This episode is brought to you by LifeLock. The holidays mean more travel, more shopping, more time online, and more personal info in places that could expose you to identity theft. That's why LifeLock monitors millions of data points every second. If your identity is stolen, their U.S.-based restoration specialist will fix it, guaranteed or your money back. Get more holiday fun and less holiday worry with LifeLock.
Save up to 40% your first year. Visit lifelock.com slash podcast. Terms apply.
Oh my God, you guys are my favorites. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Rich Eisen. I know what I'm talking about.
That's the headline. The Rich Eisen Show with guest host Dan Schwartzman. OMG. Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. Oh my gosh.
And now sitting in for Rich, it's Dan Schwartzman. Gets the step. Seattle trying to bring pressure. Forcing Williams to the left. Throwing on the run for the end zone. Open at the end zone. At the back of the end zone. Caught by Romo Dunze for the touchdown.
But there's a flag down and this one is coming off the board. A hold called on Jake Kurhan in left guard for the injured Devin Jenkins. Back up the Bears and take six off the board. Oh my goodness, there you have it. A play that epitomizes the boring, disgusting display of football we watched last night. 6-3 Seahawks win over the Bears. Seahawks playoff hopes are still intact. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich on this Friday edition of the Rich Eisen Show.
Good morning, good afternoon depending on which part of the country. You are of course listening in and my goodness. I think the hardest part about watching yesterday's game between these two teams was trying to stay awake.
Six to three. And I kept thinking about something. I'm a big Caleb Williams fan. I do think the kid has talent.
But he has so little around him. In the draft they took him number one, Romo Dunze number nine. People thinking oh yeah, this is going to be the big turnaround for the Bears. They are horrendous. And now they've lost what, ten games in a row? Ten in a row.
Ten in a row going for eleven next week. The Giants of course are in the midst of I think an eleven game loss. They are losing streaks. A lot of big streaks in the NFL right now. And the Raiders just snapped theirs.
And they snapped their long ones. So you're looking at a bunch of really horrendous streaks, negative streaks. Horrible teams.
I'm going right now in the NFL. It's definitely not good. But the Bears and the Seahawks yesterday was atrocious. And I have to say, look, there's a bunch of factors. But the one thing you can look at is there's a lot of bad coaching in the NFL right now. And listen, I understand that.
I'm a Jet fan. I see it week in and week out. Robert Sala may be the nicest guy imaginable and a player's coach.
And guys seemingly want to run through a wall for him. They don't play disciplined football. They never really seem to play good football. And I think a lot of it had to do with coaching. He got canned. Jeff Ulbricht, who's a rising star as a top defensive coordinator, gets the nod as interim head coach.
And he's been even worse. The Jets go from being poorly coached to barely being coached is how I look at it. And clock management is something that you would think somebody who can ascend to being an NFL head coach has mastered at this point, right? You would honestly believe that at this stage where somebody has gotten to this point of one of the 32 coveted jobs of being an NFL head coach. Prestige, power, of course the money.
They make a lot of money. The one thing that they can master is clock management. And then sadly every week you watch NFL games and something happens down the stretch and you say to yourself, well, there you have it. Another terrible job done by a head coach managing the clock at the end of a game. And then when you look at the coaching that's, you know, when you look at the great coaches out there, the Belichicks, guys like that, sure on a couple occasions you can look at a decision, scratch your head and say, that was dumb. And we've done that with Belichick. But very rarely do you sit there with an A&E reading and say, man, did they screw that clock up, right? Like that was terrible clock management down the stretch. Very, very rarely, if ever, do you sit there second guessing the clock management skills of a top NFL head coach.
It doesn't really happen. And maybe that's what separates a good head coach from a poor head coach. And I remember sitting down one day with former New York giant great and I think CBS analyst Phil Simms. He said to me, Dan, you know what separates a good quarterback from a bad quarterback? I said, what?
He goes, four throws a game. And at the time I thought to myself, that sounds ridiculous. But think about this, and I'll bring in my good friend here, Art Martinez. Think about this, Art.
If you're an NFL head coach, you're obviously good at, an NFL quarterback, you're obviously good enough to ascend to that position, right? Very few people get to do that. Yes. You have the package.
You have the package. You can each complete 15 passes. Let's say that. Those four passes that separate a good quarterback from a bad quarterback are either three overthrows and an interception. And those three overthrows could have been two touchdowns, right? And a first down. Or it's two interceptions and two throws that should never have been made.
Bad decisions. Exactly. And the more I thought about what Phil Simms told me, I thought to myself, actually, that's ingenious.
He's 100% correct. Because I'm watching a Geno Smith and he is, how do I put it? He's an okay quarterback. Okay. Okay. Nothing special.
Yeah, nothing special. Career year a couple years ago, but he's nothing special. To me, he's like a placeholder type of quarterback. Like a glorified Ryan Fitzpatrick. And if you look at four throws from Geno compared to, say, Josh Allen or Patrick Mahomes, there's the difference. And that's what you see in the NFL today. And with the clock management aspect of it, I'm looking at that game yesterday saying to myself, how are you at the two-minute warning at your 44-yard line? So you have pretty good field position with two minutes to go. At that point, you still have two timeouts. You need a field goal to tie the game, send it to overtime. And somehow from the two-minute mark, when it's an automatic timeout, because it's a two-minute warning, you should already have thought about what plays you are going to run in what scenarios. And what ends up happening is the first play is a short pass to DJ Moore for one yard. Okay.
That's fine. You still have two timeouts. But how do you then allow 45 seconds to go off the clock before you run your next play? How do you have 45 seconds come off the clock on a third and 14 play?
I don't understand that. And then, by the way, your third and 14 play is a 15-yard pass to Ro Medunze that takes you to Seattle's 40-yard line. You are right on the cusp of field goal range, at least giving yourself an opportunity to tie the game. So at 1 minute 15 when you snap that football, the next time they run a play, 37 seconds.
That's really pathetic. Then there's an incomplete pass and then they call a timeout with 31 seconds to go. How is it possible from 2 minutes to 31 seconds you have literally run two plays? Two plays. And then you got one left. One left.
How is that possible? I don't understand how you can be so bad at clock management that you've allowed yourself to run two plays in a minute and a half coming out of a timeout, two timeouts still in your pocket. At the end of a game when you're down three. At the end of a game where you just need a field goal to tie the damn thing.
It makes absolutely no sense to me and I'm sitting there going, you know what? The great coaches doesn't happen to them. And sure, the Bears are in a position right now where they have an interim head coach, right? I mean, they fired Eberflos. He was not very good either, by the way. He had some incredibly bad clock management issues against the Lions, let's not forget. And that's why he got let go.
And Thomas Brown gets the interim tag. And when you're an interim head coach, what are you doing? Like you are actually trying to coach to get the full-time job, right?
You want that job. You're in the best position to win the job because you're actually coaching the team. Like with the Jets with Jeff Ulbricht, like he had an opportunity because people thought that if he had, you know, if Robert Salah had survived the year, the Jets would have had a top defense potentially at that point.
Who knows? The defense really wasn't very good this year. But say that it had improved throughout the course of the year, Ulbricht would have had interviews to be a head coach and maybe he lands a job. So here he is with an opportunity to coach a team that's actually fairly good talent-wise in the New York Jets. And he's shown that he's not head coaching material. Same thing with Thomas Brown.
He is showing that he is clearly not head coaching material because you cannot screw up a two-minute drill as poorly as he did. And that ends up, of course, leaving Caleb Williams very little time. And then the offensive line was horrendous, which led to this play. Williams gets the shotgun snap.
Here comes pressure. Williams in trouble. Off his back foot. A wobbler in midair and it's intercepted by Riek Woullen. Picked off by Woullen.
He'll take it out of bounds and Seattle will steal a win in the Windy City. And there you have it. That's it.
That's all she wrote. The Bears. Exactly right. The Bears. Nothing changes.
Nothing changes. And he had to throw that ball up. It was a fourth and ten. You gotta make a play. You gotta try to make a play. You can't throw the ball out of bounds. You can't throw it out of bounds.
You gotta get at least ten. It was just a poorly done two-minute drill and Seattle's darn lucky to have won that ball game and kept their playoff hopes alive. Now, as a football fan, I'm glad they did because you love to see some sort of tension down the stretch, right?
You like the what-if scenarios. If Arizona shocks the Rams on Saturday, then it does come out to a Week 18 game for the NFC West between the Seahawks and the Rams. So I'm kind of... Art, you're a Raider fan. You don't care about the Rams, obviously, even though you're out in LA. But, you know, the Rams... We watch them because they're on TV out here. Okay, so the Rams are the win over the Cardinals. They lock up the division.
But if they lose and the Cardinals may want to play spoiler, who doesn't want a great Week 18 game between two teams with identical records fighting to win the division because the other guy doesn't make the playoffs? Absolutely. Yeah.
So that's kind of what you want. So I'm glad Seattle won this game, but I'm kind of downtrodden a bit here for Caleb Williams because I'm watching this game thinking to myself, he has so little talent around him. After the game, Williams, of course, spoke and it's the usual type of cliches. Take a listen. Yeah, I haven't been able to, obviously, digest at all.
So I can't really give you a full answer. I think, you know, I think we simply didn't execute. I think, obviously, you know, there's times where you can have a better call, want a better call, things like that. But, you know, we didn't execute. I didn't execute on many different occasions this game and, you know, it's frustrating.
But got to find a way. Again, the usual cliches. Quarterbacks don't want to say anything.
They don't want to get in trouble. I think, you know, I think we... Let me try to figure out what I'm going to say here. I don't want to criticize anybody.
I don't want to get anybody in trouble. That's pretty much what he's saying. I'm a rookie. I think, you know, I think we... Let me rephrase what he's trying to say, okay? This is what Caleb Williams is actually trying to say. Yeah, let's hear it. Let's hear it.
Let's hear it. He is saying, my head coach is a fool who leaves me in a terrible position and predicament to have to make plays with little time remaining because he never took the clock management class in coaching 101. Then I look around and outside of Roma Dunze and very little else around me, DJ Moore's another quality player, okay? Keenan Allen's kind of, he's been around a little bit. Keenan Allen is not the same player he was. He's long in the tube.
Long in the tube. He's 32 years old. He's been in this league 11 years now. He's had some great years with the Chargers, sure. Definitely not that same type of player right now, but it comes down to the fact Caleb Williams is running for his life. He's been sacked 67 times this year.
67 times. Leads the NFL. Now, to be fair, some of those sacks are on him because he's holding the ball too long trying to work magic. A lot of young quarterbacks do that. Just throw it away, okay? Just throw it away.
If it's not there, just throw it away. Or just tuck it and run. These young guys like to dance around in the pocket. They're hoping somebody gets open.
Somehow they think they have all the time in the world. I'm a Heisman Trophy winner. I'm a Heisman Trophy winner. I'm a Heisman guy.
I can make plays. They kind of forget that being in college compared to being in the NFL is a whole different ball game, okay? Everybody in the NFL is great. Everybody in college is not great. You have great players, but not entire rosters of NFL players.
So, obviously there's a difference. So, some of it's on him, but on the other hand, a lot of it's on the fact that the offensive line in Chicago is atrocious. You know, Caleb Williams was sacked seven times yesterday.
He's running for his life. It was as if the floodgates have opened. On some occasions, you got like six guys in his face. I'm thinking, my goodness, were any of these guys blocked?
It's a bad situation. And the more I watched yesterday, and again, I'm a Caleb Williams fan. I think the kid has boatloads of talent. He had a rifle for an arm. Rifle for an arm.
Rifle for an arm. But the reality is, is he being ruined not just by poor coaching, which is evident, but is he being ruined by the fact that he is running for his life? Is he going to be hearing footsteps for the rest of his career? Is he going to have a slight bit of, you know, shell shock? Every time he thinks that the floodgate is open, a guy's coming around back. Is he looking over his shoulder because he remembers being sacked? If he plays next week, he's going to be sacked over 70 times this year.
That's unbelievable. I think, you know, I think we... I think we have a terrible offensive line is what he should have ended that sentence with. I don't blame the cliches, obviously.
You don't want to rock the boat. You're not going to criticize teammates. When Aaron Rodgers mentioned this year that Mike Williams ran the wrong play on an interception, he was absolutely correct.
But, you know, you don't say it. You don't throw that teammate under the bus, even though he's absolutely correct. So guys would rather say literally nothing, load up on the cliches, put all the blame on themselves. It was always funny with Andy Reid, one of the greatest head coaches in history. And I remember with Andy Reid, you know, if it's a loss and his quarterback threw three interceptions or guys made stupid penalties or dropped easy passes, whatever the reason was for the loss. After the game in the postgame press conference, Andy Reid would always say it's on him. That he didn't do a good enough job coaching the guys. He didn't do a good enough job preparing the guys.
He didn't do a good job of executing as if he's the one out there actually playing. And we know he's a great head coach, a legend, one of the all-time greats. But he always put it on himself. And I admired that, even though you knew, hey Andy, don't be blowing smoke up my rear. I watched the game. I know exactly why you lost. Fans are not idiots.
But he still put it on himself. Understood. Completely get it. But that's kind of where we're going now with everybody.
No one's going to say anything because if you say anything remotely controversial, it's major news. Oh, you did this and said that about a teammate. If Caleb Williams just comes out and says, guys, what do you want me to do? I have no time to throw the ball. Right off the bat, people are going to say, are you blaming your offensive line? Listen to Caleb Williams, the rookie, criticizing the offensive line.
How dare he? But I'm not blind, although I do wear glasses. You're not blind. And you see exactly the problem on that team. It's a bad situation.
How bad is that situation? Is it a good job? After watching yesterday, do you want to be the head coach of the Bears? Mike Sandoz, senior NFL writer with the Athletic, he's going to join us next. I want him to answer that question. Are we missing something with this team? Are they an offensive line and a good head coach away from actually turning things around in Chicago? I thought maybe I watched yesterday. I have more doubts now than ever.
Just turned away on a Friday. That's right. Dan Schwartzman again in for Rich.
It is the Rich Eisen Show. I think, you know, I think we... 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.
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. As a business owner, you're always going that extra mile to pursue your passions. So you deserve partners who can help you go further with premium benefits and rewards. The American Express Business Platinum Card offers world class business and travel benefits so you can get more for your business wherever it takes you. With the Amex Business Platinum Card, you can earn one point five times membership rewards points on select business purchases. And you can get complimentary access to more than fourteen hundred airport lounges worldwide, including the Centurion Lounge, so you can keep running your business while you're on the go. See how the Amex Business Platinum Card gives business owners like you the tools and rewards to do more of what you love. Terms and points can't apply.
Learn more at American Express dot com slash Amex Business. Let's talk game time, people and the holiday season. Game time is all about togetherness. And isn't the holiday season all about that, too?
The answer is yes. This means when you bring people together at live events, the experience is that much better and it's the perfect gift. And game time has this new feature called game time picks. It makes getting tickets for live events even easier. I love using game time picks because it filters out all the fluff, shows you only the incredible deals you want on the great seats you need.
So you don't waste a single second searching through thousands of tickets. And then there's that all in pricing feature I love. You see your total up front. There's no surprise fees at checkout. The price that they tell you is the price that you're going to buy.
It's unbelievable. Take the guesswork out of buying tickets with game time. Download the game time app, create an account and use my code. Eisen for twenty dollars off your first purchase.
Terms apply. Visit game time dot com for restrictions. Again, create an account. Redeem my code. EISEN twenty dollars off. Download game time today. What time is it?
Game time. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen Show Radio Network. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you. Call.
Click Grainger dot com or just stop by. Talking a little Thursday Night Football. Seahawks a six to three thrilling win over the Bears. Yes, tongue in cheek. Being facetious. It was not thrilling. It was a horrendous game.
And Amazon's probably like, give us our money back. We paid to broadcast that nonsense? That trek? Well, you did. Really was a hideous game. Terrible game, to say the least. But that Bears roster, they're going to be looking for a new head coach. Thomas Brown will not get that job. He's the interim head coach and it's not even based off of what we saw yesterday in terms of poor clock management with, you know, the two minute situation yesterday. Really, two minutes and fourteen seconds, to be exact, is when everything went poorly for the Bears. And honestly, it started with the fact that he had an opportunity.
Let's not forget what happened here, okay? It was a fourth and one with two minutes and sixteen seconds to go. And what ended up happening was there was a false start there, right? There was a false start penalty on the Bears on the offensive lineman, Curran. And that made it a fourth and five at Chicago's thirty-five yard line. And at that point, he sends on the punt team, then decides to call a timeout, then he brings back Caleb Williams, and they go for it on fourth down. They get the fifteen yards from DJ Moore on the pass play, right? And that gives them the first and ten from Chicago's forty-nine yard line with two minutes, five seconds to go.
Then you have the fumble and the sack by Leonard Williams, blah, blah, blah. But, you know, here's what gets me. You have to have a clue beforehand, right? You have to run through scenarios in your head. And you have to determine, okay, if this happens or that happens, this is how we will react. If it's a fourth and one and you're going to go for it because, well, you're four and eleven, you've lost nine straight games.
You are clearly heading in the wrong direction. You're not making the playoffs. You've been eliminated weeks ago. Why would you even punt there? Like, why would punting be in the back of your mind? Barring some, like, I don't know, personal foul fifteen yards where it's okay, an insurmountable number of yards to get on a fourth down play where you're like, okay, I have no choice but to punt it.
I do have my timeouts and I have the two-minute warning, fine. But if it's a five-yard hold, if it's a five-yard false start, which is what it was, you already have to know as the head coach, I'm going for it. I'm not going to punt the football there.
That's not even a thought in my mind. And unfortunately, he sends out the punt team and he tried to talk about it afterwards as if it was kind of his plan, right? Like, he denied that there was an issue there. And he was asked if there was some sort of a confusion on the sideline and Brown said that there wasn't any confusion and that he was going to use his punter, Torrey Taylor, as a weapon. That they can pin Seattle's offense deep.
He's right. It wasn't as if Seattle's offense did much. You have three timeouts, a two-minute warning, your defense has played well in this game. Okay, maybe that's what you do.
You get the ball back with probably close to two minutes, a little under two minutes to go. I get it. But you're also a team that's not winning anything, so why not just go for it on a fourth and fifth five and have that be the top of your mind as to what your strategy is going to be.
That made no sense to me. So again, Thomas Brown will not be the head coach of the Bears. But that means there's going to be a big coaching search in Chicago. There's going to be a big coaching search in New York with the Jets. There's going to be a big coaching search in New Orleans with the Saints, who have an interim head coach as well. And there'll be other guys getting fired. Brian Dable probably gets let go by the Giants. They're mired in an 11-game losing streak, which is the worst in their storied franchise's history. He's probably out the door as well.
Very, very unlikely that he survives this. So there's at least four head coaching positions that are going to be open. And I've looked at the Bears' job and I thought to myself, okay, what do the Bears have that the other three teams that I mentioned don't have? Well, the Giants don't have any sort of settled quarterback situation, right? Dave Brown's gone.
And that's the number one thing you want to look for in a team. Right. Daniel Jones, excuse me. Daniel Jones is gone, of course. They don't have a young quarterback truly in waiting that you're going to say, I mean, Drew Locke's not the answer. No. Well, no. The Jets have Aaron Rodgers and he may be released, although I'd bring him back for one more year.
I don't think he's played half as poorly. Well, they don't have a backup. Who's the backup on the Jets? Well, Tyrod Taylor's a great backup. He's not going to be a starter.
No, no. They have Travis, Jordan Travis, a kid from Florida State. They drafted last year. He's been on injury reserve this year, but I don't think he's the answer either. And the Jets will have a top ten pick most likely, so they may be in the market to get themselves. Sanders may not be there, but Cam Ward might be there.
Who knows? Jalen Milro, who knows? Or you could do it like the Raiders are going to probably trade up and get one of those guys.
There's a possibility. Depends if teams want to trade down. So the Jets don't have a settled quarterback situation.
New Orleans, it's the same thing, right? They don't exactly have a settled quarterback situation. No, they're going to release probably Derek Carr because he's getting a big, big cap hit.
And he is just a placeholder anyway. There's no young quarterback that you look at with the stains and say, aha, they're going to put all their money behind that guy for the next 10 to 15 years. But the one thing with the Bears is they do have Caleb Williams. They do have that quarterback you look at and say, this guy could be pretty good. This guy could be great. An offensive-minded head coach, you know, candidate out there might say, he gives me a shot. I can mold him.
You know, I think we... Exactly. He may not be a great talker, but he's got a cannon for an arm. Had a tremendous career at USC. There's a reason why he was the first overall pick, and people didn't blink. No one said that's the wrong quarterback to take first overall, right?
I mean, he seemed to be the consensus number one pick. So somebody who is looking to be a head coach who has options may look at the Bears and say, that's the guy. I can mold him. I can grow with him. He could be my Patrick Mahomes to me being Andy Reid. That's probably how he looks at it, right? I can be Andy Reid and have my quarterback with me for 10-15 years, will win 10 games, 12 games, 15 games a year, vie for Super Bowls. That's how he looks at it.
There's no question that's how he looks at it. He doesn't have that to look at with other teams, right? The Jets don't have that. The Saints don't have that. The Giants don't have that. The Raiders don't have that, because they might be looking for a coach as well. Antonio Pierce is not the answer. So you have situations where somebody says at least there's stability, we have to build the other positions, but I have myself a quarterback.
But I'll tell you what. They're so void of talent in other areas. I'm a Jet fan, and that's a problem.
I get it. But one thing I know about the Jets is there's actually a lot of talent there. You have a ton of young talent, right? A defense is really good. They've been not so good this year.
The right defense has been terrible. They lost Jermaine Johnson early. He had been a Pro Bowler last year. The young defensive end from Florida State. There was a first round pick a few years back. He'll be back next year. Hassan Reddick who sat out those six games, he's been atrocious. That guy has cost himself tens of millions of dollars by being terrible. He's had half a sack I think this year.
Made no impact. But you got Will McDonald who has double digit sacks this year. He was a first round pick a couple years ago.
He's turned that corner it looks like. They still have Sauce Gardner. They have to re-sign DJ Reed. They have Quincy Williams, Quinnen Williams. There is talent on the defense offensively. You got Breece Hall. You got two good young running backs. You have Garrett Wilson. The offensive line is actually fairly decent. Maybe one or two more additions there.
And it's a different story. There's talent there. And if you're a young coach you might say, hey I think I can win with Aaron Rodgers for a year. I like that position. I like that job. It's also New York.
I'm taking that one. So I can see why the Jets would be somewhat of an attractive option for a coach. But that said you want to work for Woody Johnson who apparently is making decisions based on Madden ratings. And having his 18 year old son Brick make decisions for him. Like an 18 year old and his other 13 year old son have any professional knowledge as to who should play, who shouldn't play, what trade to make, who you should draft or not. If those reports out of the athletic are true then shame on the Jets and Woody Johnson really needs to sell the team before the fan base entirely revolts.
Which they may already have. I mean if he's making decisions as to not trade for Jerry Jeudy because he's got a low Madden rating that's a real problem. And I'm not even being funny here.
I'm just telling you that's a serious problem. If an owner of a team wants to make decisions based on a video game he has no business being an owner. I do have a tough time believing that's the case and look the reporting that happened on that story, you know, the reporter who wrote that story has at other times written stuff that's come back to be not as accurate as originally described. For instance the Woody Johnson wanted to bench Aaron Rodgers in week 6. Apparently it was just a suggestion not really a demand.
Whatever it was apparently it may have been overblown in the article. I'm just throwing out to you things that- Can I make a suggestion? What's a suggestion?
Let's go to break. You want to do that? No. Oh okay. That was just a suggestion. Yeah you can make a suggestion.
It does mean it's happening right? So it really goes down to that. I mean you can make a suggestion.
Maybe we need to bench Aaron Rodgers. Because you're spitballing right? When you're spitballing you throw out ideas. They could be radical ideas. They could be great ideas. They could be poor ideas. But you throw out a bunch of ideas and see what sticks right?
That's spitballing. I think we all do that. We do that with spouses. We do that in workplaces. Spouses? Yeah. Wives. It's not in my vocabulary. Spouses?
You don't have one. Yeah exactly. I have one and I have to spitball with her sometimes and say well maybe we should do this or maybe we should do that. What if we do that? What if we do that? You know whatever it is. You throw ideas out there.
You hope one of them is good. Spouse. I'll look it up in the dictionary. Oh you're saying there's no plural. Yeah I guess there's no plural right? You do that with your spouse.
Yeah you say you do that with your spouse. Is that better? Mr. English teacher?
Is that better grammatically? It's still not in my vocabulary. It's not in your vocabulary but it's good? Good. It's good. Okay so that's good. That works. Right.
So you do that with your spouse. And I think with the Jets if they're holding a meeting and Aaron Rodgers is struggling because let's face it he's coming off an Achilles tear. Then you are going to throw around ideas and one of those ideas may be are you going to bench Aaron Rodgers because he's playing poorly? Are you going to bench him because he doesn't look healthy?
Do you make the change to Tyrod Taylor who's a pretty good quarterback? I understand the train of thought and maybe that was taken to be literal by some people when it wasn't meant to be a literal statement by Woody Johnson. Now the scary thought is maybe it was meant to be a literal statement and he actually wanted to bench Aaron Rodgers at that point. But from all indications the article was a little overblown when it brought that up and didn't understand the context to him saying it. So that's all I'm saying is, is it true that he said we don't want this player because his Madden rating is no good? Quite possibly, I don't know.
Apparently he didn't want to sign the guard John Simpson who they brought in from the Ravens because one of his Madden ratings was not good. That's what we hear. Again, I don't know if that's true. It's kind of mind boggling if it is true. Would I put it past Woody Johnson, one of the worst owners in professional sports?
I probably wouldn't. But it's out there now. So while the Jets could be dysfunctional, no question about it, there's a reason why they haven't made the postseason. What is this now? Fourteen straight years?
And it starts at the top. In terms of just overall talent on a roster, there's more talent with the Jets than there is with the Bears. Bears have some wide receivers, they have a young quarterback. There's not a ton much else on that team that you say, wow, we need to keep that player. Wow, that guy's an all pro.
Wow, that guy's a pro bowler. Wow, we got to keep that guy long term. You have like good players, like Montez Sweat. Good player. Not great. He's replaceable, but he's a good player. Overpaid for him, right?
When they brought him in from the commanders. It just comes down to looking at rosters and thinking to yourself, what's the best situation to win? And I guess having a Caleb Williams there gives you that comfort zone to say I'm not searching for the most important position in sports. And what's interesting is like the Jets, for instance, and also the Bears. They've been searching for their quarterback of the future for decades now. And when's the last time a Bears quarterback was good? Jim McMahon?
No, I'm not joking when I say this. The last great Bears quarterback was Sid Luckman. And that was like in the 50s.
Wow. Because here's the thing, like Jim McMahon was really cool, right? The sunglasses, spiked hair, the headbands, he was a cool dude. But Jim McMahon really wasn't a very good pro quarterback. The Bears won a Super Bowl because of the defense and a man by the name of Walter Payton. They didn't win a Super Bowl because of a man named Jim McMahon. They had maybe the greatest defense ever, and they had maybe the greatest running back in history. That's how you won a Super Bowl in 85.
It wasn't Jim McMahon. They've drafted guys, Cade McNown, first round pick. Remember him? Yeah, UCLA. UCLA, he was terrible. And I think, remember he had that little controversy with parking and handicap spots?
Yeah. I remember that one. The first day he shows up with the Bears, apparently he did it again. That probably wasn't the smartest thing there, but Cade McNown was an absolute bust.
I think he was the 16th overall pick in a draft. So the Bears have tried. They made that big trade with the Broncos.
They traded what, two or three? I think it was two first round picks and change to get themselves Jay Cutler. And Cutler may have been the best quarterback since Sid Luckman, and maybe the best quarterback between Luckman and Caleb Williams right now. But the Bears have no history of developing quarterbacks. And sadly for the Jets, any quarterback that had a decent year for them wasn't somebody they developed. Vinny Testaverde had that one great year. Ryan Fitzpatrick had that one very good year. Chad Pennington, I thought was a really good quarterback, just couldn't stay healthy. That was Chad's fault, was he couldn't stay healthy. That's why he couldn't make it and do it.
So that was an issue there. They couldn't develop quarterbacks within a five year span. They were in a four year span, they drafted, or three year span, four years, they drafted Sam Darnold and Zach Wilson, pick number three and pick number two.
Neither worked out for them. Mark Sanchez was a number five overall pick. So the Jets have no history of developing quarterbacks either. That's why you have to go out and entice a 39 year old at the time to come play for you in the name of Aaron Rodgers. Because you can't develop a young quarterback.
So that's been a real problem for the Jets to say the least. Alright, Mike Sandoz, senior NFL writer with the athletic. He's going to join us, tell us which of these jobs, the four that I mentioned, potentially five if you throw the Raiders in there, is the most enticing for a head coaching candidate.
Does Caleb Williams put the Bears over the top or does that rest of the roster scare you off? It is a Friday Dan Schwartzman in for Rich right here. It's the Rich Eisen Show.
Alright, we're back on the Rich Eisen Show on a Friday Dan Schwartzman in for Rich. A lot of NFL talk coming off that debacle of a Thursday night game. Six to three Yawn Fest, Seattle knocking off the Chicago Bears. Losers now ten straight. Caleb Williams sacks seven more times, 67 times this year.
But with him being in Chicago, is that the best head coach opening that we see this offseason? Mike Sandoz, senior NFL writer with the athletic joining us. Mike, happy Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah to you and the family my friend.
How are you? I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on. Glad to talk about it.
Mike, let's get right to it. I'm watching the Bears yesterday. I like Caleb Williams. I think he does hold on to the ball a little long, but he's a young player with a ton of talent.
Thomas Brown, maybe a nice guy. He's not going to be the head coach of the Chicago Bears past this season. Is that the most attractive of the perceived openings with the Jets, potentially the Giants, the Saints have an opening, maybe the Raiders, because of the fact there's a young quarterback in place in Chicago despite the lack of talent elsewhere? Yeah, it probably is.
It probably is. Those other places have some issues. It kind of depends what you're looking for as a coach. New Orleans is a good place to be a coach because Mickey Loomis is the GM and he's got a lot of security and he lets you do your thing. He's more of a salary cap background.
He's not in the media like Kevin Warren's been evaluating the coaches or what they're doing. And so you can be there for a while, even Dennis Downs, but they're five or six years without having a ton of success. Now they have a longer runway because they're a cap situation and they're going to need a quarterback. But that's a place you could go and be there for a while and maybe have less interference than some of these other places. Like the Jets obviously have an impulsive owner who could do anything. You could start 0-4 and suddenly we're making changes that no one in the building saw coming. That's not happening in New Orleans.
Chicago, you have to navigate. I think Kevin Warren is probably a good guy and probably has the best interest of the team at heart. But he's a little bit in the way, possibly two, for somebody coming in there. So that's not right for every coach. Some people want to be able to report to the owner or report even directly more to the GM.
And so that clouds it to me a little bit for different candidates. But still, to get Caleb Williams, it's a great football city. I think you can win there.
I don't think the ownership is good, but I don't think it's so bad that it's in the way all the time either. Mike, that said though, in terms of pure rosters and talent, is the Jets the most talented of those four teams? Young players? Yeah, probably would be the Jets. You could make a case for that and we'll see.
Obviously they're going to maybe get a lot younger at quarterback depending on what happens this offseason. But there's a case for that. There's just other things. That's a very difficult market, just on its own.
It's a very difficult market, not for everybody. And then now that Woody Johnson is kind of back in the saddle and not an ambassador anymore, even though you supposedly have to call him Mr. Ambassador, he's not distracted. He's more directly involved. He's more directly involved, and I think that's a wild card. Adam Gase, when he was there, I don't think he had to deal with that. And I think the next coach has to. And obviously Robert Saleh had to. Maybe you have to deal with EA Sports as well in the Madden football game, from what we hear.
That's just a mind-blowing story. I wanted to do this project. I wanted to take the Madden draft ratings and see if the Jets would have done better or worse in the draft and see if they just would have followed the Madden ratings.
I think that would be a fun project. Do it. I'm waiting for the article, Mike. I'm a diehard Jets fan for 40 years.
I want to see if that's the case or not because I want to cry a little bit. But I'll tell you, the thing about the Jets' job is this. I think anybody who's going to be a head coach in the NFL or is currently a head coach, there is some ego involved. And when Robert Saleh came out as a legit head coaching candidate, he wanted the Jets' job.
And I think there's some ego involved. He could have taken his pick that year. He was probably the top candidate. And he wanted the Jets' job.
It's New York. He looked at it and thought to himself, if I can turn this around, I'm a real hero because they're starving to be turned around with a great fan base. If you're a Mike Vrabel type, right? And Vrabel's a guy that I think is going to be very popular this offseason. Vrabel's got an ego. No question about it. Nice guy, but there's an ego there.
If you're a Vrabel, do you say, you know what? I keep Aaron Rodgers for one year. We draft a young quarterback. Let him sit behind Rodgers who came out this week and said, yeah, I'd love to mentor a guy. We draft a young quarterback behind the Hall of Famer in Brett Favre in Green Bay. There is talent there.
Jermaine Johnson comes back. I could be the guy that puts that talent together. If it's a well-coached roster, we win a bunch of games. Do you think Vrabel would legitimately look at that Jets' job?
You make a good case. Here's where, I mean, it's possible he could do that. I feel like Mike Vrabel can't suffer fools. What I mean by that is he can't handle, it doesn't handle well, just getting along with somebody who doesn't really have the credentials. And so I think he is best paired somewhere where that's not going to happen. I think some of these things we've read about and heard about and just seen with Woody Johnson could possibly be an issue for him.
And for him now, maybe, you're right, a lot of these guys think they can fix it. They can navigate it. It'll be different with them.
I don't know. That would be interesting to me. Would he be able to power through that and through the power of his personality and leadership say, we're not doing that? And actually be able to keep it on the tracks the way he wants and then work with a GM that he gets along with and respects. Because I think when he respects the people that he's working with, I think it can go really well. But he's just not the type of guy who's going to mince words or not say anything. I think there would be issues of conflict if the Jets' ownership is as big of a problem as it's being made out to be.
That would be the thing that I'd wonder about. Mike Sandoz, senior NFL writer with The Athletic, joining us here on the Rich Eisen Show. Dan Schwartzman in for Rich on this Friday. Mike, Brian Dabble, I'll tell you what, I watch the Giants and I don't think there's a lot of occasions where I say, man, they lost that game because of poor coaching. I don't think he's a bad coach. I think it's a talentless roster for the most part outside of a handful of guys. And they have a big quarterback question. If you are, Mike, put on your GM hat. If you are the GM of the Giants or even ownership of the Giants, are you firing Dabble just because of the fact that they're marred in a losing streak? And it's just been a bad situation? Or do you say, I can't put a lot of the blame on him?
How do you go? Well, I think something had to have happened when they made the move away from Daniel Jones and then went, you know, briefly went to Tommy DeVito. And to me, no coach would want to do that, even though Daniel Jones obviously isn't a great quarterback.
He's better than what they have. So to be able to make that move to me and have everyone on the kind of the same page to do that, I wondered then, do they all know they're coming back? That was just because you're not letting the coach fight. You're not giving the coach a chance. It was almost as if they said, you know, hey, it's going to be rough now, but let's get ready for next year.
And we've seen, you know, I know from people that travel on the road to these, you know, they've been at Colorado twice. So, you know, these guys are proceeding as if they're going to be the ones making the decisions. So it's true to Joe Shane, at least on the road with his guys.
So I don't have a problem. You know, if you're going to keep Joe Shane, I don't have a problem. I don't think you have to fire the coach. The things that I was concerned about with Dayball last year were the stuff that was coming out about the kind of the inner workings of the staff and his temperament. And we've seen that sometimes on game days when he's getting into it with folks. Some of that stuff I was monitoring to see, did that feel untenable?
Is this guy a little bit out of control? I haven't felt that as much down the stretch this year. Have you?
No, you haven't heard of that. Yeah, I'm not feeling, there's almost a calm around Dayball and the Giants that makes you wonder, like, do they know something we don't know? It just doesn't seem like, for a team that's lost this meeting in a row, it doesn't seem like it's just building and the blood vessels are about to burst on his forehead, right? It doesn't feel that way. That's a great point.
Yeah, it just kind of feels to me like maybe they're just going to try to get some things right and come back next year. We're not hearing speculation around the job, that they're doing this or that. It just feels quiet. No, that's a great point. It does feel quiet.
Makes you think, do they know they're coming back? Mike Sando, senior NFL writer with the Athletic Mike. Appreciate the time, as always, my friend. And again, happy holidays and happy new year to you and the family. Hey, same to you. Thanks. Always love coming on. Thank you, man.
Mike Sando, great stuff. That's a great point. You don't hear that noise, the whispers around the Giants of a guy fighting to coach past this year, that it's over for him and the staff. I think the Giants are sick of quick turnover at the coaching position. Maybe Dayball gets that opportunity. I don't think they're losing games mainly because of Brian Dayball.
I don't. Lack of talent. Blame that on the GM, not the head coach. We got more NFL Talk, college football talk coming up next hour as well. We are one hour deep. The Rich Eisen Show, the Dan Schwartzman for Rich. Build your value and then understand your value and then you create your own leverage. There's no substitute for hard work and getting over my world with Jeff Jarrett wherever you listen.
