2023 College Football Coach Expectations (Hour 3)

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Design your dream suit at Indochino.com and use Code Podcast for 10% off any purchase of $3.99 or more. That's I-N-D-O-C-H-I-N-O dot com Code Podcast. Let's hear from the general manager of the Buffalo Bills and friend to show, Brandon Bean, who says Josh Allen needs to protect his body better this season. This is courtesy of our friends over at Sirius XM NFL radio.

I'm optimistic. Josh and I have been talking about it for the season that, you know, early in his career it was not forcing that ball. You know, it's second down and 10.

I'm going to try and force this in here. No, let's just go to third down and he's really improved that. Now it's realizing, hey, I don't have to get this first down. If it's fourth down, I get it. You know, it is what it is, but ultimately there's going to be certain times of the game where he's, you know, he's going to put, you know, he knows that and we don't mind that. It's just if it's the first quarter of week two, we don't need you trying to run over a, you know, a linebacker or a safety. Brandon Bean says Josh Allen needs to tone down his physicality when running the ball. He gets in the moment and he is so super competitive. Part of the reason I love him, he hurt his arm in the Jets game and we weren't even sure if he was going to be able to play.

He got cleared on Friday before we play the Vikings at home and the doc that cleared him said, hey, listen, very limited. Obviously it's not flag football, but as few hits, he's talking to Josh, as few hits as you can take is super important because you're going to be very sore and, you know, we're going to have a brace on it. You gotta be smart. And it's like second quarter and he bust through, you know, it was a, it was a pass play, but he comes out of there and I'm in the box and I'm, he tries to run over the guy. So I think there's two roads you could travel down on this one.

The first road is you hear what Brandon Bean says and you go, he's not wrong. Sometimes as a quarterback, you need to know when to end the play or not make a play and not continue for like two, three yards in week three of the season when the game isn't on the line. But then the other road you could travel down is, well, how many times did we sit here last year and we get told that the game plan of the Bills was not the run, not to run the ball a ton with their running backs. And this off season, Devon Motors, single Terry, I believe is now with the Texans. You brought in Damien Harris from the Patriots. Didn't have a good year last year, but it's a solid running back. And last year you drafted James Cook in the second round. Austin Eckler's available right now.

No deal done. Christian McCaffrey, who he knows from Carolina at the time, Brandon Bean, no deal done. So part of me says, OK, you're not wrong, Brandon Bean, and where you need to know if you're Josh Allen to give up on a play. But then the other part is, well, the Bills need to put more of an emphasis on getting more consistency out of their running backs and not having it be Josh Allen. You either throw a run and then only give like the running backs like 15 carries in a game. So part of it's on Josh.

But I think a bigger part of this hickey is actually on the philosophy and the approach on offense. Because if you keep on telling Josh you're like 90 percent of the offense, whatever the number is. Well, then he's going to do whatever it takes to run through a wall because it's not only his arm, but also his legs to make the plays to go win the game. I see a lot of Andrew Luck and Josh Allen.

It's good and bad. But I saw the same thing with Andrew Luck where the first few years he would truck people. Yeah, he would chase him down after interceptions. He put his body in the line. And I remember cheering for like, this is awesome.

I love this. And then you quickly saw three, four, five years worth of that toll. All of a sudden now he starts to get injured and now the injuries get worse and all those hits add up. And now of a sudden you're sitting there and we get to the point where angelic retires to the calf injury. I think Brandon being accurately and rightfully so was trying to be proactive and basically not allow Josh Allen to get down that same path. Just slide. You're right. Run out of bounds. You do not have to lower your shoulder and take on Matt Milano-esque linebacker every time.

You're right. But then also don't let him decide that. Run the football a little bit more. Get running backs that are proven in this league or that are going to have good seasons. You got to take a little bit of it out of his hand. I agree and get running backs that can run between the tackles.

I got a lot of scat backs. Let's get someone who can actually establish a run in between the tackles. They don't have that. So now I know what it is. I finally figured it out because I've always been confused why you've always had it out for Josh Allen and why you've always been extremely pessimistic and skeptical about his game when everyone else isn't. I really do believe it's post-traumatic stress where he reminds you a little bit of Andrew Luck and that just gets you so frustrated. So now like you don't want to see really Josh Allen excel and be on your screen because he reminds you the early days of Andrew Luck. Wow.

Actually not at all. I can't believe that. And what drives me crazy is the fact that everyone is insanely critical of almost every quarterback in the NFL and Josh Allen for whatever reason flies under the radar, has one good year in 2020 and now everyone's like, oh, this is the guy. He's better than Patrick Holmes.

They're already crowning him as the next guy. And every other quarterback has to go through a ton of lumps, a ton of criticism, do it over multiple years. What bothered me is the fact that Josh Allen was in the, this is starting in 2020, I'm not saying now, this is back when he had that first really good year, finished third in MVP. I was going to say he's had more than one good year in the NFL. Everyone's crowning him as this, you know, he's the guy instead of going through the lumps of every other quarterback.

That's what drove me crazy. As I tried to explain to you, when you were in as putrid of a spot as the Bills have been forever, and then you start consistently going to the playoffs and you even have a guy like Jim Kelly saying he's going to break all my records and all that. And you know what Jim Kelly means to the folks in Buffalo, of course there's going to be excitement. But really the only year that you can be disappointed with the Buffalo Bills under Josh Allen as like the starter where you're like, okay, this guy is the man, is this year. Because every other year was like, oh yeah, it's awesome what they're doing. Even the year two years ago where the defense let them down in the final 13 seconds, it's like you didn't go into that year saying, oh, the Bills are going to the Super Bowl.

You didn't say that, you didn't feel that. This year it was Super Bowl or bust and they failed. They failed miserably this year. So in two years from now, if we're still sitting here saying, man, the Buffalo Bills weren't able to get to a Super Bowl, then I do think it's a different conversation. But I look at Josh Allen, I know there's some games he had some turnovers this year, absolutely. But with what he did in the playoffs two years ago, and what he's done for that franchise, I really shouldn't have a reason to doubt him.

And I do think if anyone starts to get doubted, even though Sean McDermott has done a phenomenal job building this team, then it's going to be people start doubting the coach first before it is the actual quarterback. Alrighty, let's keep it moving. Do you know who I'm doing a 180 on? And I'm glad he's back.

And some may say back in the New York groove. That's John Marrow. A few years ago, I thought John Marrow, not only with his football making decisions was embarrassing, but when John Marrow was like, crying, oh, what about the children? Oh, the taunting of the NFL. It's disgraceful. We have a taunting problem.

I was like, what the heck is this curmudgeon saying? But I do appreciate John Marrow expressing his disdain with the proposed rule of flexing games on Thursday Night Football. We give season ticket holders to people who fill our stadiums every week. People have gotten used to going from Sunday afternoon to Sunday night. That doesn't mean that they like it. This year, we can be flexed to Monday night, which I think is really inconsiderate to our typical husband.

Flexing game back to Thursday night, to me, is just abusive. And I am adamantly opposed to it. Good for John Marrow, Hickey. I love that answer. I thought that was a tremendous answer. Maybe you want to throw it.

It's also not fair to the players as well. That would be fine. But for so many years, John Marrow would just miss the message. And now he's back. He's back. You got Brian Deball, Joe Shane in the building.

You make the playoffs. He's got his swagger back, John Marrow, because he lost his way for the last few years. And it's good to see John Marrow back in just the right way of thinking and actually not embarrassing himself every time he opens up his mouth. Because I'll tell you this, the Giants, when I shredded Marrow for the whole taunting stuff, and it got back to me that the Giants were not happy since down the hall, we're in the Odyssey umbrella. WFAN is the radio home. I would do some hits on WFAN, but I'm shredding them here. A few in the Giants organization were not thrilled with me trashing their own. But he deserved to be trashed, so it is what it is.

Now, let's get to this actual idea. So I saw that teams now could play two times on Thursday night football this year, but the ability to be flexed to Thursday night football is not going to happen yet. Here's my question about this, and I saw Adrian Phillips and the Patriots bring this up. The Patriots already played twice on Thursday night football this past year. They played in Buffalo, I mean in Foxborough, up against the Bills. I was at that game. And they played on Thursday night football Thanksgiving week.

That doesn't count. In the NFL it's a normal week. You go from Thursday to Thursday. Cowboys do it, they've done it a few times as well. Where the Cowboys will play on the Thursday of Thanksgiving, then play the following Thursday night as well. The NFL views that as a full week because it's a full week. Oh, so they went from Minnesota to the next week. Yeah, that does make sense because I think that was the first week of December.

Yeah, that does make sense. Dallas has done it in the years past, but they're talking about now two short week games where you go from Sunday to Thursday. That's ridiculous. And obviously every team does it once, every team is required to do it once.

Now they're saying you could do it twice, up to twice, up to two times. You know what, I've been starting to give more compliments out to Roger Goodell. And I thought Roger Goodell actually did a good job navigating the National Football League during COVID. And you know, I used to own a Roger Goodell, via Barstool Sports, a Roger Goodell clown shirt. I usually can't stand Roger Goodell, but ever since 2020, not that I started to really love him, but I started to tolerate him and be okay with him. How can you sit there if you're Roger Goodell and say you care about the best interest of the players and player safety, which is a bunch of crap. Because the NFL doesn't care about player safety, they care about making the most money possible. That's ridiculous. And I forget who said it.

It may have been Mara. But someone said, how about we just work on scheduling the games better? I know you can't always get it right because you never know what's going to happen throughout the course of a season. People would have thought the Broncos were going to be good this year.

We know you did. And they ended up stinking. So some of those teams, you just can't predict. But how about you try to work a little bit on the Thursday night schedule and put better games in there, rather than sometimes having a crappy product on Thursday night football where you don't need the need to flex it. Also too, is it really that big of a deal if you have one bad Thursday night game?

We still watch it. Is anyone actually up in arms of, oh my God, it's Falcons Panthers. How dare the NFL give me this on November 1st.

This is an outrage. You suck it up. You watch the game anyway. Maybe you complain a little bit before the game. I can't be like, this is a crap game this week. Then you move on, you watch, and then you get ready for Sunday. Well, to the P1 football fans like us, you put up with it. But let's say to someone that is not fully invested and maybe just cares more about their team and not the league, like if you hear of a great matchup, you're like, all right, I'll check it out.

But if it's Panthers and who'd you say, the Falcons? It's like, eh, I can live without that one. But it's like, also, you're not going to get it perfect every Thursday.

No, you're not. Like, I think you just go in accepting that. Same thing with Sunday night and Monday night. Right, like every national game is not going to be the best game of the week and the best game you see.

You get some stinkers, okay, it happens. Roger Goodell says the league puts the fans first when it considered flexing games the Thursday night. There isn't anybody in that room, anybody in any of our organizations who don't put our fans first.

That's really important. Obviously, providing the best matchups for our fans is part of what we do. That's part of what I think our scheduling has always focused on.

And flex has been a part of that. We are very judicious with it and we're very careful with it. And we look at all of the impacts to that. So it's a very important thing for us to balance with the, what I would call, season ticket holders and the instating audience. But we have millions of fans who also watch on television.

And so reaching them is a balance that you always strike and making sure we do it right. I've never met someone like Roger Goodell. When he speaks, he just sounds so nervous.

I have no clue what he ever is trying to say and he never actually gives you an answer. That's why he's about to get another contract extension. Which I see that Jerry Jones is now finally on board with.

See? Jerry? Because all that partying Jerry's doing that he doesn't think is happening.

That's what happened. He's let his guard down. Roger and Jerry are throwing back drinks and that's why Jerry's like, okay, you know what? I want you around, boy.

This is fun. Well, wasn't Dean Blandino when he was the head of officiating on the party bus? The Cowboys party bus? Was he? Is that a story that's going on? You don't remember that?

No. See? How can you say earlier that these NFL owners don't party when you don't remember that was a big deal years ago. A huge deal that the head of officiating was on was on like a party bus.

The Dallas Cowboys party bus. Big, big, big, big, big deal. Roger Goodell pushes back on the notion that the NFL, because I saw Patrick Mahomes kind of had like the shaking head emoji about this announcement. That the NFL is prioritizing TV networks over their players. I don't think we are putting Amazon over players' interests. He's lying.

He's lying. We've always been looking at the data with respect to injuries and the impact on players. That drove our decisions throughout the first 12 or so years of Thursday Night Football and how it's evolved. And I think we have data that's very clear.

It doesn't show higher injury rate. What's the deal now with eventually for Twitter polls? You have to be a verified member to be able to vote in Twitter polls.

Did you see that, Hickey? I wasn't sure if it was verified or each user to verify their identity to eliminate bots, something like that. Okay. Maybe since we could use a normal poll now, or maybe we'll use the verification process, and you put out a poll to just NFL players if they would want to get rid of Thursday Night Football, I think the overwhelming majority would say yes. I don't think I've ever come across a player that says they love playing on Thursday Night Football. I feel like every year there are players that just bitch, deservingly so, about how unsafe it is to be playing on Thursday Night Football. But the league will have their data and lie to you.

I forget who it is. There was a player last year, two years ago, and this is why it sticks in my mind because it's so rare, who said they like the mini-buying, so they don't hate Thursday Night. But again, that's one in a million, I would say probably 85% of the league's players would say, get rid of Thursday Night if you could, bare minimum. They care and they value the players' opinions.

Yes, that they do, for sure. And we saw it during COVID. We had Tuesday Night Football.

I know it was different circumstances, Wednesday Night Football, Friday Night Football. They'll be having a game eventually, every day of the week. It won't be crazy. If I got it one week, I'll do a Tuesday game. I'll do a Wednesday game.

I'll get new partners, new streaming services, all that. And then there'll be a game eventually down the road, maybe almost every night of the week, like outside of Saturday. Maybe you wait until Saturday, end of the season, because you do have college football going on. Zach Gelb's show, CBS Sports Radio, that's a news brief.

We will take a timeout when we do return on the show. The top 10 highest-paid coaches in college football, that latest list is out. How about the coaches that you're forking over a lot of dough to?

Are they worth it? We'll discuss on the other side. You trying to get me in trouble over there, Hickey? I just gave a nice compliment to John Mara. I said he's back, and then you played my take from a few years ago.

Well, it just reminded the audience, in case they forgot, of the 180 you've done in case they missed the first half. That's all. Okay, okay, okay. You can think O'Reilly Auto Parts where your car care needs.

Get guaranteed low prices and excellent customer service from the professional parts people at O'Reilly Auto Parts. So, you sent me a list, and it was the top 10 highest-paid college football salaries for coaches entering this season. By the way, any coach that bitches and complains about NIL, when I see this list, just stop. Because you've gotten a lot of the pie, your players can get a little chunk of the pie as well. So, let's take this list from the top to the bottom. Nick Saban, according to this list, makes $11.7 million per year.

Now, you know that number is even higher with endorsements and everything along those lines. What's the expectation for Alabama this year? And I know it's always national championship or bust, but I think just making the playoffs this year would be like a good year for Alabama, where last year they missed a college football playoff, the year before that they did lose to Georgia in the national championship game.

You're not returning Bryce Young, you're not returning Will Anderson. Like, last year was championship or bust. But this year, I don't go into the season, even though there's only a short list of teams that could win the championship, and sure, they could always win the championship, but this is the first time in a while where I've gone into season, I usually pick Alabama every year, where I'm not saying, wow, Alabama's definitely going to be in the championship game. And a big reason because of that is I don't know what to expect out of their quarterback.

Like, if it's Jalen Milro, I don't know what to expect, and I know that Ty Simpson is a five-star recruit, but is he even going to start right away, or how long is it going to take him to get on the field, and we haven't really seen him. So, you look around, they got in such a good kind of road for a while with quarterbacks, where you saw what Jalen Hurts could do, and I know Jalen Hurts had more success at Oklahoma individually, but then you go to Tua, and then you go, you know, to Bryce Young, and now it's just like, I don't know what to really expect out of the quarterback spot entering this year for Alabama football, Hickey. I think you're spot on, because, yeah, there's questions not only at quarterback, you have wide receiver, which is a massive failure for Alabama standards last year that's not going to be replaced. You have running back questions, like, you got legitimate questions around the roster for the first time in a long time for Alabama, where, yeah, the standard's still high, I still think college, making the college football playoff is realistic, but I don't think for the first time this year in a while, it's not championship or bust. And let's be real, when Alabama loses talent, even though with NIL, some other schools get some of their players, they still have a pretty deep roster, and a pretty great roster compared to a lot of other rosters around the country.

Now, Dabo Swinney, $11.5 million a year. I remember we had Isaiah Simmons on at the Super Bowl, and he said to me, well, you say Clemson has kind of lost their way a little bit. Do you feel that way about Alabama?

And I said, no. He goes, but they missed the college football playoff last year. And I said, yeah, they haven't missed it two years in a row. And I'm not saying Clemson needs to go win a national championship.

That's not even my standard for them heading into this season. But last year, just winning the ACC, it's like, all right, whatever. Like, we know how bad the ACC was anyway, you know, in terms of football. It wasn't this like loaded football conference last year.

There's no one that really intimidated you. And for Clemson, now you have Diju N'Gola-Laden no longer there. Cade Klubnick is this highly touted guy.

A lot of people thought he should have played a lot earlier last year than waiting until they did. For Clemson, I want to see if they could get back to not the national championship team, but a team that has a shot for a national title being one out of the four teams that are in the college football playoff. Because with expansion coming, it's going to make it tougher and tougher and tougher. And you still have a limited field for now, where only four teams get an invite. And this was the first time in forever that we actually had two good semifinal games. So I want to see with the new quarterback if Clemson can find the way, Hickey, to get back to just being in the college football playoff. Especially again, you know, just talking about Alabama and their expectations, Clemson is not in the SEC. They are in a very easy conference in the ACC that's very winnable. They should have won it last year, they did not. You bare mitt them, got to win the conference.

And that, again, not only winning it is going to be good enough, you got to have, you know, one or fewer losses to get yourself back in the playoff. We go to Kirby Smart at $11.25 million. Until someone finds a way to take down Georgia and takes them down on a big stage, they have now got that Alabama tag where I don't care who they lose because last year, what did we say? Oh, Georgia lost all this talent, all this talent, and then they ended up having a better year this year than what they did the year prior. So, I know there may be some new names on that Georgia team, but Kirby Smart right now has built a machine in Athens, and until someone finds a way to slay them when the moment matters the most, I'll keep on picking them, picking them, and picking them. They are the new Alabama when it comes to championship or bust every single year.

It's an insane standard, but now, credit to him, he's built the program there, but like I said, anything short of another national title, a three-peat, is a failure. I wonder where you'll stand on this, but Lincoln-Riley at USC at $10 million, we know they're heading over to the Big Ten down the road, but you have Caleb Williams, that defense let you down in a big spot last year. You have the reigning Heisman Trophy winner. You got to figure out the defense. I know they didn't fire the defensive coordinator. If I'm USC, this is championship or bust.

I know it's quick in the process. I know that last year you didn't even make the college football playoff, but we talk about it all the time how many great teams are there in college football. You have a coach who has been to the college football playoff a bunch of times before, never won a college football playoff game, and you have a quarterback who is going to be the number one overall pick of the draft.

I'm sorry, just those two pieces. I don't want to hear that, oh, you were stubborn. You didn't make enough changes on defense. Oh, the defense let you down.

I get it. It's a concern, but it's not valid to me in my expectations for this team this year. They have a team.

I'm not saying that they're going to win the championship, but the expectation should at least be to win the championship. I would say getting to the championship game is a win for USC. Lincoln Riley showed a propensity of getting to the college world playoff.

He did it so a ton at Oklahoma. It was one game short of making it at USC. With Caleb Williams, you got to make it and win a game. If you make it, fine, you lose to Georgia. Okay, so be it.

At least get in there. I think it'll be a success. I said this probably right after the college football season. Who were the three best coaches for the next five years in college football? And it was quickly, right off the tip of the tongue, Kirby Smart, and then also Nick Saban. And then we got into the third one, and I believe it was Greg McElroy who actually agreed with me on this, or it was either Greg McElroy, Aaron Murray, or maybe both.

I then said Brian Kelly. Brian Kelly was clowned a year ago when he left Notre Dame and went to LSU and had those cringe-worthy recruiting videos, dancing and making up the accent of family and all that stuff. Brian Kelly hit it out of the park year one at LSU. The fact that they were in the SEC title game, and you remember how ugly that was to start off the season as well. I look at LSU, I would say this year, it's tough to say definitely make the playoff. It's tough to say, you know, win the SEC just because of some of the teams that you still have in front of you, like Georgia's Georgia. And I know that Alabama may not be as strong as they have been, and there's some questions Alabama. They're still Alabama. You still got Nick Saban. If LSU is in the SEC championship game again, Hickey, I do think it's another successful season for LSU as they're still trying to get back with Brian Kelly as their head coach.

Make it $9.5 million a year. I'd agree with that again. You're facing Georgia most likely in the SEC title game, so it's very hard for me to sit here right now and say you should win the SEC without a doubt about it. Can you make the college playoff losing in the SEC championship?

Absolutely. We've seen it happen a few times before, but I'm with you. You get back to the SEC title game two years in a row, you win the West, I would say that's a win. Mel Tucker, $9.5 million as well. Doesn't it feel as if Mel Tucker's best year at Michigan State will always be the year from two years ago?

I don't know if he's ever going to get back to that spot. Now, like maybe, okay, you're in a Big Ten championship game or something like that down the road. But it seems as if Mel Tucker, who had such a quick rise from that lone year at Colorado and then he gets that outrageous contract by Michigan State. It does seem as if Mel Tucker's, it's weird to say it like his better days because he's so young are behind him, but you have that conference dominated by Michigan and Ohio State. You also have eventually USC joining that conference. I think it's a tough spot. We don't know how it's going to be realigned and everything. But that 11-2 season, it's going to be tougher to do better than that.

And what did it really lead you to? A Peach Bowl victory? Yeah, Michigan State's in a really bad spot. They're in a really bad spot.

Their roster's not very good. If you're Mel Tucker, honestly, in Michigan State, the only win this year is beating Michigan. Don't care if your record is 1-11. This year you've got to beat Michigan.

That will be the life preserver for your contract outside of the buyout for the next few years. At least you can consistently beat Jim Harbaugh, which so far out of the three years is 2-1. But when Harbaugh's in, won the Big Ten twice, and Harbaugh has been to the last two college football playoffs, like, okay, yeah, you beat them, but what does it really mean?

It buys you more time to get better accrues, but yes, I mean, those programs aren't close right now. Michigan's in a much better spot than Michigan State is. Ryan Day is also at $9.5 million. You say for Mel Tucker, just beat Michigan? Well, for Ryan Day, you better beat Michigan this year. Because if you don't beat Michigan this year, that is three years in a row you would lose to them in the last two years.

The scores have been lopsided. That seat for Ryan Day, not that it's going to be on fire, because how many coaches are going to find that are better, but I think you'll hear more and more of that talk of like, oh, born on third base, or oh, Ryan Day, not as good as what he was meant out to be, or benefited from what Urban Meyer brought to Ohio State, and all that. I think the fan base right now is starting to doubt a little bit. Ryan Day, it would be so over the top, and understandably so, if they do lose to Michigan three years in a row.

Ryan Day's in danger of being the next John Cooper. Great head coach at Ohio State, won a ton of games, can't beat Michigan, eventually that gets you right out the door. So this year, it's beating Michigan.

If you lose three in a row, the only saving grace, the only way to... Nah, there's no way to justify that. If you win a national championship, I would say it's almost forgiven. Okay, like this year, if they would have found the way to beat Georgia, sure. So you beat Michigan for the third year in a row, the only way you could even save your face is winning a national title.

Which, most of the time when you don't beat Michigan, you don't get into the Big Ten championship game, you usually don't find a way to get into the college football playoff. I think this year was an outlier for the Big Ten. I don't think you're going to consistently see, in the way of four, and what is that, for one more year? Right, we have four for one more year?

2023 is the last year, yep. So I would be shocked this year if we have two Big Ten teams in the college football playoff. And also, Michigan's much better right now compared to Ohio State, just with the amount of people that Michigan's returning. Matt Rule at 9.25 million at Nebraska, it's about bringing Nebraska back to respectability.

There's a plan in place. Matt's first years in college have been ugly. Two wins at Temple, you had one win at Baylor, and then those programs did take off. You've got to have more than one win or two wins when you look at Nebraska this year, but overall, it's about setting your foundation and setting your culture.

I can't really say I have much expectations for Nebraska football this year. Find a quarterback. That's been Scott Frost's biggest issue. Couldn't get a consistent guy, whether it's in this recruiting class, develop on the team, get on the recruiting trail and try to get someone to Lincoln this season.

That's what's really going to define your success right now. That's been part of the reason why Scott Frost was not able to get any sort of momentum going. Get a quarterback obviously helps you make your life so much easier. They have Jeff Sims there now, who comes over from Georgia Tech. That's not the long-term plan, but they're trying to go get Dylan Riola, who is the number one quarterback and I believe it's his uncle, is the offensive line coach, the lone holdover from the Scott Frost coaching staff.

So, a little smart move there. We'll see if they can end up getting him. And finally, Lane Kiffin and Jimbo Fisher at $9 million each. For Lane Kiffin, for Ole Miss, you're just thrilled that Lane Kiffin's still there with all the rumors that he was going to go to Auburn. And for Jimbo Fisher, I don't see how there's a way at the end of this year we're talking about Jimbo Fisher in a positive way.

It seems like that ship has sailed. He's still technically there at A&M, but just barring some miraculous turnaround this year, Jimbo Fisher's going to be out the door at the end of this year. Or he should be. 10 wins I think could save him. Well, 10 wins will save him. Are you banking on him getting a 10 win? No, I don't think it's going to happen, but that will be a successful season.

10 and 2, you kind of get back to that 2020 fluke season, give you some sort of hope. Alrighty, this is that Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. We will take a time out. We'll come on back.

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This is Charles Robinson, who says the Ravens are looking for more than two first round picks in a trade for Lamar Jackson. It's a little long here, but this is courtesy of you pod to win. This is really the name of the podcast.

You pod to win the game. That's right. They have the whole her med words open or or rant in the open as well. And does do they dub it where it's like when he says you play to win the game, it's you pod to win the game. Is it like that in the open? It's a little mix.

They have both a dubbing, but also have the original version from her as well. That's a mouthful for a podcast name. You pod to win the game. Yeah, that's too that's too much. You pod to win the game. All those are all one syllables.

That's six right there. That's all that's a lot for a podcast name. It's tough, though, with all the pods out, you know, pod names out there to keep it short and succinct when it's you know, there's a million NFL podcasts. What's your podcast name again? The Blue Horseshoe? The Blue Horseshoe. See, that's quick. You want Yahoo Sports NFL podcast?

That's what it used to be. Oh, was it? You want NFL podcast?

No, that's bored. You want Charles Robinson NFL podcast? No, not for a podcast. Radio shows I feel like are different, like I just put the name in front of it and that's easy.

But you pod to win the game. That's that's excessive. It is different. Memorable, I would say.

I think it's too tough to remember. It's asking. It's like, I'm stupid. A lot of us are stupid.

That's a lot that you got to remember your pod to win the game. Anyway, here's Charles Robinson. He's good information. So listen up. Lamar is saying, I want a divorce.

I want to this is irreparable. What's happened up in this point? I'm done with it.

OK, so it's time for me to bounce. And the Ravens are saying, no, he's still our quarterback. This is how we're approaching it. We love him. We love him.

We love him. Blah, blah, blah. We're going to go through all that. And then I think there's subtext there. And I think the subtext is particularly for the Ravens.

It's all right. Well, if people are really serious about a trade call us about three first round picks and maybe that's a conversation starter. You want to come and talk to us about Lamar. Let's talk about three first round picks, because if you're going to try and sign him to a deal and we're only getting two first round picks out of it with this non-exclusive franchise tech. We're going to match that because we think he's worth more than two first round picks.

If you want to start a conversation at three quietly, we can do that. And we'll kind of see where that ultimately goes. But it's a nonstarter for two first round picks, which is why I think they thought non-exclusive.

We'll let him go out there. We don't think he's going to get the deal. And at the very least, most teams know that for two first round picks, we're going to sign almost any deal that a team rolls out there because he's not going to get the fully guaranteed $250 million deal.

So let me just entertain that for a second. Let's say they're right and that no team and I think they are right, is going to give Lamar right now $250 million fully guaranteed. But their last offer reportedly was like $133 million. So like, let's just say you're a team the Colts, Icky, who need a quarterback, right now aren't showing any interest in Lamar. I do think that's going to change. That's just what my gut tells me.

That's no information, no sourcing, just speculation. So let's just say the Colts go, all right, we heard Charles Robinson's news, let's just, we'd be fine if we wind up with Lamar, but if we don't, let's drive up the price. So not 250 fully guaranteed, but how about 220 over five? 220 over five fully guaranteed Lamar and Lamar says yes. Are the Ravens going to match $220 million fully guaranteed? And that is, well, it's only for a quarterback, it's 40, I always say only, it's $44 million a year.

So you know what? Let's bump it up a little bit. Let's go to 230. Now it's not 250 fully guaranteed, but it's pretty much in the Sean Watson contract, which they don't want to give him.

So 230 over five, 46 a year fully guaranteed. Colts, you solve your quarterback issue. Ravens, you only get back two first round picks.

Like, I don't think the Ravens would match that. If their latest offer, according to Lamar, was only $133 million and some people say, oh, well that would go up to 200 or whatever it is. Like, I would do that if I'm a team for Lamar. If it only costs you two first round picks and you got to go pay a quarterback eventually anyway. So I wonder where I understand part of what Charles is saying and that you're going to let maybe another team do the dirty work and then you get in a better number than what Lamar wants.

That's what he was asking you. But how certain are we that the Ravens will absolutely match any offer? Because I would find it tough for me to believe, Hickey, that if the Colts called Lamar tomorrow and say, here's five years, $230 million fully guaranteed that the Ravens will match it. I mean, look, you look at last year, Deshaun Watson, all his questions, he went for three first round picks. So on the surface, it makes no sense to know Lamar has his own injury concerns why Lamar would go for at least one fewer first round pick when he has an MVP under his belt and zero off the field issues. But that's the terms right now, this non-exclusive franchise tax.

Right. So I'm saying, but like to Charles's point, like if you think, OK, like that's the market for Deshaun Watson, that's the market that we think we can get from Lamar Jackson, then you would match any offer and try to, you know, basically resell Lamar in a way. But who knows if let's just say the Colts would want to give him $230 million fully guaranteed and the Ravens match it. That's just for two first round picks. If you're then calling them up and it's like, all right, we match it, but now we're going to trade with you. We're going to want three first round picks and then we're going to want more than that. And also there is dead cat money allocated when you sign a guy to a new contract.

So it's like almost as if the Ravens are already screwing themselves. What they should have just done is not do this on exclusive franchise tag. Try to work to get a deal done.

You have won the tag either way. And if you didn't think you get a deal done, then you trade them and you open up. Eventually, you know what it's going to take to get Lamar and the other team figures out the contract like that. That approach really doesn't make sense to me because if you're going to just match it and then trade him from a dead cat, I know you can move it around now.

But from a dead cat standpoint, that doesn't make sense to me. Well, I think I got to look this up. I think from a contract perspective, I mean, no matter what deal he signs, he's playing on the franchise tag this year. Yes. So it's thirty two million dollars.

Yes. But what about the future years? Well, if you don't have you know, if it's it depends on if it's a signing bonus or not, like you could work around that and make sure your cap space is free for the Ravens. You structure in a way that doesn't hurt you going forward.

It makes no sense to agree to a deal with him if then you're just going to go trade him like a month later, at least if you ask me. Planning a wedding is intimidating, but finding the perfect suit shouldn't be. Design your dream suit at Indochino dot com and use code podcast for 10 percent off any purchase of three ninety nine or more. That's Indochino dot com code podcast.