The Chiefs Are The Best Team In The AFC

Hey everybody. You know we're living in a new age of football with the expanded college football playoff, NIL, conference realignment and increasing popularity of the draft. The landscape is changing and it's changing quickly and it can be confusing but you know you're still into it. That's where the new podcast The Triple Option comes in. Each week Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, host Rob Stone and three-time national champion coach Urban Meyer team up to bring on the biggest guests in college football, pro football and anything related to the culture of the game. They cover it all from top stories to recent changes and shifts in the game, the culture surrounding it and everything in between.

So get in the game today. Follow and subscribe to The Triple Option on Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Triple Option on YouTube as well. New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. This is The Rich Eisen Show. Baker freaking Mayfield. The Rich Eisen Show. My boy.

He's super nice too. Baker Mayfield's playing like a most valuable player gents. Live from The Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Earlier on the show Alabama head coach Kalen DeBoer. From Prime Video's Evolution of the Black Quarterback, Constance Schwartz-Marini and Fred Anthony Smith. Saints head coach Dennis Allen. Coming up Nebraska head coach Matt Ruhle. And now it's Rich Eisen. Our number three of The Rich Eisen Show is on the air. We've talked to two coaches so one and a third. We're about to do that with Nebraska's 3-0 coach Matt Ruhle. He's going to be joining us in a matter of seconds. Overreaction Monday on a Tuesday is coming up. I just came up with a new rule for replay assist in the NFL.

I think we should be adopted. If you see video evidence of the first guy instigating, don't just catch the second guy. On behalf of everybody on the planet, whether it was in camp or in school, being the second person caught and the first person gets away with it, I want to pass this rule.

For humans everywhere, not just players. You sound like a guy, a second guy who got caught a lot. You know what? That's a you thing.

That's your problem. I was the first guy. Let's not waste this man's time. He's ready to join us right now. Getting set to take on Illinois.

This man is 3-0 for the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Big Ten. Matt Ruhle, good to see you again coach. How are you?

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me on. What do you think of my rule change here? If replay assist can see the first guy in, why just catch the second guy? Let's get the first guy. What do you think, coach? What do you think of that?

When you first said it, I said wow that's brilliant, but if I may, I do think like everyone knows they always get the second guy, so if you're the second guy you should wait to the next play and be the first guy. I feel like it's like we're like dumbing down civilization using everything for everything. Listen, you found out my trick.

It's my job to dumb down civilization, Matt. It's good to see you. How are you? I'm doing well.

I'm doing well. We're having a lot of fun over here. It sure looks it. It sure looks it. Listen, the narrative with you is it's the third year for you in a new spot where things turn around.

Year two seems to be doing very well. I love watching your quarterback, man. I love him. I know you're nodding your head.

You can agree. What did you see in this kid, Dylan Riola, that you knew like I got to get him, coach? I think the biggest thing is when you talk to him, he's immensely talented with no ego. He has a lot of pride, but no ego. And so you could feel that right off the bat, and you just kind of gravitate towards him. When you have a guy like him on our team that everyone respects him, yet he's getting a lot of accolades, but he always keeps it about the team, that's a secret sauce.

When you have your best players, and so when your best players are team guys, you have a great chance to have a great team. And I recognized that pretty early in recruiting, and we were happy when he came here. The first thing I saw about him, coach, and I'm sure you've heard this too, he does look like Mahomes, like literally. And I know you faced Mahomes in the COVID year when you were in Carolina. Have you ever peripherally go, wait a minute, is that Pat?

Have you done that yet? Oh, well, I have to tell you, during my time in the NFL, I went to a lot of different pro days and watched a lot of different quarterbacks. And when I got here, I went and watched him throw in high school. And our recruiting guy, he said, how's he look?

I said, he's Mahomes. And not just the facial and like mannerisms, like his arm, his ability to make throws off platform. I mean, just everything. And so that was my first thing.

So now it's kind of funny to see everyone, I can't look at Instagram without seeing someone putting them side by side. But the great thing is he's a winner, just like Patrick is. Well, I mean, it's interesting that you say that too. And obviously, I'm going to marry the two comments that you've said together, that to say Mahomes out loud for a kid this age, and obviously where he is in your program is one thing. But if you say he's ego-less, no big deal, right? I mean, for you to throw that out there, would you say that, coach?

Yeah, no doubt. I think I'm at a point in my life, I've got a son in college, I don't think there's anything wrong with all of our players with having high expectations and speaking belief into them. I believe that Dylan has a chance to be one of the best players on the planet at some point. And so I think that the key is whether it's him, whether it's his family, whether it's our players, whether it's me, we all just have to make sure that he continues to work at it and all of our players continue to work at it.

But I'm not one of those guys who's going to beat people down to get them to be good. I'm going to tell them what I expect of them, tell them what I see in them. And I see greatness ahead for him.

And so the key now is just every day, are you being great? And he shows up every day with that kind of mindset. Well, it seems that he leans into the Mahomes thing too. 15, he's got the headband, he sometimes wears the blue blockers or whatever the hell they're called.

I don't know. I mean, it seems like he leans into it, coach, right? Well, I grew up in New York City. I like to play pickup basketball.

I had my little Mark Jackson, my little Mark Jackson running, baby hook jumper. You know, like, like we think we all like, you know, we all mimic in some ways what we see. And so, you know, I think the biggest thing with Dylan though, is he's very, he's very secure in who he is.

Right. So he might have some of those things that look like Patrick and obviously trains with them. He does some of the same things because they use some of the same people. At the end of the day, he's very secure in who he is. And while, you know, so far he's had all good days. And the one thing I've said to him is, you know, I've watched, you know, guys in the NFL, I've watched guys go off to the NFL. And at some point you're going to be, you're going to be defined by your bad days and how you respond to those days. You know, it's happened to me in my coaching career, you know, like how do you bounce back from adversity? And I think the great thing about Dylan is because he stays so humble and grounded, you know, he's going to always, he's going to always know who he is. And if he does have a bad day, he'll bounce back.

Matt Rule here on the Rich Eisen show. So one thing that's also obvious about your team is you're getting better every week. You can see that.

You can see that it's, it's building that you're, you're, you're, you're ascending right now. And obviously not just in the rankings, number 22 nationally. What, what is, what is your vision right here for the goal for this team this year, coach?

Yeah. I mean, we, we, we want to be a team that's relevant nationally, you know, you know, we knew we were gonna have that Colorado game early. And, and I told, you know, I would say quite often the media and our guys, like everyone's going to tune in to watch Colorado and I have a lot of respect for Colorado, but I wanted people to leave saying, Hey, that's a good football team.

You know, now we're going to play a ranked Illinois team on Friday night and people are going to watch. And I want them to say, Hey, that's a, that's a really good football team. And so to me we want to go from kind of the obscurity we've been in to now being relevant nationally, we want to compete for the big 10. We want to compete to go to college football playoff, but to do all that, you know, you kind of have to do what we've done.

You you've got to win each week and you've got to get a little bit better each week because you know, there's a big jump from, you know, Northern Iowa and the teams we played now to the big 10 and the big 10 will beat you up and humble you. So we we've got a lot to do, but I'm not afraid to tell the guys I have high expectations for the team. Do you talk playoffs with them? Have you openly said that to them?

I do that. I put that up the entire off season. I put that up at all training camp. You know, I put up the college football playoff grid because why else would you come to Nebraska? Why else would you do all the stuff we do to not have a dream of winning a national championship? And you walk in our building, you walk by five national championship trophies every day.

There's there's people that have higher expectations maybe right now around them that don't have won. And so we know you can do it here. As we get into the season, though, you know, we get into this moment.

I don't talk about it anymore. Now it's very simply, hey, this week, you know, it's just it's just one. And if you want to achieve your goals, then you got to be great today.

Be great this week. So we try to temper it with, hey, we're doing all this work with this ultimate goal. And the only way to get to that ultimate goal right now is just, hey, everything's on Illinois. And they're a really good team. It'll be it'll be a battle of the game and a Friday night game. Right. I mean, I think that's also a measure of respect and growth as well, that you're going to be under the lights at home on a Friday night, you know. Right.

Yeah. Well, I think the big thing rich for us is like our home atmosphere is amazing and our night game atmosphere here in Nebraska is amazing. And so it's really it's really like our own, you know, with all respect to Texas. It's kind of like our own 12th man out there, you know, having having that crowd and having that atmosphere. So we're lucky to our Friday night game, our first one of the year is at home and everyone will be watching. So, you know, we've got to we've got to play well.

You know, if you want to if you want to get interviews like this, if you want people to recognize your team, then you have to play well in big moments. Well, Matt Rule here on the Rich Eisen Show. And clearly you're not looking ahead. I am.

I'm circling that date in the horseshoe, man. Like that's what we're talking about, right? Like these are do you have red letter games, any block letter games, anything that you do circle in front of your kids to look at stuff or no? Yeah. No, I don't, because honestly, I know that they do.

You know, I know that they they have those things. And really, if you look at Nebraska over the last 15 years, you know what's happened? You know, we've lost games. We were supposed to win.

And so, you know, it's my job to bring them back, you know, but at the same time, not not in a way that means I don't believe in them. It's just very simply like, what do great teams do? They go out every week and they beat teams are supposed to beat. And if there's a team that's an even competition, they play at the highest level they can.

And if there's a team that maybe they're not supposed to beat, they compete at a high level in that game. So really, at the end of the day, every week you come out and play well. And, you know, this is this is a short week for us, a Friday game. So I think that's good for us. Our guys have no time to kind of bask in.

Hey, we're three and over the first time since whatever year we got, we got to get ready quickly for a really good team. But yes, I tried my best just to keep them kind of on today. You know, Twitter and Instagram pulls them all the time ahead. And I'm always just trying to bring them back to here right now. Do you monitor those feeds, coach? Do you monitor them for those guys?

Yeah, for those. No, no, I, you know, I follow a lot of our guys, you know, and see their stories and stuff like that, because, you know, at the other day, I'm trying to be like an older brother or an uncle for them. But I don't you know, I don't I don't tell them what to post. I don't tell them what to do. You know, just like my own son, you know, I want my son to you know, I wanted to go off to college.

He's a freshman here in Nebraska. I wanted to come back an adult. And so, you know, we obviously have standards and want the guys to do things the right way. But they're young men, they've got to grow. And there's sometimes they'll say things. We had a player versus Colorado say some things that I wouldn't say. And, you know, as I said to him, I said, Hey, I wouldn't do that. You know, now you're gonna have to stand on it and back up what you said.

But I'm not I'm not here to tell them what to say. OK, so that that was that was an interesting one. So did you address the Colorado statement with your team?

Yeah. So what I did was I said it, you know, I kind of I kind of didn't address it to the team after he said it. And he said, hey, they're gonna need two guys to block me on kickoff or something like that. After the after the kickoff period, I was like, I was I made light of it, you know, saying, hey, you better run down.

You better be the first guy down there. And and then after the game, you know, after we won, that's when I addressed it. I said, guys, here's why I can't tell you what to say.

But here's why I don't believe in that. Number one, I expect us to win. So because I expect us to win, I never want to say anything bad about the opponent.

I want all of our wins to be big wins over good teams. And I said, number two, the minute we say I'm going to do this or I'm going to do that, then we have to back it up. And when we go into a game saying, hey, I need to do this because I said this, sometimes that means we don't do our assignment because we're trying to prove a point. And the way you win is for everyone to go out there and sacrifice for each other, you know, no matter what it takes out there, not have a second agenda. So if I have an agenda of players have an agenda, if the play caller has an agenda.

So that's how I addressed it, you know, and then I let it go again. They're great young men. As long as they're going to school and treating people well, you know, we're just going to play ball and see what happens. How's the game changed now that you're back in it from the Baylor days or the Temple days? Coach, I think it's just the portal is probably the biggest thing, you know, and and I think a lot of people are I think a lot of schools maybe are getting away from what they believed in because, you know, there's such there's such there's such pressure on you now. I think people think you can flip the team really quickly. I don't know if you can win if you look at the teams are really winning.

They're not really doing it all portal. And so, I mean, you know, your team can change year after year. And sometimes, you know, like I talked to our media this week, you think, oh, well, this is going to be an easier. You don't really know what who you're going to be playing against because of their ability because they can bring in transfers. You know, Indiana is a completely different team this year than it was last year. We're a different team than we were this year than last year. So I think it's just the volatility of the rosters has changed. And I think you have to find that sweet spot of I'm going to bring in high end talent, but I'm also going to develop and grow and recruit high school players so that I always have this really strong base. And that wasn't something I had to really deal with back then. I'm lucky I went to the NFL and had that free agent experience and was able, you know, maybe to blend my time in college with my time in the NFL for this new hybrid model we have. But I mean, in the NFL, there's rules.

That's right. You know, like for everyone and contracts and unions and, you know, obviously, you deal with agents as well. But have you had a player come in your office and basically say, play me or lose me to the portal?

Have you had something like that yet? Well, what I've had is I've had kids come in to me and say, hey, coach, you know, this school called me and said, hey, they're going to they can pay me, you know, $15,000 a month if I transfer there. And, you know, I love it here.

But, you know, maybe I'm making, you know, a thousand here. And so like I said, sometimes my assistant coaches get upset about it. And I'm like, you guys do the same thing to me. You come to me and say, hey, there's, you know, the school offered me more money to come be the, you know, the linebacker coach or whatever. So, I mean, it's as long as it's done the right way at the right time, I understand it. The biggest difference is in the NFL, there's accountability. You know, if you if you tamper with somebody, you could lose a draft pick. You know, Roger Goodell and Troy Vincent, they're not they're not playing around. They're going to come take what's, you know, what's yours to maintain a fair playing field and an even playing field. And in college, there's really not that even playing field.

There is no accountability. You can kind of you can kind of do what you want. And the problem is, is when there's no rules or when the rules aren't followed, the people who follow the rules fall back and the people who don't care about rules ascend. And so that's the challenge. It's a challenge of trying to run an ethical program and teach players the right things while also winning just makes it a little bit harder now.

Yeah. The issue I also have, coach, is using the analogy where you're like, well, you know, assistant coaches will come to you and say the other school would pay me more money. And let's just say they go to the other school. There is a contract that actually says, this is how much money we will give you.

Kid goes to another school with a promise of money. They might not get it. And as a matter of fact, they might not even play in the manner in which they've been promised to play because there's another kid coming in from a portal or, and there's no rule like what that's what the whole thing is like.

When, when is there going to be some rules and who's going to be the ones to actually make them happen? Right. That's the one I'm talking about. Well, I think, I think what the house settlement, you know, for pending that all going through, I think the one thing, what, you know, what, you know, I've been so impressed with my interactions with Tony Petitti, I think, you know, trying to bring some, trying to bring some teeth to this, I'm sure, you know, commissioner Sankey is as well, you know, to bring some teeth to all this because to your point now, when we do these things, sometimes we say, Hey, this is in the best interest of the student athletes. And that's, that's a small percentage or maybe a medium, large percentage, but there's a lot of young people out there that, that left and went into the portal. Some because their, their schools told them, Hey, you need to leave something because they were promised things.

They went somewhere last spring. Cause now you can transfer more than once at the end of the spring and the second school said, you know what, we don't have any use for you time for you to go. And now you have young people on their third school in eight months and sometimes chasing money, but sometimes cause people are telling them, Hey, it's time to leave. And so it's just not, it's not what it was supposed to be. Right. And so while I want a level playing field so that we can see who the best is, I also want, I don't want all these young, young people that now they don't have a school and now, or now they could have maybe played somewhere.

Now they're not playing. Some schools are paying kids to come in for one year as like a third string backup. You know, I had people call me about, we had a kid leave on the portal and they said, Hey, is he a camp body? And I was like, what do you, that's like an NFL term, right?

Like, Hey, we're going to try and for camp. And so it's, it's it's like most things in life, it's usually the adults who are, who are messing it up. And, and, and so I hope it gets figured out. I'm not smart enough to figure it out, but I know in my talks with commissioner for TV, and I think that we have the right people on the job. All right, let's finish up.

You mentioned adults, let's finish up with a man child. How much has Compton played into your three? No start, man. How much is will Compton played in here? Man, I went home last night, saw my wife and she, you know, he does this.

He does this amazing intro for the games. And my wife is like, you know, Hey, someone better tell Will, he better, he better bring it this week. We're going to need him this week. And I think, I think what it's done is this, you know, we had bud Crawford, you know, pound for pound King you know, take us out onto the field versus Colorado. We've had will Compton at Colorado game.

We had will Compton speak. I think, you know, it's, it's cool that people who've been loyal to the program who are known nationally are pouring into our players and are bringing excitement to our stadium because we want to, we want to be relevant nationally. We want people, we want, I want recruits and we want fans talking about us. And so part of that's the way that we play part of that's winning games. Another part of his guy, like guys like Will talking about us on busting with the boys, you know, and I'm making us a presence that we wouldn't, we wouldn't be otherwise if it weren't for him and his loyalty to us. Well, you're 3-0 since I went on the bus coach, you know, and I've been holding out for 700 days because they didn't have a motor on the bus and I finally just caved.

So maybe a picture of a picture a day was, I'm glad you finally did that because you saved some intern a lot of work every day. So yeah, I was getting tired of it too myself, you know, but Hey coach, thanks for the time. Look forward to seeing your Friday night. And I really love watching you play. It's it's dynamic. It's exciting. And you know, your QB is it's fun to watch and what you're doing with them is innovative and fun. So I just wanted to have you on and tell you, you know, congrats on that start and I look forward to see where you're going. Thank you so much. Good to be on as always.

Right back at you. That's Matt Ruhl, head coach of the 3-0 Nebraska Cornhuskers right here on the Rich Isaac show taking on Illinois on Friday night. Yeah, man.

In Nebraska. Let me make sure I can figure out that game is on Fox and you can definitely watch it right here on the Roku portal. Big Friday night of college football. That's it. Yep.

Syracuse plays. You say up like you're you're are you working the boards? So you're not here Friday because you got to set up? In a couple weeks I'll be doing Friday night, not this week. But you got to set up? I'm setting up for Saturday. I have two games next week. That's gonna be a rough one.

Why is it rough? There's a lot of two college football games in the same day. Oh man. Yeah. How do you set up for that? Because you got to connect though. You got to lay the wires, right? You got to connect the cables.

You got to plug something in. The disrespect is real. No it's not. I'm just wondering.

I just don't know how it works. Rich, you sound good because of people like me. I was saying Friday night big night. Syracuse also plays on Friday people. People like him. Exactly.

You know you can have like not for the years you can have it you can have a set of pipes. Yeah. But no Fox gave him Smackdown for that Friday night.

I mean that Friday night game. There is somebody who's constantly because you read the YouTube comments. So I see him sometimes too. It's lighting. There is somebody who is complaining of some high-pitched noise on all of our videos.

Yeah I don't think that's true. I heard that buzz too. We had a buzz. We fixed it.

RJ and I came out. We fixed it. We take care of this stuff.

What about the high-pitched noise? We take care of it. That's fixed.

That's okay. I don't know if that person is really hearing this. Rich, you guys have to realize. What do we realize? Over 40 years plus.

You can tell Yanny from Laurel any day of the week. Yes. He just can't tell you what game is on. I don't care about the game.

I care about the sound of the game. Mike Tomlin has spoken about his quarterback situation. That's next. Overreaction Monday on a Tuesday is next. I have my top five surprises of the year so far in the NFL.

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Just go to linkedin.com direct and get started. Hey everybody, you know we're living in a new age of football with the expanded college football playoff, NIL, conference realignment, and increasing popularity of the draft. The landscape is changing and it's changing quickly and it can be confusing but you know you're still into it. That's where the new podcast The Triple Option comes in. Each week Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, host Rob Stone, and three-time national champion coach Urban Meyer team up to bring on the biggest guests in college football, pro football, and anything related to the culture of the game. They cover it all from top stories to recent changes and shifts in the game, the culture surrounding it, and everything in between.

So get in the game today. Follow and subscribe to The Triple Option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Triple Option on YouTube as well.

New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. Let's talk O'Reilly Auto Parts people. You love their jingle. You're gonna love their friendly helpful service even better because they're in the business of keeping your car on the road and the parts knowledge they have, it's all you need for your maintenance and repairs. They've got thousands of parts and accessories in stock either in store or online so you never have to worry if you're in a jam. The team at O'Reilly Auto Parts can test your battery for free in or out of your car. If it needs to be replaced they'll find you just the right battery for your vehicle.

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That's OReillyAuto.com E-I-S-E-N O-O-O-Reilly Auto Parts. Larry David, you are now the new commissioner of the National Football League. Yes, congratulations.

Are you kidding? There you go, congratulations. This is a dream, okay?

I quit Curb Your Enthusiasm in a second if this is true. Okay, okay. What do you do first as the commissioner of the National Football League, Larry David? Number one, and I really don't care if people like it or not, I'm losing the goal post. Wait, what? Why, why are there goal posts?

Okay. Why, why are kickers, okay, who have, they don't have football skills. They're not football players. I'm sure they're wonderful people, but they're not football players. Why, why, why are they kicking a ball through goal posts to decide games? It doesn't make any sense at all. First of all, goal posts are a relic from the old English rugby, I think.

Okay. You know, when they used to actually run and kick a ball through goal posts, but they don't do that in the NFL. There's no need for goal posts. Wouldn't the game be better without them?

Think about it. Why not just have leaping frogs to decide games? See if a frog can leap through a little goal post that you set up, okay, on the floor, and if the frog can leap through the goal post, then do that. Why kick it through a goal post?

Well, it's not called leaping frog ball. It's called football. So you're saying take the feet out of football? Is that what you're saying? Is that what you're saying? Yes. Why feet are deciding games and they shouldn't. Why should one player, one player with this skill, like the guy on the Ravens, Justin Tucker. Yeah. Why should this one player who does nothing but kick a ball be deciding games when you have 52 other players who are actually playing and this one person, this 53rd person, is deciding games?

It makes no sense whatsoever. The great LD, all his appearances on our channel on YouTube. The Rich Eisen Show Radio Network's back on the air. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry.

Grainger has the right product for you. Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by Tarik in New Jersey. Let's take his phone call. What's up, Tarik? How you doing, Rich? What exit are you calling from, Tarik? Very important. What exit?

I'm from Central Jersey, Monmouth County. No, no. I need an exit number, sir. What is it? Oh, 114. That's when he went Garden State Park. GSP.

They still have tokens on the park? I heard Rockman say earlier that the Saints might be the last undefeated team, but sneakily, if you look at the Steelers, look at their schedule under the Mike Tomlin tutelage with fake free football. I think the Steelers might be the last team standing undefeated. He went higher register. Did you hear that?

He went higher register. All right, let's see what you're talking about. You got the Chargers at Indianapolis, home for Dallas at Vegas. I mean, don't you think the last undefeated team is usually like six, seven and oh, right? Don't you think? Yeah, I think the Cardinals one year were nine and oh, right? That's a deep run. Yeah, that was a deep run. He thinks the two New York teams are pushovers. I don't know.

I mean, we can buy that. I just went higher register, but Tarik, thank you. Thank you for the call. Appreciate it. Man, that's going to be a great game this weekend, the Slobberknocker.

The Steelers and the Chargers, the revamped Harbaugh Chargers. Is it? Oh, yeah. What do you think?

What do you think? The Steelers are just going to steamroll the Chargers. I'm thinking Slobberknocker. I was my first thought was high scoring, which I don't know.

Paint swapping. They're going to be beating the crap comes the fullbacks. Here comes, you know, yeah.

And Patrick Queen and GJ. When you said Slobberknocker, that's what I know. What a swapping pain affair. Like, let's go. This is what football is all about. This is what a Steelers home opener is all about. And the question is, who's the starting quarterback for the Pittsburgh Steelers?

Mike Tomlin had a press conference earlier today and gave an update to the media eager to know who's the starter coach. As I sit here today, Russ is not scheduled to be a full participant in practice. And so we're ready in a plan that features Justin and his readiness will follow Russ throughout the week. And if his participation gets to a level and participation and quality where we should consider him, we'll delve into that at that time. And obviously, when that happens is a component of the consideration. But as I sit here today, he is not scheduled to be a full participant tomorrow in practice.

And so we're readying ourselves around Justin and we'll stay in that mindset until something else happens. Hypotheticals is a waste of our time. Hypotheticals is a waste of our time. Well, the media kind of picked up on that about hypotheticals as a waste of time because the framing is, there's no reason to have a conversation as to who the starter should be because there's really only one option at this point due to Russ's health. Which leads to the question of, well, is this an opportunity for Justin Fields to solidify a position where we're removing Russ's health from the equation?

Right? Are we reaching a point where Fields goes three and oh, I mean, we don't care if Russ's calf is 100% or not. We're going with a hot hand. Forget about a healed calf. You know what I mean?

We're talking body parts that you're going with. Apparently this, I've been told, did not go well. With Justin, does he still view this as a chance to earn a starting spot right now? You'd have to ask him that.

I don't want to speak for him. Is the competition still in your mind? Again, I've stated where we are. At the beginning of week one, I said it was debatable and so we were staying status quo and Russ was in pole position. My position regarding the pecking order and the depth chart has not changed, guys. And it won't until the other guy gets healthy and then we'll give it real consideration.

Until then, I won't speculate. I don't know how many ways I can tell you guys that. Tomlin, he's overtaken Jerry Jones for me. Harbaugh is just a level of kind of goofy quirkiness that is different than Tomlin. Well then you want one more Tomlin soundbite? What is this one about again?

What is this one about? Oh, yes. So Russ, we talked about it. He got a petty game ball. Yes, the petty game ball. The Steelers gave a game ball to Russ for beating the team that allowed him to be the Steelers' quarterback by cutting him and sending him into the great beyond.

And Russ wound up at Newark Airport and wound up in Pittsburgh through Newark. Talk about a journey. Oh my God. Oh my God.

You had more respect for him doing that than anything else. There's not enough hangouts at Hudson News you can have, right? Exactly. Not enough Cinnabons. There's not enough Cinnabons in the world to overcome that. Annie Ann's pretzels, none of them. Oh, well, hold on a second.

Now that's fighting words. Annie Ann's over Cinnabon? Oh, yeah.

Whoa, no. The pretzel over the Cinnabon. Oh, let's not get caught. Let's not get into weeds here.

Annie Ann's or Wetzel's though. The petty ball, the petty ball, the petty ball. We thought it should be called a spike ball, right?

Like a Larry David spike ball. Same idea. Because Justin may have the beans, but there's a spike ball to give to Russ.

Same idea. So apparently the coach was asked about this. Justin mentioned how rewarding it was to give to Lynn in Denver for Russ. He said he gave out a petty game ball. Is that something that you've done often?

Is it rewarding for you to get that? You know, none of your businesses, respectfully. There's certain things that go on among teams that I don't talk about.

Whether it gets out or how it gets out is unimportant to me and I'm not overly guarded against it. But it's just certain things as a leader that I talked to the collective about that I have zero intentions of sharing with the larger public because it's about our collective and how we come together and how we appreciate and support one another. And, you know, I can't give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it.

Wow. The best thing about us, though, is it's about us. That's another way to say it.

Hot dogs are delicious. By the way, is there a way to just hear the end of that again? Because is there a way, I don't know if we have a, could just give me the end of that because, you know, the phrase of like, I don't want to tell you how the sausage is made. That's exactly right.

That's right. He just gave another version. I never thought of taking the the old school phrase of, I don't want to tell you how the sausage is made and flip it on its head.

God, does this man have a way with words? It's fantastic. Tell you how we make the hot dog, but you might not like it. Let's give that a whirl. Here it is. No. Okay.

I tried something on the fly here. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Okay. Oh, my word. That's great. Hey, listen.

I can't give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it. That's a new drop. That's a new drop. It's great.

Him and Jerry are like, could be neck and neck. That's a new drop, baby. You might not like it. I mean, never disappoint me. Hey, listen. Stay by your phone, man.

I may need you. This is it. This is it. 2-0. They're 2-0. And this one, you beat the Chargers at home. And it seems to be another points challenged team that wants to out physical you. Good luck.

And in the trenches. And I can't wait to see who comes up with the W. And if it's the Steelers at 3-0, I don't know. I mean, what are you going to do? Then you're going to go to see how Russ is feeling? I don't know, man. 3-0 is a tough one to just tell Russ, stay by your phone.

I may need you. That may be the message to Russ. Wow. Right? I'm serious.

I'm not trying to be facetious. You're 3-0. What are you going to do? Switch quarterbacks then? Well, we started like this. I always thought it was like this if Fields was performing in such a way, Chris, that like he's putting up these incredible numbers and they're winning big time, then you might not switch because it seems to something like the defense is doing and Fields is game managing more or less. Maybe there is a chance for Russ to. But again, I agree.

If the ship is running smoothly, just kind of let it. Steelers have the third best odds to be the last undefeated team. Why not? And they play the fourth best odds this weekend. Chargers. All right, here's what we're going to do. We're going to take a break here. We're going to get our ducks in a row. I've got a top five list and we've got an overreaction Monday on a Tuesday. We're going to finish up with some staples of this program. And outside of that, I'm just not going to tell you what's in the hot dog. Please don't. Right?

Because you may not like it. That's great, man. That's a new one.

The Rich Eisen Show is sponsored by Grainger. Does this sound familiar? You're a maintenance specialist and you've been squaring off with a leaky radiator at your facility for hours.

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Stream on Hulu. What a fun show so far, huh? We got a big finish.

Just another one flying by. She liked the Monday night game. Big finish. Come back when?

It started out with the- How about the SVP putting the ziggy on the Eagles? Let me tell you something. Scott's one of the all time best, man. You know that.

And I've done the sideline two minute hit thing and I got multiple Thursday nights. I mean, years and years and years and years. Let's go to Rich and see what's coming up next. And so I used to do that, you know, just trying to fill the time and say, we'll be right back and, you know, we'll see you in a few minutes. And I have done what he's done, which is, you know, we'll get a player from the winning team and it looks like it's going to be X and then Y wins. So I just turned that and I just turned that thing into a walk and talk. And was just basically saying, I'm walking and I'm talking. I just turned it into just a total gag because it's just so dumb. The whole thing is dumb.

Well, it's like 15 seconds. Like, all right, Scott, go to you. Why am I on camera?

What's the point? We're here. You're there. We're here. You're there. Stick around. And join us later. I have no idea who's joining.

I have no idea who's winning. But one thing I definitely know I am doing is walking and talking. Yeah.

So, SVP. And one thing I know about him is he'll learn from it. He'll grow.

He'll be better and he'll make fun of it. He'll grow. He will grow.

You know, mentally and spiritually. I mean, the man's already tall. He's already like 6'5". He's a fully grown man. Fully grown.

Towers over TJ. He's a fully grown man. Very tall. Yep. Beautiful bald man. I mean, let's be honest.

I agree. Anything else you want to add? Nope.

I can't give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it. A new drop. That is epic. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

This show gets better every day. Okay, folks. NFL Sunday Ticket is coming up again. It's an NFL Sunday coming up again. How many early window games do we have? You want to count that up?

Yeah, let me take a look. Because you need NFL Sunday Ticket and you need to combine it with YouTube TV so you get the multi-view feature. I mean, the early windows last week, it's 10 games. You might sit there and go, it's too much. It's too much. And the Sunday Ticket and NFL YouTube, the YouTube TV combination says it's not enough. We got seven.

Okay. See, basically what you do is you got two multi-views. And on the fourth screen, we'll give Hanson a little heads up. You put the red zone on. Seven.

That's it. Five late games. Sign up today at youtube.com slash NFL St device and content restrictions apply local and national games on YouTube TV.

NFL Sunday Ticket for out of market games excludes digital only games. I've got a top five, but guess what? I'm placing it aside. We're gonna do it tomorrow.

Doing it tomorrow. It's now called the T's. You know who's also on tomorrow? Joe Burrow. Hey, Dan Quinn.

Bruce Feldman. Wow. What's going on there? I was just being excited.

It sounds like it's like the fourth quarter of a college game. I was just getting excited. You're gonna sing Mr. Brightside?

Yeah, sure. We're gonna jump around. Jump around.

Oh my God. Come on, jump around. We got good guests. Jump up. We got good guests.

We've got overreaction Monday on a Tuesday. Oh yeah. Hit it, hit it, hit it. That was terrible. That was crap.

That was garbage. This place sucks. Overreaction. Mondays. Monday on a Tuesday. All right, Chris. Hey. What's up, everybody? We're good.

Okay. What do you got? Can you ask me how are you?

What do you got? Mike, are you good? I'm good.

You're not as good as the Buffalo Bills. Will you forget about them? That's correct. Because they played on Thursday. That was so long ago. I know.

They get lost in the weekend shuffle and the overreactions and the plane reactions. And your point is what? They're the best team in the AFC. No, the Kansas City Chiefs are the best team in the AFC.

Well, don't play the result, Chris. They can be 0-2. The Bills should be 2-0 and they are 2-0. You want to talk about should be.

They should be and they are. Kansas City should be 0-2. They're 2-0. Best team in the AFC. Best team in the AFC. They got the MVP of the league.

Two time defending. Buffalo Bills. The best team in the AFC. The four time defending. Here's what I will give the Buffalo Bills. AFCs.

Okay. Five times? Here's what I will give the Buffalo Bills.

Two things. One, they are 2-0 and they're better than people give them credit for. And they are still the team to beat in the AFC East. Two games in and everybody thought two games in.

We would already see the signs of they're not the same anymore. So I'll give them that. Oh, that's nice. And the other thing I will give them is they've got fans who have great wedding cakes.

Just great wedding cakes. Just look at that. Andy and Laura, right? Is that who it is? Right.

Okay. Mike Toskins is friends. And just for everyone wants to run through it, the top layer is raspberry and custard. And the bottom is in honor of one of the greatest ventriloquist acts of the 1970s on the Hollywood scares, Marvel and Ganesh. Sometimes it's just for me, guys.

Sometimes it's just if I find it funny, it's just for me. I got it. All right. Moving on. The Chiefs and the two time defending Super Bowl champs.

They're 2-0. So let's please move on. What else? All right. We played earlier on the show.

We love playing the clip of Larry David being commissioner. I need to get rid of the goalposts. Okay. I don't want to get rid of the goalposts, but here's what I want to do. Kickers are too good. The goalposts need to be narrow. I like it.

Need to be narrow. I like it. When we were kids, a 50 yard field goal was like, Oh my God, they kicked a 50 yard field goal. That's incredible. There were 14 50 yard field goals made in week two. Interesting.

That's insane. I like it. Narrow the goalposts. Kickers are too good. I like it.

Toriko said on Sunday night, it's like a 300 yard drive. Now it used to be like a total outlier. And now everybody does it.

Everybody does it. I kind of like where you're going. Do we know, like, can we do a study on how much we squeeze it? I mean, let's just start small. Let's give me a yard on each side.

Should we start? How about this? How about this? If you want to do this, how about we move them in and out and in and out like they're moving, they're moving while they're kicking, you know, and you kind of, it's kind of, you know, you got to guess. Here's the deal.

This is according to the Google AI. Should we have a windmill on it? NFL goalposts are 18 feet, six inches, right? So there's six yards wide. And it's been that way since the twenties.

Everything in the league is getting changed and adapted to the times. We got a hundred year old goalpost out there. What are we doing? It's, I understand. I'm with you. Thank you. What else?

Not an overreaction. Thank you so much. I appreciate that. Okay, good.

I'll, you know, if I only had a spot on the competition committee, I would forward the goalpost first. What else? It's really bad here in LA for the Rams. Everybody's hurt. I think me and Mike are hurt in order. We're just season ticket holders.

It means that it devalues the price of the ticket you're trying to get on them. Those are your words, not mine. I'll be there on Sunday. Whose house? Your house.

Brockman's house. The Rams need to do whatever it takes to get Aaron Donald out of retirement. Does he play offensive line? He can do all of it. He's Aaron Donald. Okay.

Give him the ball on the goal line, throw it to him, line him out at wide receiver. I don't care. He needs to be back.

99 needs to be back. You know what? He's the reason why they missed him in overtime in Detroit. Fact. And had nothing to do with what happened on Sunday in Arizona.

So I don't know what you're talking about. I understand they miss him. Dude.

I know he's sleeping on the couch. It's unbelievable. The offensive linemen that are out, both Pro Bowl wide receivers are out. It's insane what's happening.

How crazy is this? No Nakua, no Cup, no Deebo, no McCaffrey for Niners Rams on Sunday. Let's have a contest. But the Niners offensive line is, you know, intact. Yeah. Trent Williams is going to show up. Yeah. Nick Bosa's there. Right. So that's the problem for the Rams. What else?

Call 99. Loved what I saw last night from the Falcons. Saved their season. I agree. As you know. Also, maybe the sneakiest best division in the NFL, the NFC South getting three playoff teams. No, that's crazy talk. They got your boy.

They got the best team in the league. Crazy talk. Kirk goes back.

Primetime Kirk. Crazy talk. Crazy talk. Three teams.

That's crazy. I'll push back on that. I'll push back on that. They look good.

That means if you're saying there's three coming out of there, that means there's only one coming out of two others and two coming out of one other. Well, what other teams have looked playoff worthy? Green Bay is going to be there. Lions are going to be in this mix. The Vikings are going to be in the mix for a seventh and final spot. Seattle is going to be in the mix for a seventh final spot.

Come on now. Don't denigrate the rest of these teams. You're basically saying the two teams, the two divisions being led by two teams, those teams are going to basically miss the playoffs because you're assuming they're not going to win their divisions. Yeah, one from the West. Got it.

So the team that just won their first game with a remarkable final drive is going to knock out two teams that are currently in first place at two and 0. What have you done for me lately? What else, Chris? Here's another thing. I mean, you look at the list. I mean, we're all playing fantasy. Half your team's probably hurt, right? Yeah. Half your team's on IR.

I know, right. All these rash of injuries just prove, further prove the point. Teams need to take the preseason seriously and play their starters. And then what happens when the injuries that we're seeing right now are actually happening in the preseason? What happens then?

They're back earlier on the field. I don't know. There's no answer to it. The amount of times that we're going to sit here and say what you say, or we need to have fewer preseason and more practices.

How many calf and hamstring injuries are we getting? Dude, I hear you. Take it seriously. I don't know how. There's no answer to it. It is a contact sport.

Every year at the combine, I am seeing people getting bigger, stronger, faster, doing more freaky athletic things. And so there's no answer to it. And there's not going to be any fix to it.

And I don't know what the fix is. What else do you want me to say? Hey, you're not going to put these guys out on the field in the preseason.

You're just not going to do it if you don't have to. So you got one more? I got one more. How about this one?

The other side of last night's coin, the Eagles. And that burner just got turned on the seat of Nick Sirianni. Oh, come on now. Burner just got turned on. Went into the stove. I put the pot on. Just turned it on a little bit.

That is just turn it on low. That is burners on the hot seat. You're on the seat. You're premature. Have you heard the Philly fans today? Dude, Philly fans. The throw to Saquon Barkley. That guy's going to catch it nine out of the other ten times. How about kicking the field goal at the end of the first quarter? That one was weird.

That one was weird. Those are three points you'd like to have back. When are these coaches going to just take points?

But it's not. Points are there. They're giving you free points.

Just take them. When you say these coaches, that means it's other than Sirianni. Well, he's the one that did it last night on national television. Listen, he's the one that brought in Kellen Moore and handed it off to him. And so far, so good. OK, so far, so good. Saquon knows he should have caught the ball. And I think this team offense again defensively is the issue.

I mean, I don't know if he's calling Vic Fangio into his office and going, what's up? But not yet. Just saying. I understand where you're going with this, but not yet.

That's an overreaction. All right. Do you think we need one more? Oh, all right.

We'll get one more again. The acting, the overacting from Chris is just I have one more. OK, and this is not just because he's my fantasy quarterback.

OK, OK. This is because I've watched the two games and he looks terrible. The team looks terrible. He might get his coach fired if he keeps us up. Trevor Lawrence needs to cut his hair so we can start playing well again.

Samson, the hair is holding him back. Be an adult. OK, you're not you're not a teenager. You're not a little kid. When I see little kids with long hair, what are you doing?

Cut your hair. Why? Why are you an adult? Why are you being the part and start playing good football? You're Trevor freaking Lawrence. You've been anointed since your freshman year of college.

You didn't lose a game in high school. You go to the first overall pick. Be the first overall pick. You got all the talent in the world. Cut your hair. Play with an adult.

Let's go. Not only is this a ridiculous supposition, but on top of it, I must say, as a fellow member of the ball brotherhood, no member of the ball brotherhood should ever be a Harris. Don't be a Harris. I think the opposite. I think people are perfect ones to judge how other people's hair looks. That is being blatantly Harris.

That is ridiculous. And you should not do that. You're fine. He's fine. He's not fine. I know that.

The only thing fine about him is his bank account. Yeah, it's not your hair. Start playing good football. Trevor Lawrence cuts his hair. Well done. The hair was long, though, in high school, in college, and when he got drafted. So now he stinks and his hair is still long. Tune into the Overreaction Monday podcast for more pearls of wisdom from Chris and reactions from me.

I can't give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it. That's a good one. 49er fans, stop taking yourself so seriously. Speaking of 49er fans, Susie and Amy are going to do What the Football in just a few minutes time when we're done, and Steve Young is their guest. Happy 29th birthday to Patrick Mahomes. Oh, if you're sitting out there thinking, what has he done?

No one should be thinking. There it is. And this, you know, it's missing on the list that we have on the screen with the number of Super Bowl appearances and wins and MVP awards, both Super Bowl and MVP and the all pros and the pro bowlers and the passing leaders and all that sort of stuff. He is the all time chief's passing leader. And by the way, you know, Len Dawson's a Hall of Famer. He passed him when he was 28 and 300 some odd years old. We were at the game.

We were there. What were you doing when you were 29? 29, I was about a week away from driving cross country and moving to Los Angeles. So, changing your life? Changing my entire life and the whole direction and course of my existence. And he's pretty much on a path to the Hall of Fame already.

I mean, he's. What were you doing when you were 29? I was here in L.A. in my first year. Where? At Fox? No, this is pre-Fox.

Production assistant. Okay. Oh, this is when you were driving around Liza Minnelli?

Yes. Hey, I would have been driving 29 years ago. I would have been taking Liza to Scott Baio's house. Cruising the streets.

For a Scott Baio booty call. Wow. That's a fantasy name right there. Wow.

And the avatar is Liza. Wow. With Del Tufo driving around like he's Hoke. What were you doing at 29? In other words, what were you doing yesterday? I think at that point, man, we were we were working on Punk'd, I think. Who's we? You and who?

The crew from MTV where I used to work. Yeah. Was it Ashton? Well, he was part of it. You know, he worked on it. He worked on it too. He had something to do with it. Okay. He had a little to do with it, but yeah.

I was in a year four at ESPN. Yep, yep, yep, yep. Wow.

That would have been what? 99, 2000? Uh, yeah. Well, it was a 98.

Yeah. 29. I was 26. So it was year three for me. Nice. Long time ago for all of us.

That's what I was doing. Had a lot of hair. Not like Trevor Lawrence, but I had a lot of hair. My hair was shorter. The Bigger Pockets portfolio of podcasts are worthy of your investment.

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