Mike Golic Jr: The Circus Mentality is Taking Over the Cowboys

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Not available in all states. This is The Rich Eisen Show. So far, so good. With guest host, Kirk Morrison. Live from The Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Wilson, oh my goodness, they got him.

The commanders to jump. Earlier on the show, co-host of the PFF college football show, Max Chadwick. Coming up, co-host of Gojo and Golick, Mike Golick Jr. Plus, latest news and more.

And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Kirk Morrison. Hut, hut, high into hour number three. The power hour, man.

Need that power hour. Long weekend of NFL college football, and I'm just ready to just finish it all up tonight, Monday night football, Rams, Dolphins. Dolphins is coming into Los Angeles right here, not too far away from us, so I can't wait to see it.

Before I get to the next guest, one of my guys, too, I can't wait to talk to him. How many cutaways today of Santa Monica Pier? Oh, man.

It's funny you said that. The Los Angeles, so we'll see the Hollywood sign over under, three? The Griffith Observatory. Oh, Griffith Observatory. Yeah.

So we got the Griffith Observatory. By the way, so far, not near any of those. Exactly. Not even close.

It would take you over an hour, maybe two hours to get to them. Yeah. So that's what I love to do, to count the Los Angeles, I guess, you know, monuments or memorial sites or just the attractions of the city. So we'll see a lot of that tonight. So we got to have a shot of Randy's because that's in there. We need Roscoe's because Roscoe's is on the way. I know because I live on that road. Roscoe's is right there.

You're going to see the Chinese theater or somebody's star on the Walk of Fame. Get out of here. Yeah. Because my next guest, he's also a man of the people. He's the host of the Gojo and Golick show. He's Mike Golick Jr. He's a man of the people who has been to many of these places throughout his visits.

And Golick Jr., look, you already know what it is, Gojo. Like, when it comes to like these big, big match-ups and games, everybody wants to have the fabric of the city. But when it comes to Los Angeles, haven't you seen like the pier? Like, you know about the pier.

You know about the Hollywood site. Can we do something different? Well, that was what I was going to ask you guys.

So I live out in Los Angeles, but I've only been here two and a half years. And so I'm curious from like the more native Angelenos in here, if you could pick and say, hey, we've got the footage for you TV executives. This is what you should show. What would you guys rather they show?

What would you rather they show? Oh, let's get into the darkness. I want to see the Playboy mansion.

Give me a Star Tours, essentially. You know what I mean? Yep. That's a Playboy mansion.

That was a good one. Her most appear. Like I want to know what goes down. Exactly.

Okay. I would show just the four Oh five at like five o'clock. Exactly. Like that'd be the real fabric of like just gridlock traffic. Let's show everybody. Everybody who's trying to get to the game.

That's why it's half full at the moment because everybody's still trying to get here on Monday night. That'd be a good one. That's what I want is I want someone with the camera in the dress and the passenger seat of a car. And you know how they do those time-lapse videos.

I want them to do a time-lapse video of someone moving like 10 feet in the middle of rock hour. We had a, we had a lot this weekend, especially when it comes to college football. He's also a great college football analyst as well. And I love this college football season because it's like, we were going to have chaos teams are losing games and that's okay. It's okay to lose once it's actually okay to lose twice, but you're not out of it. And this week or last week, I should say Ole Miss beat Georgia. I didn't think Georgia was going to lose another game, but yet Georgia lost Ole Miss won.

It's just chaos. And that as we get closer to the end, we're going to see much more of this chaos of teams that we envisioned would be in losing two or three games. And how many teams will the SEC get into this 12 team expanded playoff?

Yeah, no. And I think that's going to be the interesting battle that we see because in the first round of the college football playoff rankings that came out last week, you had unsurprisingly, both of the major power conferences and the big 10 and the SEC represented with four teams each. And with the big 10, it's a very top heavy group. We know that those groups in Ohio state in Oregon is a new member of the big 10 and Penn state.

And now in Indiana, Kurt Cignetti's group in year one, you've seen them play largely easy schedules until they've got to play against each other. Ohio state took care of Penn state already. And now you've got Indiana and Ohio state facing off November 23rd. And so I think that group is secure for that reason for the sec.

It's going to be really interesting. And I think a lot of it hinges on what happens this weekend with Tennessee and Georgia playing each other, Georgia coming off the loss to Ole Miss where for the first time in most of our lifetimes, in recent memory, in the Kirby smart era of Georgia football, they got out physical and to get out physical by Lane Kiffin's Ole Miss squad is not something that I think a lot of people had on their bingo cards, but that portal defense really showed up. And so now Tennessee and Georgia, I think similar football teams, both led by their defense and both have had flawed performances from talented quarterbacks. Nico Iemaliava is now nursing an injury coming off this last game and going into this, but has looked a little bit more like the Joe Milton version of the Tennessee offense than maybe the Hendon hooker version that lit it up for Josh Hypel years ago and Carson Beck and Georgia can't protect the quarterback and the quarterback's having trouble with turnovers.

So I think coming off that game, it's going to sort out just how many teams, whether it's, you know, two or three up the top, or if they're able to sneak a fourth in because a team like Ole Miss now all of a sudden puts it together down the home stretch. But there's a team that you just mentioned Indiana, Mike, and I would say this. We needed Indiana. I didn't know how much we needed Indiana, but we needed Indiana football to be good. Not because it's a traditional power because we needed Kurt Signetty.

And for people who didn't know him before, you know him now, the dude is who he is. He's been like that since he's been a coach, whether it was at James Madison, even before that, and then coming in and gets the Indiana job. And it's like, look, we're going to be good. I'm telling you, we're going to beat Ohio State. You mentioned November 23rd. I've almost said that November 23rd is actually part one of the Big 10 Conference Championship. How cool has Kurt Signetty been for college football this season? It's been great. And everything you mentioned about Kurt Signetty is also going to be great for his bank account coming off this season.

Cause I'm sure, I don't know if he's a sexting guy or not. I assume it pretty much every one of value in college football is, but man, they're going to be able to kick their feet up Ben Affleck style from Goodwill Hunting and just shout retainer at the Indiana brass, because this is going to be the guy everyone's coming after because to be able to microwave success at a place, like you said, that's not a traditional power football conference power in Indiana, 10 wins for the first time in program history in a day and age where the portal has made immediate results from roster construction, a little bit more difficult than maybe people anticipated. It's been nothing short of remarkable what him Curtis Rourke and that offensive done defensively. A lot of those guys that came with Kurt Signetty from James Madison, make me an immediate impact in this conference and the game against Michigan this last week.

And listen, it wasn't pretty. And for a team that's been used to 30 plus point margins of victories inside the big 10, it was a good reminder, Hey, you're getting ready to take a step up and wait class when it comes to the physicality along the lines of scrimmage. When you face Ohio state, who's going to have plenty more to offer you offensively than we know this year's Michigan squad does.

But I think watching the way that they came out and now jacked up ready to try and set a physical tone against team is just a reminder of how much buy-in and confidence he's been able to instill in them early on. Mike Golick Jr. the co-host of GoJo and Golick also college football analysts. Follow him on Twitter at Mike Golick Jr. Last year, they were four and eight. They had the college football world going in September and then all of a sudden like October hit November and it just didn't look good for the fighting primes of Colorado.

That's why I call them the fighting primes. Look at them now, seven and two, they control their own destiny right now, Golick Jr. Colorado can possibly make it to the college football player. They win four games in a row, their final three in a conference championship game, which they'll be in. If they win four games in a row, can you imagine coach Deion Sanders and Shadore Sanders and the whole Colorado Buffalo entourage in the college football playoff?

I can't wait if it happens. I wonder if we'll finally talk about him, that it seems like now it's finally having the rubber meet the road, but it's amazing to me how all of last year when it was the conversation going on, Deion at the mic, how much we talked about this team after the initial run and then, you know, the injury to Travis Hunter, the way the season started to go off the rails and ways that were predictable in year one, when you portal that many players into a new program. But now in year two, the funny thing happened where, Hey, the offensive line, where they added a bunch of talent and portals, all of a sudden started to look better defensively.

They've been much more buttoned up than last year. And now all of a sudden they're doing good football things. They're a solid football team in so many areas surrounding two incredible skill players and Shadore Sanders and Travis Hunter, who are still the stars of that show, but to see them committed to so much more of the other parts of the game that were void on that team last year, it's been really encouraging.

And so, yeah, I expect them to control their destiny up until that point. And now if we look ahead to the potential matchup with BYU and the big 12 championship game, Colorado becomes an interesting foil because the one thing that worries me about BYU is high-end athleticism. They're an incredibly well coached team.

Kalani Sataki has done a great job with that group. They've got a great quarterback and they've gone out and controlled the lines of scrimmage in a lot of these games, but I don't see a lot of high-end juice athletically. And I wonder if they run up against a team like Colorado, who's got it all over the field of all of a sudden, they could be a team in the right place at the right time, playing their best football at the end of year two of Deion Sanders to potentially make that kind of noise. You know, I've played in a lot of venues. You've played in some bigger venues, maybe even than I, throughout our college football time. Have you ever had a tortilla thrown on the field?

I did when I played against Arizona State. They threw tortillas on the field. Now, if they would have had some carne asada, it would have been different. Now it would have made me a taco and left. But seeing the tortillas being thrown on the field by Texas Tech fans and then seeing Shadore Sanders sign a tortilla.

I've never seen that, Golick Jr. I know you're a man of the people who love to see interesting things on the net. I saw this and I immediately start laughing and I'm saying, how much is that tortilla going to be worth in a couple of years, possibly? Yeah, yeah, serving a tortilla. Is this like you see ancient texts that are preserved at libraries where it's got to be behind the glass and it's got to have just the right sort of things around it so it doesn't dry out too much.

I'm worried about, can you get that sold before it starts to flake or before someone like me looks at it and just gets caught with their blood sugar low at the wrong time of day and decide to be a snack marker be damned. But I know by him, cool for him to take the picture afterwards. I mean, obviously the Texas Tech fans throwing garbage onto the field need to be reprimanded accordingly. And Deion Sanders lost it on the sideline. Understandably so when being faced with the idea, I think a ref told them that, Oh, well your players are blowing kisses after they, as if that's an excuse to throw stuff onto the field the way people did. But I would much prefer, I'll tell you this, the tortillas over what I got when I was at Notre Dame and on senior day, we got snowballs thrown at us by our own student section. Now we were losing the game. So that didn't help the cause either. Imagine sitting there having to worry about what's going on the field.

And all of a sudden you get that dull thought of a snowball in November and South bend hitting you in the back of the head. That didn't go over well either. Mike Golick Jr, also go Joe and Golick on Twitter at Mike Golick Jr college football analyst as well. Cause I know, like I said, you're a man of the people who we love controversial. We love things.

They're like, wait, what just happened? And so I want to take you to Mark Harlan. He's the athletic director over at Utah. He had a Jerry Jones moment after the game between BYU and obviously Utah.

Mark Harlan, the AD went and grabbed the mic. So I got something to say, I'm like, wait, when does athletic directors take the mic after a game? The ref stole the game from us. The big 12 officials need to be reprimanded. Well, he was reprimanded. Utah athletic director, Mark Harlan, he was fined $40,000. Go Joe, like I've never seen an athletic director go to the mic after the game to the podium to let people know that they stole the game from the Utes.

Yeah. As a bold strategy, I don't know if there's a, you know, a Mrs. In his life there, but I'd imagine that pocket getting lightened 40 grand probably didn't go over well on the home front, but I'd say this like normally when we talk about this with coaches, there's something that to me is endearing about. It's the same reason coaches will go and draw flags trying to defend their players on the field to show my team. Hey, I've got your back. If you're in a bad situation, even if we may be in the wrong, we'll sort that out behind closed doors. My favorite coaches were always the one that says, I'm going to stand up and take the bleep that rolls downhill for you on the outside.

And then we'll address this in the meeting behind closed doors, but it's always going to stop with me. I don't know if that hits the same with an athletic director. Like I'm trying to think of back in the day of Jack Swarbrick would have got on the mic and gone like this for us. It might've been like, yeah, he's got our back. Or if it's just one of those moments where you want to get through this, it was already a tough loss. You're in a tough season. If you're Utah here trying not to draw too much attention to the fact that without cam rising, the things sort of imploded here and he might be back for another season of college football and just keep this thing moving. So an interesting choice, a costly one for him and maybe not the right foot to start off on in year one in the big 12, when you were supposed to be the one winning the conference. A couple more questions for you, Mike, cause I got a lot of it.

It's a lot of my plagues. I'm looking at right now with Kim Ward and Miami losing on Saturday, is it Ashton Gente and Travis Hunter, the favorites for the Heisman right now we've got three weeks left in a conference championship week. And I'm like, there's nobody else who separated themselves from these two players, the Boise state running back, Ashton Gente, and the two way player and Travis Hunter.

I don't see an underdog coming out of nowhere and surpassing these two guys for the Heisman. Yeah. So it's really interesting. I am of the belief and I listen, I'm fortunate enough to be a Heisman voter. And so this is something that now down the stretch of the season, I'm starting to consider a lot more.

Yeah, I know I don't have many bona fides in my credentials that I get to flex. And so every once in a while, I love throwing the Heisman voter thing out there. Cause people sort of stand up at attention, but I I'd say this, if you thought Cam Ward should win the Heisman before this last weekend, man, I don't know how much more of the guy can do. He'd been dragging that Miami team through a bunch of close games to begin with and throws for over three 50 and three touchdowns in this game again.

So I still think he's going to deserve his day in court. This is a word that's often criticized by some for being one that goes to the best quarterback on the best team. Well, we've got a funny thing happens this year where there's not as many teams that we look at and say are heads and tails, even guys that hails even number one ranked Oregon and Dylan Gabriel, who's in the mix for this aren't seen as markedly better than everybody else. And so now we've got to actually watch and see. And so I think it should be very close between Travis Hunter. Who's doing something the likes of which we've never seen and doing it at a high level.

There's no gimmicks to this. He's vital to Colorado success on both sides of the ball. All of these guys having their play lead to winning football matters, him Ashton, Gente, who now, because the expanded playoff this year, we can say is leading a Boise state team. That's got a chance to be the group of five representative in the college football playoff and play in the big dance. And then of course you've got cam ward. Who's got Miami still competitive in the ACC title race here, despite the fact that if their defense was the only one in charge of this probably would have lost multiple games well before this point.

And so I think all of them have been incredibly deserving and now it's going to be a great test for everyone to actually go out, do the homework and watch the games to deserve, to determine who actually takes home the hardware. You know, I got one NFL question before you get out of here, Golic Jr. is, you know, Micah Parsons had some comments after the game. I think the one thing that really slid in there and no one's really talking about is he kind of tried to retire your North Notre Dame brethren in Zach Martin.

Like, you know, Zach on his last leg, I'm trying to win one from him. I'm like, wait, why are we just retiring Zach Martin all of a sudden? But when you hear, you know, Micah Parsons comments, obviously he's a podcaster outside of his role as linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys.

What did you think of his post game comments? Yeah, I think right now everything's going to feel a lot more severe given where the Cowboys are at, at this point. Like you saw the way Jerry Jones reacted to even the discussion about the sunlight coming through the end zone there and CD land, bringing that up on the touchdown pass. Jerry Jones is going, well, why don't we just build a whole new stadium and burn this one down?

Even though no one is suggesting that that just, you know, put up some curtains maybe and help your football team. What do I know? So no, I think all of this is a symptom of losing and the Cowboys really trace that all back to Jerry Jones who got complacent, I think. And you know this far better than I do in that league. You can't just rest on what's worked before. You can't just say, well, Hey, we've won 12 games a year for the last three years. If we keep this roster exactly the same, things are going to work out just fine. There's nothing static about this league. And so Micah Parsons dealing with injury for the first time in his career, frustrated now and using this as an outlet, Jerry Jones, obviously watching this grand plan after finally getting lost in the stalemate and having to resign his quarterback for a bajillion dollars in a way that he seemed hesitant to is sitting here and looking at a football team that's underperforming Mike McCarthy sitting there on a lame duck year in the midst of all this, it's all bad.

And so I'm not surprised now that the circus mentality, which is something that Jerry Jones strives to create around that organization is the thing taking over now that the football just can no longer back up any of their bold claims. He's Mike Golick Jr. The co-host of Gojo and Golick. Follow him on Twitter at Mike Golick Jr. College football analyst and broadcaster. Mike, man, I appreciate the time, man. Always great to catch up with you, brother. Catch up with you soon. Awesome.

Sounds good. Thanks for having me. That's Mike Golick Jr., man.

Wealth of knowledge. I can't believe they threw snowballs at my guy. Like Notre Dame fans throwing snowballs at my dude. I thought they were above that.

I thought they were. Notre Dame's trying to sneak their way into the college football playoff. They got a couple of big games coming up. They got, what, Army in a couple of weeks. How was that Army, by the way? Army. Army's got a quarterback, Bryson Daly. When I say the dude looks like Captain America, like, Captain America is playing quarterback at Army.

That's what I'm talking about. Let's go. We're going to get the picture.

I'm going to show you. Bryson Daly, quarterback at Army, is Captain America playing quarterback. Like, if you want somebody to play quarterback at Army, just put his picture of you like, oh yeah, that's an Army quarterback right there. He's just the dude.

He's flexing. I had Army this past weekend at North Texas. Met him for the first time. I'm like, they call, his own teammates call him Captain America.

What a great story, man. Undefeated. Undefeated. What, are they ranked 18th down? They rising up the charts. Undefeated.

Love it. I was, I watched a 21 play, 13 and a half minute drive this past weekend. 13 minutes. So, I kicked my feet up for a full quarter and just watched Army run their offense.

I know you guys don't care about it, but it was amazing to me. And now, the game show that is sweeping NFL audiences. That's coming up next, right here on the Rich Eisen Show.

Kirk Morrison, fill it in for Rich. Let's talk LinkedIn people and small business owning. I'm a small business owner.

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That's why you got to use them. Post your job for free at LinkedIn.com slash Eisen. That's LinkedIn.com slash Eisen to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply. This guy over there, Brockman with his Red Sox cap over there. Do you have the David Price sound that when he was bitching about David Price after the Yankees beat him up in, what was that, game two?

Play it. Go for it for Bill Burke. I want him to quit. I want him to retire on the spot. He's not going to do that. I didn't go that hard.

That's what I want. He was terrible. Part of you, so furious at David Price. But you were kind of feeling good though, like you're getting it off your chest.

It was therapeutic. See what I'm saying? That's what, what's with, is there something about- Name another sports fan that sees that guy.

I don't know. Just like, I'm, maybe I'm just a much more Sonny disposition type guy. Were you screaming at Harbaugh? Oh, this is about him.

This is about how great he is. Oh, now I see where this is going. I was confused. You know, Rich, I, okay.

You spoon fed it to me. I want to tell you something, Rich, out of all the sports shows I go on, I think you are the nicest, most even keeled, pleasant, respectful to other fan base. No, I just think it goes back to like the tea party. You know, it goes all the way back to like, like you don't feel represented. You feel like you're taxed. You feel like a taxed sports fan. You haven't been represented in the sports universe.

It's always great when I have another teammate come into studio. Cause I'm teamed up against two-on-one with the New York. Don't you hate anytime like there's a big Boston game, what they show, they always show like lighthouses, lobster fishermen, and Paul Revere, like, oh yeah, that's Massachusetts. I didn't see, I never saw any of that. You know, who goes to a tourist attraction in your own city? Exactly. You only do it when relatives come to town. Oh, do you want to go to the USS constitution?

Oh, do you? Have a great time. I'm going to go to a dive bar.

Where do you want to go next? You want to go to cheers? Just to let you know, it doesn't look like that when you go inside.

So just take a picture outside. Welcome back to the rich eyes and show radio network. I'm sitting at the rich eyes and show desk furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

So call click Grainger.com or just stop by. So a lot of times I'm at home. I'm thinking late at night. I usually let the kids get to bed and I'm watching football and I'm always pondering things. And one thing that I do know is that we're past the halfway mark of the national football league season. And when you pass the halfway mark, always say that everything is just downhill in an 18 week season. Once you get into week 10, we we're going downhill.

We're getting ready for the holiday season, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's. And so you always kind of have a indication on what teams are going to be. Is there a promise? Are they good? Are they bad? We talked about it earlier.

Are they contenders or pretenders? But then as the holidays come around, and I'll be honest, yesterday I actually had a Sunday off because I'm working the Monday night football game for the Rams radio network. So I had a Sunday off.

Thank you for a Sunday ticket. I was, I had my phone lodged in between the program of one of the science museums downtown Los Angeles yesterday. So I'm with the family and my wife was like, oh, what's that look on your face? What are you upset about? And I was just like, oh, nothing. She thought I was reading, but Jerzon Newton had just jumped off sides. And I was like, I couldn't believe it.

Like, oh, she was like, she thought I was reading something very passionate, but I was not. I was watching football, but look at you dad of the year. I was trying, man, you know, if I can go to the family on a Sunday. Oh man, look, I'm still watching. I'm watching football. As long as I made the late evening guarantee for us to late window games, I was good. You know, morning, it's a lot to get caught up on. You got to just watch those later in the day. Cause when you got about eight or nine games going on, it's just like too much. So I just said, you know what?

I'm gonna stay away. I'm gonna watch this, have some good time. And I was coaching flag football too. So I was doing that earlier in the day. Then I had, so just too much going on, but I was able to find time, sit down peaceful and quiet and watch it in its entirety, the lions and the Texans and didn't start off great, started to heat up. And then at the end had a great ending to it. And I said, that was worth it. But more importantly, that was two teams that have aspirations of getting to a Superbowl.

We both think those teams, or we all will think that both those teams are Superbowl type of teams for sure. So it really got me to start thinking. And I started thinking guys, as the days get a little colder, as appointment viewing starts to really take precedence in my home of what games you prefer to watch. I decided to come up with a game show and I'm gonna need your help.

Need your help guys. Cause basically games are already set in stone already. They're already set. Week 13 is actually Thanksgiving week. Those games have been set. You can't change those games in week 13, especially on Thanksgiving day, Sunday games.

So I said, you know what? Let's start in week 14, week 14 about games that possibly could be flexed. Oh baby. Here we go. America's new NFL game show.

It's called You Got Flexed Out. Y'all ready? Let's go. Here we go. Let's go to week 14.

All right. Week 14. Three national television match-ups. What do we got?

Thursday night, week 14 Packers and Lions. Oh baby. That's a good game. I'm going to keep that one. That's appointment viewing for me. We ain't touching that. We ain't touching that. Oh, Sunday night football, week 14 Chargers at Chiefs. We ain't touching that one. What if the Chiefs are still undefeated?

You never, that's going to be an appointment viewing. But Monday night football fellas, week 14, Bengals at Cowboys. I'm sorry, Bengals and Cowboys. Y'all ready fellas? Bengals at Cowboys.

You are flexed out Cowboys and Bengals. I'm sorry. I don't look, come on. Let's just be real.

No, that's not it. I'm moving on. What are we putting in its place? Um, we have a replacement, right?

I don't even know why we play. So I didn't go that far. Okay.

Now you put me on all the pressure on me. Um, Falcons Vikings could be kind of nice. Okay. How about Bill's Rams? Bill's Rams.

I don't know protected that Mikey. What if the bears turn around bears? 49ers. That could be what Falcons Vikings.

Nice. The Kirk Cousins return game. That's a playoff preview. That's a playoff preview. See playoff game. So we do have some replacements, but that was an early window game.

So that'd be easy to flip that one over. All right. Week 15. Here we go.

All right. Thursday night football Rams 4-8-9ers. Oh, keep, keep. Yep.

Uh, Packers at Seahawks. Keep it. I'll keep that. Okay. That's Packers.

Okay. Seahawks still have a shot. Week 15. We actually have two Monday night football games bears at Vikings Falcons at Raiders. I'm sorry, guys. You got flexed out. I don't want to see that. Look, you're a Raider. Once a Raider, always a Raider Kirk, but you don't want to see the Raiders in prime time. Monday night.

Come on. We don't have any storylines by then. By thinking about it, when you start to get late in the season and you got teams with losing records, it's hard, it's hard trying to find a storyline. Right? Well, I think the storyline for the Raiders is going to be as Antonio Pierce coming back.

How's coach prime going to look in black and silver. Oh, Shador, Shador, Cam Ward, top five pick. Let's go. You got flexed out.

All right. Um, and I don't even have a game to even put in that one for week 15 yet. It's two Monday night games. So one of them has to be flexed up, flexing Falcons Raiders before I flexed bears at Vikings. I agree. Bears at Vikings have still got some conference match up.

It's always some energy. Everyone wants to see Caleb Williams is still going to be a draw at that point. It's going to be too many sunglasses that the Falcons at Raiders games, you got the Falcons fans, Raiders fans, uniting at the Legion stadium could be bad. It's going to be bad news week 16. Now this is a tough one, but it's going to be a tough one. But I looked at week 16 in the three match-ups Thursday night, Sunday night, Monday night football, Thursday night football, week 16 Browns at Bengals. Guess what?

Del Tufo hit it. By the way, people think, Oh, that's a Thursday night. That can't get flexed.

Oh no, no, no. Yes, it can be. Last year, the league voted twice a year. You can change Thursday night games. You can flex them out week 13 to 17.

So this is eligible. So week 16, maybe the first ever we've seen that two games could be flexed out. Sunday night football Buccaneers at Cowboys week 16. Fellas y'all ready?

Let's do it. Buccaneers Cowboys, you got flexed out. They flexed out. Saints at Packers. Sneaky good game.

Sneaky good game. Saints new head coach in Rizzi. You know what I'm saying? They got the, you know, interim coach. I feel like the Packers are still, they're a good draw. The Saints Packers, I can't let that one go on Monday night. I can't.

I just, yeah. Packers obviously one of the more, you know, traditionally great, great for viewing. They try, you know, obviously the home game, Lambeau fields. I don't think that gets flexed out. The last week of flexing week 17, because we all know week 18, every team plays a divisional opponent. We'll see what team is picked to play the final game of the NFL season. Game number 272. Remember this week we got Wednesday, Christmas day games, Wednesday, Christmas day game. And those match-ups are awesome. We're not going to, we're not obviously not changing these chief Steelers Ravens Texans. No, those are locked solid, but there is a Thursday game. There was a Thursday game. Boxing day, day after Christmas, December 26, Seahawks at bears, which I'll think.

I know what I think. Y'all ready fellas? I'm ready.

Seahawks at bears. Not what I want to wake up to the day after Christmas. I'm tired and put together toys, trying to find batteries. Don't even know where your tool set is at. Your tool kit.

Cause you putting together Barbie houses. Oh, I'm done. And then you turn the TV on to see. And see Geno Smith and Caleb Williams. Yeah.

You know what? Let's flex that one. Um, Oh, Sunday night football week 17, Miami dolphins at the Cleveland Browns.

Oh God. Who will be quarterbacking that game for both teams. Do both teams even have another win by then over under wins for each team we'll set it at three and a half. Does either team have more than more than three wins in this game?

Oh, wow. I say one will, unless you're picking the dolphins tonight, which that could be a chance. They get three tonight.

I will take the, uh, the under on this one, but guess what? Dolphins at Browns. Oh, by the way, this Monday night game could be a, uh, Monday night game is the championship rematch NFC championship game preview. We're not touching that game on it. By the way, week 17 Monday night football lions at 49ers will not be touched. And I would love to thank you all for joining the game. That's sweeping the NFL audiences one more time.

Fellas. You got flexed out as every, uh, schedule maker in the national football league is right now saying, Oh man. Cause they got some work to do because we've mentioned a lot of these games that need to be flexed out. Look, the Cowboys by that time, I understand the draw of the Cowboys, but I don't want to see a under 500 team and you watch Trey Lance play quarterback.

Like let's just, let's not do that. So there's going to be some juggling, juggling of games because you mentioned it with every game you flex, you got to put a better game in that window. And that's going to be the hard part over the next couple of weeks is which teams have proven to be worthy of going into that spot. That's what I deal with with college football every single week.

Like there's the six day hold the 12 day holds and people are like, what are you talking about? Well, there's a reason why you don't put teams like Florida state. Like if I told you Florida state, Miami before the season, you're like, Oh, that's going to be a great game. If I told you Florida state, Miami right now, you would not turn that game on.

You would be like, okay, let's go to the movies, babe. Like what we're doing today, that's not a game. But that's the reason why television networks, they wait. That's why you don't have a lot of the times for games right now. That's why every week they have to announce what time certain games will be on. Like Alabama beats LSU last week. That's now Alabama is going to be in the big windows. The same with the NFL.

You want to put the best games on television, especially in prime time. So no offense to the teams that we took out. Just sorry, you got flexed out. That's just what happens. Be better, do better. All right, do better. Do better. I'm glad that worked out, man. Stop was.

One more segment to go. I had a couple of things that I wanted to talk to you guys about. I saw something over the weekend and like I just, we got to give him his flowers.

I'm a big flower giving guy because before the season it was about, you know what? Let's make history. And the history was now made. And now he goes off to go do his thing and start his career where he kind of probably should have. But I get it. Not many people can do that.

But then it's now off to see you play and watch what you're doing and really marvel at it. And I want to appreciate it more and more of what we're watching when it comes to LeBron James. I'll explain more coming up next right here on the Rich Eisen show.

Kirk Morris and filling in for Rich. Out of your car. If it needs to be replaced, they'll find you just the right battery for your vehicle. Need your windshield wipers replaced a brake light fixed or quick service. They'll help you there and find the right part or point you to the nearest local repair shop for help. The professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts are your one stop shop for all things auto. Do it yourself and you can find what you need in store or online. So stop by O'Reilly Auto Parts today or visit us at OReillyAuto.com slash Eisen.

That's OReillyAuto.com slash E-I-S-E-N. O-O-O-Reilly Auto Parts. When you think about businesses that are selling through the roof like aloe or skins. Sure, you think about a great product, a cool brand and brilliant marketing. But an often overlooked secret is actually the businesses behind the business making selling and for shoppers buying simple. For millions of businesses, that business is Shopify. Nobody does selling better than Shopify with shop pay that boost conversions up to 50 percent, meaning way less carts are going abandoned and way more sales happening. So if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell whatever your customers are scrolling or strolling on the web, in your store, in their feed and everywhere in between. Businesses that sell more sell on Shopify. Upgrade your business and get the same checkout skins uses. Sign up for your one dollar per month trial period at Shopify.com slash Westwood One, all lowercase. Go to Shopify.com slash Westwood One to upgrade your selling today.

Shopify.com slash Westwood One. Put your hands together for the most recent Heisman Trophy winner. Kyle and Murray. Both will have it. Where is that trophy right now? I sleep next to it. It's on your nightstand? Yeah. So it's good morning Heisman every day?

Yeah, tight. Seriously, it's right there next to it. Like there's a night table next to the Kyler Murray's bed and the Heisman Trophy is resting. Yes, sir.

That's amazing. Have you ever woken up in the middle of the night and you've had it in your arms? Like you've been spooning with it? No, no, there's no spooning. There's no there's no Heisman spooning? By the way, I would absolutely spoon with the Heisman if I won the Heisman. Now taking part in the Rich Eisen Show Throw Challenge. Kyler Murray, is this the first NFL Duke ball that you've thrown? Oh, that's an NFL. Oh my God. You won't even answer that. Go for it, Kyler.

Go for it. That's one. That's two. Three. By the way, that's four. Those are all Duke NFL footballs. Just wanted everyone to know that. First overall pick.

First overall pick. Four. That's five.

These are the footballs Kurt Warner complained about. That's six. That's seven. That's it. Oh my goodness. Let's get some. Here we go. Keep going. I'm off. Can you get one more? Hold on, this is getting bad. Here we go.

No, it's getting bad. You got seven for first seven. Seven. Good enough.

Seven out of ten. Kyler Murray. Congratulations. He won the Heisman and it seems the Rich Eisen throwing contest in the same year. That's a first. No one could ever take that away from you. I'm back here on the Rich Eisen show.

Kirk Morrison filling in for Rich. I'm excited to always fill in to be with you guys as always. But, you know, now it's a time where, you know, last segment, you're like, OK, I want to get to some things. There was so much that was going on and I wish I could get to everything.

But there was so much to talk about that piqued my interest. And I didn't want to gloss over this one because we're here in Los Angeles. So a lot of people are looking at what the Chargers are doing. And I want to give the Chargers their props. Longtime division rival of mine in the National Football League.

Raiders Chargers love the matchup. So I always kind of develop this little, you know, this look of the Chargers. But for some reason, Jim Harbaugh has kind of changed that look.

The look of what the Chargers look like now. It's I look at the postgame celebration scene. This dude tell everybody, hey, give everybody a high five. I'm like, every player says, dude, the dude is a good coach. Like and even Justin Herbert had a little something to say talking about his head coach.

Here's a little Justin Herbert talking about his head coach, Jim Harbaugh. He's the best. And to have a guy like that leading the team, you know, you know, it shows out there, you turn on the tape and everyone wants to play for him, wants to fight for him. And the guys are playing, you know, energetic.

They're excited to be out there and they're having fun. I think that's the most important thing. And, you know, he's done such a great job of preparing us and letting us go play free and fast out there.

So to have a guy like that leading the lead in the charge, it's been awesome. Now, that being said, there is still going to be a little shade that has to be thrown. OK. And the shade that I have is just we're talking about the Chargers. And yes, they're 18 right now to sit up with a record of six and three. They're beating the teams that they're supposed to beat. That's what the Chargers didn't do in the past. They wouldn't beat the teams that they were supposed to be.

Always had the talent, but they weren't beating the teams that they were supposed to beat. So they're beating Denver and New Orleans and Cleveland and Tennessee. They're supposed to win those games. They're supposed to win those games. It's the games coming up that are the ones that I'll know more about. This Chargers team has the worm really turned.

That's what I want to know. But you look at the glass quarterbacks that they've beaten. They've beaten Bo Nix, Spencer Rattler. Don't disparage Bo Nix. I'm just telling you.

Come on now. Bo Nix, Spencer Rattler, Jameis Winston, Will Leviss. That's not murderous row of quarterbacks. I don't know more about the next five weeks when it comes to these Chargers. When they go against Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Kirk Cousins, Patrick Mahomes. And I'll even throw in, because he'll probably be back from injury, Mike Evans. Let's throw in Baker Mayfield too. I'll know more about the Chargers over the next five games than I will about the previous five games.

Okay. And you got to throw in, they did lose to Kyler Murray in there too as well. I'm just saying like, I want to put that, just a little bit of shade.

I want to just pump the brakes just a little bit. I'm just saying, if you put those quarterbacks up on the left of who they've beaten, compared to what's ahead of them, we'll learn a lot more about these Chargers. So they're in first place of a, who have they really beaten team? Uh, who do you mean?

Even though they're six and three. I'm talking about, they're the team that we're talking about. Who are they really beating? It's the Chargers, right? Correct.

Absolutely. Yeah, like when they play against these other guys, these juggernauts, then you'll know if they are the real deal. Like seeing Joe Burrow and Justin Herbert go head to head, like that's appointment viewing.

Lamar Jackson, Justin Herbert out. Now we're talking about the big leagues, right? We talked about earlier, like the weight classes. Now you bumped up to the heavyweight championships.

All right. This ain't the featherweights. This ain't the middleweights. There you go flexing a little bit right there, Justin Herbert. These are the, these are the match-ups that I want to see because you learn more about the quarterback.

You learn more about who this guy is. And then also Jim Harbaugh, his team, the mentality, how they want to dominate the physical game up front, offensive line, defensive line, that way they run the football. And how Justin Herbert is, they're designing run plays for him now by the goal line. This is just a different team, a different mentality. And, uh, you know, I just want to give them their props tip to cap.

I told you, I like to throw bouquets when they, when they're well-deserved and so far they are deserved. Now come back in about a month and I'll let you know how I really feel about the Chargers. Also this weekend, I did want to get caught up on, you know, now that the start of the NBA season has happened and, you know, seeing some guys are now getting hurt. So now, you know, KD's out for a couple of weeks. We saw Chet Holmgren, he went down.

He might be out two months. Yeah, he landed awkwardly in a game against the Warriors. And, and then you sit back and I just think about LeBron James, who had another double, sorry, another triple double last night, back-to-back triple doubles. Lakers off to a good start so far and head coach JJ Rennick. But remember at the beginning of the season, it was about Bronny James and LeBron being on the floor at the same time, history. We never seen father and son play in the NBA, same time, same game, all that great stuff.

But now Bronny James is part of the Lakers G-League affiliate team, South Bay Lakers. And now LeBron's just focusing on being LeBron. And I sit back and I'm just saying like, how is he still doing it? Like, how is he still doing it? Like we, we, sometimes you don't appreciate it while it's happening.

And then when it's gone, you're like, wow, like it's gone. Like Patrick Mahomes has given me the types of vibes, a little bit of Lamar Jackson as well, as he's right behind him, when it comes to elite quarterback play or just playing the sport at a high level consistently, because I don't think that we really sat back and truly appreciated Tom Brady. Sometimes I feel like we don't appreciate him because his level of expertise at that position and those final years in Tampa, I don't know if they truly were appreciating what we were seeing, like every single game was like, and you're hearing it through his broadcast. And I don't know, some people may be, I don't know what side of the fence you are when it comes to Tom Brady as a broadcaster.

I don't know. He will continue to learn how to be at his best, but you could see him. He has so much knowledge that he's trying to get out in his broadcast.

Like, Oh my God. Cause he played at the highest position, the highest level. And I don't think that we appreciate how he took everything to the game, like situational football, knowing who's in the game, like running back wide receiver, knowing what this team does when they're at home versus when they're on the road, the weather, like everything that he talks about in the game. Like, like you were already beat sometimes going against Tom Brady because he out dunk you.

They think you would love it. Just, he was ahead of you. You made it so much about, okay, we got to stop this and stop that. And a lot of times it was just him being simple, just getting the ball to playmakers.

How do I get it faster to this guy? Maybe it's this way this week, and it'd be a different way next week. And LeBron James is doing it right now, currently, because I don't know what it's going to look like when LeBron finally walks away from the NBA, cause he will have to be dragged away. He is still one of the best players in the NBA right now at his age. Is LeBron, what, 40 now? He's turned 40, right? So I think he'll be 40 this year, in a couple weeks, in a month.

Yeah, that's right. 24, born in 1984. He will be 40 this year and he's still one of the best players. So while every game that he's playing in, I'm watching it differently. So I can tell my kids and say, look, man, this is the baddest dude in his era of play.

Cause I had a chance to see George. And I'm saying Jordan kind of left us and then he came back. Then he left us again. And then we saw him with the Wizards and that is a story in itself.

He was still a bad dude with the Wizards, but he wasn't Jordan that we knew of, that we had seen, whereas LeBron is it right now. LeBron is doing it and it's fun to watch him do it at a high level. And we're not saying, oh man, give it up. And I'm saying that, and this is all in all honesty, because I watched the cutaways yesterday of the Jets and the Cardinals and seeing 41 year old quarterback Aaron Rodgers on the sideline and almost looking as if the game has passed them by. I don't know if you guys saw that.

Did you guys get that feeling? Like so much was put into this season for the New York Jets. And yet you saw yesterday, I thought the season ended for them with no clear plan, nothing. They don't have a coach. Hey, they have an interim coach, but that's not going to be the coach moving forward. No, and Woody Johnson is about to be part of the Trump administration.

So they're not even going to have an owner on hand. So I'm trying to appreciate the great players, Aaron Rodgers is my last link to the NFL, by the way. Yeah, from your draft class. My draft class. When Aaron Rodgers walks away, my career in the NFL is like really, really over.

As long as you've got the guy who's still in your draft class, who's like, oh, I still got guys in my class still playing. When he retires, when he walks away, it is over. And so watching Aaron Rodgers yesterday on the sideline, I just was, he looked defeated. Like there's nothing I can do. We are done.

We are cooked. And now you got to find and muster up something for the rest of the season and the year that you're, there's no playoffs for the Jets. Like, what are you playing for right now? What is Aaron Rodgers playing for right now?

All the hype that went into it. We'll see how much you love football now. We'll see how much you love football over the next, what is it, eight, nine weeks of the season. You'll see how much you love football because it's hard when you're not playing for something. Now you're just playing for stats.

So you're playing for legacy. You win a football game, it's great, but your fan base gets bad at you because it hurts your draft doc, right? It hurts where you're drafting yet. And the one thing you will say about the Jets, they need more players. A lot of expiring contracts.

I remember Tyron Smith went over there. There's a lot of players on expiring contracts, a lot of things that you just say, wow, it's tough. So I'm appreciating LeBron the way I appreciated Tom Brady and even Aaron Rodgers. I appreciate you going out there and battling.

So best of luck to the rest of the season. Always great to be with you, Brockman. Great stuff, Kirk.

Del Tufo. Good to see you, man. I'm TJ.

My guy's in the back. Don Bui, Mike Hoskins, this is Kirk Morrison. Thank you for watching the Rich Eisen Show. This is Kirk Morrison, thank you for watching the Rich Eisen Show. I'm not saying it's no why not, but this is a definitive statement that's clearly an overreaction and is perfect fodder for a show like this one.

I appreciate you coming out of the gate hot. Come react or overreact with us. Overreaction Monday, wherever you listen. It's game over. Over, man.