All right, here we go, ladies and gentlemen, season two, episode number seven of The Shawn Mackey Show. Opinionated. Unedited. And unpredictable. And I have to start out by apologizing to the fans out there. You all probably think I'm wishy washy. I'm just still trying to figure this shit out. Season two, and I'm still trying to figure it out.

I wanted to post three times a week to kind of try to cover everything and get all the information in, it's just with sports, it's so much information and 15 minutes per episode is just not enough time. I would rather have a 30 minute episode that, did you hear that little echo? Ooh, my finger hit the wrong button. FFS fat finger syndrome. Look at these little sausages. Anyway,

I would rather just post like a 30, 35 minute episode and not really worry about trying to fit everything in into smaller 15 minute segments, right? And of course, you know, as a first time podcaster here, just getting started, I got a J-O-B. So I got to kind of try to fit that in all with the family time and then doing some things around the house, all that good stuff.

So it's like, it's crazy. So we're just going to go back to posting once a week. More than likely it's going to be on Tuesdays or Wednesdays because we want to get in like all the NCAA action. We want to get in the major league baseball, the playoff news, the Chicago Cubs. We want to get in the Monday night football. The only thing that's missing is Thursday night football for that episode, but we'll capture that back on the following week. So.

During the Bears game this past week, I recorded two episodes. But then I've had a chance to calm down. I've had a chance to go back and look at some film. And I'm kind of glad I didn't just willy nilly post them, because I might have pissed off a lot of people. And look, here with podcasting, this is one of those deals where they say you should have a niche. A niche, however the fuck you pronounce it. Like kind of.
Pair it way down so you can get the followers and get the listeners. And there's a shit ton of people in the United States and elsewhere. And I kind of figure that I'm not a rose colored glasses kind of fan. The teams that I follow, you know, if you're fucking up, I'm gonna call you out on it. If you're not doing the things you're supposed to be doing, I'm gonna call you out on it.

Some people don't like that, but I figured with the amount of people in the United States of America, that there would be a lot of people that would feel the same way I do, and then that would be my niche, right?

Hasn't happened yet. Kind of getting a little frustrated. Don't see the downloads. Don't see the subscribers that I'd like to see, but it's still early. I haven't even been doing this for a year. I really enjoy sitting behind the microphone and doing the podcast stuff. So again, apologies to the fans. If I lost some of you that's on me, I'll own that and I'll build up some new ones, maybe get you back in the near future. So.

We want to start out with the Chicago Bears.

They are regressing. They regressed in week two. Caleb, I was never really sold on that draft pick. I feel there's a few other quarterbacks taken in that same draft that are doing a much better job than he is, but he improved a little bit from week one to week two. The whole thing with the Bears is I just feel like we need to see improvement as fans every single week. We can't keep losing. Now,

We're owing to as Chicago Bears fans how the Kansas City Chiefs are owing to This season so, you know, we'll see where where things go. Do I still think the Bears can be a playoff team?

Not going to panic yet, but I think we're going to have this just say wait and see. Now, the weird thing about this week in the NFL is we've had some major crazy injuries with the Bears. We saw Jalen Johnson come back and play in week two. Didn't even make it through an entire half re-injured that groin. And I think he's now out indefinitely. You know, we saw Joe Burrow go down with

Turf Toe gonna be out for three months. The Monday night game, was it the Monday night game or the Sunday night game? shit.

man, I gotta think. All right, we'll get back to that in a minute, but let's talk about the Bears game against the Lions. Some things that I witnessed, and I will say this. Now, in the episodes I recorded and didn't air, I may edit them and then just throw those up for you all to see what I would have posted, but...

Tyreek Stevenson, this guy got to go. This guy should never see the light of day or see the field again. I don't know what the coaches see in him and why they keep trotting him out there. And it may be because of the Jalen Johnson injury. Now that he's out for a while and getting second opinions.

I just don't think Tyreek Stevenson is the guy at the NFL level.

He gave up the very first play against the Lions, a big play, a long play. That was right in front of him. Then Montez Sweat has a really nice sack. And that's negated by a Tyreek Stevenson penalty. Isaac Tesla for Detroit makes his second NFL reception, another one handed grab. Remarkable, by the way. But right in front of Tyreek Stevenson.

And then the touchdown soon after that, after the refs figured out the whole play clock debacle with one ref not stopping the clock properly or whatever happened to it with the 10 second runoff, the touchdown is right in front of Tyreek Stevenson again. So I'm not sold on this guy. I personally, and I know we've had a coaching change, so that might be the reason why it didn't happen.

because they're going to give this guy the benefit of the doubt. But I don't know. I don't know if I would have played that guy at all after that whole Washington game last season where he gave up that Hail Mary on the tip. And then if he doesn't even if at that point, if he just going back to last year, if he just looks at that ball and gay, I fucked up and doesn't even try to go in there and do anything. That ball probably drops and the Bears win that game.

At least that's the way I saw it, but he goes in there and tips it right into the hands of the commander's receiver. So, I just don't like the guy. I don't think he's that great of a football player to keep him on the field every single week. Right. Deandre Swift fumbles in the red zone. That was a tough one right there, but here's the thing. And I know Ben Johnson's a new coach and all, and he's very aggressive.

But man, you went for it on third and one on a quarterback sneak. You didn't use any kind of tush push. That was not in the game plan and you get stuff.

And then you go for it again with the almost the exact same play on fourth and one on your own 37 yard line. Now at that moment, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Detroit kicker that you missed that field goal because by halftime that game could have been even worse. But the problem is as soon as the second half started, Detroit drives down again and kicks the field goal anyway. So

Not soon after the second half starts, was 31 to nothing or 31 to.

I don't even know. It's just, it was so mind boggling and mind blowing. I can't even keep track of what the score was at halftime. And then the Detroit Lions dropped 52 on you. And that's partly Dan Campbell. You know, he, he knew he had something to prove. He had to show the fans that they could do it without Ben Johnson. You're playing Ben Johnson who went to the Bears. You got to play him again. So we'll see what happens.

with Chicago. Braxton Jones, no, no, no, I don't, this guy, and I've said it before, come on, man, two penalties in a row, that puts your team at second and 32, and then Caleb Williams has an ill-advised throw, he overthrows Zacchaeus for the pick.

So originally when I posted and I was so mad at halftime that I was kind of blaming that on Caleb Williams. But I look at how Caleb Williams has graded out. So he actually had a little bit better of a game this week against the Lions or last week against the Lions than he did in game one. His feet weren't all over the place. Looked like he was going through his progression some. So he's definitely talented there. The Bears got some players talent wise.

But defensively, come on, give up 52 points with a Dennis Allen run defense. There was hardly any pressure. The guys up front for the Bears are not getting pressure on the quarterback. And when you're going to put five, six, seven guys on the line of scrimmage, that's when you got to kind of play that zone defense. But they're not getting any kind of pressure. So Jared Goff was able to just stand back and

hit guys for seven, eight, nine, 10 yards in front of that little zone defense. So I'm not seeing that aggression there from him as it as the defensive coordinator that he's kind of known for. But it also could be that maybe these guys came in, this coaching staff came in and they realize they just don't have the guys that can get it done defensively. I don't know what the issue is, but I hope we really see some improvement next week.

Got Dallas coming up. That's going to be a tough one for them, even though, you know, mean, Dallas isn't barn burning it at all this year, but so at the half last week, it was 28 to 14. So it could have been 31 to 14 had Detroit not missed that last second field goal at the end of the half. Right there.

Tough loss for the Chicago Bears. I hope we see some improvement going into the Dallas game, but getting 52 dropped on you by the Lions. After they lost in week one to the Packers, know, Detroit wasn't looking like the same team. And then I saw like video of Dan Campbell saying like, like way to recover. And that's the way to show them who we are, who we still are type situation. So good luck with that. Some crazy, crazy.

injury updates here around the NFL. Let me go ahead and pop this little resource up over here. We know about Joe Burrow. He was placed on IR.

Let's see, who else did we have? We know Jaylen Johnson went out for a little period of time.

Apparently the big news is on Tom Brady and his conflict of interest. He's, he's out there as a broadcaster each week, gathering up, talking to players, gathering up inside information. And then on Monday night, they see him out there in the booth and he's, he's kind of coaching up the Raiders and whatnot. That's, that's going to be a tough bird for the NFL to figure out. But that, I think the other injury came up in the Monday night game.

Khalil Mack, my goodness. There was a photo on Khalil Mack on that elbow injury and I suffered one exactly like this when I was playing. I'm not, and it still haunts me to this day. I'm kind of claustrophobic so I've been putting off getting it repaired because I don't play anymore and I don't have physical labor jobs. So.

I have, I've had that injury occur, not to the extent that Khalil Mack did, but I had that injury occur. And then I also, I think it was last week's episode where I told you I re-aggravated that injury in an arm wrestling fit of stupidity while a bunch of buddies and I were drinking in a bar. But I remember one game where,

I playing defensive tackle and come off the snap of the ball and I get penetration through my gap and the running backs coming through and I get my right arm up there and I've got my right arm spread across the chest of the running back trying to just grab on, know, to stop his momentum. And my linebacker came in and put his helmet right on my bicep or tricep area.

So as the running back was coming forward and the linebacker was coming forward, of course they're going in opposite directions, you know, head to head with each other. And I know that arm just bent back and thankfully I was able to kind of let go and fall to the ground. I mean, I heard it pop. I knew there was some damage there. I had some issues with it. In fact, it stopped me from being able to long snap for the rest of that season.

the elbow would be tight and I'd have to wrap it up. I could still play defensive tackle, but I couldn't really long snap. So I've seen that injury before, but Khalil Max, man, it looked like that forearm down to the hand went all the way back. I mean, it was an angle that the human body, elbows and knees should never be going at. So that was a tough one. He's out, he's got to get some MRIs.

or an MRI to determine the extent of that injury. Jane Daniels went down with an injury. Brock Purdy was out. Justin Fields is gonna miss week three for the Jets. He went out with an injury. Backup had to come in there. Now the funny thing, it's not funny, don't take that the wrong way. The weird thing is, is that when the Bengals play Minnesota, cause JJ McCarthy suffered an injury,

Now you're going to have Cincinnati's backup and Minnesota's backup going head to head in their game during week three. So we've got a lot of Aaron Jones goes to the IR. Josh Allen broke his nose in the middle of the game, pops it back in, goes out, finishes the game. I think they picked up a winner, a win there to.

So now with JJ McCarthy out and Carson Wentz backing him up, the Vikings have signed former starting Falcons quarterback Desmond Ritter. So that's a little bit on the...

injury front there. A few more guys of note who are injured all across the NFL. The big one for us as Bears fans is Jalen Johnson. He re aggravated that growing. Kyler Gordon, I still think is on the DMP did not practice list.

Who knows? Who knows when we're going to see him back on the field? And the funny thing is, is a couple of seasons ago, I was not high on Kyler Gordon either. I felt that this guy was just like a reincarnation of Kyle Fuller. But then the Bears to Eberflus credit, I think figured out a better position for Kyler Gordon. And then last year he was, man, he was kind of lights out. I really liked his play last year. So that's.

one of the deals that we see in the NFL all the time. There's just so much unpredictability. As far as the Bears go, I think Caleb Williams should have thrown that damn ball out of bounds, just straight in front of him. He was already out of the pocket. Don't try to make a play there. And that's one of those things coaches have to work on with him.

If you can try to make that play, but make sure that that ball is thrown in an area where no defender can get to it, that's fine. But that was an ill-advised throw. He was already out of the pocket. He should have just thrown the ball past the line of scrimmage, straight out of bounds. Shouldn't have even tried to make a play. Fair still having some penalty issues there, some false starts with Darnell Wright. Still trying to figure out if this is a cadence issue with Caleb.

or if it's a discipline issue with this offensive line. And then here's the other thing that's killing me, man. You went and drafted, what was it? Number 10 overall, Colston Loveland, and he was a non-factor in that game. And Ozzie Tripillo was a healthy scratch. Shamar Turner was a healthy scratch. Luther Burden, the third, I don't even think he played at all. He's got one reception for negative three yards.

So what does that tell me as a fan? That tells me that Ryan Poles is not that good of an Italian, a talent evaluator. And I actually saw an article, I didn't read the article, because the title of it alone had enough to piss me off. And it was where Kevin Warren was saying that, well, Ryan Poles is still kind of learning the GM role, you know, and it's just like, what the?

As Bears fans, we've suffered through so much. I was shocked when they hired a no-name GM like Ryan Poles when they did. And yeah, he got the trades going that got you those two first round picks. He got you that second first round pick two years in a row and you knew you were gonna take Caleb Williams. But again, the jury's still out on Caleb Williams.

And there's a few quarterbacks in that same draft class that I think are doing a lot better. Michael Penick Jr. was starting for Atlanta. The other night, he looked poised, under control, led his team to a victory. So I'm starting to wonder if Ryan Poles, and that's the thing as Bears fans, it's like, do we keep putting B, why do we keep getting put through these experiments?

I guess again, now with the extension in line with Ben Johnson's contract, you kind of have to wait and see what's going to happen five years from now. If I'm still doing this podcast, are the bears still losing or have the bears become a legitimate playoff contender kind of go to the playoffs every year, whether they win a Superbow, you know, every year or every other year, you might not find that like you're you're finding with Kansas City. Andy Reed had.

a long time to really get his shit together in the NFL. And he was a really good coach with Philadelphia. But then going over to Kansas City, he's really shown us that he's a really good coach. So the jury's still out there with the Chicago Bears. I did like the running game a little bit better, but it seemed like they got away from it a little bit in the first half. Deandre Swift was eight, eight carries, 50 yards for a 6.3 average. That was a little higher than

what I said on last episode where I think it should be, but he didn't end up with that many. And I'll tell you what, I got so pissed off at that game first half, I stopped kind of taking notes because it just went all downhill from there. So we'll see what's going to happen with the Chicago Bears this week coming up with the Dallas Cowboys. Now the Cubs, you know, the Cubs are, they're still holding their own. They're still doing some winning.

The guy you went out and got after at the trade deadline, Soroka, he's off the I.L. now, but they're going to start using him as a reliever. Maybe that's a good deal because, you know, he's trying to still kind of get that arm healed up. But. If you do make the playoffs. I think he went after this guy to be a starter. Now he's going to be in the bullpen. Shota Imanaga is struggling. This dude's given up like 27 home runs.

this season, I want to say. but the Cubs, you know, beat Pittsburgh yesterday, four to nothing, nothing to really get excited about. They still can't crack that five, five and a half games back in the National League Central standings with Milwaukee leading the way there, which that that's what kind of got me upset earlier in the season when the Cubs kind of dropped that league, that lead in first place.

But they still have one of the better records in Major League Baseball. So we'll see what happens. We've got how many games left do we have? Let's see 86 and 64. Oh, gotta hit the old calculator because I used to be an English teacher for a reason. 86 plus 64. You got 12 games left. You know, so we'll see what happens. That's roughly two weeks playoff.

Contenders wild cards will be announced. Teams are starting to clinch Milwaukee clinched Philadelphia clinched teams have been eliminated. So here we are down to the final end of the season. Now, if the Cubs are in the playoffs, we'll kind of continue to talk about them and major league baseball. As long as they stay in the playoffs, if they end up getting eliminated, then the entire focus for the rest of this season of my podcast.

will be on football, college and or the NFL. So Cubs have Pittsburgh again today. Nothing crazy going on there. Still some injuries, you know, with them here and there, but we'll just have to wait and see how this season plays out for the Chicago Cubs.

I do want to say that I'm absolutely glad that I did not post those episodes because I was really fired up. I was really pissed. I might have sent every bit of every single one of my leftover fans straight to other podcasts. But the funny thing is, is and I don't know, I don't know if I should just start putting my show up like immediately after the game, holding up the newspaper to show you the date and a timestamp somehow. My recordings don't have those.

But if you're wondering if I know my shit, I know my shit because a lot of the shit that I complained to to my wife and family about how the games turned out is the same damn shit all the fucking pros say after the fact. All the radio announcers, Colin Cowherd, 670 the score out of Chicago, articles being written. I said in that scathing podcast that I didn't post. And if I have a clip of it, I'm going to get that out there on social media.

But I said the same thing. I said Ryan Poles doesn't know what's going on. And the dudes on 670 score said kind of the same thing. I did panic a little bit. I did say like Caleb Williams isn't the guy. I didn't like that draft choice. I thought you could have drafted somebody else in that first round. Hell, at that point you could have traded down that first pick.

I still think Washington would have taken Jaden Daniels with that first pick. So then you're stuck. Who do you get after that? I thought JJ McCarthy was kind of nice and poised when they beat the Bears, but then he struggled in week two and then got hurt. This kid was hurt all last year. He's a Chicago kid, grew up a Bears fan. I really hope he's not one of these guys who's injured all the time and then doesn't have a great career because he looks like a guy who could have

Excuse me, a great career. If he could stay off of the injury list, so. I think that's going to be about it for this week's episode. You know, kind of keep it around. 30 minutes or so, you know, that's a good time. let no, it's not. Let's get to some NCAA NCAA standings now. I I didn't get into this. Last week, but the teams that are up at the top.

are the teams up at the top who you expect. Here's what I don't understand. This is what I still don't understand about these rankings, the AP, the Associated Press Top 25.

How the hell do you have Notre Dame at number 24 and they're O and two and USC is number 25 and they're three and O.

What the fuck? How is, are these reporters still looking at paper and saying, well, it doesn't really matter. It's a fluke, USC's three and all, but Notre Dame is still the better team. So at O and two, we're gonna put them at 24 and we'll put USC at 25. It doesn't make any fricking sense to me. I you got Michigan at 21, they're two and one.

So they're a little higher than Notre Dame. Auburn, Missouri are at 3 and 0. They're just ahead of Notre Dame. But, you know.

I wish there was somebody who would come onto this podcast and really explain to me this AP Top 25, because it boggles my mind every year. And I've posted about it before and I've had people try to explain, you just gotta look at the, you know what? I don't know. That's absolutely ridiculous to me. Glad to see Illinois is up there at number nine, my beloved Texas at number eight at two and one, but Illinois is three and I mean, I'm here, I'm hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes away from Champaign.

When I was coaching high school football as coaches, we used to always go to the IHSA playoff games that when they were hosted in Champaign, it'd be like a weekend thing. We'd get there Friday evening, know, catch that late game on Friday, spend the night in a hotel, go out to eat, catch a couple of them games on Saturday. It was always a good time. So I like seeing that Illinois is out there at number nine.

So we got Ohio State, number one, Penn State, number two, LSU, Miami, Georgia, Oregon, Florida State, Texas, Illinois, Texas A at number 10, Oklahoma, Iowa State. That's weird for me, Oklahoma. As a kid growing up, man, Oklahoma was always at the top of that list. That was a team you feared playing, man. Oklahoma, Barry Switzer, whoo! I'm gonna tell you what, that's some good old days of football.

Alabama number 14, that's another one for so many years under Nick Saban, right? And even before that, Alabama, that was a powerhouse. Now they got the new coach, Kalen DeBoer, two and one. I've read articles in which the culture around Alabama is not the same as it was with Nick Saban, but you would expect that because they're not the same guy, all right? You got Tennessee at 15, Utah, Texas Tech, Georgia Tech.

Indiana, Vanderbilt, Michigan, Auburn, Missouri, Notre Dame at 24, and USC rounding out the top 25. So let's see, who does Texas have coming up this week? On the 20th, they've got Sam Houston. And this is the other thing that kills me about college sports.

we saw it last year, but you got these powerhouses and they get these lower ranked lower teams to come in and play them. And I know colleges are paying other colleges money. Hey, we'll get you on the schedule. We'll give you some money to come out here and play us because it's one of those deals where, you know, if it's a big time school asking these people to come play them, they pay them out some money because they know, it's going to be a blowout, this, that, and the other. And I'd have to do some research, but

I think it was whoever upset Florida was it. Was it University of South Florida? Florida paid them a bunch of money to go play that at Florida and then they were upset. So, but then you got, you know, you got teams like Sam Houston playing Texas and, and even last week, Texas playing San Jose State University.

It's crazy. It's crazy to me what happens. So we've got Texas has upcoming Sam Houston, then Florida, Oklahoma, Kentucky. Mississippi is that Mississippi State? Yep, Mississippi State, they got coming up after that. Then they get to Vanderbilt, Georgia, Arkansas and Texas A Texas is going to have a tough time with Georgia.

in that game. can already tell you that right now. So that's the NCAA action that we've got coming up with the top 25. I know it's not as in depth and I know if I'm going to keep posting episodes only once a week just because I think the 15 minute timeline to try to get all this in is just not really going to work. So we'll get some more in depth as the season goes on here with

the podcast. So I hope you come back. You know, if you know someone who listened and you guys were listening to my show together and you know they kind of walked away, tell them I apologize. Tell them to come on back. Give me some feedback. I keep asking you all to hit me up on Facebook when I put the little short clips on Facebook. Throw some comments in there. Throw me a Facebook measure message. If you get and download on Spotify, there's a link at the very top of everything that says, hey, send me an email like a fan email, right?

you'll get shout outs on the show, still looking for some guests. It's kind of hard to run a podcast where you don't have any kind of connections so that people can come on as guests other than possible friends who might want to come on. And that was a good idea for me when I was still doing dumb ass shit that I did or shit that pisses me off because I could just have friends on, although not. I dropped the ball on one who said they come on.

So I'm still trying to learn this podcast. I'm still trying to fit it all in between the J O B and all the family stuff going on. after our pool took a crap last season, the wife was convinced she wasn't going to put in a new pool. We started getting the yard all prepared for grass and then she decided that the last minute to put in a pool. So we, we had that put in, about three weeks ago. And so the yard's still kind of a mess. So we've been out there working in the yard every night after work.

kind of doing things like that, had to build new steps to get in the pool. So we got a pool again and then it was really nice and hot around here in the Midwest for the last week. So we actually got some swim time happening. Some friends decided to put in a pool and I've been helping them out there with their deck. So, know, life kind of gets in the way. So I just got to do a little bit better of carving out some time for the show and we will get to that. And I promise you that.

So from me to you, much love. I'm getting ready to get out of here. Peace, y'all. Have a good one.