Transcript of The Chicken Apple Sausage of Quarterbacks? | Local Hour

You are listening to the Dan Levitan Show in partnership with the DraftKings Sports App, now live in all 50 states.

I mean, I guess football's back, kind of, sort of. I mean, let's really wait for the regular season, right everybody? Hi and hello, Levitar Universe. It's your old pal Dave, Dave Dameshek in the big chair. Where's Dan? Where's Zazz? Where's everybody? Oh, there they are behind the glass. What a gang! In honor of Zazz, let me say, we made it to Friday, everybody!

Clap it up! Alright, this crew has it working for them.

Definitely.

You know about that Friday? I can only imagine how sunburned Zazz is right now. A week on a cruise.

I saw a photo.

You don't have to imagine. Let me share it with you.

I just had, while you do that, and it might look similar, I just had a sausage link. To Zazz, I mean. I'm comparing the sausage link to burnt Zazzlo. Best breakfast meat? Good place to launch the show here.

I was a bacon guy forever.

Yeah.

And I recently, the last year or two, I've turned the corner. I'm a sausage man now.

Well, I think it's important that you distinguish what kind of sausage too. If you're going to lean in, go all the way. Sausage link.

Yeah, I go link. I think Patty's a rookie move.

Yeah, I agree. But does anybody want to— Tashay, it looks like you're maybe chomping at the bit and at a sausage patty to defend the the flat circle.

No, I'm not going with the sausage patty, but I will tell you something that's unsurprising, which is that my personal favorite is the chicken apple sausage.

Of all breakfast meats?

Of all the sausage. Yeah, of all breakfast meats.

Check that out.

If I can get a chicken apple sausage somewhere, it's the thing I'm going for.

You know about that fennel?

Fennel.

Dave had the interesting strategy of eating a sausage link out of a cup.

I've never seen that before.

Doesn't make it wrong. You know, I've advocated for some years now, you know, a lot of people—

Holy crap, look at this sunburn we have from that. He's so sunburned!

Oh no.

A little bit of beard. Zazzle zigaki.

Yeah.

Gotta get the cheeks, man.

When you're that bald, is it just forgetting that you have to put sunscreen elsewhere?

He was definitely wearing shades and a hat, but he forgot that the sun bounces off the ocean.

That's his new name now, Apple Chicken Sausage. That's what he looks like when he's out at sea. First of all, the people who eat the patty, and they'll try to justify a sausage patty because it's better on a bagel or an English muffin, but it's not. You just have to split your sausage link and lay it flat in that way. Now, I feel bad for Tashay, that chicken apple sausage.

You feel bad for me?

Well, you know, I—

These are my taste buds.

Okay, but listen, there's a difference between truly living and eating chicken patty.

I've had enough of an assault on the things that I like. Over the last couple of years. First, your jelly beans, now chicken apple sausage. Let me like what I like.

Hey, Mike Ryan, I know you're upset about the— or the pregnancy of Miami not having an athletic director as we launch into another football season here. But as always, there are certain brands that will remind you that it could always be worse. You could be them. Did you hear the Purdue athletic director?

I— yes, I did.

Tommy McClelland at his introductory press conference. In West Lafayette, which also, you know, I went to Indiana University, to be clear, and, you know, West Lafayette stinks, and it begs the question, how bad must East Lafayette be? But either way, Tommy McClellan steps to the microphone to introduce himself to the world and Purdue's new wave.

Go ahead.

Is East Lafayette just Lafayette?

Well, I don't know. Why the distinction? Why would we have to carve out the western portion? Also, is it so grand a land, Lafayette? That we have to, we have to carve it up.

Also, like, there is a common misnomer with the, uh, the southern tip of the United States. It's actually like more central than people realize. You can draw pretty much a vertical line from Miami to Cleveland. There's parts of Florida that are in the Central Time Zone, so I'm not even sure if Lafayette is east of West Lafayette.

Boy, that's a good point. You know what's the, the weirdest state in the union in terms of like the amount, uh, its geography and how many states it touches is Tennessee. It's very skinny, it's a short state, but it's wide. It's very, very wide. I'm trying to think, trying to make a joke out of somebody, but who is, uh, like Maurice Jones-Drew? Maurice Jones-Drew. Okay, I was looking, I was looking behind the glass there. No one really fits that description. But anyhow, Tommy McClellan— now, as a reminder, did you guys remember the national championship game, right?

The—

yeah, Carson Beck is in the news and we'll get to him in just a second here. He's, he's now on a pro football team.

Well, you remember it. Yes, I remember how it ended. You had nothing to do with it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, either way, Tommy McClelland is, is now the Purdue athletic director. And, and 6 months after Purdue's arch rival Indiana won the national championship, here's what Tommy had to say. Every recruit, every current student athlete will hear this message repeatedly. We are here to win championships. If you don't want to win championships, go to Indiana.

I like a banter AD. That's a banter AD. That's a bar. He workshopped that. It killed in the room.

Well, it's right. He's headed in the right direction, which is the one that Kurt Cignetti, the head coach of Indiana University, took went, you know, a couple years before they won the national championship, when he said, "We're gonna beat Michigan and Ohio State, and we're gonna beat Purdue," and all of that, and the crowd obviously went wild. Tommy's trying the same angle here, but he's ignoring—

Did he also say, "We're gonna beat Central Michigan and Eastern Michigan, Arkansas State perhaps, that's our non-conference schedule." Where is, by the way—

well, fair, and they are kind of daring. Indiana University, the reigning national champion, is kind of daring the committee to leave them out because they're— even though they're in the Big Ten, the best conference in America the last few years, they have a cupcake out-of-conference schedule and they really only play one good team, which is Ohio State. And so Signetti and company are daring the committee to leave us out. Oh, Ohio State came to Bloomington and whipped us. It's our only loss. You're going to leave us out? We're the defending national champs. It really does set up already to play tricks on the polls and the entire approach to evaluating who makes this tournament. Where is Miami ranked? I haven't even looked yet.

Believe we're number 7, just behind Indiana. Um, 7 is the absolute floor. I'm okay with 7, but if we were 8, I'd be pissed.

You legitimately anticipate a big run out of the U this year?

Yeah, in large part due to the fact that the team is very good. We're, we're a loaded team, and, uh, You know, the conference is— I mean, the national perception is accurate. It's not one of the top 2 conferences. I'll concede that. While I will also admit that I think the top 2 conferences are a little overrated too in terms of the narrative around them. But yeah, 7 is okay. We should be behind Indiana. I look at this top 10 and let's, let's throw it back up there. This preseason top 10. I got so many issues with the preseason top 25. I just hate the notion of it.

Correct.

Makes, makes no GD sense to me, especially since it actually has actual ramifications. What you are seeing on your screen right now of the top 25 coaches poll will in a roundabout fashion keep one deserving team out of the CFP just because the entire season is an exercise in confirmation bias for what we are seeing right now. And even more ridiculous than the coaches poll top 25 which is just basically for entertainment purposes. It's a TV construct to try to get you to watch because the number next to it incentivizes it, is the, the ESPN FBI— FPI preseason index, which actually is used as a metric by the College Football Playoff Committee. When you look at it before the season, I don't know how they determine FPI before any games have been played, and 25— 75% of the top 25 or SEC teams, they've already gamed the system a little bit. They've already rigged the election on the front end in so many ways. How—

I mean, what is for real? If you're going to have a preseason poll based on what, would you not have the reigning champ at number 1, right? Doesn't that follow?

I mean, I know they lost Mendoza, who is a generational college football player, right? One of the best, most successful seasons ever. They brought in Hoover. They're still very loaded. They brought in a ton of talent. They were by wins and losses the greatest college football team ever. Right. I don't, I don't get putting them at number 6.

Well, I don't understand. You know, you and I, I don't get putting them next to any number. We park our cars in the same garage. The confirmation bias. Why would you have a preseason poll when you don't have any information yet except what you think is going to happen? It's a ridiculous way to approach things.

It's equally ridiculous, though, to take, let's say, like the number 1 team and they beat some like FCS school the first week and now they're number 1 because they beat some shitty team like that. Then you're okay with it. I mean, it's all kind of— so you're saying what, after week 5, then we come out with our first rankings?

I don't care if you do it after the first week. What you can't do is say, I think this is going to happen because part of the human condition is that we all want to be proven right.. And so if Notre Dame loses its first game— shame the devil— its first two games like it did last year, then they still stay in the top 25. Then what are we doing? You guys decided to abandon the polls, remember? You guys decided to have a tournament in place of the polls that always existed. And Mike is absolutely right, the most ludicrous of them all has always been the coaches' poll, who by definition, ironically or otherwise, are not seeing the games. Why? Because they're playing games themselves. How would they have any opinion on games that they haven't seen? How would they know anything about it? By the way, coaches polls predate cable TV, so literally you would not have any information. If you're Joe Paterno, how would you have any, uh, ability to— UCLA looks real good. You have never seen them play a game.

Are you okay?

Are you okay with NFL preseason odds to win divisions? Like, we know guys that are going to be on these NFL rosters.

Odds are different. Odds are not used as a metric to determine a playoff ranking. It would be— it would be just as ridiculous to have NFL preseason rankings.

And we all would eat that up though.

You would eat it up.

Can we do a top 10?

You would eat it. You would eat it up. And by the end of the season, it would be incredibly wrong. And let's not pretend like there weren't massive impacts from last season's preseason top 25. Alabama's a preseason top 10. That preseason ranking got them over the line ultimately in the end to the CFP. Notre Dame's preseason ranking too allowed them to maintain a ranking when they started the season 0-2. It's a ridiculous thing.

I'm going to come up with my preseason NFL top 10.

You know, Chris, I think I feel like you think you've just landed on a billion-dollar idea there. There's something called power rankings, and almost everybody who talks about pro football does them.

No, this is different.

Not Dave Dameshek. Dave Damashek doesn't do it because Damashek is no dupe. Damashek ain't about jiving you. Dan Levitar, the person who insists that Dave Damashek, when they make a list of the great— well, the first one is when they say of all time.

This is the Dan Levitar Show.

By the way, I'd like to establish early on here today for the rest of this Friday my no jive policy. Please don't jive me. Don't jive jive the audience, and most importantly, don't jive yourself. And the power rankings thing, I don't know if everybody heard about, about the power that everybody issues week after week. We have a, uh, a thing called the playoffs, and those are determined by seedings, and those seedings are determined by your win-loss record. College football, I don't know if they're up to speed on that. That's what they've established for themselves now. You don't need to do the polls anymore, except As Mike says rightly, they did impact who made last year's tournament. You can't vote on that and have an element of it. And the idea was— the trade-off was, okay, we're going to get rid of the polls. They no longer matter. Why we're still doing them, I don't know. And as it turns out, they did still influence who wound up playing in the tournament.

Because here's how the College Football Playoff Committee does it. For all the dilution of polls and the fact that, well, we can't trust these polls and we certainly can't trust the computers. Is they— the way that they make their rankings is they get the AP Top 25, they get the coaches poll, and they figure out, what do I want to change about this? So it's hugely impactful whether people want to admit it or not. I know the line that they say is we rank our top 25 totally independent of all that stuff.

Bullshit.

They look at the other rankings. It is very clearly a roadmap. You're never looking at a college football playoff ranking, comparing it to the other ones and being like, How the hell did they come up with this? It's not its own thing. It's heavily influenced by the, the other rankings.

By the way, a lot of it is based on who the coach is at this point because NIL has really accelerated this, the notion of what I'm— what I have always argued, which is based on what you have that team as the 17th best in the land. What went into your thought process there? You know nothing about them. About all the kids who transferred in there. It's, it's abject jive, except that we then, by the end of the season, it is a point of if it's a close call between a couple of teams, they do tend to lean on that information. And the, the NFL comp, Chris Cody, is when you start doing power rankings and everything else and like, we know, yeah, when, when an element of the conversation is 'Yeah, but you know, you know that team is better than the other.' That would be the equivalent of the reference I always make with that is in the early '90s when the Chargers beat the Steelers in Three Rivers Stadium when everybody knew the Steelers are the better team over the season and Stan Humphries is now going to a Super Bowl would have been for the NFL overlords to be like, 'Yeah, but you know that, you know, the Cowboys are better than the Chargers.

Let's just send the Cowboys to play Steve Young's Niners again.' That That'll be better. Everybody gets it.

I know the Chargers beat the Dolphins, but the Dolphins are better.

Come on, you know, what are we doing here?

I mean, it's a—

it's— it's an asinine approach to things. And then I did love ESPN. Now, the relatively new wrinkle— obviously network partners have always influenced these things to some extent, but again, talk about accelerating the situation. ESPN now openly touting the SEC despite the fact that the Big Ten has won the last 3 titles, making the case. But come on, you know, the SEC is tougher.

How are we still doing this? They haven't been featured in any of the last 3 national championship games. And every year the narrative is there come CFP time. But they play— you got to put Oklahoma in there. They did it in the SEC. They—

why?

Because they beat Bama? Yeah, but Bama did it in the SEC. Bama couldn't do it at Tallahassee. Yeah, but the week-in, week-out grind. And then inevitably you have a team, say like last year Miami and the year before that Notre Dame, that'll just run through a handful of SEC teams during the college football playoff. And it doesn't carry over. We still continue with this narrative. And it happens again during the preseason in the coaches poll. As you mentioned, Dave is ridiculous. I happen to know what goes into coaching a head football program, just seeing what Mario Cristobal does, right? And whatever you think Mario Cristobal does, however obsessive you think Mario Cristobal is about talent acquisition and his job, it's undersold. He's a maniac. I cannot fathom asking Mario Cristobal at any point of the year, let alone right before the year, Hey, what do you think of the Houston Cougars this year? Yeah, what—

BYU versus A&M, who do you— I mean, which of those two teams do you, do you rank?

Hey Mario, what do you think about Boise this year? Uh, you know, probably 31st best football team in the nation. I don't know, I haven't really put pen to paper. Well, we're gonna ask you to tell us about the Cincinnati Bearcats, Mario Cristobal. Hop off the phone real quick, stop game planning, stop trying to be a maniac about talent acquisition. Tell me about the Cincinnati Bearcats, Mario Cristobal.

By the way, the reality is, is that the coaches themselves don't typically do that. The result is, you know better than I do, AD or information guy, you cast our vote for us. Taché.

No, I mean, I— look, not to hold up a decade-old gripe that I really try not to bring up anymore, but we have examples of teams that have literally gone undefeated and then not gotten to a playoff because the— no, because the argument is, oh man, we all know that that schedule was more difficult, so who cares that those teams lost? We all know that team's better, just look at their recruiting rankings. And that really is— it's no different from the SEC to the ACC as it would be from the ACC to the Big 12 or the Big 12 to the AAC. All of these conferences look up and go Well, why, why do we automatically say that you're better even though you've lost 3 games just because of the recruiting rankings that are in the uniforms? You have to see those teams play.

Well, we know—

and decide to play it out.

We know because in the preseason they had a 17 next to their name.

Exactly.

And that basically sets the table for the rest of the season.

We park our cars in the same garage, my friend.

Well, the imbuing of powers that you may or may not have is, is never truer than in the SEC. This thing that everybody is expected to just accept as fact But Bama had that gauntlet that they had to run through midseason last year. Go through those teams, go through them one by one. Tennessee wasn't a tournament team. I mean, they're some decent teams there, you know, power—

fat off Tennessee and Mizzou, two teams that did not beat ranked teams.

That's right.

And, you know, and the U— so like I said a few minutes ago, I think Indiana— I don't know how intentional it was, but where it lands is They're kind of now in a spot if they do. And if you go through their schedule, you know, Washington probably is going to be good this year, back into the season. Off the top of my head, I can't recall who they play at Michigan. Do the Hoosiers— I think they play USC in Bloomington. But, but bottom line is it's not a real rugged schedule. Ohio State is the toughest game. Let's say that's the only game they lose. They are doing the opposite of what everyone counsels these days, which is, boy, you better have a tough non-conference game or two to legitimize yourself. I think, I think this is the opposite. We're in the Big Ten. You know what? It's an SEC sort of approach too, in fact, because the SEC, the other thing that they get away with ongoing that everybody just abides by is them, what, in Week 10 just, just playing a preseason game against like a Division III school or something.

I don't want this to sound like sour grapes. I don't want to use the example of last year, Indiana, because I truly think Indiana was one of the best teams ever. Well-coached, incredible execution, their talent undersold. They have a lot of NFL guys on that team. The example for Indiana and a soft schedule and gaming the system to get in the CFP was probably the year before where they played absolutely nobody and they weren't like CFP worthy.

Maybe I'm a hypocrite then because get— I could kind of understand. I think they did earn it, and obviously they wound up in the playoff, but there was some case against them because they had never been there and what is going on in Bloomington, Indiana, the basketball school and all of that. But now with the information that we have, oh, they ran the table. They beat all those heavyweight teams to get to number 1 and win the national championship. Maybe I am being influenced now by the new powerhouse program that Curt Cignetti has built over there in Bloomington, Indiana. Dude, we don't cry in the Midwest. We don't get all down in the dumps if we lose. We pick ourselves up and we dust ourselves off and we come back the next week. We ain't no crybabies like they are down in the SEC countries.

Is that your Bill Simmons impression?

No, that's Coach Curt Cignetti.

Well, it's really a testament to how bad you are.

You don't know what you're talking about!

What?

Mean it comes! You on with a young Football America with Dave Dameshek. I don't care about the Steelers. I care about Drake Maye. Drake Maye's the best.

It's truly the worst Bill Simmons impression.

It's the worst impression I've ever heard.

Are you jiving?

You sound like a South Park character.

I am not jiving. I— what I am doing is it's— I'll pull it back a little bit here. Everybody knows Cousin Sal from The Kimmel Show. Of course, that's his impression of Bill Simmons. And that's me doing my impression of Sal doing Simmons. You know, kind of—

that's kind of like when I do Harry Carrey, I'm doing Will Ferrell.

Yeah, you get it, you get it. Um, any more thoughts on the breakfast meat?

Yeah, actually I wanted to bring that back. I'm really glad that you did.

Well, it's a very weird— a chicken—

okay, so first of all, chicken apple sausage, I like— move on from that because that's what you said is the best. It's great.

Why I would move on from it?

It is the best.

Was the patty created simply for the breakfast sandwich?

This is what I was about to ask because I think that we, similar to the way that the coaches poll dismisses MAC teams like the Toledo pockets, I think we dismiss the sausage patty too quickly because ultimately its versatility is what jumps to the front of the table. Because yes, you can have it the same way that you would have a sausage link and having it on its own, but really the benefit is that it can go in an egg and cheese sandwich and now you got a sausage egg and cheese. You put that on a bagel, that's about as good.

Yeah, the sausage link can also be placed between bread. In fact, I would argue the sausage link is more versatile.

Oh, if you slice it?

What, you're gonna take a hot dog bun, put a sausage and a little bit of egg around it and maybe, You gotta splay it.

That's what you do.

You cut it at like an angle. You get it like the little flat slices.

That's, that's what splaying is. You gotta do work.

There is actually zero versatility to a patty. No, you put the patty in the sandwich.

Although I do enjoy picking it up with my fingers, the patty, and eating it like a cookie.

Well, but you already picked up the sausage link earlier this week.

But part of the delight of the link is its snap, you know?

Ah, that snap. You're right, you don't get the snap with the patty.

You want the nice snap. There's nothing really better about the patty. And as Mike rightly points out, you just splay that wiener out real nice and put it betwixt the bread.

Do what now? Yeah, I find it very satisfying to take it out of the casing.

Oh, you do?

And grill it up real nice.

Yeah. What do you do with the skin?

Play with it a little bit and then throw it away.

So wait, you're doing homemade sausage patties? I mean, then you put the skin over your face.

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

When you say homemade, like, we're not filling the casing, we're just getting some sausage of the lambs.

That's what I'm doing, which is again an impression of an impression. Jim Carrey, okay, okay. Down, Levitar!

I hope he goes to your town so I can laugh because you think he'll make you a contender.

Who's that impression of?

The sports guy.

Oh, oh, okay, do some more.

What part of Massachusetts is that? Let me hear some more. Dave Demacek!

I don't do a good Simmons, but that's what doing right now.

That's maybe the worst—

that's the worst.

Hey man, that's a bad impression.

I'm a heat media. This is the Dan Levatar Show.

I don't want to throw a grenade into the conversation, but at least on the very short list, the best breakfast meat, bun and ham. Bone-in.

I do like a breakfast ham steak.

Yeah.

The flat. I've never had bone-in ham.

File this one away for the holidays. People, a lot of people have a big ham at their Christmas table, and then there's invariably going to be leftover ham. Here's what you do. You throw that ham into the fridge overnight. You pull it out first thing when it's time for breakfast. You carve off some pieces of ham. You drop it into a pan. Listen to it sizzle up. Next stop, 9, right?

Yeah.

Hey, um, Mike, or the, the, uh, the gathered group, I'll take it, it's mine. The guy who lost in the national championship game and assumptions made about him as a college quarterback now turning into assumptions about what kind of pro football quarterback he'll be. And I, I You know, like the late, great Jerry Orbach at the end of Dirty Dancing, "When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong," and this is an offshoot of that. I counsel everybody every summertime, don't look at August. You know, it's like in the movies, like, don't look directly at it kind of thing, or you'll turn into stone kind of thing. Don't look at preseason football. It's only going to trick your brain. It's a month-long lie for your eyes. And I watched one drive from Carson Beck and I was seduced.

Did you know that Jerry Orbach donated his eyes to an eye bank? So there may be people walking around on the planet Earth with Jerry Orbach's eyeballs in their face.

Look close at my left eye. Notice a difference there?

Oh, hey, Jer.

When I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong.

Carson Beck looked incredible last night, huh?

He sure did.

I was surprised.

I, I do have to take a quick, uh, if I can critique one thing before we jump into the good of Carson Beck. 19, that's the number you choose? You're a quarterback, like, what? You can have anywhere from 1 up to 19, and we can cut— we can have a conversation about 0, and I don't know if they've now completely outlawed 20 for QBs, but 19 may be the worst number for a QB.

I, I I find it aesthetically pleasing.

Why?

I think it makes a quarterback's body look good.

I think 17 is the worst. I've often argued. I think 17 is just a number I don't like.

You got the elbow sticking out in the 17. It's usually tucked over Philip Rivers' beer belly. I don't like it.

The only numbers that work with a 7 in it are offensive lineman 70. I don't like 17. I don't like 27. I don't like 37. I don't like 47. I don't like 57.

Not enough 77. On the defensive front. That's a bad number that a lot of people don't pick up on. The best number— the debate boils down to, you know, spoiler alert, the two best numbers are 12 and 7. And 7 wins because it's aspirational. It's an arrow pointed upward. You know, that's where you're headed if this is your QB. Yes, Roy?

Yeah, you said 19 is the worst number. That was worn by Johnny Unitas.

I know who No, it doesn't change anything for me. And by the way, that was a subject I tried to get into poorly. Montana Chiefs. That's right, Montana Chiefs. Well, the worst one is—

16's worse than 19.

No, 2 is—

2 is great!

I was gonna say 2 and 10.

2 looks cool as shit!

2 and 10 are my favorite quarterback numbers.

2's a very cool number.

You just said it, Mike Ryan. It's shit.

Oh, you can't do that.

Number 2? You wanna be number 2?

You know what sucks as a quarterback number? And I love Cam Ward. And I love Warren Moon and I love Cam Newton, but number 1, I don't think it's a great choice. How many white guys have worn number 1?

Wow. Probably a lot of them.

How many white quarterbacks have worn number 1?

I'm looking it up.

Yeah. The only guys I can really think of are Moon.

Half of them are named Cam. Mike Adamlee from— wait, from American Gladiators?

Yes.

Running back.

Yes. Mike Adamlee, the running back turned broadcaster, wore number 1 when he was matriculating. He was a student athlete.

Mike Adamley. Remember when he called Jeff Hardy Jeff Harvey?

That's some memory. Anywho, 19 is a bad number. I once said to—

he looked good in that uniform.

He did. I said to Matt Ryan once, I had the occasion to talk to him and challenge him on his chosen jersey, 2. Same conversation.

What? Why? You got a bad body for 2. You have to have the right body for number 2.

But I Yeah, we— all our bodies make number 2, which is why you wouldn't— you shouldn't wear number 2 on purpose. 1 is a weird choice because it means that you're the guy, and it's kind of—

Matt Ryan made a mistake. He's not a number 2.

Well, I asked Matt Ryan, why number 2 of all the numbers that were available to you? And he said, because my favorite player growing up wore number 2. And I said, who was that? And he said, Tim Couch. And I said to him, How great is it? How many people can rightly claim that they ended up being better at the activity than their favorite player growing up? That's pretty cool.

The Tim Couch number 2 Cleveland Browns jersey, the one that started them all.

That's right.

That's the one that you see when people have all the other patches of the names. It's a good-looking jersey. Tim Couch was the guy that made me think number 2 is actually a cool quarterback number. And here's a misnomer about Tim Couch. He actually wasn't that bad. Yes, it's— he goes in the books as a bust because he was a number 1 overall draft pick and Kelly Holcomb supplanted him, but they made the playoffs largely due to Tim Couch's heroics. He wasn't a bad quarterback. He got injured.

Year of the Lord 2026. Here's Mike Ryan making a case for, for Tim Couch being the number 2. But you're now off the Cleveland Browns, and so now let's turn back to the Arizona Cardinals.

I don't like number 4. I'll tell you that much.

Really?

Number 4 for a quarterback? Inoffensive. No, really? How about Deshaun Watson?

Okay, too.

Yeah, Damechek. Deshaun Watson does not offend me.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. I take it back. You're right.

Brett Favre. It's me, man. Well, right now, Favre, bad number.

You just—

Prescott.

You referenced the Cardinals. Do you want to see if they're on the preseason producers poll?

Oh, here we go. It's been a while. There are 32 teams. You ran out of gas at 25. You're right up there.

Main feed, main feed.

Take it. All right, top, top 25 preseason producers poll.

Wow.

Anything stand out to you? I don't see the Cardinals on there.

Were they others receiving votes?

They got a vote.

So Dolphins, Browns, Cardinals, all others receiving votes. Who else didn't get—

Chris Cody. This brings me to— on Football America, it's a game that we play in August. It's a really difficult game. It's a, it's a sneaky tough game to play right now. And really, basically from the draft and free agency on, it's way easier given the structure of the postseason in the NFL to talk yourself into— in the parity that they shoot for and all the other reasons why— it's way easier to talk yourself into why a team could make the playoffs than why a team has absolutely no chance of making the playoffs in a given year. It's time to play No Playoffs for You. I want you to name 3 teams that you are absolutely, positively sure are not going to be in the postseason tournament, and if you're wrong, I take one of your digits. On the other side of the new year?

Jets, Dolphins.

I mean, the Browns. The Jets are not a great— you know, all— wait, you just went 3 teams from one conference?

I thought you just said 2 teams.

I said 3 teams and you went 3 teams from the same conference. That's pretty bold.

You keep your fingers.

Yeah, I don't think those 3 teams are making the playoffs.

I would go Dolphins, Cardinals. Cardinals I actually don't think the Cardinals are that, that bad, even though Nathaniel Hackett's their offensive coordinator. But that division is just murder.

Yeah.

No playoffs for you. And Browns.

Well, the Dolphins are one of the best plays in this regard in the last decade because they have announced we don't intend to make the playoffs. I just wonder what that conversation is to Malik Willis. Haffley and company. And then I do want to get back to Carson Beck, but I— what, what do you think that conversation goes like? Everybody— it's one of the narratives that they're tanking the season. And as I've said on this show before, poor Malik Willis, maybe he benefits from it because the coaches brought him in because of the past relationship, and maybe he understands no matter what, he is going to be the starting quarterback next season. But Imagine what is it for Halfley to step in front of that room of people and try to convince them to put out their best when the organization intends to not make the playoffs.

You want to answer the question?

Not really.

I mean, what do you— how do you inspire? I understand the idea.

You're the Dolphin guy. You're literally wearing a Dolphin shirt. Were you not? You weren't listening.

I don't like that team.

I was reacting to the reaction of my—

my poll here.

You were just—

yeah, just reading the polls.

I will say that picking the Dolphins to be certainly bad is risky because there are unknown factors in Halfley and Malik Willis. Like, it is a little dangerous for a starting quarterback getting his first shot as QB1 and a first-time head coach. That could be a spark. That could be something special. Whereas like the Jets, Geno Smith, you kind of know what you're getting. All right. Last year was, was pretty much time to write back. He famously didn't write back. He started to write back.

If you're wrong about one of those, even though the Cardinals are probably better, I think the team that would have a shot at least of, of making you look bad is— and taking away which digit would it be, by the way, Chris, that we take? I'll give you the choice.

My right ring finger?

Yeah, ring finger is the move. You can't go pinky or thumb. A lot of your strength in your hand comes from those outside fingers.

Oh no, yeah, you need the opposable digit. That's off the table. But your ring finger will be sitting on the table.

Dave, what you're doing is actually pretty easy. Like, to identify bad teams that are expected to be bad. What is really difficult is taking teams that are expected to be good and looking at that group and said, one of these teams is going to have a sucky season.

I love it. The Rorschach team. The who is, who is the, the team that we are imbuing with powers that are not actually there. We just talking ourselves into them by looking at them briefly. I don't think that— I do think it's a fascinating spiritual conversation in Haffley's first year with his new QB who just moved down there. It's very easy to convince yourself Listen, everybody knows what this season is. Don't worry, Malik Willis. But Arch Manning, let's say he does fulfill his destiny as the next Manning.

He looks good.

He hasn't already fulfilled that?

Well, he is in fact the next Manning. You're right about that. But I mean, the next great—

Promises made, promises kept.

Great, great Manning is what I should have— I should have put that word in there. But yes, I— if Arch Manning's there, let's say we have some B-roll here of him looking good at Texas camp here.

Yeah, I mean, he's just—

he looks good in shorts. Oh, that's a huge part of it.

That looks like a spiral.

Is that a 70-yard throw?

He did throw a spiral, which is nice for him.

Wow.

Yeah, which is unlike his uncle. Old 18 didn't throw a ton of spirals.

I'm taking the courageous stance of, uh, thinking that Arch Manning's gonna be okay. All right, I, I think he's gonna be all right. Last year a lot of people jumped off. I held on to that stock.

But did you just bring him up through the context of should the Dolphins, if Like, I just think it sets up for—

it's a really weird spot for Malik Willis to be in. Don't worry, man. And it does question— it does call into question his decision-making as well. Okay, we got to talk about Carson Beck because I want to know from the U fans' perspective, if you're now excited, are you now going to vibe away from Cam Ward or at least now make room in the garage for Cam Ward? And for Carson Beck.

Cam Ward is always a cane, always going to be a cane no matter what, even if he flames out in the NFL, always a cane. With Carson Beck, it's a little bit more complicated. He did substantial winning over at Georgia. When people close their eyes, I think they still think of Carson Beck as a Georgia Bulldog, even though he threw the last pass of the last football season. But here's what I'll say. If he's good, I will claim him.

And if he's not—

if he's not—

put him on George and call him a—

that's a Georgia boy—

chicken applesauce.