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This episode is brought to you by Progressive. Most of you aren't just listening right now. You're multitasking. But what if you could also be saving money by switching to Progressive? Drivers you save by switching save nearly $750 on average and auto customers qualify for an average of seven discounts. So, multitask right now. Get your quote now at progressive.com. Progressive cash with the insurance company and affiliates, national average 12 months savings of $744 by new customer surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. We more than I am looking forward to it. I can't wait, but man, I do not want to go to Brazil. You want to know why? I'm going to tell you why. They already told us not to leave the hotel. They told us we can't do too much going on because it's the crime rate. It's crazy, you know what I'm saying? I'm like NFL. Why don't you ever want to sit on somewhere with the crime rate? This high, I told my family do not come down there because I'm not going to be nowhere to be found. There would be the hotel chilling out of my business playing my game after a long nine and a half hour flight. So, I don't have no intentions on doing that. I'm going to eat hotel food. I'm doing everything. But they said, yeah, man, it'll be pretty crazy down there, you know, holy said, it'll be, you know, try to be the best they could possibly be the top flight security of the world. Create, you know what I'm saying? - Bringing big Dom with them. Everything will be fine with big Dom around taking care of anybody. Really, I mean, of all the teams out there, if we're going to Brazil, don't mess with big Dom. Do so at your own peril. Darius Slay complaining about going to Brazil. CJ Gardner-Johnson had some complaints about it as well. I mean, look. It, it, I hate this phrase, but it's true. It is what it is. I mean, you get assigned to play wherever, whenever, you have no say in it. And the NFL decided, Eagles Packers goes to Brazil. I still hope the people in Brazil realize the quality of the game they're getting after all the crap that we've been sending to London for the past in between years. Eagles Packers is an amazing game that I hope they don't take this for granted. But I, you didn't have to go play in London. Did you guys didn't do it? Did, did, did, did or did-- - No, yeah. I did, I did London and, and Mexico City. - Okay, all right. So, I mean, how do you come to terms with the, you know, it's, you're just showing up with your lunch box. It's like any other workday. We're just working in a different building. - And, and each team does it differently. Like, my brother has played on teams where they did the week in London, where they were out there. They got to explore, they got to do it. I'd never experienced that. What we, what we played in London. - What a shock. - What a shock. What a shock Bill Belichick would let you guys have fun. - We flew out Thursday night. We got there Friday morning. They told us to stay awake, try to get adjusted, 'cause we're here for a short amount of time. We got there Friday. We, you got some free time Friday morning. Then we got together. We met, we went, a run through, walk through practice. Saturday, we had meetings in the morning, you had call it four to five hours of free time, grab lunch, walk around maybe for a little bit. And then, next thing you know, it's Saturday night. It's the night, it's the night before the game. You're ready to go. And very similar to what Sly said, when we went to Mexico City, we got the same, we got the same speech of, hey, it's not that safe. You should stay in the hotel, blah, blah, blah. You don't realize really what it is. Until we got off the plane, we landed, we got on the buses. And next thing you know, there's people in front of us in the back of a Jeep with AKA's and they're sitting there, we're driving through town and all of us are like, where the hell like, do we need all of that? Like what is going on here? And it was the true, I remember being in Mexico City. We stayed in Colorado Springs for the week, 'cause we had played Denver before. So we stayed out there, got adjusted to the high altitude for practice, practiced over at Air Force. And we flew in, 'cause we were close already, we flew in day before the game, did our meetings, went to sleep that night, woke up the next day, played the game straight to the airport. And like, people were like, how was Mexico City? I have no idea. I know how the JW Marriott in Mexico City is. And that was it. There was no like, let's door dash, let's do it. It was none of that. You went there to play a game and you understand, it's growing the game for the NFL. But as far as a player, what you just said is the truth. It is what it is. You focus in on, if you're the Eagles, you focus in on how you beat the Packers, the Packers, you focus in on how you beat the Eagles, you go play a game and you're, like Slice said, all you think about play the game and let's get back home to my family. 'Cause if I wanna go to Brazil, I'm probably not going under this circumstance, and it'll be a totally different decision of what I wanna do, where we go. So this is not that, this is not that at all. You're just going to play and win a football game. - You wouldn't have needed the AKs if you had Big Dom. You know what the Mexico City? Just put Big Dom on the Jeep and nobody's messing with you. But that's the only mindset you can have. And I look at this and I, I don't wanna be critical to Nick Seriani, unless it's necessary. But I don't remember any of the Patriots complaining about going to Mexico City before you guys went to Mexico City. The message gets sent to the team. And I know the world is different now because everybody's got a podcast and everybody's got a voice. But even then, if you're buying into the message you're getting from the coach, you're not sitting there in front of a chalkboard, which was actually kind of a cool look, complaining about going to Brazil, because your questions have already been answered to your satisfaction by your coach. The mere fact that someone is saying these things publicly pass fail, it's a little fail for Nick Seriani not making sure, like Belichick surely did with you guys, the message is sent. This is what it's gonna be. It is what it is complaining about it serves no purpose at all. - It's like what you just said before we came back on air. You're gonna pick all the playoff teams. When you get it right, no one cares. They don't commend you down saying anything. When you get it wrong, they call you an idiot. It's the same thing in this situation. When we were in New England, hey, it worked, that's the way you're supposed to do it because we won. And build and tell us not to talk about the game. When we came in that week with a lot of colorful language he would tell us no one cares about where we're playing. Just shut the F up and we're going to play a football game. That would be his message to us. So whether you kind of took that as like, well, let me go talk about the game and the media or my podcast, you just heard it Wednesday morning or this is the opening. We would have heard this since the second week of training camp or like whatever time. And every time he spoke about the game it would be another mention of just shut the F up. We're going to play football and it would just be over and over again. So then everyone was like, okay, you started to believe it didn't matter that we were going to Brazil. You start to be like, oh yeah, the NFL's gonna come in and tell us that. It doesn't, the same thing you talk about Brady saying, hey, no one's gives us a shot. When you hear it over and over again from your head coach you start to be like, he's right. No one is giving, and it's, to me, it doesn't matter for Philly unless they go out there and they seem like they're not ready to go compared to the Packers because I could be wrong. I haven't listened to everything, but I don't know if we've heard the Packers talk about other than, hey, we were in a meeting. They said, X, Y, Z, we're going to play a football game and that's been it. But I've heard, like I've heard AJ Brown talk about it. You mentioned CJ Gardner Johnson. It's just, to me, it's a little bit of personalities. Like the Eagles have more guys who have bigger personalities who like talking about different things. It doesn't matter as long as you're ready to go play a game. But if they don't win, then this will be a subject. It will be something that's talked about, but I do think at the end of the day, it doesn't matter if you talk about all these things unless you lose the game because if people will use that as the reason you lost the game. But inherently, I don't think this goes into your game planning or what you're doing. Like, I don't think this is going against sleigh study of the Packers offense and how Jordan Love is going to be a fact. I don't think it has anything to do with it. But when you decide to talk about different things, and like you said, when you have a podcast, anything you say on there will be used the next week if you don't play well or if the team doesn't win. - The only thing I remember from anyone with a Packers was months ago, Josh Jacobs, the running back who signed there after his career began in Las Vegas with the Raiders saying about the green uniforms, like you can't wear green or some weird stuff like that. That was it. There was no complaint about Brazil, maybe a little bit, but as we get closer and closer to this, the Packers are quiet and the Eagles aren't. And here's Nick Serioni from Sunday addressing some of this concern that his players have articulated. - We're going there with one goal in mind. And nothing else. So I think that's what the main thing that we're all saying is we'll control the things we need to control. And the team that, just like when a game reigns, the team that handles the reign and looks at the reign that they're ready for it is going to be able to play better in the reign. Well, that's the same thing when you're going to a neutral site, whether it's London, whether it's wherever it is. And so that will be good for us to, it's going to be good for us just to go play in the neutral site and handle the different things that pop up in the NFL. You play on a short week. Oh, this game got changed to that game. Like, these are things that you can't control. What we can control is our effort. What we can control is our attitude. What we can control is our core values. And that's what we're going to focus on this week. - And that sounds good and it's right. But some other messages are trickling out from his players. And, you know, if he had been sending the same messages that Bill Belichick would repeatedly send from the first day of training camp, nobody cares, nobody cares, nobody cares. This is what we're going to do. Season going to start in a different way, guys. That's just the way it is. That's the hand that we've been dealt along with the Packers. We just have to go do this. And then, hey, they're lucky. They get an extra day on the backhand. Packers have the Colts one o'clock East in the following Sunday. The Eagles play the Falcons Monday night. So they get, they get, you know, 10 days between games. It's kind of like having a Thursday to Sunday. That's a good little, you know, a little nugget to get them through it. And then it's over and it's done and you focus on the rest of the schedule. I'd probably rather, I haven't thought about it this way. I'd probably rather just get it done out of the gates than have to do it in the middle of the season. - Yeah. And to me, that's the cool thing about these different or weird type of games, whether you play Thursday or Friday. In the beginning of the season, like you're coming off training camp, it doesn't matter. So now you don't get the impact of the short week going into the game. And then like you said, you gain an extra day or two days on the backhand that helps you get through week one. And now you're kind of more prepared going in a week too. You get to, there's not like a ton of games. You need to study, there's one game. So you've probably watched that one game over and over again because you've had the extra time. But I will say it is very interesting of, like I said, it doesn't matter your mentality or approach until you go and play a game. And then we figure out exactly if you did a good job or you didn't. Well, what I don't like about what Sirianni said compared to the players having comments about it is, it kind of feels like, well, like, hey, everything you just said right this, you know, I agree with it. It's a hundred percent, you got what is like, well, what do you, what's being said in the meeting room? Like do you have, 'cause I think one of the differences is in New England, I talked to Coach Dungy and Coach Garrett about it is, they didn't have, you know, super long, you know, team meetings or meetings and start the day, whereas when I was in New England, we started off each day with whatever length the bill decide to go. It could be 15 minutes, could be 20, could be 45. But like the message was always clear on the approach for the week, the approach for the day, the approach for the game. Like it always felt like you had a constant reminder of what our mentality needed to be going into the game. Whereas I wonder when you hear him say that, hey, this is gonna help us. This is no different than if it's gonna rain and maybe we pour water on the ball to prepare for the rain game. So we're not complaining or we practice outside every day compared to a team that might go in a bubble. It's to be ready for that. I don't know if he's saying that. Maybe he is and the players are just talking about Brazil because it's unique. And so I do think once you compare those two now, it's kind of like, all right, do the players feel exactly how their head coach feels? Is that message being conveyed? And I think coming off of what they went through last year where they just fell apart at the end of the season. Now you get two new coordinators in there because it didn't work out which are two new coordinators last. You have all these different things now mixed in there. Now we're kind of lying. So they need to get off. This is a team that they need to get off to a good start and they need to play well because of all the question marks coming off of last year. Yeah, again, everybody gets a clean slate. Everybody gets a fresh start. And really for the Eagles, what has to be even more frustrating? The questions won't intensify until late in the season. Like 10 in ones are given. Get to 10 in one and let's see if you hold it together. But everyone's paying attention to try to discern Devon, the clues as to what went sideways last year. And there's a lot of that talk about they weren't listening to Sirionni. Guys, we're doing their own thing. So are they not listening to Sirionni again? I think that's a fair question to raise. I'm not saying that they aren't, but there's a disconnect between the things he's saying and the things that Darius slay set. Now it's not like everybody's saying it, but you got about a thousand in that setting when you're sending a message to a team. You need everyone to get the message. You need everyone to be on the same page, especially when you are a team where guys weren't on the same page last year. And I wonder if Sirionni's got the awareness to go in and say it the way I just said it from the get go. Hey guys, everything we say and everything we do this year is gonna be scrutinized to figure out why we went so wrong last year. We need to be together on everything. You need to be with me on everything. I don't feel like that's something you can say. It either is or it isn't. It's just a fundamental level of how much respect and deference is there for the guy in charge. In New England, everybody was scared shitless of it. In Philly, that might not be the same way. - It is a very fine line because I think the Eagles two years ago, you're in the Super Bowl and you have all of these core players and weapons on your team. So now you fall into the section of the NFL where you're gonna be talked about every week. Every show is gonna be, you're gonna be one of the top topics of what we call is they start off their A block or their number one segment. You're gonna be in there. So you have to have the mentality in a mindset of understanding where the team that people are looking at. We have to perform and we have to carry ourselves a certain way because you are the Eagles. So it is a big deal that Kellam Moore has now been now named your offensive coordinator and he's a guy that people feel like can be a head coach someday. Like that is a big deal because if you don't get off to a good start and things are gonna, like people feel like your replacement is in-house. Like you can ignore the storylines. Like yes, we always say it in New England, ignore the noise. Don't pay, but you have to be aware of the noise. You have to know what's out there. I think especially as the head coach, because you have to equip your guys to stay away from the different landmarks or things that you think can make it harder for your team to be successful. You have to try to help your players avoid that rather than let's step into it, let's step on the mind and then now let's try to say, all right, how do we figure it out? No, like let's avoid those landmarks. Let's not touch those things. And let's see if we can just steer our path clear to the most success we can have and ultimately being in a Super Bowl and trying to win a championship. - That's a great point. The coach needs to be aware of the narratives that are out there and that could potentially take off in order to navigate the team around it. And the number one narrative for the Eagles, and they should be very grateful that the Cowboys are sucking up most of the NFC East oxygen this preseason and training camp, but the narrative with the Eagles is they're not listening to their coach. They're not paying attention to their coach. There's a disconnect between the players and their coach. So the one thing that we need to do this year is make sure there is no disconnect between players and coach, actual or perceived. And here we are week one where there's a possible disconnect between the message from Nick Siriani and whether or not his players are receiving it, heeding it and behaving accordingly. And we're not, look, we didn't go looking for this. It landed in our laps. This isn't a stretch. This is our second segment of the show. It was sufficiently significant for us to drop it in to the first hour, now trickling into the second hour, which will trickle into a third hour if I don't shut the hell up and take a break. When we return, who's facing the most pressure in the AFC? We're gonna go division by division and we're each gonna pick a guy who is under the most pressure from that quartet of teams next here on this Tuesdays with McCordy edition of PFT Live. This causes the ball tradition at Murray State, every touchdown on horse ran around the track. Cal, you know what, I had a stamp. Iowa State is just the little. - Oh, Iowa State? - I don't know. - The biggest statement in the interest. - Script Ohio, dot the I. - Dot the I. - You do? - Dot the I. - Roll time, roll, woo! - Roll time, roll, woo! - Boy, you go, forget what I'm gonna get you to see. - They're telling me, they're telling me. - They're telling me, baby, what are you talking about? - What are you talking about? - I'd like to hear from you. My game, shout out to you. In a sandwich, I'm gonna like you. - New double walk. - We can rely. - Best cutest. - Genius, we're gonna wind up. - Drop it. - Drop it, drop it. - Drop it. - Drop it. - Call it, drop it. - Drop it. (upbeat music) - College traditions as bandied about by members of the Jets, I heard that sweet Caroline thing and any West Virginia fan knows what three words are. After sweet Caroline, it's eat, blank pit. And that'll be coming up 'cause that's, after West Virginia plays Albany and hopefully doesn't lose to Albany, it'll be West Virginia and pit. And so it'll be sweet Caroline, eat something that rhymes with pit, pit. That's a good college tradition in this neck of the woods. - That is a good college tradition. I've enjoyed many of watching those games back when I was in the big East. And they were playing that backyard brawl would always be fun to watch it. And like I told you last week, somehow you guys would be in great position and pit would somehow upset you. It felt like whenever West Virginia was heading towards a chance to play for the National Championship. - I know, I know. - Sorry to bring that up. - 13 to nine, I know, no, I know. It was a very long night. And it was funny because, well, it's a long story, but it was a long night and it was miserable. And I'll never forget it. And, you know, I don't know what's more memorable in sports because I've never enjoyed the highest of the high. But man, the scar that you live with with the lowest of the low, there's something about that pain that is comforting in a weird sort of way. Maybe it's because that's all I have, is pain. Maybe that's why I know sometimes. - You know what the bottom feels like. - I know what it feels like, and it kind of feels good. It's kind of like a blanket, even if it's, you know, infested with maggots and smallpox, it's still, you know, it's home. All right. - And that's some sort of floor you're right there. - There we go. - And that's some sort of floor you're right there. - There we go. And you figure that out in roughly a year. Okay, Joe Douglas, speaking of a team that's been, you know, accustomed to maggots and other nasty things, here's Joe Douglas on the expectations for the Jets, which were very high last year. And then they were kind of like, I don't know where they are this year. And somehow they've crept up high again, here he is. - When things did hit the fan last year, I think one of the more encouraging things was how the team stayed together and how hard the team played. There's never a wavering of effort or togetherness. And I thought that was one of the silver linings of a difficult season. You guys probably say it before, like, pressures every day. I mean, and we're past the point of growth. You know, I feel like, I feel like we have to, and we're past the point of growth, you know, I feel like this is a team that's ready to win. And I feel really good about saying that because of the work that everybody's put in, staff, the football operations, staff coaches, staff players. This has been a really good training camp. And so I can't wait to see all the fruits of everyone's labor. As the season goes, obviously it's gonna be a roller coaster season, just like any other season. But again, it's a great group of people to take the journey with. - You know, we were talking about this last week, and I can't remember what day it was. So I can't remember who I was talking to about it. But Aaron Rodgers said early in the off season that if the Jets failed this year, everybody's gone. And at a minimum, Robert Sol is gone. Rodgers, quite possibly, or if not likely won't be back. He won't want to be back, I think, if it's just a complete and total mess again. And some people think, well, you know, Douglas built this team and it's a pretty good team. So Joe Douglas could survive. And then I see there 27 and 56 under Joe Douglas and the highest they've finished in the division is third place in 2023 and 2019. Like that's not exactly a couple of feathers in his cap. When it's time for Woody and Christopher Johnson to figure out what they're gonna do if they fail. - I agree with you. I think it's so hard to predict how this stuff plays out because we look at teams on paper and we look at names and right away, we're like, well, Douglas has done a pretty good job. If you look at the players, they've acquired what they've done. And you look at the roster, you look, I like the roster and you look and you say, hey, he didn't page them all, Adam, sent them to Seattle, got picks, great move. But I always think it's hard to determine is this just the coach's fault? Is this because you look at this team last year, you take away Aaron Rodgers' injury. You're like, it is like Joe Douglas did a pretty good job. So because you think, hey, if this happens and it works out the way it should, this should be a team that has a chance to contend for the division. But I think now, I think everyone is in that position of this season is important of it needs to happen now. And I don't know if he can escape, because I just think when you go all in with a team, for me, if I'm deciding on the fate of the team, I think it's hard to say, like, this is only on Salah. This is only on Aaron Rodgers, like, hey, this is the group you're deciding you're going in with. You hired a head coach, you, so it's just hard. I think when we're on the outside looking in, you can have, we can have an opinion about it. It's just hard to know when someone's making a decision of what they're going to look at, I always look at it as, it's a group effort. This is a team project. This is a group project for class. We're all in it. If we get an F, we all fail. No one gets to escape and stay. But maybe he does. We've watched other guys in different situations and we look at them as a GM and we're like, hey, they've hired five different head coaches and they've continued to be the GM. And we see other situations where every time a head coach gets hired and the GM that hires them, they all get fired together and they ship to their clean house and they move on. So hard to kind of predict what'll happen. But I think it's easy to say this whole Jets team, pay coach GM quarterback like they need to win if they all want to stay there and they all like each other. - It's always a sign of this function when there's different standards for coach and GM. And I've always said they need to be tied together. They either both succeed or they both fail because when it's going badly, you don't want the coach to be thinking about how can I blame it on the GM and the GM to be thinking about how can I blame it on the head coach. All right, pressure cooker time for the AFC. We're going to go division by division with one guy each that we believe is under the most pressure and it can be anyone employed by any of the teams up to and including the owner. Let's start with the AFC East, your favorite division. Who do you have and will it be someone from the Patriots? - They, I didn't know we had owner involved. They didn't know the, there's no pressure in New England. They're living life right now, zero pressure. Ah, I'm going, I'm going Josh Allen and it's hard only one guy, but I'm going to go, I'm going to go Josh Allen simply because I think, I'm just, I'm very high on Josh Allen. I think, I love him as a quarterback and I think this is the year to prove that he has turned the page of like he doesn't need a Stefan Diggs, he doesn't need, he needs to be the guy that goes and wins MVP this year. He's like, I think he has that type of talent. I think this is the year that he has to go do those things as a player. So I think, I think if I had to pick, I'm going Josh Allen. - My first thought when I thought of the AFC East was to a taco by low of the quarterback and the Dolphins. And then I thought, wait a minute, wait a minute. That was last year, he got paid. - He did it. - And he's, he's loose, right? They can't take that money away from him. Like they give him that money and a week later, he's going all in on Brian Flores, things that he had bottled up for three years. He can say whatever he wants, he can do whatever he wants. He has won the lottery. The game is overtake off the uniform, baby. No pressure on him. And then I thought, well, what about Mike McDaniel? Like they haven't won a playoff game in 24 years and his teams are 0 and 2 in the postseason, one and out each of the last years. He got a new contract. So, what? Where's the pressure on him? So, the only guy from the Dolphins that I can point to is Chris Greer, the general manager. The guy who drafted toa and presumably recommended strongly that owner Stephen Ross write the gigantic check because as those negotiations are happening, I kept hearing Ross doesn't want to do it. Ross doesn't want to go 50 million plus with toa. Ross doesn't think they need to do that. Ross thinks they can find somebody else. So, someone prevailed on him to understand, as toa said, the market is the market. And if this thing fails, Chris Greer may be the guy who's feeling the biggest pressure 'cause he's the guy that's stirring that drink. - And I agree and I think even beyond that is, Greer was a guy who stayed when Brian Flores got fired. It was basically what we just spoke about. It was, hey, in this situation, we think it's only the head coach. We think our GM is doing a good job. Our head coach is a problem. So, you get to hire a new head coach. Like you say, you get to draft two or so. Yeah, I could definitely see that the pressure is on him for this team to not just be good in a regular season and not win a playoff game. Like they need to do more than what they've done the last few years. - We move now to the toughest division on paper, entering the 2024 season, the AFC North. Who do you have from there? - I'm going high level on this one. I think it's the Haslams and Cleveland. I think they are under the pressure of, you now have this team who for years, you've had a strategy, you've lost a lot of games, then you start to get the Miles Garrets of the world and you start to get the Denzel Wars. And like you have all of these talented players. And if you've now, you have a team that they should win. You decided to go all in and pay Deshawn Watson. You've done all these things that have lined you up to be the team that you wanna be. You're in a tough division. I get it, Cincinnati's good, Baltimore's good. But I think like this is the year you wanna see the Cleveland Browns go and win and give that fan base what they've longed for for years. And I think they're finally at that time with all the decisions that have been made, the firings and the hiring of general managers had coaches through the years. It just feels like Cleveland like this. And like even I would say last year felt like, all right, Cleveland's here. And then they go to Houston and they just get, they get killed by Houston in the playoff game where you're like, all right, well, Deshawn Watson wasn't there, Flacko was a great story last year. But now like it, Watson's out there. This is the team that you wanted to see. So I do, I think they're under depression. I think it falls on ownership because this is now year after year that they don't, they're just not the team at that fan base is dying to see. - When it comes to the time, Devin, where they're trying to shake public money out of the tree to build a new stadium or renovate the one they have. So as the team goes, the willingness of the politicians to throw money at them for that new stadium will be part of it. And if the team stinks, then, you know, they won't be willing. I was gonna say to Sean Watson because it's year three of this five year, 46 million per year, fully guaranteed contract. It's got an upper outfield to it now, but he's got 92 million in security on the back end. So, you know, the same argument as two of the guy won the lottery. So maybe there isn't any pressure. I'm gonna go to Pittsburgh and the easy guy is Russell Wilson. The deeper level though is Arthur Smith, the offensive coordinator, and he probably welcomes this. You know, there's a lot of people like, oh, why'd you hire him? He stinks, well, wait a minute, he was, he was good enough as a coordinator to become a head coach. It didn't work out as a head coach, but he was good enough as a coordinator to become a head coach. And the bar is low in Pittsburgh, but he's charged with making this offense work with Russell Wilson at quarterback, with Justin Fields, who can be used in some sort of specialty package. Mike Tomlin alluded that last week, but Arthur Smith is the guy who's expected to make it all happen offensively. Mike Tomlin, not an offensive guy. Smith is the guy who's gonna be really the mastermind of just making the offense, good enough to go along with that defense. The Steelers can avoid Devin, and this is one of those favorite stats hiding in plain sight. Avoid finishing in last place in the division for the first time since 1988. Were you even alive in 1988? I was one, I was one. One glorious year on his planet in 1988. That is a crazy stat though. That is, I could agree with that. I could definitely agree with that. I think, well, I will say, I think more to pressure is on Russ, because I think Arthur Smith has shown that he can be good and he can do different things. And I think the pressure is on Russ simply because Justin Fields is behind him and he's younger, that people, if he's not going well, people will want to see feels. And I think Russ is the guy for the job, but I think people will want to see feels. And I think Arthur Smith will always have that in his back pocket of if it doesn't work with Russ. He can say, well, that's because I feels could be in there. And that's why I think more of the pressure is on Russ. Hey, Smith turned around a quarterback from that 2012 draft class who had never done much in Miami and Ryan Tanhill. Russell Wilson did a lot more. If they can get him back to what he was in Seattle, it could work out. All right, AFC South, who do you have? AFC South, I'm going, I think the pressure is on Trevor Lawrence. I think he has the deal. He got the deal and I think that's great, but he was the number one pick. I think it's what everyone expected. It was what they expected to him to be that kind of quarterback. He was seen as a generational talent coming out of Clemson. He got it. He had to deal with Urban Meyer and that whole debacle there. And now he has Doug Peterson as his coach, all the good things. Now it's like, all right, let's see you take that next step. This is a division that, you know, Houston had a great year last year in C.J. Stroud, but this has kind of been a division where we've said, like this anybody's division and now it seems like it's Houston's division, but it's still only one year. I think it's been the thought that Trevor Lawrence to be the guy in his division. So I think he's under the pressure to go out there and perform this team. They got a new defensive coordinator to have weapons on offense. They brought in different guys to help. Brian Thomas coming in there from LSU seems like he's going to be a stud. So you expect Trevor Lawrence to be the guy. So I think he's under the pressure this year to go be the guy and make Jackson with the team and the AFC cell. The one caveat I'll put on that though, the owner, Sean Kahn recently said the expectation is to win now. If they don't, Trevor Lawrence didn't get fired, not with that contract. Others like Doug Peterson, the head coach and the GM Trent Bauke could be gone. I didn't realize when I started picking these names that I was going for people on the coaching staff for front office, not players, but to me and Indianapolis, Chris Ballard, the GM of the team, he said it himself, you know, hey, judge me based upon the kind of team we have. And if I deserve to be fired, I deserve to be fired, but he's working for Jim Urse, a guy who has been a little erratic and unpredictable over the years and a guy who always wants maybe more from the team than what the pieces would suggest. They're six years removed from Andrew Luck, six years or five years, five years removed from Andrew Luck, abruptly retiring. They've been lost in quarterback wasteland ever since Anthony Richardson. Supposedly the answer was injured last year. This needs to work for the Colts and they get the Texans right out of the gates, but this needs to work because at some point when you have an owner like Urse, because I think Chris Ballard should stick around for the team that he's put together. But when you have an owner like Urse, you got to worry if you don't deliver and you see the Texans taking over the division, Jim Urse is going to want to hire somebody else like like he did when he decided to fire Frank Reich and make Jeff Saturday with no coaching experience whatsoever. The interim head coach for the rest of the season a couple of years ago still doesn't seem real that that happened. And I'm always interested of what we talked about when it comes to the jets of what is the feeling in the building on the stiken feel like he has the players that go win. Is it like I'm always interested in if you decide to move on from your general manager, do you have a feeling from your head coach that he doesn't have what he needs to be successful? Because that's what I like you said before, you think they're time at the hip, I agree with that. So I'm always like, well, if Ballard's under pressure, does that mean that stikens under pressure? But it's like stiking can't be under pressure because what he did last year. So it's like it strictly means that we feel like they don't have the players to be successful. So is it is it Richardson not being the guy that you know, you decide to draft them with the I think it was the fourth pick in the draft like that's you decide to go with. So are we saying that decisions on you like that's the hardest thing for me to decipher of when an owner looks at his team. Does he decide that no, my general manager didn't bring in the talents or my coach didn't didn't do his job with the talent that was brought in. So hard hard to figure out what I will say is everything I've ever heard about here say is that we have no idea what he might feel or what he might do going forward that situation. All right, one division left in the AFC Devin, the AFC West, who's your selection from those four teams? This was tough because like a lot of people like the Chiefs want to be a three people. Like if they don't do that, like I don't see pressure from trying to do something that hasn't been like that's just like a great task to try to do. So for me, it's Sean Payton, I think it didn't work out with Russ and if Russ is in Pittsburgh with Arthur Smith and it's successful and that team goes and wins, then we look back at Denver and we say, well, why couldn't you make it work with Russ? Like he is still a good player and then you go get both nicks because it's like he's the guy that I mean, I don't think it's pressure that they need to go win the division or anything like that. I think it's the pressure of this has to look good. This has to look like a good decision made because last year was like, all right, Russ has played better, but the defense gave up a lot of points, but you still walk the way feeling like, wow, Denver could have been better if it just wasn't for Russell Wilson. And the truth of the matter is he didn't play terrible as bad ball as he played a year before. So it's like the pressure is on Payton because it's like everything got dictated when he got there. I was like, this is a guy we needed. We're going to trade to get him. He's the guy who's going to turn his franchise around. And I think this is a year you want to start to see it moving that direction and not just be a team that, you know, finishes third or fourth in the division, possibly behind Kansas City in a charge like, you don't want to see harbor and the charges come in and right away, they're better than the Broncos. The thing we don't know about the Broncos under their current ownership is how patient they will be. We do know that they have more than enough money from their Walmart connections to make a coaching change anytime they want. They've made enough money in the time we've been talking about Sean Payton being under pressure to pay for the buyout if they would move on. So you know, and again, Payton's got three years left on his contract and he'll be fine. But yeah, this is the year you want to see something moving in the right direction. They fired Nathaniel Hackett after one year, they didn't hire him and how patient will they be with the people in place when they know they can just snap their fingers and go find somebody else. I'll go with Jim Harbaugh because he'll love it, right? He wanted to be on the elevator with the 15 people that was stuck in the hotel in Dallas. I feel bad. I missed out on that. It's a, it's a, it's a test. He sees the pressure as a positive thing to come in and do what he did with the 49ers in 2011. We turn to six and 10 team around like that and made them a fringe Super Bowl contender almost there. Kyle Williams, a couple of them off Ponce or they would have been there right away and then were there the next year. This is pressure that he wants. He relishes. He thrives in that kind of environment. And it's one of the reasons why he's going to, he's going to succeed. This is what the chargers need. They need a kick in the ass. They need the defibrillator. They need anything they can to get this franchise to finally live up to what you would look at the players and say they should be pretty good. They should be better than they are. Harbaw's the one's going to be expected to do it. And I think he loves the pressure that goes along with it. I agree. He definitely loves the pressure. I just, I'm like, well, what, what is the realistic expectation for this team? And if he can do that, that's phenomenal. But that's a, that's a lot on him year one going into a situation. But again, I think like you said, which goes back to GM and head coaches is it feels like this team has a lot of talent, but still, Telesco got fired as a GM who's now, you know, in Las Vegas with the Raiders, but it's so interesting of like, does he get under that scrutiny of as a head coach? Hey, we brought you in this team as talent. You need to win right now, but Harbaw definitely feels like it seems like he's like, hey, that's why I'm here. I'll take it. So it'll be a fun watch to watch that team develop this year. Charters writers play this week and writers may wish they'd saved some of those 63 points from last year when they got everybody fired on that Thursday night debacle. Let's take a break. Let's learn some potential good news for the 49ers and the faithful as week one approaches. We'll discuss that next year on PFT Live. First of all, congratulations on becoming the official Grillin Bar sponsor of the National Football League. How does it feel to serve up the NFL? Man, it's a real dream come true. I'm glad we'll be able to serve up some extra heat this season. Do you have any plans to celebrate? Absolutely. We're going to serve up America's favorite bonus wings for just 50 cents each to kick off the season. Any of our sources, whether it's in restaurant or to go, it don't matter. It's all 50 cents all the time. Are you worried at all about any competition this season? What competition? Limited time price participation in selection may vary tax and gratuity excluded. When you need meal time inspiration, it's worth shopping king supers for thousands of appetizing ingredients that inspire countless mouthwatering meals. 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I hope he took the dog. I hope he was picking the dog up and taking him on the plane. But yes, I love the images of Kirk Herb Street with the dog under the booth as they were calling the game. Take your dogs anywhere you can. The better news for the 49ers is Williams may be coming to San Francisco and staying put. They're working to get a deal done according to Adam Schefter VSPN. Now's the time to do it. If you're going to do it, this is it. Williams is shown. He'll sit out a whole season. He's not bluffing. The 49ers. Now Brandon, I, you've done Devin, now is the time to make this guy happy. He's due to make 20 million this year. He's got no guarantees beyond this season. Once he's on the week one roster, his salary, if he's on the week one roster, his salary for this year is fully guaranteed. But he's thinking about next year, maybe the year after he wants to get rewarded. And this is a key piece of that puzzle for them. If they want to win a Super Bowl this year, they need him around. Yeah, there's no, there's no decision that needs to be made for them to be successful. They need Trent Williams there. And that's the thing. You have a good football team. You have a chance to win a Super Bowl. We saw it last year with Chris Jones. He sits out week one for Kansas City. They look and they're like, we need to get this guy back in here, pay him what he needs, pay him what he wants, get the deal done. So like you said, there's no time like now. This needs to get done. You want your guy to get some practicing in to play week one against the Jets. All of that good stuff, you need to figure that out how to get him back there. So it seems like we talked about this all the time. You say it all the time. The deal gets done whenever the date is drawn and they say, hey, it's circling the calendar. This is what we need to get this deal done by and then they get it done by. So no surprise here. Gets them back ready to go for the regular season and gets them ready to go Monday night against the Jets. So get this done and then it's $40. Have some runway to move on and get into actually playing football games and not just talking about someone's contract every single day like they've had to do for this whole training camp. Yeah, Fred Warner called it a good problem to have. The only good problem is no problem. And to have both Brandon, I you can Trent Williams have contract situations that hovered over the team that distracted the team and I you isn't going to be as ready as he would have been. Trent Williams isn't going to be as ready as he would have been. And you got the the Jets right out of the gates trying to atone for what happened last year on Monday night. Well, they did win the game against the Bills. They lost Aaron Rodgers for the year and apparently this video is Williams getting off a plane in the Bay Area on Monday night. So maybe the dog was part of the greeting party, not a dog that he brought with him. But either way, I always get happy and excited when when I see a dog, I love dogs anywhere I see a dog. And I used to be, I mean, when I was a kid, I delivered newspapers, I was chased by every size and shape a dog you could imagine. And I hated dogs. I love them now though. And I'm probably going to get bit soon. I'm going to walk up to one like an idiot and stick my hand out and come back with less than five fingers. Okay. Ricky Piersal, this happened on Saturday and this was one of those moments where, you know, it's a quiet Saturday on a holiday weekend and you get the, you see the tweet and it's like, what happened? Yeah. Shot in Union Square in San Francisco, 17 year old kid, supposedly trying to steal his Rolex. Piersal, instead of handing the watch over, which most of us would have done, I admire the, the courage, but man, guys got a gun. You don't grab the gun because you might get shot and he did. The suspect got shot as well. Piersal was lucky. The bullet went into his chest. I mean, as lucky as you could be, it would have been lucky at all not to get shot, but if you're going to get shot, the bullet doesn't hit any vital organs. He was in the hospital overnight. No surgery was needed. He was released from the hospital a day later. He's on the non football injury list, which means he's going to miss at least four weeks. I haven't seen anything about when he'll be able to come back. I mean, because even if you don't hit vital organs, you've got, as a professional athlete, some fairly important structures in there that could, you know, be permanently messed up. We just don't know, but that was just one of those moments where it's like, what the hell happened? And, you know, it's a reminder, it gets back to what we talked about earlier in Brazil. I mean, you need to keep a tight perimeter, LeBron James pointed this out on social media after it happened. The best attitude is home, work, back home. When you start deviating from a fairly tight range of where you go, you potentially step into some situations where some bad things can happen. Yeah. And that was crazy. I think it was like three o'clock in the afternoon of when this happened, I read that he was at an autograph signing and then decided to go walk over there or whatever. When I heard it, I was like the same thing as you and my reaction was like, give me like, take the watch and go and take the watch, take the cash in my pocket. Like go ahead. So a crazy situation, I think like you said, the biggest thing was he was as lucky as you can get in any encounter that you had with someone with a gun and you being involved with fighting for that gun. So you just don't, you don't want to hear stories like that. And I just remember as a player, whenever you have, whether it was Memorial Day weekend, Labor Day weekend, whenever you were off and that time period, I just remember sitting in our meeting room and coaches always going over whether it was our main team meeting room or is that individual meeting with your position coach of just talking about the decisions you make or staying out of situations that, you know, in this situation, like you can't prevent someone coming up to you and trying to take something from you like you can't only stay in your house to like, well, the bronze saying, but you just always get worried, I think as an athlete or a coach or anything involved of like this free time where everyone's out. It's a holiday weekend. It's all a good stuff. Everyone's looking to have fun and you just see people being out and you know you could easily be a target. So lucky for Ricky Pierce all that nothing's life threatening and he hopefully can get back to playing football at some point, but just a crazy story that you never want to hear anything like it. Yeah. And the best news is he's fine and we'll continue to monitor what that means for his football career, which is just getting started. Taylor Williams career just getting started and he has set a very high bar for himself. You're here. Some of his interview with Maria Taylor next on PFT Live. Do you remember the losses or the wins more? You always remember the losses a little bit more than the wins. Obviously, you remember, you know, the big plays and the wins. You remember the, you know, obviously the win of the big game, but you remember all the small things, all the, you know, the things you could have done better, all the things you could have done better as a team, all the things that happened throughout the game and the losses and things like that. Taylor Williams is going to have a high bar for himself as a rookie. It's a low bar to set some bears passing records. This is unbelievable. I thought we were going to talk about rookie passing marks for the bears. No, this is all time from 1995, Eric Kramer passing yards in a season, 3,838. I've never had a 4,000 yard pass or ever in the history of the franchise. Passing touchdowns in a season 29. They've never had 30 passing touchdowns ever in a season by a quarterback. Devin, I don't think the question is, will he break them? The question is, how far will he break them by? Yeah, I mean, I think he's definitely what they have on the team. But are we sure about that like this day and age as much as teams throw the ball, the bears like J. Cullen, none of these people have ever done 4,000 yards in 30 touch. Like, was it just an injury bug? That's a crazy step. They have never had a high end offense. Even when they had water patent and everybody on the field was chasing water patent, they never supplemented it with a passing game. It's never been, I don't know if it's not a priority. It's just never happened. They haven't had a true franchise quarterback since Sid Luckman, J. Cutler is the closest thing they've had, and he still didn't get past Eric Kramer's 38, 38, and 29 touchdowns from 1995. Let's take a break. More PFT Library after this. All right, we're going to motor through the draft today, and this is the teams we think that will make the playoffs that didn't last year. And I have a caveat, I've still been done my full playoff tree. So if there's any discrepancy, I can't be held responsible for it. Devin, you're up. I'll jump out and I'll go, I think the easier one, I'm going to go with the Cincinnati Bengals. Joe Barrow being healthy gives him a chance, there's a little bit of pressure. Jamal Chase, T Higgins is a contract year, so I'm going to go with the Cincinnati Bengals. We talked earlier about the Chargers and my belief in Jim Harbaugh. I think they get in, not that they win the division, but I think they get in first year under Jim Harbaugh. My second team, I'm going to go over to the NFC, which I think it's a little harder to pick some of these teams. I'm going to go, you said last year, you picked them and didn't work out for you. I'm going to Seattle. I'm going to Seahawks, Mike McDonald, first year there. I think he brings a different aggression to the defensive side of the ball. I think they figure out a way to get into the playoffs. Now it does get very difficult. It really does. I will go with the Colts. We talked about them earlier. They almost made it last year. They ran it all the way until week 18 Saturday night, Gardner Menchoo against CJ Stroud. I think they can get it together, get Anthony Richardson healthy, keep him healthy, and if it doesn't work, Joe Flacco, the comeback player of the year from last year can come in and maybe finish the job. All right. Now, now it gets really tough. Who do you have? Last but not least, team, we all have been talking about this time to see the magic, the New York Jets get into the playoffs this year. Aaron Rodgers, healthy, makes it do what it do, saves everybody's job, they get into the playoffs and possibly they win a playoff game. This one is going to make some people in Washington very confused because they believe I hate the commanders, but we're trying to compare CJ Stroud to one of the two quarterbacks this year, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels. I think the comparison is better to the commanders. The division isn't as difficult as what Caleb Williams is going to be dealing with. The bar is a lot higher. Next year, CJ Stroud just kind of went about his business and the Titans were on note or the Texans. Excuse me. Couldn't even remember which team it was. They were unnoticed. And next thing you know, they're in position to win the division. I don't think the commanders win the division, but I think this new vibe they have. And I think Jayden Daniels is going to be special. I think it's enough to get them in. I like the bears, but I think it's going to be hard to division. Yeah. I think that if you flip the two bears win that division possibly, but the commanders can maybe pull off the NFC start. We got to take a break. We'll wrap up this Tuesday edition of PFT Library after this. Ah. That was the name of my florist. Yeah. What a ****. You called me Mike florist. Should I take him flowers Thursday night? I mean, we're going to be on the sideline. And I think usually for that game, it's the visiting team sideline when we're there in Kansas City. I should take him flowers since I am Mike florist. You better be careful. How close you'll be able to get to. That was an actual rendering of what it might look like when I when I hand a bouquet of flowers to Lamar Jackson on Thursday night. Maybe I maybe I won't. Maybe I won't go to Kansas City. We all haven't. Stay home. I have a sudden unexpected illness after the show ends. Like LeBron said, man, go to work. Go home. You got to just skip work and stay home. Yeah. That's true. Maybe I will. I got the camera here. I got the hookup here. All right, Devin, great stuff. As always, the praise is coming in with no complaints yet for the second Tuesdays with McCourty. We'll see you all tomorrow. Let's go. Let's go. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] We'll see you all tomorrow. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Yeah. [MUSIC] Here we go, Popeyes. Here we go. 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