The Killer B's: Joel Blank & Jeremy Branham
10/28 Hour 3 - Is CJ Stroud Really In Sophomore Slump?
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This may be nitpicky to start with, but Dalton Schultz isn't giving you a whole lot of effort and he's still making a whole lot of business decisions even after catches. It just doesn't seem like there's a whole lot of fight in that dog at all. When I watched it again this morning and just on catches, he's just kind of securing the ball and just tensing up for the hit and he's not putting his head down, he's not trying to get extra yards, and it just seems like now that he's gotten paid, he's not giving you anything close to what he gave you a year ago. Do you think you should have caught that ball on third down, but the one handed one? They said that Shroud made a mishap, a misthrow, like they didn't show a replay of it, never got the outside line on the top of the screen. I think he could have made it, I don't think it would have been easy. I don't think he could have made it. You hit him in the hand, you hit him in the palm of the hand. Yeah, I don't know, you're trying to apply if it hits you in the hands, you should catch it because that's it. If the ball hits you in the hand, you should catch it. Yes. As an NFL football player, if you get hit in the hand with the ball, yes, you should make that one. I thought he hit more fingertips than anything and he was, he was, he was extended. I don't think he could have caught that. I thought that was going to play the ball extended in the sense that he was still on his feet. Sure, but you could still be extended. Can you extend as far as possible on your feet as opposed to diving for a football? Well, those are two separate things. I'm just asking it because he didn't dive because that would, that would imply laziness. No, look, this is not an excuse. This is not to excuse Dalton Schultz of his poor player or his lack of effort to talk. I'm completely with you guys from that. Well, in that specific play, I didn't think that was a well-placed ball by Stroud. I don't think Dalton Schultz could have caught it. It could have been both. But again, if you can reach further by diving as opposed to just an, you know, an overextended arm. He was right on the sideline. I don't think he could have dove. I don't think he could have dove and stayed in bounds for that. I don't think it was as close to the sideline as you remember. I'll have to go back and look at it. Can you get, can you have, will you have more range diving for a ball or just reaching forward as far as you can? Diving. Okay. And if it hit him in the hand without diving, he would have been a better opportunity to stay in the balance. Let's eliminate the sideline for a moment. Okay. But if he dives, there's a better chance to catch the football, whether he's in bounds or out of bounds. Of course. Okay. So if he had room, then you're willing to say it was a lazy play. Sure. Now it could be both things where Stroud didn't have a good throw. Yeah. It could have also been a perfect ball. I'm not arguing that. It wasn't a good, it wasn't a well thrown ball. I'm shocked. We didn't see a replay on that one because I, because they, they made it seem like it was just this completely Aaron throw, but it hit him in the hand, like it hit him in the hand. It wasn't in the front row. It wasn't in the sideline. That's actually one that I'm looking forward to watching them. The all 22. Did you see how poorly it was? Do you think in RG should have grass? I know they, I know they've done it the past. I know that they were being sued multiple times because of this other retractable roof stadiums and other dome stadiums do this Arizona doesn't, I forget the other one that does it, but it was able to put a pallet higher pallet though. Okay. Right. The energy doesn't have that. It's innovative. Now they're probably going to get a new stadium at some point. Right. They want to have a Super Bowl. Should they have grass? Yes. Should they have grass? I, I, you know what? I think you're going to see it more and more of the players association, the players met life is the perfect example for why, but even in the other stadiums, they're all critical of anything that's not natural grass with the amount of money that the NFL is making and the fact that you have at least for the most part, an open air stadium or it can be open air to keep the grass and you can do the pallets. I don't think there's any reason why the NRG shouldn't have natural and let's um, let's be very clear about something to host a world cup. You must have natural grass, Chris Kinetti, president of Houston's World Cup host committee. The plan is for grass to be installed in our NRG stadium beginning May, 2026 to give it more than a month to settle before the matches to put it in layman's terms. We're going to have one of the greatest grass fields that you can have. So I mean, we'll see. We'll see if Chris. Chris. He's right on that, but they will be having grass for the FIFA World Cup. So to say that it's implausible would be inaccurate, sure, but World Cup last one a month compared to a football season. So I mean, I don't think it's, I think it's kind of apples and oranges. I mean, we've seen, we've seen them try and fail at this before. I think until they're able to actually wheel it out like to do in Arizona as one actual continuous, uh, uh, pallet of grass, I don't think they're able to do it. I wonder, I wonder how they're doing this for, uh, for soccer be weird. All right. What do you, what are you not ignoring victory? What you wouldn't defeat? Well, it's extending upon the conversation with that Scral Dalton Schultz play. There was a play, uh, believe it was the previous possession to that where they had a third down and, uh, they, Scrald had digs, uh, on a slant right across the middle field, should have been the completion to extended the drive, uh, possibly added more points to the, to the game, but Scrald left the ball too far inside and the pass got broken up by the Colts defender. I thought Scrald, well, overall for the course of the game, he played pretty well. I, I thought that in the first half, especially the first quarter, he was missing his spot, uh, a few, a few more times than we're used to seeing him at a costume, uh, not to be able to extend a few drives, probably cause some supports. Okay. What else you got, Blankers? What are you not ignoring victory? What you wouldn't defeat? Um, from a defensive perspective, I, I love what Bullock rings to the table. I'm still extremely concerned about the other safety position, uh, and especially in coverage. I think Murray can make some plays. He, he broke up a couple of passes nicely. He does like to hit and he can hit. I just, I still, from, from weekend week out when watching him, I still get very concerned in coverage. Sorry about Murray. Yeah. I thought Murray had his best chance. He had three pass breakups. Yeah. I, I, but I'm saying more, there are also some times when we talk about guys that got loose behind in the secondary and things like that, that I was like, I have to go back and see who they were. Yeah. I, I, I, I like him. I think he and Petrie are both extremely physical and really good when they, when it comes to hitting and getting in the box, I just, I have still have concerns about him in coverage. Uh, Petrie, Petrie in coverage was my main guy, um, two long plays, one led to a touchdown. He was a crossing route where he kind of got hit. So it's like a guy, but he ran right in at the same time. Like, hey, you know, should he be sidestepping him? Should he be trying to avoid contact there? Like, I don't know how that one's coached. That one's tough, but then he gave it the long one to downs. That was later ruled down at the one yard line, like Petrie when he's in man to man against good slot receivers in the NFL is a mismatch. Uh, yes, he had the interception. I heard people like, Oh, Petrie played great. Petrie was outstanding. He had the interception, great play in zone coverage, reading Richardson's eyes. Yes, he was good against the run, but he had two huge plays against him in man to man coverage. Petrie and man to man against good slots has always been an issue so far this year and it always will be. He's not good in coverage. Yeah. My next one was into the first half. There was a situation where they thought we thought there in field go range, though, is kind of at the fringe and they, the Colts, a part of my worry there when they, when they drop back to passes like man, they haven't been protecting. Well, they could get knocked out of field goal range. Sure enough, the Colts sacked him, got knocked him out of field goal range and I, I'm not that I put a ton of blame for on shroud for this, but if he stayed with the play of just a second longer, uh, Schultz came, it shows was the hot, Schultz basically kind of did like the fake block and then just, you know, went to the side. It was sitting there for the little dump off if shrouded, it's shroud seized pressure. He knows they can't take a sack, but they're going to get knocked out of field goal range. If he, if he looks hot to Schultz, they're fine. They pick up a few yards, the, the drive continues with possession continues, but steady takes the sack in cost of points. I have to look back at that one. I don't remember that one off top of my head. I remember the sack. I don't remember where, um, or Schultz, yeah, I went back around it a few times. Schultz does kind of this kind of fake block where you kind of, you know, you know, one, two, three and then he ducks out to war like he was there for a little bit. It makes some sense. Like three or dump off. Yeah. I'll look for that one. I do remember the sack. I wasn't looking. That's what I'm saying. Um, up by 10 fourth and eight at the Colts 45, you have a guy on your punt return team that is getting off late. You had 12 guys on the field, didn't get off on time. It turned a fourth and eight into a fourth and three from the 50 Colts decided, Hey, we're going to go for it now. Cause it's at the 15. It's only fourth and three. They get the first down and a quarterback sweep to the right. They get a field goal later in that game. You're up by 10 at that moment. You're up by 10. You forced the offense off the field. You're about to get the football. Who knows? Maybe you have a scoring driver for a touchdown, but nonetheless, you're getting the football back up by 10 up by 10. You have 12 on the field and then they convert it. They get a field goal, make it a one possession game, made that game, you know, back into the, you know, where it could be swung either way, that's, that's a bad mistake. I'm wondering if you should have taken the time out there hindsight, 2020, you take the time out, but in the moment, it's a little bit more difficult because you don't know if the Colts are going to go for it fourth and eight turns into a four and three. You're not sure if the Colts decide they want to go hindsight, 2020, obviously take the time out. Shane Steichen has shown that he's willing to go for that most kids taking the time out. I do think so because I think there was a situation early in the game where he also went for it in a, in a similar situation. So yeah, I, I don't have that note exactly. That's where I landed though, Brian. I landed on the tendencies. Like if the tendencies tell you, we're not privy to that information, but if the tendencies tell you that Shane Steichen in that spots more likely to go for it than not, I think it's a spot where you should have taken the time out because they got points in that driver versus you having the football up by 10. That's massive. If they lose the game, we're talking about it that, that is one of the biggest points in the entire game for sure. The fact that they screwed, they almost screwed themselves out of being able to cake walk this game because of that particular play. What else you guys got? I had one more. There was a, there was a play there's because there's kind of some of the problems like along with the offensive line that we've, we, we keep hearing that they're working on it. They're working on it. We keep expecting it to get better and it's becoming kind of comical how they keep talking about it's going to get better and never does, but one of the things was not getting the play call called soon enough, not getting up to the line of scrimmage soon enough and then the play, the play clock runs down, they get rushed and there was a situation right after they got the deep ball to digs and I believe it's the third quarter. They got the deep ball to digs and then second and third down right after that. The play clock got down to like two or three seconds and the plays were completely, there was a bat, it was the right, it was the bat snap that went over CJ's head that he had to fall or he had, he picked it up and threw it away and then right after that there was a, they got down to like two seconds again and they got, the Colts got quick pressure and CJ just had to throw it away to, to avoid the sack, but it just poor pre play execution right after a big play to dig same sort of stuff we've been seeing for weeks. Yeah. Well, they're working on it Brian. I know. It's week eight or about to be week nine, I'd be slow and get admitted. We're working on it. Few texts, not ignoring in victory, which you wouldn't in defeat five, seven, nine, eight. I'm not ignoring that turnover near the end of the game and the red zone Texans were icing the game away and almost literally through the game away with a poor lateral. I mean, it was, it was a half that toss play. Yeah. It was the design run. Now it was two things on that play that I noticed, not a good pitch by CJ Strauss behind mix and mixing kind of, it kind of handcuffed him and was behind him off his left shoulder. You want that pitch like mortar was right, right, right out in front. And then Kate Stover also I think impeded CJ Strauss pitch pad, like lane, like his window, because I don't know if it's because Stover was late, I don't know if it's because Stover got pushed back. I'm curious what they, what they saw there, but if you look at it, Stover is like right in shroud's face. And I think the reason that led to the pitch to, to mix and be behind him was because Stover was in the lane of it being in front of them. Were they running that same action they do on the split zone because I think they ran that split zone concept where the tight end from one side comes across and cracks back on the other side. I wonder if they were running that to make it look like it was the split zone run between the guards, but it was actually the toss and then Stover, like you said, as he's coming across gets in the pitch lane. He definitely was in the pitch lane. I think he was. I think he was in motion running across. Yeah. They might have been trying to fake a split zone. The, I heard some people think that that was not conclusive to be down by context. The phone makes him through him down. Yeah, I thought he threw him down once he was at the wall. No, I heard it. I heard it. It was, I was in the car, the first initially and radio was convinced it was a touchdown. Really? Yeah, they were, they were acting like it was a touchdown. Live or after the review, after they saw the replays. They were even looking at the scoreboard review and thinking that they would almost describing it as if they might be lucky if they get. Huh. Yeah. And, and so then when I went back and looked at it, I was like, well, it seems pretty clear cut that. Yeah. I wonder if they didn't have a touch to it. I wonder they didn't have a good look at the review because I thought it was pretty clear that once the guy possessed the ball, mixing kind of threw him down, like mixing might have already pieces down by contact, mixing might have already been in the process of throwing him down before he had possession of the ball. But after he had possession of the ball, mixing was still holding on to him or touching him as he went down to the crown. So I thought that was clear and obvious. A few other texts don't ignore in victory, which you wouldn't defeat 71370 03776, slow it needs to speed up the offense because of this trash line. I did notice we go with a little bit more play action early, some rollout stuff, which gets them out of the pocket, makes it a little bit more difficult to rush. Now the tempo is something that they do need to get better, not necessarily like tempo to the next play. And we talked about this last week, beginning the play call and getting into the huddle, getting out of the huddle, getting to the line quicker. I think it leads to some of their, their issues. There was a couple of bad snaps where it's like, one in the ball, one in the ball, one in the ball, high snap, one in the ball, one in the ball, one in the ball, one in the ball, pressure. So it's like, stop getting so late in the play clock. I feel like that's one of the easier things that they can, they can correct. And you know, in watching Rogers do it for years too, and especially when the line was less than because that's what they did, they'd go quicker. They'd go to more of the pistol, they'd more and move them around. But at the same time, the easiest way for the defense to prepare for whatever he's doing and to jump on it is when you run the clock down so far, the alignment can see it. No. Okay. We're going to see what he's doing. We're gone in the next two seconds. I will say the textures point though, I thought Bobby Sloak actually adjusted fairly well in this game. A lot of rollouts and quick throws as the game went on. See, I thought he did it more early than late. I thought it was, well, I guess defined early, but I thought it was okay. We're not, we're not getting protection in the first quarter and they went to in the second quarter. That's what I thought. I thought if that's what I'm remembering, but we'll look at the all 22. That I have, um, the Texans were in the Texans were in the red zone six times. You know how many touchdowns they scored in their red zone trips? The mix and run was that it? They scored twice in the red zone. They had to remember the late interception digs a Tengdell touching, so he had the ball in the red zone six times and they scored two touchdowns. That's not championship level. Can you beat the Colts at home with, you know, scoring a touchdown one of every three times in the red zone? Yeah. Can you beat some mediocre teams in the NFL getting into the red zone six times and scoring twice? Yeah. Can you beat the top teams in the NFL getting into the red zone six times and scoring two touchdowns? Absolutely not. Like that is an area that has to improve. That's why everybody's frustrated with this offense. It's like, okay, the yards are there. The tools are there. Although one might be out for a while, but there's this void in yards and there's this void in points that exist in this Texans offense. It's like the Astros offense. The Astros had great slash numbers, but they couldn't score runs. So there's this void. There's this void there. And it's, I think because of the red zone, they move the ball or even if it's not in the red zone, it's once you get into the other team's territory, they get into the other team's territory with ease and then these drives are stalling out and they have to score more touchdown. They got to get in the paint. Like they just have to, if they want to be this best version of themselves, seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero ESPN. Let's grade the quarterback. CJ Stratton. I'm seeing some, some different things about the quarterback, some didn't think he played well. Some think he played well. How did you think he played? Seven, one, three, seven, eight, zero, three, seven, seven, six. It is the bees on ESPN 97 five ESPN 92 five, U of H coming off their big homecoming win against Utah. I told you it was going to be fun. I told you it was going to be a great night at Cougars getting the walk off field goal for the win on homecoming to come away with their second big 12 win. 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All those CJ stat line would disagree with me, but CJ looked like dog crap yesterday. Some are indifferent about how CJ performed at 6381. It's hard to say. He's not playing well when guys are in his face before he can make a read. He's fighting for his life instead of playing another texture. I thought CJ had an okay game, not spectacular. We know who won the match up between Stroud and Richardson. Really not worth discussing. But how would you assess Stroud's play yesterday? Look, I think you have to start with the fact that he didn't turn the football over. I don't think that he put you in harm's way. I think he was in harm's way for the majority of the day and the fact that he was running for his life and they had to constantly do things to get him away from. He took a lot of hits, especially in the first half. He was getting guys in his face all the time. He was still making plays. He didn't have 86 yards passing either. He had a really good day passing the football with all those variables going against him. And then you lose digs at a certain point too and they won the football game. I'm not going to criticize CJ Stroud for the inability, the offensive line, to keep him safe, and the fact that he was able to put up the kind of yards and not turn the ball over as opposed to the Green Bay game, I thought he was fantastic yesterday in basically helping you win that football game. He didn't do anything to lose it. So for that, I mean, I'm going to give him probably a minus. A minus? Okay. You didn't have a turnover though. What was the turnover? The fumble. Fumble. Fumble. Is that on him? Yeah. The fiction. I didn't know that they put that on him. I still don't. But I'm just, I'm not going to, I don't think that's the kind of turnover that I'm going to point at him and say that's a play call that he's executing. Did he execute it perfectly? No. Yeah. I thought it was a poor pitch. I mean, I'll be honest. I thought it was a poor pitch. I got to look at it again. Yeah. I mean, it was behind mixing. There's no doubt about that. Now was it behind mixing? Because that was the only place he could put it. Like that's one that I want to see a little bit closer. A customer may have instructed, but it wasn't a good pitch and yeah, mixing ever possessed it. So it's his turnover. I was really impressed with what I saw from Stroud specifically after the digs injury. Like things could have been awful there. Like you lose your top target because you don't have Nico. You still targeted digs a ton in this game. So he was obviously a key factor in the game plan. You target them nine times before we left the game with injury. And then after that, you have a collection of Tengtal, John Metchee, of course, you have Xavier Hutchinson as well. That happened late in the third quarter. And after that, the Houston Texans were, you look at what they did on the offensive end after they lost step on digs. They went for a field goal late in the third quarter that drive that kind of extended in the fourth quarter. They fumbled and late, I mean, deep into a Texas territory, that's the fumble that we were talking about. So you should have had two scoring drives without step on digs on the field. I thought that he handled the step on digs injury very well. I thought he was throwing it well after the digs injury and he was moving the ball with the receivers that weren't his top two in Le Mans, right, Todd, right, like he did miss some throws. He was more errant and off in the first half than the second half specifically. What's the other was a lot of those pressure driven? Not always. Some of them always where he just had to get rid of it for the receiver had time to look. Some of them. Yeah. Some of them. Yeah. Now I still felt like he'd misfired and he has also spoiled us to the point where we think that he's going to complete those passes even whenever he's pressured and he's under duress. So I thought that he played well considering all the factors. One of the, the other nitpicks I have of shroud is he has to get to the line quicker. Like we, we talk about the offensive line woes and being late in the play clock and rushing to get the snap off with just very few seconds left in the play clock. That's quarterback. Like that's quarterback's job. Like you're the one getting the play in. You're the one that's seeing everybody onto the field. You're the one that's in the huddle. You're the one that's getting everybody up to the line. Like you are the Mike Stroke. Like you are the Mike Stroke of this offense. You need to get everybody to the line quicker. Like if this is a team issue, you as the quarterback and you as the quarterback of the offense, you need to get this, this offense move and get them to the line. Get this operation going. So I thought he could be better there. I give him a B plus though. I thought he played well, the defense for the Colts were in his face, tons of pressures. He got hit a lot. He lost digs. He's already without, without Nico Collins. I give him a B plus. Yeah. I great a little bit of on a curve here because of what you guys have mentioned. The offense line still wasn't good. Obviously he's down. His top target for part of the game, he was down his second target. But we talked about what Jeremy let you just mentioned with the failure to, I guess, execute the pre-snap stuff very effectively, certainly slow in a couple of situations that we talked about in the last segment. We also talked about some of the misthrows and they were more the first half because he had a great throw in the early in the fourth quarter. We had to scramble out when he was facing pressure and he completed that past Xavier Hutchinson. He still showed a lot of the same ability we've seen before with the scramble, the accuracy on the run. But I thought there was some stuff that he frankly should be beyond, even though it's the second year. Some of the misthrows, the one to digs, the one to Schultz that we've talked about in not getting the team to the line of scrimmage and the play ready to go in time like we talked about after the big play to digs in the second half. Frankly he should be beyond that so I'm going to have to drop him down a little bit. I'll give him a B, a regular B. Now, no minus, no plus, just a regular B. All right, so A minus B plus B for CJ Stroud 7137803776, let's go out to the HR and P listener line. La sassa, you're in the hive with a B. What's up? [inaudible] Well, you consider that CJ Stroud is in a minor sophomore slump. That's all I got. Thank you. Thank you. It's awesome. No. I don't think he's in a slump. I think that he had a bad game against Green Bay, but I think we just described exactly why he has some of the challenges that make it more difficult from him in certain games. The Green Bay game wasn't his best effort. That's going to happen with everybody at the same time when he's running for his life and he's got guys in his face the majority of the time, you have a little you should have the the wherewithal to be able to understand that and you don't use that against him. I don't think he's slumping. I think that there's been a lot to deal with lately with the line issues. A lot of times we just look at quarterback production and think that everything else is the same, right? Like everything else around CJ Stroud is the exact same as it used to be or that it was last year. Stroud's facing more pressure than he saw last season. His numbers are down. Why? Well, because he's seeing more pressure. You can make the case that maybe he's not as accurate as he was a year ago. I'm not really seeing that. I think he's the same guy. In fact, I think in a lot of ways, he's better. I think that he's better at creating than he was a year ago. I think he wasn't rushed as often last year or pressured as often last year, but I think he's doing better at handling the pressure this year than he did a year ago, maybe because he's seeing it more. Maybe that's the reason, but no, I don't think that Stroud's in a sophomore slump. I think the offense is just sputtering kind of. I think they're more mid than we thought they were going to be, but I don't think Stroud's the reason. The offensive line is a clear reason to me. Yeah, no doubt. I just think that you have to it doesn't even take a rocket scientist to figure it out. The fact is, is a lot of the times you want to talk about the accuracy issues or if he's not as accurate as he was a year ago, well, that's because a lot of times he's not only leading the receiver to the football, but he's throwing it, as we mentioned just previously. Before the back of the receiver has time to even look for it and turn over and look over their shoulder because he's got someone in his grill. 713780 ESPN. Let's hit out game balls. So you're giving game balls to this week. It is the bees on ESPN 97 5 and ESPN 92 5. All right. But before we go to the break, a quick minute here for underdog fantasy and how did your fantasy football teams do this weekend? Did you get crushed by the Jalen Hertz Devata stack? Maybe the unlikely going off stack of Kurt Cousins and Kyle Pitts? Did that ruin your weekend? I mean, it sucks, but that's exactly why the best place to play is with underdog fantasy. 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You can mix and match sports with your pick and entry on underdog sports and don't forget while playing your pick and entry that with underdogs double flex option, you can even take two L's and still have your entry via win or cash out a winning entry early just by tapping the win now button to cash out your entry whenever you want with that type of flexibility. Why would you play anywhere else than with underdog fantasy? So download the app, sign up with promo code BMAC and deposit now to get it to $1,000 of bonus cash instantly. That's promo code BMAC must be 18 plus at a present in state where underdog fantasy operates terms applied, conservative play call 1-800-GAMBER or visit ncpgambling.org. Live from the Veritex Community Bank Studios, here's Joel Blanken, Jeremy Brannon. It's the B's on ESPN 97-5, ESPN 92-5, who are you giving your game balls to 713-780-3776? Blankers, game ball? Well, let's start with Josh Jacob for the Green Bay Pack, about 127 yards and two touchdowns with the injured Jordan Love on the sideline with a groin. He stepped up big, ran the football well, they came from behind, and they beat the gym. How about Malik Willis, man? He was, look, and look, again, he gets credit, the floor should get a ton of credit. Okay. Okay. On the fly, once again, they just go to a completely different offense, run centric, and they win. Yeah, that's, uh, I was looking to somebody posted pass a rating to the NFL, and Malik Willis obviously didn't have like a big enough sample, whatever, to be a leader, but he's amongst the leaders if you were to be included. Malik Willis, who the Titans right now are good. We got Will Levison Mason right off Rudolph. We don't, we don't need Malik Willis, guys. Malik Willis, when he's coached by the floor, has been pretty, pretty good, pretty stinking good. Uh, this is my favorite quarterback in the NFL that's a non-Houston text because, of course, I, I bias towards CJ Stroud, famous, James Winston, 334 yards, three touchdowns. Here was James Winston before the game, James Winston free game leading the troops, leading the Browns against the Ravens. I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I believe, I've had that team. Here's how about, I'm the hook up, I'm the hook up, I'm the hook up, I'm the hook up. Come on, okay, we don't have to see, it's the ground vacation. We don't have to see something good after both, we don't have to believe. That's right. Like, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I got that. Come on, I got that. Come on, I'm like, he got that. Three, you got one. Yeah. Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on. Love me. Some James Winston. You have to have eyes to believe, you gotta have ears to hear, I don't even know what he's saying, but I'm so happy that James Winston is a focal point now in the NFL because we get James Winston pregame. We get James Winston at the podium after the game. We get James Winston at the podium during the week. James Winston behind a microphone is gold. I don't care if the Browns go windless, I don't care if they win the rest of their games. James Winston should be a permanent starter in the NFL so we can hear Jim's like this after he defeats Baltimore. Man, it's a, it's a white boy from Detroit that I really admire named Eminem. He said, "You wanna get one shot? Do not miss a chance to blow this opportunity last once in a lifetime." And I know I got a quote, you know, Eminem, he from Detroit, he right up the road, but man, I'm just grateful. I love this guy. I love, I love James Winston with all of my heart. White boy from Detroit, his name's Eminem. I think that he actually like went on and like quoted him for fame and like it's something like some sort of like a motivational script that he's got up on his wall somewhere. I think the bigger thing is is that it shows you maybe more so than anything else. How much that team turned on and doesn't care for Deshaun Watson and that as much as we laugh at how over the top he is with his speeches and things, they're gonna play for him. They played well for him. They weren't supposed to beat the Ravens. I give him credit. I mean, that's on him and it's on a team that wants to play for someone as opposed to getting really sick and tired of all the Deshaun craft. Oh, they would be eight no if James Winston was the starting quarterback all year. I firmly believe that. I'm a James Winston stand. I'm a delusional James Winston lunatic fan. That's how much I love James Winston. You have Swifties who are other popular. You have the people that followed around the Beatles. I am a James as big a fan as they are of the Swifties. Of the Beatles, of Selena. That's how big of a fan I am about James Winston. Yeah, the Jeremy Lynn crowd, their fan club supporters were delusionally off their rocker with support. James Winston has all my heart. All right, who's your game ball too, Brian? I'm the one to George Kittle, big in the win over the Cowboys last night. He's been big all year, but went for six catches 128 yards of a touchdown. George Kittle, as he's done all year popped off and had a big game for 49ers. I'm calling conspiracy 64 to 50. Very big, George Kittle. I'm calling it conspiracy. Do you know what day yesterday was in the NFL? All the tight end. All the tight end. Do you know what happened amongst all the tight ends in the NFL? They had the most touchdown catches in a single day that they've ever had before in the position's history. They had more catches at the position that they've ever had in a single day. This is a conspiracy. This is a big giant conspiracy. This is big tight end. This is big tight end. This is big tight end. This is tight end. This is tight end. They give them a day and then they go off. We should have known this. We should have saw this coming. Us as sports betters, we should have played the over on every single tight end and every single prop bet. This was a massive, massive fix. I am blaming big tight end. I'm blaming tight end. This is a conspiracy and I'm here for it. These tight ends pop off on National Tight End Day. These elite tight ends in the NFL have been atrocious this year. And then all of a sudden, on National Tight End Day, they go crazy? You kidding me? No. They're such a fishy here. Every telecast machine. Maybe they just want to show some love for tight ends. We need a loose change on this is what we need. This is fishy. We need an investigative report on what is going on. What is happening? What does she got? Who's other than this? I got Lad McConkie who had 111 yards and two touches. He played extremely well for a Charger team that beat the Saints pretty handily. Pretty solid rookie. I like him. I like a little lad. I like a little lad in my life. Jalen Hurts, 273-4 total touchdowns. Jalen Hurts. Did I say the Eagles are back? They're off into Jalen pretty good. Yeah, they're off into pretty good. Did I say? All right. What do you got, Brian? Scary Terry. Obviously, everyone's going to talk about the walk-off Hail Mary that the commanders hit and that went over the bear. Sorry, Joe George. But Scary Terry continues to be huge. He went five catches for 125 yards. It's been a big play receiver for Jayden Daniels. That Hebrew fluency is the commander game ball on that one. Yeah. Bonix. Bonix 284-3 touches. Yeah. And then they ran up the score. Some thoughts though. Yeah, they sure did. Some thoughts though. You can't run up the score in the NFL. You don't believe so? No. I agree with, like, if it's a, you know, a major SEC school versus Maine, who Oklahoma's playing next week, you can run up the score in that situation. I'll hear that argument. By the NFL, you're all paying professionals to get over it. Play better. I'm here for that. Horn went after Peyton after the game. Saw it. Now, Maine catching some stress today from Brian. Well, I just learned a lot about the Oklahoma schedule from the guy from the U.S. segment. Brando's in Oklahoma. Ben Johnson, game ball. Terry Gaulthard, three touchdowns on an 85-yard chase. Montgomery threw a touchdown to Ammon St. Brown. Ammon Ross St. Brown. Ben Johnson was in his back. Different people caught, Iran, a touchdown for a touchdown for the Lions. Ben Johnson gets my game. Well, it must be nice to have one of the best offense coordinators in the NFL. That Titans defense is supposed to be pretty decent, but they got it. They're already the special teams guy that has a return for a touchdown, another long, long return. Well, you mean Gibbs had a 70-yard touchdown? But I'm talking about a return guy had a receiving touchdown that was a long one. Had a return for a touchdown of a, I think a kick return and then a long punt return. They were all over the place offensive. Yeah. A bunch of turnovers in the game. Someone said in the last two weeks they've had more touch. I mean, more points as a team than the rest of the entire NFL. I believe it. Wow. They had a couple of things. They had a 50 birthday yesterday. Hold on. Hold on. What? They, they put a 40-plus two weeks ago. So they've had more points in the last two weeks than what? Then I thought, someone said that the, I thought I heard the report right, that someone said the rest of the NFL. Can find? Oh, wait, hold on. That can't be right. No. It was like the division or maybe over a two-week span. But then the entire league over each team individual. Like they had more points in the last two weeks than teams have had all year? No. I thought I heard it over any individual team over the last two weeks. Yeah. They probably had the most points in the last two weeks. We almost put a hundred points on the board right over two weeks. Yeah. I'm sure they lead the NFL in point scoring in the last two weeks. Yeah. That, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they've outscored the entire. No, you can't be. That would be damn near impossible. That would be impressive. My next game ball goes to James Cook. I mean, crushing brutal win. Seattle was awful in that game. But the Bills did it to him because they seem to re-establish himself as one of the elite. But James Cook went for 111 yards, two touchdowns with only 17 carries. He was slicing and dicing through the Seattle beef and it's all day long. Well, no, she got it. I had Jaylen Day. I mean, Jayden Daniels just because he had 326 yards and the one touchdown that no one's going to forget. Yeah. He threw it 65 yards in the air. And he really worked his ass off to get open enough to throw. Now, yes. He worked his ass off to be able to stay alive now long for the guys to get down there. But part of the reason why I gave it to Terry is if you take away, I know it all counts. But if you take away the one touchdown and like the 50-something yards on the Hail Mary, he's like 276 with the low completion percentage of no touchdowns. I give him credit. He went out there and played with Bruce. Not only did he play, but one of my game balls was going to be to him actually run. He ran the ball eight times like 50-something yards with the Bruce ribs. He's a gamer. His dog. Kirk Cousins though. Four touchdowns. How are you? Kirk Cousins, no respect. We have to miss you. He gets mentioned this late in the segment. You'd love us. You had your opportunity to mention earlier. I mean, I was the first one to mention him. I mentioned that in my live read. Four touchdowns. That's the last part of the segment. Yeah. I tuned you out. Sorry. What else you got, Brian? I'll give another one to, let's see, Kyler Murray, someone who I've had supported and then had the trash because he hadn't been playing well, but he ruined my pick of the dolphins minus three from busy money last week because he and the Cardinals went to Miami and ruined the return of two of, but he went for 307 and two touchdowns plus did a little bit running. Kyler Murray was great yesterday. I went big tight end on that one. Trey McBride. Yeah. Trey McBride was also very good. Kyler Murray, the greatest current athlete that exists on this planet. I have two more if you. I don't have them. I've got a couple more. Go ahead, Joe. These rush defense, 21 carries for the Raiders, 36 yards, 1.6 yards per carry, maybe the most impressive though. The Raiders had a long rush of seven yards. Their longest rush in the entire game was seven yards and if you had to go to one play, you can't pick a whole defense, Branham. That's cheating. Okay. Well, I'll go Drew Tranquil at three tackles for loss for that vaunted Kansas City defense. Well, let's stay with KC Travis Kelsey on national tight end day. Big tight end. Big tight end. I'm putting that conspiracy for us, but 10 for 90 and the touchdown rolled back the clock a little bit. Travis Kelsey was great. Phil Conne and Gross putting Ramon Drey Stevenson here, 20, 48, but he sports twice, fell into the end zone twice. He was under three yards for the packer. Wasn't he? Yeah. Look at you. Listen to another packer in there. Well, because there you go. You know what? You know what? Big tight end. Big tight end. Big tight end. That Raiders, the Raiders should be embarrassed. Their offensive play calling against the Chiefs. They played right into, they kept running the same frickin' running play over and over again. And then it was like, they went for it on fourth and goal from like the five and then just completely had nothing. Their offensive play calling was horrible. Yeah. Look at that. Look at Green Bay. You know, Green Bay's leading receiver was yesterday in terms of yards. Tucker Kraft. Tucker Kraft. You know who caught their only touchdown? Tucker Kraft. Big tight end. Big tight end. I'm telling you, this conspiracy's real. It's a real. It is a fact. It's 100. It's not even an opinion. It is a fact. All right. A few, a few texts coming in. Diego Bair's defensive backs deserve a game ball for their defense of the Elmeri play. James is saying play for the names on our helmet. Yeah. James Winston in that big like fire up the teammates thing. He said, you got to play for the names on your back. You got to play for the decal on your help. You got to play for the Browns. Yeah. Oh man. No decal on the helmet. I think Winston fans are called the Krabbies. I see what you did there. Game ball to Jacobs. Branham is the president of the winsties. I'm here for it, man. I love me. She's famous. James Winston married a rice woman's basketball player, so some ties to the city. Really? Love me some famous James. I forget her name. Lions scored more points in the last four weeks than any other team has scored the whole year. So that's the thing that you were trying to say, which that's the main incredible. Still impressive. Super impressive. All right. 713. 780. 376. What's your car wreck of the day? 713. 780. 376. You know that U of H football wasn't a car wreck this weekend. Beat you tall second big 12 win for the Houston Cougars match and the amount of wins they had last year in the big 12 looking to carry the momentum to Saturday when U of H takes on the Kansas State Wildcats, nationally ranked Kansas State, a wildcat team with playoff aspirations. So it'll be a big one Saturday at TD ECU Stadium, Houston taking on Kansas State 230 kickoff at TD ECU, get ready for an afternoon of thrilling plays, hard hitting action, unforgettable moments, nothing beats the tradition, pageantry in the roar of the crowd at a college football game. The weather is going to be terrific. You do not want to miss out and don't miss the blackout special, a ticket and a T-shirt for just $30, a ticket and a T-shirt yours for just 30 bucks. To grab this deal, go to uhcoogers.com/black at uhcoogers.com/black and pick up your ticket, your T-shirt for just $30 as you see the Houston Cougars taking on Kansas State. Not early too, stop by the Bud Light backyard tailgate area, enjoy food, beverage, and all the tailgate games, come early, be loud and wear black as we pack TD ECU Stadium with Houston taking on Kansas State. 10-97-5. This is the Car Wreck of the Day. Get to our Car Wreck of the Day quickly here at Killer G still 3 minutes, World Series coming up so we were getting out of minute earlier so we got to be quick. Car Wreck of the Day, what do you nominate Blake? In honor of that, Tyreeks Stevenson of the Bears who spent the first part of the Hail Mary play before it even started yapping at the Washington sideline, only to be the guy that actually tipped it to Noah Brown for the touchdown and then had to apologize to his whole team today. I wish we had more time because he was in position, like that wasn't the reason that they completed the Hail Mary, like he was back in plenty of time, he shouldn't have been doing anything. No, he shouldn't have, you're right, the optics on that are terrible, but he was in position way before Daniels threw the ball. It was him too or somebody else and I haven't heard definitively, someone's got to be the back guy in that play too to prevent it from going on the top. I think it was actually him, which may be worse. That's what I was going to say. If that's him, then I don't care if he got back in time to tip. Yeah, but he was there. I want to nominate just Anthony Richardson for the Train Wreck Car Wreck that was an awful, awful throwing performance. Brian? I'd like to nominate Travon Diggs if he didn't see it, he went after a medium member outside of the locker room after their loss to the 49ers and dropped at these nets on them at one point, barely mad with a tweet. The guy sent out a questioning Diggs's effort on a George Kittle big play. It was right. I know. Yeah, the media member was right, which makes it worse. If you see the video, Diggs was making business decisions, wanted no part of trying to break Kittle down. I don't have a problem with what Diggs did. The only thing that I have a problem with is that Diggs didn't give him an answer on what he was doing. If you want to go after a medium member for what they're saying, I don't have a problem. Like, obviously, you're not going to get physical, but say, given the answer of at least, a car of the day, Texans OC, the Bears defensive back, Stevenson, Titan special teams, coach, and then me for saying that I love a little lad McConkie in my life. That's like phrasing. All right. What's winning? I think it's got to be Stevenson. Stevenson? Sure. All right. Stevenson, you're a winner because you lost yesterday. Does it for us? Thanks to Brian for doing all the hard work. He's blank on Brian. We'll talk to you tomorrow used to the Game 3 of the World Series now. 99, 7, 5, after countless steps and more than a few miles, her dog drives you forward one last time to make that final climb and his the rising sun peeks out from the horizon. You know incredible happens here because it starts here with a fuel that makes it all possible. Pro-Plan Sport. 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Welcome to the Financial Quarterback Podcasts, I'm Josh Jielinski and every week I'm diving into the world of retirement investing and financial planning. From understanding market moves to protecting your future, we cover it all. I bring on expert guests and have a little fun with games and real world insights. With nearly two decades of experience and a Forbes recognized track record, I'm here to guide you through the biggest questions about your money. Subscribe to the Financial Quarterback Podcast on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your