Transcript of Local Hour: The Best Game Of The Weekend

The Dan Le Batard Show with Stugotz
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00:00:00

Woody, what was the best game of the weekend?

00:00:02

The game that I was at, coincidentally, Dolphins, Patriots.

00:00:06

Chris, what was the best game of the weekend?

00:00:09

The game I was at, cyclones, warriors, Friday night.

00:00:12

Really?

00:00:13

It's hard to disagree with that.

00:00:15

Mike Ryan. Best tie in highlight history.

00:00:17

Mike Ryan, you're not going to say... Surely you're not going to say the same thing, and surely you're not going to say the University of Miami game.

00:00:23

Well, since that's off the board, it wasn't a game that I went to, but I was locked in on all 80 plus points of Texas A&M Notre Dame.

00:00:30

That was pretty good. Jeremy, what was the best game of the weekend?

00:00:35

The game that I was at. Marlins Tiger's game 2. Eleven innings, Troy Johnston walk off his second homer of the game.

00:00:41

You kidding me? Billy, what was the best game of the weekend?

00:00:44

Oh, Dan. It's been since 2016. The Don Chula Trophy is back at FIU, the Chula Bull.

00:00:52

Congratulations.

00:00:53

I can explain my game for you.

00:00:55

How the hell can you guys not have Cowboys Giants on your list?

00:01:00

You didn't go to the Shula Bulls.

00:01:01

Cowboys, Giants. Russell Wilson just had a career game.

00:01:06

What a game. Let me tell you about my game, though. It's Lebitard Show versus Ray Lewis.

00:01:10

Yeah. Wow.

00:01:12

You put the kids to bed.

00:01:13

Did you get in his face?

00:01:14

You don't even bring the kids because I'm drinking the whole time.

00:01:16

It was a draw, wasn't it?

00:01:19

Best draw in highlight history.

00:01:20

But it was a comeback, too. Was Ray there? Was. There's just Shadow Show. We'll devote 15 minutes to it later in the show, right?

00:01:27

The best game of the weekend was Cowboys and Giants. Definitely Tennessee.

00:01:31

But the highlight game went.

00:01:33

Guys, Marley.

00:01:34

Tennessee.

00:01:34

Never been. George. Heisman.

00:01:37

Heisman.

00:01:49

Right before that.

00:02:03

Now he's in the big lead.

00:02:31

He's Q-O-M-R-R-R-R- You're going to have a great game. And then they ripped that off.

00:02:47

You're going to get right off that trophy.

00:02:49

You're going to stop the shit out of it.

00:02:51

Because that's what you do in this video.

00:02:53

You rip off the helmet, and you destroy the opposing team's helmet, and you rip it off the trophy. And that thing's not going anywhere for a year.

00:03:05

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00:03:51

Football is back, Jack.

00:03:58

Oh my, we're waiting for For so long, we're so damn excited that we put it in a song. No need no check downs. Give me big hits and quarterbacks. Keep your fantasy team from falling off the track. Football is back, Jack. Whether on the ground or through the air, when the chips are down and you throw a prayer, When your team is primed and on the hook, it's four than 10, you refuse to park. When the shoulder pads and helmets crack, that's how you know that football is back, Jack. Let me hear you say, Football, football, football. Football is back, Jack. This high is wild and out of control. And we're going to ride it every week till we reach the Super Bowl. Don't need no check downs. Give me big hits and quarterbacks. If you say this game's the best, I'll say it's a gag. Football is back, Jack. Football is back, Jack. Football is back, Jack. Football is back. Football is back, Jack.

00:05:38

Who forgot to turn on the Narcissist cam so that you could see how delighted Greg Cody was watching himself lip sync poorly.

00:05:47

Yeah, really bad.

00:05:48

I don't know where to begin today on what was the most important thing from yesterday. I think it's going to be Joe Burrow's injury. It might be the Chief starting '02. I'm going to get some nominees from you guys in a second. But first, can we just eliminate the games I don't have to talk about from yesterday to make this a little bit easier? Because that one o'clock window was crack cocaine. Did you guys notice in the one the 4: 00 window. Any of you noticed this? I throughout it was watching and I was like, What's weird about this other than the nine games? There's something weird about this. And I couldn't figure out what it was. I just felt it. And then they gave the stat on television, the Giants and Cowboys haven't played at one o'clock in 20 years. Really? They've never been... Yeah, I couldn't figure out what... I'm like, This is nine games, and that part's confusing to have this much going on. But also I couldn't figure out what looked wrong. And it's that the Giants and Cowboys are too big as markets and important to ever to moat like that.

00:06:53

And I thought they played the best game, although I'm tempted to say Jacksonville, Cincinnati, because that is as inexplicable a loss I've ever seen from a team that was better throughout the game that did just the assortment of things that the Jags always do to lose games. But what games can I eliminate?

00:07:13

Cardinals, Panthers, get out of here.

00:07:15

Sunday Night Football sucks.

00:07:16

Yeah, bad game last night.

00:07:18

Out of here. Atlanta, pretty good, though.

00:07:20

Atlanta, Falcons, pretty good. I disagree. I say Minnesota has got a quarterback problem, but we'll figure that out as we go.

00:07:27

See how Sealers wasn't very good.

00:07:28

Well, that one's got some interesting stuff, though, and I'd eliminate Ravens browns before I eliminated that. I'm tempted to eliminate Bill's Jets, but I can't for a couple of reasons. Just a couple. One, and I know you guys have seen this before, but it bears meeting because it's a little bit crazy that Josh Allen is this as a human being. Sauce Gardner had him lined up unblocked from the blindside. Josh Allen knows he's so big that he just spun out of it. And Sauce Gardner looked like a toddler trying to tackle the upper body of Josh Allen. To see a quarterback spin away from a blindside unblocked corner who's got him squared up and hits him in the back of the shoulders. To see the size of that roll out just in that game, explain to me again why the Bills are going to own that division, because none of the teams in there compared to the Bills, and the Dolphins are about to start 0. 3 But also in that game, a worthy stat of the day, if we were doing that today, the Bills have now won the turnover battle with Josh Allen, who was super reckless at the beginning of his career, 24 straight times.

00:08:42

It hasn't happened since 1966. They're the best team ever with Josh Allen and quarterbacks for the most consecutive times, almost a couple of seasons, of they always win the turnover battle, and it's just not something I could have seen coming three years ago.

00:08:59

Look, I don't have skin in this local market game when it comes to pro football, but we fire in a coach or what during the show.

00:09:06

Thank you for that because Zazlo on Twitter was going crazy yesterday.

00:09:11

Why do I even do that? I don't lose sleep in the Dolphins. I don't. That emotional part of my fandom with the Dolphins does not exist anymore. I lost that a while ago. This team beat it out of me, all right? But it's two weeks in a row now that I'm melting on Twitter with this stupid team that I know is terrible.

00:09:34

Why am I doing this? Well, hold on, because Greg Cody has a different opinion. They're so stupid. But you are tweeting nonstop during the performance, Pathetic performance from Tua Same story, nice stats throughout the game. Then with the game on the line, he was horrendous. There it is under 1. 5 drives until the booze come down, cash is in. Tua is terrible, completely cooked, horrific team, says Zazla.

00:10:00

All facts, by the way. I mean, I'm melting down, but it's all facts.

00:10:03

How about Achan stay in bounds? I mean, to let him perfectly to a game-soring drive, and Achan no spatial awareness, runs out of bounds, cost the team the game. That was crazy. That guy. You have to be wondering where his safety is on this run.

00:10:15

Yeah, because I'm sure they would have stopped them when they got the ball back. That would have happened.

00:10:19

Hold on, Greg. I know you have a different perspective on this. Achan has been great. Still? Achan has been great the first two weeks of the season. Achan has been great at the goal line the first two weeks of the season, but that was rather inexplicable. Those touch downs are hard to come by, except in the Pittsburgh game, where a Pittsburgh kickoff returner decides that he forgets the rules and should have been fired on the spot. The touch downs are hard to come by, and Achan steps stepping out of bounds there is as clumsy as an athletic person can be.

00:10:48

He had so much room.

00:10:49

Didn't Antonio Brown have this happen to him one time in a 100-yard kickoff return where he stepped... He would have won the game in the snow, but he stepped out of bounds at the eight-yard line, and you're like, That's just There was no one who was going to do anything to him there.

00:11:02

Brandon Marshall did it one time with the Dolphins, 10 years ago, just inexplicably just stepped out of bounds. It was no one there.

00:11:09

It happens. It's not like he did it on purpose. But I'm glad to see that Levatard was able to rent that plane What did it cost? Just under 2000, I heard, right? Like 1900 or something like that?

00:11:18

Banner is the first home game of the season. Patriots go right down the field and score. That defense is going to be historically bad. That is not a good Patriots offense. That's a bad Patriots offense. I know that 14 to nothing, I'm sorry, 12 nothing because Borgalis was trying to help the University of Miami and the city of Miami to make it 12 nothing.

00:11:42

That second touch- Oh, you think there was some shade in his Anyone on there?

00:11:46

Hold on a second. Time to throw away all journalistic credibility and get reckless. Here is something we like to call reckless speculation.

00:11:59

Yeah, you're good.

00:11:59

You're Borgales, outside of Carlos Huerta, was the best University of Miami kicker I trusted the most. To see him miss two extra points that close was super confusing to me. But the shutdown that made it 12-0 was a thing of beauty. Drake may lobbying a little parabola over there on third and long to make the catch. The Patriots, I was watching. When I'm watching this game, I'm thinking to myself, my God, everything that's happening in this game is exactly the things that to a coach who's under it and going to get fired because at the end of the game, they're just a little less disciplined than Vrabel's team. They do the stupid things of the false start, the delay of game. Oh, it was awful. You put it in second and 20, you can move. Here's the thing about this. This one is the one that really hurts. I know that everyone is focusing today on the lack of discipline on the last drive. The greatest advantage that Miami is supposed to have, the only way they beat Josh Allen is to exhaust him in the heat. At the end of that game, when they're tired is when their discipline is supposed to go.

00:13:06

When they're tired, it's not supposed to happen to you when you're training all offseason in this heat. The advantage is that this season is over, Greg. They're not going to I'm not going to rebound from 0-3.

00:13:16

I dare you to counter it, Greg.

00:13:17

I double dare you. Greg, they're not going to be the team that rebound from 0-3 to make the play-offs.

00:13:22

And by the way, it's going to be an 0-3 that they lose by 50 in three nights.

00:13:25

Hold on a second. That game hasn't been played yet. We don't know what's going to happen Thursday.

00:13:29

Buffalo has won 15 of the last 17 meetings, so I don't like their chances on a short week. But not to play the voice of reason here, but somebody has to, okay? At 0 and 2, I don't write them off yet. At 0 and 3, I don't write them off yet. Although, realistically, if I'm a betting man, of course, I'm betting against them making the playoffs at 0 and 3. They obviously played better yesterday than in the opener. It's a low bar. They couldn't do any worse than they did at Indy. But I think Tua to to, Tyeik looked more like 20-23 than they have the past season plus.

00:14:05

Except on the one bad throw that Tua made that he needed to make. He only had five incompletions, but two of the passes were back breakers because Tairik Hill is wide open took himself out of the game on an important drive. He was so frustrated because Tua missed him when he was wide open.

00:14:20

On that long completion, he horribly-It was a terrible...

00:14:23

The 47-year-old completion was actually a terrible throw.

00:14:25

And he had an interception in the first quarter called back because of a penalty that had nothing What's he going to do with the interception.

00:14:31

Right, but the interception didn't come.

00:14:33

But it was an awful throw to start the game.

00:14:36

Tua didn't have a great game. He had a much better game than in the opener. I thought Tua's performance was encouraging. The problem is the defense is so-How can you do that, dad?

00:14:47

I don't want to do this and just jump down your throat, but he looks so rattled in the pocket, even on the plays that go well. I don't know if it's all the concussions he's had, but he's frantic in the pocket.

00:14:59

Don Levatard.

00:15:00

We got to go back out there. That was big. Wake him up.

00:15:04

He doesn't want to be bothered anymore. Now it's getting tense because he didn't need that as a result. He needs something that happens. You can see him mother-effic.

00:15:13

He says, Can we bother? Are we bothering you right now?

00:15:16

Turn on your microphone, Greg.

00:15:18

My microphone's on.

00:15:19

Stugatz.

00:15:20

Paint the scene.

00:15:21

The paint the scene is I got to go to work. Good night. This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugats.

00:15:37

Hold on, guys, because five incompletions, 300 yards, and he could have won the game at the end. It's all screen pass, man.

00:15:44

He has never looked this bad.

00:15:46

I am not disagreeing.

00:15:47

I love Tua, but he has never looked this bad.

00:15:49

He's cooked.

00:15:50

I'm not disagreeing, but if you guys are making this about Tua, give them that point total all season and watch them lose all the games because the defense cannot stop anybody. The Patriots are really bad offense. Daniel Jones now has two games, two Colts games, and two Colts games with no turnovers and no punts, twice as many of those in his Colts career as Peyton Manning. As Peyton Manning, Daniel Jones did this to the Dolphins right down the field with an offense that appears to be good. The Patriots just did it to the Dolphins with an offense that is empirically bad, one of the worst in the league.

00:16:23

Here's the thing, though, and I got some of this on Twitter from Dolphins fans yesterday, where I'm angry with Tua, and I've been a Tua guy. I'm angry with Tua because I know what I see, and this is a quarterback who is not any good anymore. So I'm angry about that. But here's the thing, and I feel like you just alluded to it as well. The Tua thing is so much... Yes, there are several reasons why this team is terrible right now, but the only one that really matters is Tua, because the defense can be terrible. Guess what? They could fix that in the next year. The coach can be terrible. Guess what? They could fix that in the next year by firing him. If Tua is terrible, there's no fixing it. It's a major, major issue. When I talk about Tua being bad, yeah, there's a lot of other things that are really bad with this team right now, but long term, we can fix those things. If Tua is terrible, there's no fix.

00:17:17

Yeah, Tua was not terrible yesterday. He was actually pretty good. The defense lost that game and special teams lost that game. If you think Tua and the offense were to blame yesterday, you didn't see the game I The defense is terrible. They've had 15 series, opposing series this year and allowed 13 scores. In 15 series, they had two stops. Hallelujah. The defense is awful. The cornerbacks are awful. The offensive line was awful before it became injury prone. Those are the Achilles heels of this team. The past defense led by bad cornerbacks and the offensive line that can't have a running game. Echan can't run the ball yet. He's done very well coming out of the backfield catching screen passes, so that pads his stats. But they're an egregiously flawed team. But yesterday, Tua and that offense were not the problem. They outgained the Patriots. All right.

00:18:10

I appreciate Greg's perspective here because it's certainly more interesting than all of us being like, this team's garbage, fire everybody. But we can see that you're a little bit more bullish on their chances and the season's not over. But that was still a really bad loss to a team that no one... I mean, maybe some people have pegged the Patriots as a sleeper team, but the Dolphins The offense entered this season with a hope and expectation that they would be better than Mike Vrabel's first year in New England. Yes. Okay. You had banners flying over the stadium. We set the scene up perfectly. This was as toxic as it's been around the fan base in quite some time. They have that performance. They lose the home opener. Should something be done about this team, either front office, head coach, or roster move, does someone pay the price because the fan base has found this start unacceptable?

00:19:00

Yeah, there's no doubt that they expect it to be 2-0 right now, and they were favored to win yesterday, albeit by a point and a half or two. There's no question that it's been a major crash, a dumpster fire of a start. Somebody will be fired if it continues. Getting midseason? It's possible.

00:19:21

Answer his question.

00:19:22

You're not there yet.

00:19:23

Answer his question.

00:19:24

No one pays for what's happened so far.

00:19:26

No. After two games, no, I'm not there yet.

00:19:28

The reason that I'm stopping you is because of a couple of things. One, you say that's their Achilles heel. They are simply an Achilles heel. What isn't an Achilles heel for this team? Go ahead. I'm waiting.

00:19:42

They have above average receiver room. Two is coming off a good game, no matter what you say, a 317-yard game with great accuracy.

00:19:51

But you can't say that two is one of the strengths right now. The whole team- Did you say great accuracy?

00:19:56

Yeah. He missed four passes, the deep one, the one over Tyreek's head in the middle of the field when he's wide open.

00:20:03

He missed a total of five passes.

00:20:04

No, he had five incompletions, and they're protecting him even more than they've had to protect him. It's not a good thing when against that team at home, you have No margin for error. Against the Patriots, no margin for error. You have to do everything perfectly. Part of the problem with the architecture of this team is that it has to do everything perfectly. Everything has to come out quickly. Everything has to protect Tua. When you say they're Achilles heel, they are an Achilles heel. When I compare that to the University of Miami game, I am not prisoner of the moment when I say that is the most balanced football team I've seen at the University of Miami in a long time. The Dolphins are the opposite of that. Flaws all over the place. Flaws we can all know and a historically bad defense. Daniel Jones has started his career with no punts in a game and no turnovers in the first two games, that is historically good?

00:21:04

The defense of front seven is passively okay. Chubb has two sacs in two games. Let's fine-tune it. It's the cornerback play that is a killer. It's the offensive line that is a killer. When you say they have an Achilles heel everywhere you look, that's not accurate. They have a quarterback you can win with. They have a better than average receiver room, even though they botch their tight-end situation.

00:21:29

Greg, I'm going to think something about the quarterback that is less certain than just about anybody right now?

00:21:34

Okay, but they're headed into this game against the Buffalo Bills, which Dan already highlighted. They look like an absolute wagon. We said this was basically a Waterloo game for all the powerful players in this franchise. They are not favored to win this game against Buffalo. Do you look around and say, this is the right group of men, either in leadership positions or on the field, to be like, Yeah, okay, we can save our season here against the Buffalo Bills? Because if they didn't win that game against New England with the way that the tide was rising around them, how do you think they can figure it out for Buffalo?

00:22:08

Zaz speaks for the fan base.

00:22:10

I know he does, and I speak for myself. And what I think is that, and I've said and written this forever, so this is not new for me. If the Dolphins don't make the play-off, they have massive changes. Greer gets fired, McDaniel gets fired. That's a 99 % certainty. The only question is when. After the Bills, which everyone expects them to lose, they have a home game against the Jets, and then they play at the Panthers. If they come out of these first five games, 0-5 or even 1-4, I think there could be a firing, an in-season firing, which is uncharacteristic. It hasn't happened in years. I don't think it's what Ross wants to do, but I think by five games in, the toxic surrounding this team will be too much to bear.

00:23:00

I want to go back to Tua for a moment here and something that you said, because obviously Tua was a lot better yesterday than he was in week number one. But you mentioned how Tua's performance yesterday was encouraging We're not in year number two with Tua. This is year six. Yeah.

00:23:19

He made the Pro Bowl two years ago, I'd remind you.

00:23:21

But he also looked a lot better two years ago than he does now, which is the concern. He does not look like he used to two or three years ago. I think that's why people are saying he doesn't look good because he doesn't look up to the standard that we have set for him or that he set for himself.

00:23:36

That's the part, dad, that's frustrating for me is it seems like you're just like, I made this prediction, so no matter what I see on the field, I'm just going to say it. Technically, It's really not done yet. It's what I'm seeing because I'm with you. They could have won yesterday's game. They could be one-on-one right now. I don't think anyone's really arguing, yes, this team could be a 7-19, but what I'm seeing from Tua, that it doesn't look like it used to. Something seems off with him. You don't see that?

00:24:00

Greg is reasonable, and he is applying the perspective you can almost all around the league for somebody like the Chiefs today if you want to. You can talk yourself into something. The thing about the Dolphins that makes it hard is after week one, nationally, everyone in the country was saying, That's the worst performance that there was week one. It's the way that they are losing. If you're a coach in trouble, those two games are the disaster. And what do you need at the end to be One-on-one. You need your $250 million quarterback to once give you a game-winning drive where you trust him. Because I don't have a lot of those, Greg. I don't have a lot of at the end of the game when everything's not perfect, Hey, to it, do it in two minutes now. Do it quickly. Everyone If you know what you got to do, do it. Give me all the ones you've got of Tua leading marches down the field. I got the Ravens game where they scored the six shutdowns. That's a comeback that I remember. But give me all the ones you got that make you at the end of that game yesterday, do something different than what I was doing.

00:24:59

I'm That game's lost. I don't believe Tua will go down the field. I believe this team will do something to short circuit. And then they did all the things to short circuit.

00:25:08

No, they did the drive, and then they didn't do the drive because he was out of bounds. We saw it happen, and then they're like, You know what? Forget what you just saw because he was 6 inches out of bound.

00:25:15

So yes, they get the 60-yard play, the fluky play from Achan, which is about the only thing they can do. Dump it off and see if Achan can do something in the open field. And he's been really good as a receiver. And Billy's not wrong. This might be an entire It's a really different conversation if to a chance stays in bounds. But he didn't. And when he didn't, you saw a false start, delay of game, second and 20. And you're like, they're going backwards. They're going to try and get 20 yards now, six yards at a time. That's how they're going to get the second and 20. They're not going to go down the field. It's going to be 6 and 7 yards, and they're going to put me in a situation where I'm watching two on fourth and 7, and I'm like, they're going to do something wrong here. And then they do.

00:25:53

I want to play this sound of McDaniel after the game because he tries to take responsibility while blaming other people. And this is a minute here of him trying to be the head coach and taking responsibility, but not.

00:26:03

Ultimately, I look at absolutely everything falling on me. I don't see that's the responsibility of the head coach that you go into knowing that. That As I said, I'm very frustrated with some, basically, coaches and players that did not execute communication in a very dire period of the game. With the game on the line, our communication and our substitution was not up to par. Ultimately, I hold all responsibility for all things.

00:26:45

Specifically, the penultimate, fourth down, was there a delay in deciding to go forward, getting the play call broken?

00:26:51

That's where the frustration lies for me. It wasn't deciding that cost us or a late play call, which That happens at times, but this was not one of those times.

00:27:04

Not a deciding problem. He's basically just like, Just so you know, this wasn't a decision thing. The decision was made and it wasn't executed properly.

00:27:10

Also, so that everyone understands, I'm ultimately responsible for everything, but I'm also going to give you a list of all the things that everyone else did wrong. But you can come back to me because I'm the head coach, okay? So ultimately it falls on me. But everyone else, not a good job.

00:27:22

Don Libtard. I may take it one step further. Wait a minute.

00:27:26

You're getting sexier by the moment. Slow down. Slow down. We haven't even gotten. Stugatz.

00:27:34

Jason Sanders, you're unnoticed.

00:27:36

Oh, my God. What in spite of him?

00:27:44

Oh, wow.

00:27:45

I love you, Duke.

00:27:46

This is the Dan Levatard show with the Stugats. You were saying how you were just throw it to Achan, and hopefully, he makes something happen, right? Which is basically what was going on in the game yesterday. Every positive play was Echan making things just happen. So I decided to look up HN. He had 92 receiving yards on eight receptions. Do you want to guess how many yards after contact he had?

00:28:11

Okay, hold it. So how many yards total?

00:28:13

92 total yards.

00:28:14

I like this game.

00:28:16

After this, we're going to have a fun little experiment.

00:28:19

Okay, I'm going to go 84.

00:28:21

Eighty-four yards after contact of his 92. Do you want to guess, Craig, how many yards after contact? Let's say 58. 58 of his 92 were yards after contact. Dan?

00:28:30

I wasn't listening to you because I was asking Chris to cut sound, and you knew I was doing that. You saw me doing that.

00:28:36

Dirty move, Billy.

00:28:37

Dirty move.

00:28:38

You saw me. Okay, Mike McDaniel. Let's play this. He had 92 yards receiving. How many yards after contact? I'll just tell you, 102 yards after contact.

00:28:48

What?

00:28:49

He had more yards after contact than he had total yards receiving.

00:28:53

Well, let's give Tua the credit for all those yards.

00:28:57

I was telling Chris Cody to play this sound because as this banner flies over the stadium and you lose that way, this is how Mike McDaniel sleeps at night.

00:29:06

Absolutely everything falling on me.

00:29:08

He's just looking at the ceiling with one eye open.

00:29:12

Absolutely everything falling on me.

00:29:15

All right, I got to take. Someone needs to pay. I'm not buying this. Look, you probably can't fire- Absolutely everything's falling on me. You can't fire the head coach. Short week actually helps him here, despite we know that they're all going to lose that game.

00:29:27

No, the move to fire the coach is Friday when they lose 40 to nothing.

00:29:30

Okay, you fire the GM. Here's why. Every time I look up, every time I look up and check out the Pittsburgh Stealers, I see Jalen Ramsey making an impactful deepoy type play. And I hear you guys talking about how bad the Dolphins defense is. And I look up every time in black and gold, and I see that guy making a play. Also, Miami Dolphins tight end room. Two catches, 20 yards this season. It seems like Janu Smith and Jalen Ramsey would help. And that was a very bad trade, very early on. Fire the GM?

00:29:57

You mentioned Zazlo's in on fire, everybody. Yes. And Jeremy's whispering to me that this is going to be the second coach that Tua gets fired because as we mentioned, it's been six years.

00:30:12

Yeah. I mean, look, ultimately, Brian Flores looks right. He didn't want to go to Tua. He believed that Ryan Fitzpatrick gave them a better chance to win. Chris Greer basically made him play Tua. And ultimately, given the offense where it was at, they were a worse team when Tua was on the field. Then Mike McDaniel hitches his wagon to, I'm going to make Tua better. Now, ultimately, the real elephant in the room is the reason this guy looks worse is because his brain is scrambled. You don't process this quickly after however many concussions. But at the same time- Dan's about to hit you and stop talking.

00:30:50

No, actually, I'm trying to hit reckless speculation, but it's not working.

00:30:54

No, Dr. Tashay made a good point there.

00:30:56

Well, he just said his brain is scrambled, and I guess we can assume that he doesn't look the same, but also his offensive line stinks.

00:31:04

Look, you're making a bunch of bad decisions, right? Isn't that processing?

00:31:09

Look, I've made a lot of bad decisions in terms of how I've done the analysis of his entire career because brain scrambling as an ingredient is not something we've had to do before very much in quarterback measurements. But yes, we're all doctors now, and when he misses Tyreek Hill, and he was Drew Brees' percentage wise last season. He's the most accurate quarterback McDaniel's ever seen, the most accurate quarterback many of us have ever seen. And now there's more in accuracy. Now we're all doctors, and it's not his arm, it's his brain. And I don't know, because it could be his offensive line. It could be that he and Tyreek are not the same as they were. If it wasn't but 18 months ago, that throw to Tyreek in a training camp was proof that two of them can't throw the deep ball. That was 18 months ago.

00:31:57

Even if ultimately, to put the brain stuff aside. You make the comparison to Drew Brees. You make the comparison to Drew Brees. The reason Drew Brees was this elite all-time quarterback is he was reaching those completion percentages in an era where no one else was. Now you have these dynamic quarterbacks like Lamar Jackson, like Josh Allen, like Jalen Hertz, who ultimately are reaching the same completion percentages, but doing all of these other things that Tua physically cannot do. And that's the disparity. He could statistically continue to be this guy who only throws however many incompletions. But if all he can do is dink and dunk around the field, you're not going to be successful.

00:32:44

It's not the same offense as it was a few years ago. I understand the offensive line is not very good right now, but man, they were picking up third and 10 like it's nothing. And now it's all dinking and dunking. And look, I get it, the offensive line stinks, but If you're a quarterback in your sixth year and you are the number five overall pick, the expectation needs to be a little bit higher then. Things are going to go well only if the surrounding circumstances are perfect.

00:33:11

But Zaz, it's worse than that because when Chris is saying They can't fix it. They can. They might have the number one pick, and they can fix it with the number one pick. But they've tied up so much money in this that they no longer have the greatest advantage that they had in the two of a window, which is they had value at quarterback cheap. Now it's not that anymore. Now, it's expensive, and you don't trust it, and you don't trust it at the end of games. And I will remind you, that point total is sufficient to win an NFL game. That defense is historically bad. They haven't gotten to the tough offenses yet. The Colts look improved. I'd like to see a pass runge against the Colts. I'd like to see Daniel Jones bothered a bit because I haven't seen a whole lot of that. He looks a lot different than he did with the Giants, obviously. Their skill guys are better, but I haven't seen him bothered a whole bunch, and I haven't seen the Dolphins defense bother anybody. To have two stops, going back to last season, going back to the end of last season, it was like 15 consecutive drives where they were allowing points.

00:34:23

It's historically bad, Greg, and not the tough offenses yet.

00:34:27

Right. I am wondering why we continue to blame Tua for this loss, because as you say, it falls on the defense and special teams. I would have loved it if Mike McDaniel in his postgame talk had said, Hey, by the way, I just fired my special teams coach, because guess what? We probably win that game If we don't give up a 90-yard kickoff return, also got a punt return, like what? Yeah, right before that. And then they have the momentum and the stadium is going crazy for the first time all day, and they give up that kick return, touch down, inexcusable. I would fire the special team's coach.

00:35:02

I think also a place where someone like me comes after Tua in that spot is we know what they're paying him. He's establishing this league for long enough. It is a fair expectation, Greg. Correct me if I'm wrong, it is a fair expectation for that quarterback who this team has invested in to have not even one, two opportunities with just a couple of minutes left in the game.

00:35:23

It took 40 minutes and two weeks of badgering, but we've gotten Greg Cody to fire someone. He came home after a bad day of work. He He kicked the pet dog, but yes, he fired a special team's coach. Jump Charlie? He fired a special team's coach. There you go.

00:35:37

If I kick my dog, he'll kick back. Trust me.

00:35:39

That's who everybody's flying banners for right now. You have just appeased the fan base.

00:35:43

I don't know why you guys wrote off this game as though they've already lost the bills. You know what we saw yesterday for the first time? I don't know if you guys caught this. Josh Allen is human, and he bleeds human blood. He dinged his head. He had to leave for a couple of plays. Did he break his nose?

00:35:58

I don't know.

00:35:59

He's back like a play later. The guy's not a human.

00:36:01

It looked like he broke his nose.

00:36:03

Yeah, he had gauze in his left nostril.

00:36:05

He just said he was human. The thing that I am concerned about, I don't know what the point spread is going to be in that bill. A million. Dolphins game. A million.

00:36:14

Twelve and a half.

00:36:16

It's going to keep going up. A halft timeline?

00:36:19

I like Miami with the points.

00:36:21

Of course, your Homer Cody. The thing that's troublesome about the first two games, and what I keep saying is a historically bad defense, they haven't played the stars of the league yet. Jonathan Taylor, they haven't had to stop somebody who's actually impossible to stop. That's a defense that's a sieve, even though the great players on offense, the best that they've played so far is. It's Jonathan Taylor. That's the best that they played against so far.

00:36:53

Well, he's pretty good, but- He's pretty good.

00:36:55

I'm not. No, I'm just saying that when those corners have to covering receivers- Got you. That are impossible to cover and tight ends that are impossible to cover. You guys just said the Dolphins miss John H. Smith. Yes, they do. I also saw a different Miami team. The College one doesn't seem to need a tight end at all. They're not doing anything with a tight end, but they've improved all those receivers. It's not just for Strepa running around out there anymore.

00:37:21

I think Carzenbek targeted 15 different receivers, and the message boards were like, We forgot about the tight ends?

00:37:28

That's what you went in.

00:37:29

We were pretty good last year.

00:37:31

Then you see what Kam Ward does. See, it's not about the numbers. I don't care how many points they put up.

00:37:35

What a throw from Kam Ward.

00:37:36

It's seeing guys around the league doing things.

00:37:40

They tell you don't throw across your body, Kam Ward.

00:37:42

I was like, I want one of those. I want a Kam Ward.

00:37:45

Sure. You want everybody except Tua.

00:37:48

Tua is out of the pocket a couple of times today, and I'm doing the opposite. I'm like, Oh, no. I hate this.

00:37:56

Greg, he's awful with the game on the line, Tua. He's awful. If we were to go back and look at the stats, what he is late in these close games, I'm sure they're going to tell us he's awful.

00:38:06

That part is empirical. You go ahead. Even as Homer Coney, name all the game-winning drives of Tua you remember.

00:38:13

I don't catalog those minutiae. Got to take a quiz. No, but I will say this. We're picking a weird time to get on Tua after he had an appreciably better game than he did in the opener. If that's the Tua with a couple of touch downs and one interception and that Greg, you need your $250 million quarterback to win you some games.

00:38:33

It's literally his job.

00:38:34

In games of the defense, it's terrible. It's literally to his job. When you're paid like that, I'm sorry. Back off. I've told you, I'm mad. You saw me on Twitter yesterday. I'm mad. He fired the special teams coordinator. I'm not mad at Greg.

00:38:47

He gave you something.

00:38:48

I'm not mad at Greg. There's going to be a scapegoat. Before they fire Greer and McDaniel in season, there will be a scapegoat- Slow-ex out of here. Of the order of the special teams coach.

00:39:00

You broke him down. You've been attacking the man for 25 minutes. I'm not mad at him. I'm not mad at him.

00:39:04

Years. 25 years.

00:39:06

You made him the projection of the establishment Miami Dolphins. Relax.

00:39:11

You fired somebody. The only reason that I'm doing this, so that you know, I've always tried. You guys know this about me. I'm not the person who hyperventilates two weeks into a season. Yeah, you are. Not usually. But now you are. But because, Greg, it's not that- Watching the It's not that they lost. It's not. It's the most catastrophic ways to lose. We haven't even gotten to the part where two of a miss is four games because something is... We haven't even gotten to the part where the skill guys get hurt. The season is over after two games, and I don't think I've ever said that in covering the Dolphins.

00:39:53

In years that you thought they were going to be like-Not even the one in 15 season.

00:39:57

I don't think I've ever said at 0-2, Oh, no, this is so calamitous. They've got so many problems of the kind that you can't get over, including if you don't trust your quarterback and don't trust him late. I put it low on the list. They can't stop anybody.

00:40:14

I think the most inexcusable part about all of this, though, is everyone saw this coming headed into the offseason, and that's why everyone was like, you need to replace Greer. And then as soon as the season ended, the next day, Steven Ross came out and said, You know what? Everyone's safe. Everyone's coming back next year. And then the entire offseason went by with no adjustments seemingly, except downgrading by trading away players. So this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone that this is how this is going.

00:40:41

I mean, Greer, look, we know it's no playoff wins. His entire actually existence with the organization, not just as general manager. It's going to be another head coach that he hired, another one that he hired, fired. And he gave the quarterback $200 million, and it has proved to be dead wrong. And the rebuild is in year seven now. How do you survive all of this?

00:41:11

Greg, this stuff- You don't. You don't. Both of them are going to be fired if this continues. I'm just not ready to fire everybody after two games. I think that's the fundamental difference here. I don't disagree that it's a dumpster fire right now and that they look really, really bad in two key areas, cornerback and offensive line. The only difference is I don't want to fire people right now. And I was half kidding about the special teams because that would have been so... This is Inul and on an improved Dan Levatard show with the Stugas.

00:41:39

Gamble on by DraftKings.

00:41:44

Nothing good will ever... Just predict 0-17. Get on the record with that. Christ Almighty.

00:41:54

Do you know you were hard networked.

Episode description

"If I kick my dog, he'll kick back. Trust me."

So, the Miami Dolphins stink. And Tua is cooked. And Mike McDaniel tries and fails to take responsibility. And Tyreek Hill is not the same. And the defense is abysmal. And Greg wants to fire a coach. But other than that, things are going GREAT.

Today's cast: Dan, Greg, Zaslow, Chris, Billy, Jeremy, and Mike.
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