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Oct. 18, 2024 - Doug Collins Podcast

56:54

How Many Losses is Too Many Losses

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	You want to listen to a podcast by who Georgia GOP Congressman Doug Collins.
	How is it the greatest thing I have ever heard in my whole life?
	Hey everybody, welcome back to the podcast.
	Glad to have you with us here.
	Thanks for bearing with us through the changes.
	We're making some more changes.
	You're going to see a lot more coming up here on the Doug Collins podcast, being able to get the show in some different platforms, different locations.
	Glad to have you being a part of it.
	As we get started today though, we're going to get started into really, Chip's with us today, Jane's with us today, Jane will be back, but Chip's with us.
	We're going to talk politics and really we're under three weeks now, Chip, in the election.
	I'm going to start off with a premise today, Chip, and let's talk about this premise.
	And the premise is, I believe, and I'll just throw this out there, I believe that this is a 1980, 1992, and in some ways a 2016 election.
	And let me tell you what I mean by that, and then we'll talk about it.
	That for all the early voting, for everything, you know, nowadays we have early voting.
	And those earlier elections, not near as much as we have today.
	So, but there's a difference.
	The early votes today are all decided voters.
	This is not, you know, nobody's going to the poll, rushing to the poll with an undecided to sit there in the booth for five minutes trying to figure out who they're going to vote for.
	In 80 and 92 and a little bit of 2016, you had it come down to the last week, even the last weekend in 1980, with Reagan over Carter and then with Clinton over Bush.
	Both of those elections, if you go back historically and look at the polling, they swung that last week, roughly.
	2016, very similar with Clinton and Trump, with most people still thinking Trump was going to lose badly up until the night of the election.
	So, it swung.
	I see a lot of that in this and I see it in a couple reasons.
	Number one, you have two candidates that people aren't comfortable with for various reasons.
	Reagan You know, it's crazy.
	The same things were said about Reagan and the same things said about Trump.
	He'll get us in a war.
	He's going to give tax breaks to the rich.
	It's just all this kind of stuff.
	Clinton, sort of the opposite, but nobody knew Clinton and they were worried about his affairs.
	They were worried about other things, but they couldn't get, but Bush never could connect with them.
	And, you know, and the no promise on taxes came back up and everything.
	2016, Clinton, Trump, same thing.
	Again, what do you think is going to cause—either that theory is completely wrong, or if it has some scintilla of right to it, what is the gut of these voters in this last, say, 18 days here?
	No, I think there's a lot of accuracy to that, Doug, and I think— I think it comes down to, I think this election basically comes down to one thing.
	And that is, I think Donald Trump, I've said for the longest time, I think this race is a coin flip.
	I now no longer believe it's a coin flip.
	I believe that the chances of Donald Trump winning over the last three weeks are exponentially better now than his opponent.
	And I think it comes down to one thing, Doug, and that is, Were you better off under the policies of Donald Trump when he was president, or are you better off under the policies of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris?
	And I think where this election is breaking, and you'd said it, you know, you'd kind of in a roundabout way said it, you know, with kind of starting this discussion, you know, and that is, you know, people might not like Trump's personality.
	They might not like some of his bravado.
	They might not like some of his tweets.
	But you know what?
	They feel like he ran this country better than the one that's there now.
	And, you know, as complicated as these elections are, at the end of the day, I think this election might be decided on a pretty simple issue, and that is You know, who do you think can run the country better?
	And I just think he's going to have an edge on that.
	I think that's showing in some of the polling that we've seen over the last three weeks.
	I spoke with a pollster this morning before we take the show, and the interesting comment was about Georgia, and we'll just take one of the swing states, Georgia, in particular, was that Everything in Georgia seems to be pointing now toward a clear, at least at this second, and I think this is good and bad, at least toward a clear trend toward Trump.
	I mean, it's getting outside the margin of error.
	I mean, Quinnipack puts the poll out at 7. There's no way it's at 7. Three, four, easy.
	I think that's an understandable because you're now starting to get it and ship.
	You know, we've talked about this before on the podcast before.
	There are polls and then there are polls.
	They're the public facing polls that the media pays for or that think tanks pay for and typically have A bias to them or have an agenda with them.
	And then you have what you and I both know of as the paid polls, the ones that the professional pollsters do for campaigns or do for organizations that never really see the light of day.
	Those are the ones that need to be dead on, because if they're not, those pollsters aren't getting hired in the next cycle.
	And they're sort of showing this same thing, especially in Georgia.
	And they're also showing this, and I'd love to get your take on this.
	We've not seen this as much before, that Trump is outperforming Senate candidates in several of the states.
	And that's been an interesting turn that, you know, people have always said it's the others are outperforming Trump.
	And that's not the way it is in Arizona, Ohio even a little bit, Pennsylvania definitely, and even Michigan a little bit with Mike Rogers.
	And Nevada.
	And look, I mean, I know we were talking about Senate candidates, but I mean, he's likely going to get, he's going to outperform Mark Robinson in North Carolina by 15, 18 points, right?
	So, yeah, he's, I mean, he's, I just, you know, I feel as good about it, of course, that's dangerous.
	I don't usually ever feel good about it like that.
	You know, but I do.
	I would be very surprised if he doesn't win Georgia.
	I don't know that I'd be shocked because I don't know that anything shocks me in today's lexicon of politics, but I'd be very surprised if he doesn't win Georgia.
	I just think, you know, I also think, Doug, too, and you and I have talked about it ad nauseum, you know, one of the things that worked against us in 2020 was complacency.
	It had been the late 90s until the Democrats won a meaningful statewide race.
	We had 20 years of winning these races when we knew that the environment was changing over time.
	And we had still won a lot of these races.
	And so, you know, there was just a segment of voters that didn't believe us when we said, hey, you've got to go out to the polls because we could lose this race.
	And now they believe us because, you know, that same year we lost the presidential race and we got two U.S. senators out of it.
	Georgia has been here, and that's what has fueled the are we purple or are we changing state.
	But yet when you look down ballot, past those marquee kind of things, Everything else is the same.
	For those of you who are waiting for a Cree visitation, we had a Cree visitation there for everybody that wanted to mention Cree coming out.
	But the other issue here though, Chip, and I'm seeing this, is the Georgia vote in particular.
	And I saw the data file breakdown yesterday.
	I was pretty amazed that the data file breakdown almost showed it an even split.
	Oh, that's so huge for us, because we don't win the first two weeks of early voting.
	We usually win the last week of early voting substantially.
	And historically, you know, that's when the highest numbers of early voters are there.
	And so, yeah, the fact that it was even split, that's bad news.
	I mean, that is bad news for Democrats.
	They didn't...
	This is interesting and let's talk about this because these are the first two comes out of the first day, day and a half of actual early vote and person early voting in Georgia.
	Republicans took 144,000 of these are modeled by the way folks if you're wondering about what we're saying and we're not saying that these are actual votes but this is how they voted in the past.
	They voted in Republican precinct party Republican primaries that kind of that's how it's modeled.
	It's basically 44-45 is to its height.
	But curious to me was 34,000 unmodeled votes, Chip.
	34,000 unmodeled votes.
	That's 10% of all the votes has been cast.
	What do you make of that?
	I don't think we've seen that number before.
	No, it's hard to tell.
	I mean, it's kind of like the voter registration numbers.
	We don't register under party affiliation in Georgian, so when we're looking at voter registration numbers, we have to extrapolate variables.
	And, you know, in the past, those variables are usually easier to decipher when you look at race, right?
	And, you know, you look at, in the past, we've used the 10% number for African American vote that Republicans get.
	And, you know, that's going to be higher this time because we know that African American men are supporting Donald Trump at an unprecedented number.
	Numbers that we haven't seen, as high as 20, 22%.
	I mean, for the layman out there that doesn't understand, that's a huge anomaly.
	And while he's still only getting 8% of African-American women, you average that together, and that's a lot more than 10% on the whole.
	And so I don't know.
	It's hard to tell what to read into that.
	But I'm used to early voting getting better for us over time.
	If early voting gets better for us, because we don't have to win early voting to win the state, he will win election day voting.
	He won election day voting in 2016, won election day voting in 2020. The question is what percentage of total turnout will be, you know, election day voting.
	It'll be certainly much larger than it was in 2020 because that was a COVID year.
	And we only had 19% of the electorate show up on Election Day.
	I think it's likely going to be in the 40% range, and that's twice as much as it was in 2020. We only lost by 11,000 votes, so I feel good about it.
	Well, to the worrisome turn, and that's Pennsylvania.
	In Pennsylvania, early voting in Pennsylvania, mail-in balloting is one of the few states mail-in balloting is up over 2020. Got that word in, you know, I was listening and hearing that.
	That is very concerning, if that's true.
	Yes.
	And so those numbers are high.
	They've had, I want to say they've already had like 200 and something thousand mail-ins.
	So, I mean, that's a big number.
	And again, Republicans have worked on that up there.
	So there may be some reflective, you know, our instinct is to say that's all Democrat votes.
	But, you know, the There may be some offset there.
	I'd love to see.
	And again, they do party affiliation up there.
	So it will be interesting to see.
	We'll get a pretty good breakdown on where that's happening.
	But from what I've seen in New York and also in Michigan, right now, I've seen the breakdown, and the breakdowns are heavily Democratic.
	But if it's only 200,000, that doesn't – I mean, I haven't really studied the – Okay, not out.
	Okay.
	You float, you see, and it goes in.
	But I think, look, I think it is coming down to the tightness of this campaign.
	I think you're going to see...
	Something that nobody would have predicted early on.
	I think you're gonna see Trump win states.
	Trump winning a state and the Senate losing the state.
	I think you'll see that.
	I think, unfortunately, right now it looks like Nevada is definitely one of those states.
	I think Trump could win Nevada.
	Arizona's one of those states.
	They could win both those states and the Senate candidates lose.
	Now, there has been movement.
	Here's the more surprising number.
	If Eric Hudvey in Wisconsin actually pulls that off, which right now, nobody would have put this race within a one or two point or dead even race, which is what it is at this second from basically any polling that you're seeing, even private polling.
	Do you see a scenario where Hudvey could win Wisconsin and Trump doesn't?
	You know, first of all, I've always been bullish on Eric Ovde.
	I thought he was a really good candidate, and it's not a surprise to me that he's doing really well in Wisconsin and that, you know, the polls are reflective of that.
	You know, the only way that's possible is if The seat is so close and the race is so close that it's within a half point either way.
	I don't see, you know, I really don't see Donald Trump and Eric Obdi being outside of one to 1.2 points from each other.
	I mean, that's one out of every hundred votes splitting.
	That's probably about right.
	You know, and so I think it's unlikely, but man, if it's, you know, if it is as close as it looks, Anything's possible.
	And, you know, but remember, Trump doesn't need to win Wisconsin if he can win Pennsylvania and Georgia.
	I think he's going to win Georgia and Arizona.
	And so I really do.
	I really think this presidential race comes down to the 20 electoral votes in Pennsylvania.
	And we're going to know that.
	Knock on wood.
	You know, I hope we're going to know that.
	It's obviously an Eastern time zone state.
	And so, you know, we should have a pretty good idea on where Pennsylvania is going.
	And Pennsylvania would be a good bellwether.
	You know, if Trump looks like he's winning Pennsylvania, he's not going to lose Georgia.
	He's not going to lose Arizona.
	And if he flips those three states, that puts him at 270, and he'll be the next president.
	Yeah, what about...
	North Carolina was always sort of a you know Bluish state, however you want to look at it.
	Not bluish, but purple.
	Similar to Georgia in some ways.
	But yeah, they've actually elected a lot of Democrat officials, state Democrat officials, where Georgia has not.
	I put North Carolina further in the purple, much further in the purple than Georgia is.
	Yes.
	And is the governor's race there going to...
	That's going to be the question.
	The disaster in Western North Carolina, which is a heavily Republican area, And combined with the very frustrating race that appears to have developed in the governor's race, is that putting North Carolina in Harris's camp?
	I don't think it is, Doug.
	You know, it's Trump that has the coattails because he's on the top of the ballot, and the tails go, you know, as you know, they go down ballot, not up ballot, usually.
	And I just can't see, especially with momentum, where it is now, because Trump has momentum, she doesn't.
	And, you know, He didn't need momentum to win states like North Carolina.
	I don't think the federal government's slow response to what happened up there after Hurricane Helene came in is going to be very helpful to Kamala Harris.
	And so, yeah, look, they're not happy with their nominee for governor.
	I get that.
	It is what it is.
	Everybody realized a few weeks back there was just nothing that we could do about that.
	And as a result, though, I think because Donald Trump will win North Carolina, Mark Robinson will lose North Carolina by not as big of a margin as people think, because I do think Trump being on the ballot will help him.
	He'll still lose.
	He'll still fall short.
	But he's not going to lose by the historic margins that it looks like polling might be right now.
	Yeah, it's going to be interesting.
	Look, I think everybody's agreed at this point, barring something just completely unforeseen, the Senate flips, it'll be Republican, and the House is still very much in play.
	That's going to be an interesting time.
	Probably something you and I will talk about maybe after the election when that actually happens.
	Because you're throwing the House...
	I mean, there's just so much leadership implications there.
	There's so much policy indications.
	Trump wins.
	They lose the House.
	Could it look like 2019 again when I was there and we had to deal with impeachment starting almost day one?
	Because I just don't see how Hakeem Jeffries, if he becomes Speaker, can get away with not impeaching Donald Trump.
	I mean, I just don't see it.
	And although he's going to be there for four years and it's going to be nothing they can do about it, You know, would Hakeem rise above that temptation?
	I'm not sure he can.
	Yeah.
	I'm not so sure he can either.
	But watch what happens.
	If Donald Trump wins this election, as I believe now he's going to do, watch the Democrats.
	Because if he wins this election, it's going to be close in Pennsylvania.
	Yeah.
	It'll probably be, you know, I don't think it's going to be as close in Georgia as Arizona, but, you know, we'll see, but watch the Democrats go ballistic about something on the voting systems,
	or, you know, they're going to do a 180, and they're going to behave the way they accused us of behaving four years ago, and I'm going to get my popcorn and sit back and watch it, because it's going to be Remember, they set the standard in 04 and 16. They were the OGs in this thing.
	I can't let go of the political before we blame James in, though, without seeing one of Georgia's favorite new Democratic sons yesterday, this week, on the platform with Vice President Harris in Pennsylvania.
	Which one was that?
	Jeff Duncan.
	Country over party rally in Pennsylvania.
	And there was Jeff Duncan.
	I love it.
	You know, when I worked for Lynn Westmoreland, you know, he always had a saying that, you know, if you have a shovel and you're digging a hole, you should put the shovel down.
	And with Jeff Duncan, he would say, he's put the shovel down, but now he's in a backhoe.
	And basically, for those of you that don't know what a backhoe is, that can dig a much deeper hole than a shovel can.
	And I love it.
	I love seeing it.
	I love watching it.
	It's very entertaining for me.
	It's very justifying to me.
	It's very liberating.
	And I just think that he was on CNN last night with Anderson Cooper.
	And he was in Pennsylvania.
	And I just can't...
	I don't know exactly how I will...
	I mean, literally, but here's the irony.
	Here's the irony of it, Doug.
	He is former lieutenant governor in Georgia, and they're not using him to campaign in Georgia.
	Exactly.
	He hasn't made almost any appearance in Georgia except maybe a smaller appearance.
	In Pennsylvania where nobody knows who the hell he is.
	You know, I love it because if Trump does win Pennsylvania, that means that Jeff didn't do enough white dudes for Harris events in Pennsylvania.
	And I just love it.
	If he could actually bring on votes, let's see him do an event at Reed's Barnup in Forsyth County for Harris.
	Yeah, I don't know that that would go real well.
	I don't think that would work real well.
	It wouldn't be a big or good attendance.
	Alright, but look folks, we'll keep it up in the next few weeks knowing everything that's going on here on the political side.
	We're going to bring James in, getting some of our football analysis and our life analysis here.
	By the way, we have pandas again in D.C. Pandas are back.
	One of our first Friday Finest shows was dealing with the absence of pandas, but we now have two pandas back, I think it is, or four.
	Is it two or four?
	You know, that I don't know.
	I just know the lack of zoo stories that we've had on this program in the last few months has been abysmal, and we apologize.
	We are going to bring zoo stories back to Friday's finest as much as possible.
	Yeah, we're missing zoo stories.
	We've got pandas coming back.
	Atlanta had a going-away party for our panda about a month ago, I think it was, and so now we're moving along as we go through that.
	But now, James, who is traveling around the world, is in San Diego, home of the, quote, world-famous San Diego Zoo.
	At this very moment, I am in New Jersey because I had to come back for a wedding.
	Wait, I am leaving tonight to go back to San Diego.
	And I don't know if we talked about this, but you know I'm a pretty friendly guy, yeah?
	Yeah.
	So I meet people constantly.
	And I met, of course, I met Vikings fans in San Diego.
	Well, I was at a Padres bar while we were watching them play great, and I'm pretty pissed they didn't win now as a Mets fan.
	We met them, and the guy was like, hey, there's another Vikings fan right behind you.
	Started talking to that guy.
	Turns out there's a Vikings bar in San Diego.
	9 a.m.
	you gotta get there, so I will be drunk by 11. They have all those special blue signs out front, Chip, you know, where they park.
	Here's what I heard though, and I don't know how true this is.
	The Vikings bar is right here, and there is a Green Bay Packers bar across the street.
	Oh, wow.
	So, I feel like if I get enough booze in me, I'll go fight some Packers fans.
	And I think that'll be a good time.
	You guys might be like, hey, James, you can't get arrested before we do the next show, but I'm gonna.
	So, it's gonna be a good time.
	I'm super excited about that.
	Yeah, well, remember, I'm not, I'm not bar certified in California, so we'll have to...
	Yeah, but you're, wait, whoa, whoa, whoa.
	The reason I do this show is because you have connections.
	That's the whole point.
	You better behave, though, because if you don't behave, you're not going to get to go to the Breeders' Cup.
	Oh, that's right.
	All right.
	I got to be good.
	You know what?
	I apologize.
	I take it back.
	I'm going to be smart about this.
	Chip, it's just like parenting.
	You just remind them of the consequences.
	Well, he doesn't actually have to behave, but if he's not going to behave, you better make sure there's not a person behind him with a camera like that Baltimore Ravens fan.
	Oh, my God.
	These people are so...
	He just cold-clots them.
	Just because he has his jersey on.
	What makes people think that this is okay?
	When did this become okay?
	All jokes aside, I'm not going to go fight a Packers fan unless they throw a punch at me first, let's be honest.
	Those people are Wisconsin strong and I am not that strong.
	All jokes aside, what happened to you?
	Apparently he had a camera and said, I just want to go punch It was a Bengals fan, right?
	I think it was an unsuspecting Bengals fan.
	Redskins, Redskins.
	Redskins, sorry.
	So it was a Commanders fan.
	Commanders.
	Commanders.
	So it was a Commanders fan, and he just cold-clocked him.
	Like, no reason whatsoever.
	I can't imagine being that angry about something.
	I love the Vikings.
	And they won!
	They saw Jaden Daniels and they're like, there'll never be another Lamar, and then punched the guy in the face.
	That's pretty much how I'm thinking about it.
	I don't get it.
	I just don't understand.
	What's going on in your life?
	Well, we can't avoid this one because this one is, I mean, you know, the hype machine for college football, which, by the way, is skyrocketing.
	It's insane.
	Everybody with CBS and really Fox is benefiting from this.
	CBS, can you imagine, Chip, you're a CBS... In the last few weeks, you normally wouldn't have been your 3-30 premiere Saturday game.
	You're going to get million-dollar ads.
	You've been showing Illinois versus Wisconsin.
	Yeah.
	Instead of Alabama-Georgia, Georgia-Texas.
	I mean, one and two teams.
	Georgia-Texas is this weekend, yeah?
	Georgia-Texas is this weekend.
	All right.
	How do we feel about this one, Doug?
	Okay, first of all, that's not allowed anymore.
	15-yard penalty on Doug.
	Horns down.
	No, look, I think, all fairness, it's going to be a tough game, and if Georgia...
	Here's my thing.
	You know my bias here, but it's fine.
	But I'm going to be honest.
	If Georgia shows up and plays like they've played the last few weeks, and Texas is really real, then it's going to be a long day for Georgia.
	Now, the question though is, is Texas an Alabama?
	Is Texas an Ohio State?
	Is Texas an Alabama?
	Their schedule hasn't been tough so far, Texas, right?
	Oklahoma's one of their tough ones.
	What was LSU? No, USC. Who did they play the very first, was it?
	I'm trying to look it up now.
	I'm not trying to diminish what they're doing.
	Look, Sarkeesian, to the surprise of everybody, has raised a good football program out there again.
	They paid a lot of money for it.
	They certainly did.
	Michigan at Michigan.
	But we've all now seen Michigan is not Michigan, you know, after they lost 22 players.
	So, I mean, it's a legitimate question.
	I'm being honest about us.
	I don't think we've been playing our best ball by any stretch of the imagination.
	I don't think you have either.
	But I'm just not sure how much Texas His play.
	You know, I'd love to have seen a Texas-Alabama before we played him.
	That would have been interesting.
	Quick question, because I've been not paying attention as much.
	Is Quinn Ewers back yet, or is it still Art?
	He's back.
	He came back last week.
	He looked okay.
	Is it B or...
	Okay, because I watched some of the Arch games because obviously I wanted those.
	Curious.
	Do you think it was smart for them to go back?
	I mean, I know Ewers is going to be a top five pick this year coming out of the draft.
	Let's be honest.
	Anybody who can play quarterback competently is going to be in the...
	I think they had to get him back last week, Chip.
	What do you think?
	I think they had to get him back last week because they did not want to put Arch in this game with Georgia.
	Yeah.
	So we'd all find out, you know.
	Yeah.
	Look, I think Arch is going to be probably a really good college quarterback.
	But...
	Well, and you also needed yours to dust the cobwebs off.
	It had been four weeks in CNC. Right, right, exactly.
	You ain't going to throw them in versus Georgia just immediately.
	Yeah, they're both really good quarterbacks.
	They're probably two of the best five quarterbacks in the country.
	You know, so it's like they have an embarrassment of riches there at the quarterback position.
	The good thing is Quinn has saw defenses, whereas Arch has not.
	Right, right, right.
	Yeah, Arch is not going to...
	I mean, you're never ready for a Georgia or an Alabama defense up front.
	You could prepare for years.
	You're not going to just be ready for that.
	So it's kind of a throw-in-to-the-fire situation.
	I do have a question, though.
	Who do you think goes first in the draft?
	And I know this is kind of off-topic.
	Ewers or Shador?
	I think Beck may go before all three.
	You think so?
	See, I don't know.
	The only reason I say that is not because I'm a Georgia fan.
	The only reason I say it is Beck is raised as a...
	Beck is raised in a more NFL scheme offense.
	Sidor is off the cuff.
	Well, right, but so is Jason Daniels.
	Granted, yours is as well.
	I'm not going to deny yours as well.
	But Shadour, you're going to have to have a Ravens team or somebody else that takes Shadour early.
	Well, that's what I'm thinking.
	I think people are seeing, especially with Jaden Daniels, Yeah.
	Who's playing like a Lamar Jackson right now, or doing his best impression of it.
	I think they're going to see that.
	And I think, by the way, the Caleb experiment is working, Doug.
	It took a while.
	It took a minute, but it's working, and I hate every bit of it now.
	I regret saying that it was going to work, because...
	Yeah, that's tough against Jacksonville.
	All right.
	You know what?
	We're not going to let you slander Caleb today.
	It's not happening today.
	No, but I was curious...
	Anthony Richardson is still down.
	Also, it is good to see Joey Flack back in a uniform just absolutely balling.
	This has brought us to the ultimate thing.
	Dumpster fire description is an embarrassment to a dumpster fire to describe dumpster fire in Cleveland.
	I mean, the offensive line literally just walks around.
	They don't even go help Watson up.
	I mean, I don't think they do want him hurt.
	I don't believe that.
	No, they just want him out of that game.
	Let's be very honest, guys.
	Let's be real honest about this.
	I'm a Kevin Stefanski fan.
	He was with the Vikings for years.
	I thought he did great work.
	He comes to Cleveland, turns that team around immediately.
	Immediately.
	But let's be real honest.
	Deshaun Watson is not only not the player he was, but he is the worst quarterback currently starting.
	Maybe...
	Maybe outside of...
	No, no, you know what?
	It's him.
	It has to be him because he has too much talent around him.
	Have y'all seen the statistic the other day that said since 2020 or 2019 when he came, basically going back several years before he came to the league, that his numbers out of the 600 and something quarterbacks that were eligible for ratings, it was like 598 of these quarterbacks.
	He was consistently in like eight from the bottom.
	Rating, efficiency, everything.
	And look, I've known this guy since he was seven years old.
	He changed when he got to the pros and signed a bigger contract.
	He changed in his focus.
	We know all the off-field stuff.
	We know all the other, which is, you know, again, agree, disagree, whatever.
	But at a certain point in time, when you're spending more time modeling in Europe with your girlfriend and putting it on Instagram, then you are...
	Undoubtedly playing football back in Cleveland.
	It's gonna show up.
	It's like a golfer.
	Okay, brings us up back to sort of a, here's a great segue.
	You'll love this.
	About like a horse racing, but also we haven't taught live and PGA in a while.
	Good.
	I think Deshaun Watson and some of these other folks who don't play a lot, it's the live factor.
	Look at how many folks who took the money and went to live, and I don't care about the World Golf Rank, just watch them play.
	And then watch it when they come back in with the PGA players.
	There's a difference.
	It didn't show up as much in the first year, but it definitely showed up this year.
	100%.
	Except Kaepernick.
	Chip, I don't know about you, and I don't know about you guys, to be honest, but like, I'm...
	If you're the Cleveland owner, right, you have to, like, I've never been in a business where I had to cut my losses, but this isn't even up for debate.
	If your team gives up, your best wide receiver is begging to get out of town, and you're going to bring Nick Chubb back, who's coming back very soon, and you can't just give him Jameis.
	You have Jameis.
	It's one thing if you didn't have anybody, but you got Jameis back there.
	And that kid loves football.
	He loves to play football.
	Give him a shot.
	Who cares?
	Your season is over.
	You're not winning that division.
	No.
	If you're an owner, and not a fan, and even though the owner's, I'm sure, a fan as well, but if you're an owner, I would imagine it has got to be really hard to cut ties with a guy that you gave $230 million in guaranteed money to, and he's not giving you anything in return on the investment.
	Zero.
	Nothing.
	And so you gotta, you know, they gotta keep saying, he's gotta get better, he's gotta get better, and he's not getting better!
	He's not getting better!
	And, uh, yeah, I mean, it's just, Doug's right, it's absolutely a dumpster fire of monumental proportions.
	And it's actually tough to watch because I like Deshaun Watson.
	I've always been a fan of his and liked what he did at Clemson and beat Alabama once, I think.
	And that was, you know, Trevor Lawrence beat Alabama twice.
	And I love any quarterback that beat Alabama when they were in college.
	There's not a lot of them.
	You can name him on one hand, but at some point in time, he's going to have to cut bait, but I understand why he wants to keep giving it a chance, because he's got so much invested.
	It's like the strips are in the middle, and he's still waiting on the dealer to turn over the turn card and the river card, and the dealer's getting old, sitting at the table, waiting to turn those cards over.
	They still owe, I think somebody reported yesterday, they would still owe him $100 million right now.
	That just doesn't make any sense.
	What are we doing?
	They're going to start making contracts so they can get out of this stuff.
	Real quick roundabout.
	Let's just say they tried to get rid of him today or they cut him today.
	Does anybody pick him up?
	No, somebody's going to pick him up.
	People are very dumb.
	But if it's going to be anybody, what is it?
	I think he becomes another candidate.
	If you pick somebody up off of waivers, then you assume the contract, right?
	Oh, you mean, wait, wait, wait.
	If they release him and they pick him up off waivers, they take his contract?
	Yeah, so that's why he didn't take waivers and be a free agent.
	Oh, no, no one will pick him up for the contract, no.
	Let's just say that he got fully paid out today, okay?
	So he's fully paid out.
	Who takes it?
	And now he's a free agent with a fully paid out contract.
	Nobody assumes debt or anything else.
	I think he becomes like Cam Newton did in his later years.
	Kaepernick in a way.
	I just don't think anybody would pick him up.
	I just really don't.
	I want to say no.
	But there's always some dummy that thinks they can fix everybody.
	I don't know who that is right now in the league.
	I'm just saying.
	Well, but you pick him up as a backup.
	If you can pick him up for almost nothing, I feel like yes.
	Pick him up as a backup.
	You know, it's probably not going to happen.
	Those problems that follow, like, there's another 20-some-odd people, though, or whatever going after.
	Like, it's not worth it, but there is always someone who's like, yeah, no, I could make him a good quarterback again.
	The best redemption story, I mean, the best, and from one of our favorite guests, Chan Gailey, out of his mouth, the best thing that ever happened in the prediction that played true was the best thing that ever happened to Baker Mayfield is getting out of Cleveland.
	Yeah.
	Hey, Sam Darnold got out of Carolina and then ended up with an organization like San Francisco that might have instilled a little confidence in him.
	The best thing ever happened to Bo Nix was getting out of Auburn.
	I mean, it's...
	Sometimes it's just an organizational thing.
	Yeah.
	We could go back and do this forever, but, like, if a guy doesn't land where he lands, are they a Hall of Famer?
	Like, that's how some talent...
	And then they end up not even being a pro bowler.
	You know, the interesting question right now, and it's sort of funny, I heard somebody say this, that he's not a top-tier quarterback, talking about Mayfield, but yet...
	Mayfield is right now.
	Why does Baker Mayfield still get overlooked by every discussion of good quarterbacking in the NFL right now?
	It's the Geno Smith thing.
	It's the same thing that haunts every quarterback.
	If you've played bad in the past in any situation, and for some reason nobody is accounting for the fact that Baker Mayfield was playing on half a body for the last year in Cleveland.
	But when you look that bad to people and you start throwing four picks in a game, that is what always sticks.
	The reason we love Michael Jordan so much is because the stuff that sticks with us is the fadeaway jumpers and the game winners.
	The problem is with Baker and someone like Geno Smith and someone like Sam Donald, the only thing we're thinking of is I'm seeing ghosts or I just do three picks against whoever and that will always stick with us.
	So that is how it's always going to be.
	But to me, Baker Mayfield just fits a great system right now.
	Well, and the reason he's not getting respect, too, is he's been with four teams in the last six years.
	So he's a journeyman, you know.
	I mean, you know, what, Cleveland, Carolina, the Rams, and, you know, now Tampa.
	I mean, he's a journeyman, and we don't expect this out of journeymen.
	They don't get the respect that Cleveland has yet.
	Well, I guess I can't remember also the last time there were three or four quarterbacks that looked really awful for their career and are now playing good football in a single season.
	And obviously I'm referring to Donald Baker and Geno.
	Geno's iffy sometimes, but Geno still plays pretty well.
	Look at Joe Flacco.
	He was dead in the water.
	No one wanted him.
	And as he's gotten older, I'm pretty sure he's gotten better at football, which seems impossible because he's like a thousand years old.
	Hey, look, it just goes back to the fact that a quarterback is thinking.
	And a quarterback, you need the decision-making capability.
	As long as you can maintain a...
	Above average physical capability.
	You can still throw the ball.
	You can make that.
	As long as your arm's still there and you can move a little bit.
	I think the mental aspect of quarterback, for some, like Flacco and some of these others, it plays well in their older age.
	And they're not an offensive lineman.
	They're not a running back.
	Right, and he's still got a cannon.
	So it doesn't matter.
	He's still got one.
	Yeah, and in some ways, too, he's playing with house money, because there's so many people that gave up on this guy.
	So now all of a sudden, he's playing with no expectations, and so, you know, he's in a great spot, yeah.
	I mean, that was 20, that was 12 years ago, if you want to feel old right now.
	Yeah, it was pretty wild, but, you know, like I said, it's going to be interesting here.
	Turning our attention to college football for a second.
	It's getting interesting now in who's winning, who's losing.
	First off, we've got to give props as much as this pains me.
	Army and Navy are both ranked for the first time together since the 60s.
	And conceivably, if you look at their schedules, Yes, I saw this.
	Worst they could come into that game at the end of the year is with one loss each.
	I mean, Notre Dame is on both...
	And again, I'm trying to refrain from a Notre Dame rant here.
	Why in...
	Never mind.
	Notre Dame is...
	We could do a separate show.
	We could record after this.
	Give me a freaking break.
	Who?
	Notre Dame.
	They're top five, you just said?
	Well, if you just listen to every, well, we've got to think about Notre Dame.
	No, you don't have to think about Notre Dame.
	They choose not to be in a division.
	They play Army and Navy.
	They play all these other games, and nobody ever holds them accountable for it.
	But anyway, to not take anything away from Army and Navy, they could both conceivably beat Notre Dame, which I think would be classic.
	So good, yes.
	They could be unbeaten going into the game at the end of the year.
	That would be really cool.
	Do you see a difference, and I don't mean this in a way that's overt, but have we noticed a difference in coaching of the top teams, given the fact that most of the top five to six could be in the playoffs with one or two losses?
	Have we noticed a lack of urgency?
	And I'm going to think in particular, DeBoer at Alabama, Kirby at Georgia, Oregon, Texas, some of the, you know, the Ohio State, you know, the Brian Day, or is it just that we don't, there's not the hype anymore, there's not the tragedy when they lose?
	Every game is not life or death.
	It's as simple as that now.
	And I love that, by the way.
	A lot of people have been critical of the expanded playoff because of that.
	You know, you're going to play 12 games during the season.
	Not every one of those 12 games are you going to play well.
	You know, and you can't, you're not judging under that construct.
	You're not judging the equity of the conferences, I don't think, you know, because especially now, I mean, look at the SEC with Ganey, Oklahoma, and Texas.
	I mean, come on, who's going to run the gauntlet there?
	You know, it's just not realistic anymore.
	And so I actually love the expanded playoffs, and I don't think it's diminished the regular season.
	Certainly not.
	You know, certainly it's not, you know, Doug has said maybe the urgency, but I don't think it's diminished the regular season at all.
	I think college football is as exciting as it's ever been.
	I think you're right, but I also think this is what it really gives us.
	So when you watch, when you go to the NFL playoffs or you go and do baseball or basketball, right, you get the best players a majority of the time.
	Not in baseball.
	Well, okay.
	Yeah, in baseball, alright?
	Because the Mets are doing fine.
	Everything's going to be fine if you know we're down 2-1-2.
	Only because it's the Mets and not the Marlins.
	Yeah.
	But what I'm saying is, like, right now, if you look at the AP, right, teams that are just outside is someone like Boise State.
	Boise State could possibly sneak in if they were to run the table the rest of the way or whatever, right?
	That kid, I'm blanking on his name right now.
	Ashton Gentry.
	You want to see him in the playoffs, right?
	And I think that is another motive in the 12-team playoff.
	We're not just going to see three guys that we like.
	We're going to see possibly 12 to 15 guys that we really like.
	And they might be a game-changer for one single game to get you into the next round.
	I think that's going to make this more fun.
	I thought it was interesting.
	Ohio State lost to Oregon last week and only dropped to four.
	I think it shows a Big Ten bias a little bit.
	Well, listen, they're not stupid.
	Those teams need to get in, otherwise no one's gonna watch.
	Well, yeah, but this brings up a question.
	Now we used to think it was a one-loss scenario.
	You don't make the four-team playoff.
	You don't win the championship.
	If you lose three games, you shouldn't be in it.
	That's going to be the question.
	What about twos?
	I'll throw a scenario out here.
	Alabama has a terrible loss.
	The Vanderbilt loss for them is a bad loss.
	If you compare the loss, Georgia coming back and Almost winning against Alabama and losing there at the last, I mean, that's a loss that you look at.
	Oregon, Ohio State, same kind of deal.
	The loss Alabama has with Vanderbilt is a different level.
	But I'll give it this.
	Let's just say the question runs out.
	Let's say Texas wins this weekend.
	You've got a two-loss Georgia team.
	It then doesn't lose a game the rest of the year, beats Tennessee, beats Ole Miss, beats everybody else, goes in the end of the year 10-2.
	Do they make the playoffs?
	It depends on if they beat Tennessee and they beat other big teams.
	They run the rest of the league, 10-2.
	All right, so if they lose to Alabama and Texas.
	Alright, but you gotta look at who's under them, right?
	So, we're talking about teams like Boise State, Indiana, BYU, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Clemson.
	Like, I don't know.
	I think Clemson will lose again.
	I think Clemson will have two losses as well.
	Yeah.
	Like, I look at, like, I would want to see someone like Indiana sneak in, in a Boise State, or a, you know, like, I like that.
	I don't know.
	I don't know if you could kick Alabama out.
	If they didn't do it last year.
	I don't see how you, no, I don't think, I think, look, I think Texas, I think if it goes to the end of the year as is, Alabama one loss, Texas, say they run the table, and Georgia two loss, Alabama, Texas are in.
	That's a given, because they're going to be in the end of the championship game.
	The question is, will they pull Georgia in, or two loss, or let's just say Ohio State loses a second one.
	Actually, they lose to Michigan this year.
	I'm not putting any stock on Indiana or any of these other teams right now.
	There's no comparison between the schedules.
	No, that's totally fair.
	No comparison between the schedules.
	I'm just saying, if Alabama has two losses, even though one of them is Vanderbilt, they have to get in.
	There's no way they don't.
	It would be better than a one-loss to Indiana.
	No, Alabama with five losses is better than any Indiana team.
	Just talent alone.
	By the way, we haven't had a chance to talk about this since the Vandy.
	We didn't do this last week, but after the Vandy loss, there was an absolute epic meltdown on the Paul Feinbach show.
	Legend was just classic.
	I mean, classic.
	Legend.
	And it just goes to show you that college football in the South is different.
	Okay?
	It just is.
	And Auburn fans, everybody can sympathize with legend.
	Coming home and finding your wife in bed with another woman.
	I may take you back, but I ain't trusting you again.
	He said, I might stay with her, we might stay together for the kids, but I'm never gonna trust her again.
	The legend, Kip Kiefer has, back when you had the podcast with Salem, Doug Kipp had stepped in a couple times and guest hosted.
	And Kip and the legend are really tight.
	And they're really tight because Kip is the executive director of the Alabama Racing Commission, which is, they have dog races, greyhound races, and...
	In Birmingham, and then you can simulcast Bet in Birmingham, too.
	And so he's the executive director of that.
	And he met him because he was a worker at the track.
	And he's like, you know, and he had a couple people say, hey, I think that's legend.
	This was like eight years ago.
	And Kip went up and asked him, are you the legend for the Paul Feinbaum show?
	And they've been best friends ever since.
	And so...
	They do, but there's no racing there anymore.
	It's just like slot games, electronic games, and I think you can simulcast that, you know, as well.
	And so, yeah, man.
	dogs.
	Some of them don't even do the dogs anymore.
	Don't, you know, but I had a chance to get in the Legend Cave before the season began and it was five minutes.
	That's it.
	That's all you get in the Legend Cave.
	And I didn't get a whole lot of words in and I talk a lot.
	You know.
	Does he do a podcast or something?
	Well, I didn't do a podcast with him.
	I actually drove to Birmingham one day and did a college football preview show for the ABC affiliate with Kip and one of his hosts.
	And then afterwards, the Legend Cave is kind of a green screen behind that area.
	And it was something, man.
	It was, like I said, I didn't get a whole lot in.
	It was five minutes of me kind of shaking my head and You know, Logan a legend.
	And he's a showman.
	He's a showman.
	He loves to show.
	But he is, you know, he is kind of out of central casting for what everybody thinks Alabama fans are.
	And there's a reason he's out of central casting.
	Because he represents what every Alabama fan is.
	Yeah, and remember, everybody forgets that Feinbaum's show was the one in, what was it, 12?
	Or when the guy called in, and about Tumor's tree.
	Updike.
	Yeah, Updike, who actually spiked Tumor's tree and killed him.
	Yeah, I mean, the Feinbaum's show, You just don't say anything like it.
	Harvey Updike, and look, Harvey Updike was just a dumb Bama fan who had some DD-224 hanging around his barn.
	He went up and then put it into the soil and he literally killed.
	A hundred-year-old, you know, these oak trees.
	And, you know, he was found guilty of it.
	I don't know that he ever served time in prison.
	Didn't they take some of the genetic stuff out of that tree, and aren't they growing it again or something?
	They are, but it takes a while, man.
	It takes a while.
	That's the kind of stuff you don't get in pro football.
	No.
	No, no, no, no.
	The only thing we've got over here is Rutgers.
	Nobody cares about that.
	It is wild, but this is what we've got to do.
	Sorry, Doug.
	I was going to say, while he ended up doing that, he took a deep breath and he said, I guess I just have too much tide in me.
	Just too much tide, yeah.
	And he said he's got to do it.
	He said, Paul, and his voice is cracking, James.
	If you've never seen this, you need to go back and look at it.
	His voice is cracking, and he said, Paul, I know I shouldn't, but I just got to.
	Roll damn tide.
	I tell you what, if you want to get a gist of Alabama-Auburn, I mean, Georgia-Georgia Tech is a pretty good series as well, but it's also lost a lot in the last 20 years.
	But the Alabama-Auburn, go to the 30 for 30s, and there's one that's on that, and it plays a lot of that series.
	But the Alabama-Auburn stuff is...
	But I love that, though.
	That 30 for 30 is really, really good.
	You've seen it, haven't you, Chip?
	Oh, yeah.
	It's really good.
	And it's really fair, really, to both Auburn and Alabama.
	It's not an Auburn thing.
	It's not an Alabama thing.
	It's just a thing.
	Hey, guys, before next week, let's look at...
	Real quickly, and I want to do this pretty quickly, go around the room.
	Jaden Daniels, we all talked about being Rookie of the Year.
	I feel anybody disagrees still Rookie of the Year about a quarter of the way through?
	Yeah, I mean, at this point, he's got it sewn up.
	For the most part.
	I will say Bo Nix is actually, I think, learning more than he ever thought he would learn.
	And next year could be an interesting year for Bo Nix.
	I think his second year, because he's proven he does that.
	It takes him a little while, but once he gets going...
	Well, Sean Payton's a piece of garbage, so no.
	But we can get...
	John Payton's not quarterbacking the...
	Yeah, but he's coaching that team.
	That's all I'm saying.
	Continue.
	Chip.
	Chip.
	They're unbeaten.
	You can't even put him in the same screen with us.
	I hate Sean Payton.
	Everything that man stands for.
	The purple people leader is just going at it.
	The purple people leaders.
	The only way to put me in a bad mood is to have anyone associated with Sean Payton.
	I heard he was looking to come be offensive coordinator in Minnesota.
	I would literally become a Green Bay Packers fan tomorrow.
	Here will be our closing question of the day.
	Any...
	What would be your biggest surprise in the NFL season so far?
	I'd have to say Sam Darnold in Minnesota.
	I mean, who saw that coming?
	I certainly didn't.
	And then a close second behind Sam Darnold has to be what Jaden Daniels is doing in Washington.
	I mean, come on.
	I mean, with that franchise, do you know how hard it is to play quarterback for the Washington Commanders?
	I mean, so I think between those two things, it's just, I mean, it's just insane.
	Biggest disappointment, I think, has to be the Jacksonville Jaguars.
	What a disaster.
	I agree.
	I agree.
	James?
	I was going to say my biggest surprise is how bad Jacksonville is.
	Because obviously, I mean, this, we get it.
	We know I'm excited about it.
	Sam Darnold's been great.
	But Jacksonville being...
	1-5 and just beating a terrible team is beyond me.
	I don't know.
	It's very clear Trevor Lawrence isn't the guy and they made a massive mistake with that money.
	Yeah, I think Trevor Lawrence may be one of those that we talked about earlier that needs a change of scenery.
	100%.
	100%.
	Alright, mine, we all agree on Jacksonville, so that's a given.
	I think the Jacksonville just demise.
	But I'm going to bring one that we've not talked about, we don't talk about much at all.
	My big surprise for the year, and will get worse in my opinion, is the Dallas Cowboys.
	I don't think anybody would have put them at 3-3 at this point in the year and look as bad as they look.
	In their losses, they look real bad.
	The loss to Detroit was terrible.
	They just can't go back.
	They did hear Stephen A make the best analogy of Jerry Jones I've ever heard.
	Everybody says, why isn't Jerry making any moves?
	Chip, you and I see this in politics a lot.
	He is friends And he's personable and he has relations.
	He's an owner that has relations.
	It's what Stephen A was saying.
	He's an owner that has relationships with the coaches and the players more than just, I own you.
	It says, I know who you are.
	And he has a hard time getting rid of people.
	The easiest thing to do is fire somebody you don't know.
	The hardest thing in the world to do is fire somebody you know.
	Yeah, but he takes forever to...
	But bringing someone in?
	Like, you couldn't bring him...
	I'm sorry.
	The Derrick Henry thing is inexcusable.
	If they break 500, I don't think they make the playoffs, and then the real heat will turn up in Dallas this fall.
	Yeah, Derrick Henry thing is inexcusable.
	That's all I'm saying.
	All right, folks, that's it for the podcast today.
	We're glad to have you again.
	We're doing weekly right now for a little while.
	We'll maybe get back into it after the election.
	We've got a lot of stuff going on.
	The website is still working and running, so if you still need to get me, you can still hit the email button there on DougCollinPodcast.com.
	We will be working to get that even more updated here in the future, so keep listening.
	Share this wherever you find it.
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	Let people know that we're still going.

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