Who is the Best Team in the NFL? (Hour 1)

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Shop in store or visit Ashley.com today. Live from the play show, yet not overly ostentatious, studios of CBS Sports Radio here in beautiful New York City, sitting on top of the 10th floor of 345 Hudson Street. Hudson Street, welcome on in to a Tuesday edition of the Zach Gelb show across all the great local CBS Sports Radio affiliates, Sirius XM, Channel 158, and that free Odyssey app. 855-212-4CBS, number to jump on in.

855-212-4227, you can always get at me on Instagram where I'm straight flexing or via the good ol' cesspool of Twitter. At Zach Gelb, that's Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. Producing our extravaganza for the next four hours is no other than Hot Take Hickey. This dumb producer, Hot Take Hickey. Mike Pritchett's gonna stop by, coming up in an hour 20 from now.

Marty Smith from ESPN will join us at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific. Let's get into the two games from last night. The Philadelphia Eagles, to me, are the best team in the NFL, and they still haven't played like it yet. And the Cincinnati Bengals got a win in the win column.

Let's start with the Bengals and then we'll circle back to the Eagles. When you look at Cincinnati, they are a team in the first two games where their offense was dreadful, you had last week the calf from Borough get re-aggravated, and you start to wonder, is he gonna be able to play on Monday night? There was all a bunch of different stuff out there over the weekend.

I had no clue what mind games were being played. Early Sunday morning, he's questionable for the game on Monday, even though he practiced on Saturday, but then there's a report there's a chance that he could go on IR, so when I saw that I thought one of two things. One, they listed him as questionable, and then someone ran their mouth that wasn't supposed to in a battle of gamesmanship, where they made it known that he was gonna go to IR. Four, two, this was just a battle of gamesmanship from the start, where he was never going on IR, he was always gonna play in the game, and the latter ended up being true, where he played in the game last night, and there were times where it looked like he hurt the calf injury again, and he was walking around, limping around gingerly, and the Bengals offense was the furthest thing from a well-oiled machine, the way they're usually accustomed to them humming, and really just playing at a high octane rate, but with all that being said, the Cincinnati Bengals did something they had to do last night. Win the game, and it didn't matter by how many points, it didn't matter with how much style you had, or if you did it with ease, just win the football game, and the Cincinnati Bengals did that last night. And now, you go into a two-game stretch where you're 1-2, you avoided the dreadful 0-3 mark, and next week, you're in Tennessee, up against the Titans, and then after that, you're in Arizona, at the desert, playing the Cardinals. And I get it, the Cardinals, great victory on Sunday, where they stunned everyone, and they beat the drama Dallas Choking Cowboys, which is wonderful to see, but if you look at that objectively, Bengals with even Burrow not being 100%, just based off that Cincinnati Bengals defense that they have right now, you would think they'll be able to limit this non-existent offense for Tennessee, and for Arizona, a team that most weeks are not going to be able to play a great version and a great brand of 60 Minutes of Football. This Bengals team, as long as Burrow is healthy, should be 3-2, heading into a matchup in the jungle at Cincinnati, on their home turf, up against the Seattle Seahawks on October 15th. So, crisis averted for now, but if you drop one of those games against Tennessee or Arizona, or if Joe Burrow has to miss games and get seriously hurt, then you could wrap it up, say the season's over, pack it up, go home, and the Bengals season will come to a close. And I remember there was a minority of people when the Bengals got to the Super Bowl a few years ago, where they were saying, oh, it's more so the defense, oh, it's the other team making mistakes and turning the ball over, and Burrow's not that great.

I'm like, what are you guys talking about? And you've seen it now, through the first three games of the season, if Burrow isn't healthy, if Burrow isn't at full Joe Burrow mode, this team, and I don't want to say they have a bad roster, because they don't. When you have Jamar Chase, you have T. Higgins, you have Tyler Boyd, you have Hendrickson on the defensive line, who is just so underrated and so good, but you look at that team and you see the way that they're built, they are built with number nine being their best player. And just from a culture standpoint, he walked in there, and I know he has the injury right out of the gate, and got hurt that season, unfortunately, but the next year when he got through an entire season, they were in the Super Bowl. For a team that was god-awful the year before that, and for a while, and never won a playoff game under Marvin Lewis, they got to the Super Bowl, and then the next year after no one to start, they get to the AFC Championship game.

That entire direction, that entire organization changed when Joe Burrow got there. And this has been a reminder to the first three weeks, if he's not there, or if he is not healthy, then that team, and just the way that we view that team, drastically changes. So you can exhale a little bit today, if you're a Bengals fan, the next two weeks you get a good landing spot, Tennessee, they were just god-awful up against the Browns, and then the Arizona Cardinals, I gotta give credit to Jonathan Gannon, they've been a pleasant surprise that they've been not only in all three of those games, but in control of all three of those games, where they had a lead in all three of them, and the first two they weren't able to finish, and then they were able to finish and dominate for the entirety of the game, up against the Dallas Cowboys. But, you would think Cincinnati should be able to get going here as long as number nine is healthy, where they take care of Tennessee, they take care of Arizona, they get to three and two, and then you would hope he would be as close to a full percentage of health that you can be, because then you have a game up against Seattle, you have a bye week, then you're at San Francisco, and then you play Buffalo, that's a brutal three game stretch.

So get to three and two, get new life, and then you go from there for the rest of the season. Now, when we get to Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Eagles for the first two weeks of the season, I really thought they were treated unfairly, where the Eagles coming off a Super Bowl, and they didn't play their best game up against the Pats, they didn't play their best game in week two as well, but they still won both of those games. And you would think by the conversation around the Eagles with all the concern around Philadelphia, that this football team would be one and one, or they would be 0 and 2, when they beat the Patriots by five, and then they beat the Vikings by seven. Last night, I know it wasn't perfect, I know Jalen Hurts made some mistakes, but you got to see this defense under a new defensive coordinator really stand out for the first time this season, up against a Tampa Bay team that has good weapons, in Chris Godwin, in Mike Evans, and the Eagles defensively took it to Tampa Bay last night. I'm not worried about the offense, you know, A.J.

Brown had a nice performance last night, he should after the way that he conducted himself up against the Minnesota Vikings, Devontae Smith's phenomenal, Dallas Goddard's underrated, DeAndre Swift, as long as he can stay healthy, he's a fantastic back, and we all know the Eagles have the best offensive line in football, but also, I don't think fans really care about this, but that entire Eagles team, or a lot of that Eagles team was sick last night, where they were dealing with the flu bug, like I just saw Ricky Ricardo in the hallways here, who was the Spanish play-by-play voice for the Philadelphia Eagles, and he's like, a lot of people don't realize how bad it was for some of those players last night, that team was really sick. So for them to be at 3-0, I really do believe with them not even playing their best brand of football yet, that the Eagles are the best team in the NFL. It doesn't mean it's by leaps and bounds, you know, you look at San Francisco, you could say, Zach, what about the 49ers? Hey, I thought going into the Eagles were better than the 49ers. Both those teams are 3-0. And I will trust the entire Eagles roster slightly more than the 49ers roster.

Slightly, it's close. If those teams are healthy, they play, it's going to be an epic NFC championship game. But they are clearly the two best teams in the NFC, and this entire offseason, how much better the AFC is than the NFC, it's kind of crazy that I look at the NFC, and I think they have the two best teams in football right now after three weeks, with it being the Eagles and the 49ers. Now, who's the best team in the AFC? I think it's the Miami Dolphins right now. Doesn't mean that the Bills won't get there, doesn't mean, and Bills play the Dolphins this week, so it's a big test for the Bills. It doesn't mean that the Chiefs still can't get there.

You see Mahomes in the playoffs, no one's going to want to see him. Defense has done a really good job through the first three weeks of the season. But, with all that being said, for Miami, it's always been, if to a tongue of eye, Loa could stay healthy. And you are seeing right now, and there's a reason why before the year, I called the Dolphins like the 49ers light, where they're not as good as the 49ers, but you have questions at the quarterback spot, you had a lot of lethal skill position players, whether it's Jaylen Wilder even playing that 70-point performance, you have Tyree Kill, who could be the best wide receiver in football, you have Raheem Mostert, Devon Aitchen coming into the fold over the weekend, and defensively, I love Phillips, he's really good, Hollins good in the back end, you got some players, the big former defensive tackle out of Clemson, Wilkins, you got some players on this team. And this team really follows the lead of their head coach, who is bizarre, who, he's a head coach, anytime he speaks, I'm like, what the heck is this guy trying to say?

And he loses me a bit, but he's a damn good football coach. He showed that last year, when in the playoff game, he kept it close with Skylar Thompson as his quarterback, and he's showing it once again this year. So those are the three best teams after three weeks in football. It's the Eagles, it's the 49ers, and it's the Dolphins, and I would say that it's in that order. And for the 49ers and the Dolphins, it will always be, can their quarterback stay healthy, because we know their ausages are damn good, and for the Eagles, they have not even peaked yet. They have not even reached their apex yet with this loaded roster, and you see the depth of that defense last night, too, with guys like Jalen Carter and what he was able to do, Jordan Davis and Hassan Reddick's not even playing great for them yet.

He's kind of been MIA a little bit. And you look at that offense, it's just loaded, there's not a flaw with that offense. And through three games, they're 3-0, and we've been nitpicking, oh, well, the Eagles don't do this, the Eagles don't do that, they're still 3-0, coming off losing a Super Bowl, and they could still get a lot better. So that's kind of where I look at the two games from last night. Bengals, you see the importance of Joe Burrow, and then for Philadelphia, even in a win, they still have not played their best brands of football. Hickey, let me throw it to you, because this is our poll question today.

At Zach Geld, at CBS Sports Radio, we'll retweet it from the CBS Sports Radio account in just a bit. Between these three teams, who's the best team in the NFL right now? Eagles, 49ers, Dolphins, who would your answer be?

49ers, so far through three games, I think they are the best right now, well-rounded team, tremendous offense, tremendous defense, also like their strength of schedule, if you will, it's three games, but Steelers right now are 2-1, that's an impressive win. Rams, so far, 1-2, but a bit plucky. Wait, now you're calling the Steelers an impressive win? I thought you were trashing the Steelers before the year.

They're not good, but they're 2-1, and right now you look at... They beat the Raiders. Look at who the Eagles have played. It's not like, you know, outside of the Buccaneers, you look at anyone that's great or world-beater, so...

The 49ers play the Rams and the Giants. Wait, the Buccaneers are your team. They are. That's your squad. They are.

And on paper, right? The Patriots are always going to give you a tough effort. They're not good. In Minnesota, we both thought they were a little bit better than the way that they're playing right now. But they're not playing their own three. So it's also like, you know, I think at this point, we're three weeks in, you kind of have to almost drop the preseason expectations and just look at, you know, those teams right now, how they played the first three weeks, and that's why I would say right now 49ers are first, just because through three weeks, they've, I thought, been so far the best offensively, defensively, and all around.

How do you think our listening audiences respond to the early returns of this poll question right now? Who's in first place? I would probably say coming up to 70-point effort, Dolphins.

Yes, you would be correct. Who's in second? 49ers. And then the Eagles would be in third. Yes.

You're right. 36.5 Dolphins, 33.8 49ers, 29.7 with the Philadelphia Eagles. Early returns there on the poll question.

That's at Gelb at CBS Sports Radio. So, where's your belief level at with the Cincinnati Bengals? Also, who's the best team in football? Let's circle back to the Bengals here real quickly. I just want to get your thoughts on this conversation. Your view of the Bengals right now is what? Not concerned. I guess expected in the sense that you see they're not exactly the most, the fastest team out of the gate, and you see now Joe Burrow having his calf be a real concern. They got a win that they needed yesterday. It wasn't pretty, I mean, Burrow is frankly bad for the most part of that game, but. But playing with that injury, I can't expect him to be this ridiculous football player.

No. It's a serious injury. That's a compliment to the Bengals where the fact that they won the game most in their defense.

Luann Arumu is good. He should be head coach by the way. Which that is where the mark of a good team is you don't need one person and you can win in multiple ways. I think they should run the ball a lot more than they have been. I don't know why the disparity between running passes so lopsided with an injured quarterback on one leg in favor of a pass, but they won a game they needed. They were the most desperate team yesterday and they won a game they needed with their defense. That to me is a sign of a good team so I'm not worried even though, again, Joe Burrow does not look good and they're 1-2. I usually don't take phone calls that have nothing to do what we're talking about, but I'm intrigued to take one phone call on the board right now at 855-212-4CBS because I'm just fascinated by this topic of conversation. The Jets bring in Simeon today.

Robert Salah keeps on saying Zach Wilson is the guy. Gorman in Chicago has a solution here for the JTS Jets, Jets, Jets. Gorman, what's the solution? What's the call?

Hey, thanks for taking my call. You know, I was listening to Greenie this morning and, you know, they were saying how they got to find somebody to replace Zach Wilson and I had an epiphany. Nick Foles is a free agent. He's going to come in there and he's going to salvage the season for him.

If you can keep him vertical, he's the guy. I'm a Bears. I'm from Chicago.

I'm a Bears fan. When they brought him in, I thought, you know, he was going to help them out, but they had no line. They couldn't keep them vertical. So the Jets have no offensive line either. Here's the thing, Gorman, about the entire Jets situation. They could, I hate Carson Wentz. Carson Wentz would be 10 times better than the crap that they keep on trotting out there with Zach Wilson. But with Nick Foles and, you know, it's a fine suggestion. Did we just realize that Nick Foles is only great in Philadelphia? Anytime he's gone elsewhere, I know he had that one win up against Brady and the Bucks when he was with the Bears, but he never survives a full regular season or majority of the regular season as a starting quarterback. You know, if you told me this coming up at the Super Bowl, fine. I know Nick Foles is an agent. He's 34, but, Hickey, you saw him last year with the Indianapolis Colts. I think we all remember that game up against the Giants. I don't remember how the game ended, but I remember Kayvon Thibodeau right with that celebration when Nick Foles had a scary injury lying down there on the field. So, Nick Foles, like, you could suggest anyone, and they'll be better than Zach Wilson right now.

Like, you know me, Hickey. I can't stand Wentz, and I'm advocating that maybe the Jets should bring in Carson Wentz because it's better than Zach Wilson. But it doesn't really matter who you bring in. They don't have an offensive line. The running backs are now fighting with one another. Dalvin Cook looks like he doesn't care. Breece Hall's good, but they barely used him up against the Pats. And, yeah, you got a great wide receiver, a young wide receiver in Garrett Wilson. But the Jets, it does not matter who they bring in right now.

Like, if you want to go trade for Kirk Cousins, people out there, God bless you. No one that you bring in right now is going to make this team a playoff team because the line is horrible, and you're not going to be able to get a great quarterback. What are your thoughts there on Gorman's suggestion of maybe bringing in Nick Foles there, Hickster?

Yeah. Nick Foles is not mobile, and I saw him play last year on a bad offensive line in Indy, and that bad O-line in Indy is still better than what the Jets have right now, and he almost got killed. So, from his health perspective, Nick Foles, whatever money the Jets want to give you, trust me, it's not enough to play behind that O-line. And you even see it with a guy like Matt Ryan. You don't think Matt Ryan doesn't want to play football? Of course he does. But Matt Ryan's not going to go from the broadcasting booth where he has a good gig right now to go play for the Jets. There's been conflicting reports. Tiki Barber works on Matt Ryan in the booth.

He said it yesterday. He said he knows that Matt doesn't want to go to the Jets right now. If they had a good offensive line, I think you would get a lot of those older quarterbacks there. But you're going to take a beating, and at best, all you would be is potentially a wild-card team.

And that may even be a stretch right now. Because this Jets offense without Aaron Rodgers, yeah, you have Breece Hall, yeah, you have Garrett Wilson, but this line sucks, and there's no other way around it. 8-5-5, 2-1-2, Ford CBS, 8-5-5, 2-1-2, 42-27. I'll give you two teams that I was disappointed in big time from over the weekend in the NFL, and I'll also tell you two teams that did impress me a lot. We have Mike Pritchard coming up to talk about the Colorado Buffaloes and do a little college football with him at 7.20 p.m. Eastern, 4.20 p.m. Pacific. And the great Marty Smith will join us at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. This is Zach Gelb's show off and running on Tuesday right here, but where else?

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Alrighty, this is Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio. Let me get to two teams that I was really disappointed in big time this past weekend in the NFL. And then two teams that really did impress me.

Let's start with the negative first. The Jacksonville Jaguars. I had high expectations for the Jacksonville Jaguars before the season started. I thought they could be, it's weird to say that a team that got to the second rounds of the playoffs last year could be a dark horse Super Bowl contender. But with some of the names that they have on the defense, needing them to step up and play lights out with Trevon Walker who was a first overall pick a year ago, Josh Allen who was a sixth or seventh overall pick a few years ago. If those two guys start to really perform, you look at them in addition with the Super Bowl winning head coach in Doug Peterson and you have Calvin Ridley, Christian Kirk, Travis Etienne, you have Zay Jones still there too. Like you have a lot of names there on that football team where I thought that this team especially in a god-awful division could be a really and I mean a really good football team and a threat to maybe not be one of those teams that we weren't talking about before the start of the season that found the way to get to the Super Bowl.

But after the first three weeks, I'm disappointed with them. Even in their one win, they let Hickey get excited with his Colts in that week one. I know the Colts just beat the Ravens and all that with Gardner Minshew, but they were down by four to Indianapolis. And then week two, all right, you survive, you play on early in the season, great teams find a way to win when they don't play their best. But then week two, you get Kansas City walking in and Kansas City did nothing offensively. If you go into a game and you tell me the Chiefs only scored 17 points, I say how many points did my team win by?

Jacksonville only scored nine points in that game. Three field goals all by Brandon McManus. There's not a bigger Brandon McManus fan on this planet than me.

I went to college with the guy, love the dude, phenomenal human being. But when Brandon McManus is your best point production player in a game up against the Chiefs, you got no shot to win that game. And then on Sunday, they didn't just lose to the Houston Texans. They got embarrassed by the Houston Texans.

They lost that game 37 to 17. And Nikko Collins didn't even go off in the game. But you look at that performance, C.J. Shroud showed me something.

D'Amico Ryan showed me something. And I know a lot of people, right, they got on the Houston Texans for finally going for it in the draft where they wanted Will Anderson, but then they also wanted to pick a quarterback and you go through all that stuff. You know, Will Anderson, he played well. He played well up against the Jaguars.

So you look back at that and you see through three games of the season hickey, you know, the Jags will probably still win this division. Tennessee stinks. You know, somehow your Colts are two and one.

So give them credit and give Shane Steichen credit. But Tennessee stinks. The Texans stink.

And they're just not ready to, you know, stinks probably not the right word to use. Texas is not ready to compete. And the Colts still aren't ready to compete. So you probably would assume that the Jaguars still win the division, but in terms of taking that next step this year through three games, I'm really concerned in terms of them going to the level that I thought they could potentially go to this year.

Big time disappointment. I mean, especially offensively, they put up 31 points in week number one. Calvin Ridley was unstoppable in that first half.

I think it was like seven catches, 92 yards from the top of my head. And since that first half, he's basically been a zero. Nowhere to be found against Kansas City.

They threw the ball, couldn't come down with it. And then even again on Sunday against the Texans, it's just like three games, really two and a half games, their best wide receiver has been a no-show and this offense has been, to put it nicely, clunky. But that offense should not be dependent just on him. They got a lot of players on that offense. Travis A.T.N. Jr. is good. Christian Kirk's good. Evan Ingram's good.

Zay Jones is good. If Calvin Ridley has some rust to knock off, that shouldn't be the reason why this team goes down the tubes through like the first three games of the season. Now, let's get to another team that really disappointed me, and it's funny. That's why I always call Cowboys fans cockroaches. You guys always pop up.

You always are there when you're winning, but then when you're losing and the exterminator comes, we don't hear from you. Last week, when the Cowboys started off 2-0, we had full lines, all from Cowboys fans. How about them Cowboys? Well, the drama Dallas Chokin' Cowboys lived up to the nickname, the drama Dallas Chokin' Cowboys, up against the Arizona Cardinals.

That was embarrassing. And I'll give credit and we'll get to team that impressed me just a bit in Arizona. You got to give credit to Arizona. But Dak Prescott, he made Channing Crowder look so right. Going back to that whole thing that we started here with Channing about a week and a half ago on the show, where Channing laid out why he doesn't believe in Dak Prescott. I know you probably don't come back and win the game, but that throw towards the end of the game when they're about to score a touchdown, Hickey, I have no clue how you could be in the league for that long and make that egregious of a mistake that Dak Prescott did make. And it just once again, and I'm not saying that the Cowboys stink. The Cowboys are still the third best team in the NFC behind Philadelphia and behind the 49ers, but it just shows you even when the Cowboys you think, oh, they're going to 3-0 start.

All right, you pick them in Survivor. You feel good about the Cowboys just when you think they're starting to take that next step. They take two steps forward and then immediately one step back. What a disgraceful and I mean disgraceful performance by the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday. Part of the reason why I did not understand like the jumping on the bandwagon of the Cowboys after two games of again, we've seen them do this before.

It was like extrapolated to now. They are the best team. They're going to go to the Super Bowl.

No doubt about it. We've seen a lot of this from Dallas and they are have a great defense. But the question always comes back to what is the offense going to do in a big-time moment more times than not not come through. And again, I mean to me has a lot of credit to the Cardinals. They've been a scrappy team. They finally came over the hump and got a win after leading all three games in the fourth quarter. But again, you see down, you know, trying to make a comeback here and avoid giving the Cardinals their first win of the season. Death Prescott moves the ball right down the field needed to make a big throw interception. Also, I got to give praise to two people and two teams.

Let's start off. We're talking about the Cowboys. So that's the negative side. Let's go to the positive Jonathan Gannon. He creeped me out when he went to that introductory press conference and afterwards the cameras are following him around. He's like talking to his wide receiver and then his introductory speech to the team right at training camp was even more cringe-worthy. This guy was clown. This guy was trolled.

This guy was embarrassed. We all thought he was incompetent. And even when he was in Philadelphia, I know it was an ugly ending, but he was kind of the scapegoat anytime the Eagles wouldn't play a great performance and that was a team that still got to the Super Bowl. It wasn't totally fair. I'm not saying it was totally unfair.

There was a little needed to be give and take by both sides there. But Jonathan Gannon did the first three weeks of the season. He is really starting to remind me of the Miami Dolphins when Brian Flores first got to Miami in that 2019 season when it was tank for two, a tank for two, a tank for two. And that year, the Dolphins weren't a world beater. They got the fifth pick in the draft, but they were supposed to be the number one overall pick.

It once again just shows you that general managers and owners may intend to tank, but players and coaches don't. And through the first three weeks of the season with a team that does not have a lot in that roster, you know, Joshua Dobbs of all people is their starting quarterback, they've had a lead in the second half in all three of those games. Week one, they couldn't close up against the commanders. Week two, Giants had that epic comeback. But then yesterday, from start to finish, they were just better than the Dallas Cowboys who, pound for pound with talent, are a much better football team. So I don't know if Jonathan Gannon is going to go on to be this great head coach in this league, but in year one, he's showing that he has the respect of that locker room and those players are playing really tough for him.

And that was an impressive performance by Jonathan Gannon this past weekend. And the other team I'm really impressed about. And I had high expectations for this team before the season started. I picked them to win the AFC East whenever it was going Buffalo, whenever it was going with the New York Jets. It's the Miami Dolphins. You know, I know Dolphin fans are probably sick and tired of hearing this. If Tua stays healthy, that team could be the best team in the AFC. That Miami Dolphins team is damn good. And they even have Jalen Waddle. And they still got to 70 points up against the Denver Broncos who are just so bad and so putrid and are even more embarrassing this year than they were last year. You know, I never thought that we would have to really just embarrass Hickey on this show.

Like, we would never do that, right? But Hickey picked the Broncos to go to Super Bowl this year and they were last year and they were one of the worst teams in the league. This year he had them winning 12 games.

Hickey, I don't know about you. When you're bringing Sean Payton, I told you before the start of this year, this offense has a lot of problems, but I didn't know that this defense was going to be this bad. The Broncos last year looked like a better version of the Broncos this year. And that's not saying much like picking which disease would you rather have, but this Broncos team is even more frustrating than the Broncos team from a year ago. It's kind of wild. You know, the sad part is, I mean, right now through three games, I can't tell the difference between a Nathaniel Hickey coach team and a Russell Wilson coach, a Sean Payton coach team.

They are identical. Penalties, offense, competency, communication, everything that went bad last year is repeating itself so far through three games this year. It kind of sucks that Nathaniel Hickey lost his quarterback because if I was Nathaniel Hickey and let's say he was 3-0 with the Jets right now with Aaron Rodgers, he could say, man, that Sean Payton's doing one of the worst coaching jobs I've ever seen by another coach with what Sean said right before there. Sean Payton put his foot in his own mouth and he thought he was just going to walk on in there and wave a wand with a roster that's not good and a team that has sucked ever since number 18 has left them.

He thought he would just work his magic and that team would be great once again. And through three games, they have been the, I don't want to say the worst watch in football because there are the Bears, but they have been one of the worst watches in football. And, you know, I got to give credit to the Dolphins. McDaniel's a heck of a coach.

Two, it's awesome to see. The two running backs were great. Tyree Kill is unstoppable. Robbie Chozen gets a long touchdown from Mike White. 70 points. You know, I'm doing that ION football show and we're talking about that game over and over again. Like after the one o'clock game's end and we're in the four o'clock window, I'm like, that team put up 70 points.

When you reread the scores, it's like 70 to 20. That's just, it's mayhem. It's madness.

It's chaos. But that Dolphins team, as long as their quarterback stays healthy, they're going to be in the Super Bowl mix all throughout the year. So two teams I'm disappointed in, Jaguars and Cowboys. Two teams I'm impressed with, the Dolphins and the Cardinals. What say you?

855-2124 CBS, 855-212-4227. We will take a break through three weeks of the season. There are three names that are on the hot seat in terms of NFL coaches, and one of them won the football game this past weekend.

We'll get to those three names next. When you need to know what's happening, it's time to get hit in the huddle. Nobody's picking the Colts to win the Super Bowl, so let's just go learn, right? Well, this is always going to happen. Jim Irsay's calling all the shots there. And the hunky-tonk man didn't draft this kid where they drafted this kid to have him look great in practice and look awesome running the scout team. You know what I mean?

But yeah, let's play this menshu cat or whatever on Sunday. He's like, no way. Listen and subscribe to In the Huddle, available on the Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcast. Well, well, well, shopping for a car? Yep, Carvana made financing a car as smooth as can be.

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Hickey, I'm going to give you three names here. I don't know if the seat is warmer for any other coach in the league than these three coaches. Brandon Staley even after a win and his team's first win of the season. Josh McDaniels of the Las Vegas Raiders. And a name that I didn't think we would be talking about, him being on the hot seat. I didn't love his team. I thought his team was getting too much praise this offseason. But it is now becoming a problem because it's not just that your team's bad, but it's been a bleep show with Matt Eberfluss and the Chicago Bears.

Let me give you my reasoning for all three. Let's start with McDaniels. He was horrible last year. You get rid of Derek Carr, who I don't even love. Derek Carr is a quarterback.

But now Josh Jacobs doesn't look like himself. Jimmy Garoppolo is leading the league in interceptions, and I know that he's been hurt. But you are down by eight points. Eight. And there's a little over two minutes to go in the game. Fourth and four at the eight with 2.22 to go, and you kick a field goal?

That's terrible. And you get the ball back with 12 seconds left, and then your quarterback throws a pick. You cannot take a field goal there down eight when there's 2.22 left. You want to tell me there's five minutes left, there's eight minutes left, there's nine minutes left?

Okay, I can live with it. If you trust your defense to make a stop, you don't love the Steelers offense, okay, I'm fine with it. But with 2.22 to go, there's no guarantee that you're going to get the ball back. And then after the game, it's one thing to make a dumb decision, but then to look clueless as McDaniels did, where he's saying, oh, well, we needed multiple possessions because we needed multiple scores.

No, you don't. You go get a touchdown, you go get four yards there, and you get the first, and you get four more, and you get a touchdown, you can then go for two points. So I don't get Josh McDaniels in that spot kicking a field goal with 2.22 to go.

That's one thing. The other name, Brandon Staley. I'm doing eye on football. And when the reporter says Brandon Staley's going for it, I wasn't surprised, but I was annoyed. It is fourth down.

I know it's one yard, but you're on your own 24-yard line. With under two minutes to go in the game, I don't care what the numbers say, differentiate analytics and then doing what makes sense if you watch football for as long as people have watched football. I'm not saying I'm against analytics. I want the numbers, but you need to understand the situation. You need to understand logic.

And I don't give a rat's ass what the numbers say. You punt the ball there, and then you play defense. And I know your defense bailed you out, but all you have to do with under two minutes is keep Kirk Cousins and the Vikings out of the end zone. But if you're going to tell me, Zach, it's the right call to go for it because the numbers say so, and it's fourth and one, and the game's over if you get the first down.

Hickey, can you try to talk me through this here? If it's fourth and one, why aren't they doing the play that the Eagles do all the time, the tush push with a 6-6 quarterback in Justin Herbert? And I'll give credit to the Mac man, Jody Mac, because when I went to Jody in the 6 o'clock hour when we were talking about this game, he goes, I don't love the decision to go for it, but if you are going to go for it, how don't you do a QB sneak on fourth and one with your 6-6 quarterback? Instead, they run the football with Josh Kelly, they get no gain, and then the Vikings throw up all over themselves once again.

So I don't love the decision to go for it there, but if you are going to go for it, do a QB sneak with a 6-6, what is this Justin Herbert, 235, 240-pound quarterback in Justin Herbert. Even in a win, the Chargers drive you to just a nauseating level and make you infuriated. They absolutely do, and they're not a very well-coached team in large part. You saw that right on that fourth down decision right away where, again, even though you have a chance to win the game, still manage to almost fumble it away, and luckily for the Chargers, they are right now playing maybe the only less-clutched team in the NFL than them this year in the Vikings, getting lucky that the home crowd was too loud, Kirk didn't hear the play call, and basically rushed to the line and just called basically a schoolyard play that led to the interception.

The only way the Chargers are winning right now is getting lucky, and that's exactly what happened. And you know what's the craziest part about the Staley thing? I wasn't shocked when he did go for it, because that's what this idiot does all the time, but it's just like, what are you doing? Some guys just don't get it, and Brandon Staley doesn't get it. Did you have a problem with him going for it in the moment?

No, I did not. Win the game, you have your offense there. Again, I would have called a different play. I don't have a problem with the aggressiveness, and that's who he's been, and I at least respect if you're going to go down with the ship, you go down your way.

Yeah, but how many times are you going to keep on doing the same thing over and over and over and over again and not learn from your mistakes? And then how about Matt Eberfluss? I never thought Matt Eberfluss should have been a head coach in the NFL.

That was one name I just really never got when it was floated out there the last two years. The roster's not good. People overrated this roster because they just got DJ'd more before the start of the season, but when you have the offense with the offensive coordinator that he hired and the quarterback basically fighting with one another and making it a sloppy situation, you know, the DC, I don't know what happened there, so I can't really put it on Matt Eberfluss, but it adds to the circus of the Chicago Bears. I know that they could be with Ryan Polls banking on those two first-round picks that they have, their own and then the one that they got from the Carolina Panthers, but if I'm running the Bears and this continues to go the way that it does, I'm really contemplating about cleaning house and bringing in some more established football minds and guys that have a little bit more experience than Ryan Polls and Matt Eberfluss to try to go get the next chapter of Bears football right where you go through this mess once again where it's a never-ending cycle of new GM, new head coach, but now at least you're going to have probably two picks sitting in the top five of the draft because the Panthers stink and you have their first-round pick and the Bears are what?

If they win three games this year, they'll be lucky. I'm with you and if you are the Bears, you have screwed up every single quarterback you've ever had on your roster. This is a chance with Caleb Williams at number one and the Panthers continue their incompetence. The Panthers pick at number two, you can get Caleb Williams, you can get Marvin Harrison Jr. Or defensive play. Get an offensive-minded head coach that could take advantage of the massive talent he is going to have in front of him.

Do not botch it with the defensive-minded coach we've seen. And we all know too, Caleb Williams, if you have the number one overall pick, you're going to take him. But let's say if you have the number two overall pick, where it's not only the Bears that could have that scenario, it's also the Arizona Cardinals as well, you don't necessarily need to take Marvin Harrison Jr.

I know it's a wide receiver, I know you kind of go what the Bengals did where it was two different years, but it was burrowed and the next year it was Jamar Chase. But you could get the offensive lineman out of Penn State that a lot of people like. You could get two defensive players as well that have been talked about a lot leading into this draft that we'll get more into in the offseason. Like, let's not go too nuts with the draft breakdown. But you could get a star quarterback, potentially, and a guy that's transcendent in Caleb Williams that's getting comparisons to Patrick Mahomes, and then also a wide receiver that I love. Or if you don't want to go the wide receiver route, you could get, in theory, a star edge rusher or an offense alignment.

And maybe it would be the safe thing there to go with the offense alignment. But if they didn't take in Marvin Harrison Jr., I couldn't crush them whatsoever. And I just hope that this guy stays healthy this year.

I know he got banged up in the Notre Dame game and it looked like it was going to be a serious injury, and then it wasn't. But you're not wrong in terms of you could get two franchise-altering players. I know Bears fans have heard that for years, right, with how bad they've been in the draft picks. But you're getting to a point where, like, Matt Eberfuss probably doesn't deserve to be fired, but it's all about the timing of it.

And the timing of it is indicating to me that I did not think he'd be on the hot seat entering this year, but with how it's gone through the first three weeks, they're just not bad. They are regressing from how bad they were from a year ago, and that was a team that was the number one overall pick, right, in the NFL before they traded it back to go to, what, eight with the Carolina Panthers, which is crazy that they could get even worse after making some moves that would suggest that they would be, even if it wasn't significantly better, just a little bit, like a miniscule amount, better. And the Bears had not done that. Only the Bears could regress when they were the number one overall pick, and they finished with the worst record in the league from last season. And that's why if you end up back there again, no excuses to bring anyone back. And here's the crazy part.

I don't trust any of these organizations to do the right thing. Davis could keep McDaniels for another year, especially with Brady being on board there or thinking he's going to be on board there. The Chargers, the Spanos family is cheap, so who knows if they'll eat the money with Brandon Staley. They probably should have done it after this year, and I would say bring in Sean Payton, but that's been a disaster with the Broncos. And then Matt Eberfluss with the Bears. If there's a way to find an organization to mess something up, the Bears will find that way.

It is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. When we return, Notre Dame should have won this weekend. They did not. And even though I wanted to see Dabo Swinney just get annihilated, Clemson should have won this weekend.

They did not. Let's take a look back at Notre Dame, Ohio State, and also Clemson, Florida State when the Zach Gelb show returns in five minutes. Mike Pritchard is going to join us coming up 25 minutes from now, and Marty Smith will join us at 8 p.m. Eastern, 5 p.m. Pacific. What's up, everybody?

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