This is an I Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. Thanks for listening to the Heard podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio in noon to three Eastern, 9 a.m. to noon Pacific. Find your local station for the herd at foxsportradi.com or stream us live every day on the I Heart Radio app by searching Fox Sports Radio or FSR. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Now let's get this party started. You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Here we go. Our number two on a Friday, our friend Albert Brear, senior NFL reporter, Monday Morning quarterback will be joining us in a few minutes. NFL schedule release. NFL sometimes I sort of got going online last night. I think you jump through hoops sometimes, just get all the schedules. I had to go team by team by team. But I thought last year, remember the Patriots had the easiest schedule. I do think it matters. I've always been a believer in that. At one point they were on a 10 game winning streak and the furthest west they went was New Orleans. Look at what they did to the Patriots this year. They start at Seattle two weeks later at Jacksonville, month later at Chicago. Oh, there's the Munich game at the Chargers. Like listen, we know the Jets are dysfunctional in most years and Miami this year especially is bad. If you take out the Jets and Dolphins games in division, I'm just gonna read you the schedule for the Patriots. If you took out the Jets and the Dolphins at Seahawks, Steelers, at Jags, Bills, Raiders, at Bears, Packers, at Lions, at Chargers, Bills, at Chiefs Broncos, I mean the Patriots have never been more thankful they're in a division with the Jets and the Dolphins. That is a rough schedule. Rarely do you see a team that's in the Super Bowl and then you see their schedule come up and go, yeah, they started 0-4 at Seattle, at Jacksonville, at Buffalo, that is rough. That is rough. Albert Brear is joining us and I've been saying this about the schedule today is for instance, people said Chicago had the roughest schedule but if you look at it, it starts soft, they get the Lions Packers at home late and then in the middle, a dome and a warm weather team as the weather turns in Chicago. An old journalist told me there's two ways to write the same story. There are a lot of different ways to take tough games, how you parse them out. Denver, brutal, Chicago, there's no, the toughest two game stretches at the very end of the season, they get warm weather dome teams coming into Chicago and the weather stinks. You, during the break, you brought up something about San Francisco that I think is fascinating. I, the NFL, so there's a Chicago schedule on the screen. So I mean, look at this now, here's my take on this, is that yeah, all those home games to start, I mean, that is, they want Chicago to be good in the news, they did not front load the schedule, they made it very negotiable. You had a thought on what, but the NFL does punish those, it's not a ping pong lottery, they, what did they do to the Niners that you noticed? Yeah, so like, and this is something a couple of people have pointed out to me was like how, when you're coming back from Australia, that game's on Thursday, but it's actually a Friday game over there and now you're traveling back 18 hours or whatever the trip is to get back to San Francisco, you've got to reacquimate, you've got to reset. And on the other side of that, they gave the Rams an extra day where the Rams are going to play the following Monday night, the Niners are playing that Sunday afternoon, which is an interesting twist. And you hear a little bit about some of the things that were going back and forth and you go back to the owner's meeting and Kyle Shanahan was vocal and his criticism of the league with this and that they're putting us in Australia and they're already taking a home game away of ours and taking that home game away and putting us in Mexico City. And so I think half jokingly, he suggested, well, why don't you put the Rams with us in Mexico City then to even it out? So not only did they not do that, they gave the Rams the extra day of rest on the back end of the Australia trip. Yep. And oh, by the way, within a month after the Australia trip, the Niners also have their first game with the Seahawks and a game with the Broncos. So they got a little lippy. Ha ha ha ha. Ha ha ha ha. Well, I know this. That international thing is a big deal for the owners. The owners really care about that. So I do think there's a little bit of an element of not wanting people complaining about having to go overseas. And it sucks for the players. It sucks for the coaches. Like for the executives, it's great. They go over there, they'll have three or four dinners. They'll get to meet people. They'll see things, all that different stuff. Like if you're in it, if you're a player or a coach, you're basically just going over there to play a football game the same way you would be if you were going to Cincinnati or Nashville or Tampa or wherever else. It's just a longer trip and there's all kinds of logistical hoops that you have to jump through. You wouldn't have to jump through otherwise. And of course, for all of those guys, the mindset is how is this going to affect the bigger picture of our entire season? Listen, you speak of international games. There's nine and some of these games would be the best game of the weekend. And I think your point is well taken is that the owners really care about this and owners are ultimately commissioners, bosses. I actually looked at the Christmas games and the Thanksgiving games. Easily the best slate in my lifetime. It's unbelievable. It's unbelievable. And first of all, the Christmas stuff is a direct hit at the NBA. That's obvious. But I will tell you this, that as well run as the NFL is and as intentional as they are, I don't think in my opinion, they've necessarily done a great job on Thanksgiving for through the years. They've, a lot of times the day after Thanksgiving, there's more good college football games I like. I thought Thanksgiving and Christmas were insane this year. So here's what they're looking to do, right? Like, and I had Ani Bose tell me this last year is there VP of broadcasting. I talked to Hans Schroeder about this yesterday. And I think like part of what they're doing is this a shift philosophically. It used to be that like, you take a look at the four o'clock Dallas window on Thanksgiving and you would say, well, we don't need to put a big brand name team in there because that's gonna get a huge rating other why. Anyway, so like let's just throw whoever in there and that game will be propped up by the window. Last year that shifted. Last year they said, let's swing for the fences. Let's try to break records. So if you look in the opener, they put the Cowboys opposite the Eagles. And then on Thanksgiving, they put Mahomes and the Chiefs opposite the Cowboys. And so the mentality had shifted a little bit to, instead of using the window to prop up the game, let's use the game to prop up the window and really try to break records and all of that different stuff. And so I think you see that all over the schedule here. You've got the Super Bowl rematch, obviously, in the kickoff game. And then like you said, Christmas is unbelievable. Thanksgiving is unbelievable. Here's the other thing is these are all gonna be packages that they're gonna be looking to sell when they get back to the negotiating table with the broadcast networks and with the streamers. And you already see it with what they're doing with Netflix, right? Netflix has got like what do you call it, quote unquote, this special events package, week one, week 18, Thanksgiving, even the two games on Christmas, the five game package. That's really the idea here is like, how can we create something that's valuable for the networks, for the streamers to bid on? And obviously this has been sliced up different ways. I think we're winds up hurting you a little bit Colin, because remember this is a zero sum game. Go and look at week 16 on Sunday, right? That's that Christmas weekend. Right now, and look, a couple of games are gonna fall out of the Saturday window. So this'll change, but right now the one o'clock window is two Fox games, two CBS games, and that is it. And then the late afternoon window is one Fox game, one CBS game. Now one of those games is Niners Chiefs. So that's a huge game obviously. But that's six games total on Sunday afternoon, two more coming. It's really light. Sorry, Scott Hansen, but it's really light in there. So like that's where all of this is like, I think incurring a cost. And they're gonna have to figure out how to navigate that. But that's why they wanna go to 18 games because they want more inventory to deal with this sort of thing. Okay, so the NFL bailed on something I think they should have bailed on. That you don't have to put everybody on prime time once. And I think teams that are poorly run year after year, poorly owned, shouldn't be on TV. And the NFL's bailed on that. I was a little surprised, maybe because of Brady's ownership, Fernando Mendoza. The Raiders feel bigger. I also think John Spytek. I think Spytek had a great draft and off season. Linda Spytek, I think they have, they went and found six starters. Even Naylor, the receiver from Minnesota, I think said, Love Naylor, I mean, the Kobe Dean, Kway Walker, yeah, good off season. I mean, they went and found six good starters. I was shocked that the Raiders didn't have a prime time. I mean, I look at this schedule. I mean, the Fox, I mean, again, Raiders rams on Fox, but there's some games here that I think are, I'm interested in. Yeah, and I always think the rookie quarterbacks are interesting and I think you're right. Like I probably would have looked at that and said, like we get to November, December, Mendoza. I mean, at least history tells us Mendoza will probably be starting. Yes. And that's going to be of interest to people. So you could take a Raiders game in November or December and maybe throw it on a Thursday night, right? Like I thought that would have made some sense, but I mean, like they're one of five teams. That's a crazy number. One of five teams to not get any prime time games. And again, I think this is like leaning back into that whole thing. Like, and this is a bigger, you know, conversation about television and the way the contracts work and the fact that everybody is spending so much for the contracts and it isn't tiered as much as it used to be where Monday night football costs less than Sunday night football. So are you okay? Giving maybe a little less to ESPN in that scenario. They feel like they've got to give a really good product to everyone, to all the different broadcast partners. And so, you know, it's interesting. We talked about the give and take a second to go, right? So you know what the give and take is for this? And this is, is that certain premier teams now are feeling the brunt of it and having to play all the mid-week games. The Rams, and I've got this up now, like right in front of me, the Rams schedule. So they play that Thursday, which is a Friday in Australia, then Monday, then they've got another Monday game four weeks after that. So that's two short weeks in the first six weeks of the season. Then they don't actually have a buy because they don't have a full buy because they've got that Wednesday game, which was a buy in front of it, a Thursday after that, then they play on Friday again on Christmas. And so when you are taking teams, again, the five teams, the Jets, the Titans, the Raiders, the Cardinals, and the Dolphins out of the mix, that means you're, you know, putting more weight. You're putting a heavier burden on the premier teams. And there are eight teams that have six or seven prime-time games, which is an incredible number. But that's a burden that those guys, that all those teams have to take on. So I have had a player and an executive in the NFL in the last five or six weeks. Question Omar Khan and really what's happening with the Steelers. They got worked in the draft on Mackay Lemon. Very embarrassing. This Aaron Rodgers situation is weird. He's in Pittsburgh. They don't know where he's at. That's not good to get out. Now, in fairness to the Steelers, they are old school. They still spend more money than anybody on defense. I mean, they've been toned after years. I mean, they went offence, but it's Mike McCarthy. We all said that's a safe hire. But I look at the Aaron Rodgers situation. And I know Aaron, this is his personality. He gains, he likes control. He's gonna do things on his watch. Now he gets surprised when the packers and the jets move off him, but this feels weird. What is going, I mean, by Aaron's standards, it feels weird. What's going on? I think there are two things. I think the first thing is, like, I don't think ownership there wants to sink to the bottom of the league, which has colored a lot of the decision-making there. And I think a lot of football people would tell you that this is probably the point to rip the band-aid off. In fact, you could have made an argument for that a year ago. They were an older team a year ago, but they bring in Rodgers to take the last swing at it. It didn't quite work out to the level that they had hoped. So, okay, like now in 2020, and 2016, you ripped the band-aid off. And this would have been the year where it's like, okay, maybe we hire a Chris Shule to be our head coach, go with a 30-something guy like we've always done, and we hit the reset button on the roster. Instead, they go the other way, which I think telegraphed. They don't want to sink to the bottom of the league. So that meant bringing TJ Watt, Jalen Ramsey, and Cam Hayward back. And if you look at what they did in acquiring veteran players, Michael Pittman, almost 30 years old, Jamele Dean, almost 30 years old, Rico Dowdle, running back going into his eighth year, like those were their big-time additions. So they've almost leaned further in to what's an older roster that isn't built for Will Howard or Mason Rudolph. So now they're leveraged in, like you said, on trying to win now with this group here. And Aaron Rodgers has quite a bit of leverage in this situation, looking at where everyone is at. Maybe he doesn't want to play for $10 or $15 million next year. Maybe he wants a little bit more than that. Does that make things awkward? I still think that piece of it has to be worked out. I think the likelihood is that he's there. But I mean, you already came for a cut rate last year. I think it was $12.5 million. You came for a lot less than what you're worth last year. Are you willing to do that again? Was there an expectation you would do that again? And if you want more, how much more? Like, I think all of that plays into how this is gonna play out over the course of the next couple of weeks before they get to their veteran mandatory mini camp. So it used to be, you'd give a quarterback three years, maybe four, and then the Mannings, Peyton Manning famously had like a year four where a lot of interceptions. And Eli was a little bit of a slow starter. That's not the league now, usually by the second season. So you look at the draft, Caleb Williams hit, Drake may have hit, Jaden Daniels one healthy hit, Bo Nicks hit. I think Michael Penix is on the clock this year. Two is there. They'll go to two very quick. By bringing in Kyler Murray, and that we've seen this in the league, Sam Donalds, a great example, Baker Mayfield, Geno Smith in Seattle. We've seen quarterbacks were talented, go to places that have dysfunction upstairs, and then they go to a well run operation. I view the Vikings as smart, well run operation. They got to get the GM. But I mean, to me, the signal is, the JJ McCarthy thing publicly will say this, but it's over. Do you think it's a real competition? I do, but I think the context of it's a lot different. I think what is lost here to some degree is that they did want to create competition for him last year. And because Daniel Jones had a better opportunity in Indianapolis, and because Sam Donald had a better opportunity in Seattle, they weren't able to get either of those guys back, but they wanted one or the other back. They wanted one or the other back in the room with JJ to compete with him. Now, when that didn't work out, they went all in. They said, we're giving you all the reps, we're giving you all the work with your teammates, we're giving you a chance to build the confidence of everyone around you. And we know how that worked out. Right? So now I think they're doing what they intended to do last year, which is we're gonna put the heat on you. You are off scholarship and we're gonna see how you react. And I think that it's probably a way of accelerating the process of evaluating him. Right? And that like, now he knows he's on the clock. And now he knows that, if he can't, and this is not like one of those situations where it's just like, we're bringing in somebody to push them, no, like Kyler's coming to win the job. You know? And so, yes, it's a competition, but the context of the competition is different than it would have been last year. If they hadn't successfully worked that out last year where Darnold or Jones had come back, I think the idea would have been like, let's see if, like, let's let JJ beat him out. I don't think that's what it is this year. Right. I think this year it's let the best man win. We've got some veteran players on our roster and a really good core. We're not gonna throw this year overboard in the name of quarterback development. We're just gonna put the best guy out there. And if the best guy is JJ McCarthy, God bless he becomes the quarterback. But there is no, like, there's no more like, oh yeah, we spent the 10th pick in the draft in him. So Ty goes to him. I like, I don't think that that's what it is at all anymore. Yeah. All right, Albert Brear, Monday morning quarterback. That stuff on the Niners that you brought out is funny. And I think it's accurate is, listen, I'll give you one last night. I just said this last hour is the NFL told teams we're not going to edit your social media. We trust your judgment, right? And some teams did really funny stuff. I did not, but they do not like friendly fire. I thought the Charger social media team taking a shot at Vrable. They don't like that. You know, they're there. I saw little tweets last night about, and I thought, I don't think that's smart. I don't love it. The Chargers have a history with it though. They took shots. Harrison Bucker, they took a shot at Deshaun Watson. They took shot at Ty Reakill. Those are all sensitive situations, right? Yeah, I don't know. I'll tell you which one was good. The Titans one was awesome. Oh, it was great. I don't know. It was great. Yeah. No, I think, listen, social media is funny. I always say, you can get fired for a post. You're not going to get a job promotion for a post. I'd be very careful. We've seen companies go sideways. And, but I just, when I saw those, I thought, I don't know if the league loves that, but maybe you- Yeah, I will say this though for the Chargers. The Chargers, it was subtle. And I do think to some degree, now the Vikings had a little reference in there if you looked for it, like, and I'm not talking about the fake reference. There was the, see the comments, like, like thing on the, on their reference to the Patriots. I, like, I do think, like, if no one had touched it, then the story would have been that no one touched it. And so I think in that way, the Chargers kind of bailed everybody else out because now the league doesn't have to answer that question. You're one step ahead of me, Albert, as always. That's funny. Good to see you, bud. Good to see you, Kyle. Yeah. Kyle Shanahan goes to the league meetings. He's complaining about the trip and the Rams get an extra day off and they have to play an early game on Sunday. Like, that, listen, sometimes you just gotta zip it. Not every meal should be shown on social media, not every opinion, not every mood we need to see on social media. One more herd. The herd streams 24 hours a day, seven days a week within the I Heart Radio app. Search herd to listen live or on demand whenever you'd like. Hey, this is Jason McIntyre. Join me every weekday morning on my podcast, Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre. This isn't your typical sports pod, pushing the same tired narratives down your throat every day. Straight Fire gives you honest opinions on all the biggest sports headlines, accurate stats to help you win big at the sports book and all the best guests. Do yourself a favor and listen to Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre on the I Heart Radio app, or wherever you get your podcasts. Not every schedule to me jumped out to me. I thought the Rams and the Seahawks are good teams. Pretty tough schedules, not overbearing, not unfair. They were just naming Ram schedule as what a Super Bowl, first place level team is gonna play. Same with Seattle, nothing jumped out to me. Denver, early San Francisco late. Not having the Raiders on TV, that was interesting. Chargers, I think the league knows the Chargers and the New York Giants are gonna be good. And I thought the Chicago Bears scheduled. Don't kid yourself, Chicago is a, especially because the weather's cold. LA is a huge market, but the weather's nice in the winter. So your TV numbers are down. I think they call them HUD numbers. Chicago, it gets cold, people stay indoors, they watch the Bears. Same in Philadelphia. Those markets matter and the NFL knows it. So I thought Chicago, of all the teams, I was told they had a brutal schedule. I didn't see it. I thought it was incredibly workable. Here's J-Mac with the news. No, no, no, no. Turn on the news. This is the Herdline News. You know, a fun NBA topic all off season's gonna be what are the Warriors do? Well, Colin, Steph Curry apparently's not going anywhere. There's a report now that he does not wanna retire anytime soon and he wants to play at least 20 seasons in the league. He currently, next season will be his 18th. So this was his 17th, he just ended 18th next year. So that'd be three more seasons, Colin. He only played 43 games due to injuries. When he was healthy, he was awesome. But Jimmy Butler's coming off the Achilles. You got Draymond Green. We don't know what his future is. Steve Curry just came back. Warriors are weird. I keep hearing the LeBron and warrior. I'm not buying that at all. Just none of that makes any sense. Why would you have LeBron, Draymond? I don't know. I'm not sure what to make of this warrior situation. You know, for a couple of years now, I've been saying, I don't wanna see Curry on a playing team, get him to a contender, but everybody's like, you're crazy. They're not moving. No, I think basically Kerr signed a two year contract. He wants to be, he wants to do the swan song of Curry's contract. But again, they moved Kaminga to Atlanta so they don't have that trade chip. Yeah, I just, I think they're average. And I listened, go look at their record last year against playoff teams. It was dreadful. It was like a bad Eastern Conference team. But you know, this is, you know, it's a very insular franchise like they're, they kind of do what they do, but the NBA is not the NFL. You can't go, there's no exits off this interstate. Like they're just, it's the reality. One of the great things about the NFL, it's the league of hope, Patriots awful Patriots Super Bowl. You can't do that in the NBA. You need multiple drafts. I mean, as good as Wemby was, he didn't improve the Spurs one game the first year. I mean, as good as Cooper flag is, Mavericks were like 30 games under 500. That's not the way the NFL works. I mean, Wemby's in year three, he could go to the finals. Great, they did it in year two. But yeah, so by and large, the Warriors don't have a quick path to the top. And they're in the West. Right. And their Hail Mary was getting lucky and getting a top four pick and can they figure it? You know, could they land? And they botched that with Weisman. Remember, he was their top five. He didn't play much in college. I'll give him a little out. Weisman didn't resurface elsewhere. He played very little in college. He was incredibly raw. If you remember, that was a terrible draft. It was bad. And so it's like, okay, they were kind of stow. I think that was the ant draft, wasn't it? Yes. I mean, ant was the one guy that you knew could play. They could have had Lamello ball if memory serves. I mean, I don't have to tell my head. He's too silly for their franchise. But he's a good young player. They have no good young players. Don't don't get me pods. I know, I know we were loving pods for a couple years. He's a good 14, 15 point a game guy. He's the fifth best guy on the team. I don't know. Anyways, all right, let's move on. Colin, a couple good NFL stories. This one's not great. I am, you know, putting my hat in the ring for the Green Bay Packers to be a potential team of Destiny next year. However, we just got word that Micah Parsons, you know, Gudakun's the GM is saying, hey, he could be ready for the start of the season. Now Adam Schifter is saying it's likely he'll start the season on the Pup List, missing the first four weeks. Now we look at the Packers schedule and that's not the end of the world because the first four weeks, they were given kind of a very light slate. Micah Parsons, a major game changer. And I will remind people through about 12 weeks last year, they were one of the three or four best teams in the league. Okay, so let me throw this at you. There was one show in the country, you're part of it, that with a Micah trade, we said, settle down, come back in a year. One year from that trade, Micah was hurt last year, Micah's not ready this year, and the Cowboys defense is a different looking defense. Wait, wait, oh, this took a turn. What are you saying? That as I said the day it happened, do not judge trades in the moment. You wanna win the press conference, come back in a year and see what Dallas gets for the picks. Quinn and Williams, Kenny Clark, Rashon Gary, Overshown Healthy, Caleb Downs. They don't get Caleb Downs if they don't make the trades. Right, like they're able to operate, now they probably would have the Caleb Downs pick, but not the later pick, the bottom line is, Dallas has dramatically improved their roster defensively, moving off Micah and having the flexibility to make trades. Green Bay, lost Jeff Halfley, Micah got hurt, and now he's not ready. And Micah's a great player, and I understood both teams' view, but there was this sense, it was a horrible move by, what are you doing? Well, let's see, we'll see what happens with the Cowboys, but if you drill down on the end of the pack or schedule, this is what I love. So not only do they have a soft opening, which will be favored in all four games, I think they'll be favored in Tampa, and probably at home against the Bears. Hell, probably the first six at home against the Cowboys. Look at the last three. Miami coming to Cold Weather Green Bay, okay? Houston, Texans coming to Cold Weather Green Bay, Detroit Lions coming to Green Bay, that's huge. Green Bay got a schedule break. Another team with a buy before the Rams too, look at that. Yeah, Green Bay, you and I agree, got a real break in schedule. I'm just saying the Micah trade, it was a landslide of opinions, it was a dreadful trade for the Cowboys, and I said, it's like judging a draft on the Monday after the draft. You can judge, like I thought the Jets and the Browns, Cleveland did really well, but you don't know if guys stay healthy, you gotta judge at trades. It's the same with Kobe and Shaq, when they chose Kobe over Shaq. You knew Shaq going to Miami with D Wade would have a success for two or three years, but Kobe eventually got Pal Gasol and kind of the Lakers won that trade eventually. Eventually. I think Dallas won the Micah trade eventually. Well, one of my things to look at is the quarterbacks you're facing. I don't know who's starting for the Vikings, I don't know who's starting for the Falcons. Malik Willis is in a new spot. The Jets have Geno Smith, look at the quarterbacks the Packers face, I'm just telling you, this is a 12 win team, okay Colin? You gotta, people gotta watch out, like Bryce Young, sorry, nobody's afraid of Bryce Young. Tyler Shaq, the bye week before the ramp, this schedule is really nice. Well, first of all, Tyler Murray's gonna end up being really good for Minnesota. He don't scare anybody, okay? Let's be real. By the way, your guy Caleb Williams, somebody who just, wait, Colin's top three guy and he completed like 58% of his passes, there's, the best quarterback in the league in the fourth quarter. The, go look at the line of Green Bay at Minnesota. Go look at the line. Is that a Green Bay minutes? Week one, I haven't seen it, what do you have the line? There's no way the Vikings are favored, no way. Go look at the line, you've got it all posted as a W. It's a W, just put it in the win column. Final story, now this one I find to be crazy, okay? We haven't talked about Shaddour Sanders a lot lately. I mean, we don't even know what's going on in Cleveland. But Dion Sanders says he'd like to speak to Brown's new head coach, Todd Munkin, about his son Shaddour. Dion plans to travel to Cleveland and sit down with Munkin because he's bothered by some of the negative talk about his son coming out of NFL circles last year. Listen to this, Colin. Oh boy. I think it's vital that as a coach, not to dad, I could tell him a few things about growing how to get him going. That wasn't asked of me a year ago. I don't understand it. I anticipate and I can't wait to have that conversation with Coach Munkin. Why would Kevin Stafansky, a superior coach, go ask Dion Sanders who has a losing record in college for his opinion on Shaddour? Or maybe that's why Stafansky got the hell out of dodge, okay? This is like, okay, so my kids play youth sports. I don't go talk to the coach. No coaches wanna talk to parents. You think of the NFL, Todd Munkin gives a rats behind about what Dion thinks about his son and fairness? This is one of the most insane takes. I had to double check to make sure it wasn't AI. If you listen to Dion, Dion said last year, nobody asked me. So Kevin Stafansky was the coach last year, a two-time NFL coach of the year. When he got let go with the Browns, every team interviewed him. So Dion says last year that he didn't ask me. Now Todd Munkin's never been a head coach, so maybe Dion's making a point is, hey, I've been a head coach, you haven't. Last year, Stafansky considered a very good coach. How do I know that the minute he was let go, he was on the top of everybody's list until John Harbaugh got let go, right? Like he was the number one guy. Why would I say, oh, I need to talk to Dion Sanders who's won about 30% of his games and it's a defensive guy. Like why would I talk to him? Even the logic, like what gets him going? Dude, you're in the NFL. If I need to know what gets you going, you're probably not built for the NFL. Nobody, this is staggering. Nobody in the NFL looks at Dion Sanders as a great coach or somebody that's gonna impart great offensive wisdom. Now, as a star and he's funny and he gets attention and he's interesting, but Colorado does not look like a well-coached team. I do think Dion has made them kind of fascinating, not as much now as two years ago, but I think the Dion experiment, you can certainly argue, it sold a lot of tickets. It was interesting, I watched. I'm not bad mouth in the experiment, but I mean, they're not, they don't beat good teams. They don't look, you know, they're not what you would call. I mean, there are college coaches, Kurt Signetti, Nick Saban, you know, like you could see an NFL team saying, hey, let's go meet for lunch. Let's talk about that. Like I could see certain college coach, like Marcus Freeman, brilliant guy. Marcus Freeman is in town, he calls the coach of, you know, John Harbaugh, hey, let's go. Can I have lunch? I wanna talk about, I could see Harbaugh going. It's Notre Dame, he's smart. Let's go have lunch. Let's chop it up. So Colin, your son gets a job in media relations. He's struggling. Are you gonna call the company? Be like, hey, I got some ideas on how to get my son started. Like that sounds insane. I have a company. If any dad or mom started asking me questions, I'd move off the employee. I'd be like, get me out of here. Check please. Check please, get me out of here. Jay Mack with the news. Well, that's the news. And thanks for stopping by. The Hurtly News. Yeah, it's like, let your kid row their own boat. Right? Like let him row their own boat. Cowboy, I'll tell you what. I said something last year about Dak Prescott and I'm gonna double down it again. Is most quarterbacks, I make up my mind by year two, Thanksgiving. How I've discovered, I actually respect Dak more than it feels like on this show. That's coming up. Be sure to catch live editions of the Hurt weekdays in Newnister, 9 a.m. Pacific on Fox Sports Radio, FS1 and the I Heart Radio app. Saturday night is baseball night on Fox. And this week, we're in the Big Apple for the Subway series. We got Aaron Judge in the Yankees versus Juan Soto in the Mets or Padres Mariners tomorrow at 7 Eastern only on Fox. So I think a lot of fans have felt that the NFL for years has chosen to over expose the Dallas Cowboys. But they're still a huge brand. We all know that. I think they're still number two, number three, they could be number one. But I don't think with this current schedule, they were overexposed. I think the Cowboys are one of the eight or nine most interesting teams. They have two star receivers, a star quarterback. I mean, they move the chains. They have an offensive coach. They'll be one of the top five total offenses probably in the NFL. So I think they're one of the top eight or nine most interesting teams. And there were exactly five teams that had more prime time games, this schedule release, and four more that had as many games. So it puts them in a group of nine teams getting the most TV exposure. I think they're on the bottom end of that, eight or ninth most interesting team. I don't think they're as fascinating as the Chicago Bears. I think the Rams are more interesting to watch. The Chiefs with Mahomes, Buffalo Bills, Philadelphia is always a circus, but I think Dallas is much more interesting than most teams in the league, especially most of their really interesting players are offensive guys. So I looked at the schedule though, and you know what my takeaway on Dallas's schedule is that for years, there are certain athletes that I'm seeing as like harder on or less enamored with than the general consensus in the media, Baker Mayfield, Cam Newton, Carmelo Anthony, Austin Reeves. And I've always said about Dak. My favorite part of Dak is his intelligent and his maturity. I don't think aesthetically he throws a pretty ball. He went in the fourth round for a reason. His college coach, Dan Mullen came on our show once and said, no, we didn't think it's not much to look at. But the truth is when I looked at Dallas's schedule, what jumped out to me is of the 17 games, I think Dallas has the better quarterback in 13. Now I think Lamar Jackson is more explosive. I think Sam Donald and Matt Stafford at home are really good quarterbacks. Jordan loves go either way. When Jordan's hot, he's better. He's often not. Now he faced Dak in a playoff game years ago and just was unbelievable. So, but I think my ultimate respect for Dak Prescott is when you look at the schedule, and this is a way to look at your schedule, try to be as objective as you can as a fan. How many games do you have the better quarterback? That will go a long way in telling you the outcome of your games. And if you have the better quarterback and you believe the better coach, that's how you become New England or Kansas City in a dynasty. So, I mean, I don't think a ton of Brian Shottenheimer. I don't think he's an elite coach, but I look at Dallas's schedule, I'd be happy with it. It looks like an eight or a nine win schedule. And I don't think they're overexposed. I think there are years they have been overexposed. They have, you know, six prime time games. The Giants game is a legit early season prime timer. So is the Packer game, the Eagle game, the Seahawk game and the Jaguar game. I, they got a Thursday game against the Buccaneers, but it's Baker Mayfield and it's Dak Prescott. And those Thursday games are weird because like the Sunday window is still key and Monday's huge and you wanna take care of Netflix. The truth is, yeah, it's Amazon. You wanna give them some good games, but Thursday's kind of the least attractive. In my opinion, it's the one window if the NFL's really sitting there. They wanna take care of their broadcast partners on Sunday afternoon, Fox, CBS, Monday night football matters. They, hey, new guys in town, Netflix, Amazon, Thursday games though, they're not because no practice, less prep time for older players. They're not the best played football games in my opinion. So I guess you could argue the cowboy butt game is a stretch, but it's Baker and Dak. I'm gonna watch. Here was Albert Breer on the schedules and the new way the NFL schedules are created. This is shift philosophically. It used to be that like, you take a look at the four o'clock Dallas window on Thanksgiving and you would say, well, we don't need to put a big brand name team in there because that's gonna get a huge rating other why. Anyway, the mentality had shifted a little bit to instead of using the window to prop up the game, let's use the game to prop up the window. Yeah, look at that Dallas schedule. You know, it's a consistently tough, not brutal schedule. And I think that's the better quarterback in most of these games. I mean, he's better than Jackson Dart. He's better right now than CJ Stroud in terms of consistency. Okay, so Dak is not better than Lamar Jackson. We would agree, right? Right, right, right. Would you go with a push with CJ Stroud? Cause Dak is on the road in that one. I am well against an elite defense. I know, I think CJ, I've got to watch some games. I thought it was pretty ugly last year. Okay. I think Jordan Love and Dak is hard. I think Jordan is more gifted, better arm, but he's inconsistent. Dak, I kind of tend to get the same guy every Sunday. Jalen hurts twice. You really think Dak's better? Yeah, I trust Dak to throw a ball over the middle of the field. Okay. And so Dak versus Brock Purdy? I mean, I think Dak's more talented. I mean, every analytics advanced stat says Brock's better last two years, but whatever. Sam Darnold? Sam Darnold just raised a Super Bowl cup and was brilliant all season. Stafford? Stafford's better. Trevor Lawrence? Trevor's more talented. Jaden Daniels. Hey, you and I are both on the what is going on? I think Jaden's more talented, but that he wasn't good last year pre-injuring. There. Thank you. This is an I Heart podcast.
