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Learn more at americanexpress.com slash Amex Business. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Jerry first knocked it loose. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Intercepted, Christian Rose will undercut at the 45.
Boom! Knappert out of the shotgun. Throws it. It's tipped and it's intercepted. Intercepted by the dolphins, Anthony Walker. Dua takes a snap, pulls it back out, throws it. Touchdown, it's Tyreke Hill.
Today's gasps. Academy Award-winning actor J.K. Simmons. Falcons running back Bijan Robinson. Plus, latest news and more. And now, it's Rich Eisen. That's right, back in the chair here in Los Angeles, California, in the studio of the Rich Eisen Show right here on the Roku Sports Channel. This Rich Eisen Show terrestrial radio affiliate smart enough to have a Sirius XM Odyssey tune in and more. We appreciate everybody checking us out every single day between 12 and three Eastern time. There's also our YouTube channel. There's also our podcast for everybody who's out there. And Cumulus Podcast Network to check it out all three hours, ready for you to listen to or watch on our YouTube channel as well. Over Reaction Monday on a Tuesday. We had our Over Reaction Monday pod. Chris Brockman and I just completed it about a half an hour ago.
That should be ready for you to check out. Couldn't do it yesterday because I was too busy hanging out on a 13-hour flight back from Munich, Germany. Appreciate Kirk Morrison sitting in as always right here on the program.
Sometimes when I'm not here, appreciate him doing his yeoman's work in that stead. Good to see you over there, Chris Brockman. How are you? Hey Rich, long time no see. What's up man? DJ Mikey D. Good morning, Rich. Who's house? Ram's house. Good to see you over there.
TJ Jefferson. Candles already lit. Well, you got your beers? I don't have a candle right now, but it's five o'clock somewhere, right?
So this guy. Is that from the Hofbrau house you took at home? What is that? It materialized here. I can't say how it got here, but. Okay, well, I've got questions. I've got questions. He's got five fingers. I've got questions. Very good. I mean, that's like a two-handed discount.
That's a five-finger discount right there. Look, I can neither confirm nor deny it's here right now. Good to see you over there, TJ. Hey Rich, good to see you, man.
Glad to be back. Well, I mean, it's interesting that you're seeing it's five o'clock somewhere because Bears fans, it's been five o'clock somewhere for them for the last three weeks. And they've been tipping a few back just to dull the pain of watching this team find the end zone or attempt to find the end zone.
It has been now for the Chicago Bears eight quarters, eight quarters since they scored that touchdown towards the end of regulation in Washington, DC, against the commanders to take a lead despite scoring only 15 points in that game. And that day was just 105 passing yards in the air for the quarterback coming off of a bye, coming off of a game in London that I called against Jacksonville when he scored four touchdowns and looked terrific doing it. And DJ Moore was talking in our pre broadcast meeting about the wifi finally being connected between all of them. And I guess it's one of those plans where I guess the football gods can just flip off the wifi by pressing a button on the football gods mobile device because it turned off just 241 yards of total offense and no touchdowns in week nine getting blown out in Arizona.
And we mentioned it in Munich on our Friday show, sitting there amongst all of our friends at the Bavarian Motorworks and their worldwide headquarters. I said out of all the teams that needed a win this week with all seven teams sitting at two and seven, two of them playing each other, the Giants and the Panthers. I pegged a four and four team saying they needed to come up with a win more than any other because if the Bears came back home after not playing at home for a month, after they went to London and won and then had a bye week and two games on the road and those two games on the road that they had, my goodness gracious struggling on offense. If they struggled on offense again, it was gonna be on and cracking in the city of Chicago. And all they did was score three points and the Patriots came in and Drake May had a better day than Caleb Williams.
So Caleb is now lost three in a row, one of them to the guy chosen right after him and one of them chosen by the guy after that guy. And he's O and two against his fellow top three drafted quarterbacks in his first year and just getting worse and DJ Moore in Arizona strolled off the field in the middle of the play thinking it was still going on or just not looking over his shoulder to see what was happening with his quarterback. Getting worse and worse and worse and Matt Eberfluse did what all coaches on a hot seat will do. Certainly if they're a defensive minded coach, that's fire the offensive coordinator. Shane Waldron's out and Thomas Brown is expected to take over.
Now you might not know who Thomas Brown is, we'll get to that in a second. But it is the move of head coaches who know in order for them to survive, there's one last button to push and that is pushing the button of a coordinator. It certainly worked for Sean McDermott last year. Ken Dorsey out, Joe Brady in and Joe Brady's still there and look at this team now. I think Marshall Faulk went on What the Football with Suzy and Amy last year and says, he's out of options because the defensive coordinator, Leslie Frazier fired him, now he's fired Joe Brady. The issue for Eberfluse is he's the defensive coordinator essentially. He's the defensive play caller and that's the reason why he was kept in many ways over this off season because of how well the defense had played since the middle of last season. And if you've got that guy taking care of that side of the football and getting it better and you also appreciate that guy's ability to connect with the entire team and you've got also somebody who you think is capable of growing your most valued employee in Caleb Williams, then that's the way you can win football games.
And they won four of their first six. But it has been brutal on the offensive side of the ball and it is now the latest example of a head coach, doing whatever he thinks he's got to do, not just to win now, but seeing the writing on the wall. Eberfluse is a smart enough guy and put out this statement, after evaluating our entire operation, I decided it's the best interest of our team to move in a different direction with the leadership of our offense. Decision was well thought out, one that was conducted deliberately and respectfully. I would like to thank Shane for his efforts and wish him the best moving forward.
Couple other things to point out here. One, I cannot recall another team in recent memory who has spent almost coming up on a month now of football games reeling from a Hail Mary loss, quite like the Chicago Bears. They were in line to win that one.
They would have been five and two. Caleb would have vanquished the guy chosen after him. And I understand they only had, again, 105 passing yards, 15 points, but the 15 was enough. And Caleb was getting his ass beat in that fourth quarter and kept at it, and kept at it until that crazy moment where Noah Brown was wide open in the end zone. And the reason why the ball got tipped in his direction was because a guy who was stunting for the first three of the 12 seconds that Jayden Daniels was allowed to run around, from the position he was allowed to have because they just let him throw for a nice chunk of yards before that. And Tyreek Stevenson, who apologized, tipped the ball, got there just in time to tip the ball. And then we started talking about accountability in the locker room. And then DJ Moore walked off the field in the middle of a play. And then when asked about whether Iberfluss has control of the locker room, said, I want to say no. Or if he's lost control of the locker room, he said, I want to say no.
Which, you know, is a way to say yes. And then this week happens. And the question is, how can this spark anything with the biggest part of their schedule, most difficult part of their schedule coming up? We've talked quite a bit about how the Pittsburgh Steelers have their entire division schedule starting from week 11 on. It starts this very week against the Baltimore Ravens at home. And we said they need to make some hay before getting to that part of the schedule and figuring out their quarterback situation before getting to the part of that schedule.
And sure enough, they figured it out. They're seven and two going into that part of their schedule with Russell Wilson being three and oh, winning their last three games before hitting the toughest part of their schedule. The Bears are just now still figuring out how to flip the light switch on offense, switching out coordinators, having lost the last three games going into this difficult part of the schedule that begins for them at home against Green Bay. Interesting, kind of how the Steelers are starting their difficult part of the schedule with all of their division games starting in week 11 at home against their hated rival. And the Bears are going to do the same.
What a time to go ahead and switch gears midstream. Can Thomas Jones do it? Pardon me, Thomas Brown, Thomas Brown, can Thomas Brown do it? What is his background? Well, he was an offensive coordinator in 2023 last year for the Carolina Panthers. Now, that's not maybe what one would call a resume builder, but he does have a reputation for being quite demanding. He does have a reputation for having some sense of accountability.
That is significant. Does Caleb need that tough love? Is that what's about to be delivered? Is Caleb going to respond? Is it about Caleb's response anyway when the offensive line looks the way that it does? Is there an issue between Caleb and DJ Moore still that needs to be ironed out? What is going on there in Chicago? Great questions. The fact that we're going to be getting answers just in a few days with Green Bay coming off a buy, coming into their house is definitely, one would say, suboptimal.
Yes. And, you know, on its whole, on its whole, can't sit here and say, unworkable, total dumpster fire, can't turn it around. Can't sit here and say that.
You can't right now. And the Bears are also only four and five. And you look at the playoff standings, the division's gone, clearly, but they're only a game behind the Niners and they do have their own destiny right in their own hands if they could start winning football games and turning the wifi back on. And can Thomas Brown do it?
Don't know. That said, if you want to talk about suboptimal, when you have a generational talent, as we expect him to be, and I understand Trevor Lawrence is still trying to prove that he is one, and I understand that it's never easy. Never easy. But if you've got Caleb Williams coming into your house, the Bears did set him up with three wide receivers who can move the ball down the field and a tight end who can move the ball down the field and a running back who has proven in a couple of years in Philadelphia that he can do the job. And by the way, did prove that against Washington when he ran one into the end zone from midfield in DeAndre Swift. So they set him up for that. But what about the coordinator? They had Cliff Kingsbury in their house, in their building. Kingsbury was on the sideline at USC last year. And for whatever reason, they let him out of the building.
Remember when he was in the building and we were on this set and we're like, if I'm the Bears, I am not letting him out of the building. That is not happening. He's not going anywhere. And they let him out of the building.
I do not know why. Tom Pelissaro will join us coming up at the end of this hour. I will ask him because where did he wind up? With Jayden Daniels.
How's he looking? That's called a rhetorical question. That makes it worse. Similar to just give it a Bears parlance.
And I understand this is maybe apples to oranges, but I think it is in the same church, different pew every single time. Mahomes early on in his career did something. How did that reflect on their decision with Trubisky?
I'm not saying they chose the wrong quarterback, but clearly they chose the wrong coordinator. They got rid of one. He went to Vegas. Lou Goetzee, he's been fired.
You know who also had Kingsbury in the building? The Raiders. And this is why Bears fans are sitting back wondering if they're making the right decisions at the highest levels of that building. Is that if we had told you, hey, the plan for Caleb Williams, you're gonna hire the guy, not who was on the sideline with him last year. And again, we may find out that they didn't get along and Caleb didn't want him, or he didn't want to coach Caleb.
I don't know. But he did take the flight to Los Angeles. I mean, he did take the flight to Chicago. They did meet. Or they did take a meeting.
I think it was in Chicago, yeah. But if you had told a Bears fan, hey, here's our plan for Caleb. We're gonna hire the guy from Seattle and we're gonna bring him there. And then we're gonna fire him in week nine and hand the reins to the guy who was trying to make Bryce Young into what they hope.
And that worked out so well. We got Caleb because of it. And that's the guy now who's in charge of Caleb Williams as we enter week 11 against Green Bay for the first of two times before you see the Lions twice and the Vikings twice. And they're all at six wins and above. Bears fans, would they have signed for that? No, they would have lit the pitch, lit the torches, grabbed the pitchfork and ran to Hallis Hall.
But that's the reality of it. And that has to work for Eberflus, I would have to say. Because if not, they will be on the phone and right away, as soon as the season ends, I think, to whoever represents the current offensive coordinator in Detroit, in Ben Johnson, and say, how much? And hand him a check with that amount on it. There's a truck full of money.
We just need to know the address to drop this. And he will find somebody to coordinate the defense and they will attach him at the hip of Caleb Williams and see how that works. But I like Eberflus and I hope it works out for him. Seems like a nice guy.
And like I said, it just seemed to me, coming out of that game, Caleb was just like the king of the walk there in London, heading to the plane four and two, and they haven't won since. What a crazy league, man. Richmond Flowers is Ben Johnson's agent. Well, flowers. Rich man? A theme of this show.
Rich man, Ben? A theme of this show. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Flowers. Oh, yes. Dropping breadcrumbs. As we take our first break, Tom Pelissero will join us.
But when we come back, Jerry Jones has spoken. Oh, goodness. We call it Sun Gate, Window Gate, Curtain Gate.
What's the date? I think Curtain Gate. Curtain Gate. Curtain Gate. Blinds Gate. Curtain's up. And Micah Parsons talking about the guys he feels for the most in his locker room.
And it didn't sound like the coach was part of it. You should have mentioned me. Coming up right here on this first hour of the Rich Eisen Show, back from Germany. This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy. Just drop in some details about yourself and see if you're eligible to save money when you bundle your home and auto policies.
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Not available in all states. Let's talk LinkedIn people and small business owning. I'm a small business owner. Yeah, I might host the Rich Eisen Show, but I run it too.
Rich Eisen Productions is a small business. And when you're hiring for small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. And that's why you've got to check out LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs has the tools to help find the right professionals for your team faster and for free. It's not just a job board, this LinkedIn. LinkedIn helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actively searching for a new job, but might be open to the perfect role. In a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites. So if you're not looking on LinkedIn, you're looking in the wrong place. LinkedIn knows that small business is wearing so many hats and might not have the time or resources to hire.
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.
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Learn more at americanexpress.com slash amexbusiness. You really are, that's apple juice or what tea? What do you got over there? That's not beer. Why isn't it? Well, because you barely drank one the other night, so. Well, that was me, I barely drank one. He had the baby cup. I even went full on baby cup. I can't believe like you go to Hofbrauhaus and you're like, yeah, I'm running out of steam here, so.
I guess in hindsight, I should have just got the big one and just, you know, maybe drank half of it. Yeah. Eh, whatever. It's on me anyway.
What do you care? I guess we're on the house. That's why I had two. And so was the schnitzel. Well, I paid for it.
It was on the house, too. The schnitzel and sausage was, holy mackerel. I know you've got other things going on in your life and you got other, I mean. Rich, I had a rough Saturday day, too. Oh, gosh.
Why? I was in Arrowhead. Was Kansas played in Arrowhead?
Not a, no, no, no, no. Wait, you were physically at Arrowhead? I worked the Arrowhead games. See, Mike, words matter, like phrasing. It's not like being there. It's not like being there. You didn't have to get on a plane. You didn't have to.
It was a, I wish I was with you guys. No, you don't. No, that's a lie.
That's a lie. If you did wish, you would've just been there. You would've been there. Yeah, you would've just been there.
You have no, I mean. You really could've been like, hey, Fox, I'm taking a week off. It was amazing. No, look, it was.
Right? It was amazing. It really was.
It was amazing. Look at that. Look at that crew. Look at the crew right there. The set, the crew, everything. It was really great.
Half American, half German up there on the screen. Yep. Yeah, after one of the days, the stage manager was like, you guys want a beer? We were like, what, what?
Sure. There's RJ down on the ground right there, flashing the deuces. He stayed an extra day.
Cause he was, he was sampling some of the local environment. Laughs. Laughs. Laughs. Laughs. Laughs. Laughs. Laughs. Laughs.
Oh my God. Laughs. Laughs.
I had no sense of control. Laughs. Laughs. Back here on the Rich Eyes and Show Radio network. Speechless. Sitting here at the Rich Eyes and 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. I'm never going to tell you guys anything. Broast. Oh my God. What? I'm just giving everyone an update on what was going on in the Rich Eyes and Show and all of that happened in Munich. Yeah, all of that happened. It was awesome.
844-204-RICH number to dial. You believe the Bears fire their offensive coordinator, amen? Yeah.
I can and they're terrible. Yeah. I believe that. Having watched that game on Sunday, my God. I feel bad for... 23 drives, no touchdowns. I feel bad for Caleb and Rome and DJ, Keeney, all those guys.
Such talented players. Well, we'll find out. They're getting nothing. Again, we'll find out. Tom Pelosaro going to join us to give us his two cents on this thing in about 15, 12 minutes time to be exact. So listen, the Cowboys season has devolved to the point where we're out of things to talk about, except... And yet... Except this, honestly, we are now down to the sunlight in the stadium. That's where... Because Dak is in New York, apparently going to get his hamstring reattached to his bone.
Get ready for 25. Nobody's done for the year. Cooper Rush did not look like the Cooper Rush that we saw the last time he filled in for Dak at all.
It was brutal. They brought in Trey Lance against Philadelphia. That clearly is not... An answer at this point in time that the Cowboys would even, I guess, consider starting him on Monday Night Football in front of the whole country against the Houston Texans who are desperate for a win because they've lost three in a row. Like that, that doesn't appear to be even like, hey, let's see what we have in him so we can trade him for a higher draft choice later on in the off season or have him back up. Dak in 2025.
C.D. Lamb, fantasy owners, are basically looking for the fantasy arsenic right now. The running game is gone. Micah Parsons came back and showed how terrific he is. He affected some things, but clearly can't do it all by himself.
And Trevon Diggs too, the great interception as well. I mean, they've got some talented players who are absolutely being consumed by the mediocrity, by the... What's the words for it? The dreadfulness that's going on over there. Words we can't say on rope. We are now down to talking about design flaws of AT&T Stadium.
That's what we're down to right now. That and Micah Parsons after the, I guess, SPF gate, window gates, curtain gate, blinds gate, whatever you want to call it, he was talking about afterwards feeling bad for his veteran teammates like Zach Martin, who might not be playing anymore. And that this is his last year and mentioned how, because he was being asked about Mike McCarthy.
I'm sure you guys played that soundbite yesterday with Kirk Morrison being here. And he's saying, hey, Mike McCarthy, that's above my pay grade. And he can go somewhere else and coach somewhere else. These guys are at the end of their careers. And of course, a lot of people took that to mean that Micah wasn't caping for his coach. And thus, Mike McCarthy has yet one more notch on the hot seat being turned up.
So on 105.3, the fan today, Jerry Jones, talking about the Micah Parsons soundbite. It was not meant, no matter how it sounded, it was not meant as a critique of the coaches or the coach. It was meant as a concern for the veteran players, such as Zach Martin, that might not have that much more in their career left.
And it meant as a concern to them because they don't have the length of time to right the ship as much as a player like Micah or the younger players. That's how it was meant. There's no doubt in my mind it was meant that way.
There's no game, right? It does not feel, and Micah does not feel, a lack of appreciation of all people, our head coach, Mike. By the way, I totally believe what he's saying. I totally believe that's what Micah Parsons meant to say. The only issue is when you don't sign your coach to an extension before the season, and you go all in with him like that, moments like this will bring about questions about his grip on the locker room and what the star players that we all know will be around for a long time, much longer than him potentially, to come in Dallas.
That's the problem. Also, after you've been told, hey, the team that we've got out there, that's the team we can win with, and they're now three and six. So when Jerry is, I think, correctly and appropriately describing Micah Parsons' comments and intents, it's tough to buy. And then there's the sunlight that the rest of the league is shining on the Cowboys' roster and ability to win. The football gods and the injury bugs have also made it much brighter of a spotlight on all of their issues, depth issues, running back issues, all of those issues. Listen, we all see it every Thanksgiving. Annually, maybe, the largest audience the Cowboys play in front of. That Thanksgiving audience, man. We see it. Dallas starts in the middle of the afternoon there.
Every Thanksgiving. And we've seen it in AT&T Stadium. I don't know who decided, what architects decided to say, hey, Jerry, you want a big window? Jerry, this big window, at a certain time of year, the sunlight's just gonna come straight through it. And everybody's gonna have a tough time seeing, including the officials, who have to shade their eyes from the sun to call the game.
That photo, I can't give enough of that. I mean, you want to talk about player safety, how can he see what's going on? Honestly, it's like you're on the set of The Martian. But we see it every year. Every year.
Every year, and at every game, this time of year as well, it happens all the time. But now that we're completely out of things to talk about with the Cowboys, we're out of it, we've run out of it. Maybe we should have saved some stuff earlier. We've run out of it. We could have rolled it over.
And then, so Jerry brought it up himself in his post-game comments. C.D. Lamb was asked about drapes. Blinds, drapes, whatever. Curtains. Well, it is curtains for the Cowboys. Hey. Yeah, it's true. But Jerry was talking about the sunlight.
I can't believe there's sound bites for this, but roll it today. All I can say is that stadium was built to feel like it's outdoors when you're indoors. And it was built to have sunlight coming in in every way that you could put it out there as though it were open air.
Yet still being inside. It's the largest air-conditioned space in the world, the stadium. Every venue has certain things that at certain ways and times in the contest can create an advantage. That really goes on the category of home field advantage. And so usually, and that's the case with us, that if there's a field, or in the case it's your home field, which it is of the Dallas Cowboys, it should be an advantage to the home team. So I don't want to adjust it for one reason is because it is an advantage to us. But more important than anything, we know where in basketball, we know where the dead spots are on the floor. That's our advantage. That should be our advantage. We get to play there more, and we get to have it as advantage.
It has been an advantage for us to know where the sun is. I don't want to change that. The famed parquet window of AT&T Stadium. See, and because, put that photograph up one more time. Not the same, Jerry. But there was one large floor in Boston, that's referring to the old Boston Garden, but there were certain dead spots where the Celtics would know where they are, but the rest of the floor was usable for basketball.
That's a fact. This is not like only one corner of the end zone as sees the light. You have to avoid that corner of the end zone. It is blinding.
The referee is shading his eyes. And the issue is, I guess, you can't control whether you're going in that certain direction unless you win the toss, and you defer, and you figure that out. Or if the other team goes, you know what? We're gonna, we don't want that sun in our eyes.
We know this field just like you do. We don't want that. So you have to deal with that, because you lost the toss. It's not like the Cowboys are in full control of when they get to not have the sun in their eyes or when they do because of the coin toss in the half. That there's a sun problem. It's not like the Cowboys can use it to their advantage purposefully unless, because there are, I guess, John Machado was on yesterday, the Cowboys, saying that there are curtains for concerts and basketball.
And wrestling and everything. Right, right, right. So they have them. And they put them up and close it when they're in- Oh, so you want a curtain staff, so when the Cowboys have the ball, curtains go up. If there's a staff, I don't know if you were allowed to do that.
I don't know if you can change- There's no way that would be able to get in there. Other team have the ball, curtains down. I don't know if that's a competitive- That's like sending a snowplow out when you're about to kick a field goal. Like, you can't do that. Mike Del Tufo, exactly. I knew he was thinking it. We're like, we're- Simponico. Okay, like Staten Island's practically New Jersey.
This is true. Okay, the old giant stadium used to have a garage that Parcells would open up. I heard about that. When the opposing team was kicking in that direction because it changed the wind. Yes.
And what's the difference between that- I know the union guys that used to take care of it. Or blinds. I don't know if anyone can see a door underneath the stadium being open and realize they're getting an advantage. It worked.
You start closing and opening blinds. It's kind of obvious. Now we're talking about there's a reason to have it. You can have an advantage, but the other way around, the Cowboys can't fully control that. But what they can control is the optics of situations.
They can control optics. So I will just say this because I'm always trying to make people better. Certainly since I feel we're all part of one NFL team, NFL network, NFL.
Jerry Jones has been phenomenal to NFL networks since jump. So I will just say this. When there is an issue about sunlight and glare and whether you can see through the glare or not, do not have your head coach the next day hold a press conference where the glare from the window, sun was so bad they had to set up a screen next to him. So everybody's talking about this. Can we get some drapes at the star too? Let's get some blinds, some drapes. We'll lend them ours. Yeah, we don't use them anymore. Can you believe this? So if people are talking about McCarthy needed a shield to see the press. I gotta be honest with you.
Do they need a win in the Metroplex or what? This is like most rich houses that you drive by in Beverly Hills, guys. You always see these big houses and you can see right in. No one ever has curtains.
The windows are always wide open. Ashton? No. Okay, sir. Stop. All right, we'll take a break.
Tom Pelsaro, I want answers. Yeah. I want more beer.
I want, I need answers about what's going on in Chicago and more. 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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Back here on the program, Tom Pelissera about to rejoin us shortly. What would they, you know, I'm not, I'm saying it would be sort of blinds like this. So you'd still be able to see through it. Gonna cut down on the glitch. Just come down. But this thing's been up for 15 years. Why is this a problem now? Because we're out of things to talk about. Honestly. Again, had everyone listened to me, we'd have things to talk about.
Like what? We would have skipped a few weeks when we were talking about them when we didn't need to talk about them and we could have rolled that over to get there. You need to get over that they're not a story every week. I will not, why would I need to get over that? Because now we're stuck talking about blinds. Well, because your owner brought it up. Well.
I don't have an owner personally, so. I might be out of that team. I'm trying to get out.
You guys won't let me. What do you mean you're gonna get out? Well, you know, every other day I'm leaving.
He wants to get out. But here's the thing is, again, let's talk about TJ. Let's talk about, as if TJ's not sitting here. How many times has this guy that we know and love come on this show and refer to the Cowboys as the varsity?
Every single, every single week. Right, like hey, hey guys, hey guys. Oh, the varsity's on tonight. You know your team's playing that, your team's playing that, but the varsity's playing tonight. But now when it's time to talk, well, it bothers me that now it's time when we are talking about them potentially a little too much, you're like, why are you talking about us so much? Well, because talking about curtains right now and it's week 10. That's what I'm saying.
Well, I guess we've got a tote board of topics left to talk about with the Dallas Cowboys. There it is. Oh, yeah. Zero.
Zero curtains? Hey, listen, listen, man. Thank you, Mike.
You can take it down. No, that was a long one. That's a long one.
We like the long one. It's for Dallas. World's better when Dallas is better, man.
That's a fact. Back on the Rich Eisen Show. All right, joining us now. We weren't expecting to have him, but kind enough to answer the call. We sent up the signal. The answers.
When the Chicago Bears fired their offensive coordinator, Shane Waldron, earlier on Tuesday, Tom Pelosaro here on the Rich Eisen Show. That's a sincere applause, Tom. A sincere applause for you. I'm always happy to answer.
Sometimes I got to jump out of the shower to answer your call, Rich, but I always, always get there. Ladies and gentlemen. There we go.
Painting word pictures. The hair's always proper though, Rich. So it's not like we're catching them off guard ever. That's true. Tom Pelosaro, sir, why now for Shane Waldron and the Bears to part ways, sir? The simplest explanation, Rich, is they just weren't good enough the last couple of weeks.
Obviously you heard it from the fans, the boos being out in the first half and all that. They just, they didn't score enough. And when you've got the expectations they have, when you've put so many resources into the offense and adding personnel and adding the receivers and you use the number one overall pick on Caleb Williams, the bar is set at a certain level and they were always going to have the challenge of being able to meet that bar. I still go back a few weeks to the fact that they've got the commanders beat in Washington until Tyreek Stevenson decides to wave goodbye to the crowd and then tips the ball to Noah Brown in the back of the end zone and they lose that game.
You know, the last two weeks going to Arizona, I think they scored nine points in that game and then three against the Patriots, you know, clearly something had to change. And it was a, I would tell you this, Rich, it was a unique sequence of events because, you know, Matt Everyfluis goes, he says, I think on the radio yesterday morning that they're talking about changes and then he does his press conference in the afternoon. He won't commit to Shane Waldron still being on staff as the offensive coordinator by the following week. My understanding as of last night was that the plan was going to be Waldron would stay. They potentially would move him upstairs, you know, change some things operationally, but that he was going to remain the offensive coordinator. But Shane Waldron got called in by Matt Everyfluis around 7.30 central this morning and told that they were indeed going to make a change.
They had a staff meeting at eight. Everybody found out it's going to be Thomas Brown now taking over as the offensive coordinator. It's a big opportunity for Thomas Brown who last year, remember, he took over Frank Wright, gave him play calling duties, then took him back, then Wright got fired, then Thomas Brown took over. Again, he got some of the same elements at play here where you're trying to rescue Caleb Williams who's just been more up and down than they would like through the course this year. I think the biggest difference, I know we talked about this the other day, is you've seen it with Caleb. You've seen him make some big plays.
They're just not happening consistently enough. He's taken way too many sacks. You're hoping that a different energy level, somebody new calling the plays from the same offense, maybe that's going to make a difference and it comes at a really critical juncture for the Bears. They get set to play the oldest rivalry in the league this weekend against the Packers.
Well, before we move forward, there's still a question about what happened to get us to this point, Tom, that I'd like to ask you about. Cliff Kingsbury was there for the Bears to hire. They did interview him in January. Unless there's something behind the scenes with Kingsbury and Caleb we didn't know about or anything like that. Because with Kingsbury doing what he's doing right now with Jayden Daniels just offsets even more, or I guess it spotlights even more the significance of the struggle for Chicago. Certainly, if they're now turning to a guy that was part of the offensive struggle last year that led to Caleb Williams even being able to be drafted by Chicago. So my long-winded windup of saying, why didn't the Bears hire Cliff Kingsbury when they had a chance, Tom? I believe the Bears interviewed nine people for their offensive coordinator job.
The only second interview they did was with Shane Waldron. He came into Chicago and they hired him. And this was somebody who had called plays obviously for a couple of years in Seattle.
Always had a good reputation going back to his days with the Rams. He had trained under Bill Belichick. He'd worked with different types of quarterbacks in different systems. And the belief for the Bears and for Matt Eberfluss was that he was going to be able to run the right offense to get Caleb Williams going where he wanted to go. With Cliff, he interviewed for at least three jobs because he also, of course, interviewed for the Raiders job, left the building. The Raiders thought that they were getting him as the offensive coordinator, then woke up the next day. There had been an issue in the negotiations and Cliff ends up in Washington. Now, I don't know that when Cliff was hired that people were necessarily celebrating that either in Washington, because the last impressions you had of Cliff Kingsbury was Kyler Murray screaming at him on the sideline and kind of where things had been in Arizona down the stretch of his tenure there, but caught the right, you know, end up in the right situation with the right quarterback in Jayden Daniels, who honestly came in, probably being more pro-ready than Caleb Williams just because of the way that he had played from the pocket at LSU, because of the growth that he had done there. That's taken nothing away from Cliff, but he may have ended up with a quarterback who was a little bit closer to being ready to function at a high level in the NFL. I do think that given the totality of this, given the history of, you know, Caleb Williams and Cliff Kingsbury having a pretty existing relationship, you know, I wouldn't be surprised if, you know, we're having this conversation again somewhere down the line depending where this Bears season ends up going about, whether or not Cliff Kingsbury in a different capacity could end up in Chicago. But at that time, you know, the thinking was Shane Waldron based on his history, the different styles of quarterbacks he had worked with, and what they wanted to get out of Caleb. They believed that that was the right fit. Shane's a great guy. He's a good football coach.
It just was not working in Chicago. I think that everybody understood that. And again, even though last night it seemed like Shane Waldron was going to be sticking around, you can understand why Matt Iberflus decided he needed to make the move this morning. No question, Tom. So Thomas Brown, you want to give us a primer and also what his skillset being brought to bear makes the Bears think that he can do something different than Shane Waldron with the result? Yeah, Thomas Brown is definitely a different type of a personality than Shane Waldron. Shane's, I don't necessarily want to call him introverted, but he's very thoughtful. You know, with Thomas Brown, not that he's not a thoughtful guy, but he is high energy and going to, you know, bring some juice to the room.
Sean McVeigh, you know, has called him one of the greatest competitors that he'd ever been around. He was the assistant head coach on the Rams team that won the Super Bowl. Again, there were a lot of things that didn't work last year in Carolina. They had the idea of just bringing a bunch of different people from different backgrounds and have a mind meld.
And instead, they just ended up with, you know, no identity on offense. But Thomas Brown's interviewed for a bunch of head coaching jobs in the past. He's going to be able to communicate probably a little bit differently with Caleb Williams.
We'll see where he ends up calling the place from. He's been in the booth, but I believe that it's possible he may end up on the sideline and being able to be face-to-face with Caleb Williams in the course of the game. He's very highly thought of within the league. His background, he was a former NFL running back.
He was drafted out of Georgia, suffered an injury, blew out, I believe he tore his groin off the bone when getting horse-collar tackled in a preseason game. But went into coaching and has been highly regarded since here. It's a huge opportunity for him at a time that everybody's trying to figure out who the head coaching candidates are going to be this time around, see if you can catch lightning in a bottle. There's always a placebo effect when you change out the head coach or the quarterback or the offensive coordinator.
You know, maybe you get a little bit of a bounce here and if they can go and steal one or at least look better this week in Green Bay, then that's going to be progress. All right, in the couple of minutes I have left with you here before the end of our hour, you just chatted with Jake Ferguson for the insiders, Tom? We did have Jake Ferguson on for the insiders. I did ask him, I heard your conversation about the sunshine in AT&T Stadium. And I told him, you know, when I first got into TV, and Rich, you might've gotten this discussion once upon a time, but I was told when you're in a very sunny spot or when they really got to turn those lights up, you close your eyes and you look toward the lights and then when you open your eyes, it's like, fixed it. So I said, have you learned any tricks in your time in Dallas for catching the ball in that, you know, when the sun's hitting the field? And he, you know, he kind of deadpanned, he just goes, catch the black spot.
In other words, look in the middle of the sun, the thing that's, that's it, that's the ball that's in there. He also pointed out on that play, you know, the focus has been on CD Lamb not seeing the ball at all. He goes, you can see right there, I actually should probably reach out and just catch it because obviously Jake Ferguson crossing the goal line in front of him, he can see the ball, but he thinks the ball's coming to CD so he pulls his hands back. I mean, there's a lot going on right now in Dallas. You just lost Zach Prescott for the season. You're three and six, your coaching staff is all in contract years. And oh, by the way, you're on national TV, Monday Night Football against the Houston Texans.
But, you know, Ferguson said that they had discussions yesterday about what they, you know, what they need to do, the kind of the approach that they need to have to go into this game. Cooper Rush is a guy, when you talk to anybody there, they'll all tell you, that locker room has confidence in Cooper Rush. The stat line is unimaginably, unimaginably bad last week.
I think they threw for what, 43 or 47 yards. I mean, it's almost impossible to do that, but based on what Cooper Rush has done in the past, he is a guy that they believe in and I would not be surprised if in some capacity, we see a little bit more of Trey Lance, even though the year and a half he's had in the system has not given them the feeling that he should be getting the nod as the starter over Cooper Rush. What do you mean you see like a package, a Trey Lance package in the same way we did when he was with Jimmy G coming out of college?
Is that what you're saying? Definitely a possibility just because, you know, I mean, Trey Lance does bring a little bit different skill set in terms of the mobility, what he can do outside the pocket, some of the run elements. The issue with Trey Lance have always been durability and accuracy. He's been hurt almost every time he's got a chance to play and that's prevented him from making strides in terms of the accuracy, which also of course has a lot to do with how you're processing and how you're seeing things on the field. When he got into the game the other day, you probably saw some of the same types of things, but if there's different things they can do, if they can get creative and find ways to get them onto the field, I mean, Rico Dow has run better.
That might've been the best that he's looked this season, but they haven't really had a run game the entire season. You're going to need all the offense that you can get. You're going to need all the creativity you can get going up against, you know, D'Amico Ryans and Matt Burke and that Texans defense. I think it's going to be a fun game next Monday night and for both these teams, probably Dallas more so than Houston, but for both these teams, this is going to feel like you got to win this game or, you know, you're in a little bit of trouble here. Tom Pelissero, bless you for taking the call and hopping on when asked, greatly appreciate that. JK Simmons, the Academy Award winner coming up.
Still here on Roku. I got 90 seconds left. Is it possible Daniel Jones comes back from the bye from Germany and he's not the quarterback for the Giants, Tom, anymore? It certainly sounds possible and those are things they're going to discuss. I know that, you know, certain people have made a lot of the injury guarantee.
That's always applied. He could have gotten hurt anytime in the last couple of months here. If Daniel Jones is not the starter coming out of the bye, it's because one, they feel like we need to get a longer look. We got to get a look at Drew Locke and get maybe another look at Tommy DeVito and B, because they just aren't playing well. They're not winning games with Daniel Jones.
Yeah, you're seeing the fire and the physicality and all that stuff, but they're just not good enough right now. So yes, that has the effect of preventing what? $23 million in injury guarantees for becoming fully vested in 2024. But if that were their primary concern, they could have benched Daniel Jones a month ago. They haven't done that to this point. It certainly sounds like it's going to be a conversation here.
One way or another, it's hard to imagine Daniel Jones back in New York in 2024, but we'll see exactly what direction they want to go because I don't think it's a slam dunk, Rich, even if they make the change that it's Drew Locke, because you can certainly argue the best football they've played on the last two seasons was when Tommy DeVito was in the lineup. Yeah, Cutlets. Tom, thanks for the time. Greatly appreciate it, brother. You be well.
You got it, Rich. Everybody check out Tom Pelissero on NFL Plus right here on Roku on The Insiders, along with NFL Network. Great Tom Pelissero heading off.
Whew. What a first hour. We didn't even talk about Monday Night Football.
That will change with J.K. Simmons as well next hour. Hey, it's Rich Eisen here. Join me and my compadre, Chris Brockman, every Monday on the Overreaction Monday podcast. Rich, Jameis has taken the browns to the playoffs. Dude, why can't they win seven, eight games to finish the year? Why not? 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. It's game over, man.
