Podcast: Dynamic Around the Raiders and the NFL
Our latest episode of the Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast discusses Chandler Jones, the latest around the Silver and Black, and the NFL.
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00:00 Hello everybody, this is Hondo Carpenter from Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation Las Vegas
00:06 Raiders Insider Podcast, joined by my weekly guest who happens to have been a friend.
00:12 We've been doing this for 16 years.
00:16 He is one of my favorite human beings on the planet.
00:20 He's a great attorney, great friend, great husband, just a great guy.
00:24 I love him dearly.
00:25 The great Johnny Shaw.
00:26 How you doing Johnny Guitars?
00:27 After that, I feel great.
00:29 Yeah, this is year 16 of us chopping wood, trying to make hay and plant the seeds around
00:38 the world of football.
00:39 The game has changed.
00:40 It continues to change and we may be seeing some changes to the NFL in real time.
00:47 And I think we may be seeing a change or two in the future in the forms of a new coordinator,
00:53 which I hope we'll touch on a little bit today.
00:55 We are going to.
00:56 I want to laugh because so my camera is right here in front of me, but on my screen, you're
01:01 here.
01:02 So I've had people get on me because they like, why don't you look in the camera?
01:06 Sorry, I'm trying to look at John, but okay, I'm adapting here.
01:11 Before we get around the NFL, we're going to start with a couple of issues.
01:15 The Raiders had a terrible loss on Sunday night.
01:18 It was a major time clock management blunder with Josh McDaniels.
01:22 It was a major error kicking the field goal.
01:26 I wrote an article that went literally viral, just incredibly viral, not calling for Josh
01:33 to be fired.
01:34 That would, that would have been ridiculous.
01:36 You're only 20 games into his regime, only three games into the year, but it was basically
01:43 and essentially he could lose a lot more than just to the Chargers.
01:48 It's that not losing to that locker room, the NFL players association survey, his players
01:54 raked him over the coals for the hours that they work.
01:57 I had a quote in there from a player.
01:59 Hey, it's okay because we're, we want to win, but there's a dangerous fine line.
02:03 I want your thoughts on the article, please.
02:05 And on what you thought of the game Sunday.
02:09 Well really the unique thing about the article is the perspective that's in it from around
02:14 the sport, around this franchise and really about, that's one issue that stands out.
02:22 You know, we don't hear a lot of talk about the world outside of the games and kind of
02:27 outside of the practices.
02:29 But when people are talking about, look, we're doing, we're doing all this work.
02:36 We're doing extra work compared to other franchises.
02:39 What I struck me was a lot of guys are okay with that as long as it works.
02:45 When it doesn't work or when you end up turning the gun and shooting yourselves in the feet,
02:50 that's when it gets a little dangerous.
02:52 That's why this week is even more important than last week.
02:57 And I, I mean, not to look ahead, but I think the loser of the Chargers and Raiders this
03:04 week, that coach and that franchise is in trouble.
03:08 I think I'm feeling like there's a wind blowing around the sport where people are maybe going
03:14 to be more apt to fire sale, to trade players than we've seen in decades past.
03:20 I wonder if that is, is a, is a storm front coming in.
03:24 So this article is one that's unique.
03:28 It really marks a very specific point in time, not only for the Raider franchise, but for
03:33 Josh McDaniels as an NFL head coach, because as we have discussed here before, it's very
03:41 unlikely anybody gets a third chance to be an NFL head coach.
03:44 A lot of success with the second time around.
03:47 How many the third time?
03:49 I don't know.
03:50 You just hit a button and give yourself a bunch of balloons.
03:54 I did not.
03:55 I have no idea why I'm getting a balloon.
03:57 I have no idea.
03:58 That was Alicia, your wife probably telling you, I love you, sweetie.
04:02 I don't know what that is.
04:03 I I'm not a balloon guy, but somebody just zoomed up balloons.
04:08 Thank you.
04:09 I don't know where that came from.
04:11 All right, John, before we get into some other stuff, we got to talk Chandler Jones.
04:15 Yeah.
04:16 Now, I have said from the beginning, it's a personal matter.
04:21 I don't want to get into it a lot, but as he continues to go on and share being taken
04:29 to mental health facilities, his video the other day was devastatingly sad and it was
04:37 sad to watch.
04:39 And I'm coming at this from a perspective.
04:42 I care about Chandler.
04:44 I know Chandler like Chandler.
04:48 And and I also know people who have gone through tough issues like he's battling.
04:54 And that's why I said, you know what?
04:56 And now I want to credit a couple of people.
05:00 I said this some day one, it made a lot of people mad.
05:03 Josh McDaniels really was respected by his players for how he handled it.
05:10 He didn't throw Chandler under the bus.
05:14 And it has not been a distraction from the team, as in everybody's in there talking about
05:19 Chandler and they're not thinking about football.
05:22 It hasn't been a distraction that way.
05:25 But it is a distraction when you put millions of dollars into a guy.
05:30 It's been a distraction when he had a roster sprawled.
05:32 He's now on the NFI list.
05:35 And which is fine.
05:37 But it has been, you know, something that certainly hurt the team.
05:42 But I mean, they intended on him being a cross from Max.
05:46 It's rushed the process of Tyree, which in fairness.
05:51 I drew my opinion of Tyree by talking to multiple teams who all liked him, all said he was raw,
05:56 all said that they didn't have huge expectations from this year.
06:00 And all said that this is tough for him because he's in that raw space.
06:08 But it is what it is.
06:09 It's hurt the team, but it has not hurt the team from a standpoint that they're not talking
06:13 about football.
06:15 Your thoughts on the Chandler Jones and how sad this is.
06:19 It's sad.
06:20 Yeah, it is sad.
06:22 And it does appear to be potentially spinning out of control in real time.
06:27 If the personal health issue for the individual Chandler Jones, as we are now at the end of
06:34 September, we do have to discuss the reality of the effect on the football team.
06:40 The players are assets of the franchise.
06:42 Obviously, large investment in Jones to come play a very key role for the Raiders.
06:48 So what I think we have to at least account for is a couple things.
06:53 One, yeah, in this case, it looks like Josh McDaniels has handled this so well that it's
06:58 not a distraction.
07:01 It's not a splinter.
07:03 There's not people that are having an issue at all with the way the franchise is managing
07:08 it, which is great.
07:10 But on the field, this is not the same Raider defense as was expected.
07:16 And what I think we've seen so far is actually some teams probably tailor their game plan
07:22 against the Raiders because of the absence of Jones.
07:26 When you take out one of the 11 pieces on an NFL defense, there are reactions, maybe
07:34 at not all 10 other positions, but at the other positions.
07:38 We've seen this around the league, of course, when we talked about the Giants decision to
07:41 go with two rookie cornerbacks that affected the way the rest of their defenses operated
07:45 so far.
07:46 So what I think we have to be fair about, it's not letting anybody off the hook, but
07:50 this is a dramatically different Raiders defense than expected.
07:56 And it does not appear that they can expect Chandler Jones back any time in the coming
08:03 near future.
08:04 So this is now something baked in that the defense has to work with.
08:08 And I think it's worth being aware of.
08:10 And I think you're going to see it show up again this weekend when you're talking about
08:15 the Chargers.
08:16 Yeah, I'm going to say this real quick.
08:20 This is one time I make a prediction I hope to be wrong, but I'm just telling you based
08:26 on what I know and what I'm hearing, Chandler Jones will never suit up for the Raiders again.
08:33 And let me just say, not only am I hoping I'm wrong, people I'm talking to are hoping
08:40 I'm wrong, but it's just an honest evaluation of the situation.
08:43 All right, I want to go around the NFL because you and I do this.
08:48 You brought up a subject to me that we got to discuss, but it's teams having a late game
08:54 coordinator.
08:55 You know, I talked about one of the biggest mistakes Josh McDaniels made last week with
09:01 the, you know, you've got over six minutes to go, you're in the red zone, you're huddling,
09:08 guys are walking to the line of scrimmage, then the end of the game, you're working on
09:12 a time issue.
09:14 Late game coordination.
09:15 You're not just seeing it last week with the Raiders.
09:18 You are seeing it around the league.
09:20 It is worse than I've ever thought.
09:23 Now, I want to give you a quote from an NFL president, not a general manager, but a president
09:31 of a team.
09:32 He said this to me in response to the Josh McDaniels thing and a couple other teams with
09:38 late game mistakes.
09:39 This is what he said, quote, "You're right.
09:42 You didn't see this as much in the past because in the past coaches were given five years.
09:48 In the past, a lot of coaches were older.
09:51 Now we're going with young guys, young coordinators, young coaches, people that haven't been in
09:56 the league a long time, that haven't been able to, by osmosis, learn things by watching."
10:01 I think this is the, one of the unintended consequences of this firing people after two
10:07 years and hiring younger and younger and younger, you're getting younger and younger mistakes.
10:13 What do you think of that?
10:16 I think that's probably part of it.
10:18 The first thing that comes to mind, and I don't mean to pick on him because he's a tremendous
10:23 coach and record, but Romeo Cornell was making some of these mistakes 20 years ago and he
10:28 had already been around a long time.
10:31 So I think there's maybe something there with the head coaching experience we see around
10:37 the league.
10:38 LeFleur, Stanley, et cetera.
10:40 I'm not saying these guys have made late game mistakes, but there's a lot of younger guys.
10:44 But what struck me about, what struck me as I was watching the Raiders and I'm checking
10:51 my math, I'm saying, "Wait a second, what's going on here?"
10:56 Idea bloomed out of that a couple of days later.
11:01 Teams need to consider creating a position of a late cock coordinator.
11:06 All that guy would do would be to keep an eye and keep a focus on managing the clock,
11:13 either I would assume towards the end of the half, towards the end of the game, but possibly
11:18 in other situations.
11:19 You say, "Well, isn't that the head coach's job?"
11:22 Sure it is.
11:24 Have you watched NFL or major college football lately?
11:27 A lot of them are screwing it up for a long time now.
11:32 So how about a late clock coordinator?
11:36 That's all he does.
11:39 If he does that, now you assume what you want basically is a head coach to just rubber stamp
11:45 it.
11:46 And you may be saying, "Well, the head coach has given up a whole lot of control there."
11:50 Do you want to win?
11:51 Do you want to make the right decisions?
11:54 This is more about, here's what we need to do at this point.
11:57 So the head coach can maybe rubber stamp it or say, "Yeah, I want to stick with the pass
12:01 or let's focus on the run."
12:03 This makes a lot of sense.
12:05 What I don't know whether makes sense is whether we need a six-minute offense.
12:10 So teams have a two-minute.
12:12 We started to see some develop a four-minute offense.
12:15 Do we need more?
12:17 And does the score need to come into play?
12:20 I think a head coach is very focused for right reasons.
12:25 I think there's help that can be there with a late clock coordinator who can help with
12:29 things like calling timeouts and making sure that the play calling and the head coach is
12:34 set up for success because we're seeing this consistently cost people games.
12:40 And there's arguably no more competitive business in America than the NFL.
12:46 Somebody is going to see the light.
12:49 And coming soon, I will predict to you, around the sport is a late clock coordinator that's
12:54 literally just focused on that issue.
12:57 I think the need is there and somebody will innovate.
13:02 I want to talk to you about the NFL trade deadline is coming up on October.
13:07 I think it's October 30th.
13:10 31st, maybe?
13:12 31st, October 31st.
13:15 Sorry, my fault.
13:18 And I think this is going to be one of the most active NFL trade deadlines that we've
13:25 seen.
13:26 Usually it comes and goes in the NFL.
13:27 It's not like basketball or hockey or baseball.
13:31 I think this one's going to be super active.
13:34 I think there's going to be teams looking to dump weight to get cap space.
13:38 I think there's going to be teams looking to add because they think they may be a couple
13:42 players away.
13:43 And I think there's going to be some teams who maybe don't think that they're a playoff
13:48 team.
13:50 But they can accumulate a part to become a playoff team for those that are sellers.
13:56 I think this is going to be fascinating.
13:58 I can't wait to watch it.
14:00 Where am I wrong or do you agree with me?
14:04 I see the wheels spinning to a more active NFL trade deadline than we've seen in a long
14:09 time.
14:11 Just hearing and reading and seeing what's going on.
14:16 And maybe we're going to seriously see it as soon as this time next week with some franchises
14:21 when we get to some games later that are really in trouble.
14:25 Even in a 17 game schedule where there's maybe not as much panic as fast, they're in some
14:31 trouble.
14:32 I do think that people saw what the Vikings did last year.
14:35 They made a great trade, got Hawkinson, an effective player as the tight end, and he's
14:39 been productive and successful.
14:41 Let's keep that in mind.
14:43 But it seems like we may be at a new era where it's not like a pump and dump boiler room
14:51 stock scheme, but I think that we may see teams more apt to turn it over quickly.
14:58 That could include teams like the Raiders, like the Vikings, some others out there.
15:06 Perhaps we see some moves made.
15:08 You know, if you're going to turn franchises over after a couple of years versus four or
15:14 five, I used to call it the rich coat tight rule.
15:17 No disrespect to rich coat tight, but how in the world was that guy coach that many
15:21 times?
15:22 I don't know.
15:23 It never made any sense to me.
15:25 Now it's like we got a real short window because there's 95 guys that could potentially be
15:30 a successful head coach in the NFL.
15:33 If you're going to do it that way, what you might need to consider doing is unloading
15:41 cap, unloading roster, creating cap space, et cetera, if possible.
15:47 So I'm watching this super close because I want to see what's going to happen.
15:54 And I get the feeling that there's a lot more activity coming in the NFL trade downline
16:00 than we've seen in decades.
16:01 We may both be wrong, but that feels like the wind that is blowing through.
16:06 I totally agree.
16:07 Next, I want to talk to you about Jordan Love.
16:11 I like Jordan.
16:12 I predicted the Packers to win the NFC Norris.
16:17 Clearly what happened Thursday night would say that that's not probably accurate.
16:22 But I got to tell you, I think the guys look good.
16:25 I like them.
16:26 I think Green Bay has done an excellent job, whether it's sitting Aaron Rodgers or sitting
16:30 Jordan Love, of bringing guys along.
16:35 I believe in that.
16:37 Now listen, you pick a guy number one under the old pay system, you almost had to play
16:42 him immediately because you were paying so much money.
16:45 But it's manageable now.
16:46 You can sit there, let them watch the game, learn the game.
16:50 The NFL game, I don't remember who I was talking to.
16:53 So if I'm wrong here, I'm not lying, but I think it was Devontae or Max.
16:59 It was one of the two for sure.
17:01 I'm almost certain of it.
17:03 But I talked about the step from high school to college is significantly smaller, I mean,
17:13 much smaller than the jump from college to the NFL.
17:17 It's not even, one of them, whoever I was interviewing, he told me later, it's not even
17:23 close.
17:25 I like what they've done.
17:26 I'm impressed with Jordan Love, just like I'm impressed with Aiden O'Connell, the Raiders
17:31 backup.
17:32 But talk to me about Jordan Love and your thoughts, please.
17:35 Yeah, a lot of eyes on him, and it's going to be real interesting to watch.
17:41 So we'll circle way back.
17:43 We saw Jordan Love in college when Utah State came to Michigan State, when Michigan State
17:48 still had a really good defense.
17:51 And what you saw really quickly was this guy's got the frame to play in the NFL.
17:57 He's got a throwing motion that looks pretty clean and pure.
18:01 There's not any kind of yip on it.
18:05 I got a feeling somebody else is watching here with us, because I have no idea what's
18:09 going on.
18:10 I think somebody else has joined us.
18:12 So we saw Jordan Love, and I thought, oh, OK, there may be a potential NFL career there.
18:18 He developed from there, but then he's taken very high in a very interesting spot by a
18:24 franchise that looks pretty smart right now.
18:26 So what we've seen is some actual benefit from a guy sitting.
18:32 Kind of feels like an old fashioned sitting for a couple of years.
18:37 And I think it's too early to tell, but it's really interesting to watch, because this
18:43 guy looks like he's got a potential.
18:45 Now Aiden O'Connell is this new wave under the rookie scale.
18:51 Let's find out what he's got.
18:52 And obviously, we may see him much sooner than later.
18:56 Let's see what he's got.
18:57 But when I look at O'Connell, and I flash way back to the old Bill Parcells checklist
19:03 on the quarterbacks, which may be a little outdated now, there are some things that I
19:08 like that I see relative to O'Connell.
19:11 And to me, I kind of err on the size issue matters to me.
19:16 I think O'Connell is certainly taller than Bryce Young, for example.
19:21 I think durability wise, both he and Love are in pretty good shape.
19:25 So it'd be interesting to watch Jordan Love, because it's time to find out a little bit
19:32 like, OK, we delayed the benefit of this very high draft pick.
19:37 Let's see how it pays out.
19:38 So there's always interesting stories around the league.
19:40 I think that's a really interesting one to watch.
19:43 And for Raider fans, depending on how the season goes and who's lining up a quarterback,
19:48 maybe something to keep in mind.
19:49 Agreed.
19:50 All right, Johnny, let's go to a different subject now.
19:54 USFL, XFL.
19:57 Berger.
19:58 West.
19:59 I love it.
20:02 If they didn't-- I love that the NFL is involved now.
20:05 There's only going to be one spring league.
20:07 I like guys.
20:09 I wish that each team could maybe designate some guys for the USFL.
20:15 I think this could be great for the NFL.
20:19 And I think it can be great for the new league.
20:23 Now let me just give a couple of caveats, especially if the NFL is actively involved,
20:27 which I think they should be.
20:28 It's a place to try out new camera angles, rules, all kinds of stuff.
20:35 And it's a chance for players to get some meaningful reps.
20:38 And if the NFL is involved, so you've already got guys maybe on your practice squad or guys
20:44 at the end of the 53 getting more reps, I think it's great.
20:48 And it, quite frankly, gives us some great football to watch in the spring.
20:53 Your thoughts?
20:55 This is a dream.
20:56 The dream has been a pro league that would start after the Masters and basically end
21:02 as soon as Memorial Day or essentially sometime near July 4.
21:06 So this is a dream.
21:07 If you're a specialist, if you're a kicker, if you're a punter, if you're a long snapper,
21:12 this is also your dream come true.
21:14 There's no better possible prep or tryout for the NFL than literally a spring pro league.
21:21 Now if you've got some actual guys from practice squads that are released or encouraged or
21:25 pushed it to play there, you're amping up the level of competition.
21:29 So I love this.
21:31 This is a dream.
21:33 There is enough support for it.
21:35 I think in less than five years it will stick and we're already a year or two in, depending
21:41 on how you want to count it.
21:43 So this is a really big deal.
21:46 This is an enormous deal for development too.
21:49 There's not a giant roster, a giant practice squad for all hundreds and hundreds of players
21:57 to develop.
21:58 There's no better place that they can develop.
22:00 You could do work one-on-one training, one-on-one coaching, whatever.
22:04 But actual game reps and a lot of times with actual really good coaches, Greg Williams
22:09 and other guys that have had long-term success, controversy, but success, this is a home run.
22:17 I love the season right now.
22:18 We got plenty of season to go, but I'm telling you, and I know many of you out there, after
22:24 the Masters is done, you're going to be ready.
22:28 You're going to say, I will take a look at that.
22:30 I will take a look at that football here and there.
22:33 It's not necessarily to be the NFL, but it's terrific.
22:37 And it's a humongous opportunity.
22:38 You want to talk about growing the game?
22:42 To me, forget going to Asia or Europe or South America or all the other continents.
22:51 This Pro Spring League is it.
22:55 We've seen the states, the biggest football states in the country, as you know, they play
23:00 12 months a year.
23:02 This is going to work.
23:04 So I talked to two players and an agent when I knew we were going to talk about this.
23:09 I talked to them on Thursday and I asked them what they thought of the merger.
23:15 Here's what the agent said.
23:16 I think it's great.
23:18 I think every practice squad player should be afforded the opportunity to play.
23:25 The only caveat being if another team chooses to sign them, they have to sign them to the
23:29 53.
23:30 So I would encourage all of my practice squad players to play if that was the case.
23:36 If it's a player on the bottom of the roster who's under contract, we would have to develop
23:42 something to protect them should injury occur in the spring.
23:47 Not against it, just saying there would have to be some type of a protection afforded.
23:51 I thought that was really good.
23:53 Both the players, one of them is on a current NFL practice squad that I know.
23:58 He said to me, "F yes, any opportunity I have to put film on television to show people
24:04 what I have, I would gladly do it.
24:07 I'm a competitor.
24:09 Let's go."
24:10 The other one said, "Would love to do it as long as it ended in time to let my body heal
24:16 for training camp."
24:17 Of course.
24:18 So that's an agent and two current players.
24:21 I thought that was fascinating.
24:23 When you streamline this thing, you back that up with the calendar.
24:28 So okay, we have to end our final spring league game by this date to give whatever, four to
24:34 six weeks, whatever it takes to be medically reasonable to give that guy time to heal.
24:40 Folks who haven't seen this, you're going to watch this spring.
24:43 You need to pay close attention to the kickoffs.
24:45 The future of NFL kickoffs is already there.
24:49 Other future rules are in these leagues.
24:52 This is a tremendous asset to the NFL and to hopefully a growing competition committee
24:59 to plant these seeds, see how they grow, and then apply it to the NFL game.
25:03 I think the kickoff is the first place we're going to see that.
25:06 And I would say as soon as next year in the NFL, I would not be shocked if the kickoff
25:11 lineup, basically the kickoff for the standard kickoff, if you see that change and somewhat
25:16 mirror what we saw last spring.
25:18 And we'll see again.
25:19 - Johnny, we go up against a clock, but I want to get this last one in.
25:23 I don't like all of the foreign games.
25:27 I understand that the NFL is trying to grow the league and I understand what they're trying
25:32 to do.
25:33 I get it.
25:34 I have no problem with one a year.
25:36 Let's do one in Germany, let's do one in Japan or wherever they want to do it.
25:40 I don't care.
25:41 I don't have an issue with that.
25:42 Man, I just don't like where it's going.
25:45 They're taking a home game away from a team, which is revenue.
25:51 I'm just not a fan of all of it.
25:53 Again, I understand if they want to do one a year, and I think maybe what they should
25:58 do is give each team an opportunity and just say to those teams, okay, listen, anybody
26:04 want to volunteer for it?
26:06 We'll go do it.
26:07 I just don't like it.
26:08 I know the players love the travel, but talking to players who've done it, I mean, they're
26:15 like, listen, it's really hard.
26:19 When you go to other foreign places, they don't have the big rooms that we have, the
26:23 big beds that we have.
26:24 They don't have the food that we have.
26:26 Yeah, we bring our cooks, but it's a lot on the players and then bam, they're expected
26:31 to come back and play again.
26:33 I know this.
26:34 Then a lot of them don't, it's not like they get a ton of free time out to visit.
26:40 I'm not a huge fan.
26:42 One a year, fine, but is it going too far?
26:46 I think, yeah, it's probably going too far, although let's give them credit, it is going
26:50 better.
26:51 The logistics of getting there are much better than they were.
26:54 I heard Jim Miller earlier in the week talking about when he first went as a player and now
27:00 as the Falcons and Jaguars have gone, they're in a whole different ballgame.
27:04 We'll give them that, but it's disruptive.
27:12 One of these two teams, the Jaguars and the Falcons, they're going to go over there and
27:17 come back and not necessarily be the same.
27:21 Their season is getting disrupted.
27:24 I like the idea from a East Coast time zone perspective of trying to minimize the impact
27:31 of the trip and basically treat it as just going to another city, almost even maybe cutting
27:37 the trip short as some folks have really traveled on a shorter calendar.
27:42 I'm not sure that it's fair to ask them to play, although it's a professional business,
27:47 but they're playing at 9.30 in the morning when they're very much used to playing at
27:53 one o'clock in the afternoon at the earliest.
27:57 For East Coast folks, it's going to feel earlier if you're a team from a different time zone.
28:02 I would like to see that push closer to noon Eastern.
28:06 It's not a huge sacrifice to ask for the folks in London, especially if it's a one time a
28:10 year event, but I'm not a huge fan of it.
28:14 It's a game of ours in the featured foursome for that reason, because somebody's going
28:18 to get disrupted in London this weekend.
28:22 Just going to tell you real quick, one player who's played in one of these foreign games
28:27 told me, he didn't say anything about the time of the game.
28:29 He didn't care about that.
28:31 He just said the food and the fact that he's in a bed and he goes, "I've got half of my
28:39 bottom, half of my leg hanging off the end.
28:41 I didn't sleep good.
28:43 It was just extremely uncomfortable."
28:45 He goes, "Then I come back the next week, I'm expected to play."
28:49 He goes, "None of us were ready."
28:52 He said it cost them the game when they got back.
28:55 Let's go on.
28:56 Let's do our big fearsome foursome.
28:57 Let's go.
28:58 It is the Jaguars and the Falcons.
29:02 It says ATL here.
29:04 Don't think that Trevor Lawrence does not get excited every time he plays the Falcons.
29:08 This is a big one.
29:10 The Jaguars got to have it.
29:11 They're going to get it.
29:12 Yeah, I think Falcons are going to get it.
29:15 I'm going to tell you why.
29:17 Because of all of the accum de ma of traveling overseas that I've learned, the passing game
29:25 gets affected more than anything.
29:27 The Atlanta Falcons are rushing the football.
29:31 If this were a game in America, I'm taking the Jags all day long.
29:35 Because of what I know, I'm riding here with the Falcons, B. John Robinson, and the rushing
29:40 game.
29:41 That is interesting.
29:42 That is interesting.
29:44 There's going to be trouble.
29:45 Somebody is going to lose these next two that we're going to talk about.
29:49 The Bengals and the Titans.
29:52 I have no idea where that's coming from.
29:54 It's all right.
29:55 It's all right.
29:56 Let's go.
29:57 I know where the Bengals and Titans are going.
29:58 Somebody is going down, and there's going to be fallout from that.
30:04 It's a contract game.
30:05 This is the difference that Joe Burrow makes.
30:10 Where's it at, John?
30:12 At Tennessee.
30:15 Yeah, I'm going to go with Joe Burrow.
30:21 It's tough.
30:22 This may be the end of a window closing in Nashville.
30:26 Windows are open.
30:27 Wait.
30:28 I'm going to make a big prediction here.
30:31 I think Bill Belichick gets fired at the end of the year, and it's going to be Gerard
30:38 Mayo or Mike Vrabel as the next Patriots coach.
30:44 There's a time stamp on this.
30:45 People are going to come back and look at it for sure.
30:49 Now, if the Patriots somehow make the playoffs, I don't think he gets fired.
30:53 Sure.
30:54 But if they don't, I've learned some things about the relationship between Bill Belichick
30:59 and Bob Grafton.
31:01 Well, let me tell you this.
31:04 It's been a long time, extraordinarily long.
31:08 When I think of the old Mike Shanahan rule that you don't want to stay a place more than
31:11 ten years, oh boy, these guys have stayed way more.
31:15 Now, the Dolphins, are they set up for a face plant?
31:19 Yes.
31:20 The Dolphins at the Bills.
31:22 Go ahead and build it up, because it's going to be a big hit to the chin.
31:26 The Bills are going to kill them.
31:28 Yep.
31:29 I'm riding with Josh Allen and the Bills mafia all day long on this one.
31:36 Now, the last one, I don't need to tell anybody out there watching.
31:40 They know how much fun and how chippy the Raiders and Chargers can get, but you got
31:46 to look at the records here.
31:47 That's why this is in our fearsome foursome.
31:50 This doesn't look great.
31:52 I don't see any home field advantage.
31:56 I don't see any home field advantage in Los Angeles.
31:58 No home field advantage for the Raiders.
32:00 Yes.
32:01 I mean, if anything, it's that way.
32:04 This one, I think, is real trouble for the team that loses.
32:08 I'm going to go with the old Bill Parcells rule, picking the team that can afford to
32:12 lose the least, the one that cannot afford to lose.
32:17 I got to take the Chargers here by less than three.
32:20 Okay.
32:21 What's your score?
32:22 23-21.
32:23 I hate to say it.
32:24 I'm going to take the Chargers here by less than three.
32:25 I'm going to take the Chargers here by less than three.
32:26 I'm going to take the Chargers here by less than three.
32:27 I hate to say it.
32:28 I'm going to go Chargers as well, 20-17.
32:33 This is a game I expected the Raiders to lose.
32:35 I think they will.
32:37 I'm not rooting against them.
32:39 You saw my article.
32:40 I'm not calling for Josh McDaniels to get fired, but he's got to win.
32:46 I'm hoping he does.
32:50 I've seen nothing from Jimmy Garoppolo since the season started to show me that Jimmy Garoppolo
32:58 is the guy.
32:59 He had a great training camp, great dual practices.
33:03 He looked good.
33:05 He has looked terrible.
33:08 He found a way to win, the swag, the I believe, but these last two weeks have just been horrible.
33:15 Until Jimmy proves me wrong, I'm riding with the Chargers this week.
33:19 All right, everybody.
33:20 I'm Hondo Carpenter from Sports Illustrated's Fan Nation, Las Vegas Raiders Insider Podcast,
33:25 part of the Fans First Sports Network, joined by my good buddy, the great John Schaub, who
33:29 has his podcast, Spartan Pride, on the Fans First Sports Network as well.
33:33 We'll see you all later.