Bad News Bears (Hour 3)

Alrighty, this is Zach Gelb's show Coast to Coast on CBS Sports Radio, hour number three of our radio program. You can listen to us across all of our great local CBS Sports Radio affiliates, Sirius XM, Channel 158, the free Odyssey app, and of course on our YouTube stream as well. You can also give us a follow at Zach Gelb on Twitter and Instagram.

855-212-4CBS, number to jump on in 855-212-4227. This morning on many of these same local CBS Sports Radio affiliates. And Peter King was talking about if the Bears go down this weekend on Thursday Night Football up against the Washington Commanders. And if it looks ugly, this could actually be the end of the road for Matt Eberfluse with the Chicago Bears and they could move on to a new head football coach, which I do think that would be early.

Let me be clear. I fully anticipate at the end of the season that the Bears are going to clean house. That means Matt Eberfluse is going to get shown the door. You would think from a logical standpoint, if you're getting rid of the coach, you would also get rid of the general manager. I don't usually like when they fire the coach, they keep the GM and then they have the GM find another coach because then if the other coach doesn't work, then the GM goes and then you keep the coach and then you bring in a new GM that doesn't want the coach.

So it's just an endless cycle of just stupid and just craziness and chaos. But it would fit kind of the way that the Bears operate that organization and where they never get it right and they always get it wrong. But I would be really surprised. And I know this has come from someone that said yesterday, Matt Eberfluse is the number one coach that his seed is the warmest, but I don't think he's going to get fired five games into the season. Now, it's one thing being incompetent, it's one thing being inept as a head football coach, and I never got what the appeal was to bring in Matt Eberfluse. And just because Zach Geld, the talk show host, doesn't like to hire Matt Eberfluse, doesn't mean that the coach would end up having success.

Like look at Nick Sirianni in Philadelphia. We all clowned Nick Sirianni when he was hired. We all clowned Doug Peterson when he was hired. Mike McDaniel when he was hired.

We all clowned that hiring. Mike McDaniel has a really damn good football team. You look at Nick Sirianni, he was just in the Super Bowl.

Doug Peterson won a Super Bowl. So just because you're not in love with the hire doesn't mean it can't be a hire, but I never saw the appeal. And it's not just bringing a defensive mind, but I never looked at Matt Eberfluse and said, oh, that's a guy that I need to have as a head coach.

And sometimes guys are just better as a defensive coordinator, and they don't end up being great head coaches. Like Steve Spagnola is a friend. I love Steve Spagnola.

We get him on like once a year. I've seen Spags a bunch of times. Spags a wonderful dude. Steve Spagnola has been an all-time great defensive coordinator. Has won two Super Bowls in Kansas City and was the DC of the New York Giants when they defeated at the time the undefeated New England Patriots in that Super Bowl. Spags though with the Rams was not a good head coach, and he hasn't got another opportunity to be a head coach since then.

So sometimes you just got to know who you are. And the first chapter isn't always the best one as a head coach, and sometimes you get a second chapter and your career skyrockets. Like Pete Carroll was not a good head coach at first in the NFL. Look what he's now done in Seattle. Bill Belichick. I know he got to a playoff game and beat the Patriots with Parcells when he was the head coach of Cleveland, but that wasn't a successful tenure. And then he became one of the greatest coaches of all time with the second chapter with the New England Patriots.

But I looked at Matt Eberfluss and I never saw someone that I thought you need to hire as a head coach. But it's one thing to lose and then it's another thing for it to become a circus. And the Bears have become a circus where I never understood the ridiculous optimism that people had with the Bears before the season started. And it wasn't just the media, it wasn't just fans. Like Justin Fields said he's going to become the first 4,000 yard passer in Bears history and it was going to happen this season.

So the organization is at fault as well. But the Bears made a big sexy move where they went out and they got DJ Moore and everyone's like, oh wow, you got DJ Moore and you got Justin Fields. That means that this is going to be a team that takes off because you saw Josh Allen's career take off when he got Safon Diggs. You saw Jalen Hurts' career take off when he got A.J.

Brown and he got Devante Smith. You saw Tuatunga Vailoa's career take off when he got Tyree Kill and Jalen Waddle. But the rest of those rosters are really damn good. The Bears don't have a good roster.

And I said it this offseason, I was talking to my buddy David Hall, who works for Odyssey Station 6.70 to score a legendary 6.70 score in Chicago. And I said, everyone tells me that this Bears offensive line is going to be improved. Well, no crap, you would think the Bears offensive line is going to be improved. You can't get worse than where you were a year ago, but how much are they going to improve? And he said, Zach, it's a great question because people say they're improving.

It's not tough to improve from where you were a year ago. And you see the way that it played out last week, even when they were having a good moment and Fields looked great. Yeah, it's one isolated moment and they still lost the game. And you're going up against Denver Broncos defense, which Sean Payton, we all praise him for being this great head coach. His defense, and I know he's an offensive minded coach, but they're Swiss cheese.

They are lost. And that was a defense, by the way. We're going into the year, if you asked about best secondaries in the NFL, the Denver Broncos are right up there.

Top three, top four, top five in terms of the way that we viewed that secondary heading into the season. And that defense, I don't even know if defensive coordinator is going to be there in a few weeks from now. And Rex Ryan, it doesn't help when he's on TV every day and he wanted that job and they went in a different direction. But you look at that Broncos team and that Broncos defense. It's like, am I really supposed to praise the Bears in a loss because they showed up offensively against that horrible defense?

Yeah, I can't do that. I can't walk away and say things are improving in Chicago. But even if you get rid of the coach, Matt Eberfluss, what's going to change? Like what is going to change in season? What's going to be different with the Chicago Bears?

Because there's one thing to say. Matt Eberfluss isn't the right coach. And I don't think he is the right coach.

And there's another thing for this organization to take off after that. And this organization is not going to take off after that this season because they don't have the talent. Like not everyone could be Steve Wilkes, who walked in right for the defensive coordinator and then becomes the Internet coach last year. And a terrible division has success with the Panthers. But the Panthers at least had some talent. The Bears don't have a lot of great talent. And you've got to be realistic here in where they will eventually fire Eberfluss.

But I don't think it needs to be done in season. And Ryan Polz, he's going to lose his job at the end of the year as well. Because if you're the Bears, you got to look at this and say, well, we know we're going to have two really good draft picks. And we may have the one and two pick in the draft.

Right now, at the season end today, they would. Because not only do they have their own draft pick, but they also have the pick from the Carolina Panthers where the Panthers moved up to one. And they gave their next first round pick to the Chicago Bears for this upcoming NFL draft.

And if I'm running the Bears when you bring in a new president and you're trying to finally turn this thing around, I'll just ask you the simple question. Have you seen enough from Eberfluss? Have you seen enough from Ryan Polz? So you've got to give credit to Polz for getting DJ Moore in there and getting more picks and trading down out of the number one spot. But have you seen enough from that team and from that brainpower to say they're going to get it right if given another opportunity?

And for Eberfluss, I can't feel confident. And for Ryan Polz, I don't know if he should lose his job, but I don't like bringing in a new head coach and then keeping the same general manager. I think that's a very messy situation. So if I'm the Bears, you know, you basically have to build from the ground up once again.

And you may have some more pieces there, but you don't have a lot to work with. But at least you're going to get two top five draft picks because the Panthers stink and the Bears stink. They're probably to get the first and second pick of the draft. And if I'm the Bears, I would kind of at the end of this year. Obviously, I've made it clear I would bring in a new head coach and a new general manager, but I'm trading Justin Fields, too, because Justin Fields, this is now his third year in the NFL. And you've got to figure out if you're going to give him an extension.

And that's what makes this so tricky. Right now, Justin Fields has not earned an extension. Now, he may be able to go on to another team and he may be able to have more success somewhere else in a better situation. But I haven't seen enough from Fields to say, yes, he's a franchise quarterback that I would feel comfortable in a few years giving him a contract extension. So this is a perfect time for the Bears organization to reset where you trade the quarterback, you get some more draft capital because there will be a market for Justin Fields. There'll be a lot of people that say the Bears have messed up quarterbacks forever and we're going to go trade because we believe we could fix Justin Fields.

Look at what Sam Darnold did go for when the Jets gave up on him and look at what Joe Douglas was able to get for Sam Darnold. So there will be, bare minimum, you're getting a second round pick for Justin Fields, just for starters. So use more draft capital, acquire as much draft capital as possible, and you've got to go out there and you've got to hire the right GM and coach.

And it's a three year plan. Where year one it's a wash, year two improve, and year three, you've got to go be a playoff team. And look at the Texans. I know that they kept the same GM but they never really hired a coach that they believed in. But the Texans had all these draft picks that they accumulated. And I'm not saying that the Texans are ready to go win a Super Bowl right now or they're even going to be a playoff team this year. But the Texans acquired as many picks as they can.

I know it's easier for them to say goodbye to Deshaun Watson because of what happened off the field, but you've got to remember, even before all the off the field allegations came out that were heinous and disgusting, Deshaun Watson was done with the Texans anyway. So they were able to capitalize off those draft picks, accumulate as many draft picks as possible, be bad for two years, and then they made their move. And they got C.J.

Shradwell Anderson, they got a heck of a coach in D'Amico Ryans from all things that we could consider and see so far. And now through the first four weeks of the season, they're sitting there at two and two. And before the season, I bet you more people would have expected more out of the Bears than they would have with the Houston Texans. So you've got to blow this whole thing up if you're Chicago.

You've got to get rid of the two guys in polls and Eberflus. You're going to have to trade and get back assets for Justin Fields. And you've got to be as bad as possible, you know, win one game or something this year. And you've got to get Caleb Williams and then maybe like Marvin Harrison Jr. and hope that these coaches don't mess him up or the GM doesn't mess it up. And that's a pretty good starting foundation in addition to having D.J. Moore in that wide receiving room to begin with.

And, you know, maybe you just bring in one guy like I've thrown out this name a lot. I don't know how much Jim Harbaugh, I think Jim Harbaugh wants to stay at Michigan, but he doesn't want to stay at Michigan under these standards with the NCAA going after him. And if Michigan wins a national championship or if Michigan gets the national championship game this year, we know the last two years Harbaugh's had NFL interest. Two years ago, he did an 11 hour interview with the Vikings and he didn't get the job. They went with Kevin O'Connell and he knew Questia Dofa Mensah from their days together in San Francisco, who's now running the Minnesota Vikings. And last year he begged to get an NFL job.

No one took him up on it. But if you're the Bears and Jim Harbaugh played for your organization and if control is a big thing for Jim Harbaugh, if you're getting rid of the GM and then also the head coach, you could have you could have Harbaugh do two jobs at once or have Harbaugh bring in someone that he trusts to be the GM. And that'd be a pretty damn good starting foundation if you have Caleb Williams, Marvin Harrison Jr. and Jim Harbaugh. Be much better than whatever crap the Bears have right now.

So that's what I would do this year if I'm running the Bears. I'm trying to get Jim Harbaugh to join my team. I'm getting the first pick, the second pick, and I'm trading whatever assets that you could get for Justin Fields. Now, if Justin Fields were to be traded, where could be a good trade destination? You know, I don't think New England makes that trade. You know, Mac Jones isn't the guy, but I think they go back into the draft. You look at the AFC West. If I'm the Broncos with how the way Russell Wilson, I know people like all Russell Wilson stats are good, but I just don't believe in Ross anymore. Would you maybe want to, you know, sell low? And this could be a situation where you don't have to give up.

Like, I don't know what you have to give up. Definitely a second round pick if you're the Broncos, but then you have Justin Fields come in. If it still doesn't work out with Russell Wilson and the Raiders, I don't trust Jimmy Garoppolo. I don't think Andrew O'Connell is the guy. So maybe you bring in Justin Fields and you team him up with Josh McDaniels in the AFC North.

Is Kenny Pickett the guy? If you asked me a few years ago, Fields or Pickett, I would say Justin Fields inside the AFC South. Could it be Tennessee if this is it for Ryan Tannehill there? But they did just draft Will Levis and also Malik Willis in the last two years. You go inside the NFC East.

If Sam Howell's not the guy, the commanders are a good situation. NFC West, not really a landing spot. Murray's there or they're going to be picking a quarterback in the draft. The Rams, Stafford, if he's back next year, he's not going anywhere. You know, Seattle's a good destination, but you got Geno Smith there and the 49ers are rocking with Brock. I'll tell you, you look inside the NFC South, you know what would be a good destination? The Atlanta Falcons.

The Atlanta Falcons are probably the best destination for Justin Fields because you have a team that has a lot of talent and you have a team that's ready to win. And when I mean ready to win, not ready to win a Super Bowl, but should be good enough to win that NFC South. And it may not be this year because of who the quarterback is in Desmond Ritter. But you have Drake London, you have Kyle Pitts, you have Tyler Algier, you have Bijan Robinson, you have an offensive-minded coach in Arthur Smith. And no one really ever thought that Desmond Ritter is going to be that dude.

He just needed to be a game manager this year. And we know Fields knows the Georgia area. You throw them in as the quarterback of Atlanta. Heck, when they picked Kyle Pitts, I'm pretty sure that was the same draft class, there's people advocating for them to draft Justin Fields. So you take a look at Justin Fields, if you could give up a second-round pick and then some to go get him if I'm Atlanta, I would absolutely consider that. But I don't think that's going to be a deal that gets made in season. But if you do fire the coach and you do that after this Thursday night game, you know, maybe they'll just blow the entire thing up in the middle of the season. I do, though, think, though, the best time to get the most you can for Justin Fields would be after this year.

However, if they keep on putting performances like this together, maybe the stock does get lower than what I would think. What's a good destination for Justin Fields? And do you actually buy that there's a chance Matt Eberfluss could be coaching his final game this week for the Bears? 8-5-5, 2-1-2 for CBS, 8-5-5, 2-1-2, 42-27.

We will take a break. When we come on back, should the Bengals rest Joe Burrow after their just 1-3 putrid start? Alrighty, this is Zach Gelb's show on CBS Sports Radio. So there's a big debate right now with the Bengals sitting in there at 1-3 on if they should play Joe Burrow this weekend as they're out in the desert going up against the Arizona Cardinals.

And then after that, they do have the Seattle Seahawks before a bye week. And we know a month before the season started when you had the initial calf injury for Joe Burrow, it was his teammate, Ja'Marr Chase, who was never afraid to speak his mind as we're seeing the last few weeks. He said he doesn't want to see Joe Burrow for the first few weeks because he kind of made the point, we know just as long as we have Joe at the end of the year, we're going to have enough to go compete and contend. And at the time, I heard those comments from Ja'Marr Chase and I was like, it's okay to say that, but if he's healthy enough to play, I'm going to gather that the Bengals are going to play and just knowing Joe Burrow a little bit, that Joe Burrow is going to play as well. But you've seen it the last four weeks, like people are like, what's going on with the Bengals? Joe Burrow just doesn't feel comfortable. And you could see the mobility right now, not that he's like the quickest quarterback in the world, but he can move around the pocket. The mobility is just not there because of this calf injury.

And he re-aggravated it earlier in the season. And now you're sitting here with their one and three and they're not even like showing up at all offensively. They had three points. I know Cleveland's been a house of horrors for them, but they had three points in week one up against Cleveland. You know, the Ravens, they were never really in control of that game. And the final score doesn't reflect the way that you feel about that game. And they lost them by three, 27 to 24, but the Ravens were by far and away the better team. Now you beat the Rams. Am I supposed to throw a parade because you win a sloppy low scoring game against the Rams?

No. And then this past week up against Tennessee Titans, where Tennessee is not a better team than Cincinnati on paper, Tennessee took you to school and you only put up three points. So we're looking at offensive performances this year for the Bengals.

They scored in three out of the four games, three points, three points and 19 points. We're talking about them not even scoring touchdowns here. And this offense and Joe Burrow, unfortunately, as great as he is because of the injury, it's dug themselves in a hole and I don't think they're going to be able to climb out of it. So you get to this decision of Joe Burrow is the franchise. Joe Burrow is by far and away the most important person on the Cincinnati Bengals.

We've seen it. He gets hurt, then comes back. They're in a Super Bowl. And then also the next year they're an AFC championship game.

And then this year he's hurt. And you have a team that looked like they're going to be a dominant force for the foreseeable future in Cincinnati. And this year they're trending and missing the playoffs like their season is on the line in these next two games where they have Arizona and Seattle. I can't sit here and tell you that I feel great that they're going to win both these games. Like I'll pick them to win this weekend to defeat Arizona, but I'm not going to pick them right now to defeat the Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks right now have a better offense.

And the Seahawks defense, and I like the Bengals defense right with Luann Arumu, but the Seahawks defense did a wonderful job last week and maybe that young secondary started to find their identity with Woulin and also Witherspoon that they drafted out of Illinois. So I think that they're heading at best case scenario to two and four. And if you're two and four going into the bye week, you get burrow rested up.

It's not as if you get a good landing spot. You have the 49ers in Santa Clara and then your home up against the Buffalo Bills after that. So I think the Bengals will be lucky in these next four games if they could go two and two. And let's just say they go two and two. That puts them at three and five. If they go two and two, you could come back from three and five. But to go to the original point, if Joe Burrow is not on the field and if you arrest Joe Burrow on the field, you know, from from get on the field. And let's say you have him sit these next to and you have them healthy coming out of the bye.

I think you're going to lose both those games to Arizona and Seattle. Like if you don't play Burrow, they're going to one and five. And am I going to sit here and tell you when Burrow comes back rested, they're going to be both San Francisco and Buffalo? No, I won't. So I could understand why there's a debate to arrest Joe Burrow.

I could I could get that. But you know this and we've already seen it. It's the decisions up to Joe Burrow. There's no way Joe Burrow is going to say I'm not playing. Because even though we would all understand it, in his mind, it's coming off as I could play even though I'm hurt right now.

But if I don't play, it's me quitting on my team. And I don't think a lot of people would view it that way that Burrow started in the towel in the season. But I do believe that Burrow with how intensive a competitor he is and the brief interactions that I've had with him when I got to spend two days with him for a few hours when he won the Heisman Trophy.

On that Friday and Saturday in New York City, this dude is just so cool. He's calm, but he's just so confident, too. And he knows his team needs him right now.

And it just once again shows you the importance. And I don't want to say it's the most important position on the roster, but it is a very important position, the backup quarterback. Like if the Bengals had, let's just say, Jameis Winston. Or if the Bengals had a serviceable backup, it's probably a different conversation. Because I could trust that Jameis Winston with this Bengals team could go out there up against the Arizona Cardinals and win the game. But when your backup quarterback is Jake Browning, did you even care about the backup quarterback position? And I know that you could say, well, if Joe Burrow gets injured, our season's over and we're screwed anyway.

Sure. But it's not necessarily Joe Burrow being out for the entire season. It's someone needing to come in off the sideline out of a relief role and just be able to prevent the ship from sinking. And the Bengals just didn't pay attention to the backup quarterback position.

And that's a problem. Like I was there in Philadelphia when Carson Wentz got injured. And I know it's later in the season. Eagles are humming. They had the number one overall seed, all that. And the day when Carson Wentz got injured, everyone thought the season was over. Heck, I remember doing shows in Philadelphia where people were calling me after, I think it was against the Raiders where Nick Foles didn't play well. And they had to like, they just pulled out the victory and then they played him for a drive up against the Cowboys. I can't remember who the corner was, but he had a big pick six late or a big fumble recovery late up against the Raiders, whatever the story is.

And I did shows in Philadelphia before that Eagles playoff run. Because remember, there was a bye week and then it was the division round up against Atlanta. Where I had callers saying the third string quarterback Nate Suddfeld should start over Nick Foles. But the Eagles knew that Nick Foles was a competent backup. And I know Nick Foles had that one year in Philly with Chip Kelly where he had 27 touchdowns and two interceptions.

But Nick Foles coming in as a backup quarterback saved the Eagles season and Nick Foles played the two greatest games of his life up against the Minnesota Vikings and then two weeks later up against the Patriots. So you don't have to break your back to get a backup quarterback, but the backup quarterback position is very important in the NFL and you're seeing it with the Bengals now. Because, you know, if you leave it in the hands of Joe Burrow or if you leave in the hands of almost any player, the player is going to say, I'm going to play.

That's just what players do. Now, if Joe Burrow didn't have a contract, maybe it's a different story. But he got the contract. He got the big money. And that's a guy, money or not, he wants to win. He wants to be on the field.

He wants to be competitive. But if I was Zach Taylor or if I was Tobin running the Browns, running the Bengals, excuse me, and I had a competent backup in there, maybe I would say to Joe, rest up and we can play the backup. We'll split these two games and we'll come out of the buy.

And yeah, it's not a great start, but you'll be healthy. But the Bengals don't have that luxury because if Jake Browning is playing this weekend against the Cardinals, I can't sit here and tell you that I really like their chances of winning the game. And it's not as if the Arizona Cardinals are this ridiculous team. So should the Bengals just say, man, the season's not going where we want it to.

I don't have to bite the bullet here and take the two losses. But, you know, maybe we'll get our quarterback healthy and then go all in for the second half of the season. Would you rest Joe Burrow this week? I could understand why you would say that. I just don't think it's going to happen.

Like there's one of those conversations. There's always a should and what will happen where you could say maybe they should rest Joe Burrow. But will they rest Joe Burrow? I don't think Joe Burrow will be on board with it. And really, who are the Bengals going to as the backup quarterback?

Because Jake Browning is not going to win games here or win a game in the NFL. 8-5-5, 2-1-2 for CBS, 8-5-5, 2-1-2, 42-27. We'll come on back. We'll talk a little bit about the Steelers. And is another Barbara Botini situation happening again? This time with the offensive coordinator, the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Matt Canada.

We'll discuss on the other side. One more segment to play right here. Zach Gelb on CBS Sports Radio. Let's toss it over to Rich Ackerman who's wearing a very nice blue shirt.

And he has the latest CBS Sports Radio update. Rangers are a few outs away. Two outs away from punching their ticket to the next round of the playoffs.

Got the nice shot by Jordan Montgomery last night. They're up 7-1 here in the bottom of the ninth up against Tampa Bay. There was like no race fans. Did you see that? I know you're a big baseball guy, Stuart Kovacs. I saw that photo right before first pitch. You would think that was like a minor league ballpark with none of those fans in attendance. Yeah, it was almost as bad as the Yankees' last home game of the season where they had like a few hundred people and they said the Yankees had 41,000 which we know did not happen.

But that's a little bit different. That's a Yankee team that their season was over two months ago. I know that the Rays don't have this big crazy raucous fan base, but you can't fill the trap or even get some butts in the seats for a playoff game?

It's pretty bad. That's as low as it gets for a team that's had a really good season. And it's kind of sports karma that they're about to drop both these games to the Rangers and they're going to be going home. So I would say that there would be an overreaction here from Rays fans, but I don't even think they really exist. Outside of the great Dickie V and nothing but the good well wishes to Dick Vitale, but outside of that I don't know how many Rays fans actually do exist. Rays and Twins. Twins got the victory. Jays and Twins. The Twins got the victory yesterday. That is now 0-0 between the Blue Jays and the Twins. Diamondbacks and Brewers. Brewers had the early lead yesterday. Diamondbacks come back. That will have first pitch at 7 p.m. Eastern. And then the Marlins and the Phillies will be at 8 p.m. Eastern.

Phillies trying to sweep the Marlins out of the postseason. But anyway, it is time to answer our Ask the Pros question of the day brought to you by O'Reilly Auto Parts. Jeff in Pittsburgh asked Zach, did you see the Matt Canada burner theory?

And do we have another Barbara Bottini? You could submit a question by tweeting at CBS Sports Radio or at Zach Gelb's ACHGLB using the hashtag Ask the Pros. Think O'Reilly Auto Parts for all your car care needs.

Get guaranteed low prices and excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. So I know that we live in a gotcha world now, and we're all hoping that this story is true because it would be such an inane thing to do and such an idiotic thing to do. But folks, I have to defend Matt Canada here. I just don't think that Matt Canada is dumb enough to create a burner account. And I know you in this screenshot, you don't get to see the full email. The way that this works is you see someone that's getting blasted all over the country, and then there's one account or a few accounts that is defending this person, and then you could go forgot the password and like it goes, Oh, is this your email? Fill in the blank for the rest of the email. And it starts off with an M, and then it's an ad, and it looks like an S, like it could be Steelers.com or Steelers.net, whatever it is.

Just seeing that. And I know that we live in a world now where something doesn't have to be true for it to be talked about, it to be tweeted about, for it to be written about. But I have a really tough time with me believing and being able to actually process that Matt Canada would be this dumb. And I was in Philly, and I'll never forget this, when you found out that Brian Colangelo, Lion Brian Colangelo, as I used to call him, was running the Sixers, and either it was his wife and Barbara Bottini, or it was him that was defending the tweets that were going after her husband for the way that he wasn't running the organization the right way. And I'll never forget it. I forget where the article was, so I apologize for that. But there was an article that dropped that outed Brian Colangelo, that Brian Colangelo or his wife had four burner accounts. And I was in the Philadelphia media, and I was young, early stages of my career, and I go, let me check these accounts if any of these accounts follow me. And I'll never forget, there was a photo of a cat. And I'm not a big cat person, let me be clear about that. But with that being said, if you just have a photo of a cat in your profile picture, you know, I get a little skeptical of you, especially if it's a cartoon cat. And there was a cartoon cat on one of these Twitter accounts. So I'm going through all these Twitter accounts, and I'm like, this one doesn't follow me, this one doesn't follow me, this one doesn't follow me. But then the picture of the cartoon cat ended up following me. So this lady, Barbara Bottini or lion Brian Colangelo, which shouldn't give a rat's ass what Zach Gelb was saying, but they were following me because either I was critical of Brian Colangelo, I was involved in the Philadelphia media scene, and they were trying to keep tabs on social media.

I never understand two things here. You understand that you're in the public spotlight. I'm not saying it's easy to be in the public spotlight. There's a lot of heinous messages that get sent your way. And even though it's done with good intentions, your loved ones try to be there and support you. And they try to go after the people that are going after you.

So the intentions may be good. But if I was at a position of power like being, I don't know, an MBA general manager, you got to be able to have some thick skin and you got to be able to ignore the criticism. And if you can't ignore the criticism, you can't instruct your wife or have your wife go after people or you maybe go after people as well on social media.

And especially if you're not going to hide behind another account and not make it be your name. And that, to me, is something that if I was an athlete or if I was a general manager, I would tell my family, you do not go after people that are going after me because you never win those battles. And in this situation with Matt Canada, my jaw would literally hit the floor if we find out that this is true. And if it is true, which I don't think it is, Mike Tomlin would have no choice but to let Matt Canada go because you can't be the offensive coordinator of NFL team and he's been bad at his job and the Steelers are regressing and going after on your company email. This is the dumbest thing ever. I can't believe we're actually talking about this. You can't be going after fans that are the consumer of your product just because the fans are annoyed with you.

So in this situation, I'm going to give and maybe I'll hold my nose when I do so because this does smell like a messy situation. I am going to give Matt Canada the benefit of the doubt. I think this is something that Steeler fans are pushing because Steeler fans want Matt Canada out as the offensive coordinator. And when you're a passionate sports fan, when you are a sports fan that wants to see your football team do well, you'll do anything and you'll concoct some crazy story to try and expose it and try and out your OC. But in this case, I just don't believe it. I really don't.

So I appreciate the question, Jeff in Pittsburgh. But like, Stu, I know we've seen it happen once and maybe it's kind of like the 2023 thing to do. But when you saw this story last night, was any part of you saying, hmm, maybe Matt Canada is this dumb and maybe he's basically asking to get fired and allegedly going back and forth with fans on this burner account? Yeah, I mean, I thought about it for a second, but once you think about it a little more, he can't be dumb enough to do that, can he? I really don't think he is. Well, I don't think he's dumb enough to do that. He's a bad offensive coordinator. I don't believe Tomlin's going to fire him in season. He hasn't yet. I don't think that this is going to happen in season unless it's what, like the final two, three weeks of the season.

If you finally give the fans something to chew on after them imploring you the entire season, we've seen those dumb things happen before in sports. We're like Manti Teo, you're the star linebacker of Notre Dame. I know that it was an elaborate plan, but how do you get catfish, right? You could sleep with any woman that you want on the Notre Dame campus. And then it's like, OK, you have the Barbara Botini situation.

Those are all outliers. Those are one, two in a million chances of ever happening. And just because it's happened in the past, I'm not saying it will never happen again. But just because the emails with the bunch of stars in them without having the blanks filled in may look like it could be his email account doesn't mean that it actually is. And with the Barbara Botini thing, it was like a phone number that was associated to it that was in a public press release.

That's how they nabbed her. If you're going to go after people, if you're going to say I'm Matt Canada or I'm Matt Canada's wife or daughter, son, like whatever it is, there's no way you're using your Steelers email or your father's, you know, whatever the relationship is, Steelers email. If you want to be dumb and go down that road, that's one thing. You could be dumb and you could go down that road of I'm going to get petty.

I'm going to jump into the messages and the cesspool that is Twitter, or now I guess they call it X, and you're going to go after all these people. But make up an email account like do like Stuart Kovacs, three, four, five, six at gmail.com. You can't do Matt that Canada at Steelers dot com.

There's just even if you will, even if you want to go down that road, you can't be that stupid. And I did see that Florio floated out there and he may have already debunked this, that the way that the Steelers do their at in their email, it doesn't line up. So Matt Canada, I don't think I don't know if Matt Canada has talked to the media yet this week.

Usually they make the offensive coordinator available. Wait for that doozy of a press conference. Hey, Matt, Andrew Filipponi here from ninety three seven, the fan in Pittsburgh. You know, we all want you fired as the offensive coordinator of the Pittsburgh Steelers. But are you the biggest moron on the planet that did you actually go on out there and tweet fans with with an account that's linked to your Steelers email?

Oh, man, that's going to be a highly anticipated press conference. There's no doubt about that. But in terms of on the field, still has got to get better. And Kenny Pickett is now injured. And you look at the Steelers team.

They're sending in at two and two. But it's tough to kind of draw optimism with the Steelers right now because you look around that team. Najee Harris looks like he's not a fit for the Steelers.

Sure. George Pickens is really good. We'll see how long Kenny Pickett is out. Deontay Johnson is hurt defensively. We know they have a good defense. But how many times have we seen this story in the NFL where a team has a really good defense. But when the offense does nothing consistently, it doesn't matter how great of a defense that you have. You know, barring the fact that you're like the early 2000 Ravens, if your offense can't deliver in some capacity, you could have a great defense. It's going to be nothing like look at the Jets last year. The Jets had a really damn good defense last year.

And the Jets defense only was able to get them to seven wins because he had no quarterback play. So the Steelers have to fix the offense. And we've now seen Mike Tauman and Bill Belichick for really the first times in their careers with New England and Pittsburgh get serious blowback and serious pushback. They're both being stubborn right now because, yeah, Canada should be fired as the offensive coordinator.

He should have been brought back. But Mike Tauman is showing his loyalties. Bill Belichick should have altered his approach and Bill Belichick should have got a legit number one weapon for Mac Jones this year. He did it and the offense stinks. But you look at the Steelers team, you have a great defense. The schedule is not impossible, but they'll lose to the Ravens this weekend. They come out of the bye. They play the Rams, they play the Jaguars, they play Tennessee. Like the Rams and Tennessee aren't great teams, but the Steelers aren't a good team. And Jacksonville has been a little bit underwhelming through the first few weeks of the season because they thought their offense would be better. I think you're going to see more of the same that you saw last year with the Steelers, where last year, remember, they got off to that ugly start. And then towards the end of the year, they looked like a formidable football team. Mike Tauman's good enough to win enough games in this league to not make it look like it's a clown show.

But eventually you're going to get burned if you keep on going back to that game of, alrighty, I'll start off slow. And then towards the end of the season, we'll put some lipstick on a pig. Because the Steelers didn't even make the playoffs last year. It's not as if the Steelers had this remarkable season. They just played well, and they played good football at the end of the stretch. And they were able to finish with a record that was respectable, that created optimism, that made people actually believe that the Steelers are going to be something of note this year.

And be a decent, you know, above average football team and maybe a playoff team. But if this is going to be the formula year in and year out with the Steelers, kind of similar with the Patriots, where it's slow starts and then good finish. Or if the Patriots start off great and then they're terrible down the stretch, where are these teams actually going? Like, we look at two great brands of the Steelers and the Patriots.

Where are they going? They're going into a big draft conversation, really. Because these teams, like, the Steelers have a great defense, the Patriots have a good defense. Steelers don't have much on offense. Pickens is good. I don't know what pick it is. The Pats have nothing on offense.

What direction are you going into? Because when you win as much as those two teams have, the fans' mentality is going to be to win once again. And these two teams are nowhere close to winning a Super Bowl. Alrighty. That is the Zach Gelb show on a very busy Wednesday edition. We do appreciate you for taking some time today to listen to us across all of our great local CBS Sports Radio affiliates.

Sirius XM Channel 158, the free Odyssey app and also streaming on YouTube. And I appreciate Mark Stoops for joining us earlier, the head football coach at Kentucky. Big game coming up this weekend against number one Georgia. Appreciate coach taking a few moments right before he's ready to get out on the practice field. He said he wasn't happy with the practice yesterday. So, man, hope those Kentucky players show up as the Kentuckys undefeated.

They're ranked 20th and they'll have number one Georgia this weekend in Athens. And I'd also like to thank Omar Viskel for joining us in the 4 o'clock p.m. Eastern Time Hour. If you missed any of those conversations, go to my Twitter page, at Zach Gelb. Press the follow button, link in the bio to find all those archived segments.

You can also use the Odyssey rewind function for the next 24 hours. You can find us wherever you get your podcasts. Stu, Samter, great job as always. Talk to you tomorrow, everybody. We out. Bye-bye. Peace.