Colin Cowherd is starting to give sports fans reason to discount the old “it must be true, Colin Cowherd said so” belief.
Despite what stats and analytics say, Cowherd still wants things to pass the eye test. And his eyes tell him the Green Bay Packers are bad on third down.
“Green Bay can’t really, run, they’re not really getting a good push on the offensive line,” the FS1 host and Volume founder claimed on the latest episode of The Colin Cowherd Podcast. “I don’t feel they run it, so they’re very bad on third down. They can’t extend offensive drives.”
That might be what the eye test tells Cowherd, or maybe it’s just what he felt like seeing in the moment. Because despite the claim, not only have the Packers been better on third down than Cowherd suggests, Green Bay has been *checks notes* the best in the league.
This season, the Packers have been converting on third down at a 49.3 percent clip, better than every other team in football. “Very bad,” would be a better way of describing the Tennessee Titans, who are converting just 28.3 percent of their attempts this season.
It’s hard to cover every team in every sport and consistently sound like you know what you’re talking about. But it’s better to give no facts than false facts. And claiming the Packers are “very bad” on third down when they’re actually the best at it, certainly makes it sound like you’re willing to say whatever you want with no evidence to support it.
The good thing about Cowherd is that he’s always willing to shamelessly waffle on an opinion based on new information, a rare trait for sports hosts and entertainers. Mike Francesa, for example, will still attempt to find a way of defending his take that the New York Yankees were “lucky” they didn’t get Shohei Ohtani back in 2018.
So, while Cowherd argued the Packers are really bad on third down today, he might be willing to change his opinion tomorrow after learning they’re actually really good on third down. Like, so good that they’re actually better at it than every other NFL team.