that last night was bad and it was what Belichick had done to others for years. So, you know, I like Bailey, Zappy, Mac Jones is fine, but neither of these guys now has a great wide receiver tight end group. The offensive line is okay, not special. I like the running backs, but you're in a division with Josh Allen twice a year and now Mike McDaniel. For two decades, New England won a lot of games. They were boring, but they want a lot of games now they're average and boring. Robert Kraft did not become a billionaire sitting idly by. This is a boring team and on a fairly regular occurrence, not necessarily a good team. Belichick on that weird quarterback shuffle after the game, who is the starting quarterback? We just finished the game. So when Mac came out of the game, Bill, was that a medical decision? The timing of the bulling him, So is that related to the interception that was his last play tonight? No, we have planned to play I told the quarterbacks that we're gonna We're gonna play both of them, and so was the plan for three series. It just seems when his last plays an interception, it looks like a benching for performance. That's not what it was. But you know, I can write whatever you want to write, that's not what it was. Considering the game was in Foxborough, there's Bailey Zappie signs everywhere. He played great back to back weeks. You just keep going with the kid. If you want to play Mac Jones, play him at half. If you lead twenty eight, nothing you can. If you're trail twenty eight, nothing you could. But it just wasn't handled well, and the perception is now Mac Jones feels like a beaten down kid who needs all the support he can get from the coach because he certainly doesn't get it from his wide receivers in his tight end. All Right, an idea from somebody I respect. It'll get major pushback, but I just respect the person for suggesting it, because everybody's paralyzed now about being criticized on social media. I like the idea. May not be right, but I like the idea With the forty nine ers. 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 Welcome Back. Bill Barnwell is a very respected journalist covers the NFL. Really really smart guy. We have him on the show occasionally, and I just appreciate his suggestion that he made because so many people in our business are terrified of being wrong that I think it hurts critical thinking. I think it. I think we should throw stuff out there and it can be totally wrong. Who gives a rip if you get criticized? This is exploration, is what creates technology, what new medicine. Just take big swings at stuff. Do your work, take big swings. Who cares if you're wrong. We're all wrong, so Barnwell says, because the Niners are getting very expensive and the Trey Lance thing was really ugly, like he couldn't complete fifty percent of his throws or barely did, they should consider moving him. He could still get a first or a second round pick. I mean, there's eight teams that needs a quarterback or trading Brandon I yuk to get some draft capital back because they have Deebo Samuel Jennings. And here's the thing. A lot of things sound ridiculous, like Tom Brady leaving Belichick in New England for completely dysfunctional Tampa they want a super Bowl. Or the Kansas City Chiefs off a twelve and four record moving up to take a quarterback who had a losing college record from a conference the Big Twelve that kept giving the NFL duds at quarterback. That was Patrick Mahomes. Or the Rams hiring a thirty year old offensive coach from a dysfunctional mess in Washington. Yeah, we're gonna give a thirty year old. Sometimes you struggle to give a thirty year old the keys to the car. We're gonna give you the keys to a four billion dollars organization. Oh, by the way, he wasn't even a candidate. He came out of nowhere. That was Sean McVeigh. Be careful on crazy ideas not working. Be careful the number one rule in business, the number one rule. Double down on what's working, and don't get stubborn. Move off stuff that's not now. I think it's too early to move off Trey Lands. I'd give him another ota another preseason, but Philadelphia moved up to get Carson Wentz and gave him over one hundred million and moved off him. How they doing today and Arizona fired a coach and moved off Josh Rosen the following year. I think they're better with Kyler Murray. Be careful about thinking stuff as crazy. Bill Barnwell is basically saying, listen, man, this is ugly. Didn't work. It's not close. He's saying, resigned Garoppolo. At least you know what you get with him. You're not starting over Garoppolos won seventy one percent of his starts. That's not terrible. But I thought Trey Lance was a great pick. I thought he checked like four to five boxes. The only question was he'd been inactive. There's a scarcity of tape. Is he a good thrower of the football? But I'd met him. He's a smart kid, he's athletic, he's a hard worker. He checked a lot of boxes. Yeah, the Niners thought he checked all those boxes too. You can just stick with it. What if he has another OTA and he's fifty percent completion, go to preseason fifty percent completion, You give him a starting job next year? Fifty percent completion? You know again, you're not bodyming out. But Barnwell's suggestion is don't double down on wrong, which I will o o as defense doesn't mean I'd move off him now. I wouldn't yet, but folks, the great ones you can see. I remember when Mahomes went to Kansas City and Peter Schrager is texting me in his rookie camp, and it's like, they have found Marino. What kid couldn't win in college? He couldn't win in the Big twelve. They're like, you're I am hearing Justin Herbert. Remember the first start when Tyrod Taylor had something punctured by a they put him in. Remember how many doubters there were on Justin Herbert a half into his career. You're like, oh, okay, they're good. You just what you don't want to do is get rigid and double down on wrong. I wouldn't move off trey Land, but I would watch it very closely. I would. You know, I'm a Garoppolo fan. You all hate him. He started, He's won seventy one percent of his game. Shannan's number won without him. He won in New England, he wins in San Francisco. And I think if Brady retired and he went there, he'd win in Tampa Bay. I really do. I think he'd go in the division into J Mack with the news. No, no, this is the herd Line news. I clearly need to read this Bill Barnwell piece. Well, you know he's super bright. If you say so, I don't. I don't know he's work. But I'm just looking at Trey Lance here. He started five games, and this dude saying maybe move off of him. Well, it's not just five games. It was five games, and there appears to be a clear issue with the accuracy and throwing. I was told by two different people, one inside the organization and a throwing coach out. They are deeply concerned, like deeply concerned within the organization that it's just not working, and they can the ceiling on the accuracy. Folks, if you can't complete sixty one percent of your throws in this league, it doesn't work. I've always thought the move was crazy to move off Garoppolo, but giving up all those picks for not giving him five, I wouldn't do it yet. But the suggestion of it is you got to win in this league or you get fired. You don't get a lot of second and third chances to be a head coach. You have to consider it. Take the call interesting Okay, I hope my Jets don't go after Trey Lance. Let's go to the first story here. Tom Brady came out of retirement to go for another Super Bowl with the Bucks. Things have gone very, very wrong. They're three and four, embarrassing loss of the Panther's biggest upset of the season. I think we'd agree that, oh yeah, the Patriots losing to the Bears has to be number two. But despite the slow start, Tom Brady he's still committed as ever to this Tampa Bay football team. You know, I made a commitment to this team, and I love this team and I love this organization. I told him in March I was playing and I've never quit on anything in my life. And I know a bunch of teammates that we all count on one another to be at our best and to work hard and to put the team first. And that's what you commit to, and that's what you want your teammates to commit to as well. I want to keep fighting as hard as I can, and I'm always trying to do better. I'm always trying to work hard, and I'm always trying to commit more to the things that are important to me. This team is very important to me, and I certainly want to be the best I can be for them commit more to the things that are important to me. I wonder if Dizel's hearing that and saying, well, you made a commitment to me and our family and you're breaking that commitment now. Tom, Well, could I simplify Tampa's problems? They lost one of the most underrated players in the league, Ryan Jensen center. Go look at the teams in the NFL this year that have had awful weeks. The Chargers missing a center. We don't talk about centers. He lost his Pro Bowl center. They can't run the ball now, and now Tom's dropping back to throw forty five and fifty times a game at forty five years old. I think if Ryan Jensen's here, so I can. I think a lot of their stuff is solvable. But they lost their starting center, Ali Marpett retired, they're left they all ast all three guys in the middle. Shack Mason's helped, but some of this stuff is they don't run the ball consistently. So you're now incredibly Tom reliant, which, by the way, Mike Evans is never healthy, Chris Godwin's never healthy. AB's gone, Gronk's gone. Some of this stuff, in hindsight, is a little predictable. Injuries hurt, you know what Brady misses. I'll never forget. Sitting here in Fox this is like four years ago and Dave Wanstatt was telling a story about the Falcons Patriots Super Bowl and how Brady at halftime was like, we got to just get the ball to James White because this pass rush is killing us. They don't have a James White like a Swiss Army knife guy comes out of the backfield. They just don't happen. I think of what they lost from last year. Ali Marpet a great guard and all a Pro Bowl center, Gronk in the red zone, ab speed, Bruce Arian's coaching the other guard. And by the way, they had major cluster injuries on the O line and receiver September. So like, this is hard. I still think they win in a vision, but sometimes we just have to realize if if I came to work and you're not here for a week and then Ryan's off, and then it's harder. It's harder to do a show. It's harder in life. If if you work at a hospital and this ner this has gone, and then your utter doctor's gone. Chiefest staff takes a month off it. You need your people, you need your allies, and right now they're just kind of an injured a lot of change, chaos, trying to figure out out a team. What's up with Todd Bowles's defense? The identity of the Bucks under Brady had been you can't run on us. The Panthers just ran for two hundred yards, all right? Next up, Alan Lazard was forced to leave the Packers game against the Commander Sunday with his shoulder injury. Remember Randall Cobb's already out Colin and now Alan Lazard. His status for this week is in question. Matt Lafloor said it's unclear if he'll be there for the Bills. Oh boy, did you see the point spread on this game? I biggest spread ever? If I said to you Buffalo forty Green Bay thirteen, is that outrageous? I think that's a little bit. Okay? All right? Lazard does lead the Packers and receiving with three hundred and forty, but do they have any chance against the Bills this week? Do you understand what an eleven point line is? Ten and a half point? Buffalo off of the buy healthy this is built. I don't even know what to say here. Packers three and five. Look at the NFL schedule this weekend. Think about where green Bay's add as a franchise. I think I get a coaching edge, a quarterback edge, a pass rush edge, a weapon's edge, a home field edge. And for the record, what is the weather? The only thing that can help green Bay? If it's forty mile an hour winds and you can't throw the Stevon Diggs and Gabriel Davis. But if it's reasonable weather, reasonable weather. And by the way, green Bay's also a team that when they fall behind, they fall fast down fourteen nothing. This thing could get forty thirteen, could be like the Steelers. Nos Now, Now, I thought last night New England would win by blow up. So stuff happens, green Bay could play great. They could finally give the ball to Aaron Jones consistently. I don't can't figure that out. So this Buffalo front has dominate. I'm just talking obliterated some offensive lines back tri I don't think he didn't play against Washington. Washington killed the Packers at a lot of scrimmage. So this could get ugly for Rogers. Are you already starting to write Monday's lead into the show throwing dirt on Aaron Rodgers? All right, final story, Let's get to the biggest game of weekend, the Jets and the Patriots. College Listen, some somber news for the Jets. Grease Hall officially done for the season with an ACL But that wasn't it. M a vt the great offensive lineman from USC. He had been great, the best offensive lineman for the Jets this year. He's out for the season. I think that I think you can get about seventy percent of Breefe Hall on the market. They went and got Greg Robinson is James Robinson, James Robins, imagine, okay, So I think he's seventy seventy five percent of Breeese. I think that's okay. They also have a backup running back who is Michael Carter. Michael Carter. He's fine. So I think they're okay at running back. I mean, Robinson's fine, James Robinson's fine. But you cannot complete replace before the trading deadline. Who's giving up a great offensive line? That's the problem. I don't They're looking around, Douglas apportedly looking for an offensive lineman. The asking price is going to be too high for any of the Carolina guys, and there really aren't a lot of other teams selling it. I don't think Houston selling Tounsil even though they're terrible. Browns have two great guards. Would they give up one? I don't think they're They think they're in the mix. They're like, wait, we might be what are they two and five? We think we're close to four and three because we've just lost some coin flip games to the Jets, and you know, we should have beat the Ravens. And I think they think Deshaun Watson could save them. So they're not selling anybody. I just I don't know what the Jets are gonna do offensively. That being said, we just watched the Patriots get their butts kid? Are they any good Jets? Patriots is fascinating this week? Well, what do you mean it's what do you mean not fascinating? It's a great game. Well it's I don't think it's fascinating. I think if you're a Jets fan, it's interesting that line is Patriots favored by two in New York and he leaned there for you boy, Yeah, it's a tough one New England. I know. I'm sorry. They just got humiliated. Better quarterback controversy. No, that's not a controversy, Jack of the news, Well that's the news, and thanks for stopping the herd heard hierarchy top of our number two. So I saw this story. I love college football, it can be really hokey. I saw this story. Texas Steve Sarkisian is sorry for missing the Eyes of Texas after they lost a game. He didn't go over to the corner of the stadium and sing the eyes of Texas. Here it is, here, it is. He's sorry, he feels very bad. I own apology to Longhorn Nation. I made a mistake at the end of the game and not singing the eyes of Texas when the game was done. That was not anything intentional. That was not anything that had to do with our players. I think our players just followed me up the ramp into the locker room, obviously upset by the way the game ended, and U literally walked off the field. So I apologize to everybody for that. That'll never happen again. Okay, A lot of college football is this hokey college rara stuff. It's cheesy, but it's college football. But if you wonder why Brian Kelly fakes his Southern charm, because it works. College football coaches are used car salesman too often. Gotta eat that third piece of apple pie. That's the best I've ever had. I talked to Barry Switzer once about college recruiting. It was unbelievable. He was incredibly honest. You gotta make sure dad likes you. You gotta pretend you like hanging out with a boosters, You gotta sing the college song. That's why a lot of guys just want to go coach pro football or be a coordinator. Many of the top college coaches are faking they can actually coach. Jimbo Fisher's a recruiter. That's pretty much it. Sark in this moment, needed to fake it by into that stuff. I deeply care because in college football, you gotta make the local fans and the boosters and the region believe, Hey, he's one of us. And so Brian Kelly gets ripped by northerners and ripped by people. But in the end, down there, he's buying in. Hey, I'm here, and I'm here for years, and I'm buying in and I love Louisiana and they're okay with it. And when you lose, well Sark lost, it gets magnified. You know who's no longer cringey and no longer anybody cares about it. Brian Kelly, he's winning. He's tied with Alabama. So when you take that college football job, just realize. And I'm very thankful. As a Pac twelve guy, we don't have a lot of this stuff. But when you take some of these jobs, many of them, you know, they're Texas and it's in the South. You gotta sing that fight song, and you gotta kind of pander to the boosters and the local car salesman, and it's tedious, but it is part of the sport. If would have won, he would not have had to probably address it with the urgency and the hand motions. And I'm sorry, and I apologize at the knee of Texas football. But you know, it's almost like you know what I always feel like with college football coaches. It's like those rock bands that tour. It's part of the game. You have to go on stage. Nobody rocks like Cleveland. Actually everybody does. We're in Chicago tomorrow and they rock way more than Cleveland. But it makes Cleveland feel good, or Dayton, Ohio, or Green Bay, Wisconsin, or Omaha, Nebraska, or Eugene, Oregon makes him feel good. You're buying in. You're one of them, and you gotta do it in college. But for the record, it is cheesy. I mean, it is kind of cheesy. Right. We could a little bit, kinda sorta didn't gi him to win games or sing. But this is why Brian Kelly doing that southern thing. They love it. That's okay, it's part of the game. You gotta go on stage. You gotta go on stage and tell everybody nobody rocks like oh Maha, and then tomorrow nobody rocks like Iowa. All right, a lot of people do. But it's okay. You gotta be put your arms around people. A little cheesy heard hierarchy Top of the Hour. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdayson noon Easter nine am Pacific. Hey, this is Jason McIntyre. Join me every weekday morning on my podcast Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. This isn't your typical sportspod pushing the same tired narratives down your throat every day. Straight Fire gives you honest opinions on all the biggest sports headlines, accurate stats to help you win big at the sports book, and all the best guests. Do yourself a favor and listen to Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Good to have you in today, all sorts of stuff. The game last night was it was the whole weekend, Carolina crushing Brady. I've never seen Belichick owned like that for three and a half hours. That was a complete display. It wasn't just to win. It wasn't just the route. All three phases owned all of them all night. It was what Belichick did to other young quarterbacks for the last twenty some years. Albert Breer, Senior reporter, money mowning quarterback. You know, I said, I always go into coaching hires most of the time and new quarterbacks a little critical, a little cynical, because, let's be honest, four to five quarterbacks drafted in the first round don't become stars, and seventy percent of these coaches hired don't work. So I looked at Matt Eberflus, and I was like, Oh, here go the Bears again, defensive coach in an offensive league. They draft a corner in a safety first, two picks at whole line. But I'm sitting here watching him last night. I've watched them in the last couple of nights, and I gotta tell you he has I don't think their defense is as good as it's playing. He's fixed the defense. I don't know. It looks like to me, you tell me. I was critical of the higher Pollion. By the way, Bill Pollian's the one that led that coaching search. I was told in Chicago the owners called Bill and said, find us a coach. Are you shocked? How good? I mean? I think what he is doing is pretty special. Well, and Mattieberflus is Rod Marinelli's guy. Rod Marinelli is Tony Dungee's guy. Tony Dungee is Bill Pollian's guy. Which is kind of how you can see that playing out the way that it did. But you know, I think sometimes we overrate the offensive play caller thing and the quarterbacks thing. And you know, I think Sean mcvah and Kyle Shanahan, guys like that would tell you that the actual play calling, the quarterback development is a small percentage of their job, and so much of it is building the right staff and bill, the right atmosphere in the building. And I think we're starting to see those things already show up. And I think they show up every week with the Bears. Look how hard they're playing, right like on a weekend, a week out. Basis, they're not going to win every game. This still may only be a six one team, but they're locked in. They believe what their coaches are selling them, and they're playing their asses off. And then the second piece of it, it goes to the staff, the adaptability there. Right, what were we all say in the first month and a half of the season, why aren't you running justin fields more? You're not doing enough with him? Matt Naggie and his staff really didn't do that last year, right, And how much easier could you make it on justin fields if you do design some runs for him and get him going and move the pocket. What do we see last night? An adjustment justin fields is a runner being used a little bit more justin fields in a moving pocket a little bit more. So, you know, I look at like the effort on the part of the players and the adaptability on the part of Matti Eberflus's staff as really good signs of the program is heading in the right direction. So I you know, listen, Belichick is clunky offensively. This is the first year without Brady and Josh McDaniel, and it's been ugly. Okay, first, you know, Dante left. First, they were okay, they made the play, and then and then Brady leaves, and then and then Josh leaves, and it feels like that Bailey's Appy mac Jones situation. The whole crowd turned on mac Jones. I'm like, you got to do a better job than this, right, Why why didn't they just start Bailey's Appy and see how that transpired? Right? I think the problem Colin here is like Belichick's obsession with treating the quarterback position like every other position on the field, when there's an acknowledgement across the sport that it's not like every other position. And this goes back to, you know, his relationship with Brady and his willingness to let's call it what it was and f Brady in front of the entire team to try to create that sort of feeling in the building that if Brady's not exempt from this, no one else is. And I think you even heard I think he said it on the radio this morning that like we have rotations other positions too, the position, the position of quarterback isn't like every other position. You have to handle it differently. It's different from the time these guys are eight nine years old. They're treated differently, they're developed differently, they're coached differently, they're handled differently as pros. And I mean, look like to me, like last night they can say till the cows come home and was part of the plan. You know what I saw. What I saw was something that looked like a duck and quack like a duck. So it's hard not to call it a duck. Mac Jones looked like he was benched last night. Yeah, and there's gonna be repercussions to that. Three and out three and out throws, a pick pulled from the lineup, doesn't go back in. That happens everywhere anywhere else. We're calling it a benching. And that's with a guy who's coming off of a high ankle spring. What's that going to do to his confidence right going forward? Especially when his backup played pretty well against both Detroit and Cleveland, and so I think there are implications here and it's going to be really interesting to see the way this is handled. And I also I'm gonna be curious to see if there's any pushback on that staff. I think the way they handled last night, I think that's something Josh McDaniels might have pushed back against Bill Belichick doing Mapatrician Joe Judge have done a nice job over the last few weeks. Do they have the sort of collateral in the building to push back on what Bill is doing here? It's, like I said, it's going to be a fascinating situation to monitor over the next couple of weeks and how they handle Mac Jones coming back off the injury. All Right, so Jim Er says a powerful owner, he's got strong opinions on Dan Snyder on his personnel. I don't think Ballard and Frank Wright love the idea of bailing on Carson Wentz, who had twenty sevent tds and seven picks. Those are pretty good numbers. But Ersey wanted him out. He was ticked off. Now Matt Ryan gets benched. My initial reaction is this is Jim Ersay. But I also think Matt look, he has aged quickly. What are the scouts saying, what are your sources saying on the situation? An indie with Matt Ryan. Yeah, I checked him with a couple of scouts who felt like his arm was shot, you know, watching him, and that the league actually told us what they really thought of Matt Ryan when there was only a third round pick out there for a former MVP quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons to go and get. And so yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing now that the cults are bailing this quickly on that Ryan is first and foremost of an indictment on Ryan. Because the plan here between Jim Irsay and Chris Baller and Frank Reich was for Matt Ryan to be the quarterback for the next three or four years Allah Peyton Manning in Denver like that he could be that guy to hold the fort and help buy them time to find the quarterback of the future. I think what we've got now, Colin is, like you said, a little bit of an ownership driven situation. And I think that this is a statement from the owner that he wants this situation taking care of long term. He's sick of the revolving door at quarterback. Remember this is a guy who had two long term answers over the last twenty five years in Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck. He knows what it feels like to have that guy and he wants to find that guy now. He doesn't want to wait any longer for it. So you put Sam Ellinger in there. His intangibles are off the charts. The question. The question is going to be physically, can he get it done. You're gonna get some answers on that. If he can be the guy going forward, great, I don't think they're counting on it. If he can't, maybe you sink closer to the bottom of the league and then you're in a position to take one next year. So I think that's sort of the thought process of the owner here. And you know, again, it'll be interesting to see what that means for the future of Chris Bowden. Frank Reik as well. You know, a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was last week, Jay mack I said, I feel like Mahomes and Josh Allen have separated from the league. That's Tier one, and then Tier two is about twelve quarterbacks. We all like somewhere young Jalen Hurt. Summer Old Brady and I watched Burrow and if you take out the first game, the first game where he had appendexmy surgery, didn't practice, didn't play from the Cowboy game, especially the second half on He's got like sixteen touchdowns in one giveaway. The game looks easier to him. It just simply looks easier to him. You did a story, you talked to his dad years go, Yeah, I mean what is I mean? What did he say about his son? Yeah? So, you know, as I did a story with Joe, you know, in the summer, and you know, I talked to his dad, Jimmy Burrow, who has been a coach forever and ever and ever was Frank Solich's defensive coordinator at Ohio University. And you know, Joe had said to me, like, it's just always made sense to me when I look out there across the line of scrimmage, what I'm looking at has always made sense to me. And so I asked Jimmy about that, and I said, is there a story like from when he was younger that really illustrates that? And he said, yes, there is one. Actually, So when Joe was in the third grade, he's playing organized football for the first time, coach puts him at quarterback, and over the course of preseason practice, the coach had noticed this kid's pretty smart when it comes to football, coach's son and everything else. So he gave him the freedom to if the center wasn't covered, tapped the center on the side and then run a quarterback sneak on his own, like unilaterally, make that decision. Remember he's eight years old at this point. So first series, first time playing quarterback, first time in organis football. Joe Burrow taps the center on the side, runs for a seventy yard touchdown. And if you go back and you look at it, and Jimmy Burrow still has the video of it, you see it. It looks like he's two yards across the line of screens before anybody knows what to do with it, you know, and he's just he's got one of the And Jimmy said to me, you kept seeing the stuff over and over and over again the older he gets, and obviously it gets more advanced over the years, but I think you can see it even now, like this year like you saw it last year, right, like in the way that they were able to advance the offense and make it what it was and get Jamarchase up to speed as a rookie receiver and create hit and make history, you know from that position. And this year, you know, what you're seeing from Cincinnati is a lot of what Kansas City went through last year. Entirely new offensive line and a lot of teams playing too high. Safety is to stop them and on the fly. Joe Burrow has adjusted to that, and he's adjusted to it faster than the Chiefs did last year. This is a dangerous team callin And I've said this a few times now, there's no quarterback that's coming the league over the last twenty years that is a closer comp to Tom Brady than Joe Burrow. Yeah, And I think we look at Mahomes now and those guys are fantastic, phenomenal talents, but it's physically obvious with them, right. I think we don't lump Burrow into that group because it's not as physically obvious. But I think when you're talking about quarterbacks over the next fifteen to twenty years, Mahomes Alan Burrow is in that group. Yeah, Albert Brer Monday morning quarterback, fantastic stuff, great scene, a game, a man, all right, thanks going. I get at the honor of interviewing Joe Burrow every Tuesday. I'll talk to him this afternoon, and he's got a little bit like the Brady. Now, Brady's obviously married a super bottle and become this, you know, legendary guy. But Burrow and Brady at their core just kind of got this sort of work ethos. You know, regular dad, regular job, work hard, head down, relate to people, like people, very communicative. You don't get the ego. You just don't. With Burrow. I talk to him every week. You don't get any ego. He's just just as normal and relate, bole and decent as you're gonna get. It's pretty cool, like it's you know, because you get I could name names, you get a lot of egos. A lot of these college kids comes out and they've been told how great they are, none of that stuff from Burrel. Can you think of the last quarterback colin who went to college, couldn't make it to be the starter, transferred, did nothing his first year, second year historical greatness, and then becomes an early legend in the NFL. His story is incredible. Wow. Everybody's got a different path and that's what's great about the NFL. All right, our number two heard hierarchy. Maybe it's a bit of a mess. It's the herd.

Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be 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. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Ah, here we go on a Tuesday. So much to talk about live in Los Angeles. It's The Herd wherever you may be and wherever you may be listening from iHeartRadio, Fox Sports Radio FS one. One hour from now. The Herd hierarchy. There's five teams in this league. I love. I don't know about the rest. Herd hierarchy. One hour from now. J Mac is joining me. Yesterday that was think about this weekend. Carolina destroyed Brady in the Box and Chicago destroyed New England and Foxborough. What makes this lead so great? You have no idea what you're getting. Those are two of the biggest most shocking games of this season. In you know, twenty four hours. Toss in Aaron Rodgers losing to Taylor Heineke, and now you've got Aaron Rodgers, Tom Brady and potentially Belichick all missing the playoffs. Colin, this is a crazy season. Crazy. Let's start with this. I think it's my job to be a little skeptical and a little cynical. People are always pump and sunshine pr people and bosses, and I'm gonna be a little cynical. Maybe it's not a good quality, but I am I pushed back. I make mistakes, but I'm never stubborn when I'm wrong. I'm wrong. I didn't like Matt Eberflus being hired a defensive coach once again with the Chicago Bears, who have a history of leaning heavily into defense as the league is changing, with a young quarterback and a bad offensive line, and their first two draft picks were a cornerback on a safety, and I didn't like it. But I have never seen Bill Belichick completely utterly out coached for three hours and forty five minutes, all phases, all night. Never seen that. I've seen Belichick lose. I've seen Belichick get blown out. I have never seen Belichick get on like that. Belichick seventy percent of Bill's wins. You remember the Super Bowls, You remember the AFC Championship, seventy percent of his wins are over news staffs, young quarterbacks, he makes some play left handed, and the games aren't competitive. Eberflus did that to Belichick last night, and that was ugly. Now it helps that New England doesn't draft or acquire offensive talent very well, and as the league pivots to an offensive league, the Patriots have looked, to say the least clunky. My only question last night after that game was, Okay, the Bears had a few extra days because they played on Thursday. Is this the new standard? Is this the team that'll go play Dallas? Because every week the Bears, it feel feels like to me are a little better. Is this now the ceiling or the standard? Because and you see this sometimes it's just a magical night. It's very possible, extra prep time with a young quarterback, young old line. It was a magical night. You see it in college football all the time. You see a fifteen point twenty point underdog win. It's a good matchup, they get a couple of breaks early, the other team can't get their quarterback right. It could have just been a magical night. That's entirely possible. But it feels like to me. When you're a rebuilding team, like let's say the Jets, there are certain boxes you want to check right, the quarterback, the left tackle, the edge of rush, or the Jets got the GM right. Joe Douglas has had back to back great drafts. I don't know if the coachs and the quarterback are right. Who knows, but the Jets have checked a box. Joe Douglas GM check. New York Giants are rebuilding. We don't know about the new GM. We'll have to see, you know, the draft picks. But Brian Dayble, the coach check. The Giants have checked the coach box. They got that right. Denver not so sure. And I look at the Bears right now, and I still don't like offensive line. They don't have enough weapons, but they got they got the corner, they got the safety, and I think we can check the coach. This looks like a fundamentally really well coached team. And I gotta tell you something. Last night, justin fields thirteen to twenty one hundred and seventy nine yards eighty five passer rating, it is possible that's what he is a very athletic kid that runs out of the pocket too soon. But can deliver strikes, can get it downfield. I don't know what he is. He doesn't look terribly comfortable in the pocket on a regular basis. But even with him as a defensive coach, Luke getsy the offensive coordinator. I like the game they call. I like the game they call. I mean, think about this, even with that offensive line and limited weapons, they had twenty four first downs, They had the ball for thirty seven minutes and average six yards a pass. So the defensive leaning organization and defensive head coach, that's pretty good. Without offensive line, they even figured that out. But the Bears roster is pretty talent thin on the offensive side. But and I say this all the time, if you hire a coach, can he get his side of the ball right? That Bears defense is playing above itself. I don't think they're that talented. I mean they got a rookie corner, rookie safety. These guys are playing like pro bowlers. So that he has ace that he has figured that defense out. That is a great side. McVay figured out the offense in La immediately, McDermott defense in Buffalo very quickly. And the second thing is Luke getsy the offensive coordinator. I said this three weeks ago. I said it a week ago. He's really clever. Maybe that's part of green based problems. He left the Packers he went to the Bears. I think he's clever. I like what he does. Some of it's smoking mirrors without offensive line, but sometimes you got to use smoking mirrors in life to get by. But I think in this league, getting the coach right in a rebuilding setting is at least thirty percent of the equation. It maybe fifty percent of the equation, and if you don't have the right quarterback, it could be sixty to seventy percent of the equation. But it looks like the Bears hit one out of the park. And I was a cynic and I doubted it, but I'm not stubborn. This is a well coached football team and that is cool. And the Jets got the right GM. The Giants have the right coach, and that is cool. Here's Matt after we had a chance to take a breath during the bye week and really figure out, you know, what we needed to do and needed to adjust what we're doing well and some things we needed to tweak a little bit, and no big, big changes but just some things that to enhance our players skill out goal sets. And I thought we did a good job with him. All right, let's talk New England whatever that was. Whatever that was. So Year one post Tom Brady was Cam Newton. It was a noble effort, but it didn't do much. Year two without Tom Brady it was Mac Jones. Well I got to the playoffs. Year three is the first year no Brady, no Josh McDaniels. It ain't great. It's not good. They don't know, they don't know what they're doing on offense. And here's the thing. Even goats. Belichick's a goat. Even goats have holes. Michael Jordan could very often be hard to play with and revert back to being a ballhog. And then he got Phil Jackson pulled him back a little. Play well with others. As great as Brady is, he has needed a good offensive line. By the way, you want to know the problems in Tampa right now, they lost their Pro Bowl center and both guards. They brought in Shack Mason, but they can't run the football and Tom can't move. That's a big part of it. Tom always had good old lines. He didn't know ys have a great defense in New England. He didn't know as have star receivers always had a good line, always right now, he didn't have one. Belichick, what's his hole. He's a defensive coach, and he's a seventy year old defensive coach, and he doesn't have a great feel for how to I mean, come on, just play Bailey's appy. If he stinks, make the move at half. But you literally start him after a pick, you bail on him. That's not how you do it, mac Jones. The crowd is chanting for Bailey's Appy, just you should have played him from the start. And then if Bailey's Appy stinks, you play mac Jones. But you put mac Jones in when Bailey's Appy's on a two game winning streak and tearing it up, and the crowd's rooting for mac Jones, and mac Jones hears it. And then and then mac Jones throws a pick, you pull him Zappy as a good series or two, the crowd's going nuts. Mac Jones is sitting there in a stadium that nobody wants him on the team. It's not how you handle it. All I know is this is the first year without Brady and Josh McDaniels in this offense that last night was bad and it was what Belichick had done to others for years. So, you know, I like Bailey, Zappy, Mac Jones is fine, but neither of these guys now has a great wide receiver tight end group. The offensive line is okay, not special. I like the running backs, but you're in a division with Josh Allen twice a year and now Mike McDaniel. For two decades, New England won a lot of games. They were boring, but they want a lot of games now they're average and boring. Robert Kraft did not become a billionaire sitting idly by. This is a boring team and on a fairly regular occurrence, not necessarily a good team. Belichick on that weird quarterback shuffle after the game, who is the starting quarterback? We just finished the game. So when Mac came out of the game, Bill, was that a medical decision? The timing of the bulling him, So is that related to the interception that was his last play tonight? No, we have planned to play I told the quarterbacks that we're gonna We're gonna play both of them, and so was the plan for three series. It just seems when his last plays an interception, it looks like a benching for performance. That's not what it was. But you know, I can write whatever you want to write, that's not what it was. Considering the game was in Foxborough, there's Bailey Zappie signs everywhere. He played great back to back weeks. You just keep going with the kid. If you want to play Mac Jones, play him at half. If you lead twenty eight, nothing you can. If you're trail twenty eight, nothing you could. But it just wasn't handled well, and the perception is now Mac Jones feels like a beaten down kid who needs all the support he can get from the coach because he certainly doesn't get it from his wide receivers in his tight end. All Right, an idea from somebody I respect. It'll get major pushback, but I just respect the person for suggesting it, because everybody's paralyzed now about being criticized on social media. I like the idea. May not be right, but I like the idea With the forty nine ers. 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 Welcome Back. Bill Barnwell is a very respected journalist covers the NFL. Really really smart guy. We have him on the show occasionally, and I just appreciate his suggestion that he made because so many people in our business are terrified of being wrong that I think it hurts critical thinking. I think it. I think we should throw stuff out there and it can be totally wrong. Who gives a rip if you get criticized? This is exploration, is what creates technology, what new medicine. Just take big swings at stuff. Do your work, take big swings. Who cares if you're wrong. We're all wrong, so Barnwell says, because the Niners are getting very expensive and the Trey Lance thing was really ugly, like he couldn't complete fifty percent of his throws or barely did, they should consider moving him. He could still get a first or a second round pick. I mean, there's eight teams that needs a quarterback or trading Brandon I yuk to get some draft capital back because they have Deebo Samuel Jennings. And here's the thing. A lot of things sound ridiculous, like Tom Brady leaving Belichick in New England for completely dysfunctional Tampa they want a super Bowl. Or the Kansas City Chiefs off a twelve and four record moving up to take a quarterback who had a losing college record from a conference the Big Twelve that kept giving the NFL duds at quarterback. That was Patrick Mahomes. Or the Rams hiring a thirty year old offensive coach from a dysfunctional mess in Washington. Yeah, we're gonna give a thirty year old. Sometimes you struggle to give a thirty year old the keys to the car. We're gonna give you the keys to a four billion dollars organization. Oh, by the way, he wasn't even a candidate. He came out of nowhere. That was Sean McVeigh. Be careful on crazy ideas not working. Be careful the number one rule in business, the number one rule. Double down on what's working, and don't get stubborn. Move off stuff that's not now. I think it's too early to move off Trey Lands. I'd give him another ota another preseason, but Philadelphia moved up to get Carson Wentz and gave him over one hundred million and moved off him. How they doing today and Arizona fired a coach and moved off Josh Rosen the following year. I think they're better with Kyler Murray. Be careful about thinking stuff as crazy. Bill Barnwell is basically saying, listen, man, this is ugly. Didn't work. It's not close. He's saying, resigned Garoppolo. At least you know what you get with him. You're not starting over Garoppolos won seventy one percent of his starts. That's not terrible. But I thought Trey Lance was a great pick. I thought he checked like four to five boxes. The only question was he'd been inactive. There's a scarcity of tape. Is he a good thrower of the football? But I'd met him. He's a smart kid, he's athletic, he's a hard worker. He checked a lot of boxes. Yeah, the Niners thought he checked all those boxes too. You can just stick with it. What if he has another OTA and he's fifty percent completion, go to preseason fifty percent completion, You give him a starting job next year? Fifty percent completion? You know again, you're not bodyming out. But Barnwell's suggestion is don't double down on wrong, which I will o o as defense doesn't mean I'd move off him now. I wouldn't yet, but folks, the great ones you can see. I remember when Mahomes went to Kansas City and Peter Schrager is texting me in his rookie camp, and it's like, they have found Marino. What kid couldn't win in college? He couldn't win in the Big twelve. They're like, you're I am hearing Justin Herbert. Remember the first start when Tyrod Taylor had something punctured by a they put him in. Remember how many doubters there were on Justin Herbert a half into his career. You're like, oh, okay, they're good. You just what you don't want to do is get rigid and double down on wrong. I wouldn't move off trey Land, but I would watch it very closely. I would. You know, I'm a Garoppolo fan. You all hate him. He started, He's won seventy one percent of his game. Shannan's number won without him. He won in New England, he wins in San Francisco. And I think if Brady retired and he went there, he'd win in Tampa Bay. I really do. I think he'd go in the division into J Mack with the news. No, no, this is the herd Line news. I clearly need to read this Bill Barnwell piece. Well, you know he's super bright. If you say so, I don't. I don't know he's work. But I'm just looking at Trey Lance here. He started five games, and this dude saying maybe move off of him. Well, it's not just five games. It was five games, and there appears to be a clear issue with the accuracy and throwing. I was told by two different people, one inside the organization and a throwing coach out. They are deeply concerned, like deeply concerned within the organization that it's just not working, and they can the ceiling on the accuracy. Folks, if you can't complete sixty one percent of your throws in this league, it doesn't work. I've always thought the move was crazy to move off Garoppolo, but giving up all those picks for not giving him five, I wouldn't do it yet. But the suggestion of it is you got to win in this league or you get fired. You don't get a lot of second and third chances to be a head coach. You have to consider it. Take the call interesting Okay, I hope my Jets don't go after Trey Lance. Let's go to the first story here. Tom Brady came out of retirement to go for another Super Bowl with the Bucks. Things have gone very, very wrong. They're three and four, embarrassing loss of the Panther's biggest upset of the season. I think we'd agree that, oh yeah, the Patriots losing to the Bears has to be number two. But despite the slow start, Tom Brady he's still committed as ever to this Tampa Bay football team. You know, I made a commitment to this team, and I love this team and I love this organization. I told him in March I was playing and I've never quit on anything in my life. And I know a bunch of teammates that we all count on one another to be at our best and to work hard and to put the team first. And that's what you commit to, and that's what you want your teammates to commit to as well. I want to keep fighting as hard as I can, and I'm always trying to do better. I'm always trying to work hard, and I'm always trying to commit more to the things that are important to me. This team is very important to me, and I certainly want to be the best I can be for them commit more to the things that are important to me. I wonder if Dizel's hearing that and saying, well, you made a commitment to me and our family and you're breaking that commitment now. Tom, Well, could I simplify Tampa's problems? They lost one of the most underrated players in the league, Ryan Jensen center. Go look at the teams in the NFL this year that have had awful weeks. The Chargers missing a center. We don't talk about centers. He lost his Pro Bowl center. They can't run the ball now, and now Tom's dropping back to throw forty five and fifty times a game at forty five years old. I think if Ryan Jensen's here, so I can. I think a lot of their stuff is solvable. But they lost their starting center, Ali Marpett retired, they're left they all ast all three guys in the middle. Shack Mason's helped, but some of this stuff is they don't run the ball consistently. So you're now incredibly Tom reliant, which, by the way, Mike Evans is never healthy, Chris Godwin's never healthy. AB's gone, Gronk's gone. Some of this stuff, in hindsight, is a little predictable. Injuries hurt, you know what Brady misses. I'll never forget. Sitting here in Fox this is like four years ago and Dave Wanstatt was telling a story about the Falcons Patriots Super Bowl and how Brady at halftime was like, we got to just get the ball to James White because this pass rush is killing us. They don't have a James White like a Swiss Army knife guy comes out of the backfield. They just don't happen. I think of what they lost from last year. Ali Marpet a great guard and all a Pro Bowl center, Gronk in the red zone, ab speed, Bruce Arian's coaching the other guard. And by the way, they had major cluster injuries on the O line and receiver September. So like, this is hard. I still think they win in a vision, but sometimes we just have to realize if if I came to work and you're not here for a week and then Ryan's off, and then it's harder. It's harder to do a show. It's harder in life. If if you work at a hospital and this ner this has gone, and then your utter doctor's gone. Chiefest staff takes a month off it. You need your people, you need your allies, and right now they're just kind of an injured a lot of change, chaos, trying to figure out out a team. What's up with Todd Bowles's defense? The identity of the Bucks under Brady had been you can't run on us. The Panthers just ran for two hundred yards, all right? Next up, Alan Lazard was forced to leave the Packers game against the Commander Sunday with his shoulder injury. Remember Randall Cobb's already out Colin and now Alan Lazard. His status for this week is in question. Matt Lafloor said it's unclear if he'll be there for the Bills. Oh boy, did you see the point spread on this game? I biggest spread ever? If I said to you Buffalo forty Green Bay thirteen, is that outrageous? I think that's a little bit. Okay? All right? Lazard does lead the Packers and receiving with three hundred and forty, but do they have any chance against the Bills this week? Do you understand what an eleven point line is? Ten and a half point? Buffalo off of the buy healthy this is built. I don't even know what to say here. Packers three and five. Look at the NFL schedule this weekend. Think about where green Bay's add as a franchise. I think I get a coaching edge, a quarterback edge, a pass rush edge, a weapon's edge, a home field edge. And for the record, what is the weather? The only thing that can help green Bay? If it's forty mile an hour winds and you can't throw the Stevon Diggs and Gabriel Davis. But if it's reasonable weather, reasonable weather. And by the way, green Bay's also a team that when they fall behind, they fall fast down fourteen nothing. This thing could get forty thirteen, could be like the Steelers. Nos Now, Now, I thought last night New England would win by blow up. So stuff happens, green Bay could play great. They could finally give the ball to Aaron Jones consistently. I don't can't figure that out. So this Buffalo front has dominate. I'm just talking obliterated some offensive lines back tri I don't think he didn't play against Washington. Washington killed the Packers at a lot of scrimmage. So this could get ugly for Rogers. Are you already starting to write Monday's lead into the show throwing dirt on Aaron Rodgers? All right, final story, Let's get to the biggest game of weekend, the Jets and the Patriots. College Listen, some somber news for the Jets. Grease Hall officially done for the season with an ACL But that wasn't it. M a vt the great offensive lineman from USC. He had been great, the best offensive lineman for the Jets this year. He's out for the season. I think that I think you can get about seventy percent of Breefe Hall on the market. They went and got Greg Robinson is James Robinson, James Robins, imagine, okay, So I think he's seventy seventy five percent of Breeese. I think that's okay. They also have a backup running back who is Michael Carter. Michael Carter. He's fine. So I think they're okay at running back. I mean, Robinson's fine, James Robinson's fine. But you cannot complete replace before the trading deadline. Who's giving up a great offensive line? That's the problem. I don't They're looking around, Douglas apportedly looking for an offensive lineman. The asking price is going to be too high for any of the Carolina guys, and there really aren't a lot of other teams selling it. I don't think Houston selling Tounsil even though they're terrible. Browns have two great guards. Would they give up one? I don't think they're They think they're in the mix. They're like, wait, we might be what are they two and five? We think we're close to four and three because we've just lost some coin flip games to the Jets, and you know, we should have beat the Ravens. And I think they think Deshaun Watson could save them. So they're not selling anybody. I just I don't know what the Jets are gonna do offensively. That being said, we just watched the Patriots get their butts kid? Are they any good Jets? Patriots is fascinating this week? Well, what do you mean it's what do you mean not fascinating? It's a great game. Well it's I don't think it's fascinating. I think if you're a Jets fan, it's interesting that line is Patriots favored by two in New York and he leaned there for you boy, Yeah, it's a tough one New England. I know. I'm sorry. They just got humiliated. Better quarterback controversy. No, that's not a controversy, Jack of the news, Well that's the news, and thanks for stopping the herd heard hierarchy top of our number two. So I saw this story. I love college football, it can be really hokey. I saw this story. Texas Steve Sarkisian is sorry for missing the Eyes of Texas after they lost a game. He didn't go over to the corner of the stadium and sing the eyes of Texas. Here it is, here, it is. He's sorry, he feels very bad. I own apology to Longhorn Nation. I made a mistake at the end of the game and not singing the eyes of Texas when the game was done. That was not anything intentional. That was not anything that had to do with our players. I think our players just followed me up the ramp into the locker room, obviously upset by the way the game ended, and U literally walked off the field. So I apologize to everybody for that. That'll never happen again. Okay, A lot of college football is this hokey college rara stuff. It's cheesy, but it's college football. But if you wonder why Brian Kelly fakes his Southern charm, because it works. College football coaches are used car salesman too often. Gotta eat that third piece of apple pie. That's the best I've ever had. I talked to Barry Switzer once about college recruiting. It was unbelievable. He was incredibly honest. You gotta make sure dad likes you. You gotta pretend you like hanging out with a boosters, You gotta sing the college song. That's why a lot of guys just want to go coach pro football or be a coordinator. Many of the top college coaches are faking they can actually coach. Jimbo Fisher's a recruiter. That's pretty much it. Sark in this moment, needed to fake it by into that stuff. I deeply care because in college football, you gotta make the local fans and the boosters and the region believe, Hey, he's one of us. And so Brian Kelly gets ripped by northerners and ripped by people. But in the end, down there, he's buying in. Hey, I'm here, and I'm here for years, and I'm buying in and I love Louisiana and they're okay with it. And when you lose, well Sark lost, it gets magnified. You know who's no longer cringey and no longer anybody cares about it. Brian Kelly, he's winning. He's tied with Alabama. So when you take that college football job, just realize. And I'm very thankful. As a Pac twelve guy, we don't have a lot of this stuff. But when you take some of these jobs, many of them, you know, they're Texas and it's in the South. You gotta sing that fight song, and you gotta kind of pander to the boosters and the local car salesman, and it's tedious, but it is part of the sport. If would have won, he would not have had to probably address it with the urgency and the hand motions. And I'm sorry, and I apologize at the knee of Texas football. But you know, it's almost like you know what I always feel like with college football coaches. It's like those rock bands that tour. It's part of the game. You have to go on stage. Nobody rocks like Cleveland. Actually everybody does. We're in Chicago tomorrow and they rock way more than Cleveland. But it makes Cleveland feel good, or Dayton, Ohio, or Green Bay, Wisconsin, or Omaha, Nebraska, or Eugene, Oregon makes him feel good. You're buying in. You're one of them, and you gotta do it in college. But for the record, it is cheesy. I mean, it is kind of cheesy. Right. We could a little bit, kinda sorta didn't gi him to win games or sing. But this is why Brian Kelly doing that southern thing. They love it. That's okay, it's part of the game. You gotta go on stage. You gotta go on stage and tell everybody nobody rocks like oh Maha, and then tomorrow nobody rocks like Iowa. All right, a lot of people do. But it's okay. You gotta be put your arms around people. A little cheesy heard hierarchy Top of the Hour. Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdayson noon Easter nine am Pacific. Hey, this is Jason McIntyre. Join me every weekday morning on my podcast Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. This isn't your typical sportspod pushing the same tired narratives down your throat every day. Straight Fire gives you honest opinions on all the biggest sports headlines, accurate stats to help you win big at the sports book, and all the best guests. Do yourself a favor and listen to Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Good to have you in today, all sorts of stuff. The game last night was it was the whole weekend, Carolina crushing Brady. I've never seen Belichick owned like that for three and a half hours. That was a complete display. It wasn't just to win. It wasn't just the route. All three phases owned all of them all night. It was what Belichick did to other young quarterbacks for the last twenty some years. Albert Breer, Senior reporter, money mowning quarterback. You know, I said, I always go into coaching hires most of the time and new quarterbacks a little critical, a little cynical, because, let's be honest, four to five quarterbacks drafted in the first round don't become stars, and seventy percent of these coaches hired don't work. So I looked at Matt Eberflus, and I was like, Oh, here go the Bears again, defensive coach in an offensive league. They draft a corner in a safety first, two picks at whole line. But I'm sitting here watching him last night. I've watched them in the last couple of nights, and I gotta tell you he has I don't think their defense is as good as it's playing. He's fixed the defense. I don't know. It looks like to me, you tell me. I was critical of the higher Pollion. By the way, Bill Pollian's the one that led that coaching search. I was told in Chicago the owners called Bill and said, find us a coach. Are you shocked? How good? I mean? I think what he is doing is pretty special. Well, and Mattieberflus is Rod Marinelli's guy. Rod Marinelli is Tony Dungee's guy. Tony Dungee is Bill Pollian's guy. Which is kind of how you can see that playing out the way that it did. But you know, I think sometimes we overrate the offensive play caller thing and the quarterbacks thing. And you know, I think Sean mcvah and Kyle Shanahan, guys like that would tell you that the actual play calling, the quarterback development is a small percentage of their job, and so much of it is building the right staff and bill, the right atmosphere in the building. And I think we're starting to see those things already show up. And I think they show up every week with the Bears. Look how hard they're playing, right like on a weekend, a week out. Basis, they're not going to win every game. This still may only be a six one team, but they're locked in. They believe what their coaches are selling them, and they're playing their asses off. And then the second piece of it, it goes to the staff, the adaptability there. Right, what were we all say in the first month and a half of the season, why aren't you running justin fields more? You're not doing enough with him? Matt Naggie and his staff really didn't do that last year, right, And how much easier could you make it on justin fields if you do design some runs for him and get him going and move the pocket. What do we see last night? An adjustment justin fields is a runner being used a little bit more justin fields in a moving pocket a little bit more. So, you know, I look at like the effort on the part of the players and the adaptability on the part of Matti Eberflus's staff as really good signs of the program is heading in the right direction. So I you know, listen, Belichick is clunky offensively. This is the first year without Brady and Josh McDaniel, and it's been ugly. Okay, first, you know, Dante left. First, they were okay, they made the play, and then and then Brady leaves, and then and then Josh leaves, and it feels like that Bailey's Appy mac Jones situation. The whole crowd turned on mac Jones. I'm like, you got to do a better job than this, right, Why why didn't they just start Bailey's Appy and see how that transpired? Right? I think the problem Colin here is like Belichick's obsession with treating the quarterback position like every other position on the field, when there's an acknowledgement across the sport that it's not like every other position. And this goes back to, you know, his relationship with Brady and his willingness to let's call it what it was and f Brady in front of the entire team to try to create that sort of feeling in the building that if Brady's not exempt from this, no one else is. And I think you even heard I think he said it on the radio this morning that like we have rotations other positions too, the position, the position of quarterback isn't like every other position. You have to handle it differently. It's different from the time these guys are eight nine years old. They're treated differently, they're developed differently, they're coached differently, they're handled differently as pros. And I mean, look like to me, like last night they can say till the cows come home and was part of the plan. You know what I saw. What I saw was something that looked like a duck and quack like a duck. So it's hard not to call it a duck. Mac Jones looked like he was benched last night. Yeah, and there's gonna be repercussions to that. Three and out three and out throws, a pick pulled from the lineup, doesn't go back in. That happens everywhere anywhere else. We're calling it a benching. And that's with a guy who's coming off of a high ankle spring. What's that going to do to his confidence right going forward? Especially when his backup played pretty well against both Detroit and Cleveland, and so I think there are implications here and it's going to be really interesting to see the way this is handled. And I also I'm gonna be curious to see if there's any pushback on that staff. I think the way they handled last night, I think that's something Josh McDaniels might have pushed back against Bill Belichick doing Mapatrician Joe Judge have done a nice job over the last few weeks. Do they have the sort of collateral in the building to push back on what Bill is doing here? It's, like I said, it's going to be a fascinating situation to monitor over the next couple of weeks and how they handle Mac Jones coming back off the injury. All Right, so Jim Er says a powerful owner, he's got strong opinions on Dan Snyder on his personnel. I don't think Ballard and Frank Wright love the idea of bailing on Carson Wentz, who had twenty sevent tds and seven picks. Those are pretty good numbers. But Ersey wanted him out. He was ticked off. Now Matt Ryan gets benched. My initial reaction is this is Jim Ersay. But I also think Matt look, he has aged quickly. What are the scouts saying, what are your sources saying on the situation? An indie with Matt Ryan. Yeah, I checked him with a couple of scouts who felt like his arm was shot, you know, watching him, and that the league actually told us what they really thought of Matt Ryan when there was only a third round pick out there for a former MVP quarterback for the Atlanta Falcons to go and get. And so yeah, I mean, I think what we're seeing now that the cults are bailing this quickly on that Ryan is first and foremost of an indictment on Ryan. Because the plan here between Jim Irsay and Chris Baller and Frank Reich was for Matt Ryan to be the quarterback for the next three or four years Allah Peyton Manning in Denver like that he could be that guy to hold the fort and help buy them time to find the quarterback of the future. I think what we've got now, Colin is, like you said, a little bit of an ownership driven situation. And I think that this is a statement from the owner that he wants this situation taking care of long term. He's sick of the revolving door at quarterback. Remember this is a guy who had two long term answers over the last twenty five years in Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck. He knows what it feels like to have that guy and he wants to find that guy now. He doesn't want to wait any longer for it. So you put Sam Ellinger in there. His intangibles are off the charts. The question. The question is going to be physically, can he get it done. You're gonna get some answers on that. If he can be the guy going forward, great, I don't think they're counting on it. If he can't, maybe you sink closer to the bottom of the league and then you're in a position to take one next year. So I think that's sort of the thought process of the owner here. And you know, again, it'll be interesting to see what that means for the future of Chris Bowden. Frank Reik as well. You know, a couple of weeks ago, or maybe it was last week, Jay mack I said, I feel like Mahomes and Josh Allen have separated from the league. That's Tier one, and then Tier two is about twelve quarterbacks. We all like somewhere young Jalen Hurt. Summer Old Brady and I watched Burrow and if you take out the first game, the first game where he had appendexmy surgery, didn't practice, didn't play from the Cowboy game, especially the second half on He's got like sixteen touchdowns in one giveaway. The game looks easier to him. It just simply looks easier to him. You did a story, you talked to his dad years go, Yeah, I mean what is I mean? What did he say about his son? Yeah? So, you know, as I did a story with Joe, you know, in the summer, and you know, I talked to his dad, Jimmy Burrow, who has been a coach forever and ever and ever was Frank Solich's defensive coordinator at Ohio University. And you know, Joe had said to me, like, it's just always made sense to me when I look out there across the line of scrimmage, what I'm looking at has always made sense to me. And so I asked Jimmy about that, and I said, is there a story like from when he was younger that really illustrates that? And he said, yes, there is one. Actually, So when Joe was in the third grade, he's playing organized football for the first time, coach puts him at quarterback, and over the course of preseason practice, the coach had noticed this kid's pretty smart when it comes to football, coach's son and everything else. So he gave him the freedom to if the center wasn't covered, tapped the center on the side and then run a quarterback sneak on his own, like unilaterally, make that decision. Remember he's eight years old at this point. So first series, first time playing quarterback, first time in organis football. Joe Burrow taps the center on the side, runs for a seventy yard touchdown. And if you go back and you look at it, and Jimmy Burrow still has the video of it, you see it. It looks like he's two yards across the line of screens before anybody knows what to do with it, you know, and he's just he's got one of the And Jimmy said to me, you kept seeing the stuff over and over and over again the older he gets, and obviously it gets more advanced over the years, but I think you can see it even now, like this year like you saw it last year, right, like in the way that they were able to advance the offense and make it what it was and get Jamarchase up to speed as a rookie receiver and create hit and make history, you know from that position. And this year, you know, what you're seeing from Cincinnati is a lot of what Kansas City went through last year. Entirely new offensive line and a lot of teams playing too high. Safety is to stop them and on the fly. Joe Burrow has adjusted to that, and he's adjusted to it faster than the Chiefs did last year. This is a dangerous team callin And I've said this a few times now, there's no quarterback that's coming the league over the last twenty years that is a closer comp to Tom Brady than Joe Burrow. Yeah, And I think we look at Mahomes now and those guys are fantastic, phenomenal talents, but it's physically obvious with them, right. I think we don't lump Burrow into that group because it's not as physically obvious. But I think when you're talking about quarterbacks over the next fifteen to twenty years, Mahomes Alan Burrow is in that group. Yeah, Albert Brer Monday morning quarterback, fantastic stuff, great scene, a game, a man, all right, thanks going. I get at the honor of interviewing Joe Burrow every Tuesday. I'll talk to him this afternoon, and he's got a little bit like the Brady. Now, Brady's obviously married a super bottle and become this, you know, legendary guy. But Burrow and Brady at their core just kind of got this sort of work ethos. You know, regular dad, regular job, work hard, head down, relate to people, like people, very communicative. You don't get the ego. You just don't. With Burrow. I talk to him every week. You don't get any ego. He's just just as normal and relate, bole and decent as you're gonna get. It's pretty cool, like it's you know, because you get I could name names, you get a lot of egos. A lot of these college kids comes out and they've been told how great they are, none of that stuff from Burrel. Can you think of the last quarterback colin who went to college, couldn't make it to be the starter, transferred, did nothing his first year, second year historical greatness, and then becomes an early legend in the NFL. His story is incredible. Wow. Everybody's got a different path and that's what's great about the NFL. All right, our number two heard hierarchy. Maybe it's a bit of a mess. It's the herd.