The Commanders Should Hire Jim Harbaugh (Hour 1)

Live from the play show yet not overly ostentatious studios of CBS Sports Radio here in beautiful New York City, it's a football Friday edition of the Zach Gelb show across all the great local CBS Sports Radio affiliates, Sirius XM, channel 158, the free Odyssey app, and of course on YouTube. Welcome on in, action packed show today, 855212 for CBS, number to jump on in, 85521242. You can always interact with the show on Instagram where I'm straight flexing or via the good old cesspool of Twitter at Zach Gelb.

That's Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. We have a monster, monster football Friday show for you coming up 20 minutes from now. A man that had eight receptions for 230 yards last night and count them, not one, not two, but three touchdowns in the Bears big time beat down to the commanders, 40 to 20, DJ Moore will be joining us right here on CBS Sports Radio. Now, number two, Kevin Carter from CBS Sports Network, college football analyst, former NFL and college player will join us in studio.

And then the final hour of the show will connect with Ryan Horvat in his weekly spot from BetMGM tonight via BeckQL. We'll do a little NFL and college picks with him. Let's start with the football from Thursday night and we will put the Bears and the great story of the Bears in an isolated window from one game on the back burner. We'll circle back with it when DJ Moore joins us and then later on in this hour, because that was phenomenal what Justin Fields did. Crazy for the last three, four weeks, all we've talked about is Justin Fields getting traded at the end of the year and you wake up today and I know, right, there's only two quarterbacks that have played through five weeks of the season. But right now, Justin Fields leads the league in passing touchdowns. He puts four on the board last night and the Bears just embarrassed the Washington commanders.

But for me, there's two takeaways from the game. It's what the Bears did and what is the future of the Chicago Bears as they did trade Chase Claypool today to the Miami Dolphins, which is no surprise. And then it's the Washington commanders and the commanders are in a state right now that could be the worst state to be in in the NFL because you're not going to be great, but you're not going to be horrible.

So you're in no man's land in a stalemate of you're going to either be a seven, eight or nine win football team and your apex, if everything goes right, is getting a wild card game on the road and losing on wild card weekend. And it's so evident to me now with new ownership with Josh Harris, Magic Johnson and company coming in and seeing their football team with actual fans in the stands that represent the commanders, which never would be a thing under Daniel Snyder. There would have been like 50,000 Bears fans in the building last night, but with a packed house with a lot of commanders fans, your team has to give a better effort. And we are too far in to the Ron Rivera era in D.C. with the commanders, since he did take over as the coach in 2020 for that performance against an inferior team in the Chicago Bears to be present in front of your fans. When there's finally some optimism, there's finally some hope with the Washington commanders since you have Daniel Snyder out and now Josh Harrison.

And I've looked at the commanders where they started off hot with Ron Rivera. I know they were seven and nine. The record doesn't indicate that they had a good season, but they made the playoffs that year and they won the NFC East. And after that, they've never moved this thing forward and they've never taken the right step where they've been seven and 10, eight, eight and one. And then to start off this season, they are two and three. And you look at the roster, I do think it's a coaching problem because what have we heard over the last two, three years about the commanders? Man, their defense is loaded. Look how many great draft picks they have in their front seven on the defensive side of the ball. And for the last two, three years, that defense has never popped.

That defense has never sizzled. And Jack Del Rio still remains the defensive coordinator and Ron Rivera says today, there's going to be no changes. Now, Jack Del Rio should have been canned after the game last night. And you're seeing this now with longtime coaches in the league, they're stubborn. Mike Tomlin is stubborn with Matt Canada running his offense. Bill Belichick last year was stubborn and did something in an idiotic way to bring in Matt Patricia and Joe Judge to run his offense. And Ron Rivera is ultimately going to get fired at the end of the year.

And it's his fault because he's the CEO. He has a good enough roster where you shouldn't lose by 20 points or you shouldn't lose period to the Chicago Bears. And they have never advanced this thing forward from what was a good foundational year in your number one when he got there in 2020. So no one should be surprised at the end of the season because at best the commanders go nine and eight and they make the playoffs. And even so, when you are now in the fourth year of being a head coach in the NFL and you are a veteran long term tenured head coach in this league, just making the playoffs in your number four shouldn't be good enough. And I can't even sit here and lock it up that the commanders are going to be making the playoffs this year, especially after their lethargic and anemic and just putrid performance that they put on display last night. So I'm thinking about how did the commanders move this thing forward?

How did the commanders get this thing in the right direction? Because clearly, Ron Rivera is no longer the guy. Ron Rivera is a great man, but the game has passed him by. And we've seen that the last two years, whether it was him putting his foot in his mouth with the Carson Wentz situation and storming off after a game when you made it worse than what it needed to be when talking to the media because you got sensitive because you thought that the perception was that this was a decision that was made by Daniel Snyder to bring in Carson Wentz. And you're admitting that you had no clue what the heck Sam Howell was, even though he was on your roster the entirety of all last year until the final week of the season when you put him in and he dominated or him saying he even put his foot in his mouth once again with the handling of the Eric B enemy situation before the start of the season.

And he keeps on saying the wrong things. He's not winning games and he's making decisions that when I'm on my couch watching these games, it's obvious that he just doesn't have it anymore. Like last week, you're going up against a superior football team in the Philadelphia Eagles. Jahan Dotson catches the ball right at the end of the game, gets a touchdown. You don't have enough talent in overtime to probably win that game and to outlast the Eagles go for the two point conversion right there and Ron Rivera didn't do that.

So the facts are Ron Rivera is 24 30 and one. This is now his fourth year as the head coach of the commanders and Josh Harris Magic Johnson who was annoyed after the game last night and tweeting about it. They're evaluating. They are looking at the entirety of this team, not only on the field, but on the sidelines and upstairs as well and the in the entire way that this organization is being operated because there needs to be enormous changes to build the right culture with the Washington commanders because Daniel Snyder just didn't believe in culture.

Daniel Snyder really took a blowtorch to the word culture and he only had a negative culture when he was the head when he was running and being the head honcho of the Washington commanders. So this is what I would say to Josh Harris or Magic Johnson. If they were sitting right next to me right now, I would say as much as everyone in this game respects Ron Rivera, you know, for your football team, the best thing moving forward is to get rid of Ron Rivera. Now, you don't have to do that in season.

You don't have to do that right now. Ron Rivera can get the rest of the season, but the first name I'm calling if I'm Josh Harris, who, you know, he'll be willing to write the check to make this team a contender or try to put them in the best position to succeed. The first name I'm calling is Jim Harbaugh, who's currently coaching the Michigan Wolverines. And I know there was a report earlier in the week by the Wolverine that there's a new contract that could be coming sooner rather than later for Jim Harbaugh. If I'm Jim Harbaugh with my pending issues with the NCAA, how they're still trying to put a punitive action on you for buying some kids some cheeseburgers at the at the Brown Jug in Ann Arbor, some recruits. I don't know if I'm definitely going to be returning to Michigan next year. If this gets into a petty, a name, just game that the NCAA always plays in the NCAA is filled with jackassery. I don't know if I'm definitely coming back to Michigan.

And don't get me wrong. If you're Jim Harbaugh, you have this thing at Michigan right now, humming the last two years they've crushed Ohio State. They've made it to the college football playoff. You have a legitimate chance to win a national championship this year. But if you get into these silly antics of the NCAA, when do you just say, is it worth it?

And it's no longer worth it. And that's why if I'm Jim Harbaugh, I wouldn't sign anything right now that solidifies my future at Michigan. Because at the end of the year and the last two years, he's displayed an interest in returning to the NFL. He sat in an 11 hour interview in Minnesota two years ago. If you were just trying to use that as a negotiation tactic with Michigan, you're not sitting in an 11 hour interview with Questia Dofamensa and the Wolf family with the Minnesota Vikings.

You're just not doing that. And last year, his name was floated out there again. And you could bet your you-know-what that Jim Harbaugh's name is going to get floated out there again for NFL jobs. Because there are some teams right now that need new leadership.

They need new coaches. And say what you want about the personality of Jim Harbaugh. Personally, I love him.

I think he's great for football. But the guy has won in college. And then in the NFL, he was the coach of the 49ers for four years. They made it to the Super Bowl.

And they made it to three NFC Championship games. So if I'm Josh Harris, I'm imploring the sports gods. I'm saying pretty, pretty please. Don't have Jim Harbaugh sign a long-term extension or a new deal with Michigan. And I'm calling him up and I'm saying, Jim, you could run the entire team. You want to be the GM and the coach? You want to bring in your own guy to be the GM and you coach the team?

Go ahead. Because Jim Harbaugh wins in college. Jim Harbaugh wins in the NFL.

And he would be the perfect person for the commanders to hand their organization over to. And really give the keys to the franchise to Jim Harbaugh and have his khaki pants come to Landover, Maryland and coach his football team back to glory. But Jim Harbaugh is not a dummy. That's why I don't know if Jim Harbaugh is going to immediately sign a new deal right now and an extension with Michigan because he's going to have more leverage at the end of the season.

Michigan could win the national championship this year. And if you think it's just going to be the commanders that come calling this offseason, you're foolish. Because the Chargers, if the Spanos family isn't cheap, they should absolutely call Jim Harbaugh to replace Brandon Staley with his dopey analytics that never work and he gets bailed out by quarterbacks throwing interceptions like Kirk Cousins and also Aiden O'Connell. And I know that the Bears won last night and now there's a conversation about the Chicago Bears. Oh, maybe Eberflus is doing something well. Oh, maybe Justin Fields is going to be the long term guy.

They won one lousy game. If I'm the Chicago Bears and you have the possibility of having the first and second overall pick in this upcoming draft, I'm not trusting Matt Eberflus. I'm not trusting Ryan Polls. That's another situation where if Jim Harbaugh wants to be the GM and the coach, write in the check. Write him a blank check and let him come in and work his magic.

Because I can only evaluate from what I've seen. And I know there's a lot of times you go, oh, a college coach in the NFL, nine times out of ten it doesn't work. It's already worked with Jim Harbaugh.

He's already been an NFL head coach in San Francisco. And I know it was a messy ending, but I would take the messy ending of a four year run when you're in three NFC championship games and also in a Super Bowl. Because Ron Rivera right now is in a four year run. And what's the highlight for Ron Rivera?

Going seven and nine and being in the NFC East division winner and losing to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in that wildcard game. And I know Taylor Ham Heinecke, as I like to call him, had that nice touchdown run and we were all saying Air Heinecke. But that's the highlight of the Ron Rivera era so far in Landover, Maryland. And this team has talent. You know, you have Terry McLaurin, you have Jahan Dotson, you have Brian Robinson Jr. Sam Howell. The receiver's got to help him out last night.

They dropped too many footballs. But I'm not ready to say that this guy can't play in this league. And defensively, you continue to allow Jack Del Rio to be your defensive coordinator. And there's so much talent on this roster and the talent's nowhere up to par to where they should be. Like Chase Young has been a bust. They've already declined his fifth year option. I know he's dealt with injuries, but this defense, my oh my, the way that we talked about the Bears heading into this game, you would have thought the commander's defense would have had a field day with Chicago. Instead, it was the complete antithesis and Chicago dragged the Swiss cheese defense of the commanders up and down the field all night long. So there's no justification anymore for Ron Rivera to be the commander's long term coach.

And I think it's coming to a close at the end of the year. And I would absolutely pick up the phone once you make the move. If he's still available in Jim Harbaugh and call Jim Harbaugh and say we want you to come to Landover, Maryland and run this team.

855-212-4CBS, 855-212-4227. Zach Galb here with you on CBS Sports Radio. Give me a name that you like if Ron Rivera is out at the end of the year that should replace him as the head coach of the commanders.

If you can't tell, I'm going with Jim Harbaugh. That would be my first call and I think it's the best call to make. We'll take a break here. When we come on back, the star of the game last night, DJ Moore. If you had DJ Moore on your fantasy team last night, you already won. Like if you lose fantasy football this week after he puts up 50 points at fantasy football, your team just sucks or you have the worst luck in the world.

But 8 receptions for 230 yards and 3 touchdowns. Can't wait to reconnect with DJ Moore when the Zach Galb show continues. We're off and running on a very busy football Friday right here on CBS Sports Radio.

Alrighty, welcome back in. Football Friday, Zach Galb show here with you on CBS Sports Radio. We're awaiting DJ Moore, the star of Thursday Night Football last night to kick off week 5.

Should be joining us momentarily here on CBS Sports Radio. You can find our poll question today at Zach Galb at CBS Sports Radio. The Bears will blank Justin Fields this offseason and the options are trade or keep.

Right now, early returns after last night where if we asked this question yesterday, I would say the majority would say trade. 62.1% right now say keep Justin Fields and 37.9% say trade Justin Fields and you examine right now the Bears options on that. You have a team that you don't know how we're going to be talking about their quarterback at the end of the year. I do believe the reason why Justin Fields has not been as successful so far in his career is more so of the Bears than his individual talent. But we've seen before organizations ruin their young quarterbacks, but the last two games and I know you could chalk it up to. Well, it's up against the Broncos and their defense is trending in the wrong direction and the commanders their defense are trending in the wrong direction.

You see the raw ability and the athleticism and the arm that is capable of one Justin Fields and Justin Fields last night had a phenomenal evening in an isolated window. Like that's an important thing to like remember last year when the Broncos were just getting embarrassed week in and week out and we all took a look at the Broncos and we kept on seeing them in prime time. And it was like wow Russell Wilson looks horrible Nathaniel Hackett looks horrible usually when something's in an isolated window we think about it in a negative way. But the Bears last night after four weeks for the most part of negativity were on Thursday Night Football expectations were really low. When you look at this Bears commanders game we all thought it was going to be low scoring it ends up being high scoring a lot of us thought it was going to be a blowout but not by the team that ended up winning the game. And the Bears blow out the commanders and then you sit here and after four weeks of Trey Justin Fields and what's going to happen the conversation is now starting to turn a little bit.

But as quickly as it could turn and be in a positive way you go back to playing how you did the first two weeks of the season where you weren't only not playing well but then it got ugly and you said you were thinking too much and you threw the coaching staff onto the bus. That will totally flip but it is a compelling decision that the Bears have to make because if they finish the year with the number one pick and it couldn't be because of their own incompetence. It could simply be because the Panthers are the worst team in the league. And if the Panthers finish with what one or two wins three wins at most that had the number one overall pick the Panthers don't even get the benefits of being bad because they traded that pick to the Bears so they could go select Bryce Young. But you're in all likelihood looking at the Chicago Bears having two top five picks and if Caleb Williams is there. I know it's one great game by Justin Fields but I have a tough time believing that the Bears aren't going to trade fields. And then they're going to bypass on Caleb Williams they probably still will take Caleb Williams but you could make the argument on the flip side. If you like what you see from fields go get him more talent. We all know DJ Moore is sensational but you go add maybe a Marvin Harrison junior with one of those picks that another top five pick you get a stud offense alignment or a stud defense alignment.

How many times do we also say when we're trying to go find the quarterback build the team first. Well they have maybe a quarterback that could be good. And if you bypass on a Caleb Williams you go get two dominant pieces to move this thing forward. But ultimately I still think he was going to be out at the end of the year. I still do believe that you're going to see Ryan polls getting set packing at the end of the season and I don't think bears fans are going to want to say you have to trade fields. But with the likelihood of them getting the number one pick so high from their own pick or the Panthers pick. If if the way we talk about Caleb Williams is a generational talent like a luck and like a Trevor Lawrence and the way that he's been hyped up like a Peyton Manning where even Caleb Williams exudes that confidence as well where Caleb Williams says and he said this to me at the Heisman there's nothing Patrick Holmes does that he can't do.

If you don't know for sure that fields is going to be the real deal at the end of this year you can't find a way to just pass up on Williams because you're hoping that fields develop so fields is playing for his job. Eber flusa still coaching for his job and polls is still trying to be a general manager searching to keep his job with all those things being said it was a great performance last night but it doesn't really make me say now. Oh, you have to keep everyone in place, but you heard the conversation the postgame last night. It went multiple ways were somewhere on board with keeping this regime, others were saying, No, you got to blow it up so at the end of the year it's only one game, but the bears made a statement last night that was needed was to just get a victory but the fact that they blew out the commanders. It did totally start to shift the immediate reaction of where we were with this team, and what did transpire through the first four weeks of the season but still, it's a football team that's one in four. So, even though it was one impressive game let's not act as if the entire organization has totally changed 855-212-4CBS 855-212-4227 let's go to Brian in North Carolina. Next up on the Zach Gelb show right here on CBS Sports Radio Brian what's happening.

Hey Zach it's your brother, buddy Brian I have a question for you. I know that you just said the Panthers may only get a couple wins this season. But do you believe there's any chance even if we make a trade for a wide receiver that we could finish 500 in a rebuilding year. 500? Because I need to know how many gummies I gotta buy to deal with my football depression for the rest of the season.

So I need a budget for this. Yeah well Brian I'm not going to tell you what you're going to do off the field but let's just be real here. If you're still thinking that this football team could be 500 you may have already taken too many gummies.

But I don't care if you're bringing Jerry Rice. There's no way that this team is going to be 500 because Frank Reich is an overrated coach. The offensive line has done a complete 180 and it's banged up from where it was a year ago and they're going to get Bryce Young killed. They are because they have no wide receivers there that are number one receivers that take the top off the defense that put any fear into the eyes of the opposition. And Miles Sanders he got paid this offseason but Miles Sanders is not this good running back. He was rather disappointing in Philadelphia up until last year and he was more of a product of a great Eagles offensive line and look in the Super Bowl.

They didn't even trust Miles Sanders to use him. So there's nothing that the Panthers could do this year that would make me think OK they could save this ship from sinking. Ultimately wins and losses are relevant for the Panthers. You need Bryce Young to start showing you that he could carry this team. But as we've talked about there's a lot of young quarterbacks that get drafted in bad situations.

And David Tepper has to start taking this on the chin because he has not done a good job as an owner in the NFL. And you take a glance at this Panthers team. I can't give you any hope you know they got a solid defense.

We know that. But what does a solid defense mean if you have an offense that could do nothing. And the next two weeks for the Panthers they play the Lions and they play the Dolphins.

That's a loss and a loss. And then you have a bye we can come out of the bye. You have the Texans and the Colts who aren't these great teams but they're performing well with young quarterbacks in the same draft class. So you look at that with the way the Texans don't have much and the Colts don't have much are off to a good start. And the Panthers are sitting there and they are lost absolutely lost and they have nothing on the offensive side of the ball. And I'll say this with the Panthers. Steve Wilt should still be the head coach of that football team. He did a good job at an interim basis last year after that team got off to a rancid start. And I said this in the offseason if you could have got Sean Payton if you could have got Jim Harbaugh I understand not bringing back Steve Wilkes. But when you hire Frank Reich that's an underwhelming hire to me.

And that's hiring someone based off name not what they've done recently in the NFL. The last two years when Frank Reich was at the Indianapolis Colts they were disappointing. They were a mess. They got embarrassed in Jacksonville in the final week of the season when the fans were dressed up as clowns that the Jaguars fans and you couldn't beat that team.

The Carson Wentz experiment was a disaster. And then also you look at the year after that they didn't win one first half. Jeff Saturday comes off the couch from ESPN and he beat the Raiders.

So come on. I have no words of optimism if you're a Carolina Panthers fan. But you look at the Texans look at the Colts have great rosters and they're finding a way to be at least competent be competitive. But the Panthers their own four right now blown out by the Falcons looks prettier than what it was against the Saints. You lose by 10 to Seattle. I know Andy Dalton was playing in the last week. You had a good first half effort and then did nothing in the second half. He was 21 to 13 to Minnesota.

All right. We're still trying to connect with DJ more hopefully we get him on at some point in this hour or before we do sign off at 6 p.m. Eastern 3 p.m. Pacific. He had a monster game last night as the Chicago Bears just crushed the commanders 40 to 20 more eight receptions for 230 yards and three touchdowns in the big story is Justin Fields 15 to 29 282 yards and four touchdowns the poll question today. The Bears this offseason will do what with Justin Fields trade him or keep him. You could chime on in at that girl that CBS Sports Radio or jump on our phone lines 8 5 5 2 1 2 4 CBS 8 5 5 2 1 2 42 27 to chime in on that. I still think the Bears because of the draft picks they have and the goal of getting Caleb Williams will select Caleb Williams whether it's through their pick of the Panthers pick and then at the end of the year get something back for Justin Fields. Let's get the latest CBS Sports Radio update in with the act man Rich Ackerman.

All right. It is that Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. It's time to ask the pros where you the listeners get to ask us a question brought to you by O'Reilly Auto Parts simply tweet your question at CBS Sports Radio or at Zach Gelb using the hashtag ask the pros be listening later in the show when we might answer your question.

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 are still working on getting DJ more up his agents trying to contact him. So hopefully we get him on the show before we do say goodbye at 6 p.m. Eastern 3 p.m. Pacific Kevin Carter is going to join us college football analyst for CBS Sports Network in the next hour. And then the third and final hour each and every football Friday right here on CBS Sports Radio at 5 20 p.m. Eastern 2 20 p.m. Pacific Ryan Horvat from Bet MGM tonight will join us via the Beck QL family as we'll get a few college picks from Ryan Horvat and then we'll do some NFL picks as well.

And if I'm Brian that was just calling in North Carolina a guy that's always in the YouTube chat I'd be listening to Horvat's picks because your Carolina Panthers season is already over so try to go win some money this year instead of hoping that the Carolina Panthers are going to turn it around. But that's always a difficult thing folks when your football team stinks you're a fan. We're all addicted to watching football like Stu is a long suffering Raiders fan. Samter was a Jet fan now he's a Fugazi football fan and he just jumped ships.

But you look at the teams that you grew up rooting for you don't just well besides Samter abandon the team you can't do that. And Stu's done it a thousand times in football season where he knows each and every Sunday he's going to sit on his couch he's going to get the pigs in the blanket out he's going to get the the wings on the table the nachos maybe the bean dip to whatever Stu's cooking up and he's going to sit there stuff his face and he's going to watch his team just be horrible. Like Stu you probably have some good depression food I would imagine that is just on call whenever you watch a Raiders game because each and every Sunday it's like death taxes and the Raiders losing.

Yeah it's a lot of ice cream a lot of cake I would go for the sweets yeah that late four o'clock eastern window yeah it's tough. I will fade them is one of the things I will actually do a lot of times when I know they're going to lose I'll bet money on the other team and then. Do you really yeah so I see I can't do that I could pick against my team on the air but I can't physically put money against my football team I just think it's sacrilegious.

It probably is but with how bad they've been pretty much my whole life I'm kind of used to them losing and hey at least I get something out of it if they do lose. I do like the call Stu that you go with sweets because usually now I'm here on football Sundays doing the ion football show from noon to 8 p.m. eastern for eight hours talking about all the games but if I'm off on a Sunday. Or if there's just one Sunday where let's say there's a loaded Saturday slate because of a holiday and I get to watch a football Sunday I got the charcuterie board out. Maybe doing something Italian you know maybe get someone cooking on the grill things like that but you are right when something doesn't go your way.

My uncle my uncle Gary would always be like go get the cookies you got to go get the cookies. And you get the cookies and then you get some ice cream as well and you just sit there and eat your sorrows away and then you hope that you wake up the next day and feel better but when your football team is bad like are you still. Just destroyed emotionally throughout the week because when my team was just winning winning winning winning winning when they would occasionally lose the game like the entire week it was just. Oh my God like it's a haze I've never really felt this much losing before and you just wait and wait and wait until the week goes by to get to the end of the week. Unfortunately I'm numb to it at this point. Yeah I would say the year they had that was really good in 2016 where they won 12 games the few times they lost it was tough and then obviously when Derek Carr went down with the injury that was miserable.

Yeah that was a disaster but seriously like other than that I'm pretty much used to it. It's all right one day still you'll get a winning football team maybe you may just be like above floating somewhere in the sky with like a bunch of people feeding you grapes and you may be dead for about 50 years so that's a possibility anyway. That's morbid. Well it's true how many times you hear an old man on the radio go oh this team's never going to win and they're going to win when I'm dead. I feel like you hear that all the time so I'm not saying Stu's not going to be able to enjoy it but he just may be in heaven. We all know Stu's not going down below the earth Stu's a great guy he's a classy individual. We know whenever it's Stu's time the big fella upstairs is going to welcome Stu with open arms and he's going to give him like in the elite category the elite section of heaven.

There's no doubt about that. Alrighty let's update you some of the biggest stories the world of sports with some audio we get to the news brief. Let's go to Donna Kelsey the world's biggest star right now forget Travis Kelsey forget Taylor Swift Swifties that was in jest don't come after me don't stalk me outside of our 345 Hudson Street Studios.

Probably just shouldn't have given the address out. I am a five foot four man and my name is Michael Samter. Alright, this is not Zach Yell this is the Michael Samter show on CBS Sports Radio don't go after the six foot four guy that is the jolly old giant he's acting to be just a very nice person. But anyway, here's Donna Kelsey on the PR boost from Taylor Swift.

This is credit of the got it from my mama podcast that's probably the best credit we've ever had here on CBS Sports Radio. All I can tell you is that the NFL is laughing all the way to the bank. Good for them. They're getting the ramifications of everything. I can tell you this that they've told me personally that the Kelsey family has done more good PR for football than they could have paid a million dollars to a PR firm.

She's 100% right. And I love how the NFL is just admitting this where they're telling everyone close to the Kelsey family. Yeah, you guys are doing wonderful PR for the league and Samter wasn't the story that the NFL was telling the networks to just run free promos of Taylor Swift like the NFL does nothing for free. And they are saying Taylor Swift's at the games. You need to go run some promos for what this era's tour movie that they're putting on out there.

I guess is the gist of this. I actually had a marketing rep who works for the flower company. He called me and he asked me if I had any in the luxury boxes around the NFL because the flower company wanted to deliver Taylor Swift flowers that had Kansas City Chiefs like rapping on it. And that's what people are thinking about because everyone is trying to get their product in front of Taylor Swift like Dave Portnoy, who's in with high noon and I happen to love high noon. Um, there was some girl in like orange pants I think for like seats away from Taylor Swift, and she had a high noon, and he was begging her throughout the game, like, go share the high noon with Taylor Swift because there's no bigger star in the planet right now. Than Taylor Swift.

Is there a bigger person on the planet right now than Taylor Swift. She's the most popular person on the planet. I mean maybe BTS, but I mean that's, that's over in South Korea.

I don't even know what that is. They're like a boy band and they're like, they're huge so like whenever anybody wants to get anything done, just from a popularity standpoint tick tock, IG whatever is BTS, but I don't know if they're more popular. Yeah, I don't like to get, I don't like to get political and 50% of the people tell you he's popular 50% won't but like Trump's always in the news. Yeah, but I'm out about popularity.

I think it just depends on where your, your politics do lie. But I would say I don't think anyone dislikes Taylor Swift, right. Is there a soul out there that dislikes Taylor Swift outside of you're just annoyed with the hype and you just want to watch football?

I think that's probably what it is. I don't think people have any issues with Taylor Swift other than the fact that they're just inundated with too much stuff. And that's a real minority of people. Like that's not a vocal minority of people that you're hearing really bashing Taylor Swift. Let's hear one more from Donna Kelsey on spending time with Taylor Swift.

This was courtesy of NBC Today. It's fairly new, so I don't like to talk about it. Yeah, it's just another thing that's amped up my life. Yeah, what was she like? She got to sit with a couple games. How was it? It was okay.

It's okay. Now I'm going to interpret as that's Donna Kelsey who's doing an interview so you got to know this is going to be ass. So you want the attention, but that's probably her not wanting to give out too much information.

She looked like she was having the time of her life with Taylor Swift. Like, Stu, you've met your girlfriend's parents probably recently. I don't think your girlfriend's parents would just say, oh yeah, Stu was okay.

He was vanilla. I really hope not. But like you listen to that. I have a tough time believing that Donna Kelsey isn't blown away by Taylor Swift. But you hear the answer. It didn't match up with what I thought the reaction would have been. Let's go to Evan Neal on his comments about the fans where he apologized for this and he told the fans, who are you to boo? You know, I'm a lion. You're a sheep. Who is criticizing me? All these guys that are flipping burgers and flipping hot dogs.

Here's Evan Neal. I'm remorseful and I definitely could have used a better choice of words. You know, coming from humble beginnings myself, I never want to belittle anyone, regardless of their financial status or their occupation. So I really wanted to apologize for what I said. When I made those comments, it was just a moment of frustration.

Right now, we must play better as a team and I must perform better myself. I just kind of let my frustrations get the best of me in that moment. I don't defend the comments, but as I said yesterday, it's a 23 year old kid who is on this huge stage and has never dealt with failure before and he's getting blasted left and right from everybody. So I think we could all move on from this. I know people are always going to hold this against them because that's just the world that we live in. He apologized. I'm forgiving.

This isn't the worst thing in the world. It's not right what he said, but I think we could all move on from this or I hope so. Here is Cam Newton on what if the Jets called him?

This was on the RG3 and the Ones podcast. I'm not about to sit up here and sign a 5.5 million dollar deal, bro. Those days are over with. I'll be wasting my time. I don't want to walk into a dysfunctional situation. Also, Aaron Rodgers is trying to come back this year. So when he comes back, is it just going to be something that you just say, hey, watch out? It's actually sad because Cam is now in the category of you still think you could play, but we all know that you're not capable of being a long term starting quarterback in the league anymore. So you could talk about the 5.5 million dollars and Rodgers eventually coming back with Rodgers. I know he could say he's returning, but he's not going to be able to return this year.

Just like, let's stop with this. I know it's something you have to ask him and it's a fair question, but I saw Cam play towards the end in Carolina. I saw Cam play in New England.

The guy is just not a great starting quarterback anymore, or even a good starting quarterback anymore in the NFL. Here's Jamar Chase on Zach Taylor's reaction to Jamar Chase after the game last week saying he's always open. Honestly, man, I thought I was a d***.

Not going to lie, bro. I got called to that office after that day and I thought I was in trouble. If I'm being completely honest, Zach told me, great f***ing interview. I had the most shocked face on my face when he told me that. It was just like relief off my shoulders, thinking I'm bashing my teammates and this media trying to bash me for being a... That's a fascinating response. I would have thought that when Jamar Chase, the team's losing and you're saying you're always open, the coach would be like, yeah, we don't need that distraction.

And Zach Taylor goes, what a great f***ing interview. Here is Najee Harris on the criticism of his offensive coordinator in Mac, Canada. I see everybody talking about this coaching stuff about the play calling for Brett. We're not trying to point the finger at all.

It's crazy. We have to execute at the end of the day no matter who's back there calling the plays. I honestly say that we're not doing that right now. Not coaches. It has nothing to do with coaches.

It's just players. We have to play better. So I respect that response from Najee Harris because you could throw the coaching staff under the bus, especially when your entire fan base is doing that. But I like when players put it on themselves instead of blaming others, even though we all know Matt Canada should no longer be the offensive coordinator. Here is the 49ers general manager, John Lynch. He was on the Murph and Mack show on KNBR in the Bay Area. And he was asked if he's worried about Trey Lance, who's now on the Cowboys, giving Dallas too much info before their big tilt on Sunday Night Football.

There is information you can share. My experience with that as a player is it tends to screw you up more than it does help you. I mean, this isn't the Houston Astros over there banging a drum for fastball. He can't do that over there.

And now everything's through the headset. Yeah, I think it's really an overblown storyline. I don't believe that Trey Lance.

They could be a resource, but he's not going to go out there and win them the game. And finally, here's Cam Rising detailing the full extent of his knee injury, the Bill Riley show on ESPN 700. I wasn't really expecting to do this, but I think it's important that I just kind of let everybody know I didn't just tear my ACL. I tore my ACL, meniscus, MPSL and MCL. It was a big surgery and it's not an easy comeback. And I've been working my tail off.

I'm ahead of schedule and just I'm trying to make sure that I can be out there. It's so unfortunate because he hasn't been able to play yet this season. And I was talking to Kyle Whittingham.

This was three weeks ago. And he thought that his quarterback was close to returning. He's been practicing with the team, but Cam kind of just shared that it was a little bit more than just an ACL. And we'll see if he ends up playing. I know they're going to buy this week, but coming out of the buy on October 14th, they do have Cal. And I know Utah is trying to get that answer earlier in the week rather than later in the week. So hope Cam Riley is going to be okay because if he is, back to back Pac-12 champs. It only picks up the intensity of the great Pac-12 quarterback competition.