Transcript of Can Buffalo Finish, Will Miami Cover, and Is McDaniel Out in LA? (Feat. Lance Zierlein) New

My fellow football Americans, it's time for the Week 4 review. A splendid showdown in Vegas between ancient rivals, and this time at least, it's not just because Chiefs at Raiders is the world's best uniform matchup. Meantime, speaking of costumes, the Chargers got a jump on Halloween by dressing up as contenders in August and September, but that's all done now. They're finished. So are the Bucs. How about the Lions and Eagles? Weren't all these teams supposed to be contenders? Meantime, America's Allegiant team and McVay's super team both got huge wins. The The Gators got a huge ass-kicking. The Jags won in the Queen City. Are they now headed to the City of Angels on Valentine's Day 27? Refs are F-bombing players. Pollsters who can't poll. Players trolling cities. Sheesh. Is it possible we have too much show? We better get rolling. Start the show!

Yes.

Hi and hello, my fellow football Americans. Welcome to Football America, presented as ever by DraftKings Sports. Now in all 50 states, we are live. Subscribe right now, very quickly while you're watching or listening. Go ahead, text, text your friend, text your mom, let them know. And also put a comment in the comment section. Speaking of, speaking of that, I think Major Randy Social Mead and I are going to go, um, on YouTube on Tuesday to respond to some of your questions. So get those in. A-S-A and P in the comments section on YouTube or wherever you prefer. We'll track them down and respond to those, like I say, I think on Tuesday. So be on the lookout for that on YouTube. In the meantime, it's episode number 88. So Buddy Badowski and me, Caballo, Tony, let's dig in here. The player who wore the number 88 best, it's Lynn Swann. We can just move along, right?

No.

Dave, come on. I mean, this is a big number here. And we have to mention, if you're going to talk 88, you have to mention the Dallas Cowboys franchise as a whole, because look at these names here. You've got Michael Irvin, the Playmaker, Dez Bryant, Drew Pearson, and CeeDee Lamb off a 17-catch-on-21-targets game yesterday. Dave, is he the best? I mean, what a performance yesterday by CeeDee Lamb.

Top 3, top 3 to answer your question. Yeah, I know America's alleged team is very excited right now. Their fan base is. And by the way, I told you the Cowboys were going to win that game in Houston with the Texans' season basically on the line. We're going to be talking with our old pal, Lance Zierlein, a Houston-based radio muckety-muck and a draft guru. Want to dig in on the state of the QB class for spring 2027. And I'll have some thoughts on that in just a little bit. But Lynn Swann, right? That's what we're going with?

No, no.

Is that what I heard?

No. You can also go Tony Gonzalez. You can also go Alan Page from the Purple People Eaters. You can even go Marvin Harrison if you would really like to. We gotta, you know—

You know what? Alan Page is a great shout. 88 is a great number for a defensive lineman. You know, it's ignored too often.

It's a great number in general, 88.

It's the—

it might be the best football number. And also, if you want to talk hockey, 2 great hockey— all-time hockey players that we got to talk about real quick, Patrick Kane and Eric Lindros. Got to get a shout out for number 88.

Good shout out there, but that reminds me, happy birthday to the greatest hockey player in the history of people, number 66, Mario Lemieux. Now, speaking of that, I'll be honest, I have not watched any of the baseball playoffs. I don't know if I should be ashamed by that, but listen, there's hockey going and there is SoCal-based high school football action that I not only am interested in, but I have to attend. And speaking of that, shout out to our Football American of the Week, my guy Rob Moffett. His boy and mine played together in high school, and now his boy is matriculating and playing at UCLA. We sit up in the stands every Friday night and watch the games. And he said to me, um, sort of randomly, hey, you know, my favorite thing on your show is when that one guy always picks against the Dolphins. And that made me—

Yeah, but didn't come off this week, Dave. The Dolphins covered. Don't ask how. Don't ask how it happened. TJ Hockenson sliding down at the 1-yard line, but the Dolphins, they covered the number. Good teams, we all know good teams win, great teams cover.

Okay, we have, we have to go through how we did with assessing the week before and then maybe have to revise things. Let's power rank the importance of each of the victories. I think this kind of gets in the way even. I don't know that we have time, and plus with Lance coming up and all that we have to talk about. I don't even know if we have time. I think this is a great question. Put a pin in this one. It came up last night with the little ones. Rank Snoopy, Bugs Bunny, Kermit the Frog, Mickey Mouse, and Scooby-Doo. I know we don't have time for it, but I mean, like, imagine if you had to do those ones.

That's offseason fodder, Dave. That's offseason stuff.

I know, but it's an interesting question.

Snoopy's number 1.

You have to admit, you have to admit that's a pretty good one. Okay, fine. You want to stick to football, you snoot? You want to talk about the Florida Gators? How about that? You want to talk about them, Buddy Badowski, or should you just give us our update our Picks, Picks, Picks presented by DraftKings Sports last week and see how we did there.

Yeah, you mentioned putting a pin in something. Let's put a pin in the Gators. We'll get to that later because I obviously have thoughts there after we got routed by Missouri over the weekend. Let's talk about our Picks, Picks, Picks. Uh, Devo, let's start with you. Another 1-2 week for you. You nailed the Rams -3 against the Eagles. They won 24-20 there. The Cardinals and Giants, you asked where all the points were coming from. Who had more points than the Cardinals and Giants this weekend? That game goes over 44.5. And then the Jets do not cover in Chicago. Gino is not here today.

And I— Oh, wait a second. For the record, I told you the Seahawks would whip the Chargers. I think that one ultimately pushed.

Yeah, I think it did. I think that was— that final was 7, right? Anyway, Gino—

I'm shouting out something I didn't win, but okay.

Gino must be afraid to show his face today. And I can't blame him because he went 0 for 3 this week with the Packers. He told us the Lions and Panthers would go under because that game was going to be played in a monsoon. I didn't see any rain in that game, Dave. I have no idea what he was talking about there. And then the Commanders do not cover over in London. Tony, a 1-2 week, the Raiders +4.5.

Come on.

What a great cover there. That team is— that— let's talk. We'll talk about that team later. I like what's going on in Oakland, in Las Vegas there. And then your boy brings it home with a 2-1 week. The Cardinals let me down. But I told you 24-20 gets you over in Rams-Eagles. Guess what happened? Rams win 24-20. The Cowboys with a big win to cover the +3. On the year, I lead with 7. Tony and Dave are tied with 5 points and Geno's got 4.

This is a disgrace, me, Caballo, for both of us. We should both be red in the face and I for one am.

I mean, I nailed the Raiders pick. So for me, that's actually picking— that's like 2 picks. I should have +2 next to the Raiders. Yeah, I was worried at the end. when they fumbled the kickoff and then Kenneth Walker scored again. And I was like, oh no, the +4.5 is in absolute danger. And then Kirk Cousins came down and threw a touch— a prayer over to Brock Bowers. So once I saw that, I was like, all right, we're in safe hands. We're good.

Well, listen, so instead of just putting a strike in the win column for one team and a strike in the loss column for the other team, and telling you what you already know, the results of those games. Let's try to see if we can figure out the value of those wins and losses here. In the Week 4 preview, we said the most important games ever of the week would be at number 3, Broncos and Rams, and the Jaguars—

Broncos and Niners.

Broncos— what did I say?

You said the Rams.

And Rams. Oh yeah, no, right behind that I had Rams and Eagles, and then I'm sorry, Broncos Yes, I'm confusing myself. Broncos-Niners, Jags at Bungles, and number one most consequential game, Chiefs at Raiders. Do we need to redo those? Do we need to restructure that list? I think it's worth shouting out, like I said at the very top, goodbye to the Bucs, goodbye to the Chargers, and I think goodbye to the Texans. Is that a worse loss or a better win for the Cowboys who keep pace with the Eagles now and are right in contention? Meek Cabello, how say you? I'll start with you.

I would say it's, it's a bigger win for the Cowboys. As you can see, the Eagles— and we'll talk plenty about them coming up on the show— but if you see what, what's going on in that division, right, there's a lot of flux. The Cowboys just need to keep pace, make sure everybody stays healthy. And that was the thing, when you look at Houston, I'm like, man, CJ Stroud didn't play that bad, Dave. Like, I looked at his stats and I saw him playing, I was like, he's kind of playing well.

I think he's been Great this year, honestly.

Yeah, like this season he's been good, and their defense is also good, but also allowing a lot of points. So it's kind of a—

I mean, it's not good. I mean, that's the thing I can't wait to talk to Lance about, is what is going on there with that defense.

Better said, they have great pieces, but they're not a great collective unit yet, right? And that's what we, we were sold. This DeMeco Ryans front was going to be like, all right, their front is great, their secondary is great, this, this defense is going to be a force to be reckoned with. And, you know, what, 17 for 280,000 yards and 14 touchdowns for, for CeeDee Lamb. For CeeDee Lamb.

What a performance.

It was unbelievable. It was an incredible performance. And for me, it's just you look at the Cowboys and it's like, all right, this is what they needed at this moment.

Well, we can also talk about the Steelers and Browns game way back on Thursday night. And the best thing that the Steelers have going for them now at 2-2, they're kind of jammed up in my opinion, is their next 4 games. are relatively breezy because then it gets real bad after that and they kind of need to win. You can make a case all 4 of those to be realistic playoff contenders in order to get to 10 wins is probably what, what it's going to take there. Um, where do we come down on, um, where the Steelers slot in here? Are they relevant? Are they— is their goose already cooked? Are we buying the Browns? Buddy Badowski, how say you?

I'm not really buying the Browns or loving what's going on there in terms of the discussion around obviously the quarterback. It's so hard to have any genuine discussion about what's going on there.

Gross shit that everybody's announced, we've moved on. No, you as the network has, because it's uncomfortable for you to have conversations with the central figure of the game and the QB league being a scumbag. But the rest of us are allowed to pause and question why you're doing this. We understand that Money is influencing why you guys are moving on. The rest of us are not required to do so.

Yeah, it was, it was really ugly, to be honest with you, that broadcast on Thursday night. And I don't want to harp on it too much, but in terms of the actual stature of the games, like, okay, you've got a 2-2 Pittsburgh team, kind of where we expected them to be. Just hasn't been kind of the results we expected necessarily with them dropping to the Browns. The Browns are obviously one of the surprises in the league right now at 3-1. We'll see how long it holds up if he can continue to play this well. Todd Monken seems to be doing a pretty good job there. But Dave, one game I really want to talk about is last night. We talked about the CeeDee Lamb performance. That might not have even been the best performance from a receiver this week. How about the coming out party from Tedderoa McMillan in Charlotte last night? 14 catches, 192 yards, and 2 scores. We've talked a lot. Bryce Young is leading the league in passing So far this season, we talked so much about him, his rookie year. He gets benched for Andy Dalton. It seemed like he was going to— they were going to move on from that guy completely.

Has a nice bounce back year last year. Sometimes it's okay to just be the 15th best quarterback in the NFL. Like, you can win with that if you have good structure around that guy. And it seems like right now Bryce Young is kind of entering that middle tier of quarterback where he's turning himself into a guy that It's bringing a lot of value to his team, is winning games, and he has another fantastic performance last night. And Tony, that Lions defense, man, like, I'm seriously concerned about that.

Well, the Lions defense is an atrocity, and we predicted that before the season with Mina Kimes, that the Lions were going to fall on their face this year. So Tony, do you now— you know, Lions are only 2-2, they're not completely cooked yet or anything, but the Bears are the rabbit of that division right now. The Panthers are really interesting. And Buddy just said there's some good pieces on another defense. I think that's how I would sort of quantify what the Panthers have going this year. They are at least— it's not bereft of some talent on that defense. And the offense seems in a lousy division good enough to win it. How say you?

I look at Bryce Young and I'm like, all right, when he's had capable coaching, Right. He looks good when we see him in college, and then we obviously a, a small time in the pros where the coaching wasn't up to snuff. And now we see him with Dave Canales. And I've got a couple stats here that I want to read for you guys from Josh Norris on Yahoo, uh, from Yahoo. No quarterback has faced more quick pressures in the NFL, 53, than Bryce Young. Despite that, he leads the NFL in passing yards, second in passing first downs per game, first with 55 completion percentage of throws 10 yards down the field. first with 13 completions of 25 yards down the field and tied for third, uh, with touchdown passes with 9. He's, he's exactly what he was, you know, built out to be, which was, all right, we're gonna get him quick passes, we're gonna, uh, force the, the line to try to like almost lose him, where it's like Drew Brees magic in the sense of, all right, where is he? I can't see him, but the ball's coming out. And Aiden Hutchinson was going crazy last night trying to find him and couldn't find him.

Yeah, couldn't find him.

Especially on the one where he rolls out and throws a perfect ball to McMillan.

Oh, the one on the sideline. That one where basically the foot comes down. Yeah, exactly. Crazy.

And it's like he, he was, he was sold as a guy that had an above-average arm, but for some reason just had it. And since Dave Canales has taken over, Dave, like, he's got it.

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Dave Canales, to be honest with you. What he's done with that Panthers team in 2 years is really, really impressive. And the way he got Bryce Young's career back on track, it's amazing.

They're victims of, uh, like we talked about last week, of being in the NFC South where there's, uh, you know, there's not ton of enthusiasm, but Sunday Night Football sort of expressed a different story. That crowd's into it. That's what we said. If you can get to October and be a contender, the locals will buy in. The Panthers have done that again in a lousy division. It still counts. And I don't know if the Lions' goose is cooked. I do think even if they are a player the rest of the regular season, I kind of feel like their Super Bowl window has closed. That defense is an atrocity. Meantime, Eagles fans very upset. What did I tell you? The last thing we talked about on Friday's show was that I think the Eagles are in some real trouble. And no wonder, their head coach is Nick Sirianni after all. And now Jalen Hurts doesn't look great. And you know what it reminds me of, Tony? It reminds me of the Jenga theory, which is, if you're a newcomer to the show, if you take out the wrong piece from the equation, the whole thing will implode on you.

I think in his absence, Lane Johnson proves himself to be the Eagles offensive Jenga piece.

How so?

say you?

100%, right? And we've seen this throughout Jalen Hurts's career. When the offensive line is healthy and ready to play, he's a guy who's an MVP in the Super Bowl. He's a guy that outduels Mahomes in a Super Bowl and loses. Like, that's his ceiling, his max ceiling with a completely, uh, okay and, and healthy O-line. When you start taking pieces off that O-line, and I see DeVonta Smith is out, Dallas Goedert is out, Saquon Barkley goes out early, Jalen Hurts had 31 pass attempts with 68 net passing yards, Dave. Like, that is, that is, that's not even high school football. That's JV. That's Pop Warner football. All right, we're just going to throw and the quarterback doesn't really know how to throw and the wide receivers don't really know how to catch and like, good luck. And that's what the Eagles offense has been lately.

Dave, it's funny you mentioned the Jenga piece theory because during the games I write down notes just throughout the day just to have things to jog my memory when we do the show. And one of the things I wrote down is When we did the Jenga piece conversation, we forgot Saquon Barkley. We like, we've mentioned Layden Johnson, but we forgot Saquon Barkley. What that offense looked like before Saquon, they were winning that game pretty handedly. And it wasn't great, but at least they were winning the game. They were scoring points. They looked like the better team early on. I mean, they had a couple sick touchdown catches from Cooper. Cooper. Yes. Thank you. But That is a huge— you want to talk Jenga pieces, like, it doesn't get much bigger than Saquon Barkley.

But it's still— and Dave, you can agree with me here— like, I think it's still, you know, the, the linchpin is the offensive line. Because regardless of who's back there— Tank Bisbee, Will Shipley— if you have those guys, they're not going to produce maybe at the level that Saquon is, but you're gonna get, uh, an arbitrage of what Saquon can do. And we saw when the offensive line was fully healthy, when Saquon was there and ran for nearly 2,000 yards, What they were able to do, Dave.

Yeah, and then, so then you marry that up with the Cowboys' big win, and they would be 1-3, and we would be talking about, is it time to throw dirt on that team? Instead, they're now right there, like I say, with the Eagles, and I am leaning towards the Cowboys the rest of the way, in large part because they have become Steel City South now, the trade partners of the Pittsburgh Steelers. They get Joey Porter Jr. to go along with George Pickens. 2 ne'er-do-wells, and everybody up in Pittsburgh is arguing with me online and elsewhere about like, dude, don't you know them dudes is no good? When did it— everybody understands they haven't won a playoff game in more than a decade at this point, but they are choosing to play like, what was it called, the drumming movie? Like the—

Drumline?

Nah, the—

The Musical Spot? Not Quite My Tempo. No, Not Quite My Tempo.

Whiplash.

Whiplash, yes. I don't know why the Steelers front office is now behaving like the bald guy in Whiplash. Like, Joey Porter Jr., not quite my tempo. Hey, you need a cornerback. I don't know if you've heard. And you need a— you need a highly— these are top 10 guys at their positions and you're just dismissing them like, nah, not quite our taste. You know, he doesn't quite fit what we're looking for. Who the hell do you think you are? The Rams, we thought, had maybe the best quarterback in the quarterback league. Stafford has not been great. It's one of the sort of underreported elements so far this season. Nevertheless, a huge win. And shout out to Sean McVay because we've been talking about 13 personnel and all of that, but all of a sudden 2 of those tight ends go down. Puka Nacua comes back just in time and they kind of flip the script just in time. They return Puka Nacua to the main man, AKA— their Jenga piece on that offense, and they steal that game. And now the Eagles feel like they're in dire straits, even though they're tied for first place with both the Cowboys and with the Giants, who I don't suspect are going to hang around for that long.

What do we make in the other East, though? I was legit stunned by all the conversation we've had, a lot of people have had around Drake Maye and what's going on there versus the high-flying Bills. Obviously, they're going to drop a game somewhere. I did not expect it to be In Buffalo with the Bills understanding— I know that very often early in a season the team that absolutely needs to get that game is gonna get it, but nevertheless, the Bills surely recognized that they had a chance to seal up the AFC East with a victory there, right? If they get to 4-0 and they knock the Patriots down, that's a wrap. Nobody's getting them in that division. The Patriots steal this one. Meek Caballo, your thoughts?

I thought that when I look at Josh Allen, right, and I think, I think Juju Gotti said it best the other day, where on the, on the Levitart Show, he said watching Josh Allen is like a Superman, uh, movie or, or episodic Superman show where, you know, at some point he's gonna do something that is just better than everybody else on the planet. But we're just, we're not accustomed to him winning these big games. And for me, I feel like he has such a mastery of the offense and he's so just gifted at having people bounce off of him and create plays off-platform that he gets ahead of himself. Like the play that he threw behind his back, I don't know what he was doing there. I guess avoiding the safety, but that could have been disastrous.

Wouldn't be allowable. I mean, talk about who the guy is doing it. I mean, imagine how many guys would— they would say that you can't do that. They would not allow that. But because it's Stafford—

The poor kid from Washington that they brought in, the Greek kid, they would have sent them off to England somewhere.

You can't play in the NFL anymore.

You're gone.

That's what we do now. We deport people to countries that aren't their own. That's how we do things.

So he has that, uh, I guess that, that craziness that he had when he was younger, and it showed it on the final play of the game where that interception— he breaks off an obvious sack, he loads up, he sees 3 different, uh, receivers at 3 different depths in the field and says, you know what, screw it, I'm gonna try and go for the home run ball in double coverage. Gets it picked off. So it's like he has such a mastery of the offense that I think he gets bored in making routine plays.

I don't, I don't know if it's that necessarily or if it's just, it's like staring at him like the Green Goblin mask. Because remember, he did the same thing in the Texans game, right? And if Kamari Lassiter—

That's one too many superhero analogies there, buddy. We already know the Superman one and now you're talking about the Goblin.

As much as I hate to admit it, he is a superhero, that Josh Allen. But Kamari Lassiter, if he comes down with that ball, The Bills are 2-2. The Texans, who knows what's with them? They're at least 1-3, right? And we're all saying, wow, Josh Allen has lost 2 games this year on just end-of-the-game disastrous plays. So sometimes he gets away with— you live with it because sometimes he gets away with it. And then he does. He makes that throw at the end of the game where you could literally hang laundry off of it because it's on such a rope.

It's a rope, yeah.

Right? And he makes the play at the end of the Texans games, that throw to Joshua Palmer, right? All the other stuff he does, you live with it, but it rears its ugly head sometimes, right? And it reared its ugly head in this game where I don't know about wrapping it up this early, Dave, because you never know. An injury happens.

The pace gets really hot. Well, it's not— I'm not going to stop to asterisk every time I say something like that to say, now keep in mind, if the best player on that team gets hurt, obviously it's a— this is a factor, but I cannot stop down every time to make that. Asterisk, but continue with your thought. Yes.

Yeah, no, I was just saying that, you know, any, anything can happen. And, and the Patriots, they're, they're 2-2. They're lingering. Drake May looked awesome yesterday. Looked like the guy that was an MVP candidate last year. Makes that sick throw on the touchdown to Chisholm III, whatever his crazy first name is there. Um, but I just think that we're slowly starting to see the Patriots. I, I don't believe that Drake May will be down and look like the guy he was the first 4 weeks of the— or 3 weeks of the season.

Dave, is that the biggest storyline? Is it, is it Josh Allen, uh, doing that, or is it Drake Maye looking like that?

I think it's Drake Maye. But, you know, to your Superman analogy, it's okay. Like in Superman II, when Clark Kent on purpose removes his powers, he goes in— you remember, he goes into the, into the icebox, and he like, he turns mortal, but then he's an incapable lover to Lois Lane and he can't take care of General Zod anymore. That's fine as long as at the end of the movie he's at his most powerful. Unfortunately for the Bills, this Superman tends to give up his powers in the most critical spots of the season come January. All right, listen, we have much to get to, including we still have to talk Broncos and Niners and the catfight in Cincy and Chiefs and Raiders and all of that. But right now, let's jump in with our guy. I am excited to— be talking about him. He is the NFL Draft Whiz on NFL Media, and he's one half of the John and Lance Show on ESPN 97.5 in Houston, where I bet he's taken a lot of very passionate calls about the local football collective. He's our old pal Lance Zierlein. What's happening, man? How are you?

What do you say, Sheck? How we doing?

Well, I'm doing all right. I, I could be better. Of course, uh, some of the best Pittsburgh Steelers players or former Pittsburgh Steelers players are now wearing a star on the side of their hat and probably making the Cowboys better. But you know all about those Cowboys. You got an up-close look at them just yesterday, and your Texans are in a bit of trouble. Dire straits for the fan base there, I imagine?

Yeah, dire straits. And one of the reasons it's dire straits is because they started off 0-3 last year. So it's getting— they started 0-2 or worse in 3 of the 4 years DeMeco Ryans has been here. Haven't won a game for five straight games dating back to last year, so 0-4, 0-1 last year when they lost last year to the Patriots. So yeah, the offensive line is still an issue. They don't run the ball well at all, even after making some moves with in the personnel moves in the offseason, drafting a starting guard. David Montgomery has been a non-factor except the first game in the first half, and your defense. I think the thing that scares you the most is when Nico Collins has been there, the Texans have scored 30 points or more in both. in both those games, but the secondary has really been a problem. And that doesn't make a whole lot of sense for Texans fans who watched them last year. I'm sure it doesn't make sense around the league that your defense should have given up leads in 3 of your 4 losses in the 4th quarter.

That's why— here's something that has happened, I guess, in roughly the last decade or so. I don't know why this is true. Only that it is true. Defenses, dominant defensive units only sustain that dominance for like a season or 2, starting with like the 2017 into the 2018 Jaguars. What is going on here? We depended on the Tex— I'm sure you as a Texans supporter, a guy who's focused in on that, anticipated that being at least an area of strength for them. They're 27th now. In terms of scoring defenses. And by the way, the Broncos, who also were right there in terms of profile with your Texans, are only— what are they, like 17th in the league in scoring defense? What gives here? Why are defenses not able to carry it from one season to the next?

I can't explain it, to be honest with you. I'm not really sure. I mean, obviously some of it has to do with level of competition, and the Texans have played Joe Burrow. They've played Josh Allen. Clearly they played Dak Prescott. I mean, those, those teams can throw it around a little bit. So obviously the challenge is who the competition is that can have an impact. I think they'll come back to the pack a little bit. There'll be an aggression and I guess a progression to the mean in this particular instance when they have some weaker offenses. But, you know, some of it, even the head coach has made a point of basically saying, did our defense, you know, read their press clippings too much? Did the defense think a little too highly of themselves after last year? Because every year is a new year. We know that in SportsCheck. No matter what we think, one year to the next can look totally different. And even without a lot of personnel moves, and that's what the Texans are experiencing, I think with the, you know, with, with— I can't really speak to the Broncos issues. I've watched them and, you know, I think they've been hurt by some inconsistencies from quarter to quarter.

The Texans are just— it's, it's— I think there's some schematic and some technique stuff that's at play for the Texans that will eventually get fixed. But it wouldn't shock me if the head coach took over play-calling duties on defense. He gave them up a couple of years ago. He might take them back based on what's been going on.

I'm just going to float a theory. I don't know if you'll buy it, but maybe after the wildcard win on the banks of the Three Rivers, some of the Texans players shouldn't have ripped the Terrible Towel up. I mean, it's a cardinal rule. How many times do we need to see this before people will believe it? You know what? Keep doing it. Maybe that's what's doomed the Houston Texans.

There is a— so as you know, you don't trust fate. Um, you remember what happened when the Bradys took the tiki statue off the ancient burial ground?

Yeah.

Major problems. Alice got hurt. Uh, someone almost died in a surf accident. Tarantulas all over the place. So yeah, I did see the video of Toro, their mascot, who we don't even like, ripping up the, the terrible towel. You know, you gotta, you gotta be careful with things like that. You don't have enough cachet to fade karma. And that's how I see it, Sheck. I'm not trying to— I'm not trying to entice karma. I'm not trying to, uh, uh, uh, uh, you know, to, to crap on karma's doorstep because—

Poke the bear, right?

You don't poke the bear, Sheck. You never poke the bear. No, you should know that.

Dave, I have 2 things here real quick. Sorry. One, did you just say— Lance, did you just say you don't like a mascot? And 2, I, I love every week finding out how— why you're friends with all the people that you bring on, because there was just a Brady Bunch reference on the show here, and it's just so fitting that you would bring on somebody that would immediately make a Brady Bunch reference within 5 minutes of being on the show, Dave. So I love it. I love seeing you and your friends interact. It's great.

So the Brady Bunch thing is easy. It's so applicable for sports because I am, I am, uh, very superstitious as well, and Everyone knew that you just don't take stuff off the burial ground. The Brady Bunch angle came up on my radio show today. So yeah, Sheck and I have that in common. The other thing is, yeah, I don't like that mascot. He tries to play that angle of, I don't know, he's always rubbed me the wrong way, the mascot. I used to do a pregame show for the Texans, for whatever reason, years ago, like 2004, a couple years after they started, One of the hosts tried to interview the mascot and he would just do one stomp of his hoof and 2 stomps. I'm like, get out of here. This is the corniest thing I've ever seen. I don't know, that mascot. Some mascots I like, a lot of them I don't like. He's one I don't care for.

Yeah, I'm with you on that. I did like the Red Sox of the Texans, but yeah, terrible towel. Plus, the letterman's jacket. You would think maybe they could cancel each other out. Apparently not. Now, part of why I wanted to get you in here today—

Uh-huh.

Was with the Falcons visiting the Saints and the anniversary of the big block punt with Steve Gleason and all of that and what that led to for that city. And Katrina on the mind, I think most football Americans are not really aware of how significant a role the city of Houston played and helped out your Cajun neighbors around Katrina. Talk a little bit about that, and then I'll tag it with what I think is the great benefit that ultimately has been delivered to the people of Houston, like yourself, especially a foodie.

Yeah, we were. Yeah. So maybe a lot of people don't know that. That was a major, major deal and has had— implications isn't the right word, but it has changed the culture of New Orleans in some ways. Moving beyond that, I lived in New Orleans for a couple of years when I was at Tulane. My brother and sister graduated high school there and we moved from Texas over there when my dad coached football. So New Orleans is different now after Katrina in some ways. Texas is different after Katrina in ways as well. Some of the best prospects coming out of high school football here, when I write up draft prospects, I always look at their background, their bio, and then I will see I'll read a story about, oh, this guy's from Houston. So I'll read a story about him. And the story, it so happened probably 3 to 5 times a year, prospects I'm looking at who come out of the— probably 3 times a year, their family moved from, you know, from New Orleans. Now, a lot of these guys will have been 1, 2 years old. Now it's— we're going to get to the— we're going to get to the point where they will— the family moved over before they were even born.

Soon I'll be reading that. But yes. It changed some things food-wise a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I know you talked about the foodie angle. We did have a Cajun contingency in Houston dating back to the late '80s is when it really came over hot and heavy into Houston as well. So we had restaurants like Papa Doe and Boudreaux's, things like that. But it really did change sports culture. We took on a lot of people here in Houston. My radio station was part of a We were part hosts along with the Rockets of a food drive and a job fair for people who came in. And Sheck, it was someone— I had ties to New Orleans from going to school there. So when the levee broke, John and I, my radio host, we got on when we were at 610, which was the big sports station at the time, and we just started raising money to go to Red Cross. And we raised something like $65,000 that morning.

Wow.

On the show, people calling in. Mattress Mack called in because his wife was from New Iberia, which is South Louisiana, and she's now in KABC. She's the president of KABC there in LA now. She was just doing local news at the time here in Houston. But yeah, it changed Houston a lot. And for a year to 2 years, you saw people who were just dazed, people from Louisiana coming over. They just— They lost everything. I watched a documentary on Katrina at the 20-year anniversary, and it's very strange to relive that. I remember going to the Senior Bowl, driving through New Orleans to Mobile, and then we were driving back. And this was, I guess, the year after it happened. Driving back, I just kind of forgot about Katrina and all of a sudden, I'm driving through New Orleans on the way back and you see a car upside down on top of a roof and you're like, oh, wow, that's right. And then the more you look, blue tarps, you start seeing cars overturned. And this was several months after Katrina. And so the devastation, I don't know that everyone— some people, once they saw it, they kind of turned, okay, let's onto the next thing.

But it was not onto the next thing here in Houston, Texas. It certainly wasn't onto the next thing there. in New Orleans. But yeah, you're right. You hit it on the head. Houston's changed a lot in terms of the influx of New Orleanians in the surrounding areas. And I think we're better for it, to be honest with you.

Yeah, that's cool stuff, man. Yeah, it's funny. I went to New Orleans 4 and a half years after Katrina, just after the Saints won that Super Bowl. And I was there for Mardi Gras. And Guillermo from the Kimmel Show we were doing, he was on the float. And we also Shot something. I don't remember exactly why we did this bit, but somehow it involved Roman Harper breaking into Pierre Thomas's house. I don't remember what exactly the comedy of it was, but trust me, there must have been some built in there. But not in the main thoroughfares that everybody lines up, but where Mardi Gras kind of starts in the residential areas that were wrecked by Katrina. The people there, still, 4 and a half years after, some of the houses still just destroyed and otherwise, but the people with the combined— it's Mardi Gras and the Saints won the Super Bowl, and those people out in the streets at 9 AM dancing and otherwise, it was really something. I know we do the thing after a citywide or statewide tragedy, blank strong. I really wonder, I don't know how many cities would have been able to recover, and I really do attribute it to the spirit of the collective people of New Orleans.

There was something about it that you just could not get them down, that their entire lives were basically wrecked, or their sense of what life was in New Orleans was destroyed, and they were still out in the streets dancing and celebrating like nothing had— like they didn't have a care in the world. It also shows the power of sports. All right, let's take a hard right turn into more mundane sports-related stuff, and I'm fascinated by The ebbs and flows of the draft class process, and I will talk more about it at the end of the show. But let's talk about, as it is right now in October of 2026, how do you see this QB class shaping up? Because there's already— now we've reached the station in the process where it's like, I don't know if all these guys are good enough, and maybe you want to wait till next year. Not this, not '27, but wait till '28. Now, how good is this class as you see it right now? And who's What have you seen from number 1 and number 2, let's say?

It's, it's been a little disappointing, um, up to this point. We're still pretty early, but it was disappointing last year. And so a lot of these guys went back to school and we thought, okay, now they have a chance to reset and maybe it will be better. You know, Arch Manning's been very average. Dante Moore is now recovering from the concussion and certainly didn't get off to a great start, um, over the first couple there at Oregon. Mensah has looked really good with the Miami Hurricanes. So that could be, you know, he's a guy to keep an eye on. Trinidad Chambliss, smaller quarterback but makes a ton of plays. So, so he's exciting. There's, you know, there's, there's Drew Mestemaker who's at Oklahoma State who may end up going back to school for a big NIL deal at Oklahoma State or elsewhere. It's just really Lenore Sellers has not been very good.

We've been talking about Lenore for literally at least 3 years.

Yeah, I'm done talking about him. CJ Carr is an interesting one, but I think he needs to play more football, just like JJ McCarthy really needed to play more football by the time he came out and it hurt him. So it's not— let's just say that the pack is running together right now and we're not down the backstretch, but we are getting to the point where we need somebody to separate sometime soon. Mensah could be the separator. Jeremiah Smith's obviously the best player in college football. He'll be the Highest. He'll be my highest-rated prospect that, that I've had since Myles Garrett. So that's, you know, he truly is generational. I hate the word generational, but this is where it fits. Rare speed, rare size, rare ball skills, outstanding route running, tremendous competitive nature. And then what he does to the opposition, he looks like he's 2 or 3 levels above. He looks like a pro playing against college guys. So I want to see that, you know, that level of production. Well, there it is. He's providing it. So you're going to have a team have to— you're going to have teams trying to fight over who they think is at the top of the quarterback rack.

In the meantime, a generational player is going to get passed over just because quarterback is that important. I'd be curious if a team has a decent quarterback, are they going to sit still and, and pick Jeremiah Smith or they trade back and take their chances of maybe missing on Jeremiah Smith for a team that's willing to give them multiple picks for a quarterback. Like, I'm already thinking in those terms. Like, what if the, what if the team finishes last? What if the Texans finish last and they want to hang on to the quarterback?

This was the big one though.

This was the big one.

Oh, this one, wait till 27. That's the QB class. I can't believe we're going to kick that one down the road.

I know. That's, that's what it is. And then everyone's new favorite quarterback, Kamario Taylor from Mississippi State, He didn't play well this weekend. They got wiped out by— he was supposed to be the big mister 2028 and they got wiped out by Alabama. And Keelan Russell, their rookie, will be a, you know, I gotta see, actually he was there last year, so it would be, he would be available in 2028 as well. And he actually played really, really well from Alabama. But you're right, it's waiting till next year. And those same, same guys have some of the same issues.

Oh, I, I could spend 5 minutes talking with you or getting your assessment of Gunkelmeyer at Virginia Tech. That guy's got a pro whip on him there, but let's move on from that. He was on the losing side of what happened on Friday night, don't you know?

That's right.

I instead want to hear your thoughts about what the Cowboys coming up on Thursday Night Football. What do you make of the new look Dallas Cowboys becoming Steel City South? And what do you think it means? What does it tell you about the Steelers operation letting young talent— you know, I know that the other side of the coin is George Pickens is a head case and Joey Porter Jr. is a bad actor pretending to be hurt and Broderick Jones didn't pan out yet and all that. But they— but the result is a lot of young talent getting moved out of that building.

Yeah, uh, Pickens— I felt like Pickens needed to go because there, there was an issue with wide receivers. I don't know what happened there for a while with Kevin Colbert. And then, you know, I don't really put it on Omar because Omar came in after all those guys have been drafted. I don't get it, Aaron. You know, with AB, Antonio Brown, and JuJu Smith-Schuster and Carl Pickens. I don't know what happened. And, and oh, what's his name? Chase Claypool. I don't know what happened there in Pittsburgh. They just kind of lost.

It was at first, it was, you know, you didn't get Diontae Johnson in that mix or did you?

I didn't even throw Diontae Johnson in there. Yeah. I mean, 5 guys with the Steelers that had those kind of issues. Some of 'em were TikTok dancers for a while. And, and you had Antonio Brown who just, you know, turned into, went into, became Antonio Brown, I guess. That was hard to believe. Pickens, I think he had to get out of there. Porter hurts. That one hurts because he's a good cornerback. I'm kind of curious. I know they didn't— they couldn't come to an agreement on how much they wanted to pay him, but that one's going to really hurt the Steelers because he's a legitimate man-covered corner and it's hard to find those guys in the league. When you have one, you want to hang on to them. I was a little surprised. I don't know everything surrounding that one, but I was a little surprised That he left. Broderick to me is not a big deal. Like he was, he was getting you beat so you can go wherever you want to go. If you're the Steelers, you hope he ends up in your division. But as far as Porter's concerned, that's a problem because that's a legitimate cornerback number 1.

So we'll see how this team rolls.

To a team that doesn't have the idea that, that Joey Porter Jr., he's not getting paid by the Cowboys. Yeah, but he's gambling on himself now that he's found out the Steelers aren't gonna pay him. They're gonna tag him. They're not going to give him a long-term deal. Maybe the bet is maybe the Cowboys will give me that deal, just as the Steelers are now betting the team that can't draft cornerbacks successfully over the last decade. Well, this time we will get it right. Yeah, I think we've got it right with this guy, but now we've shown him the door.

Yeah, I think what the Cowboys are going to do is let Pickens walk and they're going to sign and they're going to— I don't think they make this trade unless they're going to hang on to Porter. So Porter, I think, will get the long-term deal and they'll let Pickens walk. CeeDee Lamb's a 1. We can go find a wide receiver. My guess is how they'll look at that, because it's easier to find a wide receiver than a lockdown corner.

ESPN 97.5 in Houston, NFL media podcasting, and come draft season, he's as good as it gets talking about the QBs and beyond. He's our pal Lance Zierlein. Thanks for the time, man. Hope your Texans turn it around despite Toro.

Yeah, despite that, despite that nasty mascot. Yeah, I appreciate it. I always love coming on the show, Sheck.

Good to see you, pal. Be well. Say hi to that marathon and wife of yours for me, please.

We will do that.

All right, there he goes. Lance Zierlein, great stuff from him. And, uh, that reminds me to point out something else that's great. That's Labatt beer. It's brewed for the chirps, the salty jabs in your group chat hall of fame, and for that one friend who hasn't changed his fantasy football team name since 2019. I'm talking to you, Kevin. We at Labatt know a thing or two about friendly rivalries. Born in Canada, brewed in the US, United by the sacred art of trash talk, because the best kinds of friendships come with nicknames you didn't approve, stories you can't escape, and just enough roasting to keep things honest. So when your team is staring down 3rd and long, crack a cold one, roast responsibly, and give a toast to the people who give you the hardest time. Labatt, brewed for the roast. All right, buddy. And, uh, Mika Bayo, Tony, let's get into it here. Let's wrap it up. before I start talking more about these college QBs and this insane, never-ending process that we all endure season after season, year after year. Let's talk about Saints hosting the Falcons. Time of this recording, the home team Saints laying 1.5. Total is 47.5. Mika Biyo, how say you?

I'm gonna take the Saints. I'm gonna take Tyler Shook and Kellen Moore over the combination of Stefanski and Michael Penix. I just think at home, place is going to be rocking. I love Olave. Give me the Saints -1.5 and only the points.

Buddy, let's hear you. The Saints were my stress-free pick of the week last Thursday, Dave. So I'm going to stick with it here. Nothing has changed to convince me otherwise. Oh, fight through it, Ethan.

Oh, look out.

Oh, look, he's getting choked up. He just remembered what happened to the Gators on Saturday. Wow.

I am, Dave. I'm still reeling from that one.

Roberts is still running.

Roberts is still running.

Tony, I've heard it through the grapevine. A little buddy told me— hey, uh, uh, Tony, a little buddy told me that you thought that kick in Virginia Tech was good.

It was. It was absolutely good. But, you know, that's—

Why don't they just do what I want? First of all, it was not good. If you see the angles, it proves it's not good. But look, just take the guesswork out and do what I've said. Complete the rectangle and put a crossbar across the 2 goalposts, and then there will be no guessing game. It'll either go into the rectangle Or it'll be no good, and that's that.

By the way, he didn't finish wide. This is clearly wide. This is clearly wide here. It is what?

That's clearly going left of the post. I don't know where that ball is.

I don't know where that ball is. That could be— that could be miles after the post.

I don't give a good goddamn wave if you know where it is. The referee said it was no good. On to UNC. Hail to Pitt. Poor Mason Heinshel. That was a great, great win. Now also a great win for the Chiefs, because I think it— I mean, that's the big takeaway, to go all the way back to when— but before Lance joined us. I think that is the biggest win if we're trying to assess what it does for— the Chiefs are now— that's a wrap on the division almost, right? I mean, now the Broncos and Chargers have an elimination game coming up next week, and the Chiefs are pristine sitting there. I mean, the Raiders are a fun story. They're not going to challenge the Chiefs for the division crown, right?

I don't think so, but I think the Raiders have a legit shot to make the playoffs.

I think they're a team that can hang around for sure and certainly surprise and win more games than any of us could have expected before the year. I think they might have already surpassed that by being 3-1, to be honest with you.

100%.

I mean, Kirk Cousins, he's just, if he's in there, you're going to win games because he's just solid, man. Like he just, the offense is effective when he's in there. He can still make a lot of throws. He's like that old wily veteran, kind of like what we saw from Case Keenum, honestly, right? Where there are just those guys that just know how to get the ball to the receivers and score a bunch of points. And Kirk Cousins is one of those guys, certainly. But the team—

He knows who he is. That's what I talk about.

Yes.

If you, if you used to be one of the great talents in the league, it's hard to modify your playing behavior and be like, oh, I can't do that anymore. I have to play like a mortal. That was never Kirk Cousins' issue to begin with.

Correct.

So he's accepted that I need the other guys to carry the day and he leans on them to do it. It does beg the question when Fernando is gonna get in there because now the script has kind of changed. They are a player much more quickly than they anticipated. And that brings me to this. Presented by Jägermeister. Serve it cold or don't serve it at all. Feel that, it's getting chilly in here, right?

Ooh, it's freezing. Hace frío.

It's 'cause they played inside instead out on the Oakland Athletics infield. That's where that game should have been played, but still, it was a good game. Anyhow, Jägermeister. Damn, that's cold. For more, visit jaegermeister.com. Drink responsibly. So like I say, the eternal conversation around the endless cycle of QB draft classes flows season to season loosely like this. In summer, the experts declare these are the 4 first-round QBs next spring. Then we get the evidence in autumn, and opinions then change like the leaves. By winter, 2 of those guys will be replaced by 2 other guys, and by spring, another player jumps into the first round while one of the OG guys falls out of the first and maybe the draft altogether. Now, I'm not trying to spook the teams doing their best to lose this fall on purpose so they get a high pick, but do consider the last half-dozen years. In summer of 2020, Clemson's Trevor Lawrence was the clear number 1, Ohio State's Justin Fields number 2, and number 3 was a debate between the potential of North Dakota State's Trey Lance and Iowa State's steady hand Brock Purdy. 6 months later, though, BYU's Zach Wilson was the consensus QB2, Bama's Mac Jones was a top 15 prospect, And Purdy decided he had to go back to Ames because it's— because his draft stock had fallen that far.

The buzz was if you needed a QB and weren't going to get Lawrence, you'd be better off waiting till the next draft for either of the twin studs, namely Oklahoma's Spencer Rattler, and maybe even better, UNC's Sam Howell. By the end of '21, Rattler had been bumped off by Caleb Williams at Oklahoma. Sam Howell was lost at sea. And, and, uh, and Pitt's Kenny Pickett was suddenly a first-round prospect along with Ole Miss guy Matt Corral and Liberty's Malik Willis. Postscript, Pickett and Corral were overdrafted, Willis was underdrafted, and Purdy wound up just right when the team that had a higher grade on him back in 2020 than they did in 2021 still took him with the last overall pick. Jump to July '23, USC transfer Caleb Williams had a big lead in the 2-horse QB race. against UNC's Drake Maye. But 5 months later, LSU's Jayden Daniels won the Heisman, and by April, Daniels was QB2 ahead of Maye. I'd say Jaylen elbowed his way ahead, but thankfully I'm not that cruel and insensitive. By May of '24, Georgia's Carson Beck was the consensus number 1, with Colorado's Shedeur Sanders his closest challenger. Notice I didn't mention Ole Miss star Jaxson Dart or Louisville's well-traveled QB in his mid-20s, Tyler Shutt.

3 months after that though, Miami's Cam Ward had jumped all of them as the consensus number 1. Then it got even weirder. Between the end of the regular season and the start of the draft, Dart became the 2nd-ranked QB and ended up going 25th overall. Shuck went 40th. Sanders didn't go to the 5th round. And Beck transferred to Miami. And before the '25 season, a lot of draft evaluators had Clemson's Cade Klubnik number 1 with Garrett Nussmeyer, Lenore Sellers, and Drew Allar right behind him. A few months later though, Indiana's Fernando Mendoza had come out of nowhere after playoff wins against Bama's first-year starter Ty Simpson and big riser Dante Moore and Ole Miss' Trinidad Chambliss and Miami's new QB Carson Beck. Fernando went number 1, Simpson went to LA, Moore went back to Eugene, and Klubnik went in the 4th just a couple rounds after former first-round prospect Carson Beck. And guess what? Now it's all happening again! Just before last spring's draft, we were told teams would be better off waiting till 27 for Arch and Lenore, it's more John Matere, Jordan Mayava, CJ Scar— CJ Carr. But now Trinidad Chambliss is the best prospect, unless it's Manning.

But you know, maybe it's Drew Mestemaker. You'd be crazy to discount Darian Mensah though. And Ohio State's QB is looking good too, I'm just saying. And I'm also just saying— None of this is meant to troll the draft experts. It's just to say everybody's throwing darts here. But since this dartboard keeps swinging back and forth wildly, maybe the best strategy is to just keep throwing darts till one sticks. And that's that. That's a wrap. That's all that we have time for. We could go on for another 3 hours, but the best we can do is talk to you again on Friday. We'll look forward to doing that. In the meantime, for me, Caballo Tony, and of course, Buddy Badowski.

Thanks, buddy.

Danny B and everybody. Thanks so much, my fellow football Americans. It's been a thin slice of heaven.