The Jason Smith Show with Mike HarmonJason and Mike can’t believe the Dallas Cowboys fired Mike McCarthy for whom? Why the Brian Schottenheimer hire is on-brand for Jerry Jones. The CFP National Championship is headed to Vegas. Robert Saleh is headed back to the 49ers. And the knuckleheads give you their NFC/AFC Championship Game Picks!!
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Hello, Welcome inside. Happy Friday. At least it's a happy Friday if you're not a Cowboys Fano Friday. The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Carmon Live.
My Way and My Way is terrible.
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An unmatched selection, fast, free shipping, free road hazard protection, over ten thousand recommended installers. Tirec dot Com is the way tire buying should be. Well. Big news that's come in. It's about fifteen minutes old. ESPN's Adam Schefter reporting the Cowboys have their new head coach. According to Jerry Jones quote, he has been known as a career assistant. Okay, that's always what you want to say in a statement.
First thing about wait wait, wait, you start with a strong thesis statement.
He's known as a career assistant. Oh okay, that's great. You're really not telling me on it quote. He ain't Brian no more. He is now known as the head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
He's legally changed his name.
His name is now.
Head coach of the Dallas Cowboys.
Schottenheimer is now officially Brian Schottenheimer's name. He is the new Cowboys head coach. A press conference coming on Monday. Again, this news about fifteen minutes old. I'm sorry, Pete Carroll, you got bumped to the lifestyle section. The Cowboys have their new head coach, and as a man that was so in demand across the NFL, zero people talked him to become their new head coach. Not the Jets, who interviewed twenty people before they settled on Aaron Glenn. Not the Bears, who I think that more than the Jets. I think they were up at like twenty three before they said, oh, the guy we're getting at the very beginning is our guy. Ben Johnson no, so just those two teams, forty three guys. They talked to, just those teams, forty three guys. Nope, no, Brian Schottenheimer. The Jaguars had a guy who said, I don't want the job until you fire the GM. He didn't take it. They fired the GM. That guy came back. Nope, nope, No interview with Brian Schottenheimer. The Raiders said, hey, why not get a guy, why not go get Pete Carroll, he's seventy four. No, I can't believe anybody's not let's talk to you. No interviews with Brian Schottenheimer. This is the Dallas Cowboys new head coach. This is who Jerry Jones fired Mike McCarthy to go.
Get longtime coordinator. Been through many a stop since beginning his co career in nineteen ninety seven. An assistant with the Saint Louis Rams, did a stint at Syracuse in nineteen ninety nine.
Yep, so tied to you.
He's a day younger than me. She got that going for you.
And then he was the OC with the Jets in the big heyday with Rex Ryan It's and that underperforming offense. He was the OC now, but.
They got to to count him two AFC title games. They haven't been back to the playoffs. Let i'd lead with that. Look when I left, they haven't.
Been back to the playoffs since Bell. So you got that going for you.
Stops at Georgia, the Colts, the Seahawks, the Jaguars, analysts with the Cowboys indo offensive coordinator, and.
Now you're a head coach.
Well, we always talk about and preach about continuity and consistency. I guess the consistency is that Jerry is gonna be Jerry, and he's gonna give us gifts just like he does today.
I'll tell you what. I'm gonna double down. I'm gonna triple. I quadrupled. If this was a if this was a poker show, I would quadruple. I would put all my chips to the middle, and I would say, you know why Jerry Jones fired Mike McCarthy. He didn't fire Mike McCarthy because he underachieved. Because this is Brian Shott and I were on the same staff, right, same staff, same staff.
I can't say, well, the head coach of it.
But then when you see the way the trickle down theory works in economics, it's the same thing. And in the NFL, I don't really know what that means, but it sounds good, like trickle down sounds good. So we get down and he looked where the blamee goes, and the Blaine kind of kind of slides to the side of where shot he is, and I just get you know, all the blame just kind of goes towards my McCarthy. Did he fire Mike McCarthy because he underachieved or because when Dak Prescott got hurt the Cowboys didn't quit. They galvanized behind Mike McCarthy. They played better than anybody thought they would. They played through till the end of the season. When McCarthy got let go, Dak Prescott was upset, Michael Parsons was upset. The two biggest leaders the Cowboys had said, yeah, we're really upset about this. So was he hired because he'd lost, or was he fired because he lost? Or was he fired because he was becoming too big a voice in the Cowboys locker room? He was challenging Jerry Jones, and Jerry Jones said, well, you can't have that happen, so now let me hire Brian Schottenheimer, who clearly is going not going to compete with my voice for the Dallas Cowboys. You said it last night, big hot take. Now I think about it tonight. Why else, why would you fire Mike McCarthy or Brian Schottenheimer. If you fired Mike McCarthy for Dion Sanders, I get it. If you fired Mike McCarthy from Bill Belichick, I would disagree, but I'd get it. There's guys I get right. Hey, we want to do something big, we want to shake things up. He wants to keep the headlines going. Okay, I understand that, but Brian Shott and I mean come on, I mean, look, Schottenheimer is a pretty good assistant coach. Right now, I'm going all Jerry Jones. He's a pretty good assistant coach, and and you know, by all accounts, everybody says good things about him and a good guy, and the players like him. But I mean, come on, man, I mean, this is what you. I mean. If I'm a Cowboy right now, I'm like, I gotta get out of here. I'm Michael Parsons. I said, no, do not stop negotiating a new deal. I do not want new money. I will hit free agency and I will go someplace else because I don't know what the hell is going on here. But this ain't for me.
Now, remember that you know he's not really fired. They fixed the glitch and they mutually parted ways. I feel like I'm reading that book from Harry Potter right where dude flies off with death at the end, because that's kind of where we're at in this process. I'm wondering if Jerry Jones might have learned a lesson from back in the day of you know, how things happen when you ran players off instead.
You know, the Chip Kelly era of Philadelphia.
You were in division and you watched it happen, and anybody that had a voice found their way on the outs. So in this case, you've got players that load up. And I still contend it might be. The other is that they all played for Schottenheimer. We would have heard that he really would he really want to hurt stand up.
We would have just stop. We would have I got does Brian Schottenheimer pay you to say that? Because if he paid you, evidently he is a contributor to the thirty third team. So Jason Cole might have collected another check and getting shot Inheimer a job here.
I have to ask him next week about said he's.
Spamming everybody's email box on the thirty third team, gut Brian with all Shottenheimer's stats, like all like this is where his offense is, right, don't look at last year, but the other years. Look at the other years where it's happened. Yeah.
The old thing bringing that up about is, you know, the final weeks of the season, you got a guy with the coordinator and whatever the language was, whatever the the simplicity of the offense was, it seemed to click down the stretch. They still played hard, and I agree with you a lot of that was the heart and integrity that they showed, and and love of Mike McCarthy and what he meant and knowing that you know, he was being scapegoaded for a bunch of it. But in the end, you're the head coach and things had gone badly and in the playoffs before, there's only so much you could say, Hey, you know what, pinned on the player here, pinned on the player here? You know what this year was Dak's fault? Oh and Dan Quinn over there, who's now at Washington. We've talked about him a lot. I don't need to bring it back up, but there'd been a scapegoat all along, and now it's going badly and it's like, hey, Mike, what's going on. When Dak was here, we weren't playing very well. Oh it falls on you, right, And so for Jerry and moving forward, his ego and we've seen it at every turn, talking about you know, why would I hire a GM This is why I bought the team. Perhaps the most damning of all of the lines that he's given through the.
Year's most honest.
I mean, other than the soliloquy he had on Landman hanging out with Billy Bob Thorton's company, that's the most honest moment. Jerry Jones is head in front of a microphone. It's my team. Why am I hiring someone else to do what I want?
Listen, I'm leaving. I'm not gonna really be running the Cowboys because I'm a I'm a Hollywood star. Now I'm gonna go do uh the Nosferatuo sequel and uh in in the in the movie, I just I'm the big vampire, right, and I just I go to New York and I get the Mara blood and then uh, you know, I'll go to Uh, I'll go to Pittsburgh. I get the Rooney blood, and I get all that, and all of a sudden, I'm a big, bigger super vampire owner. And then I get the Godel blood and I can make all the big decisions. I get all and suddenly I'm just this big voltron of of of NFL owners. But and that become the bigger, bigger guy to keep getting bigger and bigger, like the like the more girl in the substance, and I just keep getting bigger and bigger. All different heads keep popping out of me. They Oh, that's a that's the head, that's a Rooney head, that's the mar head. Oh, I gotta write this down. I could be in the sequel to the substance. Let me write that down to Okay, great, So that's me. I'm a Hollywood guy now who wants an autograph?
You really are morphing into like this is now becoming part of an alternate persona for you. Gotta be careful. Gotta be careful, just like split every seven days. You gotta uh, or I should say the substance every seven days, every seven days.
But I'll know if I start going into Starbucks and saying I'll.
Have one of those Mocha LTEs and uh uh with the almond milk, and because you know the almond milk it's more healthy. I'm sorry, Well my name is uh oh, I forget fir. It's just uh, you know, just put just put a star on it that I'll know that's mine. Just put a big silver star on it. I'll know that's my.
I think you should do that and see how long it takes before someone in line behind you or someone behind the counter catches on.
Hey, Jerry Jones is kind of a big deal.
We're having that whole conversation about show hey and and epay yesterday. Folks can find that conversation more audio and filling in some of the blanks came out a little earlier today. So that's fun. But the Jerry Jones, uh, now he's got Brian Schottenheimer. Don't call him a career coordinator anymore.
I mean the fact that he has to just think about that.
That that's the statement that came out along with Adam Schefter's tweet that Brian Schottenheimer's a guy. He was known as a career assistant. But he ain't Brian no more. You gotta risk like he's he's having to tell everybody you have to respect my choice as head coach, Like everybody's gonna suddenly go oh wait, wait, wait wait, you know, hey, hang on a second, hey guys, But yeah, look he's really serious, you know, and he's right, Hey, we got we gotta take a different look at this and talk about how Schottenheimer's the best head coach in the NFL when you have to, when you have to defend your head coaching job right away, like what kind of choice is that? I mean, I mean, I I don't really the Cowboys they're doomed to this wheel. It just it's just gonna continue to go and it's just gonna you know, they don't really get to the top before they start going back down to the bottom. And and it's.
Not even like the helter skelter lyrics.
Yeah, it's you know what it's not. It's not a wheel.
It's more like the like the what do they call it, the parts of a tank that they're really low to the ground, like they did, like a wheel is round and it gets up high to the top.
But like that whole.
But but like the wheel of a tank just kind of goes straight and then it goes under and back and comes up and goes straight. Like that's what the Cowboys are. They don't even go into we're with we Hey, we're at the top of the NFL. But on our way back down, everything is the same. Everything has been the same for the Cowboys going on thirty five years.
It's not gonna change.
Yeah, I thought, you know, for a second, when he's actually talking to Dion Sanders, Okay, it's gonna be Dion and let's go. It's gonna be a show. It's gonna be insane. But Deon's got great cachet with players. Maybe he's the pied piper, And suddenly I want to go play for Dion. I want to go there and look at this team he's building. Look at the roster he's built with Colorado in a couple of years. However popular or unpopular it is. Look the guy, have no doubt, the guy built a winning team. He's got two of the top five picks in the draft most likely.
All right, you know that that I get the But no, no, no, no, no, that was just a little bit.
That was a little bit. Now Hey, okay, now, really we're going with Brian schottenhumr.
Now this one, for me, it really is Jerry Jones ultimate active defiance by putting out that statement, by owing everything he's announcing his new coach, but owing it all to the rhetoric in the public sphere well as to why Schottenheimer shouldn't be the guy. And now it's no, no, no, you watch, it's gonna work. He's been here. We love him, he's our guy, and you don't love him. Continuous track caterpillar tread or tank tread the why Ben change?
Let's go, let's go tank tread.
I like the caterpillar.
Yeah, but people, I don't know that people fit way as the caterpillar with a tread. Yeah, I think tank tread. People get the visual. Okay, now I'm thinking of some kind of super caterpillar. Like it's in Transformers and suddenly it's a caterpillar, but it transforms into it's an actual caterpillar that transformed into a caterpillar piece of machinery that transforms into an audible.
Which later fights Godzilla and or Mathra.
Yeah uh oh boy, like a like a like an auto like at the Septicon mathra or. But that's just it.
It becomes a triple match. Look, we got to We've bridged a lot of worlds. We've had fre any versus Jason and all of these other things. Why not do it here?
The Jason Smith Show with Mike Carman Lofet, the TIREC dot Com Studios. What do you got, Frostburg?
Jason, raise your glass?
Okay, hang on, Mike, raise your glass. I'm raising my diamond. Okay, I'm raising my die coke.
What have I never ever ever thought I would ever say this? Okay, but cheers to you guys, knowing that your teams are not the crappiest anymore.
I would drink to that. Hang on, and even if it's for one.
Night, drink away.
Oh no, no, no, you say a Killboy fan or you know one, buy him a beer. We get into your house, just for one day.
I texted Fabiano right after it happened. Dude, you hired Brian schottenheimert nothing and he's gonna need a case of beer. I've got nothing back.
I just send him another gift of Aaron Jones dropping a fly ball.
Oh, good luck, Dallas, good luck?
Hey, right, after the show, don't forget our best of podcasts goes up. Miss any of the show, miss any of our stuff on Brian Schottenheimer other big NFL news of the day. Be sure to listen to the podcast. Just search Jason Smith and Mike Harmon wherever you get your podcasts from, and be sure to follow review the podcast rated five stars. Again. Just search Jason Smith and Mike Harmon wherever you get your podcasts. You'll find today's show and a best of version posted right after we get off the air. Well already, the dominoes are falling with Jerry Jones hiring a new head coach. Somebody else has dipped in and hired a new coach. Details on that next right here, Jason and Mike Fox Sports Radio. The average time to hire for most organizations is thirty to forty five days, which kind of puts the Cowboys right there. Are you tired of a costly and lengthy hiring process? You know that Cowboys simplify and speed up your recruitment by using the experts and express employment professionals. Reduce time to hire, cut down on multiple interviews, and lower your recruitment costs. Whether you're looking for contract workers or a new team member are streamline job posting, candidate screening. Hiring process is more efficient than hiring your own. Visit expresspros dot com today. You haven't used a staffing company before. This is the year to do things differently. Businesses are navigating a hiring landscape that's never been more expensive or regulated. Draft the experts, get the next pro for your team. Start at expresspros dot com to find the location near you for all types of jobs in a variety of reasons. Choosing Express Employment Professionals is the move to make. With more than eight hundred and sixty locally owned offices, you'll get the hiring support you need at expresspros dot com. That's expresspros dot com.
Look, I'm gonna do things my way.
And be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
We search to get a head coach, but we really didn't search that fall fire Mike McCarthy just to hire his oc There's no one who interviewed him. It was just us, and we talked to him twice and we hired him.
Dam I'm right, it is. What if Schottenheimer staged a coup eight seven seven.
Ninety Fox Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with Mike Carbon live from the tirerack dot Com studios. Here we go, Here we go. Brian Schottenheimer the new head coach of the Dallas Cowboys. We'll have more on that coming up in a few minutes, but already the dominoes are falling because as soon as the Cowboys named Brian Schottenheimer their head coach, Ian Rappaport NFL NFL dot Com said, uh, the San Francisco forty nine ers are hiring Robert Sala as their new defensive and old defensive coordinator. He had interviewed in Jacksonville. Interview with the Cowboys. Jacksonville obviously got their guy because they fired Trent Balky to go get him. And with this out of the Cowboys, Sala apparently told John Lynch Kyle Shanahan, listen, if I don't gland a head coaching job, I will come back as a defensive coordinator.
And here's the first time.
Maybe it's positivity Friday, or we just used up all the Oh my goodness, how ridiculous.
You got a pretty good laugh out of that. You're to side show, Bob Cat.
I gotta tell you, man, I'm gonna say something good about Robert Sala for the first time, and like, I don't know, a year and a half. Uh, he'll be great. He'll be great. Why because I've seen him be a great defensive coordinator. I've seen him build a great defense with the San Francisco forty nine ers. I've seen his system work of forty five defensive lineman just rotating them in and out. I saw his defense work in New York when he was here. When you just put him in charge of the defense, everything is fine. Some guys, Hey, I'm a great DC, but oh I can I can I build a culture? Can I do?
Not?
Everybody is that kind of guy, which really honestly tells you you don't need to just look at the OC and the DC when you're looking for a new head coach. Some guys are great coordinators, but they're bad head coaches. Some guys are really good position coaches, but they'd be bad coordinators, but they'd be great head coaches because they know things about building a culture. But you know, we default to the o c's and the DC's because we think, well, they'll take this system that work. They're gonna pick it up, bring it over, drop it in, and it's gonna be great. Except you know, we're not bringing the players that we built this great system with. Oh that's a little bit different story. But sala is gonna be a great DC. I have no doubt in my mind he is going to be a great defensive couardator because he did it before. He knows that. Look, I have to build my resume back up again because now I've been in the club so now and I'm looking at this offseason. Boy Pete Carroll got a job again. Guys getting gigs. It's insane. So I know, if I build my resume up and I get the stink of the Jets away for me for a while, Hey maybe in a year or two, Hey my name gets back to the top, I build back this forty nine ers defense, and I can be back in the mix of being the next head coach. And I've learned a lot of lessons with New York and wherever I go, I'm definitely not going back anywhere close to there, so I can do things pretty well.
I mean I'm there's no other shoe to drop.
There is no.
Any other part of this.
He's going to do a great job as a Niners defensive coidator. He's exactly what they need looking for their return to glory coming off this really bad year. There's gonna be a lot of up and down and a lot of dross or turnover, so they're gonna need him to come in. They can trust him with that side of the football. This is a great move. This works for everybody, works for Sala, works for the Niners. No fingers crossed hands by no every bahrman. This is a good move for the forty nine ers and a good move for Salt.
Yeah, we'll go back to the Cowboys in a minute, because they might be making a good move as well in terms of who says you can't go home again. But we look at the Peter principle in effect in a lot of these cases, right, guys like Norvel Turner, Wade Phillips, We keep going. There's tons of guys that were good to great defensive quarter Steve Spagnolo, right, look at him, how much we celebrate him right now? He took bites at the apple as a head coach, But he goes down as a great coordinator for Robert Sala.
He's got the.
Component pieces there that work right. Bosa's under contract. Fred Warner came back from injury and was flying around the field. You're looking at rebuilding that roster. They'll get rid of some of the offensive components, as you said, and shed some of the dollars and reconstitute things. But he's done it before you get promoted to the level of incompetence is the Peter principle, right, So you go and you're above your head. You may have eighty percent of the job down and locked in, but the other twenty percent send you spiraling straight to hell as if you were, you know, snowboarding down a mountain. So that's where we're at in this process for Robert Sala. Yeah, because look at what that defense did after he was gone. And I bring up the Cowboys and defense because they're evidently gonna talk to Matt Eberflus, who worked there under Jason Garrett a few years ago before becoming the coordinator in Indianapolis and eventually the head coach of the Bears, both the Bears and the Jets. What happened after those guys got fired. Salah and Eberfus, both their defenses struggled mightily. Any principles, any cohesiveness that they'd had early in the season were gone, and they scuffled the rest of the season on that side of the ball. So, yeah, go back to where you made your bones, to where you made your name. Does it build you back up to where you necessarily get a second shot? I don't see why it wouldn't, given what we just watched in this coaching cycle, with New Orleans still pending, just a whole lot of well, at least bring in to talk. Can't promise see anything more than whatever's on the lunch menu that day, But you could be one of our many people that we talk to, because we'll steal at least one or two good ideas from you before we move on. But for Robert Sala goes back where he's known in an opportunity in a division that's currently really in flux. Right, A lot of questions about what Seattle's roster will be, is dk Metcalf coming back? Are they mad at him? Is he gonna get traded? We talked about the Rams, Matthew Stafford. Some of these veteran components of the Rams. Are they coming back, No, but they got some young guys that'll be there a while. A couple of guys nominated for Defensive Rookie of the Year, and then Arizona. Every time you think, hey, they're making progress, they can't get out of their own way. So the division's there for the forty nine ers with a little bit of health and are restructuring just in terms of attitude and getting back out of the off season business that they had a year ago to go back and reclaim that division, you know now, and.
This is the other part of for the Cowboys, right like if all of a sudden, hey, the band of unsuccessful head coaches is getting back together? Is that like the LEA the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the band of unsuccessful head coaches is that you know, we talked a few minutes ago about how Brian Schottenheimer is not somebody that interviewed with any other team for a head coaching job, right, Like that's embarrassing, Like you you hired a guy that literally no other team said, you know, maybe he's a great leader, right, So that's embarrassing.
Should have floated it out that you denied people's requests.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what happened.
Yeah yeah, he denied everybody. Really yeah. They talk to other teams are like, yeah, sure, whatever, Jerry says, I don't whatever, I don't care. But here's the other part of it is that not only did that happen, right, but unless I missed some clandestine meetings, the Cowboys just after the fact said they held interest in Mike Vrabel. They didn't talk to Ben Johnson, they did didn't talk to Aaron Glenn, they didn't talk to Liam Cohen, didn't talk to any of these guys that got that got hired, but especially Ben Johnson, Aaron Glenn, Mike Vrabel, who emerged as the top three guys in this cycle. Right now, we say, and I'm not saying all of a sudden, the cycle is not great, right, but it's what we have. It wasn't this bunch of teams that need coaches, aren't great teams. The guys that were out there were not incredible over the top choices, but there's some level of top choices. These were the three top guys, and the Cowboys didn't talk to any of them, right like they had the one interview with Robert Sala that we knew about. Oh my god, I're talking to Robert Sala and we're gonna talk to Kellen Moore and all young Now it's Brian Schottenheimer, Like, like, I don't know, how do.
You walk out?
How do you sit in a room and and and find out this is our plan to hire a head coach Unless nobody's in that room. It's just a room with not the only one in the room. You know, say you want to be in the room where it happens, that's just my room. There's nobody else in the room, not even on a conference call. There's a different room down the hall where the other guys even's in there, other people in that. But but I'm in a room by myself. Like, how do you go through this and say, hey, all right, do we want to talk to Ben Johnson?
No?
No, we want to talk to Aaron Glenn But no, no, I don't want to do that. I want to talk to fret No. No, don't want to do get rable on a play. No, not not gonna do any of that. Like like that's the other part of it. That's just why the Cowboys are doomed. To this reality that they've had for the better part of thirty years, right like, and nothing has changed, right you know, Jerry Jones is the is the one consistent guy through all of this. But you know, I mean so that's why it's not surprising, but just the absolute facts to it that it's not like it would have looked even better if Jerry Jones had said, Hey, I talked to Ben Johnson, we talked to Aaron Glenn, we talked to Rabel, we talked to everybody. I talked to Belichick, I talked to all these guy. No, and Brian Schottenheimer is our guy. Okay, you could disagree with that. Obviously, I would still disagree. I'm not saying something I would say, y, I go, but at least I would say, well, we talked to everybody. You exhausted and and there's a happy medium between talking to the top guys are talking to twenty five people like the Jets and the Bears did, but at least do your due diligence and showed like you actually made some sort of of effort. Here he seems like a teenager in his room. That's just yeah, I'm gonna copy all this stuff from my report. I'm just gonna cut and paste off Wikipedia my teachers as lazy as I am. He's not gonna know. It's gonna turn this purport and it's gonna be absolutely fine.
Ah.
Hey, who wants to play Fortnite? Come on, let's get out, let's do it. I'll I'll just cut and paste it later on that I'll change a couple of ad birds and adjectives. It's gonna be awesome. Like is that?
Is that how this this this.
Search was made Like Jerry Jones knew all along, this is how I'm doing it. Okay, here's the Dam'm gonnannounce it. I'm gonnannounce it today and have this like that. That's so. That's so on brand for the Cowboys and on brand for Jerry Jones. I've never gotten to a point where I said, boy, you know, I really I feel bad for Cowboys fans, But wow, I feel really bad when you have a certain level of excellence that you're used to for your life and you keep thinking and banging your head against the wall, going eventually it's gonna change, Right, Eventually it's gonna change, And slowly the good times just start to erode and and you get to a point point where I can't even get excited because this is not even an exciting higher. It's not exciting for the players, not exciting for the fans. It's exciting for the Schottenheimer family, and it's exciting for Brian Schottenheimer. Very excited, but this is not exciting for anybody. Like, I can't believe I'm starting to feel bad for Cowboy What's wrong with me? Man?
Is it because Fridays your positivity?
Friday? Like, I'm starting to feel bad for Cowboys fans? What is wrong with me?
Did you hear sob stories from your dad about the Yankees all day?
Is that you know you broke.
You down, took a little bit of your will and your soul's like, hey, celebrating it until Wow, this is really broken my dad?
Dude, you want you want a SOB story? I just spend the day sitting here going, we're really gonna trade for Spencer Torkelsen to replace Pete Alonzo. So I didn't have the best sports day, right, but I'm still full of positivity Friday night.
So, once upon a time, a guy that people were very, very very excited about until they realized he couldn't field, but uh, and then after that he couldn't hit.
He had a really good twenty twenty. Now, don't don't ask me about the other two years. That's all right about the year's book ending twenty twenty three, But twenty twenty three was good.
Anytime we can get the bookends in, we've won.
How about this the sell it to the Cowboys fans like you were the White Sox and you were a mystery team, so you might have really talked to these people, but you just kind of slough it out after the fact.
Oh yeah, oh yeah.
We were kind of in on him, kind of in on that as opposed to now, if this was the plan, either we were going to strong arm McCarthy to come back, or Shottenheim or showed us enough around the building the last couple of years as a consultant. And then, because that's the other good move, right be it consultant, get into the room, convince them you're the smartest guy in the room, and then they give you a big fluffy package to stay on as a full time employee. It's good advice. It's a good way to go. Not to mention again. Member of the thirty third team, and you know Jason Cole may have had a hand in this.
Home.
Hey, I'm going to hire myself. I'm gonna hire myself.
I really, I've looked up at all the uh the things you're looking for in a candle, look at my resume, and that's just point for point.
This is like when when Corvin Burnson comes in Major League two and it talks to about all the problems going on. But I've saw some issues today. I activated myself coming out of retirement to play as well as you.
Still I'm hiring myself. All the problems are going.
Away, Okay.
I need to be in the room where it happens, and I can affect change day to day If I just take my consultant check and walk away.
I mean, you may have some of the learnings, but you won't have me.
Man.
I feel bad for Cowboy, but remember.
They haven't really been good for thirty years. I know you now have salty Troy Aikman out there.
Yeah, oh sure, sure, I can't believe hire Troy Aikman as the coach.
Well, I was kind of hoping that that would happen, that they'd hire Whittener, one of those guys that played with him, and then suddenly Troy.
Would come back as a consultants her coordinator himself.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna have every week is gonna be a guest cowboy head coach past legend. Uh. Here's the schedule for the seventeen weeks. It's Troy week one, and at week two, Michael week three, U and then week four. Then we get into the past a little bit. Doug Cosby's gonna come in and coach for a little while. Tony Hill is gonna coach. Tony Dorsett's gonna come in. Uh, and then you know, if things go better, we could go back to Troy at some point. But then don't forget Tony's gonna come in and coach a little bit. We're gonna have that so well we play away.
The forty nine ers. Charles Haley.
Yeah, I've got to have that. That's got absolutely that. That's a good idea there. Now, see, we already were through seven weeks. Now I got seven weeks of coaches. Just gotta get eight nine weeks more and we're gonna be good to go. Do you think Dion's willing to coach for one week.
And then we'll play it up where he has to coach against his boy ha ha.
Time now to find out what's trending in the wide world of sports. But man, who's been called the Jerry Jones of Fox Sports Radio, don't you dare he.
He's the greatest guy in the history of the world.
It's Steve de Sager.
I take great offense to that. Before the sentences even ended.
I was gonna say, he has just as much money as Jerry Jones.
It's Steve de Sager. That's what I would say, just like that.
Okay, I don't take afense to that. Let's move on.
You mentioned the Cowboys the last thirty years. Now that Washington's playing for the NFC title this weekend. Literally every other NFC team has been in the NFC Championship game but Dallas in the last thirty years, which is just astounding to think. Also, this longtime NFL reporter Ed Werder saying tonight that the Cowboys have their new defensive coordinator. It's Matt Eberflus from the Chicago Bears. He had been on Jason Garrett's Cowboys staff a decade ago.
Oh no, we really suck again.
As we mentioned earlier. The Dallas Cowboys, it's official, are promoting Brian Schottenheimer to head coach. News conference on that Monday. The Raiders are hiring Pete Carroll as head coach. He did not coach this past season after fourteen years with the Seahawks. Carol will turn seventy four in September, so he'll be the oldest head coach in the NFL history. He reportedly gets a contract for three years plus a team option. By the way, New Orleans the only one still with a head coach opening in the NFL right now. Robert Sala is now returning to San Francisco as defensive coordinator.
That's official.
The Texans fired offensive coordinator Bobby Slowick after two seasons. Eagles quarterback Jalen Hurts is off the injury report after last Sunday's bad knee. He'll likely wear a brace this Sunday against Washington for the NFC title. That'll be on Fox TV three pm Eastern. Washington guard Sam Cosmi suffered a torn acl last Saturday night.
Obviously, he's out.
In Philadelphia, defensive tackle Byron Young also out this weekend with a hamstring injury. Buffalo safety Taylor rap Is out with back in hip injuries. The Bills at Kansas City Sunday in the AFC Championship. As for late night men's college hoops, there's a triple header tonight's on FS one, first number ten rank Marquette beat Villanova eighty seven to seventy four. Right now at Iowa, the Hawkeys with under eight minutes to go, lead Penn State sixty seven to fifty seven. And in a half an hour on FS one Ucla at Washington. It was a blowout on Fox TV tonight Top twenty five matchup at Purdue, boiler Makers led Michigan twenty nine to nine after the first nine minutes. Ninety one sixty four. Perdue takes this game. In women's college hoops, number two South Carolina beat number five LSU NBA wins for Memphis, Portland, and Philadelphia which ended a seven game losing streak beating Cleveland one thirty two one twenty nine.
Back to you, thanks a bunch Steve the Jason Smizer with Mike Harmon love from the Tirech dot Com Studios. So there we go. Look, the Cowboys are just I mean, they can't get out of their own way, But that's the Cowboys.
I will have more NFL on the way. We got to get to Pete Carroll.
But straight ahead, you want the most shocking college football headline of the week. Wait, do we tell you what's coming up next? Jason and Mike. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific Fox.
Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Harmon. Hey, you're listening to us now, but did you know you can also see us. Be sure to check out the Fox Sports Radio YouTube channel. Just search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube. You'll see a whole bunch of video highlights of our shows. Be sure to subscribe so you always have instant access to our Fox Sports Radio videos on YouTube. We'll have more NFL head coaching news coming up in about ten minutes. We spent a lot of time on Brian Schottenheim and the Cowboys. Pete Carroll is now packing the NFL as a head coach. But I love this headline from college football today because really plays into a big story that we just saw hit its apex with the National Championship earlier this week. Vegas is getting the national championship in twenty twenty seven. Okay, that's great. That's that's two years from now. Okay, no, great, here's a Vegas. The national championship game will be played on January twenty fifth. So if you are extrapolating that to this week to this year, this means we still wouldn't have played the national Championship. It would be tomorrow night we'd be playing the The college football National Championship will be played the day before the final games in the NFL leading into the Super Bowl.
What are you still mad about? Your kim is going to be in it.
Hey, wait a minute, we're gonna the playoffs. Can expanse your accuse is going to be there. Nah, it's a nude. We're a football school now, man, we're a football school. This plays into the old. This is the only detriment that the playoff. I have about the playoff this year is that and now likely they're going to expand because you know, they don't want to get to that sticky wicket of Hey, can we really have a team go to a conference championship, lose and not get in and instead we take a team that didn't make it because they just didn't lose that week. Like that's a real sticky wicket. They're gonna wind up having to take the conference championship finalists of the four quote power conference. And I'd be okay if they just did it for the Big Ten and the ACC and the SEC, but they should do it for all right, that certainly makes sense. So you're gonna wind up having an expanded playoff if it's not this year, by next year when this happens, and it's it's too long, right, Like the college football doesn't quite have the star power of the NFL, but even the NFL, you're playing games every week, and the end college football is trying to find a way through the calendar and in December in January to play on nights where they can own the night like they can own Thursdays or Fridays and not have to worry about competing against the NFL when it gets close to Christmas. Is, hey, we're ready, we're chesty. We're playing on Saturdays. So but it's it's just too long, and it's it doesn't need to be that long. It certainly does not. You can have a sixteen team playoff, right, and if you're you're doing it with the calendar for this year, let's just say you expand a sixteen. You just start the playoff the week after the conference title games. You have to. You have Army Navy, and you have you have the first round of playoff games. You kind of have to because then as long as you play a couple of rounds before Christmas, then if you're just going to spread out a little bit the final two rounds, which are the semi finals in the final, then we're okay, because then you can even spread it out and you're still crowning the champion around January seventh or so, which is fine, right, I think I think that's I think that's been a really good sweet spot where, hey, we were used to college football ending on the first or the second. Now it's pushed out to the seventh, and I think the seventh works.
Right.
Hey, we got the big games, the big bowl games are going on, and all the excitement surrounding the other bowl games and the semi final games, so as you could still do it and have the semis and the national championship somewhere a little bit after Christmas. And then and then a little after New Year's right around anywhere between like the fifth and the ninth of January. And I think that works because this, quite honest, I'll tell you, it was too long. It felt like we're waiting so long to get to get to Notre Dame and Ohio State, and it was just a little bit too long. Again. NFLS Star Power College Football was lucky this year. Hey we had Notre Dame in it, but still it still felt a little long, and they need to rectify that, especially if now, I mean, look, come on, man in to really January twenty fifth playing pretty soon we'll be playing the National Championship the day before the Super Bowl. Hey, back to back this weekend, Mike Carmen. We got the National Title Game on Saturday and the Super Bowl on Sunday. Let's go big weekend.
Look, you had a decrease over ten percent in your viewing audience, and part of that you can attribut to the fact that, well, neither of the coasts were involved, so you got a little bit of that. But the larger point I think that needs to be taken is just you had two months. It became the equivalent of the NBA and NHL playoffs, which we always bemoan are too damn long. Literally a second season begins. Now I understand we have to still bow to the theory of the athlete student.
See, I got it right there.
There you go.
We're trying to make that trend, trying to get the hashtag athlete student athlet and winter breaks and the schedule and finals and everything else. But the reality is you're trying to build it into a must see everybody's involved television event, and you stretch it out that far. Some games are on Thursdays and Fridays, the alternating Tuesday eventually because hey, NFL doesn't have a game there, we're gonna sneak one in.
Wait a minute. We got to play at two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon boy, Sure TV, just ahead of a marathon of Impractical Jokers. We had to move the game to True TV. Sorry, Yeah, Duke and North Carolina are playing college. We had to move the game. I mean, but outside of that to me, but it was just that's the one thing I can say. Everything else the playoff was great. The one thing is it was just it was just too long. Exit out about a Fresca exit Swollen Dome The Jason Smith Show with my best friend Mike Carmon coming up next. Another team today had a perfect day with the head coach they hired in the NFL.
Wait a minute, the Raiders won.
Yes, that's next. Head coach of the Las Vegas Raiders a three year deal. Seventy four year old Pete Carroll is back in the game. And you know it's really weird because it not many days. Is it's gonna happen?
Right?
We talked about it this week when the Jets hired Aaron Glenn.
Hey, Aaron Glenn.
The Jets may not win another day the rest of the year, but getting Aaron Glenn this year he was the right guy because he's bringing exactly what the Jets need. We talked about the fact he's a former player there. He understands what it's like to play there. He understands what's like to play there for the owner, Woody Johnson. He's apprenticed under the best defensive coaches in the game. I have no doubt he is the right guy to build a culture. Jay Glazer is high on him. When he get the Jay Glazer Seal of approval, you know you're doing well. And I'll say the same thing for Pete Carroll, because what the Raiders need more than anything is that it's not even culture, it's just can we stop the backsliding? Can we just get Like every year it's like the Raiders are on you know, some sort of path climbing up a mountain, and they start at one point and you'll look away and they look at the end of the year and they're lower than they were at the beginning.
Like what happened?
We found a way to slide down the mountain? Like they need to stop the backsliding. They needed somebody who was going to come in be able to run an entire program and come in with cache and respect. And that's everything they got in Pete Carroll. Right for the what ever you could say about coaching and decision making, okay, but there's no doubt that he's gonna come in. He's gonna fire up the team. They're gonna be really excited to play from Nobody didn't like playing for Pete Carroll, whether Richard Sherman and Russell Wilson. For a long time, both love playing for Pete Carroll, and they both couldn't stand each other, right So when you've got guys that can't stand each other and they both love playing for a coach, Hey, okay, now things got weird with Russell Wilson at the end and he got a little too powerful.
But Pete Carroll is that guy.
He's gonna come into Vegas and say, Okay, this is how we're gonna do it. We're gonna build things from the studs. And when you build things from the studs of the NFL, it shouldn't take more than a couple of years to get to a point where, hey, we're back in being competitive because we've built something there was nobody better out there for the Raiders to get nobody better out there. Which also shows you that, man, if you can't get a job now this cycle, and if you're on the list of being a head coaching you couldn't get a job in this head coaching cycle. Put it away. You're never getting a head coaching job because guys like Pete Carroll are.
Getting Pete Carroll.
We thought he's done, he's never gonna be on the sideline again.
No, he gets a job, right.
So it's a very it's a unique cycle where certain things are happening in January of twenty twenty five. That might never happen again, not in twenty six, twenty seven, twenty eight, with the way the jobs are falling to people. But they got the right guy, and I have no doubt that they have hit rock bottom and now it's just gonna be a way to climb up. Now you got a big division in front of you, right, you have the Chargers who are on the rise, The Broncos are on the rise. The Chiefs are the champs at least until you know, things go different. They may be playing another Super Bowl, but at least the Raiders is okay. Now we know it's not gonna be just Hey, we're probably gonna go oh one to eight in the division, and if we win a game or two here and there, it's okay. They got the right guy, and Pete Carroll didn't have a choice. It's either coach the Raiders or you're not a head coach in the NFL. So okay, you had the bit of an arranged marriage where hey, it makes sense for you, it makes sense for me, let's go do it. But make no mistake, this was a really, really good day for the Raiders.
Yeah, I think when you're looking at it from the stop the backslide.
It should just be.
The the mantra coming into this coaching search top stop the revolving door. Okay, jam that thing so it doesn't keep cycling guys out minutes after they've shown up.
I mean, we've watched it since Mark Davis took over.
For all of the talk historically of his old man and his temper and and the wild fluctuations of infatuation or just being done with anybody on staff or coaching, he at least had some stability in terms of how he ran things. Might have been suing cities and wanting to move all the time, but when it came to finding a coach.
And building a program, that was what he was all about.
Mark Davis has just been all right, let's go that way and see how that goes.
For a little while.
He's riding the storm out, as it were, and you know, he's kind of like a real life Truman show where someone's directing the wins.
Hey, this is getting boring. Change it up for me a little bit.
So we look at the number of coaches that have come through. At some point you have to, you know, Susan Powder stop the insanity, So there you go. Look it up kids, crazy infomercial people for one hundred Alex. But just the idea that you've gone through so many coaches, so many gms, particularly the last decade, it seems like there's never been enough time to even try to implement a plan. You had Derek Carr there for a while, decided to move off him, and then it's been again a revolving door of quarterbacks ever since. And the guys that you've taken in the draft haven't worked out. You've really not put a lot of stock into making them better either. You've got a couple of component parts on your defense that are pretty so maybe beyond Bowers you'll find three or four pieces to your starting eleven on offense. But for Pete Carroll, you can come in right. He's already a college professor, so he can keep doing that. So that's joy, sure. But a guy that's gonna teach, and we saw him what he did with John Schneider in Seattle. Now he gets to work with spy tech and whatever influence Tom Brady has and all of this to go forward and try to recreate a little bit of what they had means you got to get the drafts right quite obviously, and can you win with a young quarterback? Sure, you don't have to go into the marketplace and overpay for the veterans. We've talked about it. It's a very thin marketplace unless you decide that you want to see if Sam Darnell can be your guy, and he's the focal point of everything you do. Reminder that Minnesota can still block everybody just saying dollar cost averaging, we're gonna have him and McCarthy here, But all of that to say what better was going to be out there? It was either him or McCarthy at this point, and I'd rather have Pete Carroll with a little bit of fire and vinegar. Yeah, I mean obviously everybody goes immediately to how old he is.
You say fire and vinegar.
Yeah, say let's get some fire and vinegar.
I don't know what I was. I knew what I was trying to.
You were trying to say something in vinegar, but you said, well, yeah, it's not like Dan fire.
I want to put that out of a T shirt.
Hey, look, sometimes the brains a lot faster. I will forever announce every one of your maleprofitts Ar, My.
Wife did that the other day. She goes, you know, we gotta have another wrench in the fire, and I go, uh, what, you gotta put a wrench in the fire? Go no, you either put another iron in the fire or you throw a wrench into something. You don't throw a wrench.
I think I like the combination there.
I don't know, man, wrench in the fire or fire and vinegar? Like fire, fire and vinegar sounds like it could be the new Metallica album. Dude, you get fire and vinegar? It is awesome.
Yeah, I'm not even sure how those two connected in my brain.
And that sounds like it would hurt.
Uh yeah, or you know what you know?
No, you know it is? No, you know it is. It's like a specialty shot at a bar that everybody talks about. Dude, go to the Whistling Pig on Friday. Man, they got fire and vinegar shots. What is shot?
It's ready?
You know it's it's fireball and it's vinegar.
Oh my god, it tastes amazing.
What they give you out a Bill's tailgate for a thousand Alex.
Now, because I had to look this up.
Homemade fire cider, horse radish, ginger garlic, onions, cayenne pepper, apple cider, vinegar, vinegar, and honey horse radish. Okay, all right, you can also use your immune support.
Okay. The fact you could also put out vinegar to put out grease.
Fires, Yeah you can do that.
Yeah, that's great.
I don't know about fired vinegar.
Well, but here you're you're putting out the fire.
Does it come with the side of Tom's.
I think it comes with a candy dish of Tums.
You gotta have it out on your on your tables.
Have you product very closely for many a year of Frostburg.
You don't think there's enough Toms in the media room when you got to sit and watch that, Oh they got ulcers.
Look, you know what this is. You know, we talk about a marriage of convenience. And I thought about this today when when when Pete Carroll is there because the Raiders really had no choice and he was the best guy there and Pete Carroll had no choice. And I thought about that scene in Moneyball when Brad Pitt goes in to talk to Dave Justice and he says, hey, you know, David Bell, let's tell you we got a problem here. He goes, no, no, no, you know, I know you talk to players the way you are, and he goes, look, let's be honest what we want from each other. I want to milk every ounce of baseball that you have in you and you want to stay in the show.
And you know, and that's because I thought.
It's Brady or you know, Mark David saying hey, let's be honest what we want. I want you to come in here and build a culture and stop the backsliding. And you want back into the NFL. All right, So he said, can we do that for each other? Dave Justice, Yeah, I got you, man, I got you. Don't worry about then they have the conversation about, you know, the dollar for soda. But you know, but I kind of get that where hey, we both are in a real bad position of need right now and it works out for both of us. Again, doesn't mean this isn't a great move. Pete Carroll coach and the Raiders phenomenal. He's got the success, he's got the cache, he's got the cachet with players, and you know what, here's how full of positivity Friday I'm at right now. It would make complete and total sense. If they went out and got Sam Darnold, Hey, we'll take him off your hands. Right, We'll give Sam. We'll give you two years and thirty million. Right, why not, We're still going to draft a quarterback two years and thirty million. Come throw the football for me here in Vegas and the Vikings can go, Oh all right, Greg, we got a draft pick. Here, we got something we need. Okay, we can go to JJ McCarthy not have to worry about the you know, all the drama coming off the end of the year, the thirty five touchdowns and four thousand yards, but the awful last two games. When do we go to McCarthy.
I'm up for that too.
Forget about forget out all the rumors about Russell Wilson that's never happened.
On bringing back that's just insane. But go get to talk about Go.
Get Sam Darnald. Come two years and thirty million. Come on and guaranteed two years and thirty million. You can make that come in play. It's your job for the next two years. Come be here, be my guy. I'm up for that. I'm up for that. It would make the Raiders better, it would make it would make for at least, Hey, here's kind of our identity. We went out and we signed a guy that had a great year last year, Pro Bowl quarterback in the NFC. Not many guys like that.
Now, I'm even up for that.
And I don't even like Sam Darnald, and I'm up for Hey, Pete, go get Sam Darnald. Make it happen. This is a great The Jets and Raiders both had great days this week. Man, I don't know what's happening. It's like the AFL in nineteen sixty eight and.
The Cowboys gave us a laugh, so they want to and the Bears is shoot one hundred years of tradition. Now, they did hire another first time a head coach, but they did what everybody wanted. Let's see the Raiders draft sixth in the first round. You've got all the opportunities out there, so yeah, Sam Donald plus a draft pick, not at sixth pick, but someone else to look and Sam Donald's get more than two for thirty, yeah?
Is he?
Yeah?
You thought Peter A.
Lonzo was gonna get more money coming out this year. I don't know.
Those last two games were really damaging, man, they were really damaging.
I think it'd be just fine.
We're really bad.
Hey, look I think I think Brian Flores found them really damaging in the coaching cycle too.
I'd like to make fifteen million a year the next two years.
I can't see that.
I'm alright with that now, but these well, the thing about the thing about Donal Look, we'll get into the thing about Donald because really I'll tell you exactly why I'm down on him for that, for that kind of a no, no, no, down on him for making all kinds of money this offseason. But uh, but look, look he would he wants a chance to play, right twenty seven. You get a chance to play. If you get a chance playing, you play good, guess what more money's gonna be there for you. But you need to be able to play. You need to be able to clinch. I can go to a spot where I can go play and make sure I keep this job. Because the minute he has two bad games in a row in Minnesota, it's gonna be Hey, time for JJ McCarthy. Right, you gotta go and know where you can go. And in turn, I'm always a big fan of Hey, you stay where you are because the system works for you. But clearly you got a guy pushing behind you that the team needs to see play. And the minute you have two bad games, that's not going to happen. Go to the Raiders that started quarterback. You get two seasons to get it right and then you get pay against You'd be twenty nine years old, you come off. You're a big three four year deal. It will happen. But I can't believe I'm down. I'm down with this man. This is feeling weird on this Friday night. Man, I don't know what it is.
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith Show with Mike Harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern, seven pm Pacific, Fox.
Sports Radio The Jason Smith Show with My best friend Mike Harmon live fromthtirerack dot Com Studios. Hey, now, because again I feel weird tonight. I'm full of positivity, Well except for the Cowboys. Uh you know, before we pick the AFC title game, I gotta say congratulations to the seventy six ers winning the biggest game of the year without and B.
They beat the Cleveland Cavaliers tonight by three.
The right with the world they went one twenty nine, Like Iverson was playing for them, and they somehow find a way to win this game.
Wow, a little bit of a throwback. Congratulations, what are thirty two points?
Buddy?
I know that's an amazing that's an amazing run right there. What did they get here? Paul George even played?
Yeah, I know Paul Georg played. He played a lot.
He played thirty six minutes, he had thirty max, he had twenty nine.
Look at this, you've besel went twelve and thirteen.
Come on now, hey went.
Just because the Sixers lose seven to eight games in a row doesn't mean they can't win one once in a while.
And their rotation just as deep as anything. Tibodo is thrown after.
Congratulations, it's an awesome, awesome thing. Now let's get to the AFC Championship game, right we we talked about the NFC game. Both Mike and I liked the Eagles to win to move on AFC. If the Bill, if I was more confident in the Bills defense, I picked the Bills. I feel like I do this now, Hey, I'd like to, but I just can't.
It's like me saying I like your thoughts and theory.
I ever, if I thought Buffalo because they're gonna need to stop the Chiefs and their defense just isn't good enough. It's it's the Chiefs are gonna do what they need to do, right and this this has all the harmarks have yet. I know that we've said, hey, this is gonna be the year that Josh Allen breaks through, just because at some point he's got to. I'll keep picking the bills and I get it. But what are we seeing from the Chiefs, right, I mean other than you know, the the the the officials making great calls in their favor. Right, Like Travis Kelcey is like a latter day Roger Clemens. Right the end of his career, Clemens was playing half a year coming up. Yeah, I'm here at the end when you need me.
Like there's Travis Kelcey.
I'm invisible for the regular season, but then near the end, Hey, look at me now, suddenly I'm an all pro. Wow, all of a sudden, it's back to being Travis Kelcey. It's a big deal, you know, having his best for now in the fourth quarter, the Chiefs are gonna do what they always do. They're gonna get the points they have to get because it's what happens to win in Kansas City. You need to be great. You need to be great to be able to pull off a win like this. The last time a team won it was the Bengals Super Bowl team. They did everything ne to do offensively, defensively, they held them back. Buffalo is terrific. But are they great enough. Is the defense great enough to cause problems for Patrick Mahomes as the offense starts to really pick things up. I don't see it. It's still a back and forth game. But I've seen the movie of the fourth quarter of Chiefs games all year too many times. I've seen the Chiefs always find a way to get past the Bills or whoever else they're playing. And again, if the Bills, if I could say, well, if the Bills had the Eagles defense, I could say, oh man, watch out, this is that big upset. But they don't. So in the fourth quarter, the Chiefs will make the plays. Mahomes will make the plays. Maybe he's the beneficiary of roughing the passer penalty when he's not even in the game, but something something like that. They will make all the plays they need to. It will be another close one. I'll take the over in this one. Like the under in the NFC Title game. But I like the over in this game. Give me the over, give me the Chiefs, and we got the Chiefs and the Eagles back in the Super Bowl.
Cheef's two point home favorite. Forty eight and a half is.
Your total in this one, mister Smith. Once again, I can't go against my preseason pick. I've got it luck with them. Got very lucky to have my preseason pick still alive. Maybe I'll get the MVP right, even if votes and other forums would say I don't. But I picked Buffalo to win the AFC before we started, so we'll stay there. The loss of Taylor Rap and the secondary is certainly not voting well, particularly the way Travis Kelsey has been playing of late, finding his way to tiptoe through the tulips I e. A wide open middle of the field.
These last couples, they just have a big red circle over that area. Now with that news today, hey wait a minute, wait, yeah, here's a big circle.
We're gonna be here all day.
You know that little route that that Travis likes to start and then he usually ends up drifting about eight yards this way. That's probably gonna be open for us a few times here on Sunday, So that one's problematic. Milano being back and covering the ground that he does certainly a help, but looking offensively, can.
You get a ground game going early with.
Cook and then who's stepping up in the passing game the tight ends? Maybe Keon Coleman's got a shot down field. Certainly Khalil Shakir moved those chains. But I'm expecting a bunch with Josh Allen taking the hits and going and moving the ball with his legs, and then you get a slight advantage to Bass. Yes, the bass, I'm attic is gonna have to be big in this one, him greater than Butker at least for one day. Just don't let it go to the judges, right, You left it up saying hey, they'll a call or there'll be something, uh chicanery and people going, oh no, we're losing our minds again.
But you know, that's one thing. I think there's so much attention on it now that I think officials are wary of blowing that whistle when they're not sure they see something. So I don't know that they're gonna get those calls, even though I know it's I know it's in Burrowhead. I get it, but there's so much as I don't know, man, have you I do, but there there's just so much attention on it now.
I always has been only only.
In the movies.
Can you say, hey, hey, the you know, here's these charismatic bank robbers. They keep robin banks. We're gonna watch this bank and they still are able to get away with it. Like it's gonna be really difficult for that to happen. I mean, it's gonna the officials know going in. Yeah, if we're really not sure we see it, we can't blow the whistle. I think you're gonna see some uh, you're gonna see some controversial penalties that aren't called. But in the end, it's it's the Chiefs and Arrowhead.
I'm gonna work.
I'm gonna work to find the referee stats as we go down deeper into the show tonight. But I do have one off the jump underdogs ten and three against the number with Cleyte Blakeman in playoff games.
Yeah, but it's actually Scott Foster who's officiating. If you know that, Yeah, whoa the league call they're sending him. I don't know if you know that, but he's doing the game. Yeah, good luck.
You really just kind of took things in a weird direction.
Exit out bout of Fresca. Exit swollen dope.
So there's Mike and I on opposite sides of the AFC Championship game.
Of the varsity game this week
