00:00:03
Speaker 1: Welcome in What's Driving the Great, episode 512. This episode, as always, is brought to you by our friends at Boost Mobile. Damanze, good to see you. How are you this morning?
00:00:16
Speaker 2: Good to see you. Doing great. Feeling refreshed.
00:00:20
Speaker 1: Good. I'm glad you're feeling refreshed. I'm finally, I think, caught up on sleep after a weekend in Vegas without much sleep. I also have some quick little business to handle before we get to the actual show, which On today's show, by the way, we will talk about the potential collapse of one of my Super Bowl picks, the Philadelphia Eagles. The only saving grace for me is all offseason, I was like, hey, could see them going 14-3, could also see them going 7-10. Now, I did end up landing on the 14-3 go to the Super Bowl side of it, but this was always on the board, and we'll discuss why and what they do from here later on. There's a Thursday night football game tonight that the Cowboys can kind of just end. Another one of my not Super Bowl picks, but playoff picks, the Bucs season. I'm a little worried about that game for the Cowboys. Whenever your defense is that bad, an upset is always on the board, is what I would say. Even against a backup quarterback, if you have just a terrible defense... All it takes is one mishandled kick return, the other team gets back-to-back possessions, and you're playing from behind the eight ball the whole game. So we will discuss that and a little sports media ombudsman on What's Right with Nick Wright, a little media commentary after some viral takes yesterday. But before we get to any of that, I have been dealing with, for years... The tax demands a of at some point on some pod on this show or some, I did a power ranking of my children. And I put, I said in that very moment, when you were asking me, your youngest sister was in last place and she has a, I forgot even what she had done. It was something I thought it was. I thought I was being, as they would say, cheeky. She has never taken it that way. She brings it up quite a bit. I guess. I don't know, man. There are two things she brings up all the, not all the time, but way more often than she should. One is six years ago, seven years ago, I guess, actually. When we were moving into the house we currently live in and I was building an Ikea closet, she came by as a five or a six-year-old and asked me for a hug. And I said, not right now, because I was like lifting something up. And she, to this day, will be like, don't say I can have a hug whenever I want. Remember the time in the closet? And she'll bring up the power rankings thing. So... With that said, today happens to be, and this is kind of horrifying for me, my baby girl's 13th birthday. Your little sister is a teenager now. And so if you were to ask me this very moment, this second, power rank the kids she is in pole position you are in a strong number two and nothing against diorah who's very often the favorite but she left me on red yesterday on a text message that was good advice so right now she's.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: In last everybody's getting left on red by diorah It's crazy.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: What is she doing? I mean, she's just out to lunch. She just won't even come see us or won't even talk to us. It's really unbelievable. But so happy birthday, baby girl. I'm going to tell you one other quick thing before we get to the real show. Um, she sent us a birthday list. That was like a Christmas list. It's like, like, you know, calm down a bit on this, but one of the things on there is, was for me to talk to my agent about her because because she's an aspiring actress and she is determined because i always said like no you're not going to be a child actor like not i'm not doing it and now she thinks that she since she is 13 she's you know no longer little kid coming off a little bit she should have made that the only thing on the list Oh, strong take. Strong take.
00:05:00
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: All right. So happy birthday to Deanna. Let's get straight to voicemail brought to you by our friends at Boost Mobile. Drake Mays, not certain we landed on the moon. Tyrese Halliburton returns from his Achilles injury. Probably upset that game wasn't on ESPN National Television. And Lamar, unconventional ankle sprain. Now, Schefter came out yesterday and was like, maybe he'll play the– I Lamar's injury stuff is always a little murkier than most. I do not expect him to play this weekend. The odds makers don't expect him to play this weekend.
00:05:36
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
00:05:37
Speaker 3: You think that it's always weird for Lamar with his injury stuff because he doesn't have an agent.
00:05:42
Speaker 2: Was that probably? Oh, okay.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: That's exactly, that's, I don't think that's the only reason, but I think, no, no, no. I think that's part of it. I think, you know, from those reports that we got as Harbaugh was on the way out, he doesn't seem the most communicative within the building. So I think that is, you know, can be problematic on its own, but his own lack of communication with, you know, the higher-ups within the organization, combined with the fact that he doesn't have an agent on the back end to go, you know, do that, I think those two things make it murky. Also, one last thing. The New York Liberty got screwed yesterday, and I'd be really, really upset if I were them. I just want to paint the picture. Overtime, down three, playoff game. There's four and a half seconds left. Ryan Rucco on the call doing a great job. They have a timeout, DeMondsey, where they can advance the ball to midcourt, which obviously you'd want to do. They don't take it. They end up getting off actually a decent look, but a desperation look because it's in transition. You're trying not to get fouled the whole thing. Rucco can't believe they didn't call timeout. After the game, Breonna Stewart says, she's like, I don't want to blame the refs. But it's very frustrating when, because Atlanta was at the free throw line leading up to it. When during those free throws, I asked both refs, do we have a timeout? Can we advance it? And both of them told us we were out. So they wanted to advance it. They asked if they could. The refs both told them no. So even though they thought they could, they were like, okay, I guess we've miscounted. The refs told us no, and then they did have one. That's a brutal mistake. And even if you're like, well, it's up to you to keep track of that stuff with the coaching staff, You almost would, even if you're certain you have it, be like, well, the refs who are the ones to determine this are telling.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: Us we don't. You get a technical for that.
00:07:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get a technical and the game's over. So that's a really tough spot for a team that, you know, had a huge upset in round one. And it's just a tough spot. Okay. This has been a rough few days for Eagles fans. It. was compounded a bit yesterday, it would appear, by Stephen A. 's jocular, what many people perceived as mocking, Lane Johnson retiring for mental health purposes, the too-long-didn't-read version of it is, Stephen A., not at all to the amusement of his panel, You know, it was like, basically, Eagle season's so bad, this guy's saying it's bad for my mental health. And then he kind of softened it after Kimberly Martin did him a solid. And he's like, some people might think you're making light of a mental health situation. Then he went on his podcast and after promoting the TV show where he said it and then spending two and a half minutes explaining about his own struggles and he explained why the audience might have misconstrued what he said. You're now caught up. So there are three points I want to make on this. The first one is, and all of these kind of, I'm going to try to make them how I view it, how it applies to me, so it doesn't feel like an outward attack, even though I'm sure Paul's going to put on YouTube, on the thumbnail on this, Nick writes, eviscerates Stephen A.
00:09:40
Speaker 2: Smith.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: Not really what I'm doing, but maybe it is. One thing I worry about for me is, and I try to be aware of, am I spreading myself too thin? I do the TV show for two and a half hours every day. I do this show three days a week, and this show has gotten longer and longer and longer. I might start doing this show even more often. I am, you know, side questing, trying to become a semi-professional poker player. I have different stuff I'm thinking about doing on Sundays during NFL football. And there's only so much time. There's only so many hours in a day. I obviously have wife, kids, family. And I worry at times. Not am I spreading myself too thin. Like, am I going to wear down? I don't really worry about that. I'm 42. I'm an old 42 because I'm a grandfather. However, I'm a young 42 and kind of how I live my life. I'm not worried about that. I am worried, Demond, say, am I not going to be quite as informed? Am I going to talk more about things? And because of that, I am less informed about the things I'm talking about. Does that make sense? Like, am I on the air so much that I have less time to, like, consume the info, watch all the games like I love to do? And am I going to... Are you going to have an emperor has no clothes moment of like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. So that is why I am so much more hesitant these days than I was 10 years ago, or maybe even five years ago to talk politics or real life stuff. Because if I make a mistake or if I'm not fully informed on nonsense, fun carnival sports stuff, I can, you know, it's embarrassing. I hate being, you know, having fact errors, but I can, I can deal with that. But on real life stuff that impacts people or affects people, I really don't want to give my opinion if I don't feel totally 100% buttoned up on things, which is why on this show, really never on the TV show anyway, but on this show or on Twitter, I only venture into the real life stuff that I am super well-informed on, that I am super passionate about, and I feel totally buttoned up about, because I haven't followed the day-to-day of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. I haven't followed the day-to-day of the upcoming midterm elections. I think I followed it as much as the average American has, but not in a way that I feel comfortable giving opinions on it, because it's real-life stuff. And where I think, not where I think, where I know Stephen A steps on a rake somewhat often is however much I'm working, he's working more. He is on so many shows on multiple platforms that he owns, that ESPN owns, that Sirius owns, other people's shows on CNN, on Bill Maher, all of these things. And he is, you know what he's talking about today? Whatever the hell the big news of the day is across the board. And you simply cannot be super well-informed on everything at all times. which is why it's so dangerous. Dangerous is probably too strong, but it can be problematic if it's like, oh, what's the big topic? Listen, I'm doing my political show. There's a lot of stuff going on. Watch the football this weekend. It's a Wednesday. There were no games last night. I was catching up on this. What's the big story? Oh, Lane Johnson retired. Oh, he said it was for mental health. Man, Eagles sure must suck. So bad. I got it. You know what? I got it. Don't worry about it. I got it covered. I got a good bit on this. The Eagles are so bad right now. It's hurting guys' mental health. That's funny. Without having the time or the wherewithal to know the background that Lane Johnson thought about retiring in the offseason. That Lane Johnson, I'm not going to get into the specifics on this because it's been lightly reported, but it's not really my business. He seems to have family that is in failing physical health, that he is truly dealing with things outside of the day-to-day stresses of an NFL season. Had, I believe, had Stephen A. known that, had he had the time to research it, or if he had just been dialed in enough to just sports. Like I'm not, I wasn't, I didn't know all the specifics. When we saw Lane Johnson retired, I didn't know all the specifics of everything. I know more of it now, but I'm dialed in enough to the day-to-day sports that I remembered, oh, he thought about retiring in the off season. I think he has a family situation going on. He missed this Sunday's game because of last minute personal reasons and I saw someone report he was contemplating retirement. So it gave me a context of if I had to be on the air the moment after he retired, which by the way, he retired Tuesday. This was Wednesday morning that this happened. So it wasn't like live on the air reaction. You had time, but regardless, I would have at the very least known air on the side of caution here. You know, there's other things at play. But if you're doing a hundred different things at all times, you don't have that context. So that's first point. There is a tax to spreading yourself this thin. I'm not even saying you shouldn't do it, but you might have a responsibility to the audience if you are going to do it to really, really make sure you're coloring within the lines once we're not talking about Is Dak Prescott overrated? That's the first point. Second point is this. And this is something that, again, applies to me personally. And you guys have heard me talk about this a bit. If you go back and watch the initial clip that everyone got mad at, watch it through the eye of and asking this question. Is Stephen A. trying in that moment to do a good television show? Or is he trying to create a good viral clip? Also, under the context of, he did not in that moment think he was doing anything wrong or being harmful or hurtful. I'm not saying... And this is... If you are at one of those tables on TV, it is such a different medium than how I am right now. Right now, I am talking to you. Right now, I occasionally do things that I'm like, you know what? This will be good as a 90-second breakout on social media. It is not communal. It is when Demanze and I are riffing back and forth, that's somewhat communal. But this is a lot of me monologuing, you and I bouncing off each other. It's very different than the TV show, which is we're out there playing jazz, going back and forth. And there is a... There are moments, and this again, it is why, in my opinion, that TV show is not as good as it once was, and it once was the best. There are moments on that show, and there are other folks, some very, very popular folks, that consistently do this on their TV shows, which is, I'm not trying to have a communal experience, that'll be a good segment. I am trying to have the hottest, most viral take of the day. There's a very, very popular sports media guy who you can't go a week without him for two minutes staring down the barrel of the camera, delivering some rant, semi- you know, straw man angry about something that exists on a TV show, but it is not for that TV show at all. It is for him to be able to put on Twitter. And it felt like that's what Stephen A was doing yesterday. It felt like he didn't care that nobody was laughing with him. He didn't care that the room wasn't with him. I don't think he recognized how much he had stepped in it, but he's like, this is going to be good. They're going to put on the internet The Eagles are so bad. Stephen A says they're wrecking guys' mental health. You know, laughing emojis. And it's surprising when someone does that when they have a separate platform like this. I used to do that a lot when the TV show first started. I was not doing right by Chris Carter and Jenna Wolf when I did it, which was I would put stuff into the show that I didn't even necessarily think was going to be good TV. But I'm like, shit, man, that's going to be a good clip. Like I've got a good 90 seconds on it. But now I have this. So it's surprising to see Stephen A doing that when he has these other platforms to do it. And then last but not least, and then we will move on. And this is something the last time we discussed Stephen A that I made the point of. And sadly, it still really applies. You've got to simply be able to take an L and actually apologize. Not I'm sorry for how this was misconstrued on my TV show that you can watch 10 to noon every day on ESPN and then try to garner your own level of sympathy or whatever it was by explaining your own very real struggles with mental health after a very real personal tragedy, it is not that hard, folks, to simply be able to be like, hey, earlier today, I was on TV. You guys know I do a lot of stuff. I have a lot of responsibilities. There are a lot of things I'm following. I did not have the full context of of everything Lane Johnson was going through. It's my responsibility to have that context. That's totally on me. It's not on any producers. It's not on anyone else. I thank Kimberly Martin for having my back in it, but it was my responsibility and my screw up. I thought this was a lighthearted moment and I was trying to be funny. Now that I do have the full context, I realize that was wholly and totally inappropriate for the situation. I've reached out to Lane via the Eagles to apologize. And, you know, I will try to do better to make sure that when real life stuff happens, that I triple check I have all the facts rather than assume I have all the facts and just go with you know, trying to be entertaining and funny and that stuff. So I'm really sorry about that. I screwed that up. It's not hard. And the audience appreciates it. And it doesn't make you a lesser man. It doesn't make you a lesser broadcaster. Doesn't make you any of those things. To just be like, I screwed that up. Here's why I screwed it up. Here's what I will do in the future to try to make sure I don't screw that up again. And we roll. But putting it on the audience, I'm sorry that you guys didn't get what I was saying. And then doing an appeal to authority fallacy of actually here's how tuned in to mental health issues I actually am because of real life stuff I had to deal with myself. That ain't it, man. It's just not it. It's not the biggest thing in the world, but he is the biggest person in the world in the space.
00:23:26
Speaker 3: And.
00:23:27
Speaker 1: There are a lot of folks that take little pot shots at, you know, what the craft I have dedicated my professional life to because of stuff like that. And so it's worth 15 minutes for me off the top of the show. That's it. This will do shockingly well on YouTube because people love media on media crime. But Monty said on a podcast yesterday that he thinks his podcast might do bigger numbers if it was just this stuff. If it was only if he just did like was the ESPN ombudsman and just commentated on what was going on there. Might be right. I don't know why the algorithm loves it. They love it. That is not why I did this. I tried to do it sparingly, but it was a big story. I thought it deserved the time. Now we can talk about the actual football implications, pal. Let's bring the Monza back in. Go ahead.
00:24:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, so along with Lane Johnson retiring, Cam Jurgens got traded to my Ravens. So they're now down three offensive linemen from opening night. They've had some weird situations, but still going on to win the Super Bowl in a couple years past. Does this situation feel different?
00:24:50
Speaker 1: It feels really different. So Lane Johnson, do you remember a couple years ago, not a couple years ago, a year ago to Monza, when Micah got traded and we showed the Barnwell stat, Cowboys with Micah on the field, top three defense, Cowboys with Micah off the field, bottom three defense, and like over the course of his career and just the impact that one player had, those same exact stats just on the offensive side of the ball exists for the Eagles with Lane Johnson. Their offensive efficiency, their passing game, their running game, their win percentage, all of it has hinged on whether he is or isn't playing over the years.
00:25:38
Speaker 2: He is.
00:25:39
Speaker 1: A dominant all-time player. And so him walking away is devastating. The fact that the Eagles team, more than any team in the league, is built inside out. And now all of a sudden it's Jordan Mailata and a bunch of kids is devastating for the Eagles. The fact that this is happening in the midst of what I think is fair to call the biggest slump of Jalen Hurts' career since he's been an established starter is problematic. In the context of Saquon Hurta's hamstring, Tank Bigsby's on the IR, Devontae's dealing with something, this could be a system failure. This could be an absolute unrecoverable spot for them. And I do wonder if that is one of the reasons Howie Roseman decided, you know what? If we're going to move on from Cam Juergens at some point, do it now. Second round picks are good. return. He wasn't playing great anyway. The Ravens really need a center as they were like down to their fourth string and this season might really get away from us. I think that's on the board. I said before the year that when I picked him to go to the Super Bowl, they had the biggest variance of any team in the league and that I could see them winning seven games and Sirianni hot seat or maybe mid-season firing and It certainly looks like they are closer to that than they are to rallying. They've played four games this year. First game against what I believe will end up being a below average Washington team. Washington has a two-point conversion to force overtime. Next game, the Titans dare them to try to beat them through the air. The Eagles take that dare. The Titans win it for 58 minutes, and then Jalen, to his credit, and the only reason this season is not totally off the rails is because Jalen's final drive in that 90 seconds against the Titans. You then get annihilated by 38-year-old Case Keenum and the Chicago Bears, and then you blow a game to the Rams where you have negative passing yards in the second half. All of that plus the injuries and the retirement and the trade. And so I don't, I don't see how they pull themselves out of this. And it is stunning to Monza to see the Philadelphia Eagles as seven and a half point neutral field underdogs. Like I, that is, oh, with Jalen Hurts playing, That is a wild, wild situation.
00:29:00
Speaker 2: I mean, they're doing weird stuff. Team doesn't look great. So, understandables.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
00:29:08
Speaker 3: Philadelphia now is two firsts and two seconds in the 2028 draft. Do you think that a rebuild is on the horizon? And if so, do you think that they should keep Sirianni?
00:29:19
Speaker 1: Well... I would at this moment, I would be surprised if Sirianni is right now. Yes or no. Will Sirianni be the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2027? I would say no. And this is where we have to do quickly some nerdy salary cap stuff. Okay? So many times the Eagles have signed a player or done a contract. Some folks in the media have been like, see, salary cap's fake. Look at what they're able to do, the way they manipulate the cap with void years, all of it. And it is true that if you have an owner like Jeffrey Lurie, who does not mind forking over a ton of cash up front, you can temporarily render the salary cap effectively meaningless via option bonuses, prorated signing bonuses, and void years. But that bill, 100% of the time, comes due. And what I mean by that is, every single dollar you pay any player shows up at some point on some year's salary cap. Now, I understand folks are like, yeah, but the salary cap's always raising. Sure. You can look at it as not only an interest-free loan, but a plus money loan where you're taking a loan and it actually costs you less to pay it back in four years than it does right now. So you can look at it as a smart way to do business to a degree. The Eagles have done business to such a degree like that, that they have sitting waiting for them a massive, salary cap, dead money, time bomb is too strong, but potentially catastrophic situation in the year 2028, but really the year 2029, where you're talking about 90 some million in Jalen Hurts void years that if you don't extend him, will accelerate onto the cap. A Jalen Carter deal where he averages nearly $ 40 million a year in salary, yet his cap hit in each year of the extension is 8.5, 15, 22, and then 29. So you have 70 million in void years for Jalen Carter. You have so many of these guys that they clearly have What the Eagles have done historically is supercharge a run, tear it down, and then get back at it. The fact that they now have multiple first and second round picks in 2028 gives you a little idea of when they think they are going to need young, cheap players because all of these bills are coming due. I am here to tell you, and we'll see if I end up being proven right. We don't have to spend too much more time on it. It is very, very on the board that whether it's next year or the year after, that the Eagles go into a season with more dead money on their salary cap than any team in NFL history. That they have a hundred plus million in dead money, try to take the whole pill at once and then use those new draft picks, the additional draft picks, to reboot the whole thing. They are a great organization. There's really good ownership, really good GM, good infrastructure. But they have kept putting things on the credit card and basically doing it the way, shoot, I used to do it in Houston, Demanze. Demanze knows this. The audience may or may not. When I, when Deanna, who's now 13 years old, shortly after she was born, I convinced Demanze's mom, my wife, Danielle, to quit her job. I was like, you've worked your whole life. You've worked since you were 14.
00:34:02
Speaker 2: Like, you know what I mean?
00:34:05
Speaker 1: You now finally have, you know, when Demanze was born, she was a kid and working multiple jobs. When Diora was born, she was you know, very young and working three jobs. I'm like, just rest and relax a bit. And she took me up on it, but we didn't change our spending one bit. It's not like, okay, we've gone from a two income.
00:34:27
Speaker 2: Household to one income household.
00:34:29
Speaker 1: And so I just started for the first time in my life. This is not good financial advice, by the way. I just started for the first time in my life, just spending tons on credit cards. And every few months, there would be a different credit card offer essentially where, hey, do a balance transfer from one credit card to another, pay like a 3% VIG on it, but get six months of no interest. So it'd be like, okay, that buys me another six months or buys me another three months or whatever it is. But eventually that, you know, either the credit situation in America changes or your own credit worthiness changes. And eventually you find yourself, as I did, owing upwards of, God, I know what the number exactly was, $ 68, 000 in credit card bills.
00:35:26
Speaker 2: I was going to guess like 20.
00:35:28
Speaker 1: No, no, no. When at the time I wasn't making much more than that annually. And there's nowhere like there's no one else that wants to give you a six month zero percent. And now for me, I got a lifeline and the lifeline was fuck sports. I got a job and I was fine. But the that balloon payment is coming for the Eagles. They were going to, I think, push it off a couple more years. But with Lane retiring, trading Cam Juergens, Saquon maybe showing signs that that is diminishing returns, AJ Brown trade, I could see them accelerating when they do it. So there's that. Also, kids, that is not good financial advice. Don't do that. I woke up every morning feeling like a vice around. Like, oh, my God. I can't tell my wife that it was wrong. Because she didn't want to quit her job. I convinced her to. I certainly can't be like, well, here's the thing. Got to go back to work. So, no, that is what it is. All right. Let's go to, oh, we have breaking news, I think. We'll get to that in just a second. But first, let me tell you guys about this new prediction market called Poly market, it's the best new way to trade in sports. In the past, if you wanted action on the game, you'd put some money in, and if your team was doing well and you wanted to cash out, you either wouldn't be able to or there would be a huge fee. But poly market is different. It's a prediction market, which is similar to, it works similarly to a stock exchange, but it's for sports where you can buy in and sell out on your own terms. I've tried all the prediction markets. I even tried prediction markets years ago before prediction markets really like a mainstream thing. PolyMarket's simply the best. The UI is the most intuitive. It's the easiest to use. It's the best. They're so confident you'll never go back to the other guys. They're giving you a free $ 25 on your first trade when you deposit just $ 10. And now they've launched a new feature, Squads, a group chat where you can see what everyone is trading on. So download the PolyMarket app today. and use code NICKWRIGHT when you sign up. That's code NICKWRIGHT to get $ 25 free after you deposit just $ 10. All right, Demanze, we have some Florio news, I guess.
00:38:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Sean Payton sounds like he's taking back over the play calling from Davis Webb. From Vic Lombardi here, it says that Davis Webb will meet with the Broncos media today. He will be asked about play calling duties. I'm told Sean Payton will be playing a bigger role in those duties. How big remains to be seen?
00:38:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this.
00:38:42
Speaker 1: Is, so hold on, let me see. So this is not, oh yeah, Florio is. So I'm going to read directly from Florio's article, which came out like 45 minutes ago. The Davis-Webb experiment is over. Webb, who was promoted to offensive coordinator in the offseason and given the keys to the play-calling car, will have those keys rescinded this weekend when the Broncos face the Chargers. Former NFL receiver Brandon Stokely, who is now part of the morning show on 104.3 The Fan in Denver, was the first to let the cat out of the bag. He said... I'm hearing that Sean Payton is going to be taking over play calling this week, Stokely tweeted Wednesday night. Back to Florio. We've since confirmed that indeed Payton will be calling the plays again. He then, you know, writes, you know, all about the context of it. My immediate reaction, and this is again, this show is kind of a life advice show at times. Man, if you have an opportunity, And I'm not sure Davis Webb did or didn't. But if you have an opportunity to take a great job, a big promotion, and you have to leave where you're at to do it, and then in order to convince you not to leave, the place you're at offers you things they never previously would have offered you, you maybe should just leave. Because it probably means they are offering you those things under duress. And they might not really want to offer them to you. That's what happened with Davis Webb. Davis Webb, now maybe he wasn't going to get it, but Davis Webb was being considered for the Bills head coaching job. Davis Webb was a hot head coaching candidate. And he did not, if I'm remembering the stories correctly, fully pursue them because Sean Payton's like, stay here and in addition to being OC, I'll let you call plays. And it took one half of one game for Sean Payton to publicly regret it. It was halftime of week one against the Chiefs when he was asked about it. And he said, ask me after the game and I'll tell you how I feel. Sean Payton loves calling plays. It's what Sean Payton does the best. And so this is, I'm not even saying Sean Payton is wrong for doing it. They have scored 13 points in the first half of games. 13, 3.3 points per game in the first halves.
00:41:39
Speaker 2: They were bad in the first half last year, though, weren't they?
00:41:42
Speaker 1: That is true.
00:41:44
Speaker 3: I felt bad for Davis Webb in this situation. All the public criticism, and when something's going wrong, they're like, oh, Sean Payton going to take, like, he gave him the job. I hate how it was, like, dangling it in front of him and how it's like, oh, he maybe shouldn't deserve it. And it's like, this is not much different from what was going on last year.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: It's just like you gave the guy the job. Show him some respect.
00:42:07
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that. And even if behind the scenes, Sean Payton instantly regretted it and was like, shoot, this might not work. You have to publicly be totally back your guy. Even if behind the scenes, you might end up knifing him. But it was humiliating. For Davis Webb. Just consistently humiliating. On that. And it is not. A couple things. One is, Sean Payton's the head coach. It's not like he doesn't have any say. He's an offensive-minded head coach. He doesn't have any say in the offensive game plan. The opening script, the opening couple drives of these games are scripted. That's not even play-calling, really. You can have a huge say in that, and they've scored no points. I mean, they've scored 13 first-half points, the whole thing. The other piece of it is, your quarterback might not be that good. And that could be a huge piece of it. And it's your hand-picked quarterback that you took victory laps about how you tricked the Vikings into trading up for JJ. You always wanted Bo Nix. You had this, remember his unique independent algorithm on evaluating quarterbacks and Bo Nix checked all these boxes. Listen, Sean Payton's a brilliant offensive mind and has a very good coaching resume. I don't have a ton of evidence that, how do I put this gently, that I would enjoy hanging out with him. Now, he might not enjoy hanging out with me, but doesn't just strike me as my type of guy. And so we'll see if it fixes it. They're playing the hapless Chargers. All right, let's talk NFC East here.
00:44:07
Speaker 3: NFC East is wide open. We talked about the Eagles and their struggles. The Cowboys play tonight, and they cannot figure out the defense. Washington has Jaden Daniels back, which might be a bad decision. New York has Jameis Winston starting at quarterback and is at the top of the division.
00:44:23
Speaker 2: Who do you trust in this division, if anybody?
00:44:27
Speaker 1: Right now, nobody. And this is stunning. But I think, Demond, say this is the worst division in the NFL.
00:44:35
Speaker 2: It might be.
00:44:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Think about it. NFC South has some friskiness to it. The Panthers are a real team. The Falcons, since they got Pennix back, are a real team.
00:44:54
Speaker 2: The AFC South, I would say, is the closest.
00:44:58
Speaker 1: Yes, however, the Jags are excellent. Jags are legit excellent. The Colts... It's like, hey, we lost to the Ravens and the Chiefs. Like, we beat the other teams. And the Texans are bad, but it's hard to accept in your brain they're bad. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, the Texans is like, come on. The CJ's playing good. Yeah. And so the Giants are 3-1, but Jameis has really struggled. And so the Giants, I can't fully believe in. We just talked about the Eagles ad nauseum. You then have Washington. We'll see with Jaden back. And they did beat Philly. I mean, sorry, they did beat Seattle. So credit to Washington on that front. However, I didn't think they were going to be a good team before Jaden once again got hurt. And we'll see how healthy he is. And then there's Dallas. which I got to, it would not shock me to Monzae if Dallas wins by 30 tonight. Let me be clear. You're playing an undrafted rookie free agent quarterback out of Kansas for a team in the box that is dating back to basically week seven of last year has just been totally lost. And Todd Bowles, I'm sure is, you know, checking out like, sick European cruise options in November because he thinks he's going to have time available. With that said, when you have a defense as bad as Dallas is, you always can get got. And typically the, the bugaboo, if you will, of young, untested quarterbacks is they get absolutely undressed by good defenses. They get semi-often tricked by decent defenses. But against bad defenses, where their first read is open, they can look good. And so, I... If I'm a Cowboys fan, I am semi-anxious about this evening's game. Because it's now three straight years of the Cowboys defense just being utterly hapless. And they allowed 28 to Jackson Dart, 20 to the Commanders in a game where Jaden goes out. 34 to Baltimore, 30 to Houston. And so the answer is no, I don't trust any of these teams. I will say if the Cowboys don't win the division this year, it's a catastrophe for them. And also, let me add one other thing. If I'm a Giants fan watching all this, I am sick to my stomach. Dart is hurt. You're sick either way. but particularly sick because geez, man, Philly's falling apart. We're already, you know, we've proven we can beat Dallas. Jaden's going out there with the inspector gadget thing on his arm. Like I, it's not, if you're a giant fan, I do. And the Yankees just lost yesterday.
00:48:47
Speaker 3: Yikes.
00:48:47
Speaker 1: Boost mobile proven. You don't have to overpay for great wireless. Unlock the savings of $ 25 a month forever. Unlimited plan, permanent price, no contracts, no price hikes. You can keep your phone and your number. but you save up to $ 600 a year compared to the major carriers. Stop overpaying. Switch to a fair price at BoostMobile.com today. Based on average annual single-line payment of AT & T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers, compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. All right, Demondze, let's talk about America's Game of the Week 425 Eastern on Fox this Sunday.
00:49:28
Speaker 3: We've got Niners who have looked great undefeated. You've got to think that the injuries are going to come back to bite them at some point.
00:49:34
Speaker 2: And then Seattle.
00:49:35
Speaker 1: They haven't yet.
00:49:37
Speaker 3: Who's got Darnold who's struggled since he's been back, but they are missing Kenneth Walker. Who do you think has more to prove in this one?
00:49:45
Speaker 1: Oh, I think the Niners have more to prove. But I think Seattle's going to win. The reason I say the Niners have more to prove is Seattle is the defending champ. who won games with its backup quarterback, had kind of a weird loss to Washington and then bounced back last week. And that was a weird Seattle game last week. Now, I will admit, this is a game that I saw very little of live because I was at the Chiefs game. Now, in the suite I was in, they did have red zone on a TV, so during breaks in the Chiefs game, I would catch moments, but I had to go back and kind of catch up back up on the late afternoon window Sunday. But Seattle was in total control of that Chargers game. They're up 27-6 midway through the third. And then I, you know, lost to me, it appeared, a degree of concentration. And all of a sudden it's like, oh crap, we got to pick up this third down or the Chargers can get the ball back down seven. Seattle, I think, is excellent. The Niners have been absolutely outstanding, and the Niners' defense has been, to me, one of the biggest shocks of the season. A bigger shock than Purdy playing great is how well the Niners have played. We have the, yeah, buts for the Niners on play the Dolphins, play the Cardinals, the Broncos' offense. And right. So there's a lot of the, again, you beat the Rams by 20, you beat the Broncos who were supposed to be good by 10. Like, so those, those are good wins. The context of them is the Rams seemed to instantly be like, you know, our travel plans ruined us. Plus, basically no Miles Garrett and no Aaron Donald. Like, that was a Stafford played poorly. Now, some of that they did to him. I'm not, I am not, it sounds like I'm hedging here. I'm not trying to hedge. What I'm trying to say is, there are nits you can pick in the 4-0 Niners, just like there are nits you can pick in the 4-0 Chiefs. And the Vikings, it's obvious, it's not a nit to pick, it's that their offense is awful. That one's staring you in the face. If the Niners go to Seattle and win, they're just the best team in the NFL. I don't think it's going to go that way. And as great as Purdy's been, I could see, maybe I'll be wrong, I could see Brock Purdy, who's been sacked zero times and has thrown one interception all year, having five combined sacks and interceptions in this game alone. That's Seattle, something to prove. And they, you know, the fact that they are chasing the Niners, and the Niners come into this game like, hey man, we already beat the Rams. We beat Seattle. Both our division opponents have two losses, and we have the head-to-head victories. It's also a little hard for me to get out of my head. We saw these two teams play in the playoffs. Seattle beat them 41-6. We saw these two teams play at the end of the regular season last year for the one seed on the line. Seattle beat them 13-3. Now, the 13's not great, obviously. But they have played twice in 2026. You know, twice this year, technically. And the Niners scored a combined nine points. In the 13-3 game, Brock Purdy was 19-27 for a buck 27, zero touchdowns, one pick, a 65 rating. And in the 41-6 game, I think he was worse. In that game, Purdy was... 15 of 27, a buck 40, a 54 rating, zero touchdowns, one pick. That defense, which is a little different this year, but mostly the same, really annihilated the Niners' attack. So I lean that that could happen again.
00:54:18
Speaker 3: Does Purdy jump Josh Allen with a win here in the MVP race?
00:54:24
Speaker 1: I think Purdy is already the favorite. I know he's not in the prediction markets and stuff. I am... I understand the prediction markets are saying who we think is going to win. That is different than who is the MVP right now. Like if there was a quarterly MVP vote, I think the prediction markets would have Brock Purdy as a strong favorite and Kenneth Walker as second. It's like, hey, everyone's voting today on MVP through four weeks. Purdy would win and Kenneth Walker would be right there after him. And third would probably be Trevor. Um, like Josh Allen would not listen. So there'll be some folks that vote Josh first because some folks vote Josh first every year, but it, he would not win. What they're anticipating is that he's going to have a great year that the Niners are an aggressive at all of that. Speaking of Josh, let's go to the bills, please.
00:55:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we got some complaints. Defensive back D.
00:55:35
Speaker 3: Alford was talking about the new stadium, saying that it's super loud to the point where we're not able to get the play in as fast as we need it. Their defensive coordinator, Jim Leonard, came in and said, it's always harder to communicate at home than it is on the road. If we complain about that, we are a-holes. Yeah, so you want to talk? What's going on?
00:55:53
Speaker 1: Listen, the Bills defense is... right now a problem, which is crazy because they have a great D-line. Greg Rousseau leads the NFL in sacks. It's just everything after their D-line has been problematic, particularly their secondary. They do seem to miss Sean McDermott in that regard. Defense complaining about it being so loud when they're on the field is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in sports. It's just not a thing. Literally, it's the biggest piece of home field advantage.
00:56:29
Speaker 3: I feel like as a coach or as the owner, you got to tell your team, like you can never publicly complain about how loud it is inside of our home stadium.
00:56:37
Speaker 1: No, especially because it's beneficial because here's again, I don't want to, it's not that complicated, but defensive calls are relatively basic. There's only so many coverages you're going to run. There's most of them can be communicated via hand signal if need be. Offensive calls are very complicated. You got to tell every single eligible receiver what their job is and shout out protections and very often need to change on the fly, which is why when a team is at home, it very often says on the scoreboard, quiet, please, offense at work. And when a team's at home and they're on defense, they put the little decibel meter thing up and people are supposed to get crazy. Like, it's a ridiculous complaint. I also am really curious to Monze. I don't know if you saw it. Max Harrison, who was their first round pick two years ago. I want to make sure I have this right. Maxwell Harrison was the Yeah, their first round pick in the 2025 draft. It's third and ten. There's a minute left. The Pats do a dump off to Hunter Henry. The Bills have timeouts. If the Bills get a stop, they're going to get the ball back down three with around 50 seconds left. Like, very alive. Maxwell Hairston... I... simply does not attempt to make the tackle. We're not allowed to show NFL footage on this, so I can't... This is something you should see. I showed it to Coach Mangini. I thought he was going to pass out.
00:58:36
Speaker 2: He was so mad.
00:58:39
Speaker 1: And then Harrison, after the game, skipped media. It was a really... I just wonder how much friction there is in those Bills defensive meetings. And now they have the Rams, and they'll be on the road. A Rams team that Stafford has looked not good this year, and a Rams team that is very fortunate not to be 1-3. We'll talk more about that game in Friday's show, but whomever loses that game, is different type of panic. The Rams lose and it's like, are we not that good? And the Bills lose and it's like, oh, okay. Wow. Familiar feeling. Everyone's loving us. We're the best team in the league the first couple weeks. Then we have an October swoon that puts us behind the eight ball for the one seed. Then we get hot in December. We're the two seed. We kick somebody's ass in the wild card round, and then we're back where we've been. So, like, for real. And so, huge, huge Monday night football game. I lean Rams because... while Stafford hasn't played great, I think he'll be able to exploit the bills. Um, secondary.
01:00:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
01:00:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. Puka getting healthier. And so, and the Rams did get a jolt of energy by stealing that game against Philly. Um, okay. Uh, huge. Thank you to boost mobile and the poly market. Huge. Thank you as always to blue duck and the volume demands. And I are actually going to stay right here as we are going to do our week five pick show, week four pick show, DeMondse finally got on the right side of a teaser. I got absolutely, to quote the great Nacho Barbaro, cramastified. And if there was a week in DeMondse, I didn't want to go one and four in picks. It's a weekend when I am literally in Las Vegas and have all, everything about that just in front of me. So not great, but we roll. We'll be fine. Week five pick show. I bounce back to Monza stays hot. That's coming to your inboxes or inboxes. We're not a newsletter to your RSS feeds tomorrow to YouTube, Spotify, iTunes. See you guys there. Talk to you tomorrow for the week five pick show.
Speaker 1: Welcome in What's Driving the Great, episode 512. This episode, as always, is brought to you by our friends at Boost Mobile. Damanze, good to see you. How are you this morning?
00:00:16
Speaker 2: Good to see you. Doing great. Feeling refreshed.
00:00:20
Speaker 1: Good. I'm glad you're feeling refreshed. I'm finally, I think, caught up on sleep after a weekend in Vegas without much sleep. I also have some quick little business to handle before we get to the actual show, which On today's show, by the way, we will talk about the potential collapse of one of my Super Bowl picks, the Philadelphia Eagles. The only saving grace for me is all offseason, I was like, hey, could see them going 14-3, could also see them going 7-10. Now, I did end up landing on the 14-3 go to the Super Bowl side of it, but this was always on the board, and we'll discuss why and what they do from here later on. There's a Thursday night football game tonight that the Cowboys can kind of just end. Another one of my not Super Bowl picks, but playoff picks, the Bucs season. I'm a little worried about that game for the Cowboys. Whenever your defense is that bad, an upset is always on the board, is what I would say. Even against a backup quarterback, if you have just a terrible defense... All it takes is one mishandled kick return, the other team gets back-to-back possessions, and you're playing from behind the eight ball the whole game. So we will discuss that and a little sports media ombudsman on What's Right with Nick Wright, a little media commentary after some viral takes yesterday. But before we get to any of that, I have been dealing with, for years... The tax demands a of at some point on some pod on this show or some, I did a power ranking of my children. And I put, I said in that very moment, when you were asking me, your youngest sister was in last place and she has a, I forgot even what she had done. It was something I thought it was. I thought I was being, as they would say, cheeky. She has never taken it that way. She brings it up quite a bit. I guess. I don't know, man. There are two things she brings up all the, not all the time, but way more often than she should. One is six years ago, seven years ago, I guess, actually. When we were moving into the house we currently live in and I was building an Ikea closet, she came by as a five or a six-year-old and asked me for a hug. And I said, not right now, because I was like lifting something up. And she, to this day, will be like, don't say I can have a hug whenever I want. Remember the time in the closet? And she'll bring up the power rankings thing. So... With that said, today happens to be, and this is kind of horrifying for me, my baby girl's 13th birthday. Your little sister is a teenager now. And so if you were to ask me this very moment, this second, power rank the kids she is in pole position you are in a strong number two and nothing against diorah who's very often the favorite but she left me on red yesterday on a text message that was good advice so right now she's.
00:03:56
Speaker 2: In last everybody's getting left on red by diorah It's crazy.
00:04:01
Speaker 1: What is she doing? I mean, she's just out to lunch. She just won't even come see us or won't even talk to us. It's really unbelievable. But so happy birthday, baby girl. I'm going to tell you one other quick thing before we get to the real show. Um, she sent us a birthday list. That was like a Christmas list. It's like, like, you know, calm down a bit on this, but one of the things on there is, was for me to talk to my agent about her because because she's an aspiring actress and she is determined because i always said like no you're not going to be a child actor like not i'm not doing it and now she thinks that she since she is 13 she's you know no longer little kid coming off a little bit she should have made that the only thing on the list Oh, strong take. Strong take.
00:05:00
Speaker 2: Okay.
00:05:01
Speaker 1: All right. So happy birthday to Deanna. Let's get straight to voicemail brought to you by our friends at Boost Mobile. Drake Mays, not certain we landed on the moon. Tyrese Halliburton returns from his Achilles injury. Probably upset that game wasn't on ESPN National Television. And Lamar, unconventional ankle sprain. Now, Schefter came out yesterday and was like, maybe he'll play the– I Lamar's injury stuff is always a little murkier than most. I do not expect him to play this weekend. The odds makers don't expect him to play this weekend.
00:05:36
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
00:05:37
Speaker 3: You think that it's always weird for Lamar with his injury stuff because he doesn't have an agent.
00:05:42
Speaker 2: Was that probably? Oh, okay.
00:05:44
Speaker 1: That's exactly, that's, I don't think that's the only reason, but I think, no, no, no. I think that's part of it. I think, you know, from those reports that we got as Harbaugh was on the way out, he doesn't seem the most communicative within the building. So I think that is, you know, can be problematic on its own, but his own lack of communication with, you know, the higher-ups within the organization, combined with the fact that he doesn't have an agent on the back end to go, you know, do that, I think those two things make it murky. Also, one last thing. The New York Liberty got screwed yesterday, and I'd be really, really upset if I were them. I just want to paint the picture. Overtime, down three, playoff game. There's four and a half seconds left. Ryan Rucco on the call doing a great job. They have a timeout, DeMondsey, where they can advance the ball to midcourt, which obviously you'd want to do. They don't take it. They end up getting off actually a decent look, but a desperation look because it's in transition. You're trying not to get fouled the whole thing. Rucco can't believe they didn't call timeout. After the game, Breonna Stewart says, she's like, I don't want to blame the refs. But it's very frustrating when, because Atlanta was at the free throw line leading up to it. When during those free throws, I asked both refs, do we have a timeout? Can we advance it? And both of them told us we were out. So they wanted to advance it. They asked if they could. The refs both told them no. So even though they thought they could, they were like, okay, I guess we've miscounted. The refs told us no, and then they did have one. That's a brutal mistake. And even if you're like, well, it's up to you to keep track of that stuff with the coaching staff, You almost would, even if you're certain you have it, be like, well, the refs who are the ones to determine this are telling.
00:07:52
Speaker 2: Us we don't. You get a technical for that.
00:07:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get a technical and the game's over. So that's a really tough spot for a team that, you know, had a huge upset in round one. And it's just a tough spot. Okay. This has been a rough few days for Eagles fans. It. was compounded a bit yesterday, it would appear, by Stephen A. 's jocular, what many people perceived as mocking, Lane Johnson retiring for mental health purposes, the too-long-didn't-read version of it is, Stephen A., not at all to the amusement of his panel, You know, it was like, basically, Eagle season's so bad, this guy's saying it's bad for my mental health. And then he kind of softened it after Kimberly Martin did him a solid. And he's like, some people might think you're making light of a mental health situation. Then he went on his podcast and after promoting the TV show where he said it and then spending two and a half minutes explaining about his own struggles and he explained why the audience might have misconstrued what he said. You're now caught up. So there are three points I want to make on this. The first one is, and all of these kind of, I'm going to try to make them how I view it, how it applies to me, so it doesn't feel like an outward attack, even though I'm sure Paul's going to put on YouTube, on the thumbnail on this, Nick writes, eviscerates Stephen A.
00:09:40
Speaker 2: Smith.
00:09:41
Speaker 1: Not really what I'm doing, but maybe it is. One thing I worry about for me is, and I try to be aware of, am I spreading myself too thin? I do the TV show for two and a half hours every day. I do this show three days a week, and this show has gotten longer and longer and longer. I might start doing this show even more often. I am, you know, side questing, trying to become a semi-professional poker player. I have different stuff I'm thinking about doing on Sundays during NFL football. And there's only so much time. There's only so many hours in a day. I obviously have wife, kids, family. And I worry at times. Not am I spreading myself too thin. Like, am I going to wear down? I don't really worry about that. I'm 42. I'm an old 42 because I'm a grandfather. However, I'm a young 42 and kind of how I live my life. I'm not worried about that. I am worried, Demond, say, am I not going to be quite as informed? Am I going to talk more about things? And because of that, I am less informed about the things I'm talking about. Does that make sense? Like, am I on the air so much that I have less time to, like, consume the info, watch all the games like I love to do? And am I going to... Are you going to have an emperor has no clothes moment of like, this guy doesn't know what he's talking about. So that is why I am so much more hesitant these days than I was 10 years ago, or maybe even five years ago to talk politics or real life stuff. Because if I make a mistake or if I'm not fully informed on nonsense, fun carnival sports stuff, I can, you know, it's embarrassing. I hate being, you know, having fact errors, but I can, I can deal with that. But on real life stuff that impacts people or affects people, I really don't want to give my opinion if I don't feel totally 100% buttoned up on things, which is why on this show, really never on the TV show anyway, but on this show or on Twitter, I only venture into the real life stuff that I am super well-informed on, that I am super passionate about, and I feel totally buttoned up about, because I haven't followed the day-to-day of the closing of the Strait of Hormuz. I haven't followed the day-to-day of the upcoming midterm elections. I think I followed it as much as the average American has, but not in a way that I feel comfortable giving opinions on it, because it's real-life stuff. And where I think, not where I think, where I know Stephen A steps on a rake somewhat often is however much I'm working, he's working more. He is on so many shows on multiple platforms that he owns, that ESPN owns, that Sirius owns, other people's shows on CNN, on Bill Maher, all of these things. And he is, you know what he's talking about today? Whatever the hell the big news of the day is across the board. And you simply cannot be super well-informed on everything at all times. which is why it's so dangerous. Dangerous is probably too strong, but it can be problematic if it's like, oh, what's the big topic? Listen, I'm doing my political show. There's a lot of stuff going on. Watch the football this weekend. It's a Wednesday. There were no games last night. I was catching up on this. What's the big story? Oh, Lane Johnson retired. Oh, he said it was for mental health. Man, Eagles sure must suck. So bad. I got it. You know what? I got it. Don't worry about it. I got it covered. I got a good bit on this. The Eagles are so bad right now. It's hurting guys' mental health. That's funny. Without having the time or the wherewithal to know the background that Lane Johnson thought about retiring in the offseason. That Lane Johnson, I'm not going to get into the specifics on this because it's been lightly reported, but it's not really my business. He seems to have family that is in failing physical health, that he is truly dealing with things outside of the day-to-day stresses of an NFL season. Had, I believe, had Stephen A. known that, had he had the time to research it, or if he had just been dialed in enough to just sports. Like I'm not, I wasn't, I didn't know all the specifics. When we saw Lane Johnson retired, I didn't know all the specifics of everything. I know more of it now, but I'm dialed in enough to the day-to-day sports that I remembered, oh, he thought about retiring in the off season. I think he has a family situation going on. He missed this Sunday's game because of last minute personal reasons and I saw someone report he was contemplating retirement. So it gave me a context of if I had to be on the air the moment after he retired, which by the way, he retired Tuesday. This was Wednesday morning that this happened. So it wasn't like live on the air reaction. You had time, but regardless, I would have at the very least known air on the side of caution here. You know, there's other things at play. But if you're doing a hundred different things at all times, you don't have that context. So that's first point. There is a tax to spreading yourself this thin. I'm not even saying you shouldn't do it, but you might have a responsibility to the audience if you are going to do it to really, really make sure you're coloring within the lines once we're not talking about Is Dak Prescott overrated? That's the first point. Second point is this. And this is something that, again, applies to me personally. And you guys have heard me talk about this a bit. If you go back and watch the initial clip that everyone got mad at, watch it through the eye of and asking this question. Is Stephen A. trying in that moment to do a good television show? Or is he trying to create a good viral clip? Also, under the context of, he did not in that moment think he was doing anything wrong or being harmful or hurtful. I'm not saying... And this is... If you are at one of those tables on TV, it is such a different medium than how I am right now. Right now, I am talking to you. Right now, I occasionally do things that I'm like, you know what? This will be good as a 90-second breakout on social media. It is not communal. It is when Demanze and I are riffing back and forth, that's somewhat communal. But this is a lot of me monologuing, you and I bouncing off each other. It's very different than the TV show, which is we're out there playing jazz, going back and forth. And there is a... There are moments, and this again, it is why, in my opinion, that TV show is not as good as it once was, and it once was the best. There are moments on that show, and there are other folks, some very, very popular folks, that consistently do this on their TV shows, which is, I'm not trying to have a communal experience, that'll be a good segment. I am trying to have the hottest, most viral take of the day. There's a very, very popular sports media guy who you can't go a week without him for two minutes staring down the barrel of the camera, delivering some rant, semi- you know, straw man angry about something that exists on a TV show, but it is not for that TV show at all. It is for him to be able to put on Twitter. And it felt like that's what Stephen A was doing yesterday. It felt like he didn't care that nobody was laughing with him. He didn't care that the room wasn't with him. I don't think he recognized how much he had stepped in it, but he's like, this is going to be good. They're going to put on the internet The Eagles are so bad. Stephen A says they're wrecking guys' mental health. You know, laughing emojis. And it's surprising when someone does that when they have a separate platform like this. I used to do that a lot when the TV show first started. I was not doing right by Chris Carter and Jenna Wolf when I did it, which was I would put stuff into the show that I didn't even necessarily think was going to be good TV. But I'm like, shit, man, that's going to be a good clip. Like I've got a good 90 seconds on it. But now I have this. So it's surprising to see Stephen A doing that when he has these other platforms to do it. And then last but not least, and then we will move on. And this is something the last time we discussed Stephen A that I made the point of. And sadly, it still really applies. You've got to simply be able to take an L and actually apologize. Not I'm sorry for how this was misconstrued on my TV show that you can watch 10 to noon every day on ESPN and then try to garner your own level of sympathy or whatever it was by explaining your own very real struggles with mental health after a very real personal tragedy, it is not that hard, folks, to simply be able to be like, hey, earlier today, I was on TV. You guys know I do a lot of stuff. I have a lot of responsibilities. There are a lot of things I'm following. I did not have the full context of of everything Lane Johnson was going through. It's my responsibility to have that context. That's totally on me. It's not on any producers. It's not on anyone else. I thank Kimberly Martin for having my back in it, but it was my responsibility and my screw up. I thought this was a lighthearted moment and I was trying to be funny. Now that I do have the full context, I realize that was wholly and totally inappropriate for the situation. I've reached out to Lane via the Eagles to apologize. And, you know, I will try to do better to make sure that when real life stuff happens, that I triple check I have all the facts rather than assume I have all the facts and just go with you know, trying to be entertaining and funny and that stuff. So I'm really sorry about that. I screwed that up. It's not hard. And the audience appreciates it. And it doesn't make you a lesser man. It doesn't make you a lesser broadcaster. Doesn't make you any of those things. To just be like, I screwed that up. Here's why I screwed it up. Here's what I will do in the future to try to make sure I don't screw that up again. And we roll. But putting it on the audience, I'm sorry that you guys didn't get what I was saying. And then doing an appeal to authority fallacy of actually here's how tuned in to mental health issues I actually am because of real life stuff I had to deal with myself. That ain't it, man. It's just not it. It's not the biggest thing in the world, but he is the biggest person in the world in the space.
00:23:26
Speaker 3: And.
00:23:27
Speaker 1: There are a lot of folks that take little pot shots at, you know, what the craft I have dedicated my professional life to because of stuff like that. And so it's worth 15 minutes for me off the top of the show. That's it. This will do shockingly well on YouTube because people love media on media crime. But Monty said on a podcast yesterday that he thinks his podcast might do bigger numbers if it was just this stuff. If it was only if he just did like was the ESPN ombudsman and just commentated on what was going on there. Might be right. I don't know why the algorithm loves it. They love it. That is not why I did this. I tried to do it sparingly, but it was a big story. I thought it deserved the time. Now we can talk about the actual football implications, pal. Let's bring the Monza back in. Go ahead.
00:24:32
Speaker 3: Yeah, so along with Lane Johnson retiring, Cam Jurgens got traded to my Ravens. So they're now down three offensive linemen from opening night. They've had some weird situations, but still going on to win the Super Bowl in a couple years past. Does this situation feel different?
00:24:50
Speaker 1: It feels really different. So Lane Johnson, do you remember a couple years ago, not a couple years ago, a year ago to Monza, when Micah got traded and we showed the Barnwell stat, Cowboys with Micah on the field, top three defense, Cowboys with Micah off the field, bottom three defense, and like over the course of his career and just the impact that one player had, those same exact stats just on the offensive side of the ball exists for the Eagles with Lane Johnson. Their offensive efficiency, their passing game, their running game, their win percentage, all of it has hinged on whether he is or isn't playing over the years.
00:25:38
Speaker 2: He is.
00:25:39
Speaker 1: A dominant all-time player. And so him walking away is devastating. The fact that the Eagles team, more than any team in the league, is built inside out. And now all of a sudden it's Jordan Mailata and a bunch of kids is devastating for the Eagles. The fact that this is happening in the midst of what I think is fair to call the biggest slump of Jalen Hurts' career since he's been an established starter is problematic. In the context of Saquon Hurta's hamstring, Tank Bigsby's on the IR, Devontae's dealing with something, this could be a system failure. This could be an absolute unrecoverable spot for them. And I do wonder if that is one of the reasons Howie Roseman decided, you know what? If we're going to move on from Cam Juergens at some point, do it now. Second round picks are good. return. He wasn't playing great anyway. The Ravens really need a center as they were like down to their fourth string and this season might really get away from us. I think that's on the board. I said before the year that when I picked him to go to the Super Bowl, they had the biggest variance of any team in the league and that I could see them winning seven games and Sirianni hot seat or maybe mid-season firing and It certainly looks like they are closer to that than they are to rallying. They've played four games this year. First game against what I believe will end up being a below average Washington team. Washington has a two-point conversion to force overtime. Next game, the Titans dare them to try to beat them through the air. The Eagles take that dare. The Titans win it for 58 minutes, and then Jalen, to his credit, and the only reason this season is not totally off the rails is because Jalen's final drive in that 90 seconds against the Titans. You then get annihilated by 38-year-old Case Keenum and the Chicago Bears, and then you blow a game to the Rams where you have negative passing yards in the second half. All of that plus the injuries and the retirement and the trade. And so I don't, I don't see how they pull themselves out of this. And it is stunning to Monza to see the Philadelphia Eagles as seven and a half point neutral field underdogs. Like I, that is, oh, with Jalen Hurts playing, That is a wild, wild situation.
00:29:00
Speaker 2: I mean, they're doing weird stuff. Team doesn't look great. So, understandables.
00:29:07
Speaker 1: Go ahead.
00:29:08
Speaker 3: Philadelphia now is two firsts and two seconds in the 2028 draft. Do you think that a rebuild is on the horizon? And if so, do you think that they should keep Sirianni?
00:29:19
Speaker 1: Well... I would at this moment, I would be surprised if Sirianni is right now. Yes or no. Will Sirianni be the head coach of the Philadelphia Eagles in 2027? I would say no. And this is where we have to do quickly some nerdy salary cap stuff. Okay? So many times the Eagles have signed a player or done a contract. Some folks in the media have been like, see, salary cap's fake. Look at what they're able to do, the way they manipulate the cap with void years, all of it. And it is true that if you have an owner like Jeffrey Lurie, who does not mind forking over a ton of cash up front, you can temporarily render the salary cap effectively meaningless via option bonuses, prorated signing bonuses, and void years. But that bill, 100% of the time, comes due. And what I mean by that is, every single dollar you pay any player shows up at some point on some year's salary cap. Now, I understand folks are like, yeah, but the salary cap's always raising. Sure. You can look at it as not only an interest-free loan, but a plus money loan where you're taking a loan and it actually costs you less to pay it back in four years than it does right now. So you can look at it as a smart way to do business to a degree. The Eagles have done business to such a degree like that, that they have sitting waiting for them a massive, salary cap, dead money, time bomb is too strong, but potentially catastrophic situation in the year 2028, but really the year 2029, where you're talking about 90 some million in Jalen Hurts void years that if you don't extend him, will accelerate onto the cap. A Jalen Carter deal where he averages nearly $ 40 million a year in salary, yet his cap hit in each year of the extension is 8.5, 15, 22, and then 29. So you have 70 million in void years for Jalen Carter. You have so many of these guys that they clearly have What the Eagles have done historically is supercharge a run, tear it down, and then get back at it. The fact that they now have multiple first and second round picks in 2028 gives you a little idea of when they think they are going to need young, cheap players because all of these bills are coming due. I am here to tell you, and we'll see if I end up being proven right. We don't have to spend too much more time on it. It is very, very on the board that whether it's next year or the year after, that the Eagles go into a season with more dead money on their salary cap than any team in NFL history. That they have a hundred plus million in dead money, try to take the whole pill at once and then use those new draft picks, the additional draft picks, to reboot the whole thing. They are a great organization. There's really good ownership, really good GM, good infrastructure. But they have kept putting things on the credit card and basically doing it the way, shoot, I used to do it in Houston, Demanze. Demanze knows this. The audience may or may not. When I, when Deanna, who's now 13 years old, shortly after she was born, I convinced Demanze's mom, my wife, Danielle, to quit her job. I was like, you've worked your whole life. You've worked since you were 14.
00:34:02
Speaker 2: Like, you know what I mean?
00:34:05
Speaker 1: You now finally have, you know, when Demanze was born, she was a kid and working multiple jobs. When Diora was born, she was you know, very young and working three jobs. I'm like, just rest and relax a bit. And she took me up on it, but we didn't change our spending one bit. It's not like, okay, we've gone from a two income.
00:34:27
Speaker 2: Household to one income household.
00:34:29
Speaker 1: And so I just started for the first time in my life. This is not good financial advice, by the way. I just started for the first time in my life, just spending tons on credit cards. And every few months, there would be a different credit card offer essentially where, hey, do a balance transfer from one credit card to another, pay like a 3% VIG on it, but get six months of no interest. So it'd be like, okay, that buys me another six months or buys me another three months or whatever it is. But eventually that, you know, either the credit situation in America changes or your own credit worthiness changes. And eventually you find yourself, as I did, owing upwards of, God, I know what the number exactly was, $ 68, 000 in credit card bills.
00:35:26
Speaker 2: I was going to guess like 20.
00:35:28
Speaker 1: No, no, no. When at the time I wasn't making much more than that annually. And there's nowhere like there's no one else that wants to give you a six month zero percent. And now for me, I got a lifeline and the lifeline was fuck sports. I got a job and I was fine. But the that balloon payment is coming for the Eagles. They were going to, I think, push it off a couple more years. But with Lane retiring, trading Cam Juergens, Saquon maybe showing signs that that is diminishing returns, AJ Brown trade, I could see them accelerating when they do it. So there's that. Also, kids, that is not good financial advice. Don't do that. I woke up every morning feeling like a vice around. Like, oh, my God. I can't tell my wife that it was wrong. Because she didn't want to quit her job. I convinced her to. I certainly can't be like, well, here's the thing. Got to go back to work. So, no, that is what it is. All right. Let's go to, oh, we have breaking news, I think. We'll get to that in just a second. But first, let me tell you guys about this new prediction market called Poly market, it's the best new way to trade in sports. In the past, if you wanted action on the game, you'd put some money in, and if your team was doing well and you wanted to cash out, you either wouldn't be able to or there would be a huge fee. But poly market is different. It's a prediction market, which is similar to, it works similarly to a stock exchange, but it's for sports where you can buy in and sell out on your own terms. I've tried all the prediction markets. I even tried prediction markets years ago before prediction markets really like a mainstream thing. PolyMarket's simply the best. The UI is the most intuitive. It's the easiest to use. It's the best. They're so confident you'll never go back to the other guys. They're giving you a free $ 25 on your first trade when you deposit just $ 10. And now they've launched a new feature, Squads, a group chat where you can see what everyone is trading on. So download the PolyMarket app today. and use code NICKWRIGHT when you sign up. That's code NICKWRIGHT to get $ 25 free after you deposit just $ 10. All right, Demanze, we have some Florio news, I guess.
00:38:24
Speaker 3: Yeah, so Sean Payton sounds like he's taking back over the play calling from Davis Webb. From Vic Lombardi here, it says that Davis Webb will meet with the Broncos media today. He will be asked about play calling duties. I'm told Sean Payton will be playing a bigger role in those duties. How big remains to be seen?
00:38:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, so this.
00:38:42
Speaker 1: Is, so hold on, let me see. So this is not, oh yeah, Florio is. So I'm going to read directly from Florio's article, which came out like 45 minutes ago. The Davis-Webb experiment is over. Webb, who was promoted to offensive coordinator in the offseason and given the keys to the play-calling car, will have those keys rescinded this weekend when the Broncos face the Chargers. Former NFL receiver Brandon Stokely, who is now part of the morning show on 104.3 The Fan in Denver, was the first to let the cat out of the bag. He said... I'm hearing that Sean Payton is going to be taking over play calling this week, Stokely tweeted Wednesday night. Back to Florio. We've since confirmed that indeed Payton will be calling the plays again. He then, you know, writes, you know, all about the context of it. My immediate reaction, and this is again, this show is kind of a life advice show at times. Man, if you have an opportunity, And I'm not sure Davis Webb did or didn't. But if you have an opportunity to take a great job, a big promotion, and you have to leave where you're at to do it, and then in order to convince you not to leave, the place you're at offers you things they never previously would have offered you, you maybe should just leave. Because it probably means they are offering you those things under duress. And they might not really want to offer them to you. That's what happened with Davis Webb. Davis Webb, now maybe he wasn't going to get it, but Davis Webb was being considered for the Bills head coaching job. Davis Webb was a hot head coaching candidate. And he did not, if I'm remembering the stories correctly, fully pursue them because Sean Payton's like, stay here and in addition to being OC, I'll let you call plays. And it took one half of one game for Sean Payton to publicly regret it. It was halftime of week one against the Chiefs when he was asked about it. And he said, ask me after the game and I'll tell you how I feel. Sean Payton loves calling plays. It's what Sean Payton does the best. And so this is, I'm not even saying Sean Payton is wrong for doing it. They have scored 13 points in the first half of games. 13, 3.3 points per game in the first halves.
00:41:39
Speaker 2: They were bad in the first half last year, though, weren't they?
00:41:42
Speaker 1: That is true.
00:41:44
Speaker 3: I felt bad for Davis Webb in this situation. All the public criticism, and when something's going wrong, they're like, oh, Sean Payton going to take, like, he gave him the job. I hate how it was, like, dangling it in front of him and how it's like, oh, he maybe shouldn't deserve it. And it's like, this is not much different from what was going on last year.
00:42:03
Speaker 2: It's just like you gave the guy the job. Show him some respect.
00:42:07
Speaker 1: I totally agree with that. I totally agree with that. And even if behind the scenes, Sean Payton instantly regretted it and was like, shoot, this might not work. You have to publicly be totally back your guy. Even if behind the scenes, you might end up knifing him. But it was humiliating. For Davis Webb. Just consistently humiliating. On that. And it is not. A couple things. One is, Sean Payton's the head coach. It's not like he doesn't have any say. He's an offensive-minded head coach. He doesn't have any say in the offensive game plan. The opening script, the opening couple drives of these games are scripted. That's not even play-calling, really. You can have a huge say in that, and they've scored no points. I mean, they've scored 13 first-half points, the whole thing. The other piece of it is, your quarterback might not be that good. And that could be a huge piece of it. And it's your hand-picked quarterback that you took victory laps about how you tricked the Vikings into trading up for JJ. You always wanted Bo Nix. You had this, remember his unique independent algorithm on evaluating quarterbacks and Bo Nix checked all these boxes. Listen, Sean Payton's a brilliant offensive mind and has a very good coaching resume. I don't have a ton of evidence that, how do I put this gently, that I would enjoy hanging out with him. Now, he might not enjoy hanging out with me, but doesn't just strike me as my type of guy. And so we'll see if it fixes it. They're playing the hapless Chargers. All right, let's talk NFC East here.
00:44:07
Speaker 3: NFC East is wide open. We talked about the Eagles and their struggles. The Cowboys play tonight, and they cannot figure out the defense. Washington has Jaden Daniels back, which might be a bad decision. New York has Jameis Winston starting at quarterback and is at the top of the division.
00:44:23
Speaker 2: Who do you trust in this division, if anybody?
00:44:27
Speaker 1: Right now, nobody. And this is stunning. But I think, Demond, say this is the worst division in the NFL.
00:44:35
Speaker 2: It might be.
00:44:36
Speaker 1: Yeah. Think about it. NFC South has some friskiness to it. The Panthers are a real team. The Falcons, since they got Pennix back, are a real team.
00:44:54
Speaker 2: The AFC South, I would say, is the closest.
00:44:58
Speaker 1: Yes, however, the Jags are excellent. Jags are legit excellent. The Colts... It's like, hey, we lost to the Ravens and the Chiefs. Like, we beat the other teams. And the Texans are bad, but it's hard to accept in your brain they're bad. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, the Texans is like, come on. The CJ's playing good. Yeah. And so the Giants are 3-1, but Jameis has really struggled. And so the Giants, I can't fully believe in. We just talked about the Eagles ad nauseum. You then have Washington. We'll see with Jaden back. And they did beat Philly. I mean, sorry, they did beat Seattle. So credit to Washington on that front. However, I didn't think they were going to be a good team before Jaden once again got hurt. And we'll see how healthy he is. And then there's Dallas. which I got to, it would not shock me to Monzae if Dallas wins by 30 tonight. Let me be clear. You're playing an undrafted rookie free agent quarterback out of Kansas for a team in the box that is dating back to basically week seven of last year has just been totally lost. And Todd Bowles, I'm sure is, you know, checking out like, sick European cruise options in November because he thinks he's going to have time available. With that said, when you have a defense as bad as Dallas is, you always can get got. And typically the, the bugaboo, if you will, of young, untested quarterbacks is they get absolutely undressed by good defenses. They get semi-often tricked by decent defenses. But against bad defenses, where their first read is open, they can look good. And so, I... If I'm a Cowboys fan, I am semi-anxious about this evening's game. Because it's now three straight years of the Cowboys defense just being utterly hapless. And they allowed 28 to Jackson Dart, 20 to the Commanders in a game where Jaden goes out. 34 to Baltimore, 30 to Houston. And so the answer is no, I don't trust any of these teams. I will say if the Cowboys don't win the division this year, it's a catastrophe for them. And also, let me add one other thing. If I'm a Giants fan watching all this, I am sick to my stomach. Dart is hurt. You're sick either way. but particularly sick because geez, man, Philly's falling apart. We're already, you know, we've proven we can beat Dallas. Jaden's going out there with the inspector gadget thing on his arm. Like I, it's not, if you're a giant fan, I do. And the Yankees just lost yesterday.
00:48:47
Speaker 3: Yikes.
00:48:47
Speaker 1: Boost mobile proven. You don't have to overpay for great wireless. Unlock the savings of $ 25 a month forever. Unlimited plan, permanent price, no contracts, no price hikes. You can keep your phone and your number. but you save up to $ 600 a year compared to the major carriers. Stop overpaying. Switch to a fair price at BoostMobile.com today. Based on average annual single-line payment of AT & T, Verizon, and T-Mobile customers, compared to 12 months on the Boost Mobile Unlimited plan as of January 2026. For full offer details, visit BoostMobile.com. All right, Demondze, let's talk about America's Game of the Week 425 Eastern on Fox this Sunday.
00:49:28
Speaker 3: We've got Niners who have looked great undefeated. You've got to think that the injuries are going to come back to bite them at some point.
00:49:34
Speaker 2: And then Seattle.
00:49:35
Speaker 1: They haven't yet.
00:49:37
Speaker 3: Who's got Darnold who's struggled since he's been back, but they are missing Kenneth Walker. Who do you think has more to prove in this one?
00:49:45
Speaker 1: Oh, I think the Niners have more to prove. But I think Seattle's going to win. The reason I say the Niners have more to prove is Seattle is the defending champ. who won games with its backup quarterback, had kind of a weird loss to Washington and then bounced back last week. And that was a weird Seattle game last week. Now, I will admit, this is a game that I saw very little of live because I was at the Chiefs game. Now, in the suite I was in, they did have red zone on a TV, so during breaks in the Chiefs game, I would catch moments, but I had to go back and kind of catch up back up on the late afternoon window Sunday. But Seattle was in total control of that Chargers game. They're up 27-6 midway through the third. And then I, you know, lost to me, it appeared, a degree of concentration. And all of a sudden it's like, oh crap, we got to pick up this third down or the Chargers can get the ball back down seven. Seattle, I think, is excellent. The Niners have been absolutely outstanding, and the Niners' defense has been, to me, one of the biggest shocks of the season. A bigger shock than Purdy playing great is how well the Niners have played. We have the, yeah, buts for the Niners on play the Dolphins, play the Cardinals, the Broncos' offense. And right. So there's a lot of the, again, you beat the Rams by 20, you beat the Broncos who were supposed to be good by 10. Like, so those, those are good wins. The context of them is the Rams seemed to instantly be like, you know, our travel plans ruined us. Plus, basically no Miles Garrett and no Aaron Donald. Like, that was a Stafford played poorly. Now, some of that they did to him. I'm not, I am not, it sounds like I'm hedging here. I'm not trying to hedge. What I'm trying to say is, there are nits you can pick in the 4-0 Niners, just like there are nits you can pick in the 4-0 Chiefs. And the Vikings, it's obvious, it's not a nit to pick, it's that their offense is awful. That one's staring you in the face. If the Niners go to Seattle and win, they're just the best team in the NFL. I don't think it's going to go that way. And as great as Purdy's been, I could see, maybe I'll be wrong, I could see Brock Purdy, who's been sacked zero times and has thrown one interception all year, having five combined sacks and interceptions in this game alone. That's Seattle, something to prove. And they, you know, the fact that they are chasing the Niners, and the Niners come into this game like, hey man, we already beat the Rams. We beat Seattle. Both our division opponents have two losses, and we have the head-to-head victories. It's also a little hard for me to get out of my head. We saw these two teams play in the playoffs. Seattle beat them 41-6. We saw these two teams play at the end of the regular season last year for the one seed on the line. Seattle beat them 13-3. Now, the 13's not great, obviously. But they have played twice in 2026. You know, twice this year, technically. And the Niners scored a combined nine points. In the 13-3 game, Brock Purdy was 19-27 for a buck 27, zero touchdowns, one pick, a 65 rating. And in the 41-6 game, I think he was worse. In that game, Purdy was... 15 of 27, a buck 40, a 54 rating, zero touchdowns, one pick. That defense, which is a little different this year, but mostly the same, really annihilated the Niners' attack. So I lean that that could happen again.
00:54:18
Speaker 3: Does Purdy jump Josh Allen with a win here in the MVP race?
00:54:24
Speaker 1: I think Purdy is already the favorite. I know he's not in the prediction markets and stuff. I am... I understand the prediction markets are saying who we think is going to win. That is different than who is the MVP right now. Like if there was a quarterly MVP vote, I think the prediction markets would have Brock Purdy as a strong favorite and Kenneth Walker as second. It's like, hey, everyone's voting today on MVP through four weeks. Purdy would win and Kenneth Walker would be right there after him. And third would probably be Trevor. Um, like Josh Allen would not listen. So there'll be some folks that vote Josh first because some folks vote Josh first every year, but it, he would not win. What they're anticipating is that he's going to have a great year that the Niners are an aggressive at all of that. Speaking of Josh, let's go to the bills, please.
00:55:31
Speaker 2: Yeah, so we got some complaints. Defensive back D.
00:55:35
Speaker 3: Alford was talking about the new stadium, saying that it's super loud to the point where we're not able to get the play in as fast as we need it. Their defensive coordinator, Jim Leonard, came in and said, it's always harder to communicate at home than it is on the road. If we complain about that, we are a-holes. Yeah, so you want to talk? What's going on?
00:55:53
Speaker 1: Listen, the Bills defense is... right now a problem, which is crazy because they have a great D-line. Greg Rousseau leads the NFL in sacks. It's just everything after their D-line has been problematic, particularly their secondary. They do seem to miss Sean McDermott in that regard. Defense complaining about it being so loud when they're on the field is one of the most ridiculous things I've ever heard in sports. It's just not a thing. Literally, it's the biggest piece of home field advantage.
00:56:29
Speaker 3: I feel like as a coach or as the owner, you got to tell your team, like you can never publicly complain about how loud it is inside of our home stadium.
00:56:37
Speaker 1: No, especially because it's beneficial because here's again, I don't want to, it's not that complicated, but defensive calls are relatively basic. There's only so many coverages you're going to run. There's most of them can be communicated via hand signal if need be. Offensive calls are very complicated. You got to tell every single eligible receiver what their job is and shout out protections and very often need to change on the fly, which is why when a team is at home, it very often says on the scoreboard, quiet, please, offense at work. And when a team's at home and they're on defense, they put the little decibel meter thing up and people are supposed to get crazy. Like, it's a ridiculous complaint. I also am really curious to Monze. I don't know if you saw it. Max Harrison, who was their first round pick two years ago. I want to make sure I have this right. Maxwell Harrison was the Yeah, their first round pick in the 2025 draft. It's third and ten. There's a minute left. The Pats do a dump off to Hunter Henry. The Bills have timeouts. If the Bills get a stop, they're going to get the ball back down three with around 50 seconds left. Like, very alive. Maxwell Hairston... I... simply does not attempt to make the tackle. We're not allowed to show NFL footage on this, so I can't... This is something you should see. I showed it to Coach Mangini. I thought he was going to pass out.
00:58:36
Speaker 2: He was so mad.
00:58:39
Speaker 1: And then Harrison, after the game, skipped media. It was a really... I just wonder how much friction there is in those Bills defensive meetings. And now they have the Rams, and they'll be on the road. A Rams team that Stafford has looked not good this year, and a Rams team that is very fortunate not to be 1-3. We'll talk more about that game in Friday's show, but whomever loses that game, is different type of panic. The Rams lose and it's like, are we not that good? And the Bills lose and it's like, oh, okay. Wow. Familiar feeling. Everyone's loving us. We're the best team in the league the first couple weeks. Then we have an October swoon that puts us behind the eight ball for the one seed. Then we get hot in December. We're the two seed. We kick somebody's ass in the wild card round, and then we're back where we've been. So, like, for real. And so, huge, huge Monday night football game. I lean Rams because... while Stafford hasn't played great, I think he'll be able to exploit the bills. Um, secondary.
01:00:01
Speaker 2: Yeah.
01:00:02
Speaker 1: Yeah. Puka getting healthier. And so, and the Rams did get a jolt of energy by stealing that game against Philly. Um, okay. Uh, huge. Thank you to boost mobile and the poly market. Huge. Thank you as always to blue duck and the volume demands. And I are actually going to stay right here as we are going to do our week five pick show, week four pick show, DeMondse finally got on the right side of a teaser. I got absolutely, to quote the great Nacho Barbaro, cramastified. And if there was a week in DeMondse, I didn't want to go one and four in picks. It's a weekend when I am literally in Las Vegas and have all, everything about that just in front of me. So not great, but we roll. We'll be fine. Week five pick show. I bounce back to Monza stays hot. That's coming to your inboxes or inboxes. We're not a newsletter to your RSS feeds tomorrow to YouTube, Spotify, iTunes. See you guys there. Talk to you tomorrow for the week five pick show.
