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00:00All right, Paul Serra is in for Kang this week. Doug is out. I thought, why not? Let's still do
00:05it. Let's roll with the football questions. It's a fun bit. We do it every week, every Thursday,
00:09coming up here at 1030, and we're a little bit behind schedule here, but we're going to get it
00:13going. Paul? All right, so the first question. The NFC North has become the toughest division
00:18in football with the Lions, Vikings, Packers combined a 37-8 record. In three years,
00:25what will the division look like, and will it still be the class of the NFL?
00:30I'm going to answer the second part first. Yes, I still think it's going to be the class of the
00:34NFL. I don't think the Lions are going away anytime soon. Obviously, they've locked up
00:38their key players to long-term contracts. They'll get it done with Aiden Hutchinson as well
00:44in the next year, and I think that they've just done a great job with drafting and constantly
00:50rebuilding what they've got and building up what they've got. They haven't even started
00:53rebuilding. They've just built it up, and they'll have the chance to add more depth,
00:57which turns into starting qualities. We saw with Christian Mahogany getting his first start last
01:02week. He looked pretty good, and he's a guy they drafted this past season, so they think that he
01:07could be an answer in the next year for what will cause them some difficulty at guard with both
01:14guards probably going real soon. They've drafted some other offensive linemen, Giovanni Manu,
01:19that they think can step in, and those are inexpensive pieces that you need to be good
01:25and be starters while you're paying all these other guys. As far as the other part of the
01:30question, the way I look at it, I think Chicago is going to surpass Minnesota. People who listen
01:36to the show know that I am very bullish on the Bears. I think the Bears have an excellent roster.
01:41They just have been horribly coached and horribly mismanaged. I think they've got too many really
01:45good players to not be there. They've still got some good draft choices coming up, and I think
01:51they're going to add to that team. They've got also the opening for head coach right now,
01:56which could really put them over the top. I'm not sold on Minnesota. That's the thing. I am
02:00sold on Green Bay. It's another young team, youngest team in the NFL. They're very good.
02:04Minnesota, I do not like Sam Darnold. I think what he's done this year has been fantastic,
02:09great story for him, and he'll probably earn a contract with somebody else and fall back to being
02:13Sam Darnold, but Minnesota's got so many offensive weapons, it feels like anybody can step in there
02:17and do well, but they're going to trust it to J.J. McCarthy, who I just don't buy either because
02:22J.J. really didn't do anything in college when he was at University of Michigan. He wasn't throwing
02:26the ball all over the place. I don't know if he can do that in the NFL. I'm very skeptical on
02:31Minnesota, but very bullish on the Bears. Yeah, I'm with you on that. I do think the
02:36Minnesota of all the teams, I feel like will fall off the most just because I don't know what
02:41they're going to do at quarterback over the next three years. Is McCarthy the guy, or are they
02:44going to re-sign Darnold and just have McCarthy sit for a while? I don't really know what's
02:49going to happen there. I do think the Bears will come up, but like you said, the Lions and Packers
02:54are built to last. The way Holmes drafts, the way Green Bay always seems to find new players
03:01and just plug and play guys every year, so I do feel like at least those two teams for sure
03:07will be the cream of the crop three years from now.
03:09So Josh Allen of the Bills is having a heck of a season thus far and is clearly the media
03:17favorite to win league MVP. The last week or so, Saquon Barkley has emerged as a possible
03:23contender as well. Why has the media backed off Lamar Jackson as the MVP? His numbers are through
03:28the roof good and markedly better than Allen's. I'm not really sure why they have. I mean,
03:34and then they have the game like you had last night and Lamar now has,
03:39you want eye-popping totals? How's this? 39 touchdown passes to four interceptions.
03:47Now last weekend, some vlogger out there was touting the praise of Josh Allen and also of
03:54Justin Herbert of all people while dogging Lamar Jackson. He said, quote, Lamar is just a runner.
04:01Now did Lamar Jackson set the single season NFL record for rushing yards for a quarterback?
04:06Yep. He's got over 850 yards or whatever it is. That's great. But I said 39 touchdown passes,
04:1539. Josh Allen has had a hell of a season and he's got himself 26 touchdown passes,
04:23but he's thrown less touchdowns by a lot more interceptions.
04:28What Josh Allen has going for him. And this is probably why, and they're going to look at,
04:31well, the, the regular season record, they've got a better record on the regular season
04:35than Baltimore. Not by much, but last I checked, neither guy plays both ways.
04:40So it's the league MVP for the regular season. And therein lies the other part of Lamar Jackson's
04:46conundrum is that he doesn't have post-season success. And I think media members they'll,
04:52they'll hold a bias because of that. And I also think that they think, well, he's got Derrick
04:57Henry in a backfield too. So too many weapons. I don't get it. I think it should be Lamar Jackson
05:03all day long for the MVP discussion. I think he's earned it. Well, I think, I think what holds him
05:07back, I think is the post-season stuff, because at some point, if you've got to keep reminding
05:12everyone that it is a regular season award, you almost are admitting that he shouldn't be the
05:18MVP because how valuable really is he? If he doesn't take his team anywhere in the post-season,
05:24I do think that kind of costs him somewhat in the, in the argument.
05:26Oh, I definitely think it costs him. I think something else that cost him low key way under
05:30the radar was that I think he rubbed people the wrong way when he went out and negotiated his own
05:35deal. I don't know why that would rub people the wrong way, but I think it does. I remember he
05:39called it some backlash from that, from media members. Like, what are you doing here? Don't
05:42you take the, you don't put that in your own hands. You want to let somebody else do that.
05:47So that you can stay out of the negotiations, but he negotiated himself a contract,
05:51pretty good contract, and he's happy.
05:55It's been reported that the Bears plan to interview Lions OC Ben Johnson. Nobody here
06:00wants this to happen, but let's assume for a moment that he does leave to take the coaching
06:05job in the off season. Are the Bears the best option for him?
06:12I thought this was going to be tougher for me than really what it ended up being. I started
06:15looking at the teams that are going to have head coaching openings or teams that might have head
06:20coaching openings. We know the Bears do. And again, from question one, I'm bullish on the Bears
06:27because of what they have individually with players. I think it is the best option for him.
06:33I think that the Bears will end up hiring somebody in the front office that works well with Ben
06:40Johnson in order to convince Ben Johnson to take that job. And that somebody may come from the
06:45Lions organization. Don't be surprised if that happens. Caleb Williams is a talent. People want
06:52to dog him, and I think there are reasons too, but he's a rookie, and I think people forget that.
06:58He's a rookie, by the way, who's only thrown five interceptions on a season. He's not had the year
07:03that CJ Stroud had last year. That's an anomaly. However, he's had a pretty good season. He's
07:08thrown for over 3,200 yards, 19 touchdowns, the five picks. He's run for over 400 yards
07:15as well on this season. He's taken care of the football pretty well, and for a guy who's been
07:19sacked 60 times, he's shown he's pretty durable as well. He's going to figure out that he can take
07:25off and run and keep himself protected by only getting five yards rather than thinking he's got
07:31to get 15 or 20, and he'll be a better quarterback. There's too much offensive talent there, and on
07:36defense, they got players too. I think it's a great place to go to for him, for Ben Johnson.
07:41Unfortunately, I agree with you. I do think the Bears, I mean, it depends. Do the Giants go to
07:45ball and chain, and then he gets to choose his own quarterback? Maybe he would prefer that over
07:50a second year of Caleb Williams. You don't want to go to the Saints because they're capped to hell,
07:54and who knows what's going on at quarterback. Derek Carr's always hurt. Rattler's not a
07:58quarterback. The other dude that they had playing from Houston, Jake Hayner, he's not a quarterback
08:03in the NFL, so I do agree with you. It's probably the best option, at least for this cycle,
08:08unless the Raiders open up or the Giants open up, and then he maybe gets to choose his own quarterback.
08:16So the Chiefs have looked beatable and at times fragile this season, yet they're 15-1 as of
08:20yesterday. Some have said that they've been the beneficiary of bad officiating almost every week.
08:26Do you think the league is trying to protect Mahomes and the Chiefs? What is their destiny
08:30in the postseason? I don't think the NFL is trying to protect Mahomes and the Chiefs,
08:35although there is video evidence that would suggest otherwise. Week in and week out,
08:39there's always plays that people complain about, and it has become funny meme territory when you
08:44go on Twitter and you see the videos put together of the officials that just blatantly love the
08:49Chiefs and Mahomes or the Chris Collinsworth stuff that goes on with Mahomes, and I say that,
08:55but that's only my 51. When we talk about the show, what's your 51? Where are you in terms of
08:59percentages? My 51 says I don't buy the conspiracy theory, but there's a good percentage of me that
09:05does. As far as the Chiefs in the postseason, I don't think they make it to the AFC championship
09:11game. They've been playing with fire all season long. Mahomes doesn't have the same weapons he's
09:16had in years past. Guys are banged up, and frankly, I just think that Baltimore and Buffalo,
09:21I think they're giant obstacles that they're going to have to face one of those teams,
09:26and they're not going to get past them. See, I'm with you. I don't think there's
09:31a conspiracy. I genuinely don't think the NFL cares who wins the Super Bowl because
09:35their ratings are so good no matter what. But they love stars. They do, but I don't
09:39think it really matters to them, and I kind of feel like the Chiefs are going to win a very
09:43unenthusiastic 27 to 23 Super Bowl, where you're just like, how are they winning the Super Bowl?
09:48The Chiefs are going to win again, huh? Yeah, I just think they're going to because Patrick Mahomes
09:53is the best quarterback ever, man. He's pretty great. He's just so good. It's kind of unfair
09:58because I do feel like the Eagles had a better team than the Chiefs, and I think the 49ers had
10:02a better team than the Chiefs, and it didn't matter. Although I would like to see the Lions
10:06play the Chiefs in the Super Bowl because I think that'd be interesting. I'd definitely
10:08love to see the Lions play the Chiefs in the Super Bowl, just like everybody in Detroit.
10:14All right, so the Texans, Chiefs, Steelers, and Ravens have all just completed three
10:18games in 11 days. We all enjoy football on Christmas Day and evening, but is this schedule
10:23fair for teams in December? I don't think it is. I think it's too late in the year to do something
10:30like this. Of course, there's advantages and disadvantages to having that many games clustered
10:34together. The advantage is that you get more time to rest, and now I bet you all four of those teams
10:40are like saying, thank God we've got time to rest. But at this point in this season, the disadvantages
10:45to me far outweigh the advantages, and the major disadvantages are that's too many games in a short
10:52amount of time. You're risking yourself to giant injuries, particularly when you're getting this
10:58close to the end of the season. I mean, there's one game left for these teams. So with the one
11:04game left in the season, if you've suffered an injury, and I haven't looked at the injury report
11:09from what happened with the game yesterday, the games yesterday, or for that matter, for the last
11:13couple weeks, but it's just it's a percentage game you're playing that it's not in your favor.
11:18Guys get hurt all the time, and with the frequency of games, obviously that percentage goes up and
11:24the odds go up. I think this late in the year, it's ridiculous to have that many games in that
11:28short of time. I agree with you on that. All right, last one real quick. Sam Darnold has had one heck
11:38of a comeback season in Minnesota, and he wasn't even likely to start. It was supposed to be J.J.
11:42McCarthy had he not gotten hurt. Which quarterback who has been or nearly has been written off will
11:48be next year's Sam Darnold? I say this and I'm kind of looking over my shoulder because I'm sheepish
11:56about this. Trevor Lawrence can't be this bad, right? I mean, we saw him in college at Clemson.
12:04He was unbelievable as a freshman. We all said, wow, this guy could enter the NFL right now and
12:09be the number one pick as a 19 year old. Obviously played there three years because he had to,
12:14but this guy has been mung for most of his career. His quarterback rating year to year
12:23is rookie season, 71.9. Then it jumped up to 95.2. Everybody thought, all right, here we go.
12:27It's the kind of guy we thought in the good trajectory. Then it dropped to 88.5 and this
12:32year it's 85.2. Trevor Lawrence has only thrown, now he's done for the season here, but he threw
12:3811 touchdown passes in only 10 games. That's terrible. It's a terrible ratio with seven
12:43interceptions, but he can't be this bad. He's the prototypical quarterback.
12:50Yeah. I mean, he was really, really bad and he started getting bad last year too. He was like,
12:55he had a really good campaign a couple of years ago and then last year he wasn't very good. And
12:59this year he started off even worse. I mean, is there any saving Bryce Young?
13:05I think there is. I like Bryce Young, but I feel like he's limited because he's
13:12diminutive in stature. And I don't, I mean, I even, I still think Kyler Murray is limit. I
13:17think Kyler Murray may have hit his ceiling. So I, I don't know. But for me, it's Trevor Lawrence.
13:21I liked, I liked the idea of Bryce Young. I, I love Bryce Young as a player, but I just don't
13:26know if he's that good. I just, he's fun to watch. There you have it. The wide nine Omaha
13:30around the league blitz thingy on 97, one, the ticket.