# Cowboys Potentially A Disaster, Bears Win Total, College Football Playoff Expansion, Jon Rahm LIV Champion

An episode of [The Colin Cowherd Podcast](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1551365571), 19 Aug 2025, 59 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/arttrk.com/p/D5CA5/pscrb.fm/rss/p/prfx.byspotify.com/e/pscrb.fm/rss/p/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/4013d28e-5f67-4885-bff1-ae3300346830/c7eeea15-20d7-4cfc-aca1-b33e000a1784/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=e829cf60-fc06-4d61-8691-ae330034683e

Colin is joined by John Middlekauff, host of “3 and Out” to talk all things football! Colin starts with an airline horror story of a Spirit Airlines pilot flying into Hurricane Erin and a positive airline story of using American Airlines “Flagship Suite” (4:00). They also swap Vegas stories and remark on how expensive it’s gotten and why they’ve priced out most of their customer base (8:15). They pivot to the NFL and Colin predicts a potentially “disastrous” season for the Dallas Cowboys and that Jerry Jones undervalued Mike McCarthy’s success as head coach (17:15). They discuss the penalties handed down to Michigan for the Connor Stallions scandal and why they don’t make any sense since Michigan was winning before and AFTER the scandal (30:00). They look at the potential expansion of the college football playoff and Colin argues he doesn’t want to see it expand beyond 16 teams and see nothing but blowouts (35:00). They talk about why a league of “haves and have-nots” in college football isn’t a bad thing, and why the most important thing for college football is “big games” (39:45). They go through the Bears schedule and predict their record either 9-8 or 10-7, and debate whether that should be considered a success (1:02:00). Finally, they end with Jon Rahm repeating as the individual champion of the LIV Tour, why the live experience at LIV is great, and why LIV is starting to find their niche in the world of golf (1:08). (Timestamps may vary based on advertisements.) Follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates! #Volume See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:01] Speaker 1: The volume at the end of the season. There's only
[0:04] Speaker 1: one team that can call themselves NBA champs, only one
[0:07] Speaker 1: player that can call themselves the number one pick in
[0:09] Speaker 1: the NFL draft. Well, there's only one electric suv worthy
[0:12] Speaker 1: of the title, the Ultimate, the all Electric bmw IX.
[0:17] Speaker 1: What I love about the IX is that it delivers
[0:19] Speaker 1: legendary BMW performance. I've had several while It's sleek design
[0:23] Speaker 1: exudes innovative style from the inside out, not to mention
[0:27] Speaker 1: how much space and utility it provides. Over seventy five
[0:31] Speaker 1: cubic feet of cargo space. The IX is completely changing
[0:34] Speaker 1: the game with an all electric suv. The greatest legends
[0:37] Speaker 1: of sports never compromise any part of the game, So
[0:40] Speaker 1: why would you settle for anything less from your suv?
[0:43] Speaker 1: After all, there's only one ultimate, the BMWIX. Everything you
[0:48] Speaker 1: love about the ultimate driving machine electrified BMW All right,
[0:57] Speaker 1: So I got to do something. This is this is
[0:59] Speaker 1: you know, John, I have to fly a lot, and
[1:01] Speaker 1: because of that, I always have takes on airlines. I'm
[1:05] Speaker 1: like a bad nineteen seventies comic. I've always got airline material.
[1:10] Speaker 1: So story today, I have this theory. I always tell
[1:13] Speaker 1: my kids don't fly any airline that has bright colors,
[1:18] Speaker 1: and so Spirit Airlines is one of those airlines. It's bankrupt. Today,
[1:23] Speaker 1: a Spirit Airlines plane flew into Hurricane Erin, into one
[1:29] Speaker 1: of the bands of Hurricane Aaron, some idiot pilot. He
[1:31] Speaker 1: had to make an exit stage right to get out
[1:34] Speaker 1: of the hurricane. He literally, you know when a hurricane's coming. Basically,
[1:37] Speaker 1: if you base, if you stay fairly aware of what's
[1:41] Speaker 1: happening in the skies, they will tell you, you know,
[1:44] Speaker 1: stay away from the bands of a hurricane. A Spirit
[1:46] Speaker 1: Airlines pilot flew into it. Today. I can't even imagine
[1:49] Speaker 1: being on that flight. Can't even imagine it. So that's
[1:52] Speaker 1: the first thing. Now I want to compliment an airlines.
[1:55] Speaker 1: This is not an ad. So I used to be
[1:58] Speaker 1: an a Delta guy. I think I probably travel more
[2:02] Speaker 1: than you do currently. I could be wrong, but I
[2:05] Speaker 1: think I do more long travel Boston to LA.
[2:07] Speaker 2: Is that right, you're jests enter, Yes, Okay.
[2:11] Speaker 1: So I was always a Delta guy, mostly because I
[2:13] Speaker 1: went to Park City a lot in Utah and LA
[2:15] Speaker 1: and Utah Salt like our big Delta hubs. So now
[2:18] Speaker 1: I'm in Chicago and Boston a lot and they're United
[2:21] Speaker 1: and American hubs. American Airlines has come up with something
[2:28] Speaker 1: called the Flagship Suite. Now I know it sounds really bougie,
[2:33] Speaker 1: but yesterday I was just and they've done this on
[2:36] Speaker 1: some of their airbus you know, I wrote it down
[2:40] Speaker 1: Airbus three twenty one XLR. They're using it on this.
[2:44] Speaker 1: So it's a smaller plane. The first eight rows are
[2:48] Speaker 1: you get your own cube. That's privacy doors, more personal storage.
[2:55] Speaker 1: I was in the next twelve and you shared it
[2:59] Speaker 1: with somebody, but it was it was like you know,
[3:02] Speaker 1: your classic Comfort plus when you go in an airline
[3:04] Speaker 1: behind first class. It was so good. And then there
[3:09] Speaker 1: was only about thirty percent of the plane max. Maybe
[3:12] Speaker 1: twenty five that was even economy and those look better. So, folks,
[3:16] Speaker 1: if you're flying American airlines and you want an elevated
[3:21] Speaker 1: experience and you don't want to buy first class, I
[3:24] Speaker 1: am telling you Flagship Suite is what you fly in
[3:29] Speaker 1: American airlines. You do not have to fly first class.
[3:33] Speaker 1: Even the economy had better seats. I was in like
[3:36] Speaker 1: the the economy plus seats they were unbelievable. They had
[3:40] Speaker 1: a live flat beds. It's a smaller plane. It doesn't
[3:43] Speaker 1: look like my entire life. That's when you fly to
[3:46] Speaker 1: Europe or something, you know, or Delta one, you get
[3:48] Speaker 1: these massive planes. It's a fairly small plane, and American
[3:53] Speaker 1: figured it out. Our domestic travelers want that too, not
[3:56] Speaker 1: just European jetsetters. So I know that sounds like incredibly bougie,
[4:00] Speaker 1: but I'm on planes constantly, avoid planes that fly into hurricanes,
[4:07] Speaker 1: and keep your eye on American Airlines flagship sweet.
[4:11] Speaker 2: I'm actually going to Hawaii Saturday through the following Thursday,
[4:17] Speaker 2: and we're taking American Airlines there. I think like any
[4:20] Speaker 2: young person, I definitely in my twenties, because you just
[4:23] Speaker 2: go to Orbits or Expedia and Frontiers, you know, the
[4:29] Speaker 2: cheap airlines. You just always oh, I can fly here
[4:33] Speaker 2: for to Nashville or Chicago for one hundred bucks.
[4:36] Speaker 1: When I was in my twenties, I flew Vegas in
[4:40] Speaker 1: the summer to San Diego for twenty nine, twenty nine
[4:44] Speaker 1: or thirty nine dollars. I did it about four times
[4:46] Speaker 1: this summer. I lived on Southwest Airlines in my twenties.
[4:48] Speaker 2: But the one thing you learn in Southwest is like this,
[4:50] Speaker 2: and spirit is like this. Southwest is now charging for bags,
[4:54] Speaker 2: and they now you have to pay for a seat.
[4:56] Speaker 2: They're not just lining up, you know how they did it.
[4:58] Speaker 2: AB and C spirit always screwed you that way. You're like, oh,
[5:02] Speaker 2: I just got one hundred dollars flight. Well, then they
[5:04] Speaker 2: charge you an extra one hundred and fifty dollars to
[5:06] Speaker 2: take your bags each way, so they screw you that way,
[5:09] Speaker 2: and then the experience is I mean terrible, right, I
[5:12] Speaker 2: mean it's it couldn't be any worse. And I do
[5:16] Speaker 2: think Southwest used to be able to fly really really
[5:19] Speaker 2: for those of us who live to California, whether you're
[5:20] Speaker 2: flying to Vegas or Los Angeles, southern California, you can
[5:23] Speaker 2: fly for like forty ninety nine, but those are done.
[5:25] Speaker 2: I mean we go back to northern California and see family.
[5:28] Speaker 2: Sometimes it's hard to find a ticket for less than
[5:30] Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty dollars, so you might as well
[5:32] Speaker 2: just fly the nicer airline if it's a difference between
[5:34] Speaker 2: fifty one hundred dollars and get the way better experience,
[5:36] Speaker 2: because before it used to get a really good deal
[5:39] Speaker 2: that anyone that flies Southwest occasionally you can. It is
[5:42] Speaker 2: much harder to find.
[5:45] Speaker 1: Well it's like Vegas. Everybody you're reading all the rushed Well,
[5:50] Speaker 1: there's two things. Number one is I lived in Vegas
[5:55] Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety ninety one, ninety two ninety three. The
[5:59] Speaker 1: reason you went to Vagae was for deals. That was
[6:01] Speaker 1: the market, that was the brand you went there because
[6:04] Speaker 1: he didn't have to go to Paris. You could go
[6:06] Speaker 1: to a hotel that kind of looked like a knockoff
[6:09] Speaker 1: of Paris for one fourth the price. I noticed this
[6:13] Speaker 1: my kids were with their mom several years ago, and
[6:18] Speaker 1: I would go to Vegas and I would take my
[6:19] Speaker 1: son to the fountains is at Bellagio and we would
[6:24] Speaker 1: go to eat dinner at this nice restaurant overlooking the fountains.
[6:27] Speaker 1: Now that was I think it was, I forget what
[6:31] Speaker 1: it was. It was one of those famous la chefs Spago.
[6:37] Speaker 1: So it was kind of my treat to him. Whenever
[6:39] Speaker 1: I was in town, like Friday night, we would go
[6:40] Speaker 1: have an early dinner and look at the fountains. He
[6:43] Speaker 1: loved it, you know, he's thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. We loved it,
[6:47] Speaker 1: and it was expensive, like that was a treat. That's
[6:51] Speaker 1: like the norm now, like they they have Rodeo level
[6:55] Speaker 1: rodeo drive shopping like the last couple of years. I
[6:59] Speaker 1: went to Vegas. I told my son, I'm like, cause
[7:01] Speaker 1: you can see the prices of food sometimes out in
[7:04] Speaker 1: front of these restaurants, I'm like, this is higher than LA. Like,
[7:08] Speaker 1: Vegas just got way too expensive. And remember these are
[7:13] Speaker 1: five thousand seat hotels, so they're you know, I mean,
[7:17] Speaker 1: we know what we're dealing with here. Everything's packed. You
[7:19] Speaker 1: went to Vegas for a good discount, but you never
[7:21] Speaker 1: got like scarcity. You never got it was never exclusive
[7:24] Speaker 1: or premium, but it was pretty darn good for an
[7:27] Speaker 1: incredible price. It's more expensive half the time than New
[7:30] Speaker 1: York and LA.
[7:31] Speaker 2: You and I talked about this when I was in Chicago.
[7:33] Speaker 2: Most people that go gamble in Vegas are not Charles
[7:35] Speaker 2: Barclay or Michael Jordan. They're not gambling fifty thousand dollars
[7:39] Speaker 2: a hand. You cannot go to one of the main
[7:42] Speaker 2: floors of the casino, especially in the evening, and find
[7:46] Speaker 2: a blackjack table for under fifty dollars a hand.
[7:49] Speaker 1: Impossible.
[7:49] Speaker 2: So that to me, when I went to cal Paly
[7:52] Speaker 2: used to be able to get a flight from Santa Maria,
[7:55] Speaker 2: I think it was like forty nine to ninety nine,
[7:57] Speaker 2: and you could go with no money as a college kid,
[7:59] Speaker 2: maybe a hundred dollars to your name, and have a
[8:02] Speaker 2: good weekend there. You might have to do a credit
[8:04] Speaker 2: advance if you were loans of money, but you could
[8:08] Speaker 2: spend easily a couple hundred dollars between your hotel eating.
[8:12] Speaker 2: You could eat really cheap from I haven't been to
[8:14] Speaker 2: Vegas now and since the Super Bowl a couple of
[8:16] Speaker 2: years ago, but me and Maria went to a Toby
[8:19] Speaker 2: Keith concert and we spent a couple of days there
[8:21] Speaker 2: as well, and I just remember everything being extreme, Like
[8:24] Speaker 2: you said, La Scottsdale, New York. It's like what are
[8:28] Speaker 2: There's nothing even I can't find a piece of pizza
[8:30] Speaker 2: for under twenty dollars a slice.
[8:32] Speaker 1: Well, the big draw now is the Sphere. They say,
[8:37] Speaker 1: the Sphere just signed a deal. They're going to show
[8:39] Speaker 1: the Wizard of Oz, the Wizard of Oz the movie
[8:42] Speaker 1: in the Sphere. And they think that fifteen percent of
[8:45] Speaker 1: people now that go to Vegas will go to the Sphere.
[8:47] Speaker 1: It's about ten percent now, So they think the Wizard
[8:49] Speaker 1: of Oz movie in the Sphere, which I'd love to
[8:52] Speaker 1: see because I watched that ten times as a kid.
[8:55] Speaker 1: They're gonna put it there. That's the big draw for me.
[8:58] Speaker 1: John Again, this was six years ago when I was
[9:00] Speaker 1: going to Vegas and I would go to like Mandalay
[9:02] Speaker 1: Bay and maybe during the day I didn't watch. I
[9:06] Speaker 1: try to avoid the casinos because I'm not a smoker,
[9:08] Speaker 1: so I just try to stay out of those things.
[9:10] Speaker 1: And that's the place they had a great pool. I
[9:12] Speaker 1: take my kid to the wave machine out back. We
[9:14] Speaker 1: had a really really good time, and the pool was expensive,
[9:17] Speaker 1: so I would never look at the floor during the day.
[9:19] Speaker 1: But like once when we would go to dinner at
[9:21] Speaker 1: night at the Mandalay Bay, we would walk through and
[9:23] Speaker 1: I would look at the tables. Nothing under fifty bucks
[9:26] Speaker 1: a hand. I've never in my life. I don't think
[9:31] Speaker 1: i've ever. I shouldn't say that. If I did, it
[9:35] Speaker 1: was infrequent. I've never met fifty dollars a hand in
[9:37] Speaker 1: my life on blackjack, and I lived in Vegas for
[9:39] Speaker 1: seven years. Never once. I mean, I'm like a twenty
[9:42] Speaker 1: dollars guy, maybe thirty double down occasionally. I just it's
[9:48] Speaker 1: it's just incredible. These executives. Can I give you a
[9:51] Speaker 1: theory on what happened to Vegas. So Steve Win built
[9:55] Speaker 1: the Encore and Win like high end art real luxury
[9:58] Speaker 1: villas by the golf course, and it was unique, like
[10:02] Speaker 1: if you had some money from Europe, Southeast Asia or
[10:06] Speaker 1: New York, you know, you'd stay at Encore or Win.
[10:09] Speaker 1: And then I think a lot of the executives, with
[10:12] Speaker 1: their egos, felt like, well, we don't want to have
[10:16] Speaker 1: second tier operations, so they try to compete with the
[10:20] Speaker 1: Encore and the Win. And then the so you know,
[10:23] Speaker 1: Caesar's is like, well, we want to do that, and
[10:26] Speaker 1: then the people just below Caesars thought, well, we're falling behind.
[10:29] Speaker 1: We want to do that, and so these companies got
[10:31] Speaker 1: into debt. They spent way too much money on their suites,
[10:37] Speaker 1: and now there's very few places to go in Vegas
[10:41] Speaker 1: in the better parts of town where you can get
[10:43] Speaker 1: a reasonable deal. Everybody copied Steve Win, but Steve Win,
[10:47] Speaker 1: even Steve Win made a huge mistake twenty five years
[10:49] Speaker 1: ago when he started he said, you know, the future
[10:51] Speaker 1: of Vegas, we want to bring families here. And then
[10:54] Speaker 1: about two years later he's like, yeah, kids, don't gamble.
[10:56] Speaker 1: I made a mistake, and he went back to like
[10:58] Speaker 1: high end places, and I think Vegas tried to copy
[11:01] Speaker 1: him out of they they didn't feel like they didn't
[11:03] Speaker 1: want their properties to look second and third tier, and
[11:07] Speaker 1: they priced out their demographic.
[11:09] Speaker 2: I also think the internet obviously sports gambling. I mean
[11:13] Speaker 2: it was a really big deal when I was young
[11:15] Speaker 2: to go to a sports book in Vegas. It was
[11:17] Speaker 2: the only place you could do that, and it was
[11:19] Speaker 2: a thrilling experience for a guy in their early twenties
[11:23] Speaker 2: that love sports, and it's something that for most people
[11:26] Speaker 2: up until it became legal, you had to go there
[11:29] Speaker 2: to bet, right, unless you had a bookie, but there
[11:32] Speaker 2: was nothing like them walking into the MGM or one
[11:34] Speaker 2: of the big casinos to the sports book. Well, I
[11:37] Speaker 2: live in Arizona. I just used DraftKings on my phone, right,
[11:40] Speaker 2: I mean I actually down the street from my house
[11:42] Speaker 2: have a Draftking sports book that is five minutes away
[11:45] Speaker 2: from where I live. It's right next to the golf course.
[11:48] Speaker 2: So that world has been changed. I also think the
[11:50] Speaker 2: consumer now which it's not this is not a positive,
[11:54] Speaker 2: but spends so much of their entertainment value. This is
[11:57] Speaker 2: why isolation has become a just on the internet and
[12:00] Speaker 2: on their phone. So going to Vegas was a treat
[12:03] Speaker 2: people out to get. I think less and less people
[12:05] Speaker 2: travel for entertainment because now we I mean, just think
[12:08] Speaker 2: of what we have access to on our TV for entertainment, right,
[12:11] Speaker 2: I got a million apps with a million different shows,
[12:14] Speaker 2: and I just think all the combination of sports betting.
[12:18] Speaker 2: You can also play cards and stuff on the I
[12:21] Speaker 2: think there are way more cards games, isn't Nick right,
[12:23] Speaker 2: he plays card games all over them. It's way easier
[12:25] Speaker 2: to find stuff now that way. I think the I
[12:27] Speaker 2: think the Internet really hurt Vegas. It took a little time, right,
[12:30] Speaker 2: I mean we're's twenty twenty five. The Internet's been around
[12:32] Speaker 2: for thirty plus years. But it's I don't think there's
[12:35] Speaker 2: any coming back for them.
[12:37] Speaker 1: No. And I also this isn't even a political thought,
[12:41] Speaker 1: but I think Canadians, you know, they have cut their
[12:45] Speaker 1: travel to the United States because of like tariffs and
[12:47] Speaker 1: the negativity and kind of the aggressiveness of you know,
[12:51] Speaker 1: our current president. Canadians have and I've seen this in
[12:54] Speaker 1: the grocery store business. Canadians have just decided, you know,
[12:57] Speaker 1: they're gonna thumb their nose. Well luck in the winter,
[13:01] Speaker 1: you know, thumb in your nose at Florida. But I
[13:03] Speaker 1: think there's a you know, international travel is down to America,
[13:07] Speaker 1: Canadian travel is down the internet, the sports gambling angle,
[13:13] Speaker 1: and I just I know again, when my kids were there,
[13:16] Speaker 1: about six years ago, I would go and I just
[13:19] Speaker 1: remember thinking, Jesus, there are no discounts. And it's funny
[13:23] Speaker 1: because when I would check in, you know, you sit
[13:27] Speaker 1: in that line and you look around the line and
[13:30] Speaker 1: it's not a rich it's not a ritzy crowd. It's like, oh,
[13:34] Speaker 1: just it's Iowa, It's it's Madison, Wisconsin. It's just like
[13:37] Speaker 1: regular people in T shirts and jeans or flip flops
[13:41] Speaker 1: and board shorts, and they're they're pricing stuff like it's
[13:44] Speaker 1: a European travel. It's like, what are you doing here? Well.
[13:48] Speaker 2: The other thing is the indie casinos in California, and
[13:51] Speaker 2: there's one in Scottsdale is extremely nice. Talking stick in Scottsdale.
[13:57] Speaker 1: Is I mean you, oh, talking sticks going.
[13:59] Speaker 2: You could put it in Vegas and it would fit
[14:01] Speaker 2: right in. So these casinos, if you want to go
[14:03] Speaker 2: play cards, you just you don't even need to leave
[14:05] Speaker 2: your state anymore. So think how many people that from
[14:08] Speaker 2: California or whatever. I mean. There are a ton of
[14:10] Speaker 2: Indian casinos in northern California, in the valley in Fresno,
[14:13] Speaker 2: so I just I do think big picture though Vegas,
[14:17] Speaker 2: with their tax benefits, a lot of companies are moving there.
[14:20] Speaker 2: The city and the area might be okay. They just
[14:23] Speaker 2: have to transition away from the casino business. I think
[14:26] Speaker 2: is seen its heyday all right.
[14:28] Speaker 1: Time to look at this weekend's tasty this matchup in
[14:30] Speaker 1: this week's Sunday Night food Ball brought to you by
[14:32] Speaker 1: Uber Eat, a company I use all the time. Looking
[14:38] Speaker 1: at this cowboy thing we were talking about on the show.
[14:42] Speaker 1: So John Middlcoff is going to be on FS one
[14:44] Speaker 1: all week and one of the rants I did today
[14:51] Speaker 1: was about Mike McCarthy. I think the Cowboys are going
[14:54] Speaker 1: to shit the bad week one. I think it's going
[14:57] Speaker 1: to be a disastrous season. I don't like their defensive person.
[15:00] Speaker 1: They've got two or three things that get in the
[15:02] Speaker 1: way of winning. One, their division's gotten better. Two, their
[15:06] Speaker 1: offensive line is really in flux, and they don't have
[15:09] Speaker 1: elite running backs to begin with, so it's going to
[15:12] Speaker 1: be very Dak Prescott dependent, which is not good. I mean,
[15:17] Speaker 1: he's not the kind of quarterback that can carry a franchise.
[15:20] Speaker 1: He needs help. No run game, O line work in progress,
[15:24] Speaker 1: and the defense was terrible last year. But if you
[15:28] Speaker 1: go back and look at Mike McCarthy, and this happens
[15:31] Speaker 1: all the time. It's a big brand, and you run
[15:33] Speaker 1: people out of town. I mean, the Lakers have run
[15:35] Speaker 1: through a lot of coaches, and a lot of those
[15:38] Speaker 1: coaches have gotten good gigs. But Mike McCarthy went twelve
[15:42] Speaker 1: and five, twelve and five, twelve and five, and then
[15:44] Speaker 1: Dak got hurt. He won more games that he lost
[15:47] Speaker 1: with Cooper Rush. They had the second best offense in
[15:49] Speaker 1: the league behind Josh Allen and the Bills in his
[15:52] Speaker 1: tenure in Dallas. And I think if the Cowboys are awful,
[15:58] Speaker 1: and I think they will be this year, I think
[16:00] Speaker 1: Mike McCarthy is going to go from the Packers to
[16:02] Speaker 1: the Cowboys. I think he's going to get another job
[16:04] Speaker 1: in an offensive league. Am I not saying that?
[16:07] Speaker 2: Well, why do you think he wasn't a bigger candidate
[16:10] Speaker 2: this offseason? Because I thought, you know, those three straight
[16:13] Speaker 2: years of twelve wins, what he did last year, I
[16:15] Speaker 2: mean most an average to below average coach last year
[16:19] Speaker 2: with Dak being injured, they end up winning two or
[16:21] Speaker 2: three games, but they went seven to ten and Cooper
[16:22] Speaker 2: Rush was good. There's a branding issue with Mike right,
[16:26] Speaker 2: kind of bigger guy, kind of goofy guy. When he
[16:29] Speaker 2: got fired from the Packers, it felt like his relationship
[16:32] Speaker 2: with Aaron Haad deteriorated. Aaron's kind of pivoted and is
[16:35] Speaker 2: like a supporter of him. Now sometimes a year away
[16:39] Speaker 2: with coaches will do him well. You could argue, I mean,
[16:43] Speaker 2: the Giants are going to match up really well against
[16:45] Speaker 2: the Cowboys, right because they have a really good defensive
[16:48] Speaker 2: line and at that offensive.
[16:49] Speaker 1: Well, they have a dominant defen they have second best
[16:50] Speaker 1: d lines arguably in the show.
[16:52] Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it could. It's really I thought was
[16:55] Speaker 2: a little premature a couple of years ago. But the
[16:58] Speaker 2: Al Davis comps, I mean, the Al Davis thing, it
[17:00] Speaker 2: got ugly because he started hiring coaches that had no
[17:02] Speaker 2: business being the head coach. And that that's what Brian
[17:04] Speaker 2: Schottenheimer feels like right now. And what's going on there.
[17:08] Speaker 2: I mean, if they if they're an injury or two
[17:10] Speaker 2: away from being a disaster, and unlike Mike McCarthy that
[17:13] Speaker 2: knows what he's doing. Who's to say that they couldn't
[17:16] Speaker 2: just unwrap? I mean, what if Dak rolled an ankle
[17:19] Speaker 2: all of a sudden, You're like, oh my god, here
[17:20] Speaker 2: we go, and Brian's acting tough. Here's the other thing
[17:23] Speaker 2: to play. Like with Al Davis, the players know that
[17:27] Speaker 2: Jerry's in charge, so it's like, why am I going?
[17:29] Speaker 2: Why am I gonna listen to Brian? And that Mike
[17:31] Speaker 2: Lombardi talked about this forever. Once everyone realized, like the
[17:34] Speaker 2: coach doesn't matter here. Just go to Al, you know,
[17:36] Speaker 2: like you do that, you know how he's the boss.
[17:39] Speaker 2: You know mcveigh's the boss or Kyle's the boss. Obviously
[17:42] Speaker 2: they don't sign the checks, but the owners to deal with.
[17:45] Speaker 2: Even Jimmy Haslam was like Miles Garrett was like, I
[17:47] Speaker 2: want to trade. He's like, deal with the GM. Talk
[17:49] Speaker 2: to him. He's in charge of football. That is not
[17:52] Speaker 2: the way it works with the Cowboys. And when you
[17:53] Speaker 2: get one thing, Mike had a Pelts on the wall
[17:55] Speaker 2: right had coached Aaron Rodgers, had won a Super Bowl'd
[17:59] Speaker 2: like Brian Shott and I. Some of these young coaches
[18:01] Speaker 2: had never heard of his dad. So it's not like
[18:03] Speaker 2: he's this famous coach's dad. I mean he is to
[18:05] Speaker 2: me and you, But if you're twenty two years old,
[18:08] Speaker 2: you don't remember Marty Schottenheimer coaching the Browns, right or
[18:11] Speaker 2: coaching the Chargers, and so some of his credibility with
[18:15] Speaker 2: that name doesn't resonate like it does for an older
[18:18] Speaker 2: person or even Jerry, who I've heard Jerry say part
[18:21] Speaker 2: of the reason he loved I think he thought, maybe
[18:23] Speaker 2: I'm getting a Kyle Shanahan or a McVeigh, you know,
[18:26] Speaker 2: from a football family. I think that's what he's thinking.
[18:28] Speaker 2: It's like Jerry, that's yeah, it ain't quite the same, no.
[18:32] Speaker 1: I think I was talking to Matt Moseley on one
[18:35] Speaker 1: of my pods and he said, like, Jerry doesn't respect coaches,
[18:38] Speaker 1: and there's a very clear line. He hires coaches who
[18:42] Speaker 1: will be indebted to him. I like Jason Garrett didn't
[18:45] Speaker 1: think he was great, thought he was good. Jason Garrett
[18:47] Speaker 1: would not have gotten another head coaching job. Mike McCarthy
[18:49] Speaker 1: was on the beach. Jan Jan Gaily was not a
[18:52] Speaker 1: hot prospect. Nobody was even offering a top oc job
[18:56] Speaker 1: to Brian Schottenheimer. The coaches, Jerry doesn't respect the coaching position,
[19:02] Speaker 1: which is really weird considering Jerry usually has a pretty
[19:08] Speaker 1: good sense of valuations of properties. He's a very very
[19:13] Speaker 1: good businessman, and I think Jerry overvalues his football IQ
[19:21] Speaker 1: and feels like, by and large, we could win twelve
[19:25] Speaker 1: games with Mike McCarthy. I can win. I can win
[19:29] Speaker 1: ten to eleven games if Dak comes back healthy. It's
[19:33] Speaker 1: just remarkable to me that in the most important sport
[19:40] Speaker 1: for coaching, football, where the league has gotten much more
[19:44] Speaker 1: sophisticated and intelligent with its offensive coaching, Jerry's going the
[19:48] Speaker 1: other way, which is coaches don't matter. It's really remarkable
[19:53] Speaker 1: to me everybody. Now, maybe it's this he looks at
[19:58] Speaker 1: Nick Siriani and thinks if they won a Super Bowl
[20:01] Speaker 1: with Nick Sirianni. Maybe he looks in his own division
[20:04] Speaker 1: and says that, I mean, I mean Sarahannie. To me,
[20:06] Speaker 1: he's a bit of an outlier where I understand Dan Campbell,
[20:10] Speaker 1: who I wasn't initially a fan of. I don't really
[20:14] Speaker 1: get Sariannie still, but it works.
[20:18] Speaker 2: He's got Howie Roseman. I mean, I mean, he's got
[20:21] Speaker 2: a guy that's gonna be probably a first bout Hall
[20:23] Speaker 2: of Famer one day as a general manager. I think
[20:26] Speaker 2: Jerry is just he had an opportunity. Sean Payton worked
[20:29] Speaker 2: for him, Dan Campbell played for him. You could argue
[20:32] Speaker 2: a couple of years ago Dan Quinn, who was this
[20:34] Speaker 2: rising star. If you're gonna get rid of Mike McCarthy,
[20:36] Speaker 2: just fire him then and hire Dan Quinn. I think
[20:39] Speaker 2: a mistake he made is two years ago when Mike
[20:41] Speaker 2: lost to the Packers and everyone freaked out and he
[20:43] Speaker 2: got his ass kicked. He'd let him coach on that
[20:46] Speaker 2: that year where his contract ran out. He probably should
[20:49] Speaker 2: have just given Mike like a three year contract extension
[20:51] Speaker 2: after that year. Wouldn't have had to be crazy money.
[20:54] Speaker 2: But Jerry, prideful wasn't gonna do that after they lost,
[20:57] Speaker 2: and now he's in a position where Brian Shottenneimers is
[20:59] Speaker 2: head coach. I'm not as down on the Cowboys roster
[21:03] Speaker 2: of being some choke like two to three win team,
[21:06] Speaker 2: but the way they're built, I mean they are an
[21:08] Speaker 2: injury to a way, and if the coach is over
[21:10] Speaker 2: his head. This is a sport where it's like it
[21:13] Speaker 2: can get ugly, and it can get ugly fast. And
[21:15] Speaker 2: if Dak were to get injured, and he has a history, now,
[21:18] Speaker 2: who's to say they can't end up like a four
[21:20] Speaker 2: win team and be last place in that division. If
[21:23] Speaker 2: the Giants just the quarterback plays stabilize a little bit
[21:26] Speaker 2: in their defensive solid we know, Washington, the Eagles are good.
[21:29] Speaker 1: Well, I think you nailed it. I think the New
[21:31] Speaker 1: York Giants are a Say what you want about the
[21:35] Speaker 1: Giants that defensive line. Now again, Philadelphia's O line is
[21:40] Speaker 1: good enough to keep it at bay. I think the
[21:42] Speaker 1: Giants D line could overwhelm the Cowboys. I think Abdul
[21:46] Speaker 1: Carter Fobota on the other side, Dexter Lawrence. I'm trying
[21:50] Speaker 1: to think of defensive lines I like more than the
[21:52] Speaker 1: New York Giants. There's not a lot of them. There
[21:55] Speaker 1: are some individual players that are great. I think the
[21:58] Speaker 1: Rams defensive line is really really good in getting better.
[22:02] Speaker 1: Philadelphia is, obviously, but you know there's some teams in
[22:06] Speaker 1: this league in the Giants are one of those teams.
[22:09] Speaker 1: I actually think they're a quarterback away. I think if
[22:12] Speaker 1: you gave them the right quarterback, you'd look up in
[22:14] Speaker 1: the Giants, they wouldn't be flashy. If Malik Neighbors could
[22:17] Speaker 1: stay healthy, they could actually win eleven games. That's why
[22:22] Speaker 1: you know Dable. I think it works a little bit
[22:24] Speaker 1: with his franchise because he is good at taking average
[22:28] Speaker 1: B quarterbacks and making them a half great higher. But
[22:33] Speaker 1: I don't know. I just I history repeats itself, and
[22:38] Speaker 1: I think we're going into a really dark cowboy stage.
[22:44] Speaker 1: That was this week's Sunday Night Foodball, brought to you
[22:47] Speaker 1: by Uber Eats. When football makes you hungry, get GameDay
[22:50] Speaker 1: deals on Uber Eats. I do every week, the official
[22:53] Speaker 1: on demand delivery partner of the NFL. Order. Now I
[22:56] Speaker 1: just did. Okay, So I think we're both so fired
[23:03] Speaker 1: up for Texas Ohio State. You and I love college
[23:06] Speaker 1: football and I can't wait for that game. So the
[23:11] Speaker 1: Michigan penalties came down, and basically Harbaugh can't coach in
[23:16] Speaker 1: college football for the next decade. He won't. They're probably
[23:20] Speaker 1: going to have to write, you know, thirty million dollars
[23:21] Speaker 1: in checks. They didn't have to vacate any wins. The
[23:25] Speaker 1: best punishment you can give a huge brand is cash.
[23:29] Speaker 1: I mean, they can make payments, but I I gotta
[23:34] Speaker 1: tell you, John, I know I'm supposed to really be
[23:37] Speaker 1: outraged when the NCAA says, hey, listen, they were out
[23:41] Speaker 1: of control, they didn't follow rules. John the coaches I've
[23:48] Speaker 1: talked to with the transfer portal, it is so sketchy,
[23:54] Speaker 1: and the NIL is the wild wild West that connorstolellions.
[24:01] Speaker 1: I know I should be bothered, but I think I
[24:04] Speaker 1: think the penalty of a pay like twenty to thirty
[24:07] Speaker 1: million dollars, I'm fine with it. And I know I
[24:12] Speaker 1: sound like I'm a big ten homer here, but I
[24:16] Speaker 1: would say this. We all know the SEC was paying
[24:19] Speaker 1: guys for years through the church. I mean Nick Saban
[24:22] Speaker 1: basically stopped recruiting late cycle Ole Miss players because if
[24:26] Speaker 1: he couldn't get him committed early, he knew he'd lose late,
[24:30] Speaker 1: he knew he had no chance to win. They'd get
[24:31] Speaker 1: paid out. So and then you know, Hugh Freeze got busted.
[24:35] Speaker 1: I mean it was I went on the air multiple
[24:36] Speaker 1: times there were Ole Miss was not the only school,
[24:40] Speaker 1: but they were the worst defender with Hugh Freeze, who,
[24:42] Speaker 1: by the way, gets rehired again because nobody really cares.
[24:46] Speaker 1: But in the end is if you can pay high
[24:48] Speaker 1: school football players, I don't care. It's nothing's illegal. I
[24:53] Speaker 1: don't care. Do you feel as strongly as I do?
[24:56] Speaker 1: Or are you bothered that they were a little bit
[24:58] Speaker 1: of an outlaw program with Hart?
[25:00] Speaker 2: Yeah? I mean, I do not care at all. I'm
[25:02] Speaker 2: actually surprised that people still listen to the NC Double A.
[25:05] Speaker 2: You know that they're not in charge of the money
[25:07] Speaker 2: generation of college football. Obviously they have more of a
[25:10] Speaker 2: poll when it comes to basketball because they have a
[25:13] Speaker 2: lot with the NCAA tournament.
[25:16] Speaker 1: But it's much madness.
[25:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not called the NC Double A college football playoffs? Like,
[25:20] Speaker 2: so why think how stupid it is that Sharon More
[25:24] Speaker 2: got suspended for games three and four because they play Oklahoma? Like,
[25:28] Speaker 2: what are we doing? How does this make any sense?
[25:31] Speaker 2: And the NC Double A is it's been laughable for
[25:33] Speaker 2: a long time. It's like, No, I witnessed John Calipari
[25:36] Speaker 2: go to the finals, Like, you can't just take that
[25:39] Speaker 2: away Reggie Bush. I saw him. He's one of the
[25:41] Speaker 2: best college football players I've ever seen. Can't take away
[25:43] Speaker 2: his heisman. What were we talking about? Because he took
[25:46] Speaker 2: some shoes and an apartment from an eighth Think how
[25:49] Speaker 2: dumb that sounds? Now? You talked about that today. But Michigan,
[25:53] Speaker 2: who has a quarterback which I would imagine is going
[25:55] Speaker 2: to start the Underwood kid who they stole from LSU
[25:59] Speaker 2: because Larry Ellison cut a fifteen to twenty million dollar check.
[26:03] Speaker 2: And we're mad about a guy with binoculars and an
[26:06] Speaker 2: iPhone sitting in the seventieth row at an Iowa Michigan
[26:10] Speaker 2: state football game. And the other thing is I always
[26:13] Speaker 2: did defended Belichick when I got to the NFL with
[26:17] Speaker 2: Andy like stealing signs because technology changed a lot over
[26:21] Speaker 2: the last ten years. Now it's like everyone's in the headset.
[26:24] Speaker 2: But before stealing signs, everyone was doing it. Now Belichick
[26:28] Speaker 2: was a little more brazen on the sideline, but he
[26:31] Speaker 2: was doing something no different than everyone else was doing.
[26:34] Speaker 2: Everyone had signed stealing ability and tried to decode everything
[26:38] Speaker 2: and had people with cameras, so no one you notice
[26:41] Speaker 2: people in the NFL weren't that offended. Who was offended?
[26:45] Speaker 2: Fans Roger Goodell, who's never you know, And this is
[26:49] Speaker 2: the pushback with NFL people with Roger great with business,
[26:52] Speaker 2: but he doesn't know like the inner workings of play calls,
[26:56] Speaker 2: player acquisition, the strategy of football, and that's not his
[27:00] Speaker 2: so sometimes like bounty Gate and things with Roger Goodell overreacted.
[27:04] Speaker 2: I think a lot of people in the NFL, it's like, yeah,
[27:06] Speaker 2: this is football, you know. I think a lot of
[27:08] Speaker 2: people in college football. Now, did Michigan just beat Ohio
[27:13] Speaker 2: State when he was gone with Bill Connor? Stallions? Like,
[27:15] Speaker 2: It's just they got really good players. They got a
[27:17] Speaker 2: bunch of NFL guys. But I just can't get over
[27:19] Speaker 2: people still listening to the NCAA. It baffles me, like
[27:23] Speaker 2: why does football need them? And at this point in
[27:26] Speaker 2: time in twenty twenty five, I don't get it because
[27:30] Speaker 2: clearly they had to just wave their hands and wave
[27:32] Speaker 2: the white flag on all of the money stuff, So
[27:35] Speaker 2: why are we listening to them about anything else?
[27:39] Speaker 1: I will make a prediction in the next three years,
[27:44] Speaker 1: some venture capital group will buy March Madness and they
[27:51] Speaker 1: won't change much. They may shrink it a little bit
[27:54] Speaker 1: to like fifty eight teams or something that, you know,
[27:56] Speaker 1: fewer teams is probably better for a little leaner tournament.
[28:01] Speaker 1: But you know, I just heard a story yesterday from
[28:04] Speaker 1: a very good network source that there is a lot
[28:08] Speaker 1: of momentum to have like a twenty four or twenty
[28:10] Speaker 1: eighteen playoff, and my loyalty has always been to more
[28:15] Speaker 1: big games, and you just can't get me worked up.
[28:19] Speaker 1: I Auburn Alabama. It's great, but it's regional and the
[28:25] Speaker 1: highest rated game last year. I think it was Texas Georgia.
[28:28] Speaker 1: That's not a rivalry. It wasn't Texas Oklahoma. So I don't.
[28:32] Speaker 1: I'm not when I heard everybody say, well, you're going
[28:34] Speaker 1: to kill the rivalries. Listen, if you're a Michigan fan
[28:37] Speaker 1: in Ohio State, did that game feel smaller last year
[28:40] Speaker 1: to you? And Michigan upstate Ohio State? It didn't feel
[28:43] Speaker 1: smaller to me, you know. So I mean the reality
[28:47] Speaker 1: is when the Rams play the Niners, it's intense. They
[28:51] Speaker 1: could play three times a year. Years ago, when the
[28:53] Speaker 1: Steelers and Ravens and Ray Lewis was around and so
[28:56] Speaker 1: was Big Ben. They play one year three times. The
[29:00] Speaker 1: game felt bigger than the first two because it was
[29:03] Speaker 1: a playoff game. So I there's just certain things in
[29:07] Speaker 1: twenty twenty five. I can't get worked up over somebody
[29:11] Speaker 1: having pot in their car, you know, same sex marriage,
[29:18] Speaker 1: NCAA coming down on payments to players, or any kind
[29:23] Speaker 1: of scandal like we've just graduated to just understanding the
[29:28] Speaker 1: world we live in. I said it today. Unless you're
[29:31] Speaker 1: like a cop from Reno nine to one to one,
[29:33] Speaker 1: you got a roach in your car. Nobody cares. That
[29:36] Speaker 1: mattered in the seventies, and I just if you can
[29:39] Speaker 1: buy high school players. I don't give two shits about
[29:42] Speaker 1: somebody with an iPhone in the crowd. I don't care
[29:44] Speaker 1: if you have forty of them, I don't care.
[29:47] Speaker 2: I do think the twenty four twenty eight team college
[29:50] Speaker 2: football playoff, that's where I might get a little worked up.
[29:54] Speaker 2: You know, we saw the twelve team that first round
[29:56] Speaker 2: was a blowout. You know, you know there have been
[29:58] Speaker 2: arguments about sixteen tw again more. I love football as
[30:02] Speaker 2: much as the next guy, But that doesn't that feel
[30:04] Speaker 2: a little extreme? And we get a lot of average
[30:06] Speaker 2: to below average teams in the dance in that situation,
[30:10] Speaker 2: it's been your argument.
[30:11] Speaker 1: I think for March.
[30:12] Speaker 2: Madness forever, we always scream over first in last out
[30:15] Speaker 2: or whatever. Those teams never matter, right, who are your
[30:17] Speaker 2: one and two seeds? They usually determine the tournament.
[30:20] Speaker 1: So I think you'd have to make it half the
[30:22] Speaker 1: size of March Madness. Because football is a sport of attrition.
[30:26] Speaker 1: So the little guy it has no chance in a
[30:29] Speaker 1: twenty eight team tournament to ever win like a third
[30:32] Speaker 1: straight game against a bigger, deeper roster. But I think
[30:37] Speaker 1: I've said I think the perfect number is about sixteen.
[30:41] Speaker 1: I wouldn't be bothered by twenty. I think if you
[30:43] Speaker 1: get to twenty eight, you'd have to give the top
[30:46] Speaker 1: like four seeds. You know, I don't want I don't
[30:48] Speaker 1: want Georgia playing Liberty. I'm just not interested in that
[30:52] Speaker 1: at all. I mean, Notre Dame played Indiana and that
[30:55] Speaker 1: was kind of embarrassing for the Hoosiers.
[30:57] Speaker 2: I thought it was very I mean, Boise State in
[31:00] Speaker 2: state had a guy drafted in the top ten at
[31:03] Speaker 2: running back and he had no chance. You know why
[31:05] Speaker 2: because the offensive lineman had no chance to block the
[31:08] Speaker 2: Penn State guys. And that's always going to be the
[31:10] Speaker 2: big problem you get a twenty eighteen playoff. But here's
[31:13] Speaker 2: the other thing. It's like it's one team thing. At
[31:16] Speaker 2: the fourth or fifteen from the Big ten and the
[31:19] Speaker 2: SEC get in. But when you're taking the third and
[31:22] Speaker 2: fourth team from the Big twelve and the ACC, that's
[31:24] Speaker 2: when it could get really ugly. And that's I we
[31:27] Speaker 2: don't need to see those teams play now. I get
[31:30] Speaker 2: it's all about television ratings and football. I was thinking
[31:33] Speaker 2: today watching Sunday Night Football with Kleb Williams, what do
[31:36] Speaker 2: you think the first thirty minutes of that football game did?
[31:38] Speaker 2: I mean, it just had to blow everything out of
[31:40] Speaker 2: the water on Sunday night on Fox. Right. So the
[31:44] Speaker 2: advantage I never argue against, like more of these games.
[31:47] Speaker 2: I completely understand or argue against the people that want
[31:51] Speaker 2: more football in terms of working at the networks or
[31:54] Speaker 2: part of the revenue generation, because it's only going to
[31:56] Speaker 2: bring in more eyeballs. It's like, listen, I hate the
[31:59] Speaker 2: double header on Monday Night. I think it's I think
[32:02] Speaker 2: a huge part of playing Monday night football or Sunday
[32:05] Speaker 2: Night football is getting the solo game. But their argument
[32:08] Speaker 2: is you put the double header. It accumulates millions upon
[32:11] Speaker 2: millions of more people watching football, and that's the business
[32:15] Speaker 2: Roger an, ESPN or Fox or whoever's in. But sometimes
[32:20] Speaker 2: the product does get worse when I get a double
[32:22] Speaker 2: header on Monday night. I don't know who's asking for it.
[32:24] Speaker 2: Beside we're just gonna get more people. We can sell
[32:27] Speaker 2: more ads and make more money.
[32:29] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I know people get worked up over
[32:32] Speaker 1: my take on college football. I'm not a traditionalist, but
[32:36] Speaker 1: I've always truly felt that if you're absolutely honest with
[32:41] Speaker 1: yourself Alabama fan, Ohio State fan, you get bored with
[32:46] Speaker 1: the season. Because the Michigan game is great, the Penn
[32:49] Speaker 1: State game is great, the Oregon game was great. But
[32:52] Speaker 1: there's about six times that you're paying for a game
[32:55] Speaker 1: that is over at half. And if you're really honest,
[33:00] Speaker 1: I would and this is something I'd pay attention to
[33:03] Speaker 1: on any given Sunday, the one o'clock window, those are
[33:07] Speaker 1: not the best teams in the league. Those are. That's
[33:09] Speaker 1: a lot of Tennessee, that's a lot of Carolina, that's
[33:13] Speaker 1: a lot of you know, Chicago, Saints, Washington, Saints Washington
[33:19] Speaker 1: pre Jaden Daniels. Any given Sunday, there are four electric
[33:25] Speaker 1: finishes in the one o'clock window. And then you're getting
[33:30] Speaker 1: standalone Fox games, CBS game, Sunday Night game, Monday Night
[33:34] Speaker 1: game thirty. You get at least six tremendous games every
[33:39] Speaker 1: weekend in the NFL. And that's out of how many games,
[33:43] Speaker 1: I mean, how many total games do you have? Like
[33:45] Speaker 1: fourteen twelve. So in college football you have one hundred
[33:50] Speaker 1: and what is it, one hundred and thirty five, one
[33:53] Speaker 1: hundred and forty Division one programs. There are weekends that
[33:58] Speaker 1: you get. Now, again, you probably get close games with
[34:01] Speaker 1: teams nobody's watching, but you may get six great games
[34:06] Speaker 1: a weekend, and a lot of times for the six,
[34:09] Speaker 1: you know, can be like Army against you know, Boston
[34:12] Speaker 1: College and it goes down to the wire. That's not
[34:15] Speaker 1: the highest quality of football. So to me, I'm rooting
[34:18] Speaker 1: for anything that gives me. You know, like I said,
[34:23] Speaker 1: I get now Oregon against Michigan and Penn State and
[34:27] Speaker 1: Ohio State or Oregon against Washington State Callen Stanford. To me,
[34:32] Speaker 1: it's just not a hard choice. I want more quality.
[34:36] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm probably more of a traditionalist than you when
[34:38] Speaker 2: it comes to college football, but it's over, Like the
[34:41] Speaker 2: battle has been won and those traditions are done. Right,
[34:45] Speaker 2: we are going to continue to merge, and I think
[34:48] Speaker 2: we have to acknowledge how do we get the best games.
[34:51] Speaker 2: I'm all for not allowing some of these matchups anymore,
[34:54] Speaker 2: basically mandating that you have to play your peers in
[34:57] Speaker 2: the non conference games, and maybe that if we go
[35:00] Speaker 2: to a bigger playoff schedule of twenty or twenty four teams,
[35:04] Speaker 2: then Alabama would never play a mercer because remember Saban
[35:07] Speaker 2: used to bitch and moan about no one being in
[35:09] Speaker 2: the stadium a kickoff. It's like, well, Nick, you're playing
[35:13] Speaker 2: col Paly, the Sisters of the Poor and UC Davis,
[35:16] Speaker 2: And then he'd go, well, our schedule is so hard,
[35:18] Speaker 2: And it's true, your SEC schedule is hard, but you
[35:21] Speaker 2: still got three or four other home games that no
[35:23] Speaker 2: one cares about. And let's face it, there are a
[35:25] Speaker 2: couple of SEC games, you know, Vanderbilt was before last
[35:28] Speaker 2: year in a Mississippi state where you're gonna kick the
[35:31] Speaker 2: crap out of them. So it's not gonna be an
[35:33] Speaker 2: enjoyable experience for the consumer. So how do we fix
[35:37] Speaker 2: that and maybe go into twenty four teams? Enables us
[35:40] Speaker 2: to because where we're headed is is gonna be the
[35:42] Speaker 2: NFL White Right, We're gonna have two major conferences and
[35:44] Speaker 2: they're all gonna play each other. And that's where like
[35:47] Speaker 2: the even the Boise States and the New Mexico's, they're
[35:50] Speaker 2: eventually just gonna be playing like there's just gonna be
[35:53] Speaker 2: Division one. And then there's gonna be like Division one,
[35:55] Speaker 2: double A, and right now there's still kind of that
[35:57] Speaker 2: middle ground of some of these teams. I don't think
[36:00] Speaker 2: they will exist in five ten years because financially they
[36:03] Speaker 2: won't be able. It's like it's like business, right. I mean,
[36:06] Speaker 2: think how often Amazon or Target or some of these
[36:09] Speaker 2: you know big companies Oracle Meta, you know, have just
[36:12] Speaker 2: wiped people out. And that's kind of what like Ohio
[36:15] Speaker 2: State and Alabama and USC and Oregon. And it's why
[36:19] Speaker 2: I read a story recently like Duke in North Carolina,
[36:22] Speaker 2: we're trying to get to the SEC. Well, they're not
[36:24] Speaker 2: gonna let Clems in Florida State just go like we're
[36:26] Speaker 2: coming with you. You know, we've got to follow the
[36:29] Speaker 2: money if we want to survive.
[36:31] Speaker 1: Yeah, And I think change is inevitable. I mean, you
[36:36] Speaker 1: and I I think are pretty safe when it comes
[36:40] Speaker 1: to AI. But I mean, look at what's happening in AI,
[36:44] Speaker 1: Like if you I would. I just read a story
[36:46] Speaker 1: in the Atlantic today how AI has changed universities in
[36:51] Speaker 1: academia and one hundred percent of students use it and
[36:57] Speaker 1: you know universities, and they were quoting some of the
[37:01] Speaker 1: kids talking about it and they're like, listen, man, I
[37:03] Speaker 1: work hard, but sometimes I just want to go lift weights.
[37:06] Speaker 1: I don't want to write another sixteen page essay. And
[37:11] Speaker 1: which is you know a lot? I mean, do you
[37:13] Speaker 1: remember anything from college? A lot of it's nonsense, I
[37:16] Speaker 1: really do. I think finally, over the course of my life,
[37:19] Speaker 1: people have come to terms with a lot of college
[37:21] Speaker 1: and a lot of universities as status unless you're a
[37:25] Speaker 1: doctor or unless you're a lawyer and you're getting a
[37:27] Speaker 1: certain license or degree. But in a lot of instances,
[37:30] Speaker 1: you know, you end up getting in sales. But I think,
[37:33] Speaker 1: like AI, job displacement, like this is the way of
[37:37] Speaker 1: the world, and sports fans like I never got adults
[37:41] Speaker 1: that collected baseball cards. I guess there's a financial benefit.
[37:45] Speaker 1: It's a water down, deluted market now, But I think
[37:48] Speaker 1: you just have to get comfortable with sports are going
[37:50] Speaker 1: to change. And I felt for years that boxing was
[37:54] Speaker 1: screwing the fans, and here comes UFC and knocked it out.
[37:59] Speaker 1: And I felt for years that college football was the
[38:01] Speaker 1: worst run, eight billion dollar year sport. Boom the network
[38:06] Speaker 1: stepped in Fox in the ESPN, NBC and said, yeah,
[38:09] Speaker 1: we're gonna take it over. We're gonna make the decisions,
[38:12] Speaker 1: and so I don't have a problem with it if
[38:13] Speaker 1: you're a well run company. Like people can bitch about
[38:17] Speaker 1: the NBA. They just signed a seventy six billion dollars
[38:19] Speaker 1: eleven year deal. You can complain about the NBA, but
[38:23] Speaker 1: nobody in venture capital country is going to buy the teams.
[38:26] Speaker 1: The league is incredibly profitable. College football was a poorly
[38:30] Speaker 1: run mess. Boxing was a mess. Horse racing is a mess.
[38:34] Speaker 1: Golf with a PGA being a charity never took care
[38:37] Speaker 1: of it stars, So get look at what's been upended.
[38:40] Speaker 1: Poorly run college football, poorly run boxing, and the poorly
[38:44] Speaker 1: run PGA. Stuff that's well run. Nobody's buying Meta right,
[38:50] Speaker 1: like nobody's buying Amazon, like they're buying companies that are
[38:55] Speaker 1: you know, vulnerable so or significant smaller. So I don't
[39:01] Speaker 1: feel bad for sports that change. They only change when
[39:04] Speaker 1: they're poorly run.
[39:05] Speaker 2: But my question then is when does it never end?
[39:08] Speaker 2: Like in the NFL, we can make fun of the
[39:09] Speaker 2: Brown family or I feel like the Davis family. Mark
[39:14] Speaker 2: has pivoted much better with Tom and his group coming in,
[39:16] Speaker 2: so they got more financial backing. But at the end
[39:19] Speaker 2: of the day, the Cowboys and the forty nine ers
[39:21] Speaker 2: and the New York Giants their partners with the Cincinnati
[39:24] Speaker 2: Bengals and the Arizona Cardinals. Right, But if you're Ohio
[39:28] Speaker 2: State and now USC and Oregon come, you start looking
[39:30] Speaker 2: around like why are we carrying Maryland and Minnesota? And
[39:33] Speaker 2: that's the problem in Alabama, LSU, Georgia, Florida, go, what
[39:38] Speaker 2: do we need Mississippi State for Vanderbilt great academics, who
[39:42] Speaker 2: gives a shit. We're not even gonna be associated. Our
[39:44] Speaker 2: kids aren't even going to go to school in five
[39:45] Speaker 2: or ten years. We're just gonna have a siloed football program.
[39:49] Speaker 2: And that's the problem with college athletics is there is
[39:52] Speaker 2: a lot of kinks in the business plan because how
[39:57] Speaker 2: many programs truly carry it and can and can splinter
[40:01] Speaker 2: where Jerry can say all he wants is like we're
[40:03] Speaker 2: the most watched team or the Chiefs now But you're
[40:05] Speaker 2: in business with all these other people, and that's how
[40:08] Speaker 2: you sell the business model to the networks. In college football,
[40:12] Speaker 2: you buy the big ten. But I mean you've been
[40:14] Speaker 2: at Fox like they've rowed Michigan, Ohio State. If Maryland
[40:18] Speaker 2: disappeared tomorrow, besides Scott van Pelt, who would notice? And
[40:22] Speaker 2: I and that's what like that that still matters to me.
[40:25] Speaker 2: I mean, I grew up around cows. Read the Athletic
[40:27] Speaker 2: article on Andrew Luck It's it's pretty good about him
[40:31] Speaker 2: going to become the GM and a lot. It's a
[40:33] Speaker 2: it's a really good article came out today. If Stanford
[40:35] Speaker 2: football just disappeared tomorrow, no one would notice. And it's like,
[40:39] Speaker 2: how long is this sustainable? When everyone is just kind
[40:43] Speaker 2: of backstabbing? You know, the big guys are just constantly
[40:45] Speaker 2: backs Like ultimately Jerry can't ass out Mike Brown, He's
[40:49] Speaker 2: he just can't write, or Jed York can't just screw
[40:52] Speaker 2: Michael Bidwell, like they're all in business together and in
[40:55] Speaker 2: college they kind of are, but kind of not. I mean,
[40:57] Speaker 2: why did USC and UCLA u CLA just kind of
[41:00] Speaker 2: gebacked off USC? But USC was just we're not caring
[41:02] Speaker 2: Washington State anymore, screw you. So why can't USC and
[41:05] Speaker 2: Ohio State and Michigan just go? Why are we carrying
[41:08] Speaker 2: Minnesota and Maryland? I'm picking on Minnesota. Maybe they're bigger
[41:11] Speaker 2: than I give them credit for, but and we just
[41:13] Speaker 2: start trimming the fat and that's it's the fat's gonna
[41:16] Speaker 2: keep getting trimmed until we have twenty five programs. This
[41:20] Speaker 2: is Alabama, Florida, Clemson, That's what That's where it feels
[41:23] Speaker 2: like inevitable, right.
[41:25] Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, but like, listen, the English Premier League
[41:27] Speaker 1: has relegation, like I I just think like major League
[41:35] Speaker 1: Baseball right now has and and for my entire life
[41:37] Speaker 1: has had six to eight teams that can't really compete
[41:40] Speaker 1: when the season starts. I don't know, I let me
[41:46] Speaker 1: rephrase that. So baseball has no salary cap, no salary cap.
[41:55] Speaker 1: So this should really be a sport in which big
[41:59] Speaker 1: markets dominate. Yet the Milwaukee Brewers are clearly the best
[42:03] Speaker 1: team in baseball. The Dodgers until they just swept a series.
[42:09] Speaker 1: We're reeling. The Yankees and the Mets. You know, they're chasing,
[42:14] Speaker 1: you know, the Blue Jays. The Yankees are, the Mets
[42:20] Speaker 1: are no longer in first place, not really a very
[42:22] Speaker 1: good baseball team. So I think in the sport of baseball,
[42:27] Speaker 1: in which it really should be a have and have
[42:30] Speaker 1: not sport, if you look at the last eleven World
[42:33] Speaker 1: Series champs, the Yankees aren't in there. The Dodger and twice.
[42:38] Speaker 1: One of those is sort of the much maligned COVID
[42:40] Speaker 1: World Series title. It's the Rangers, the Astros, the Gnats,
[42:44] Speaker 1: the Royals are in there, and the Yankees aren't. And
[42:47] Speaker 1: so my take is is Iowa football has never run
[42:54] Speaker 1: the sport, has never been hugely valuable to the sport,
[42:58] Speaker 1: but will always produce quality teams because it matters to
[43:02] Speaker 1: the people of that state and they'll always be a
[43:04] Speaker 1: viable seven to eight win program. And that's what they've
[43:09] Speaker 1: always been. And if you look at the history of
[43:12] Speaker 1: college football, you can go back thirty years. There's only
[43:17] Speaker 1: one new top ten program, Oregon. That is it. It's
[43:21] Speaker 1: always been ridiculously top heavy. But the difference is when
[43:26] Speaker 1: it was top heavy and we were paying guys behind
[43:28] Speaker 1: the scenes, or it was top heavy because of topography,
[43:32] Speaker 1: geography or population centers, everybody was okay with it. But
[43:36] Speaker 1: when things get lobsided because of money, we feel it's
[43:40] Speaker 1: very unfair. And the truth is, Ohio has always had
[43:43] Speaker 1: far more good players in it than Indiana, and Indiana's
[43:46] Speaker 1: a basketball state and Ohio's a football state, and the
[43:49] Speaker 1: Buckeyes and Michigan have been kicking everybody's ass in that
[43:52] Speaker 1: Conference for my entire life. But now it feels like
[43:57] Speaker 1: it's money that's separating them. And I think people get
[44:01] Speaker 1: worked up over money. They just especially men, they don't
[44:04] Speaker 1: like people don't like to talk about money. And the
[44:07] Speaker 1: truth is the Big Ten has been lobsided my entire life.
[44:12] Speaker 1: Since I started watching sports in nineteen seventy two. It's
[44:16] Speaker 1: been I mean for years Penn State was independent, they
[44:19] Speaker 1: joined it later. It's always been. There's been the occasional
[44:22] Speaker 1: Barry Alvarez Wisconsin team or Hayden Fry had a good
[44:26] Speaker 1: Iowa team that goes to the Rose Bowl. It's been
[44:28] Speaker 1: Buckeyes and Wolverines my entire life.
[44:31] Speaker 2: I do think part of sports, though, especially college football,
[44:34] Speaker 2: which is you know in the NFL, a big upset
[44:37] Speaker 2: is in the playoffs or the Super Bowl. Upsets happened
[44:40] Speaker 2: all the time in the regular season. Regular season games
[44:43] Speaker 2: don't One game doesn't determine your success. We're in college
[44:45] Speaker 2: football now it determines less of your success. Ohio State
[44:49] Speaker 2: lost to Michigan, it didn't ruin their season. They still
[44:51] Speaker 2: won the National championship. But some of the biggest moments
[44:54] Speaker 2: in my life have been app lash and State beating
[44:57] Speaker 2: Michigan has been you know, some of the Aaron Rodgers
[45:02] Speaker 2: almost beating the undefeated Pete Carroll team and then Vince
[45:05] Speaker 2: Young fin like an upset happening in college football and
[45:08] Speaker 2: the little guy and whether that's you know, Minnesota or
[45:12] Speaker 2: a Maryland beating Ohio State once every six seven years.
[45:16] Speaker 2: Last year, Vanderbilt beating Alabama for the first time in
[45:19] Speaker 2: fifty years. And you do need like Tiger Woods needed
[45:23] Speaker 2: Chris de Marco every once in a while to give
[45:25] Speaker 2: him a run for his money. That's good drama. Ultimately,
[45:28] Speaker 2: this is the drama of Michigan. Ohio State can't play
[45:32] Speaker 2: every single game, right, So who's Ohio State or Alabama
[45:35] Speaker 2: or Oregon gonna play? I mean last year, I was
[45:37] Speaker 2: on the edge of my seat thinking, is Ashton Genty
[45:39] Speaker 2: and Boise State gonna beat Oregon, which is ironically used
[45:42] Speaker 2: to they beat him multiple times in the past with
[45:44] Speaker 2: Chris Peterson. But it felt like this is gonna be
[45:46] Speaker 2: pretty nuts, and you just wonder if that goes away
[45:50] Speaker 2: and it just becomes which it feels like it's gonna
[45:53] Speaker 2: become like forty teams, it's just gonna be every single week.
[45:55] Speaker 2: It's like, well, Ohio State plays they're non conferences now Florida, Georgia, Clemson,
[45:59] Speaker 2: and but I'm.
[46:01] Speaker 1: Gonna argue, you're gonna watch that and it's gonna get
[46:03] Speaker 1: bigger ratings than playing Purdue again. And that's my takeaway.
[46:08] Speaker 1: Like I watched so much college football last year. I
[46:12] Speaker 1: loved college football last year. You and I both really
[46:17] Speaker 1: are heavy college football leaners. We love the sport. John,
[46:20] Speaker 1: I went through about an eight year cycle with Clemson, Georgia, Bama.
[46:23] Speaker 1: I was watching less. The sport was incredibly lopsided. Well,
[46:29] Speaker 1: now Texas gets to play Bama, LSU, Georgia, Florida, I
[46:34] Speaker 1: get usc schedule, Penn State, Michigan. Like to me, I
[46:39] Speaker 1: had more fun watching college football last year than I
[46:41] Speaker 1: have had in a decade. And so I'll go back
[46:45] Speaker 1: to this. I know it's money and it makes people uncomfortable,
[46:48] Speaker 1: but if you're telling me Ohio State, I mean, let's
[46:52] Speaker 1: just do this. Let's let's do this. So I'm gonna
[46:55] Speaker 1: read Ohio State schedule, Texas, Grambling State, Ohio at Washington,
[47:04] Speaker 1: at Illinois at Wisconsin, Penn State, Purdue, Ucla, Rutgers, Michigan.
[47:13] Speaker 1: You know the two games you'd get rid of tomorrow
[47:16] Speaker 1: Grambling State in Ohio, and everybody says, oh, that's part
[47:20] Speaker 1: of the fabric. Those are the two games you would
[47:22] Speaker 1: eliminate immediately, and the third game that you'd probably eliminate
[47:27] Speaker 1: would be Minnesota at Ohio State because it probably be
[47:30] Speaker 1: a blowout. So my takeaway is, in the new world,
[47:34] Speaker 1: if we have a bigger playoff, you're gonna get more Texas,
[47:37] Speaker 1: Ohio State, more Ohio State, Washington, more Ohio State, Wisconsin,
[47:42] Speaker 1: more Penn State, Ohio State, and more Michigan Ohio State.
[47:46] Speaker 1: You're just gonna get more of those games, are you not.
[47:48] Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm not arguing for Grambling or Ohio to be
[47:52] Speaker 2: on the schedule. I do wonder there has to be
[47:55] Speaker 2: some hierarchy though, of like, eventually are they backstab in
[47:59] Speaker 2: the p dudes, the Minnesotas and Marylands and killing them
[48:02] Speaker 2: all off and we're just talking twenty five thirty teams
[48:05] Speaker 2: just playing in college football. I mean, that's that's that's
[48:08] Speaker 2: what like D one double A almost feels like right
[48:10] Speaker 2: North Dakota State, Montana, and I just wonder like there
[48:14] Speaker 2: has to be some sort of balance. I have no
[48:16] Speaker 2: problem with you're not allowed to play Grambling. If you're
[48:19] Speaker 2: Ohio State and Ryan Day would be like, well, we're
[48:22] Speaker 2: opening up against Texas, I'd say great. Ask Sean Payton.
[48:25] Speaker 2: He's like, yeah, we open against the Chiefs, then we
[48:26] Speaker 2: play the Chargers. Welcome to football. But that's the way
[48:29] Speaker 2: college that's the way college football works. And that's that's
[48:32] Speaker 2: always Saban's excuse. It's always and I respect all these
[48:35] Speaker 2: programs that play real non conference games, but they do
[48:39] Speaker 2: that and then they justify their other three non conference
[48:41] Speaker 2: games or against me, you and the dude down the
[48:43] Speaker 2: street and they're like, see, we played Texas on a
[48:45] Speaker 2: neutral field. I'm like, great, then you played three teams
[48:49] Speaker 2: that I mean, you feel bad for those kids. Is
[48:52] Speaker 2: it safe for Grambling in Ohio to play Ohio State?
[48:55] Speaker 2: I mean, I don't know if it is. But that's
[48:58] Speaker 2: just the nature that I guess. That's my ultimate thing
[49:01] Speaker 2: is And this is why college football has been you know,
[49:06] Speaker 2: it's it's been really successful in me. It's the second
[49:08] Speaker 2: biggest sport in America in terms of viewers, but in
[49:10] Speaker 2: terms of it's chaotic a lot like golf. The leadership
[49:13] Speaker 2: everyone just kind of stabbing each other in the back,
[49:15] Speaker 2: out for themselves we're in the NFL, even the NBA,
[49:20] Speaker 2: you're kind of with it as a group, and there's
[49:22] Speaker 2: just and maybe that's just the nature of their business
[49:25] Speaker 2: model with these conferences. It was always destined as it
[49:28] Speaker 2: got this popular, to be so fractured and be through
[49:31] Speaker 2: this period of time. But I don't think we're even
[49:35] Speaker 2: close to being done like the traditionalist they lost, But
[49:39] Speaker 2: I don't think we're close to being done, to being
[49:40] Speaker 2: situated like I think we still got five, ten, twenty
[49:43] Speaker 2: years of a lot of moving parts here.
[49:52] Speaker 1: Okay, I want to play a game. I'm going to
[49:56] Speaker 1: go through the Bearer schedule because I did this flying
[50:00] Speaker 1: back Boston to LA yesterday and I was surprised at
[50:05] Speaker 1: what I landed at. Okay, I'm gonna give you the
[50:09] Speaker 1: game and just your kind of gut instinct winner lose
[50:14] Speaker 1: for the Bears. Minnesota Vikings come to Chicago on September eighth,
[50:20] Speaker 1: Brian Flores against Caleb Williams. Win or a loss. Win, Okay,
[50:25] Speaker 1: you have a win. Bears then go to Detroit in
[50:30] Speaker 1: one of the louder environments against Dan Campbell and two
[50:34] Speaker 1: new coordinators.
[50:35] Speaker 2: Loss.
[50:37] Speaker 1: Okay, they get a host of Dallas Cowboys and Brian
[50:41] Speaker 1: Schottenneimer win. I think that's one of my favorite wins.
[50:45] Speaker 1: Then they go on the road to face Pete Carroll, Aston,
[50:48] Speaker 1: Jenny Brockbauers and the Raiders.
[50:51] Speaker 2: That's a tough game, going to be loud. Seattle's going
[50:53] Speaker 2: to have a fast start. Raiders, oh peaky out nevermind
[50:59] Speaker 2: win win.
[51:01] Speaker 1: Okay, so you have a win win. I think it's
[51:04] Speaker 1: I think it's a really good game. Bears then go
[51:07] Speaker 1: to the Commanders.
[51:10] Speaker 2: Side of the crime last year, right the Hail Mary.
[51:15] Speaker 1: It's a late NBC level game. It's a five to
[51:17] Speaker 1: fifteen start, so that's a big Washington at home late game.
[51:22] Speaker 2: I'll go l.
[51:24] Speaker 1: That's what I did. Okay, Sat scot to Chicago, win
[51:28] Speaker 1: out a win. Bears at the Ravens lost. Yes, Bears
[51:35] Speaker 1: at the Bengals.
[51:37] Speaker 2: Win. I think the Bengals could just be not as
[51:40] Speaker 2: good as people think.
[51:43] Speaker 1: Okay, Giants at the Bears.
[51:46] Speaker 2: That's one of those sneaky, tough matchups where I think
[51:48] Speaker 2: most fans would give the Bears a w. I could
[51:50] Speaker 2: see an upset city. They're gonna get upset where every
[51:53] Speaker 2: they might start feeling themselves, you know.
[51:56] Speaker 1: Okay, you give them an l Okay, this is getting interesting.
[51:59] Speaker 1: Now the Bears are at the Vikings hel Okay, Stealers
[52:05] Speaker 1: at the Bears, win for the Bears. Okay, Bears at
[52:13] Speaker 1: the Eagles, probably a loss. Yes, Bears at.
[52:16] Speaker 2: The Packers, they've beat them once in like thirty years, right, yeah,
[52:22] Speaker 2: going out loss.
[52:24] Speaker 1: Okay, Now get near the end and we'll see what
[52:26] Speaker 1: this means. Brown's at the Bears. That's probably a w.
[52:31] Speaker 1: Packers at Chicago. Now I'll go split here win, Bears
[52:39] Speaker 1: at Niners, win for.
[52:42] Speaker 2: The Niners, lost for the Bears.
[52:44] Speaker 1: And finally Lions at the Bears.
[52:49] Speaker 2: Win.
[52:51] Speaker 1: Okay, what do you think their record is? What have
[52:55] Speaker 1: you predicted.
[52:56] Speaker 2: Nine and eight or ten and seven?
[52:59] Speaker 1: Nine and eight got to eight to nine. And so
[53:02] Speaker 1: I went through it last night and I said, instead
[53:04] Speaker 1: of predicting, I'm gonna go every win. And I was like, you,
[53:08] Speaker 1: they're gonna split with Green Bay. I think I had
[53:10] Speaker 1: him losing on the road. I think I had him
[53:14] Speaker 1: like losing to a Giants. I thought the Commanders was
[53:17] Speaker 1: a loss. So here's my thing is they're a nine
[53:21] Speaker 1: and eight football team and they're out of the playoffs.
[53:23] Speaker 1: And my question to you is, will you deem that
[53:26] Speaker 1: a success at nine and eight if Ben Johnson and
[53:30] Speaker 1: Caleb cut the sacks in half. He does make mistakes,
[53:37] Speaker 1: he ad libs, but they're a nine and eight football team,
[53:40] Speaker 1: and Caleb looks like a top twelve quarterback, maybe number twelve.
[53:45] Speaker 1: Do you think it's a successful season?
[53:47] Speaker 2: One thousand percent. They just fired the entire coaching staff.
[53:51] Speaker 2: They drafted tenth overall. They have been losing for years straight,
[53:56] Speaker 2: nine and eight in that division. Even if you missed
[53:59] Speaker 2: the playoffs, which I would think the last couple of years,
[54:01] Speaker 2: you've had a decent chance in the NFC.
[54:04] Speaker 1: Till last weekend. Year determined that.
[54:06] Speaker 2: That means you play important football the entire season. That
[54:09] Speaker 2: is one percent a win.
[54:13] Speaker 1: Okay, I don't think people in Chicago agree, but I
[54:15] Speaker 1: agree with you. I got to eight and nine and
[54:18] Speaker 1: I was like, wow, and I feel pretty good about it.
[54:23] Speaker 1: You won the games at home. You should win.
[54:24] Speaker 2: I would say this eight and nine and nine and
[54:27] Speaker 2: eight might be the difference of a fumble bouncing your
[54:29] Speaker 2: way or bouncing in someone else's arms. So it really
[54:32] Speaker 2: might not be that big of a difference over the
[54:34] Speaker 2: course of a season, but that number there, it feels
[54:37] Speaker 2: pretty big when you say it out loud. I do
[54:40] Speaker 2: think going over five hundred. I also think eight and
[54:42] Speaker 2: nine with the seventeen games, it's kind of the old
[54:45] Speaker 2: seven and nine. Like seven and nine, a lot of
[54:47] Speaker 2: people got fired seven and nine and eight and eight
[54:50] Speaker 2: was actually much more respectable. It's like, oh, the five
[54:52] Speaker 2: hundred they were solid football team, or seven and nine
[54:54] Speaker 2: felt like, ah, they kind of sucked, even though again
[54:57] Speaker 2: it might have been one tipped ball that landed in
[54:59] Speaker 2: another guy's Hanford of pick six. But I do think
[55:02] Speaker 2: going nine to eight is one hundred percent of success,
[55:07] Speaker 2: where eight nine I think people would be a little
[55:09] Speaker 2: just because the hype on Ben Johnson. I mean, let's
[55:12] Speaker 2: face it, he's he's considered immediately the next Shanahan, McVeigh,
[55:16] Speaker 2: Kevin O'Connell, like he's he's very highly regarded by fans
[55:21] Speaker 2: and football circles. I mean, he's just impressive. I've been impressed.
[55:25] Speaker 2: He's not just some pushover. He's kind of a hard ass.
[55:28] Speaker 2: And he even talks like I've been hard on Caleb
[55:30] Speaker 2: and he hasn't liked it all. I was like, I
[55:31] Speaker 2: kind of respect that, you know, he's been he's been
[55:34] Speaker 2: very I mean, you're back there seeing as local press conferences.
[55:37] Speaker 2: He's he's pretty candid about like it's not he's not
[55:42] Speaker 2: running some it's a pretty tight ship. I would say
[55:46] Speaker 2: he's got some Dan Campbell qualities, which I did not
[55:48] Speaker 2: expect from an offensive guy.
[55:51] Speaker 1: Wrap it up. John Brahm repeats as the Live Golf
[55:54] Speaker 1: League champ eighteen million dollar check to him. That's pretty handy.
[55:59] Speaker 1: The team champion will be determined this coming week in Michigan.
[56:03] Speaker 1: Did you see the attendance in Indianapolis?
[56:08] Speaker 2: I did, look fantastic.
[56:09] Speaker 1: I sold fifty thousand seats, so that's almost double Chicago.
[56:14] Speaker 1: So I was talking to an executive at Fox today
[56:17] Speaker 1: and I said, I don't know if it works on TV.
[56:19] Speaker 1: I don't know. Some stuff does, some stuff doesn't. You know,
[56:22] Speaker 1: boxing is captivating in person. It doesn't necessarily work on
[56:26] Speaker 1: network television. You know, for whatever reasons, hockey doesn't work
[56:29] Speaker 1: on TV. It's unbelievable in person. But the live I
[56:33] Speaker 1: mean to sell fifty thousand seats and the merchandise they
[56:37] Speaker 1: sell as you and I saw crushes, so literally they doubled.
[56:43] Speaker 1: In a smaller area, they doubled the ticket sold. So
[56:48] Speaker 1: this weekend they wrap it up in Michigan, and I
[56:52] Speaker 1: think they're onto something with this sort of Midwest swing
[56:55] Speaker 1: invulf because it feels like the PGA has gone very coastal,
[56:59] Speaker 1: very Florida, and I think they've I think they've kind
[57:04] Speaker 1: of found a little bit of a niche. It took
[57:06] Speaker 1: them a while to do it, but I think they've
[57:07] Speaker 1: found it. In the States.
[57:08] Speaker 2: Well, I think you could probably work six or seven
[57:10] Speaker 2: events in that Midwest swing. You could find somewhere in
[57:14] Speaker 2: Missouri or Kansas City area. Obviously Chicago's an easy one.
[57:17] Speaker 2: I mean going to Michigan, Indianapolis. I do think. And
[57:22] Speaker 2: I've told a couple of people that have asked me,
[57:24] Speaker 2: like what do you think, And I said, listen, I've
[57:25] Speaker 2: been to I've been to US opens, I've been to
[57:27] Speaker 2: multiple PGA events. This was unlike any event I've been
[57:31] Speaker 2: to every baseball, basketball, football, This was very unique with
[57:35] Speaker 2: the music in the vibe. If you're a young thirty
[57:38] Speaker 2: year old, you and your buddies want to go have
[57:40] Speaker 2: some drinks, if you want to bring like just go
[57:42] Speaker 2: hang out. It's just an easy event for a couple hours.
[57:46] Speaker 2: It doesn't it doesn't take a lot of time. They
[57:48] Speaker 2: all tee off at the same time, you know, so
[57:50] Speaker 2: it's like you go for a couple hours and leave.
[57:53] Speaker 2: And I do think they've struck something with the with
[57:55] Speaker 2: the musical acts. They had a Riley Green as a
[57:58] Speaker 2: country star, played all of DJ and Paulina. They're all
[58:02] Speaker 2: taking pictures with them, so I think they kind of
[58:04] Speaker 2: got something going there. I disagree Scott, And you know,
[58:08] Speaker 2: talking about the team element, you know, I don't know
[58:11] Speaker 2: how big that. You know, Golf's an individual sport. It's why,
[58:14] Speaker 2: I mean, think about why they've had some John Rahm
[58:17] Speaker 2: is an individual star, Bryson's an individual star. So they
[58:21] Speaker 2: got something there in the Midwest. And I would keep
[58:23] Speaker 2: hammering home the individual aspect. But they're big on the team,
[58:26] Speaker 2: which I understand that was kind of their point of difference.
[58:29] Speaker 1: But I'll tell you what, they're selling a shit ton
[58:31] Speaker 1: of merch they are selling. Oh my god, they sell
[58:34] Speaker 1: a lot of merch.
[58:35] Speaker 2: They really do, and it's it's been a lucrative move
[58:38] Speaker 2: for some of these I mean eighteen million dollars, I mean,
[58:41] Speaker 2: that's very John.
[58:42] Speaker 1: The only merch I've ever seen in my life sell
[58:45] Speaker 1: for golf is the Augusta hats. Yeah, those are all
[58:47] Speaker 1: over the country. But if you take out the Augusta hat,
[58:50] Speaker 1: I don't see golf birch. The merch they're selling there
[58:55] Speaker 1: is incredible.
[58:56] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're doing. I mean, he's got something going. I
[58:59] Speaker 2: was impressed how many people were at the Chicago one
[59:03] Speaker 2: we went to, and obviously the visuals in Indianapolis just
[59:06] Speaker 2: people go there and it all kind of younger people
[59:09] Speaker 2: just there to screw around, have a few drinks, eat
[59:12] Speaker 2: little food, watch a little golf.
[59:13] Speaker 1: It's the Phoenix Open. Yeah, it's the same thing, all right, John,
[59:18] Speaker 1: Good stuff, Talk soon, see tomorrow
[59:22] Speaker 2: The volume

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