40s And Free Agents: Heisman Candidates, "Looking the Part" as a Quarterback & Week 2 in the NFL

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2:16Welcome to 40s and free agents. I am Bucky Brooks. That's my guy, LZ Lance Zerline, and we are going to drop the knowledge on all things football today. But Lance, what's going on? What's happening in H-Town?

2:28Bucky Brooks:Well, I mean, we'll talk about it. We got an on-two football team here that, you know, have some people. It's time to clean house. Like, cleaning house off the Nico Ryans? Really? Are we cleaning house? So, you know, you found out that life without Nico Collins is a real, real problem. So we'll get into some of that because they're one of the more disappointing 0-2 teams. And we've got a list of some disappointing 0-2 teams in that week three game. When you're 0-2 that week three, whoo, is it really important statistically in terms of chances of making the playoffs? So we've got that, Buck. I want to get into some college football.

3:07Bucky Brooks:In fact, I want to start off with some college football right to the Lane Kiffin Bowl, right? So I want to know where you stand on Lane Kiffin. And right to it we'll go to college football. But I'm curious because we didn't really hit on this last week. Lane's one of those guys you love to hate. But there's something about Lane that I kind of like. I don't want to like. But I just do. I think in a way he's good for the drama of college football. But it was fun in a way watching objectively. It was kind of fun watching Ole Miss, you know, who got left at the altar by Lane Kiffin, right? He went to another SEC team, left you in the middle of playoffs.

3:47Bucky Brooks:It was kind of fun, satisfying watching that university and that football team get their revenge. Yeah, no, it's crazy. One, having met Lane Kiffin way back, like first at USC, but then when he took over for the Oakland Raiders as the head coach, having talked to him or whatever, always had a great deal of respect for his tactical mind, his X and O acumen, the way that he's able to put it together, particularly on offense. I loved all that. And then he kind of reminded me of some of the guys that I grew up with, kind of like the snarky frat guys that kind of have their way. They kind of do these.

4:22They play pranks and do all that other stuff. And so that can be a little whiny when things don't go. But I'm going to say this, and I feel like in this game, and there's so many things to talk about the game, because I think Trinidad Chambliss really helped himself when it comes to what we're going to talk about in the offseason, the draft. but right i felt like in this game lane did a great job of keeping himself and the team calm if you notice whenever they were paying to him when it was very emotional he was always like hey calm it down we're good and i just think he has a great sense of his team i think his team needed to lose this game and then they'll refocus and they'll take the lessons from this and make them a bully and a power when we get to the playoffs but i mean i think he's a terrific I don't know why he left Ole Miss.

5:08I do understand the allure of LSU. People always talk about what you can do at LSU, the brand that LSU is. Yeah, but I think, look, he's a polarizing figure, but I love the fact that sometimes he leans into it. I think he should just own it all the time and not kind of try and be nice guy, then bad guy, and nice guy. Just be the villain. Be the villain all the time.

5:29Bucky Brooks:I thought Ole Miss played well. And, you know, since we talk 40s and free agents, the 40s typically is about the draft, right? So I would say draft-wide, Trinidad Chambliss is already – It's already – It's old, man. I mean, it's already on my mind like, all right, what am I going to do with this guy? So I'm already kind of percolating right now. I'm thinking, okay, we know he's short and all that stuff. So I got to – I'm factoring that in. So I'm looking at – he's got a little bit of a windup when he throws. But he's got arm talent. I mean, I think he's got a lively arm, Buck. Big arm. I was actually – I've been impressed.

6:00Yeah.

6:01Bucky Brooks:He's got a lively arm. So that windup, as long as you throw at the anticipation and you got a little zip on it, I'm not worried about it. And he threw with some anticipation. I thought he drove the ball into some of those windows that he needed to drive him into. It was enough anticipation combined with enough drive velocity that I liked it. I mean, I think it's what it's supposed to look like. The height thing, sometimes people want to diminish arm length. They want to diminish the height in the pocket. it is an issue if you're having if you got a bunch of six five six six six seven offensive linemen and you're a pocket quarterback and you're five foot ten five ten and a half you know it is something you have to consider and have to think about a little bit sometimes you have to game plan around but just the player himself I'm really coming away last year and this year and by the way there's an age thing with with him as well because he's he's been around for a long time but does he make plays yes does he do you win because of him yes you win because of him um does he play with poise yes he plays with poise once you start asking pertinent draft questions about trinidad chambliss he checks a lot more block boxes and than you may think there's some boxes you're not going to love but you know tyler shuck was an older player coming in yeah we're going to talk about him a little bit on the NFL side.

7:23Bucky Brooks:I mean, it looks pretty good right now with Tyler Shuck. He looks like not an, not an, not an elder millennial or whatever the phrase would be for him. And, you know, not an, not an old second year player, which, which he is by second year standards. He looks like somebody who is, who is experienced and traded at Chambliss is going to be a very experienced player when he comes into the league as well. I don't know, Buck. I mean, No, no, no. I'm with you on that, right? And I think it's so interesting, right? So I've seen other people already talk about him being QB1 in this class. And so people are like, oh, that's reactionary.

7:58But let's be honest, based on how people play, let's just – if we threw kind of like the blind resume up just from this year, there's not another quarterback that's playing better than him. You know what I'm saying? We could talk about the Miami kid, Mensa. But right now of all the draft eligible guys, no one is playing better than Trinidad Chambliss. He is the reason that they're winning that game, LSU. And I don't even think he had an A-plus game, 33 for 48, 363, two touchdowns. But what I love about him, the bigger the moment, the better he plays. LSU brings it all the way back, ties it. Cool.

8:37Game on. And he comes back and delivers every time. And so I'll be honest with you. And this goes back to last year. You remember last year in the run-up to the draft, no one was talking about it. And then I remember sitting there watching the playoff game versus Georgia, or maybe it was the SEC championship, whatever it was. And I was like, yo, who's the dude from Ole Miss throwing, right? Because he wasn't getting serious consideration, but you like in terms of just being a baller. I was like, man, this dude is a baller. Like, man, he's.

9:08Bucky Brooks:Were you thinking that because of the throwing or the escapability when you were watching him and thinking that for the first time? I think for the first time, I think just the way that he was playing. I was like, man, this dude is absolutely balling. He's a hooper, as they now say. He is getting it done. But I was like, okay, he's a senior, but yeah, he's short. He's this and that. And then you keep watching them throughout the playoffs. And he's like, man, you know, he's kind of putting it on, folks. and then you fast forward and you don't know what the status is going to be so then you start researching you're like man I kind of like him a lot but it's all the things that we've been conditioned like age size like man you know like it's not traditional yeah Bryce Young went but he hasn't really lit up the league until recently he started to kind of come into his own but it's still Colin Murray ah yeah but that's that's atypical but then the more that you go and the more that he plays, it's hard to deny what you're seeing on tape.

10:09There are other guys who have the measurables, but they're not guys that are dominating the game. He's dominating the game. He is the reason why their offense is running like that. It's not –

10:20Bucky Brooks:It gets into the Dan Orlovsky heat. He made a comment about – What it looks like. And it was taken a little out of context. So to add context, somebody was pressing him on, you don't seem to be a Jalen Hurts guy. And he said, I am a Jalen Hurts guy. And the thought was, well, why do you give him why do you give a guy like Justin Herbert so much more love when Jalen has, you know, quote unquote, done it? I mean, he's been to a Super Bowl twice, played well in both Super Bowls, won a Super Bowl. And Dan even admitted he was kind of an admission. Right. Not not because this is the reason why it was an admission, because he looks the part.

10:55Bucky Brooks:He's he's what it's supposed to look like, Justin Herbert. And some people took it some kind of way. But I know what he's saying. And you know what he's saying, too. We love big and beautiful. That's the way that, you know, if it always looked like Josh Allen and Cam Newton, that's great. And Justin Herbert, that's great. But that's not that's not the reality of today's quarterback play. And so you do have to really put aside some of the, you know, for me, I'm not just because Arch looks the part. I'm going to let the tape tell me. And with Trinidad Chambliss, that's the harder part. You also have to let the tape tell you.

11:31Bucky Brooks:The unfortunate thing is Kyler Murray hadn't been in the college football for six years or whatever the case may have been. And Tyler Shuck, had he not had three career-ending injuries and had... Because he was the best pure passer, I thought, in the draft and then cam was second but there was never a doubt that i was going to put cam ahead of him because i i'm sorry he didn't play a lot of poise in college when the heat was on when pressure was in his face and he had a ton of injuries i'd already seen michael penix with a ton of injuries and he's injured again but you know the tape was really good for at times with tyler shuck the tape is good for for trinidad chambliss but we can't just ignore the historical as well.

12:17Bucky Brooks:So there is, there's a, it's a nuanced discussion we have to have when it comes to Trinidad Chambers, I think. And it's going to be interesting, right? Because so the other names that you talk about, like, um, Arch Manning will be in that conversation, Dante Moore, some people may say Julian saying, uh, CJ Carr, those are the guys that are prominent right now in the discussion. And so you go through that, that list, oh, Mensa, cause we talked about Mensa early, uh, Mensa hasn't played. So we'll get a chance to see him play in some headliner games, we'll have a better feel for him. But when you go and you look at Arch Manning through three games, Arch Manning has two games with less than 200 passing yards.

12:52Even the Ohio State game that people are celebrating, he had 195 yards and he had more moments than pure domination in terms of what he did again.

13:02Bucky Brooks:Less than six yards per pass attempt in that game. I mean, so we like the name and we like some of the stuff, but you wonder. And then with CJ Carr, it's always going to be a little more conservative when you're dealing with Notre Dame and what he is and some of that stuff. And so you like that, but you can't say that anyone has had those high moments. And with Mensah, I watch him. He's throwing it all over the yard, and he's been really successful everywhere. He's been at first Tulane, then Duke, and now it looks like at Miami, he's going to put together a strong season. There's going to be some intrigue there.

13:34With Dante Moore, you know, the funny thing with Dante Moore, I think that his lowlights end up standing out more than his highlights. And even though he only has a few lowlights that we think about, it's just notable, right? The two games against Indiana last year. Then we have a game against Oklahoma State where they lose, which isn't necessarily his fault. But you're just like, man, like y 'all shouldn't lose that game. Can you carry them over the threshold? I just think the conversation when we get to the spring is going to be so nuanced about, one, who are the first rounders? who should be QB1, and are you courageous enough to have someone who is an outlier be the number one guy listed on your board?

14:14Bucky Brooks:Yeah, there's a lot more to go. Josh Hoover's had a good year coming from TCU over at Indiana. They haven't played anybody yet, so we're going to find out more about Hoover, but the numbers look good. Numbers looked okay at TCU as well. He'll be in a Heisman conversation. We know that we've talked about the other ones, Drew Mestemaker. Baker. There'll be some talk. I don't think he's a first-round talent, but we will see. I thought some of his tape headed into the year was pretty good, and he got the win over Oregon. I do think Arch Manning and Dante Moore are the two, and potentially C.J. Carr.

14:50Bucky Brooks:I don't see first player in the draft type stuff with C.J. Carr, but we'll see how it plays out. But Mensah, Manning, Hoover to me those are going to be the three to keep the closest eye on Chambliss I think I still want to see what happens with Chambliss I like him as a football player but like I said people will be looking for anything they can to say okay I knew it yeah I did not putting him up there because he got hurt here or you know he had a bad game against this team or whatever the case may be but Manning really has some work to do Dante Moore has some work to do those two guys have work to do but based on last year for Moore and based on Arch, the projection, people are going to be willing to give those guys the benefit of the doubt until it gets late in the season, and then it's going to just turn into how did this guy play in his biggest games?

15:45Bucky Brooks:Dante Moore's got a lot of work. They got wiped out, and he played poorly against Oklahoma State who got beat double digits by Tulsa the week before. That's a tough loss to come back from. I'm glad you put a bunch on Portland State. But no one cares. No, no, no, no, no, no one cares. And that conversation as relates to quarterbacks and what they got to put on tape, it's going to be an interesting one as we go forward. And I'm going to hit you because you talked about Houston and what's going on in Houston. But I got to tell you, before we talk about the Texans, thoughts on Deshaun Watson having a game, having a day, finally put together a game.

16:22The Cleveland Browns go on the road and knock off the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Deshaun Watson was, by all accounts, played his best game as a Brown. He was quick and decisive with the ball. He found a way to get into a rhythm. More importantly, he led the Browns to a win. You know him. You know his game really well, having watched him all the time when he was with the Texans. Are you surprised that he was able to dig in the crates and pull out a classic?

16:49Bucky Brooks:Yeah, I was, actually, because it's been so bad. Like it hasn't looked anything like what I saw with Houston Texans. So I was a little bit surprised. It was a strange game because they had a long weather delay. It was a torrential downpour they had to wait out. But he made some throws. He made some good-looking throws. So I was a little surprised he reached back in the way-back machine and pulled it out. Now we'll see if they can do it a second game in a row, and we'll see how Deshaun plays under Munkin. We'll see if that's one of those things where Munkin can get more out of Deshaun Watson than he has shown previously at Cleveland.

17:28Bucky Brooks:We'll see if that happens. But I was a little bit surprised, yeah, to see him have that kind of game. It was a highly efficient performance, high completion percentage. I thought he did a really nice job. You know, on the flip side, look, I mean, a guy who was going to be a free agent, Baker Mayfield, is no longer because they gave him a bunch of money. he needs to he needs to play better than he's played so far to start the year in the first two games yeah man um he's going to give that buyer's remorse is going to be serious if baker doesn't start picking it up because it's not like he ended the season well the second half of the 25 season wasn't good but the first half was like really good so you figure out there were some injuries and things got out of what we'd rather have baker than not have baker let's just give them the money well you follow the bad second half of the season with the beginning he's had so far and that's got to be a little bit of a concern right now for uh certainly the fans and maybe the front office and in tampa they they got to he's got to pick that up in his play yeah the thing about it is though now you domino's late i mean you've already played the domino is there so you got to stick with it and what it does is it's troublesome in terms of if they move on from Todd Bowles the next coach has to inherit Baker Mayfield and he has to be okay with Baker Mayfield's game and all that other stuff so that'll be really interesting to watch he hasn't played well he needs to play better first it was the fumbles week one Dennis just not being able to efficiently get it done against the Browns defense that struggled the week before against the Jags you're just surprised and it's just one of those things man you can't really figure him out i can't figure out why it hasn't clicked he was balling under liam cohen hasn't played at the same level since then but can he get it back he has to get it back because they're invested in him it'll be interesting to see how they proceed you brought up tyler shutt and the new orleans saints they go and get a big win against the baltimore ravens look a win that i don't think anyone saw but the man the second year quarterback is really coming into his own and there's a lot of things to like on tape he leads the nfl he's averaging 331 yards per game passing tyler shut is a baller am i off on that no i think he is and it's not just that but he's been coming back on teams like he he's not letting defenses off the hook late in games either he came back against i really thought watching some of that ravens game at the time i thought they had it under control and before you knew it there was two consecutive scores that shuck led his team on and he kind of took over that game when lamar you know you know lamar uh jackson did not play well at the end of the game and on the flip side tyler played really well and that this was something i was worried about him coming out so um i wasn't sure that he would respond well to in-game adversity and pressure in his face and i'm still waiting for i'm still waiting for him to look frazzled by pressure because so far it hasn't happened.

20:31Bucky Brooks:This may just be a miss. I know Saints fans, I remember the videos, Saints fans who were so mad they didn't take Shador Sanders and that they grabbed Tyler Shuck. They were just furious. Well, Texans fans were mad we didn't draft Nick Fairley instead got JJ Watt. So that happens sometimes where the fans will miss and you go back and look at those videos. It looks kind of funny, but I got a couple of good friends that are Saints fans and they're very happy with Tyler Shuck right now. Very happy. So that's something to keep it on. And he's one of those older quarterbacks. First one that we had really seen.

21:07So, you know, it's funny once you have a Baker Mayfield come out and have a good rookie year,

21:12Bucky Brooks:it's easier to draft Kyler Murray the next year with the first pick of the draft. Because remember, Baker played pretty well as a freshman. Once you have a six-year, seven-year guy like Tyler Shuck perform well makes it easier to pull the trigger on another guy like trinidad chambliss just to kind of roll it back into the draft makes it easier when you've seen it already we say okay this guy because he's got a lot of experience adjusts more quickly to the nfl so keep an eye on well look there's a lot of things that are going to kind of play in that favor so one of the things that we know works well in terms of predicting quarterback success is the number of snaps and starts that you get as a collegiate.

21:53We saw where Brock Purdy come out of nowhere, but had a ton of experience. We're talking about Tyler Shutt, even though he had all the injuries, he spent a lot of time in college. The experience matters. The maturity that you have going into the league. But more importantly, Lance, here's the thing about quarterback play and why you really shouldn't factor in age. Some of these quarterbacks are playing into their 40s. So what What if you get a guy at 25, if you're really drafting and thinking about the next 15 years, which you really shouldn't be. But look, OK, he plays 15 years. He'll be 40 at that point.

22:25You're really trying to find someone that is ready to play. And at a time where younger guys are forced on the field quicker now than they've ever been. I would kind of be OK with an older guy stepping in, provided that he has the talent and the tools to be able to get it done.

22:42Bucky Brooks:Yeah, yeah. That's, you know, the Saints have been a very surprising team so far. I've been very pleasantly surprised. I've been shocked at the Raiders. That Raider win, and we'll talk about this. I want to save the other team for the disappointing side when we come back from a break. But just to paint the positive right now, wow, what a job the Raiders and Clint Kubiak have done so far. They're getting a little better blocking up front. They spent some money in some draft picks and got some injured guys back. And Ashton Jensey is a bigger factor right now. But the offensive scheme of Clint Kubiak, and you and I talked about it before the draft.

23:20Bucky Brooks:I love the Kubiak scheme. It's more old school Shanahan. There's not as many wrinkles, but Clint has thrown some wrinkles in there. They're doing such a good job of creating explosive opportunities. And Cousins has done a really nice job over there. It's very happy to see the Raiders have some success because, you know, I kind of like the Kuviax and I want to see that, you know, go well. Also, here we are with, you know, here we are with 49ers looking really, really good. The Kansas City Chiefs, Pat Mahomes. I want to see a little bit more, but they turn back the clock again with Travis Kelsey having a monster Monday night game and Pat Mahomes doing what he always does.

24:05Bucky Brooks:I mean, I may have written them off a little bit too quickly. I may have written them off a little bit too quickly. And the Bengals too. You can't say enough about Dexter Lawrence. The addition of Lawrence, the addition of Jonathan Allen, and then Brian Cook on the back end as a safety. what smart moves they made in the offseason because the defense went to porous from porous to they're pretty stout defensively right now and you can't you can ask the texans you can't run with dexter lawrence in the middle you just you can't know it's double teams and you get no movement against no no movement and i was talking to my dad about him obviously dad coached him he's in shape and when he's in shape and he's motivated he is nearly impossible to block and you saw that whatever happened in that game somebody pissed him off and you saw all pro dexter show up The Bengals are interesting because it's not just him.

24:53This is what I would give them credit. Maybe we should have expected that. The combination of Dexter Lawrence and Jonathan Allen, not only two guys who've played at Pro Bowl levels, but two guys that have a lot of leadership ability that maybe were underrated. Jonathan Allen has really taken that leadership mantle and run with it for the Bengals. They have an older, experienced team on that side of the ball. They're playing really, really well. You think about holding the Texans to six points, even though C.J. Stroud moved the ball up and down the field, they're getting what they want out of their defense because it's complementing an offense that is really explosive with Joe Burrow and Jamar Chase and all those guys.