- 25 minutes ago
Seth and Sean think they've found the culprit who keeps propelling CJ Stroud trade smoke to the forefront, and it's none other than...Ryan Fitzpatrick!
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00:00This is where I'm at with the C.J. Stroud trade topic, which is, let's be clear, we have to
00:04put
00:05the warning label on all of this. There's no trade rumors with C.J. Stroud. There's, I think,
00:10a near zero percent chance he gets traded. It's been a topic this week because various nugget
00:16hussies and former players have been floating it as a solution to teams that have bad quarterback
00:23situations. They should pick up the phone and call Nick. Yeah, the teams are going to call Nick.
00:28And then that got turned into a bunch of irresponsible headlines, making it look like
00:34the Texans were considering trading C.J. Stroud. That's right. And then it's just turned into just
00:39a classic, very modern, a whole bunch of people shouting about stuff on the internet. So I'm at
00:45the stage where the pettiest show on radio, which is Peyton Pendergast by far. Yes. I'm at the stage
00:51that we normally get to something like this, like, all right, we've been doing this all week. Who do
00:56I point the finger at? Who is the, who is the biggest culprit when it comes to forwarding this
01:02narrative that has put this on our plate and had the interest turn it into reports of actual trade
01:08rumors? And Breer and Albert Breer and Todd McShay, I, what they said was, they were very clear,
01:18especially Breer. Breer's like, please don't aggregate this. This is just me spitballing.
01:22Yeah. Um, Ryan Fitzpatrick is the one that I've arrived at. Ryan Fitzpatrick has had multiple
01:29videos out there where he continues to suggest, and he goes beyond suggesting to the point where
01:36he starts almost predicting about something like this. Um, I had a cut ready to go for today.
01:42And then it was the tweet because I sent it to Ben to pull the audio was mysteriously deleted.
01:47So maybe even Fitzy's like, boy, I really am putting this out there, but the internet never
01:52forgets Fitzy. So I found this one. This is one I think is a good example of how old Fitzy
01:57is feeling
01:57about the CJ Stroud dynamic. If you're CJ Stroud's agent, you're going in there and saying, look,
02:02all the other big time quarterbacks, they got paid after their third year. And we want $60 million a
02:08year. I just think that the people in that building that are around him every day, CJ Stroud,
02:13they're the ones that are going to have to make a decision on this guy. Is this guy we want
02:18leading
02:18our building? Who knows what CJ Stroud does? I mean, if they don't give him the contract,
02:23is he going to sit and wait and say, guys, I'm not showing up until you pay me? Because that's
02:27probably the advice that his agent is going to give them. And so you look at their year overall,
02:32Davis Mills steps in, does a great job placeholder for CJ when he was out with a concussion for those
02:37weeks. Did it feel like it was a huge drop off when Davis Mills was in? No. I just think
02:42that this
02:43is one to keep an eye on because I think it could give you this season. But if you have
02:46hesitations about CJ being the face of your franchise, this is me not knowing anything.
02:51I think there's a chance maybe you trade him this off season. Yeah. That's the part. I think
02:58the, they're not being a huge drop off when Mills went in. I agree. There wasn't a huge drop off.
03:06One games. There's been a painting of Davis Mills time as a starter that's way above and beyond what
03:14it actually was. I thought that, I thought Davis Mills did a great job first and foremost in the
03:18fourth quarter of those victories of the Titans and the Jaguars games. Didn't did an incredible job
03:23and I will not take anything away from him on that. Um, but it was also, it was a very
03:28much,
03:29it was a, it was a backup QB game plan offensively. Oh yeah. And they were doing everything
03:34they could to just get the rid, get rid of the ball to the first read as fast as possible.
03:39And the level of difficulty was kind of dialed back for both the offense in general. And then
03:45for Davis Mills himself. So to act like, Oh yeah. Uh, yeah. Davis Mills to go out and do this
03:50exact
03:51same thing over the course of an entire season. I just, uh, I'm not buying it. I'm not either.
03:55Yeah. I'm not either. That sounds like Ryan Fitzpatrick career backup fringe starter,
04:01maybe looking at a fellow guy who kind of fits. I mean, Davis Mills has been a, you know, he's
04:06turned into a backup. Who's been a starter before. I feel like maybe Ryan Fitzpatrick's being a little
04:10sympathetic to a fellow, uh, tier, you know, he's that same tier of quarterback with Davis. He's got
04:18a sympathetic eye. Davis Mills. Yeah. I just don't, it's really hard for me to believe that. Okay.
04:24The Texans would be sitting here thinking, you know what? Yeah. Uh, like, cause remember to
04:30Sam Darnold's actual traits and skills and everything as a passer of the football are what
04:37got him drafted at the top of the draft. It's Davis Mills doesn't have those same things. And he
04:43hasn't shown that he's developed them, you know, between when he was drafted. And now you can still
04:50see when Davis goes out there, you can see what some of the drawbacks are in some of his accuracy,
04:55uh, and, and, and the, in, in terms of the entire package, um, to just kind of cavalierly think,
05:02well, wow. Look at Sam Darnold now. Yeah. You can just play quarterback with anybody. Hey,
05:07no, it's not, no, it's not that simple. Tell me what you think about this. I, I, I was listening.
05:12I mentioned earlier, I was driving home last night from, um, from Dan Pastorini's being angel
05:17charity event. And I was listening to Patrick Creighton and Sean Bajani and they were, they
05:21were looking at an article that Daniel Jeremiah wrote for NFL, uh, dot com. And I guess it was
05:28maybe the, the, the gist of it was what certain teams should be targeting at quarterback. Maybe
05:33guys they should be calling and they had the jets. Daniel Jeremiah did suggest to the jets,
05:39give a call to the Houston Texans, but not to trade for CJ Stroud. He said they should consider
05:44trading a mid round pick for Davis mills to be their quarterback in, um, in 2026. Yeah. Why it
05:52makes sense. Mills went three and O as a starter in 2025, including crucial wins against the bills.
05:58That's pretty good. I mean, mills did be two playoff teams. Oh yeah. No, I think that mills did
06:03everything that you would want your backup quarterback to do. Yeah. Um, the fit is the jets are looking for
06:08a reliable, low cost option rather than forcing a draft pick on a quarterback this year. He also
06:13mentioned Tanner McKee and some others as a potential target. I, this is how I feel about
06:18that. I think there's almost as little, a chance that the Texans trade Davis mills as there is that
06:24they trade CJ Stroud because they, first of all, CJ Stroud has had concussions now twice. So he CJ
06:32Stroud now, all of a sudden is in that tier of, I won't say injury prone quarterback because
06:39concussions are sort of this different animal, but he, I, I mean, it, I think you've got to assume
06:44that he's a little more concussion prone than the average guy who's not gotten a concussion before.
06:49And so see he he's among the starting quarterbacks, where if you're a team looking at your backup,
06:55you've got to be really comfortable with your backup, being able to come in there and do a
06:58backups are supposed to do, which is what Davis mills did last year. It would have to be that
07:02Graham Mertz has just been blowing everybody away. And that man, boy, he did this kid, this kid just
07:08got something. We use the next, he's the next Tom Brady. Yeah. And then if that's the situation,
07:14statistically, it's unlikely that they're looking at him as the next Tom Brady right now, 16 of 18 in
07:18that, in that preseason game, look pretty dope at preseason game. I will say that. Yeah. The jets would
07:25be one of the teams that theoretically might just, I don't think anybody's going to call Nick and say,
07:31Hey, Nick, are you thinking about trading CJ? I think it's one of those things that you maybe
07:36casually kind of jokingly mentioned when you see Nick at the combine or something, or when teams
07:41are discussing other people or whatever. Um, I like the people will ask just in case just to do
07:47their due diligence, but I don't think anybody really thinks it's realistic. No. Well, for that very
07:51reason, like the look, there's a better chance. Davis mills actually gets the jets. The first
07:58pick in the draft because they go four and 13 with him. And there is a Davis mills goes and
08:04wins nine
08:04games for them this year. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like the Davis mills on the jets would
08:08probably look a lot like Davis mills on the 2022 Texans, which ended up yielding you CJ Stroud the
08:13next year that there's a better chance of that than him going and being an above 500 quarterback
08:18with the jets. I'm annoyed with quarterback talk in general so far, because so much of it has been
08:23about either a CJ Stroud trade. That's not going to happen. Yeah. Or, um, this general theory that
08:29people have right now that there's a QB development crisis or something, which is weird to me because
08:35people keep winning the Superbowl. Uh, there's just, I don't know. I don't know where the crisis is.
08:40Oh no, the quarterback, the quarterbacks aren't good enough. But to the point where we see Jason
08:44McIntyre, who's filling in for, uh, for Colin Coward yesterday saying we're in a weird place
08:50in the NFL where there aren't 32 good backs for the start. There aren't enough good quarter quarterbacks
08:56for all 32 teams. Do I have to teach this bastard about bell curves? Right. Yeah. There's never been
09:02a time in the history of the NFL where all 32 teams felt great about their quarterback. We've,
09:06we've said, we said, oh, there's like 15 good quarterbacks on the face of the earth.
09:11Like truly good at any given time, truly good carry a team, deep playoff run. We're the reason,
09:18you know, we're carrying guys. We're turning average receivers into good to great receivers,
09:23that kind of thing. Dude, we might have an all Jason McIntyre take a mania today.
09:28He's had some rough ones. Does that take that I just described even make take a mania?
09:32I'm pulling it right now. No, I'm adding it right now. I forgot to add it. Yeah.
09:36He is ridiculously bad at saying things. It's like when it comes to saying things,
09:44he routinely says some of the dumbest things I've ever heard from anybody. There are a lot
09:48of people in sports media who are smart people who have stupid takes. I think he might just be
09:53genuinely dumb because he just doesn't get things. There's certain things he says that I don't think
09:59things make sense to him. Yeah. Which is crazy because, uh, he invented, he founded the big
10:05lead, right? And the big lead was an atrocious, it was a really good aggregator site, but it was
10:11wildly irresponsible. And some of the things that were written on the big lead when he was there,
10:14but it was a, I mean, but he made a lot of money selling the big lead. Right. Right. Yeah.
10:18He's got a good business mind, I guess that's different than having good sports takes.
10:22Yeah. Maybe he's really, yeah, he's really smart and whatever that other side of the business.
10:26Right. Right. But I think he's genuinely dumb when it comes to talking about sports.
10:30Well, mate, we'll let you, we'll, we will literally let you be the judge of that at nine
10:34o'clock today. I think Colin Coward is a smart guy, but who almost intentionally says a lot of
10:40stupid stuff because he knows that it's going to get engagement. He's the, yeah, he's kind of the
10:44opposite. Like he, he articulates it real well, you know, right. Sometimes saying something that I
10:49know he knows is dumb, but he's just going to say it anyway. Right. Yeah. That's how you make
10:53$7 million a year or whatever it is. He's got his eye on the prize. We're getting a lot of
10:58names to
10:59the base power text line, Seth, to the question we threw out there. Pat McAfee, apparently according
11:03to his new big Hollywood agent, Ari Emanuel wants to be the next Sylvester Stallone. Ironically,
11:09we'll get a chance to look at his acting chops in a show that stars Sylvester Stallone and Tulsa King.
11:15Um, but the question who would be, who's the biggest former athlete, Hollywood star Merlin
11:22Olson was a name you threw out there football players specifically, former football players.
11:26Yeah. The, the, um, Terry Cruz, I, you know what? I didn't realize that I thought Terry Cruz had,
11:32uh, I didn't know that he played in the NFL and he didn't really, he was in the NFL for
11:36like five
11:37years. I thought he had maybe gotten drafted or something. He was in the NFL for five years.
11:40He played in a total of 30 games in that time. And yet though, but, but he was an NFL
11:44player.
11:44And he's gone on to have extreme success as an actor. To me, the spirit of the question is
11:49somebody who had nearly that level of stardom in the NFL and achieving that same or a better
11:54level of stardom or close to it in, in, in Hollywood, excuse me, Alex Karras. Oh yeah.
12:01Probably as a football player is best known for, I think he got banned for gambling at one point.
12:06His football career is a good football player. Yeah. Does Florio know about this?
12:12They don't stop this legalized gambling. Alex Karras is going to get, yeah. He was a professional
12:17wrestler too. Wasn't he? Karras? Yeah. Good question. I think he did some back in the old
12:21days. He may have wrestled just like local stuff or whatever. He probably did some in Detroit
12:25in the territories there. Yeah. Yeah. He, but he's probably best known acting wise for, I remember
12:31him from two things. One Webster's dad. He was, uh, he was Emmanuel Lewis was the actor that
12:38played Webster, um, on a sitcom and then Mongo in blazing saddles, Mongo in blazing saddles. He was
12:45also Porky's brother who was the sheriff of the little Everglades town in the movie Porky's.
12:52Yeah. Remember he was the crooked cop in, in, did you, did you, did you see Porky's back in the
12:57day?
12:57Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He was a, he was a crooked cop. Porky. Uh, I know when you said Porky's brother,
13:02I thought Porky's was the name of the restaurant. Was there a guy named Porky? Yeah, it was Porky was
13:06the guy who ran the strip club there. That was the name was Porky. His name was Porky,
13:10the big, huge fat guy. Yeah. I don't got him in Washington 50. It ages well. You should go see
13:14it. There's tons of stuff in there that would never be a felony today. I swear. Uh, uh, a lot
13:19of people saying OJ Simpson. We already discussed OJ Simpson. Um, OJ Simpson was in, uh, that that's,
13:25I said that that would be the high bar for Pat McAfee in that OJ Simpson was, uh, uh, in
13:31a bunch of
13:31big movies. Uh, but it did the naked gun franchise basically was partly based on him. Um, being as
13:39what he was there, Bubba Smith is getting mentioned quite a bit on the tech slide. Okay. Who, uh, is
13:45known for Miller light commercials back in the day and for being high tower on the police academy
13:50movies. Yeah. The Miller light commercials don't count cause a lot of athletes were in those,
13:53right. But the, uh, but yeah, definitely is high tower, high tower and police academy. Did you Brown
13:58only did a couple movies? Okay. So I feel like Jim Brown and got to critical acclaim,
14:03but it's not like he made a, he didn't become a, you know, decades long movie star from it or
14:09anything. We've had, um, we've had a few people mentioned Michael Strahan and I know Strahan has
14:13acted in a few things. I think Strahan's best known now for good morning America. And he,
14:20and obviously he's on the studio, being on the studio show for the NFL doesn't count.
14:23Well, yeah, that's enough. That's like sports media and talk radio or talk media and every
14:28is what, you know, talk shows and everything that same is going into Hollywood. No, no,
14:31no. But he's on good morning America. And he also hosts the 20, uh, 25,000 or a hundred
14:35thousand dollar pyramid. Yeah. But none of that is acting, right? That's what I was going
14:39to say. I'm talking about being an action star, right? He's acted in a few thats. I'm telling
14:42the texters who are named Strahan. Yes. He's acted in a few things, but his stardom is not
14:47acting right now. Carl Weathers was only in the NFL for a couple of years. So I wouldn't say
14:52he wasn't like a bonafide NFL player the way Pat McAfee or I like, obviously Pat
14:58McAfee wasn't as good as OJ Simpson or Jim Brown. Yeah. I think was the all decade punter
15:02though. I mean, he was like any with, for what he did, he was really good. It's pretty
15:06inspirational. Uh, Burt Reynolds did not play in the NFL. So there's that. I wish McAfee
15:12were here to hear you just completely disrespect his career or just how he's dealt with it
15:18before. Yeah. He was a punter. I'm just saying like, I'm taking up for McAfee. Like his career
15:24was better than these two. Right. No, but as far as being a big name though, or whatever
15:28as a player, he's always been a bigger name as a personality as a player. Yes. He was.
15:33Yes. I'm not denying he was a really, really good punter, but it wasn't like that puts him
15:36into that same category of a Jim Brown or OJ Simpson or an Alex Karras or Merlin Olsen.
15:41Cause those guys were all really good, like famous players for, because of their football playing.
15:46Did you know that Nnamdi Asamoah is a now noted actor producer? We knew he was a former
15:53all pro NFL cornerback, um, and nearly a Houston Texan until they signed Jonathan Joseph instead,
15:58which turned out to be a much better signing. Yeah. Um, I had no idea about this. Several
16:03people texted Nnamdi Asamoah and apparently he's known for performances in, he was in Friday
16:09Night Lights, the TV show, which I don't remember. I'm, I watched Friday Night Lights from beginning
16:13to end. And I don't remember Nnamdi Asamoah in that. I apologize, Nnamdi. Um, but he is,
16:18uh, he's produced Crown Heights, Beasts of No Nation. He is, he's debuted on Broadway in a performance
16:26in a, in a play called A Soldier's Play. Um, he's been nominated for awards. Nnamdi Asamoah.
16:34Nnamdi Asamoah has definitely been in some stuff that I've seen before and wouldn't have thought,
16:39I guess I'm looking at Nnamdi Asamoah right now. And I think part of it is that he just doesn't,
16:44he, he doesn't have a super recognizable face as a player. Right. I don't, he wasn't ever really
16:49outspoken or anything. Right. He just kind of went about his business. No. And, um, and, and now like,
16:56and now he actually looks, if you had to ask me, if I just saw a picture of Nnamdi Asamoah
17:00and you
17:01asked me, is this guy an actor or a football player? And I'd say, I don't know. He looks like
17:04it. He looks like
17:05an actor who might play the role of a football player. Right. Right. Right. Good looking dude,
17:10but got a kind of unique look to him. And I don't feel bad about Nnamdi Asamoah. Right. Right. Well,
17:14it's you and I, it was kind of eyeopening for us at, at a, well, I don't want to speak
17:20for you,
17:20but I know for me at the Superbowl, when we were staying at the hotel with all the Pro Bowl
17:25players,
17:26I'm like, and you can tell who the football players are in the lobby just based on sheer size and
17:31they're wearing NFL stuff and how they're carrying themselves. I, um, I was a little disgusted with
17:36myself at how few NFL players I know by their actual face by sight by sight. Yeah. Yeah. Like
17:45all the Texans I knew. Cause we, I don't even know. I don't, don't feel bad about it. Cause that's,
17:49I mean, that's inherently the problem with football players being recognizable is the word face mask.
17:53Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I was in the elevator with what I'm pretty sure it was Trey McBride.
17:58Yeah. At the time I'm like, I don't know if that's Trey McBride or Aiden Hutchinson.
18:02I couldn't tell you the difference. They've got a kind of a similar look. I would know Aiden
18:06Hutchinson. I would, you would think Trey McBride looks a little bit like enough like him. Okay.
18:14That I thought that it might've been Aiden Hutchinson. Okay. Okay. I thought it was Trey McBride,
18:18but they both have that kind of that facial hair where they look like a, like a 16 year old
18:23standing
18:23outside the convenience store. Like they're trying to grow a beard, but they can't.
18:28Yeah. Um, okay. Back to Davis Mills for a second on the base power text line. I hate this narrative.
18:33Mills was good for like three drives that the hold up, hold up, hold up. That's not true.
18:37He engineered a 19 point comeback against Jacksonville inherently. They needed at least
18:43three drives in that game alone. And then he had the game winning field goal drive against the Titans.
18:48And then, yeah, maybe he only had like one or two good drives against the bills. I agree with the
18:53sentiment of, I agree with the sentiment of this texter, which is that if you go back and watch those
18:58three Davis Mills games, there are large swaths of football that were just as bad as the brief
19:05good drives were good. Yeah. There were a lot of droughts in those games. You look, he's look,
19:11Davis Mills is a backup quarterback on a team that has the best defense in the NFL. That's what he
19:16went
19:16and did. And then in the large part too, that's, I mean, CJ was operating a lot this season as
19:22a guy
19:23that knew that he had the best defense in the NFL. Right. And, and we're, I mean, one thing that's
19:29coming into focus a little bit and I'm, and I'm glad for it is that I felt like a lot
19:34of people were
19:34given the offensive line really more credit than they deserved during the season because CJ wasn't
19:39getting sacked as much. Um, and they did make improvements. I will a hundred percent sign on
19:44to saying that they, they made some improvements, especially midway through the season. If their
19:49consistency, uh, they fundamentally looked more sound. They weren't making as many mental errors,
19:54but a lot of the reduced sackals, everything else went with, it was because of the way CJ was operating
20:01the offense and he did a good job of being smart on getting rid of the ball quickly, understanding
20:06better when he could hold onto the ball longer. Um, I thought he showed a lot more just veteran
20:12savvy in that part of the game this year, but it wasn't, I mean, it wasn't, don't get me wrong.
20:16It wasn't a great year for CJ and I'm not going to make any excuses overall that, you know, he,
20:21he definitely could have had a better year, but, um, he still was working with, uh, uh, uh,
20:27haphazardly put together offense. There was also missing Joe Mixon. Yes. The first half of the
20:32season, you got Nick Chubb is your, your lead back, um, is Woody Marks is starting to come along
20:37and then Woody Marks in the second half of the season is a lead back, but he was getting injured
20:41almost every game, every game he was leaving at least once. Yeah. I, I, it just, and again,
20:47yeah, CJ needs to play better, but there was a lot working against them this year that CJ made look
20:53that CJ didn't CJ made it look like less of a big deal than it was because I thought he
20:59did improve
21:00in a lot of ways.
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