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Now. On with the show. To taste them hill. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Be back with his first career touchdown.
Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Daniel Jones to Tyler Williams. Warren touchdowns The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Tom Pellicero. Today's guests. NFL network insider Mike Garifolo plus latest news and And more.
And now, sitting in for a ridge is... It's tongue. Pellicera. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show. Tom Pellisero in for Rich, who I believe has already grabbed his coat, headed off to dinner with Susie in London.
Is this the first time... That the starting quarterback has been pulled three innings in show history?
Well, actually. We're getting to the fourth here. We're going to the pen. It wasn't a pulled situation, but were we coming back from the Super Bowl? Rich got sick and was like vomiting while he was talking to Dan Orlovsky for Susie.
Susie came in and did the third. Not the first time that's happened with Dan. Right, of course. You never know. Yeah, so he did leave mid-show once.
This is more like the pitch count when you're coming back. The starter, it's his first rehab start. He's going to throw 45 to 50 pitches, and then we got to get him out. Got him out. You know, 50 minutes.
Got to get him out. I feel like I'm Snoop Huntley. Coming in, just shot out of a cannon. Not to make Ritz the Cooper Rush in this situation. And the bar being set where it was, we need you to be more like Jeff Hostetler.
You know, lead us to a championship. I would like that, but that would require the Phil Sims to never return from London. I believe Rich will be with you guys in London at the end of this week, right? Thursday and Friday.
So I need all the good fish and chip spots. I didn't get invited. I'm mildly offended about that. Oh, wow. I would have taken a trip.
Of course you would. I would have been there. But what if Rich has Orlofsky on and once again gets nauseous? What are you going to do? I sat backstage for an hour just now in case something went wrong, technically.
You were ready.
Well, you got kids to watch, Tom.
So, you know, you got to get away from it. Yeah, you just came down to one day. It's abundantly clear to me after being out here for a week. Yes, I have responsibilities at home. that I do need to be taking care of.
There's a listen. There's a lot. We got two hours here. There's a ton to unpack. From the Sunday of week six in the NFL season.
I want to start right there. with the Ravens. And of all the teams. That are sitting there at one and five or in the Jets case 0-6. The Ravens are the one team.
That at least I sit back and still go. It might be okay. Judge Ahn Arbaugh is after the game talking about. The state of the roster, where they are, the disappointment, but also just a. A rather optimistic tone.
quite frankly. About where they stand, the opportunity. that lies ahead for the Ravens. But it takes me back to what I thought at the time. This is not second guessing, and Eric DaCosta has been as good as anybody at roster building and always being aggressive.
But I remember thinking back in March. The Ravens giving Cooper Rush. a two year deal worth up to twelve point two million. was an odd decision. And not because Cooper Rush hasn't won in the league, he has.
Statistically, in terms of wins and losses in his time in Dallas, he's been one of the best. But you've spent so long Building an offense around a quarterback who can move And you go to a guy Cooper Rush who does not move. He is a strict pocket passing quarterback. And when you watch the Ravens' offense over the last, well, let's say seven quarters, because. Started the fourth quarter yesterday.
Also, and Stu Potley's out there, lo and behold. Quarterback run threat, you can call different plays. It looked Like they didn't have a really good plan in place for how they were going to utilize the guy. And that's not to indict the coaches here, but realistically, when you are building. An offense through the offseason.
When you've been building around Lamar Jackson like the Ravens have for eight years. And everything that you're doing in an offseason like this one. is about How do we complement this unique offense we've already put in place and now do things that are additive to it? How do we challenge defenses? With all these things that we can do that nobody else can do, because nobody else has a Lamar Jackson.
When you take away The quarterback run threat. You take away the keepers, you take away the option plays, you take away the scrambling ability. It changes everything and it makes your entire offense more predictable. Think about it this way. The Ravens offense, they've been one of the best teams in the league for years.
at utilizing the tight ends. And not just because Lamar is very comfortable. working the seams, working the middle of the field, and getting the ball to Mark Andrews. Getting the ball to Isaiah Likely. But also because those guys are more like receivers in terms of the blocking phase.
When they get out and Lamar takes off, They can block in space. They're receiving tight ends, but they can do it in space.
Well you got Cooper Rush. And all of a sudden, you're like, we got to play more in line. We've got to change things because this guy's not going to get out in space. Everybody knows what you're doing. It doesn't put those guys in a position to succeed.
When you're building your run game, Again, off the threat of Lamar. Every time that there's an inside handoff to Derrick Henry, You've got the threat. He might pull it and go outside. You might be able to do that once with Cooper Rush. We've seen Tom Brady and Peyton Manning on the occasional naked over the years, right?
Sure. But what Jerry you're not going to do is regularly giving him the option to do that. Derrick Henry finally got rolling a little bit yesterday. First 100-yard game he's had since I think week one. Week one, yeah.
They fumbled the football again. Zay Flowers, who never fumbles, had a shoulder. I don't know if that's a factor in it. It was kind of iffy through the week if he was going to be able to play. He went out there.
He fumbled twice. Makes me think that maybe. there was an issue with the shoulder. But the way that that offense functioned, again, Sue Puntley made the Pro Bowl once, several years ago, when he took over for Lamar. Even then, if you look at the Ravens stats, it's not like they were scored a ton of points, he was playing good enough.
He was like the seventh alternate. Yep. And he ends up getting into the Pro Bowl. But when he came up there yesterday, you're like, oh, this is what we're used to seeing from the Ravens because you had. those types of threats.
As pretty much any team outside of, well, definitely as of yesterday, San Francisco takes the cake. They are number one with a bullet. Bucks are not far behind. We'll get to both those teams in that game, which was a ton of fun to watch. Uh in a little bit here.
But the Ravens have had a ton of injuries. Here's part of what John Harbaugh had to say. postgame yesterday about the state of this Ravens team. This is just why there are so many things in the game itself. I mean, the players we have, we're going to have healthy players coming back.
I mean our quarterback's going to be back. That's probably a big one. Our middle linebacker will be back. Uh Um And then all the things from the tape that we saw, I thought our defense played pretty darn well against a high-powered offense. That was good to see.
We needed to see that. We added a safety. I thought that dynamic was a good dynamic for us on defense when you watch that. You're probably going to feel pretty good about that when you watch that tape again. And within that, the way individual players played.
That's it. Only three teams have done it? Good. Good. What an opportunity.
Only three teams beginning one and five and making the playoffs. This is a 17-game season. And when you take a look at the standings right now in the AFC North, the Steelers are 4-1. They're on a short week going to Cincinnati, which is in second place at 2-4 despite a four-game losing streak. and multiple quarterback changes.
And then you got the Ravens who are tied with the Browns. At one and five. The Ravens though still I tend to Side with John Harbaugh. And this could be totally wrong. Not having Roquan, not having Lamar.
They got Kyle Hamilton back yesterday. They got Rodney Stanley back yesterday. They are getting healthier. Nominate Madabique's out for the season. That's a bigger deal than I think people realize.
They've gone stretches without Kyle Van Doy through the course of the season. Isaiah likely is clearly still getting his legs back underneath him. But I. I tend to believe. What John Harbaugh is selling here, which is that Get Lamar back.
Get Roquan back. Why can't you? Make a run. If you take a look at the Raven schedule, And again, so they got the buy. They're off in week eight.
You got the Bears at home. At Miami. At Minnesota, which has major moving parts in terms of the quarterback position, we'll talk about that in a bit. At Cleveland. Home against the Jets.
And then you got the Bengals twice in a three-week span, which by that point the Bengals will know. Are they still in it? Or does this thing continue to go sideways beginning Thursday night against the Steelers? In a battle of 40-something-year-old quarterbacks on three days' rest, which should be. A lot of fun Thursday night.
It's set up. For the Ravens to get themselves back into this thing. Assuming that Lamar As I said yesterday morning on Game Day Morning on NFL Network, and as John Arbar reiterated, they believe they're hopeful. Hopeful is the best word. that Lamar is back after the bot.
On the flip side of that. And again, we are, we're basically at the one-third point, just like this show. Me taking over for Rich. One third. We're also one-third of the way into the NFL season, six weeks into an 18-week schedule.
Yesterday to me Sitting back after my 2 a.m. wake-up call, doing TV, being back at the hotel by 5:15, watching games the entire day. Look at you. Yesterday felt like The day where a Players on a lot of these bad teams. realized It ain't getting better.
You go back to... The Jets game. Garrett Wilson reacted before halftime. Exactly as I was reacting, watching it. Exactly as Kurt Warner, who was rendered speechless on the NFL network broadcast, was reacting to it.
I have never seen a sequence. Like that in the NFL. From And Richard Kirk kept saying, you know, all the The Broncos sniffed out that fake punt. They sniffed it out because Brees Hall is on the field as the personal protector. What gave it away?
And they didn't run it fast, they took forever to get out there. Big gut. A solid 20 seconds for Darren Rizzy to go, guys, Brees Hall's on the field. You see him, he's going to get the ball. They still run the play.
They pick it up, you're going, okay. That was wild. I don't know why they would have thought they could sneak their starting running back out there on a special teams play. against people as attuned as Darren Rizzi and Sean Payton.
Somehow they got away with it. They then ran a grand total of three plays. Over the final minute, including the last play with 37 seconds to go. And I understand, we heard from Aaron Glenn earlier in the show, there was confusion about did they pick up the first down? Did they not?
But at a bare minimum, You're not at your own 20. You're almost at midfield. And if you don't have a quarterback who you think can at least throw the ball to the end zone and let Garrett Wilson go up and try to catch it. What are we doing here? That's even setting aside some of the other decisions, putting on fourth and one late, where every analytic.
metric would tell you Go for it and try to win the game. Garrett Wilson being apoplectic, I'm with him. That happens sometimes, receivers get upset about getting the ball. This wasn't even like throw me the ball. This was throw anyone the ball.
Not to mention, they ran it on the snap after the fake punt.
So they gave the ball to Brees Hall on a fake punt, but then also ran it on the next first down. There's just there was no urgency. There was no attitude to it And I'm not ripping Aaron Glenn here. He's six games in. Nobody should ever judge a head coach six games into his tenure.
But Nathaniel Hackett back four years ago in Denver. The Broncos hired a game management consultant one game in for lesser sins than what we saw yesterday from the Jets. They literally were like, well, he can't do it. We got to bring somebody in here. The way that that entire game was managed was just.
Frustrate. And I know there's a lot of corollaries from where Aaron Glenn came from in Detroit. He's trying to build a culture. He's trying to build that attitude into the program. But you saw evidence of that even when the Lions were losing early on.
We're going for it. We're a team that goes forward on fourth down. We're a team that is going to have attitude and run the football, particularly in the latter stretch of the season, that first year with Dan Campbell, where he took over the play call and they just ran the crap out of the football. It just seems like the Jets are trying to figure out who they are. And there's a lot of times.
And again, I mean this with deference to Aaron Glenn is a young head coach who is learning. There's a lot of times where it feels like They're a team with nothing to lose. That is plain. Not to lose. Which one he drops back nine times, he gets sacked, and doesn't want to get the football out.
I get to a certain degree, but that moment. I agree. Run the clock down. But snap it with three seconds to go and try to make something happen. You are struggling to find anything resembling offense.
Get a snap off. The Browns One in five. Miles Garrett was at the podium postgame. A guy who lets remember. Back in February January, February requested a trade.
And that was not. A negotiating tactic. That was not him trying to get money out of the deal. That was Miles going, I don't want to be here anymore. I don't want to go through a rebuild.
This is clearly a rebuild. I don't want to be part of this. Andrew Berry, the organization had a plan. It did not involve trading Miles Garrett. Miles trade everything, including going directly to the owner.
And the answer was, we are not trading.
So he did the only other thing he could do as a guy who didn't have much leverage from a contract perspective because he was signed for so long. He got the raise. You can't get out. At least you can get more money. But when he's being asked repeatedly, is it frustrating to keep losing the same way?
Yes. Yes, it is. The Browns and Kevin Stefanski, you could feel it from him. Because he's trying to get a young quarterback in Dylan Gabriel rolling. He's trying.
To pour everything he's got into a guy that he believes in. And He's not getting a lot of help around him. Every game. The Browns might lead the league in in-game offensive line changes because guys get hurt. Yesterday, Jack Conklin gets a concussion.
And then the left tackle Cam Robinson gets rolled up. He leaves the game. They've had like eight different tackles or something this season. And then Jerry Judy's dropping the football. There's no help.
The whole thing isn't there. But it felt like a moment yesterday where it's This is not going to get better. And probably the prime example of this. was what we saw in Miami. And I don't put that game at the feet.
Of Tuatong of Iloa. He threw three picks. He has not played well enough the entire season. I've talked about that on this show before. Tua, and you look at statistically, he's not the same guy that he was the last three years when he was healthy with Mike McDaniel.
Statistically, he's one of the least efficient quarterbacks. in the NFL. But he did throw A go-ahead touchdown with 46 seconds to go. You'd like to think. No matter what's gone wrong.
That's enough. And instead, you give up a 40-yard kickoff return to a guy who hasn't played a game in three years. And then you can't bring down Justin Herbert or Lad McCocky. They go down, kick a field goal, and you lose once again. That paled in comparison.
to what happened at the podium. Moments after the game, When Tua Tonga Valoa said This. I think it starts with the leadership in helping articulate that for the guys, and then what we're expecting out of the guys, right? We're expecting this. Are we getting that?
Are we not getting that? We have guys showing up to player-only meetings late. Guys not showing up to player-only meeting. Like, there's a lot that goes into that. Do we have to make this mandatory?
Do we not have to make this mandatory?
So so it it's it's a lot of uh It's a lot of things of that nature that we got to get cleaned up. And it starts with the little things like that. I could do an entire segment on that. Quote from Tour. But we got to get to Mike Garifolo in a few minutes here.
So I will keep this as brief as I possibly can. There are a litany of issues. With the way that Tua approached that. And this is not the first time that Tua has said something at the podium where he went. Whoa.
You go back to Tyree Kiel in the spring and the way that he called him up publicly. At the time, in talking to people, that was part of the broader strategy, which is we're trying to communicate, we're trying to hold everybody accountable. That's on everybody. And so that was something that I didn't get the sense that people minded in the building. Yesterday, Tua comes out and by...
stating that the way that he did. He impugns literally Everybody in the building. Including possibly accidentally himself. Yeah. If you're saying the leadership needs to get better, the player-only meeting, you are a team captain and the quarterback.
That's you. The highest paid player on the team. That's your leadership. But you also put Mike McDaniel in a position where Enrich said it in the first hour. It looks like Mike McDaniel, because he's now got to answer questions about it right after that, what he's talking about.
And Mike's kind of going, I guess he was talking to somebody specific, so whoever that is. I hope the message gets through, but everyone's answered to me. It makes Mike look like he doesn't know what's going on, but here's the thing: I've talked to people in Miami. Last night and this morning.
Okay, I have asked around on this. Nobody knows what the hell Tu is talking about. This is not an issue. in the building. When we talk about player-only meetings, you usually think it's, hey, we're losing.
We got to get the whole group together, call people out, or whatever. They haven't been doing that. There have been. you know, defensive meetings where guys get together and watch tape, but that's common in virtually every building. There's been no issues with tardiness.
There's been no like ongoing problems from a cultural perspective.
So in other words, to a is outside a building that By virtue of the record is doused in gasoline. And for reasons that remain completely unapparent, he decides to go, oh, I'm just going to light this match. Hmm. Let's just throw that in there and start the blaze. It's a really rough position to put your coach in.
To put every one of your teammates in. When you're the guy who's been turning the ball over and not playing as well as you can, to your point as the highest paid guy on the team. You want to talk about leadership? Tua. In these moments in particular, Needs to show a lot better leadership publicly.
For a guy who Let's remember, is on the books over $50 million, fully guaranteed still in 2026. All right, let's take a break here. Thanks, everybody, for watching on Disney Plus. We are on the ESPN app. We are at ESPN Radio, presented by Progressive Insurance.
Mike Garifolo, my colleague from the NFL Network, join us right after this. How are the Eagles going to fix things?
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Tons to get into news around the NFL coming off of the Sunday of week six. We got a double header tonight. By the way, we will break down those games, pretty big one in Atlanta. Going up against the Bills. If the Falcons are going to be in this, the Jaden Daniels-Caleb Williams rematch.
Hopefully with Tyreek Stevenson facing the correct direction in critical moments this time around. Right now, though, let's bring in my colleague from the NFL network, NFL Media Insider Mike Garifolo, is with us. Mike, it is fantastic to see you today. Let's jump right in. Big injuries from Sunday's games.
Puka Nakua, an odd situation where he goes down grabbing his ankle. You can't tell what happened. They announce he's got a foot, comes back in the game, then Sean McVay says it's an ankle. Where do we actually stand on poop? his health and his availability here moving forward.
Hi Tom, I'll cut my head off. Hold on. Uh, there we go. Uh Oh wow. We can go kind of right there.
I think that's a good spot. Beautiful. Probably should have done this before you popped me up. Puka. Puka has a ankle sprain that is of the non-high variety.
Which leaves the mid and the low. We're narrowing it down. I still don't know when it occurred, to be honest with you, because you're watching the whole play. He's sort of like you're always looking for when a guy goes up and comes down, like, oh, the impact coming down. He sort of landed on top of the defender.
So I think it happened on the takeoff, or maybe the step before that.
So it is an ankle sprain. Sean McVay called him day-to-day today. Uh It sounds like he was in pain, a lot of pain yesterday, and swelling, obviously, what you get with it with ankle sprain as well. It's always tough to tell these things six, seven days out if it's more of a day-to-day rather than a week-to-week thing. Like high ankle sprain, it's like okay, two to four weeks, four to six weeks, whatever.
You sort of know that guy's not playing. This is in somewhere in between that, and he does have the buy. After this one, so it could be two weeks to allow him to rest fully and come back. The Rams are in a pretty good spot. I it almost feels like one of those if it happened late in the season, it's a crucial game or it's a playoff game or something like that.
He's playing, he's not going to be 100%, but he's going to battle through those kind of things.
Now it's in that area of it's not late in the season, you're in a decent spot. Can you get by without him this week? Which you never sort of want to do that. I feel like the Eagles and Jalen Carter sort of did that last week. It's like, well, we can win this game without him.
Like, we'll be okay. And then it's like, oops, could have really used them.
So the international flight, as you've mentioned, you mentioned it with J.J. McCarthy a couple of weeks ago, always sort of a factor here as well.
So we'll see how it goes with Puka. Ask me right now, I would say he's a no-go this week. I'd probably lean more that way, but we'll see as the week goes on how he feels. You mentioned the Eagles. You're a Philly guy.
You know that team inside and out. Where they stand right now, and again, they're still very much in the thick of the playoff race, as much as it feels like the walls are closing in from the media and fans and the public right now. You're still 4-2. You're still seemingly in a good spot to make a run, but there's so many different issues, particularly coming out of that Thursday game. What changes, if anything, do you see them making, even if it's just tweaks, processes, and things like that, to try to get the offense in particular out of the right direction here?
Like they've already been doing them. That's the hard part. It's like, well, all right, well, we're going to get man coverage against the Giants. We can throw some 50-50 balls. Jalen Hurts did that and connected on the ball to AJ Brown up the sideline.
I mean, even go back to the week before. It was like, oh, you know, AJ's. wants the ball. It was a series where it was like incomplete, incomplete, or seven-yard catchers. It was like one of three for like seven yards, and they punted all three to AJ Brown.
They've been trying all this stuff. And we're going to do a segment on the show tomorrow night on The Insiders, and I'm still working on it. Baldi's going to be in it with me. This is probably the first year hearing of it. Am I in this?
Yeah, yeah. I don't know. But I said, here's what I want to do. Because every time in Philadelphia. that the offense is struggling.
The P word comes out, predictable. It's too predictable. Yeah. It was predictable last year. When they were running simple zone runs and Saquon was taking them to the house, right?
Like everybody knew what they were going to do there. They were still executing, they were still moving guys off the ball. I think one of the biggest problems right now is that this offensive line. It doesn't have Makai Beckton, who was an absolute mauler last year.
So that was a big loss. And they're banged up. Like Lander Dickerson didn't play the other night. Quinnyada Mitchell got hurt in the middle of the game. Jalen Carter didn't play.
All three of those guys missing showed up.
So it's like, it's like, oh, it's too predictable. It's too this. It's not one thing. It's a lot of things with the Eagles right now. And the pressure of, I know we talk about the Super Bowl hangover for the team that lost a lot, but the Super Bowl hangover for this team that won is a very real thing here.
Obviously, Jalen Hurts and AJ Brown and Saquon Barkley that love Triangle are not all on the same page here and have tried to get on the same page and are going to still have to like this to me. Felt like a everybody get away from everybody else weekend for the Eagles. Really believe that. And the coaches, I don't think, were in Saturday or Sunday. I think they really said, Let's get away.
They did some work after the game on Friday, but it was like, let's get away, reset, come back, and try to get on the same page in so many ways.
So, how does Howie Roseman? Handle the next 22 days leading up to the trade deadline. Mike, you know, this. You talk to any other team, it's how he's always in on every deal. He always calls.
We trade somebody, he's like, Why didn't you call me? He always wants to be involved. Yeah. Pretty rare that he's a seller, and I don't anticipate that being the case here. But to the extent that you do, as you refer to it, have the love triangle that's not quite isosceles at this point here.
Is there a world in which? he would do something as drastic as trading away an AJ Brown. I mean, I can't rule it completely out. When you have the conversations with people down there, they said, no, no way. Like, they've been calling since the offseason.
It's not going to happen. I just don't. I don't know what the next couple of weeks is going to bring if this thing gets worse. Like AJ's body language after the game. I'm not.
Saying this in a negative way or talking down to him, like just watching him and seeing how uncomfortable he was. And, you know, the whole, well, I don't know, what meeting? I don't know. There was no meeting. There was no meeting.
You know, like he knew what we were talking about. He knew what he was being asked about. He could have easily said, like, look, what he did the next day, by the way, which was, I was walking in my car. I saw these guys. We started talking.
That's what happened. Ian had already reported it. Our colleague had already reported that it happened in the parking lot and it wasn't a scheduled thing.
So he could have just, I mean, AJ surely didn't see it because he was getting ready for him playing in that game. But he could have said exactly what he said. And it just, it was so uncomfortable. It was almost defeated body language. And I don't want to use these words and everybody go, oh, because you can come back from this kind of stuff.
I'm not saying that they're dead and start throwing dirt on them, but it just is a lot of work that needs to be done. And I think it's going to be a two-part process. I think it's this mini-buy here that they were in the middle of.
Well, they're going to get back to work, I guess, today or tomorrow. And then the real buy is coming up in two weeks. I feel like it's going to be a two-part process for this team that really needed to take a breath and say a year ago. We badly needed to buy. We didn't lose a game after that.
We spent the weekend talking about how. You know what, what we were comfortable with. Jalen Hurts had a lot of communication with Nick Siriani, what he's comfortable with, what went the offense. Like, that's the kind of stuff that's got to happen now. And you've got to believe that it can get you back to the right place.
But. It's a lot going on, Tom. A lot. If it's a Vikings team on Sunday, that, as I reported yesterday, the quarterback situation, murky to say the least. Kevin O'Connell at the podium right now saying J.J.
McCarthy will be back to practice this week. And my understanding is not 100%. Carson Wentz dealing with the shoulder. I need the Wentz revenge game. There are a lot, and you may well get it here, assuming that he can hold up through the course of the practice week, probably going to be limited out there.
But an opportunity maybe to catch a Minnesota team that's getting healthier but still has some moving parts. Tell me about the Jets as we talked to Mike Garifolo, NFL Media Insider, my co-host on the Insiders on NFL Network. You're 0-6, right? Right. At this point, if you're the Jets, I don't think that anybody going into the season thought.
This would be the last winless team in the NFL. I mean, forget playoffs, forget playing relevant football in December. You're trying to win a game at this point, and you're also just trying to get some type of positive momentum and something to happen in a positive direction here instead of answering questions about are you going to bench the quarterback? Why aren't you running a play in the last 37 seconds of the first half? How dire in the big picture, forget 2025, Mike.
How dire, if at all, is the state of the New York Jets right now? Um It's a lot of like when Garrett Wilson is in the post-game locker room telling you that he didn't care for what the coach had to explain to him at the end of the first half. Like, that's bad. Especially a guy that you just signed. And you like, I almost went through the head of, like, oh, is Garrett Wilson?
No, no, no, he just signed a deal. You committed to him. You made him a foundational cornerstone piece of this team here. Aaron Glenn. For all the talk, how many they had fewer penalties yesterday.
How many? I don't know how many they wound up with, but the weeks before, where it was like all summer long, we got to cut down the penalties, we got to cut down the penalties, we got to cut, and it's just penalty after penalty for these guys. Yesterday they had two.
Okay, so that's better, obviously. But, like, you need to start seeing some of the stuff that Aaron Glenn is talking about: tough football, fundamentally sound football, all the things that you. You know, Dan Campbell has preached and executed upon with the Detroit Lions, which is where he came from. Like, you're not seeing that. And I understand it's going to be a process.
And he says, hey, guys, it's going to take time. It is going to take time. But, Mike Vaccaro, a long time Columnist for the New York Post yesterday putting out a post on X saying that every instinct Aaron and Glenn has is wrong. We're not even at Halloween yet. Like, that's a lot of time for these guys to keep saying this kind of stuff and making grand proclamations that.
You know, ownership is going to see, and ownership is sensitive to, and has been in the past for sure.
So, it's just a lot of time left for this echo chamber to really start saying some things that could register with ownership with this team.
So, that's sort of where I stand on it, where I look at it, and I wonder what happens if this really does not. I only want to say turn around. It's almost like I sort of lumped the Giants in the same kind of thing because they're in the same market.
So I think it's fair to say. Like, you don't have to make the playoffs. But it's gotta look like... This. It's got to be energetic and entertaining and competitive.
And it's starting to, like, you sort of have to start to see those things from the Jets. And we're not right now. And I wonder at what point we start having some. Really? different serious conversations.
One of the trends, I think, across the NFL too, to look at the flip side of this, is the number of the good teams or the teams that have won so far that are also utterly devastated by injuries at this point. The Bucs win yesterday. Baker Mayfield's out there throwing, making big plays without his top four wide receivers. They've had all kinds of offensive line issues, and they're playing a 49ers team, Mike, that it was already about as bad as anybody in the NFL. And then you lose your all-pro linebacker, Fred Warner.
In your mind, what are the chances, if any, that the 49ers, who again, they've been in this spot, like once every two, three years, they seem to have a season like this. How likely, if at all, is it that this is still a team? that can make a push and get into the playoffs, given everybody who's not on the field. Yeah, they are, as I was communicating with someone there yesterday, and I said, it's like getting both of your legs, bosa and Fred Taylor, or Fred Warner, getting both of your legs cut off and being asked to continue in the ass-kicking contest. Can I say kicking?
I'm sorry. Thank you. We're on Disney Plus, but I think you're fine. Listen, I've seen some stuff on Disney, but I watched Enora on Disney Plus. We're on Disney Plus, my guide.
Mike. You gotta change the settings to find an aura. I couldn't find it. I was like, I had to change it to like, you know, whatever. Anyway.
I didn't think that was the best picture of the year last year, by the way. If you want to have that conversation, I agree with you on that, Mike. I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah.
What was the question? Oh, the 49ers. Yeah, they're still alive and they're still in the mix. And. It's just a brutal loss yesterday because that guy does so much for the 49ers.
And, you know, and I love linebackers that still matter, right? Like when Zach Bond got big money last year and had the year that he had on the Super Bowl winning team, like, that's awesome. Because I thought the linebacker position was sort of going the way of previously of the running back position. I'm like, that's good. Off-the-ball linebackers.
Love them. That's what I grew up watching.
So Fred Taylor does it better than anybody. The only reason I say like they're still alive is they had been anyway relying upon rookies and young guys and guys that really had to come along with this defense. And they were hoping like late in the season, okay, these guys are gonna start, you know, following in the way of Nick Boson and Fred Warner.
Now they got to like sub in for those guys. They got to take over for those guys.
So that makes it a whole lot tougher. But they do feel good about these guys. And I could still see them being aggressive and making a move at the deadline, which they had done before in the past. John Lynch has done before in the past.
So I think you make a move and you bring whether it's a linebacker or an edge rusher. We know that they've been having conversations about edge rusher, and maybe you find a way to piece this thing together. Coming into the year, I was, and I don't make official predictions, but I was like, watch the Niners make the Super Bowl. Like, would not be surprised if they host the Super Bowl in their own building. I can't get there now.
But I also can't see them sitting home in January. They've got too much talent on this team. Last thing for you, Mike, 22 days out from the trade deadline here, you and I both had heard the same thing. You reported it yesterday on the game day show. O'Marian Hampton on injured reserve.
Not season ending, but this sounds like this is a more than four-week injury. The Chargers, who got a lot out of Kamane Vidal yesterday, they've been poking around on running backs. There's other teams poking around on running backs. This is where things heat up. Just empty your notebook here in terms of what you're hearing right now in the trade market.
I honestly, if I watch that game yesterday and I see what Vidal did and Haskins was in at the end of the game, I mean, he was in, he played the whole game, but he had a key block there at the end of the game as well. I thought that that was a pretty good indication, like, hey, maybe we can survive with these guys. You know, let's see. I mean, a lot of times that is, especially if it's not a long-term thing to make a trade at the running back position, you kind of go, okay.
So, you know, I think running backs are going to be interesting. The Brees Hall one, I've got a Jets fan friend of mine who's a close friend who's like, if they trade him, I'm done. I'm like, there's no way you're done. If you're not done by this point, like you had plenty of other stops you could have made. Brees Hall getting traded is not going to be the stop.
We'll see. He's adamant that they should trade some other people, including Quentin Williams. He's a big, like. Get Quinnen out of here and get something for him, kind of guy. We'll see.
Jeff fans are crazy. They are all over me. But I think the running back position could be interesting. We'll see what happens with Brees. I agree with what Ian said on Alvin Kamara that he's going to play for, because that was the situation last year when he signed his extension.
He only wanted to play for the Saints and for his entire career.
So I think that's going to wind up being the case for Alvin Kamara there. The edge rusher market's going to be interesting. I do think that the. I do think that the 49ers are going to wind up making a move for somebody at that position. You've got to do something at this point.
So we'll see about the impact. That they wind up having there.
So, you know, it's going to be a fun three weeks. I think we'll see some drip, drip, drip action along the way. And then that last week, we had what, like five or six last year on the last day of the trade deadline. I think we had some good, including Zadarius Smith, right? If I'm not, if I recall correctly, who just retired today.
So, Mike, thank you very much. I'll see you tomorrow night, 7 p.m. Eastern Time on The Insiders, where apparently you guys have planned the show. And I'm finding out about it now. Just the second block of the show.
That's all. I just said, I was like, I can't deal with this. Like, how could the offense be too predictable when it's Mike Grow as the offensive coordinator? And then a couple of years later, it's Brian Johnson. And a couple years later, it's Kevin Petullo.
Like, we got to just stop. Oh, it's predictable. Like, let's go deeper. And I understand like those guys. Petullo's got to be better in Sirian.
You got to figure it out. But you can't just be like, well, the offense is predictable. That's like my uncle sitting on the couch. Put the flags away. Stop throwing the flags.
Well, he was holding them.
So you got to throw the flags. He always owns. Unpredictable, Mike Garifolo. Thank you very much, buddy. We will talk to you again soon.
We've got some interesting sound bites from today. We've got. Mike Comlin. Talking in very clear terms about the Joe Flacco trade ahead of Thursday night. Way too easy.
We've also got Bill Belichick. Answering. A thousand different reports? About the building burning in Chapel Hill. We will get to both those stories as this episode of The Rich Eisen Show rolls on with me, Tom Pellicero.
The Rich Heisen Show, the podcast. Rich Arzen here for Sonos, the speakers that bring every game to life in my own house. With studio quality sound, Sonos makes you feel like you're right there in the stadium. Whether you're cheering on your team, binging your favorite show, or listening to the hottest songs, Sonos fills every room with incredible sound. Setup is easy.
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com Tom Pellicero in for Rich in these final two hours of the show. Has Rich posted to his Instagram story from dinner? Oh, Susie? Are we in the appetizer section? Did he actually pick up Susie first?
Did she have to meet him? Let's take a look. All validity. All valid questions here. I love these.
Let's see. Nope, no posts on the story right now. Who knows? Slacking. Maybe he still has no appetite after calling that game yesterday.
That was not the... That's not the business. That was not the highlight right there. That was certainly not the main course. Is that a scorigami, 13-11?
I was wondering. I'm not sure if it was, but not a lot of 13-11. I would say no, because there's a guy, Ryan, in my fantasy football league, who every single time there's a scoreigami. He says, he puts out a tweet about it. I would say it's the first time that I can remember seeing a team be down 10-9 and get a safety to go up 11-10.
Like that's a well I'm not quite totally familiar with the cricket scoring, but in London, I'm just thinking is that you know it's quite the wicked googly to take the 11 to 10 advantage in the match. Right there. According to the Twitter account, NFL underscore score gummy. It's happened two times before 1311. The last was November 16th, 1986.
Wow. We got breaking news right now. Whoa, hang on, hang on, hang on. Whoa. Are you breaking it fired?
And Maria, I see the breaking news. The Tennessee Titans have fired Brian Callahan. No way. Their head coach. Uh absolutely brutal start to the season.
I will read the statement from Chad Brinker. President of Football Operations, after extended conversations with our owner and general manager, we met with Brian Callahan this morning to tell him we are making a change at head coach. These decisions are never easy and they become more difficult when they involve people of great character. We are grateful for Brian's investment in the Titans and Tennessee community during his tenure as head coach. We thank him and his family for being exemplary ambassadors of the Tennessee Titans.
Brian Callahan out. Another Brutal offensive performance. There's no question about it. You probably could see the writing on the wall two weeks ago when Brian Callahan had play calling. Essentially take it away.
My understanding was that was not. Callahan's choice. He would have preferred not to do that. Oftentimes when those things take place, They portend. Bad things on the back end.
The hope was He would be able to handle the bigger picture of the team. But clearly, even with the comeback. And the wacky circumstances that led to it in Arizona. They were hopeful that might be a springboard. It did not take place.
Offense struggled again yesterday against the Raiders. Cam Ward frustrated. The organization frustrated. New stadium opening. It seemed like they did not want to do this this early in the season because now you've created a chaotic type of environment for the rest of the year.
But here we are, Brian Callahan out. Four and nineteen over a season end change. The third consecutive head coach, I believe, fired before the end of the first year with the number one pick. Frank Reich with Bryce Young. Matt Eberflues with Caleb Williams.
Now Brian Callahan. with Cam Ward. We will get more information in terms of the interim coach. Etcetera? Yeah, just th uh four and nineteen in two seasons.
Albeit, amidst a lot of other things happening organizationally, there's a long way to go with the roster. There are a lot of other decisions and things that need to improve. It just was not good enough. Clearly. Brian Callahan out.
as the Tennessee Titans Head. Coach. The Rich Eisen Show Podcast. Mm-hmm.
