Roundtable time with Jeremy Greene and Travis Hancock.

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Have you done it yet? Plan your trip at DistinctlyFayettevilleNC.com Man, sometimes Friday just hits a little different. Today it does. A tomato-based round table. Camelot. Camelot.

It's only a model. We go all the way up to the mountain. Jeremy Green, ESPN Asheville, at ESPN Draft Nerd, and my friend Travis Hancock. Mac and Bone, WFNZ in the mornings at T-Bone WFNZ. Let's get at it. Welcome to the round table. Gentlemen, how are you?

Hey, what's going on? Thanks for having me. Yeah, I'm friends now with Jeremy Green because the only way I make friends is via the round table on the Adam Gold Show.

Perfect. So I'm friends with Jeremy Green, Patrick in Greenville, and Randy Fly. This is my social outing of the weekend is on the Adam Gold Show. I'm just trying to bring people together, Jeremy.

How you been? Yes. The only people that can tolerate me are the people that do the Adam Gold Show. There you go. I appreciate that. You've extended my social circle five times. I am nothing if not tolerant.

And bringing people together. All right, let's get right to it. I think this is a very straightforward round table. I'll start with you, Travis, since you are in the belly of the beast. Is Frank Reich coaching the last eight games for survival? Yeah, I think so. I think the play calling back and forth, there's so much upheaval just internally within the organization.

I call it the organization of disorganization. I didn't really like that yet fully. I'm working through some things here, but it just feels like Pepper knows he made a mistake. We were told by a source in August during the preseason that Pepper wasn't happy with Frank Reich.

And we were kind of like, it's just the preseason. And the reason that he wasn't happy was sort of the aggressiveness of Frank Reich's personality, the lack of kind of getting after people a little bit. It's manifesting itself in the November that the things we heard that Pepper was worried about is happening now. So, you know, you could blame Pepper and say, what a disastrous mistake. But at the same time, if he recognizes that mistake right away and doesn't let it linger, maybe he's learning a little bit not to let it go too far.

So there's a lot to unpack here, Adam. That is kind of crazy, by the way. Whatever that phrase was, I think works better on a coffee mug than a T-shirt. But just so if you're going to trademark and try to merchandise, I think coffee mug is where to go. Or maybe a tumbler.

You're the fourth person I've tried that on this week and I haven't really gotten the full. That's a good one yet. No, it's a good one. No, it's very good. I just think it works better on a mug. That's all. I would just go mug B over T-shirt. Jeremy, are we looking at the last eight games or fewer of Frank?

I mean, I think you have to. This reminds me of, you remember when the Philadelphia Eagles went really heavy into free agency and they started calling this a dream team and you brought in Vince Young and Nandi Awsome. And then they all got to Philadelphia and none of them knew how to play anymore. And all of a sudden that team goes five and four. I think that's when they drafted Lane Johnson. That's what this reminds me of. I saw Frank in camp.

I don't remember exactly when it was. He looks like he has aged 10 years in 11 weeks. And he's aging like a dairy product. And I think it's all because he puts this expectation on the team. You bring in a Giro Averro, you bring in Thomas Brown, all these guys that are so well thought of in the industry.

What do you actually do well at this point? You Brian burns well when he's on the field, but you don't have any playmakers. The Miles Sanders thing hasn't worked out and somebody has to roll.

I think it should be fitter. I don't know exactly who it is that you're going to get to take this job. I mean, because you got to think about it. You've got an owner that's pretty new to this. And he's made the two vile owner mistakes over the course of a handful of years. You brought in the college guy, which never works.

Then you brought in the retread guy, which almost never works. And I feel like that has to make Ben Johnson, our buddy from up here in Asheville. It's got to make him look at that job and go, is this where I want to get my crack at the Apple as a head coach?

Yeah, I see your age point. I said the other day that he came in with the joy and passion for the job, like Blanche Devereux. And now he's aging like he's the Arthur.

Like every radio guy, he will come in with all this energy and I'm going to change the world. And six months later, he's gone full grace in September. Maybe he, maybe he misplaced his just for men.

Brian Day stole it. So much just for men that it's not safe anywhere around your point though. You're right though. Here's the thing. They could fire Tepper. They could fire or excuse me. It's not even a real person. Hey, it's Friday.

I'm getting loopy. They could fire Fitterer. They could fire Reich. The problem is this would be David Tepper's ninth coach hire or ninth coach overall counting football and soccer since he's been here. So he could hire some new people.

Does that mean it's going to be different? Cause he's the problem. Yeah. No, he, he has a problem.

I said this earlier and I want to move on to another topic, but I said this earlier. I think David Tepper has removed emotion or allowed too much emotion to take over into these decisions because the reason to hire Matt rule was his first impression as a person is so strong. He seems like a really nice human being, somebody you want to be around and then you watch him coach and you go, yeah, why did I like him again? He stuck with him too long and I, I kind of feel like David Tepper feels like he made a mistake by sticking with Frank Reich, sticking with Matt rule too long and he's going to probably pull the plug on this, but Jeremy hit it. I think the bigger problem is your personnel much bigger deal to me than who the head coach is because there is nothing to work with for Bryce. Let me, let me get another, another topic.

This is sort of related to football and this will probably be quick. Jeremy does Carissa Thompson's confession that she made up some sideline reports in her career. Does it matter? It doesn't to me. And, and I'm, look, I'm probably not the best person to answer this question because I really quickly moved from, I'm not a journalist. I didn't go to journalism school. That's not what I do. I'm an opinion guy. And I look at her and I never looked at her like Tracy Wilson or, um, Michelle Tafoya.

Those are journalists. I always felt like Carissa Thompson. It was almost like, um, it was almost like a commercial break of she, she comes with the knowledge and I never really took any of it to heart. And I'm not trying to slight her.

That's not what I'm saying. I just never looked to her for necessarily journalistic practices. She had a narrative. She wanted to, because they always did the puff pieces of this guy would talk about the family and things like that. So it doesn't bother me, but I definitely understand why it bothers other people.

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Find Zicam in your local cold and flu aisle. I think that she was really smug and arrogant with her comments, and I think she often, to Jeremy's point, it never seemed like the journalist type to me either, but it completely discredits all those that are journalists. And I thought it was smug from the standpoint of she was talking about the job and yeah, it was a long time ago, but there's only so many of those jobs.

This isn't like, you know, everybody can do this. There are people today working so hard to get to the point that she's at. And she just came across to me as almost like she's almost doesn't really appreciate the jobs that she has or had before. There are a lot of people that would do anything for her position.

There are not a lot of those opportunities. And it almost like it to me, it's like you take it for granted a little bit. I don't want to make that I'm just I'm glad you said that, Travis, because I'm curious. I always felt like that's why she got moved off of that and to the desk. And I, I never looked at her like Melissa.

I think Melissa Stark and Michelle Tafoya and Tracy Wilson, they're the highest high side of this industry. And that's why they got there and that's why they stayed there. And I just don't view her that way. And maybe it's my own impression of this is what changes that. Here's the thing. I think I think for people, for for just general sports fans. The job of the sideline reporter is. I mean, completely irrelevant for general sports fans, but it bothers people in the industry. Because for those of us who have done everything at some point in their media careers, I know how hard that is.

I wouldn't want that job. If you do that well, then you are doing a ton of work for just very few little bits of impact in a broadcast. So you mentioned Tracy Wilson or Pam Oliver or even Erin Andrews, who's sneaky great at her job.

They have to work so hard. And Carissa Thompson's admission, her confession kind of eats away at their credibility to an extent. I think it says more about Carissa Thompson than it does about anybody else. But all the people who are saying who cares, they're also right, because it is such a small part of the broadcast. It almost I think she used I think she used that sideline job as a stepping stone to other stuff.

Sure. All the other ones like Holly Rowe and all these great ones. Holly was awesome about that.

That's that's there. That is their their end game is to do what they do. To Jeremy's point, I never felt that Carissa Thompson's end game was going to be a sideline reporter. And and she kind of proved that she wasn't necessarily a journalist by saying, just make it up. Who cares?

All right. What should be the punishment for the Cincinnati Bengals, Travis? Yeah, when you start messing with that injury report, that can be that could be a major thing. I'm not sure exactly what what it would be at this point in time. But man, that's yeah, that's that's why you see injuries get put on there like Bryce Young thigh injury yesterday, although not a big deal.

You have to pretty much include everything. And it's crazy. Adam and Jeremy, we have followed Duke football year with Riley Leonard and never really quite noted status right up into the game. So college football, you don't know anything. They don't have to do it right. But in the NFL, you have to. Yeah, the NFL.

You have to you have to lift everything. So I'm not sure. Maybe Jeremy knows what the harshness level is at this point in time. But yeah, no, they're going to they're going to get hit for that pretty hard. Jeremy, Jeremy, how about an Amazon price time game?

No question, Jeremy. How about a million dollar fine for the Bengals? I'm totally fine with that. So long as they give me back the money that I had on the Cincinnati because as soon as I went down, I went, well, we've set that on fire because I don't believe Jack Browning will be leading us to the victory.

No, no, no, no, no. All the sports and and college is tough, like Travis said, because they don't have to give you those things. The NFL's always differentiated itself that way. That's why they do that.

I mean, I know there's will the other team needs to know this. It's for the gamblers that made this sport what it is, because you've got so many people that are invested with fantasy and betting. And I used to be really into the NBA. One of the things that really took me off of that is I couldn't wager it anymore, because Anthony Davis would go through the layup line and all of a sudden his eyebrow hurt or his feelings hurt. And he wasn't in the lineup anymore.

And over time, I just stopped watching it. So I think you have to punish Cincinnati. I think you have to punish him swiftly. And it all comes from that picture.

If it wasn't for the picture, we wouldn't know any of this. And Zach Taylor should get a fine for lying in the postgame, because that's what he did yesterday. He flat out lied in the postgame. Was he injured coming in?

No, not that I know of. Yeah, no, you knew. All right. Final thing.

I'm going to paint a scenario for both of you. You tell me the four teams that are in the college football playoff at the end, OK? Alabama and Georgia both went out. Alabama wins the SEC title over Georgia. Florida State wins out.

Washington wins out. Texas wins out, meaning they have one loss and the win at Alabama. And whoever wins between Ohio State and Michigan also wins out, which would give us three undefeated teams, three one loss teams, including the two time defending champion Georgia, which would be the only one without a conference championship. Texas and Alabama with the head to head. Give me the four teams in the college football playoff. Jeremy, Michigan, Washington, Florida State, Alabama. Because everybody will make a deal of Texas, Alabama, and Texas has the head to head.

And that's true. But Texas also won the weaker conference. West Virginia, the third best team in the Big 12.

And that really should tell you everything you need to know about how good that conference is. And then you have to look to me, it's worse laws. So Texas has the worst laws because Oklahoma has been just, just a peach in giving me all the easy shackles betting against them. I accept Texas. I've really been recovering from Texas ever since.

So it's a net loss. But I would say Alabama is the one that has to get in and you have to leave Georgia out because they don't have any of the things you wanted. Schedule wasn't good enough.

They don't have the conference championship and they will have to head to Alabama. Travis, man, you paint a picture like you're Bob Ross. I am that whole portion.

I kind of look like a fat Bob Ross. So I appreciate that. I think they're not leaving the SEC champion out from the championship game regardless of the loss of Texas. So I think Dan was in there. I think the Big 10 undefeated is in there.

So that's two right there. Georgia will be interesting. How do they handle Tennessee tomorrow? Do they do they annihilate Tennessee? You know, some of this is going to get down to that, that I said stuff here for the state. I wouldn't think they would leave out an ACC champion, but their resume, man, if he's rolling, I think he's rolling along at the end.

That was a lot better. But if Clemson falls to Carolina or South Carolina, you know, it's the weird thing about college sports is when you need your opponents and your rivals to look better than you probably want for your resume. So I think it's Bama. It's Michigan. I said the SEC is not as strong this year.

Is it necessarily top to bottom? It's not Bama, Michigan, Florida State. And I think Washington would be in there, although I think Washington's going to lose tomorrow, though.

I think they're going to get taken out of this thing. OK, you use their undefeated. You broke my rule.

You broke my rule. I told I told you Washington was winning out. I think that both SEC teams would get in.

I think Michigan would get in and I think Washington. The layup here is that I'm a lifelong Florida State fan. And 30 years in, I've had almost no joy watching this sport.

I can cover it. I consume it. And it does really nothing but kick me right in the jaw every single year because I've been leaving Florida State, which, by the way, they've been basically saying they would do the entire time. Yeah. The problem is that Florida State's schedule isn't getting any better.

And that's the thing. They put them at four in the initial poll. And I lambasted the committee because I think you painted yourself into a corner because Florida State's done all of the good things it's going to do. Because beating Florida doesn't really mean much. And Louisville is just not going to get the credit because they're Louisville. So when all of these other teams get good wins, how do you not leapfrog them if you say that what they've done to this point wasn't that impressive?

Yeah. I think Washington. Georgia-Bama. Georgia-Bama. If Bama beats them, it depends on the type of game it is also. That happens once in a while where, hey, man, if Bama rolls them, I'm not saying they would, but just for the sake of what we do, if Bama beats them, you know, 31-17 and Georgia doesn't look the part. If that's 38-35, classic, well, that's going to make a difference as well, I think. Yeah. A hundred percent.

Style points and what kind of TV show was it is always going to play a role. Man, we knew this would be good. Travis Hancock, WFNZ in Charlotte, Jeremy Green, ESPN Asheville. Friends of mine, friends of each other because we all make connections here on the tomato-based roundtable. Thank you very much, gentlemen. We'll do it again. All right, man. Thank you. Absolutely. Oh, man, that was fun. All right. Love those guys. Oh, that was tremendous. WFNZ.com