Trevor Lawrence Isn’t a Generational QB! (Hour 1)

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Get six times longer lasting freshness plus odor protection with Downy Unstoppable's in wash scent beads. Live from the play show yet not overly ostentatious studios of CBS Sports Radio in Houston. That's right, the site of the 2024 National Championship game between the Michigan Wolverines and the Washington Huskies. I'm Zach Gelb taking you all the way up until 6pm Eastern, 3pm Pacific. You can always give us a call. 855-212-4CBS. That's 855-212-4227. You can interact with me via the good old cesspool of Twitter or on Instagram where I'm always straight flexing at Zach Gelb.

That's Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. We welcome you in today across all the great local CBS Sports Radio affiliates, Sirius XM, Channel 158, the free Odyssey app, and of course, streaming on YouTube, youtube.com slash CBS Sports Radio. We have an action packed show for you today. I have to give you a National Championship prediction between Michigan and Washington. I'll be in attendance.

That's why I'm here. I'm going to the game. I can't wait coming up later tonight. Kickoff is at about 745pm Eastern.

It's also Black Monday. We are finding out coaches who are getting fired. Also, general manager speculation. Who's going to stay?

Who's going to go? What's going to happen with Bill Belichick? And in addition to that, we now have the playoffs set in the NFL, the 17s in the AFC, the 17s in the NFC, and the next month, month and a half or so, we are football, football, and more football as we make the dash and we get to the final quarter of the race of the football season as we are dashing to Las Vegas.

And the Zach Gelb show, of course, entire Super Bowl week will be brought live in Sin City and we'll see who we'll bring along and talk to throughout those five glorious shows. Got Moist Mike and also Stuart Kovacs back in our New York City studios and Jed Fish, the head football coach at Arizona, who has done an incredible job. Turned around that team from one win to this past year just having a very successful season.

He has coached up against Michael Penix Jr. twice with Arizona going up against Washington. And also, he was on the inaugural staff at Michigan when Jim Harbaugh did take over as the head coach of the Wolverines. But we got to start with the NFL and we got to get into, really yesterday, an enormous domino effect that did occur and that was the Jacksonville Jaguars in just disappointing fashion, going down, not really having a pulse up against the Tennessee Titans. And you take a look back at that game and it just shows you really how much a difference a year makes. A year ago, we were praising the Jaguars. They came back from down 27 points up against the Los Angeles Chargers in the playoffs, right? You had Trevor Lawrence going to the Waffle House after the game, then they go to Kansas City and they had a respectable effort up against the Kansas City Chiefs. And when they bowed out in the second round to the playoffs, it was a feeling of optimism. It was a feeling of, okay, you survived the doom and gloom of Urban Meyer, now you have Doug Peterson, a Super Bowl winning head coach. Okay, you're not going to ruin Trevor Lawrence.

You're number two for Trevor Lawrence, which really felt like you're number one. It was going to be a super duper success. And then this year, we were waiting for them to elevate. We were waiting for them to rise. We were waiting for them to be a legit Super Bowl contender.

And I remember I was doing a show with Maggie Gray in the summer and we were doing kind of like, what would you put on the line? How far are you willing to go when you would buy in on team A, B, C, D, whatever it was? And one of the teams came up were the Jacksonville Jaguars. And I said, I think the Jacksonville Jaguars are a dark horse Super Bowl contender.

And not only a dark horse Super Bowl contender, I think they could be the number one overall seed in the AFC. And it wasn't because I thought they were the best team. It wasn't because I thought they were the preeminent roster in the AFC. But you looked inside the AFC South, Indianapolis was supposed to be bad. The Texans were supposed to be bad. And you knew Tennessee didn't really have much at the quarterback position and was going to continue to be more like the team that we saw at the end of last season rather than the last three to four years coached by Mike Vrabel. So things were looking up for the Jacksonville Jaguars.

And sometimes you make a prediction and more times than not you're going to get them wrong. But I have never quickly changed a prediction and pressed the big fat red panic button quicker than I did with the Jacksonville Jaguars. Because all it took was week two. In week two, you had a Kansas City Chiefs team going to Duval, a Kansas City Chiefs team that was coming off a loss to the Detroit Lions. And they were just getting Travis Kelce back. They were just getting Chris Jones back. But that Chiefs team as we see now through the entirety of this season, and the Chiefs right now are not a force entering the NFL playoffs, they were vulnerable. And you only scored a lousy nine points?

Alrighty. I pressed the panic button. I said this team isn't ready to go. I thought they were going to win that game outright. But it's only week two.

They were one and one. Zach, be fair. Zach, give the Jacksonville Jaguars a chance. And I know the next two teams I'm going to mention are the two best teams in the NFL right now.

But if you were ready to take that next step, if you were ready to soar, if you were ready to fly, you would have found the way to get one victory or at least make it a heck of a close game at least one time up against these next two teams. And let me remind you, both these games that I'm going to talk about in a second were both home games for the Jacksonville Jaguars. They welcomed in the San Francisco 49ers. They got stomped, steamrolled, obliterated, destroyed 34 to 3. And then a few weeks later they welcomed in the Baltimore Ravens and they lost I think it was like 24 to 7. So three games, three better opponents all at home in Jacksonville and it was failure, failure, and more failure. But even with that being said, even though they were not going to ascend, even though they were not going to elevate and improve and exponentially grow from what they did a year before, there was no way they were going to lose this division, right? And that's what they did on the final week of the season.

They controlled their own destiny. They were going up against Tennessee where it was Ryan Tannehill and the last game for Derrick Henry as a member of the Titans. And this was a Tennessee team that really had nothing to play for other than pride. Their season has been over for basically a month. And your franchise quarterback needs to carry that team. And I understand he's been dealing with injuries.

I get that. But to not even show up in the game or when you're starting to get back into the game after a slow start, and I mean a dreadful, lethargic, putrid start by the Jacksonville Jaguars, you are driving down eight with your season on the line. You get to third and goal. You're at the one, the one yard line. So at the most, you're getting two chances to put this sucker in the end zone, get it to a two-point game, and then you're going to get a two-point conversion.

And you know it and I know it. You get that touchdown. You get that two-point conversion.

You tie that baby up at 28 apiece. Momentum has swung into your favor. In a game you had no business being in, you would have been rejuvenated, you would have been alive, and you probably would have ended up winning the game. But Trevor Lawrence, who regressed this year, Trevor Lawrence, who I keep on hearing is a transcending quarterback, didn't elevate his team in that moment. They threw the ball on third and goal at the one. And then at fourth and goal on the one, he audible out of a run. And he elected to go Air Jordan, Air Lawrence mode as he tried to go over the top and break the plane from a full yard out. You know, you're a half yard out, I could live with that.

A full yard out, that's not a smart decision. And look what happened from that. Not only did the Jaguar season come to a close, it locked in a playoff spot for the Steelers, it locked in a playoff spot for the Bills, and also it allowed the Houston Texans, and we're in Houston right now, to win the division because the night before, the Texans beat the Colts and we'll get to Shane Steichen's stupidity in just a second. So that one play, that one decision, that one drive, was a massive domino effect in week 18. And I love Trevor Lawrence. You know, I loved watching him at Clemson.

I was told for three years, generational transcendent talent. You know, when you hear transcendent talent in the last 20, 25 years coming out of the draft, you think of 18, Peyton Manning, and you also think of Andrew Luck. Those were the two guys that everyone was slobbering over and was giving effusive praise to in the draft process, and that hype was met with Trevor Lawrence. And year one, you could chalk it up to, alrighty, it's on Urban Meyer. He was a disaster.

Year two, they meant business. But then in year three, I understand there were some injuries, but even before the injuries, there were moments to show that you are this transcendent player, and you didn't do that. Now I'm not going to sit here like some other dopes probably will today and say, oh, Trevor Lawrence isn't the guy, Trevor Lawrence isn't the answer, Trevor Lawrence can't be a franchise quarterback.

I'm not going to say that. But what I will say is, he's not as good as what they were selling, he's not as good as advertised, and maybe his ceiling is just being very good in this league. Now I know it's a young career, but I have not seen enough consistent greatness in the first three years for me to say that this was a guy that we needed to hear hype about for three years, and if he was the second coming of you-know-who.

And that was just brutal. And look at what happened right here in Houston. D'Amico Ryans, CJ Stroud, Will Anderson Jr., they're off to the playoffs, and you know after year one that CJ Stroud is better than advertised. You know that CJ Stroud is a franchise quarterback, and right now, CJ Stroud is a better quarterback than Trevor Lawrence, and it ain't even close. CJ Stroud is not only a top ten quarterback in this league, he's a top eight, top seven quarterback in this league, and he's only getting started. And Trevor Lawrence has more talent around him on the offensive side of the ball than CJ Stroud does with the Houston Texans.

And look at the way that CJ Stroud just changed that organization in one year. For Trevor Lawrence, yeah sure, year one, Urban Meyer disaster, year two you make the playoffs, but now in year three you're on the outside looking in, and you allowed a rookie quarterback in your own division to get to not only the postseason, but to win your division championship when he had a tougher opponent in week 18 up against the Indianapolis Colts, and your opponent was a team whose season was over for a month. Extremely disappointed with the Jacksonville Jaguars, extremely disappointed with Doug Peterson, and most importantly, extremely disappointed and now questioning Trevor Lawrence as a quarterback, not that he's not good, but what will his apex be? And I was told he was supposed to be a top three, top two, maybe even the best quarterback in the league in the foreseeable future when he was drafted. And so far, especially this year, there was just too many moments where in big games, it's not like they got into shootouts, it's not like they were close games, and you could blame other areas of the team, the offense in three of their biggest games of the season, up against Kansas City, up against the 49ers, up against the Ravens, did nothing. So let's get into Doug Peterson, and let's hear from the coach of the Jaguars, where he mentioned how Trevor Lawrence did audible that play on fourth down, where you saw him try to take off and break the plane from a full yard out.

Here's the coach of the Jaguars, Doug Peterson. He saw something, it wasn't an actual play call, but he saw something there and he had an opportunity to sneak it and, you know, with his length, usually that works. Not from a full yard out.

You know, I remember seeing Tom Brady, it was a conference championship game against the Baltimore Ravens, 2011, 2012, circa around there. He went over the top and he broke the plane, it wasn't a full yard out, and he got clobbered by Ray Lewis. That play can be a successful play if it's a half yard out. But when you're a full yard out, I don't care if you're 6'5", 6'6", like Trevor Lawrence is, the odds of you breaking the plane there are slim. And he wasn't even close. And you see it, he was a half yard short. So that would have worked from a half yard out. But from a full yard out, that's your play call? And you elected to pass on third down too? It was nonsensical. It really was.

Here's Trevor Lawrence talking about that play as well. You know, don't try to take that into my own hands. That's something I've got to watch it and make that decision. But it's done now. I made the decision and they trust me with those things and it didn't work. So I've got to take accountability for that. At the end of the day, it's on me if I decide to do it and don't get in. It's one of those plays, if you do it, you better score.

And I didn't. So it's unfortunate. At least he takes the accountability. Some other quarterbacks, cough cough Zach Wilson last year.

They would blame other people. But man, the Jaguars are just a complete and utter disappointment this year. And if it wasn't for the Chargers, and maybe the Seahawks too, I would say they're the most disappointing team in football. But then after that, it's got to be the Jaguars. I would say the Jaguars are more disappointing than the Seahawks. Because even though I thought the Seahawks would be the third best team in the NFC before the start of the season, I didn't think the Seahawks had a ceiling like Jacksonville did.

Especially what they started to build a year ago. And to see them regress this year, next year is going to be all hands on deck and it's going to be a massive year. It's a massive year for the quarterback who's waiting to get an extension. And even though I love Doug Peterson as a coach, and we know he can coach his ass off seeing what he did in Philadelphia without a quarterback. Once Carson Wentz got hurt, and then you got Nick Foles, right?

And it was just a quarterback, a musical chair of quarterbacks, eventually Jalen Hurts too, in Philadelphia. This is one of those years next year where it seems like the direction of the franchise is extremely under question. And now we're going to see how the Jaguars respond.

Because it's been one good year, and then one really severely disappointing season for the Jaguars. 8-5-5-2-1-2-4 CBS, 8-5-5-2-1-2-42-27, it is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. I'm in Houston for the national championship game tonight.

Between Michigan and Washington, a man that knows both these programs well is the head coach at Arizona, he's Jed Fish, and he'll join us on the other side. You can stream the NFL and Westwood One for free, sponsored by AutoZone all season long. You can listen to every Westwood One broadcast of the NFL Live on the NFL app by asking Alexa to open Westwood One Sports or on the Odyssey app. Get in the Zone AutoZone.

AutoZone's free battery testing and charging is available for free at your local AutoZone. Get in the Zone AutoZone restrictions apply. Alrighty, this is Zach Gelb show coast to coast on CBS Sports Radio. We're live in Houston for the national championship game tonight between Washington and Michigan at NRG Stadium.

And my next guest knows both of these programs very well. He is the head coach at Arizona. What a success story they've been from one win to five wins and then ten wins this past season.

And he's Jed Fish, kind enough to join us via Zoom. Coach, appreciate the time as always. Thanks so much. Congrats on an excellent season.

How you been? Great. I appreciate you having me on and looking forward to tonight's game for sure. And then also looking forward to getting back with my team here in two days and starting our 24 Odyssey.

Yeah, absolutely. Let me start you off with your squad. I love when coaches come on in and a lot of times patience isn't given but you've gotten some patience and you've seen some results and growth from year one to year two and then you had such an awesome year three. Just take me through your philosophy on how you were able to kind of build this program and get them moving back in the right direction. Yeah, I mean, when we got here, we took over a program that was on a 12 game losing streak and lost by nine touchdowns to their rival in the last game they played in 2020.

And we kind of, we felt we needed to not just rebuild we needed to start from scratch and we laid the foundation in the bricks and we said, hey, we're in a situation that this is not your one this is your zero. And we got to figure out what we need to do we got to understand our roster. I didn't kick one player off the team. I signed two recruits.

I said we're going to figure out what we have here with the 85 players brought in about six seven transfers that were available at the time late in the game. And we realized we weren't good enough. We were one in 11 football team. We played some games close and then we, we really committed to that year of recruiting that class of 2022 both transfers in high school kids change the program. And we went five and seven, and everybody returned. We added to that group we didn't lose anyone from that group we and then went 10 and three this year and one seven in the last seven in a row and I feel really good.

We didn't lose any starters, and the transfer portal, we didn't lose any backups in the transfer portal. And I think we should have a really good team with 18 returning started for next year. And it's not easy, what you're able to do because I was at Temple.

And I remember seeing Matt rule build that program up from nothing to then having college game day. Come to Philadelphia but now that would never be able to happen at a university like temple because of the NIL transfer portal as well I know Arizona has a bigger brand and you guys got some good weather out there, but to be able to go through some rough times and get that buy in from the players where not only they trusted you but you trusted them so quickly. It's really testament to not only you but your entire staff and you're able to build that so quickly. Yeah, our staff did an amazing job I mean we don't have some of the NIL resources that some of these other programs do and some things want to try to come in and pluck your players and take your players.

What you got to do is you got to be able to fight them off with creativity, I always tell our kids. Hey, we're not going to sell you on NIL we're going to sell you on NFL, and I've got 13 years of experience coaching in the NFL coordinated in the NFL and coach positions and quarterbacks and wide receivers for Mike Shannon and Bill Belichick, Sean McPhee and we're going to teach you how to do it right, and we're going to, we're going to ask you to trust us and believe in us and have a little delayed gratification. And if you can do that I think it's going to work out and our kids so far, for the most part have done it and believed in us. Jed Fish, did you have to change anything when you got the head coaching job at Arizona, with maybe understanding the transfer portal now. Did you have to change your philosophy and coaching at all have you always been the same coach that you've been throughout this journey.

Yeah, I've tried not to change it I felt that our best bet is for me to be the genuine me and our staff, genuine them and be honest, we've always been honest, be family based we're always family based our kids are everywhere in our building at all times. And we want our players to understand like this is a four year window in your life, this is not your end all be all this isn't the very very last part of your career. So let's do the most amazing job of creating a four year window that's phenomenal for you now when you're coaching in the NFL, your job is to get these guys the most amount of money possible, because that this is the end of their playing career when they're in the NFL and you have to help them become as good as they can be but in college.

To me it's still about relationships and it's still about helping them build for the future. We're talking to the head coach of Arizona and Jed Fish kind enough to join us right now national championship game tonight. You did go up against Michael Penix Jr. this year and also last year as well he's been sensational along with Kalen DeBoer at Washington.

Since you had that NFL background as well and knowing the college game to be in Arizona, with all the information and resources that you have when you kind of put on that scouting brain and you kind of look at Michael Penix Jr. What do you think he could be at the next level because it's weird. This guy's been dominating the last two years and I think nationally now a lot of people are finally starting to say wow, I can't believe this guy's actually a pretty damn good quarterback. Yeah, you know, I played him twice. So knowing pretty well he's going for last year we lost 49-39 and he threw for 500 yards and Jay Delora threw for 400 yards and then eight touchdowns together. And then this past season, we lost 31-24, and he threw for 350 and Noah Fafita threw for about 280. And, you know, so I've seen him, I've seen him throw the ball over the yard. And this kid is a special kid reminds me of Tua, not just because he's lefty, but because of his ability to anticipate throws.

He doesn't need to have the strongest arm intermediate in the world but what he does do is he throws a deep ball beautifully. He understands how not to get sacked. He understands how not to throw interceptions and be a great decision maker, and he seems very likable.

All those are the traits you want in an NFL quarterback. So I'm excited to watch him and then obviously I'm biased towards Michigan and I worked for Coach Harbaugh. I was his coordinator, his quarterback coach, his wide receiver coach.

And when his first couple years at Michigan and I have a very close bond with him so certainly excited to see them play tonight. What's your biggest takeaway? You've been around some big time legendary coaches working with Jim Harbaugh at Ann Arbor. What's your biggest takeaway from what you're able to learn from him?

I mean, the man is all about football and family. Everything you see is real. Everything you hear is real. The genuineness just spews out. So when he makes a comment like, when you asked about my future and he says I'm all for it, he means it. That's his, that's who he is. He's not going to sit there and pontificate, give you a million answers on things that are irrelevant. In his mind, he's going to tell you about what's going to help his football team win games. He's going to run staff meetings the same way, team meetings the same way. And it's about winning.

With Jim, it's about winning and everything he does. And I respect him so much. I love the guy.

His family and my family are close. But in the end, I just am such a fan of Coach Harbaugh and what he's done at Michigan. You got any inside scoop for us? Because I've been predicting all year that this is going to be his last year at Michigan and he's going back to the NFL coach. I don't know. I don't know. I think he wins the national championship.

It's hard not to want to win the Super Bowl. But who knows? I don't know what he's going to do.

There's only 32 of those jobs in the world. They're pretty impressive and they're pretty, they're pretty exciting opportunities to have. But I'm sure he's going to have his pick of the litter and he also can stay at Michigan and be an icon there, which he is already. So I see this game tonight from a very basic way. Maybe you have more of an in-depth view of it with your coaching background.

Jed Fish, the head coach of Arizona here with us. I think the biggest key tonight is just Michigan to do what they do best. And that's run the football and dominate the time of possession with guys like Blake Corum, who's a stud, and Donovan Edwards as well.

Because you know how great Michael Penix Jr. could be. Even though Michigan has a really good defense, I think their best defense tonight is keeping him on the sideline and using that run game all night long. Yeah, I would think that that's definitely a good approach in the game. I think if you go into the game and you don't think to yourself like, hey, I've got to outscore Washington, that's your best strategy. If you go into the game saying, we're going to make them go the long way, we're going to see if we can control the time of possession. We had 30 minutes, they had 29.58 or something like that, and we had 30.02 in our game against them this year.

And it was 31.24. And that's what you want to do. And I think Michigan, the way they run the football, they're going to try to get to 36 minutes, 37 minutes of time of possession. And if they can do that, then they'll feel really good about their chances.

You just can't turn it over, you can't give them a short field, and you can't let Washington hit too many big plays. They're going to hit some, but you just can't let them hit too many because if they hit too many, then they're tough to beat as the last 20 opponents can attest. Let me just preference my next question by saying I don't believe this will be the case, but there are some people that share the sentiment that even if Michigan wins tonight, they would view this as a tainted championship, which I think is so lame because of this sign-stealing scandal, which I think has been so blown out of proportion. Michigan wins tonight, how would you respond to people that say that this is a tainted championship? I'd say if Michigan wins tonight, they're the national champions. And they're, what, 15-0? Is that what their record would be?

I think, right? They're 14-0 right now. I think if Michigan wins tonight, there is no question that they're the best team in America, they're the best college football team, and they would be the national champions with no asterisk in my mind. Jed Fish, I wanted to ask you about some of the other coaches you were with. What do you take away from your time with Sean McVay? Well, I mean, hats off to Sean. I mean, Sean, they were 3-6 this year in that gun, 7-1. Sean's awesome. He's an unbelievable friend, unbelievable coach, and understands how to communicate with players as good or better than anybody in America.

Players will play for him, players love him, and his ability to be honest and be a great strategist but to be honest with players is awesome. And that's going to be some scene this upcoming weekend where you have Matthew Stafford, right, won a Super Bowl with the Rams but started his career with the Lions. You have the Lions who are humming, they're looking for their first playoff win since 1991 as a football fan. I can't wait to see how that goes down between Dan Campbell and Sean McVay. Yeah, and between Jared Goff and Matthew Stafford.

I mean, it's the double whammy. It's both quarterbacks. When I was at the Rams in 2018-2019, Goff was our quarterback and went to the Super Bowl. So, I'm sure that's going to be a big deal for everybody. It's going to be a great football game for sure.

Can't wait to watch that one. How do you view Jared Goff? Because that's always like, it has conflicting emotions from so many people on their view of Jared Goff. I don't think he's a polarizing guy, but whenever people talk about Jared Goff, it turns into a polarizing conversation. Yeah, I think he's uber talented, tough as nails, stands in the pocket.

You watch him in the pocket and you see guys just falling at his legs, kind of going through his body and he just stands in there and rips the ball around. Unbelievable arm. Smart.

Very, very, very smart. I can't thank him enough for my two years with him. We were 15 and 3. It was an awesome year in 2018. And then in 2019, we came back and I think we were 9 and 7.

So, my two years were 24 and 10. I've been to a Super Bowl with him and I just think he's a special player, as is Matthew Stafford. Yeah, last thing I'll ask you, Coach Jed Fish. So, you've coached against Bill Belichick, you coached with Bill Belichick. It's all up in the air about his future in New England. He's been there for 24 years as the head coach. We know, right, he's the definition of what a head coach is and he's been so successful and maybe the most successful head coach of all time. Could you envision Belichick not in New England next year?

Because that's been a thought for a lot of people, not only this week, but really for the last month. Well, he's the definition of the GOAT. There's no question in my mind about that. So, if somebody, if they make a decision for him to move on and he chooses to go elsewhere or if someone chooses for him to go elsewhere, I know that whatever team he goes to will be awfully fortunate.

If he stays in New England, they're awfully fortunate. And you're talking about the greatest coach of all time. It's been a tough year.

Everybody has one. But the difference between him and everybody else is he's had one. And, you know, maybe you could say his first year in New England, they went 5-11.

Last year, maybe they were 8-9 or something like that with a couple one-point losses. But you look at his body of work in 24 years, what else do you ever want from a coach? Well, Coach, hats off to you. Once again, congratulations. You've done an incredible job with Arizona. Enjoy the game tonight. I appreciate you doing this. We'll talk to you down the road. All right. Thank you. I appreciate you having me. You got it. There he is, Jed Fish, doing an incredible job at Arizona, from one win to five wins to now ten wins.

I'd love to see a coach be able to grow and rebuild a program like that, which is not easy to do, especially with the transfer portal now in an era of name imaging like this. This is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. We'll take a break. We do this segment every Monday and Friday. We'll do so on the other side.

It's called Onside, Offside. Sampter has a few questions for me. I'll give you a few answers when we return.

But first up, let's send it back to our New York City studios. Standing by with the latest CBS Sports Radio update is the act man, Rich Ackerman. It's time to ask the pros where you, the listener, get to ask us a question. It's brought to you by O'Reilly Auto Parts. Simply tweet your question at CBS Sports Radio or at Zach Gelb using the hashtag askthepros. Be listening later in the show where we might answer your question. You can 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. Before we get to Onside, Offside. So I made it to Houston. We're here for the national championship game tonight. Washington and Michigan. I did eye on football yesterday for eight hours.

I got home. I watched the Dolphins-Bills game to a thorough late interception. Josh Allen looked like he was on the brinks of just being a turnover machine. And then he pulls a rabbit out of the hat and goes back to being the great Josh Allen that we're all accustomed to seeing on a football field.

And that's just a rollercoaster ride of emotions when you watch Josh Allen. And then I probably got to bed last night at 1-1-30. Alarm went off at 5 a.m. Eastern. Got to the airport and the only thing I asked for was no delays. So I would like to thank United. They got me here at Houston. No delays.

Now this trip came about rather last second. Got the credential. Going to the game on a credential. We'll get all the behind the scenes stuff tonight. You can follow me on social media.

Instagram and Twitter. At Zach Gelb. Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. So I did a economy ticket because that's all that was left. Like usually I would, not that I'm flying first class or business class or anything like that, but usually I would be able to pick my seat. I was not able to pick my seat.

And as a 6'4", 6'5 guy, when they make you basically like the frosting of an Oreo and sandwich you in a middle seat, that was not a pleasant four hour flight. But for some reason, Sam, maybe I'm weird this way. Whenever I get on a plane, I think about what life would be like if this was it on the plane and I'd have to come back reincarnated. And I have two answers on what I would like to be if I happen to pass away and some reason they decide to recreate me and put me in somebody else's body. I would love to be Kirk Herbstreet's dog because that dog goes everywhere and it's a beautiful, I think it's a golden retriever and it goes to every big game.

It'll be at the national championship game tonight and it was at the Rose Bowl last week. You also want to know what else I would love to be too, Sam? I would love to be a backup quarterback. And if you need any further explanation on that, all you need to do is look at Jake Browning. Because Jake Browning makes a good living, rarely has to play when the quarterback goes down, then he gets a chance to go run with it and did an admirable job. And you got to see who was cheering on Jake Browning.

I don't know if that's his girlfriend or his wife in Joe Burrow's suite as he keeps on renting it out or giving it out to Jake Browning's family. Hello, it's a pretty good life to be a backup quarterback in the NFL. So either Kirk Herbstreet's a pup or I would rather want to be a backup quarterback in the NFL, Sam. If you could come on back and live another life, who would you want to be?

Just wondering. I also am never going to fly on a plane with you again if that's what you're thinking about before every flight. Well, the only reason I thought that is because years ago when we were going to Radio Row, Boomer Esiason and Phil Simms were on the plane. And Al Dukes, the producer of Boomer and Geo at the time, Boomer and Cardin tweeted out, if this plane goes down, it's going to be Phil Simms, Boomer Esiason, and 150 others die on this flight. So that's why for some reason ever since that tweet that I saw, and it kind of blew up on social media, I've always been thinking about that.

And also, did you see that like part of a plane like last week, a window like busted open during a flight and they had to emergency land it. So I was just thinking about things when I was on that plane today. And also, I was not in a great mood because I was sandwiched in between a middle seat and I don't think that was comfortable for anybody. The people to my left, the people to my right, or me in the middle.

It was not fun. Well, as far as like where you want to be reincarnated, you got the wrong position in football. For me, it's all about the punter, right? Most of these guys are making over 2 million a year. They do nothing. They barely have to practice. There's no pressure on them whatsoever, unlike a kicker who has to miss a kick or whatever. Punters have no pressure. You basically get to punt until you're 40, until your leg falls off. You never get hit. You never get hurt. You never have any pressure.

And you get all the money and all the benefits of flying around. Nobody recognizes the punter. I couldn't name, outside of Pat McAfee, I couldn't tell you the face of a single punter in the NFL. So you don't have to deal with all the fans and being bothered at dinner or lunch.

So give me punter and that's the way I want to go. Guess Samter wasn't a fan of Ken Walter and Sean Landetta many years ago. Anyway... I'm sure they were fine.

No idea what they look like. Let's quickly breeze through Onside Offside. Stu, hit it!

Alrighty boys. Mike, what do you got cooking for me? Yeah, you all said a stupid rant on CBS Sports Radio of Shep trying to say that he'd rather have Tomlin than Belichick for his career too.

Who knows? Belichick's 10-3 against Tomlin. Beat him this year with some crappy teeth. Now, Onside Offside, if Tomlin goes one and done again, this dealer should look for a new coach in 2024. I'm gonna go offside. I know Shepter was talking yesterday how I guess Tomlin has a year left on the contract and maybe he will eventually want to move on. But if they lose this playoff game to the Bills this weekend, I don't think people are gonna... I would not be advocating for Mike Tomlin to be fired.

So I would go offside there. Now speaking of the Steelers, every team in the AFC North finished above.500 with three of them making the playoffs. The Bengals were the only team left out, but finishing 9-8 without Burrow does feel like a win. So Onside Offside, the Bengals will be Super Bowl contenders again when Joe Burrow returns.

Absolutely. I know T. Higgins probably won't be there next year. Jamar Chase will. The number one thing as we've seen, it comes down to the health of Joe Burrow. You keep Joe Burrow healthy, you will be in a Super Bowl, you will be in an AFC Championship game, but you gotta keep your quarterback healthy. And now two years, unfortunately, he's been lost for the season. So the Bengals are still a Super Bowl contender when Joe Burrow returns.

Absolutely Onside. Saquon Barkley hits yet another offseason with question marks around his future in Big Blue. And the former number two overall pick admitted the idea of being franchise tagged again, quote, makes him numb. Onside Offside, the Giants should franchise Saquon once again. No, I think you either gotta give him a long-term extension or you gotta let him go, even though you would only get a compensatory pick back for Saquon Barkley. And I kinda lean more so on the side of that the Giants let him go this offseason rather than commit a big investment to Saquon. They got a lot of building to do.

There's not a lot of pieces. And I know you have a good left tackle, you got Kavon Thibodeau, but there's not a lot of pieces to build with the Giants. And yeah, you want the success that you had a year ago, but then that expedites your rebuild process. You don't have enough talent to maintain where you were a year ago, and that's why you saw regression with the Giants this year. But I don't think it would be smart to franchise tag this and have both parties not really happy. So the Giants should franchise tag Saquon Barkley again.

I would go offside. It's either get a long-term deal done or let him go elsewhere. Now the Colts missed the playoffs finishing 9-8 despite losing Anthony Richardson earlier in the year. Gardner Minshew finished 7-6 as a starter with 15 touchdowns, 9 picks, but enters the offseason as a free agent. Onside Offside, Minshew should stay in Indy as their backup rather than looking for a starter role somewhere else. I think Gardner Minshew can be an okay starter in this league. Anthony Richardson is going to be their starting quarterback next year.

Now he gets hurt once again. You have a chance to come off the bench. But if a team tells you that you have a legitimate chance to compete for the starting job and you think you have the leg up on that starting job, I would not say you stay as a backup. So Minshew should stay in Indy as their backup rather than look for a starter role somewhere else.

I would go offside on that one. Now Jim Harbaugh prepares for tonight's national title game. Rumors swirl that he's interested in getting back in the NFL and has quote mutual interest with the Raiders and is also interested in the Chargers. Now fans in Vegas were chanting for Antonio Pierce yesterday while Devontae Adams made it clear he also wants Pierce. If you can't land Harbaugh, then you hire Antonio Pierce. So the Raiders should stick with Pierce even if they can land Harbaugh. Unfortunately I would go offside.

Jim is a better coach. Last one of the final week of the season we saw some playoff bound stars get hurt including Jalen Hurts and AJ Brown for the Eagles, Sam Laporta for the Lions and TJ Watt for the Steelers. Onside Offside, these injuries reinforce the idea of resting starters even if you're trying for a better seed.

Yeah I would go offside on this one because it's damned if you do, damned if you don't. If you play people they get hurt, everyone says you shouldn't have played them. Then if you don't play them and they're rusty the following week or two weeks after that then everyone said oh what were you doing resting your starters. So the injuries that we saw this past weekend even though they stink reinforce the idea of resting starters even if you were trying for a better seed. I would go offside on that one. Zach Gelb here with you, CBS Sports Radio in Houston getting ready for the national championship. We'll take a look at Black Monday when we return after these short messages.