Stephen A. Smith Defends Texans QB C.J. Stroud Over Packers' Jordan Love On ESPN's First Take
Seth Payne & Sean Pendergast react to Stephen A Smith defending C.J. Stroud against Jordan Love on ESPN's First Take.
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00:00On first take last Friday, Stephen A. Smith, they did a segment where they were comparing
00:04Jordan Love to CJ. They were talking about quarterbacks you would start a team with other
00:08than Mahomes. And the argument started to come down about Jordan Love and CJ Stroud.
00:13And part of the reason this argument came up was because Mike Tannenbaum, former GM
00:17of the Jets, was on the panel that day. And he had gone on a podcast, I don't recall which
00:22one, may have been on McAfee or Rich Eisen. One of those shows, it was with the Rich Eisen
00:26actually, it was. It was with the Rich Eisen. And he'd said, after Mahomes, the next guy
00:30would take would be Jordan Love. Out of all the quarterbacks, it would be Jordan Love.
00:34And we actually played that audio, I think, a few weeks ago. So it was relevant based
00:38on the opinions Tannenbaum had expressed before. Stephen A. Smith III had heard this, and boy,
00:45he took Tannenbaum to pound town here.
00:48Let's look at CJ Stroud. Third quarterback in the last 50 years to lead the NFL in both
00:55passing yards per game and touchdown interception turnover ratio. What are you talking about?
01:02This brother had a 157 passer rating in his first playoff game against the number one
01:06ranked defense in the NFL, which is Cleveland. We saw what the man did during the regular
01:11season. And by the way, Mike T is younger than Jordan Love. I mean, what are you talking
01:16about? You're younger and cheaper. You, of all people, are as cheap as you are. You actually
01:23going to sit up there and say that somebody who is more expensive, older, and on top of
01:29it all, didn't have the numbers that CJ Stroud had or somebody who would take from him?
01:35Okay. And we should mention too, Ryan Clark is sitting on this panel as well and shared
01:38Stephen A. Smith's opinion. So Tannenbaum is getting double teamed here by these two
01:42guys.
01:43Yeah. Ryan Clark wearing a Steelers jersey. Somehow made it even, I don't know, made it
01:48better.
01:50Yeah. So, so Tannenbaum has kind of knocked back off his feet a little bit. And, and part
01:55of the argument Stephen A. Smith was making as well was, Hey man, CJ was doing this, you
02:00know, the, the green Bay, the, the, the green Bay beat the Cowboys like a drum in a playoff
02:06game. Tannenbaum brought that up and Stephen A. Smith was like, man, that was all Aaron
02:10Jones. They were running all up and down the field all over. And with Aaron Jones, Tannenbaum
02:14kind of exposed his maybe lack of Texans knowledge a little bit here.
02:17Let's go back to that Dallas game. That was a knockout punch. They went up and down the
02:21field against a really good Dallas Cowboy defense. We talk about all their struggles.
02:25Aaron Jones running the football helped a lot. No doubt about it. All right. Yeah. Houston
02:30didn't run the ball last year. Houston didn't run the ball. They didn't run the ball. With
02:35Bobby Slowick, Houston didn't run the ball. That's why they went out and got Joe Mixon.
02:39Houston was a bout CJ Stroud from start of the season to the finish of the season.
02:46Tannenbaum telling on himself a little bit right there. The other thing too, is that
02:49one thing I don't think people really nationally realized or picked up on was how decrepit
02:55the offensive line situation was in the first half of the season where they were playing
02:59with four backups at times. It was really like everything that you wouldn't want for
03:06a rookie quarterback, including the like, well, how people judged those wide receivers
03:11going into the season. Remember there was one of the worst wide receiving quarters in
03:15the league and a lot of people's minds that yeah, he did not have the support of the,
03:20now they did attempt to run the ball. They just didn't do it successfully. They had a
03:25lot of rushing attempts, but yeah, they were not a good rushing football team last year.
03:29Yeah. At all. So Tannenbaum got kind of exposed there by those two guys. And then, so that,
03:34that just blood in the water at that point, Stephen A. Smith goes back in on old Tanny
03:38right here. You got to know how to take the L Mike. That guy RC with me. Hey, CJ Stroud
03:44changed an entire organization. It's not, I, I, I, this is not against CJ Stroud, but what I'm
03:50saying is when you look at what Jordan Love did after sitting for two years and the platform he
03:55has now to me, like when you look at those young skill players, when we're talking about them in
04:00November into the playoffs, they're going to be unstoppable on offense, not just this year,
04:05but going forward. And they got the one piece they needed. So Jordan Morgan, the left tackle,
04:09I think you go down with digs at wide out with Stroud on a football. I mean, that's not a big
04:15deal. 2000, 2010 to 2023, 43 quarterbacks were drafted 43. One of them want to playoff start
04:26as a rookie. One is CJ Stroud. Yeah. The Ryan Clark in there. This is where
04:34I actually sent that clip to Mike Meltzer. Cause he's a jets fan. Yeah. And, and I asked
04:39him whether he was more upset about the former jets, GM, Mike Tannenbaum not fondly remembered
04:44in New York. Was he, should we, should Mike be more upset about Tannenbaum preferring Jordan
04:52Love over CJ Stroud, which you can make arguments here or there, or the fact that Mike Tannenbaum
04:58didn't even understand the assignment. He started going to the argument was about who would,
05:03who would you pick if you were starting a new franchise and Tannenbaum turns it into,
05:08Hey, look at how good he could be this year. Cause he set up for success on this team.
05:12Like that's not the assignment. No, you don't even understand the assignment. And you were
05:16running an NFL football team. What the hell Tannenbaum moving the goalposts. You don't even
05:21know what the goal is, dude. My God, these guys just Stephen a with Ryan Clark as his tag team
05:27partner, we're just waylaying this guy in this segment. And I'm maybe partially I'm saying that
05:32cause I agree with their opinion on the choice between the two, but it was like Mike Tannenbaum,
05:37Stephen a Smith can probably tell when there's people on the panel, like all I've got to do is
05:40yell while this guy's talking and he's going to back down. If you hear like Tannenbaum was trying
05:45to make his points and Stephen a just starts screaming in the middle, in the middle of it
05:50and will not stop screaming. It's really funny. Yeah. I don't, uh, I don't approve of that
05:55tactic. That's somebody who used to be very, very guilty of that myself. I realized, well,
05:59I'm just an a-hole. Yeah. This is not actually, this is not a debate. I'm engaging in here.
06:03It's a shout out. Yeah. Tannenbaum is choosing love over Stroud. Tannenbaum man. I, we interviewed
06:11him on radio row once and Mike was really excited to talk to him because you know, he's a jets fan.
06:17Yeah. This was after this was after this was when he was in Miami. Yeah. But the thing about
06:22Tannenbaum that I realized as we were talking with him, we're on radio row in New York city
06:27and the dude, he's one of these guys who, as you're having a conversation with him on the radio,
06:33he's scanned in the room the entire time. They all like kind of thinking about who do I talk to
06:38next or who's that? Yeah. Like that. This guy's not engaged in this conversation because he's
06:42scheming and maneuvering for whatever else he needs to, uh, those, which is a very successful
06:47strategy. Well, it's a willing networker, but a bad networker. You know what I mean? Right, right,
06:52right, right. I'm all about networking, man, but you got to make sure that people who you're in a
06:57conversation with realize that you're at least giving the impression that you're engaged with
07:01their conversation. You get the impression of like, okay, this guy does not have the common
07:05courtesy to try to actually have a conversation or he's looking for the feds, like one or the other.
07:10He's just, he's waiting to see who's coming in that door. And do they have a warrant? I don't
07:14know that either one or the other Tannenbaum where, uh, are you a bad conversationalist?
07:20Are you, uh, are you a climber or are you running from the feds? It's one of the two.
07:25Um, I need to know how many of these, Ben, I don't know if you're keeping track of these
07:29or keeping them as hot keys. I know we've got at least one in there of mad dog butchering various
07:34names, but it feels like this happens once every couple of weeks. This one, mad dog Russo. This
07:39was on his radio show. Um, of all the names to butcher, this guy was president of the United
07:46States for eight years or Biden doesn't come to his senses or if Obama or, you know, Clinton,
07:52whomever the it's Obama, Michelle and, um, uh, and Barbara and, uh, and, and Barrack if
07:59Barik Obama, if anybody's got the ability to convince him to drop out,
08:04Eric, it's old Barrick.
08:09The R I Q U E Barik Obama. He's a, but that's okay. I think he's, he's, he's
08:17does that pretty consistently. Yeah. Yeah. I remember when he had first had to pronounce
08:22Johnny Manziel, like when Johnny Manziel first burst onto the scene, uh, he, he had a really,
08:27really hard time with Manziel. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Nickelodeon is one he's Nickelodeon Nickelodeon,
08:34right? Nickelodeon. Yeah. Yeah. The best part about the best part about him not understanding
08:40the Nickelodeon podcast, Nickelodeon broadcast was like him not understanding that it was for
08:46children, I think. Cause he was like, I got this Nickelodeon, I got the slime and everything.
08:52I don't want to watch that. What are they doing there? I an Eagle's kid talking to me like I'm
08:58four slime on the heads out. I could see him going into some, some fourth grade production
09:07of his grandkids, uh, seussical and musical or something like, what are they talking about here?
09:14Mispronouncing Shakespeare. Uh, all right. Um, painted Pendergast with you. So thank you,
09:20Stephen, a, for taking up for our guys, CJ Stroud, where do the rockets.