First Things First - Caleb Williams & Bears O-Line issues, Falcons & Vikings QB battles, Will Mahomes start Week 1?

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

(0:00) Jesse Minter vs. John Harbaugh, Bears LT concerns (25:35) Falcons starting Tua ‘impossible’, Will Bo Nix take a step forward or back? (39:28) Time to stop sleeping on the Giants? (45:51) Injuries could stop the Rams, Will Mahomes start Week 1?  (01:03:42) Jalen Hurts struggles, Will J.J. McCarthy leave the Vikings? (01:20:01) Is this a make-or-break year for Bryce Young? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Real Canadian Superstore has everything you need this back-to-school season. Save on lunchbox savers like Ziggy's sliced deli-meat products for always $3.75. And get Life Brand Pure Vita shampoo or conditioner for $8 each. At Real Canadian Superstore, when you're ready, we're ready, with a whole world and more. Live from New York, it's the show that, for some reason, is reliving the 2013 Wild Party game between the Chiefs and the Colts in-depth. Jeff, you guys were up 38 to 10. Yes, it started because we talked about it, wearing all. white is not good for fat people.

Oh, yeah. That's how it started, okay? That is how it started. That is how it started. We lost, we were 38 down 30, we were up 3810 and lost. It was a bad loss. But Cincinnati Chiefs have won three Super Bowls.

So good for that. They've won three Super Bowels. Yeah. Andrew luck happens. He did happen. T.Way Hilton happened. Injuries happened. Bad luck happened.

All things that happened coach when you lose the 20-point lead in the third quarter. Probably wasn't just the jerseys. No. Might not have been the all white jerseys. That's Jeff Schwartz, Eric Van Jeannie. I'm Danny Parkins.

We got a great show for you. today. Although I don't know if this is great. Ben Johnson just openly talking about the biggest question mark on the offense and coach, it's a big position left tackle. We'll talk about Caleb Williams level of concern and what is merited there in Chicago. Meanwhile, Bo Nix and the Broncos trying to defend their AFC West title. Can they hold off the return of Mahomes?

An R guy? Justin Herbalt? Our guy? My guy? I'll take ownership. Finally, Miles Garrett misses another day of practice with what they're calling minor knee swelling. But Sean McVeigh says it's all about getting him ready for week one. Coach, do you look at the Rams as being inevitable at this point?

You believe in such a thing? I don't believe in anybody's inevitable, but the pieces that they've added make them pretty compelling. I remember when we called that Eagles team a super team, like the Mike Vic Eagles. Yeah, not a Super Team. Yeah. Not a Super Team. Not a Super Team. Not a Super Team.

So I can't really. If they added anybody as good as Miles Garrett though in that crew. Yeah. And their quarterback wasn't coming off of an MVP award and a few differences. But they did have the Super Team label. I digress. Let's get to today's show. We begin with the Baltimore Ravens.

Who's a disappointing 2025 to say the least? John Harbaugh was fired. Baltimore's expectations, though, as high as ever under new head coach, Jesse Minter, finding themselves tied with the best Super Bowl odds. among AFC teams with the bills. Ravens beat writer Jameson Hensley outlined how Minter has motivated Lamar Jackson and the Ravens to be the best, the quote from tackle Ronnie Staley. Stanley, excuse me, says, quote,

he just brings a positive mentality and an optimistic outlook on every individual in the building. He just pumps belief into the players. So there's always talk of a new coach bump. So we'll start with you, coach. Do you expect Jesse Mentor to be an upgrade over John Harbaugh? So when we used to meet with the players, we talk about media traps and things you should avoid. And comparisons is one of them. Because you're always going to make someone angry with a comparison.

And here's what I'm having a difficult time working through is John was there 18 seasons. And he had three losing seasons in his 18 seasons. And two of those were 9 and 8. And he won a Super Bowl. And I've known, I worked with Jim and I've known John for a long time. And I don't think you can accuse either one of them of them. being anything but extremely positive. So that's always been, you know, who they are. So to say that he didn't bring that to the building, I find that extremely hard to believe.

I think this may be a function of just like anything. If you're playing at the same bar for 18 years, probably people get a little tired of listening to what you're singing, and this is a new message. So I don't necessarily think it's a better message. It's just different, and that's probably what the responding to, but I'd just be careful about, you know, trying to label John Harbaugh as not being positive and this being a, you know, a huge upgrade over someone who had three losing seasons in 18 years. Pretty hard to do. Pretty good record. Very clearly, the energy is younger, right? He's younger coach. And clearly there was something the end of last season that was off. You remember the end of season was like Lamar versus Harbaugh, who they're going to choose Lamar or Harbaugh?

They chose Lamar. So I would imagine they're hoping that what happens here is what happened in Seattle. You hire a young offensive coordinator, a hot shot, and in two years you win a Super Bowl. Now, he's starting off with Lamar Jackson. Mike got to start with Gino Smith. So there's obviously a head start here. What he has got to do, Minter has got to do, number one, is obviously get them to the playoffs, but they have got to play better in the playoffs. They've got to play better as a favorite in the playoffs, and Lamar's got to play better as a favorite, as a player of quarterback overall. That's going to be hard in year one. I mean, year one, getting the playoffs, winning a lot of playoff games, but the goal of the change, I would imagine, is to play better in the postseason.

We know they can win the regular season, coach, how do they get postseason wins out, how do they get Lamar to play better in those moments? How do they get them win as a favorite? He doesn't win as a favorite, short favorite, but still doesn't win as a favorite. So that's the hurdle I see for them. It's not the regular season. It's, have you done enough in the regular season to get yourself ready to win playoff games?

And I don't think with the new head coach, there's any lock that they're going to the playoffs. Like, I don't think this is an absolute lock. there's a lot of things that they have to do and they have to do right and they have to do better than the previous staff and the last time I checked the offensive coordinator for the Ravens last year he's now a head coach and

there's a lot of positive things being said about him as a head coach there's definite challenges and to me they're going to it's important that they win early because that helps add legitimacy to the things that you're saying it helps add legitimacy to

the the core beliefs that you're bringing into the organization, they go through a early stretch where it's 500 or they've got a losing record, then guys gets a little bit shakier as you build. So I think I can believe two things at once here. John Harbaugh is a big upgrade for the Giants and that he is a professional and a good coach with a track record and three losing seasons in 18 years is an undeniable accomplishment

and a Super Bowl is obviously impressive. And so, like, John Harbaugh is a legitimate NFL head coach who can legitimize an organization, stabilize an organization, and is the right guy at this time for the Giants, and it was a huge coup that they were able to hire him. And I can also believe that they needed to move on, that change a message, needed a new act at the bar,

underachieving in the playoffs. Like, John Harbaugh was a huge success with the Ravens, but was he a success with Lamar Jackson? Like, was he a success relative? Relative to the caliber of quarterback and talent that he's had since Lamar Jackson has been there. They were the one seat in 2019. Didn't make the Super Bowl.

They're the one seat in 2023. Don't make the Super Bowl. Lamar Jackson has a losing record in the playoffs. Now, clearly plenty of that is on Lamar Jackson, who underachieved individually in that spot. But I do expect Jesse Minter to be an upgrade over the late stage version of John Harbaugh, was underachieving because as I've talked about,

I feel like the Ravens defense underachieved last year and Minter overachieved with the talent that he had with the Chargers. And I know it's going from coordinator to coach, and we've talked about that a lot over the last couple of weeks. But sometimes an injection of youthful energy and a new message, even if the message is similar, because Minter has ties to the organization,

so the message might be similar, but it's just a new voice that is delivering it to you. I think that that could give a jolt to a very talented roster coach that has underachieved. Yeah, there is value to a new message. And one of the great things that John has gone for him in New York now is all those stories that they add, they're new to the Giants. Yeah, he gets to play the hits.

Yeah, he gets to play the hits and recycling. And that's great for them and great for him. And I understand why Baltimore made the decision that they made because they are looking as like we've got a two-time MVP, probably could have been a third, a three-time MVP. We've historically drafted well, and we're not where we expect to be with this quarterback. So you try something different. It's just not a lot. There's a learning curve for a new staff.

There's a learning curve for a new head coach. And hopefully while that learning curve is happening, they're not now maybe underachieving with Lamar and the team. Hopefully you get what you're saying, the new energy needs. new ideas bringing over achieving. This is not just a Baltimore question, but it does apply to them. They have a new offensive coordinator who's not called plays before. And how does that play a role with a brand new coach, right? I mean, I think that I've been in brand new installs.

I think a handful of times in my career, it takes eight to 12 weeks in regular season and sort of feel good about the new offense, right? You have to see everything one time and two times and three times against this defense against that front against the situation. And to coach's point, the message is great right now, right? It's all positive, it's all ready to go. If that offense starts slow, the deep. defense starts slow. How to keep up that positive messaging if you start like you shouldn't.

The Bengals are playing well and the Sears are playing well. And we won't say the Browns are playing well. But the rest of the division is playing well outside of them. How does that message resonate now if you don't start the way you want to? With offense, I think it's tough as a first time play caller to get offense up and running a week one, especially when you have a shorter training camp now, short time in pads, shorter preseason. Like week one is the first time. They're going to get this operation really going with everything new. There's also, I mean, there's a lot of variance here, right? Like, with John Harbaugh, he's a known commodity.

Like, he's maybe not a top five head coach in the NFL with some of the, like, schematic geniuses that are out there. But he's a solid head coach who knows what he's doing. He's got his culture. He knows what he is and maybe what he isn't. And Jesse Minter might be bad. He could be great, but he might be bad. Like every year head coaches get hired to get fired.

And some guys are just like, oh, we got, we promoted him one step too high. and he is more of a coordinator than a head coach. Declan Doyle, maybe he's good. Yeah, we don't know. But maybe he's bad. You know, like there's definitely more variance of high-end outcomes and low-end outcomes doing it the way the Ravens are doing it now. I just think when you tag him with maybe he's not as creative as some of these other guys.

The long 18 years of longevity in the NFL that turns over, what, 30%? 40% of coaches every single year. You've got to be doing a lot of things. right. And you could you could attribute it all to the front office and the players. But but the law of averages over time, but that's just not the case. And when you're two, two out of your three losing records are at eight and nine. We're not talking about terrible season. He had one five and eleven season. The other two were eight and nine. Like I don't think people appreciate how hard that is to do. We're going to talk giants in like 40 minutes.

And I will I will talk about how John Harbaugh is an upgrade for the Giants. I, I'm not at all saying that he's not a good coach. I understand why they're knocking on the door, not get in there, not get in there, not getting there. You're not moving on from Lamar Jackson. You feel like you have a ready-made Super Bowl roster. I just don't think that they felt like they could do the same thing. But did you feel like the problems last year were exclusively coaching? Did you feel like it was exclusively defense?

You look at Lamar. Lamar got sacked at the highest rate of his career last year. And as we know, sacks aren't just an O line number. Yes. Yes. So many people want to sail while the O line was terrible. Well, you're also talking about an extremely mobile quarterback. So it's not like he's a statue in the pocket.

That's a collective effort. Then that's on him. Well, no, but you've been around long enough coach to know that, like, Lamar Jackson or John Harbaugh, who's going to go? It's going to be the coach. Like if you've got a two-time MVP in his prime on the verge of a $70 million a year contract extension, who could be a three-time MVP, the reason that you sell tickets and that you buy jerseys and one of the great players in the history of your organization, if they're having a falling out,

or they've just tried and tried and they can't break through, can't get over the hump, but the coach is going to just lose out in that power struggle if one exists. I understand. But when you look at the landscape, there's also been another pretty good team in the AFC in Kansas City. So that's a hard thing to overcome. You know, Buffalo, they're facing the same thing and they went

to the same answer. So now we're just going to have to see. Here's two teams both in the AFC, both with MVP quarterbacks, both who decided to make a change. Let's let's see from long time successful head coaches. Let's see. There's also just a lot of pressure because

you're replacing a legend, right? Guy who's done so much winning there. You have to be in the playoffs and win a playoff game. for this to be at all even considerous success. You know, John Harbaugh, if he gets Aeron and on Wins this year, in year one, you're like, great job with the Giants. Minter's got to win big in Baltimore immediately for this to be good. You do not expect many first-time head coaches to be expected to go to the Super Bowl.

Correct. Let's talk Ben Johnson and the Chicago Bears, because Ben Johnson was a bit of a truth-teller earlier. He was talking about left tackle and protecting Caleb Williams, and he, Ben Johnson yesterday, had to address the situation because it is very much still up in the air with less than 20 days. until the opener. Take a listen. That's still an ongoing spot.

It's a hot spot for us. Obviously, we talk about it almost every time I'm up here, and yet I don't know that we are 100% sold on who that guy is going to be for Carolina yet. We're going to still work through it. That's where today's going to be huge for us. Thursday is going to be huge for us, and Saturday is going to be huge for us as well. All right.

How worried should Caleb be? I'm not that worried. It was a problem a little bit last year, right? It sure was. It didn't matter last season, right? Look, when you have one offense alignment who's not as good as the other four, you can work around that, right?

You can find ways formationally to help the left tackle or right tackled, easier when it's the tackle versus the interior offense alignment. You could formationally help that tackle out, right? Running the football, which the bears do very well. That means that typically third down is a little bit shorter, which means you don't have to pass protect as long on third down.

So there's ways formationally to help. There's ways with different schemes to help. And so one guy being bad is not a big of a problem. Two or three or four, it becomes an issue. And you have to avoid third and long, basically, right? Third and long, they're going to put him on an island. The help is not going to be there. They're going to find ways to get him, whoever him is going to be at left tackle into some problems. Coach, as you know, you can isolate that one offense alignment. But if you win first downs, the bears typically do, you win second down, third down becomes third and short. You get more first downs. One guy,

to me, has never been a problem. You always find a way to help that one player. Two years ago, how many sacks did Caleb have? 68. Last year, how many sacks did he have? 24. Okay. Is the left tackle the same left tackle? Well, we'll see.

They played four different guys at left tackle last year. Yes, essentially. But he played the bulk, right? So we're talking about a potential upgrade from a 24 sack season. That's what we're talking about? I don't think the upgrades on the roster is. I went through it. So like, figure it out.

Braxton Jones is considered the favorite. He started 44 games at left tackle between 2022 and 2025, but he's a former seventh round pick, so not a blue chip prospect, but he turned himself into a nice player. He started the first six. Then Theo Benedict came in, and he started eight games for them last year at left tackle.

But then he got replaced by Ozzie Tripillo, who was a second round pick last year. Second round pick last year. But they felt like he was ready, and he was playing really well. but then he, the Patelotendin injury in the playoff game, the first playoff game, the one against the Packers. And then they kind of were like, oh my God, what are we going to do? And they did what the Chiefs ended up doing.

And they put Joe Tooney from left guard to left tackle for the Rams game. So Toonie's obviously not in the running for it. Tripillo is not looking like he's going to be ready for week one, even if he's ahead of schedule. So yeah, to your point, it's going to probably, it'll be Braxton Jones or Theo Bennett. I feel like it's not a good situation, but it's not like they're talking about a fifth round rookie who's never played left tackle before. Like the options here are guys who have played in this system who have played left tackle in the NFL on successful offenses. So I don't, like on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the worst, this feels like a 4 to me. And Tripillo is probably going to come back this season.

He just came up a PUT and he's, you know, he's working off to the side. But it looks. And there are a lot of encouraging. things about him. He seems ahead of schedule. And then at the end of the day, we're still talking about 24 sacks. Is it perfect? No, but from where it was a year ago to where it is now, it's, you know, it's night and night and day, right? And all those candidates are back. And you'd love to be able to answer that question with a franchise guy that's going to lock down the left side. And the other thing that that he can do better is probably get the ball off quicker. He,

remember, he led the league in longest time. to throw for any quarterback. So that could be a positive two for the O'Lon. I know they also, you know, they drafted another tight end in Sam Rouse. So they're three high-ends tight ends tight-ins with Colston Loveland, Cole Komet, and Roush. Ben Johnson wants to play a ton of two and three tight-end sets to your point, which can help out. The bear's got a little run to the right predictable last year. They were like, we're just going to run behind Jonah Jackson and Darnell Wright because it's working really, really well.

So I know they'd like to be able to go left and right a little bit more. But I got to say, like, if this is the biggest problem with the Bears' offense, that it's like below average left tackles with experience who have been on good teams and good offenses, it's not that big of a deal. Correct, especially because the other four are good to above average, right? Excellent left tackle, very good right guard, excellent right tackle, and I'd say serviceable center. Yeah.

And that's, if you have that component with a left tackle that might not. be as good as the rest of the league, you can survive with that with the rest of the bear's offense. If everyone says healthy and you're ready to roll, coach mentioned it, right? Caleb Williams being a little bit better this year. You know, for him, it's more about first and second quarter, just like coming out faster in games. He's played great in the fourth quarter, it's a little bit off script, a little bit sort of playground-ish, right? If he can stay within the offense early, early in games, that'll help the offense line as well. Wouldn't you sign up for 24 sacks again? I would sign up for 24 sacks for every year the rest of Caleb's game.

Yes, yeah. It was one of the most. remarkable transformations like year to year it was the most sacked quarterback in 20 years to below league average in one year it was pretty crazy yeah when Peyton Manning broke the scoring record I think he was sacked 18 times or we're not that far removed from from that and Caleb is gonna be more of a he he will always hold onto the ball longer than a guy like Peyton Manning because of his mobility and off script ability and all those sort of things absolutely So you're always going to probably have a little bit higher stack numbers than you want because of Williams being able to do that.

But obviously the upside to that is that Williams is going to move and get out of more sacks than most of quarterbacks will do as well. And those are backbreaking plays we're able to get out of the pocket, laying those downs and find guys down the field. Also having Joe Tooney as a like in case of emergency break glass, we could slide you out to left tackle. I don't love that option as much now than when I did like two years ago. I don't either. But I mean. I love Joe, like Hall of Famer. But I feel like that's not his bread and,

that's probably your last option, like, no matter what, we'll get by for one game. It's definitely their last option. It's a better last resort than most teams would have. And if it was going, why do you think they didn't draft someone to fill that void if it was really the biggest issue they were facing? Did you see their defense last year? No, no, I understand that.

They have bigger issues. And that's what I mean is they have candidates to fill this role. The numbers weren't outrageous. last year, if anything, they were incredibly good compared to the year before. So I think this is something that they can solve and work wrong. Let's stay in the NSE North and go to Minnesota, where the emergence of Kyler Murray as the starting quarterback has all pro receiver Justin Jefferson fired up for the start of the year. In a recent interview with Mike Silver, Jefferson had this to say about his new quarterback.

He said, quote, what excites me is his ability to just be an athlete. When a play might be dead, he's able to kind of move, make something. something happen, you're always alive, always just expecting that the ball is going to come your way. And so our question, gentlemen, is do you expect Justin Jefferson to return to dominance with Kyler Murray? And I will just say that I didn't think last season was possible for Justin Jefferson. The only time he has not had been dominant, he did five years in the league, or six years in the league, was the one year where he had injury issues. Every year that Justin Jefferson has played a full season like he did last year, he was just unbelievable. As a rookie, 125 targets, 1,400 yards played every game. 21, 167 targets,

1,800 yards, 1,800 yards, 1,500 yards, 1,500 yards. Last year is such a remarkable outlier of playing 17 games, getting 141 targets. He was the seventh most targeted player in football. Like, targeting Justin Jefferson, 141 times and having two touchdowns and eking out a thousand yards speaks to spectacularly bad quarterback play. And so that is a Carson Wens graphic. That is a Max Brosmer graphic. And that is a J.J. McCarthy graphic. So this is not a ringing endorsement of Kyler Murray.

But if Justin Jefferson is healthy, he produces with whoever is out there except for the guys last year. So yes, I expect him to be great. It would not surprise me if he was near the top of the league. receiving again this year. I mean, think about what Murray can do just as a pastor compared to the guys he's had. Hey, run as far as you can. I'll throw the ball as far as I can. He's got a big on. We know he can do that. Now, maybe the short intermediate stuff is not as accurate as he's had in past years, but Jefferson's going to, they're going to take shots again in this offense

because they have an accurate quarterback to throw the ball. We've seen in practice, by the way. Every practice clip, there's every day in practice, there's one deep ball that Calmer is completing to Jefferson. I would expect a lot of touches his way. And look, look at the offense, too. You can't really double him. You're going to double him and then you have your two other wide receivers or the run game or the offensive line or Murray being able to work. Coach, how about Murray be able to run? How does that affect the defense? You're going to put two guys on Jefferson? Kevin O'Connell's never had a mobile quarterback. Correct.

I imagine he's going to get the targets that AJ Brown wishes he gets. And you had the 184 up there with targets. I think he's going to get the 184 again. Really? And here's why. There's going to be the broken plays, which can lead to big plays, and he's going to stay alive. We interviewed this running back one time, the Combine. I said, what gap you hit?

And he said, oh, coach told me hit the DeAngelo gap. See a gap, hit the gap. I think this is going to be like the Justin Jefferson coverage. It doesn't matter what the coverage is. He's going to throw it to Justin Jefferson, and, you know, and Justin will probably make it right more often than not. I remember when Justin Jefferson was on this show with Nick Wildson Brew, and he did an amazing. job of not bus tossing Kyle or JJ McCarthy

for the season that he had but what he was talking about like you're like you know do you still consider yourself the best receiver in football you know JSN is offensive player of the year he was Jefferson wasn't first team all pro and he was like yeah of course

like did you see what I was dealing with like 140 targets for a guy as good as him to only result in two touchdowns is stagger I think it was only 80 catches too So that's, I mean, they're off target 60 times last season. It feels like a rarity. Two touchdowns.

The year before I think you had 10. Josh found this stat for a player who was targeted as much as Justin Jefferson was. We did a minimum of 115 targets. It was the lowest passer rating of any quarterback throwing at a receiver that much in the last nine seasons. So, like, you only target a player 115 plus times if that player is excellent. So of every player who's had 100. 15 or more targets in the last nine years, Vikings quarterbacks had the lowest pass a rating in those nine seasons

targeting that player as the Vikings' scubies had thrown at Jefferson last year. It's just unbelievable. This is why I've contended all along that the Vikings, it wasn't a real competition. It was Colin Murray's job to have for many reasons. But this is one of them, right? If we can't get the ball our best playmaker, who we know can help us win games, score touchdowns, do all the things we need to do, then we need to find someone that can do it.

And Colin Murray has the physical gifts to do it. And this is another reason why. I think it wasn't even competition coach. They brought Murray in. I know they said, we're going to split reps and do this and that. But, I mean, they didn't have to start a week in a training camp. Yeah, this one was pretty much an open and shut case. Speaking of a quarterback competition that is actually ongoing, an alarming report about Tua out of Atlanta.

You don't hear reports like this every day. It's coming up on First Things First. Predictions Week, just around the corner. We got some great stuff planned here in the First thing's first universe. Made it back. We got coach on the graphic. Neck is still missing. I'm looking for it.

I'll find her one. Don't forget the OT. 5 p.m. Eastern when I get on the record, listen to Nick Wilden-Brews pick and then tune in at 5 o'clock for the correct picks ahead of the NFL season. That's right. Welcome back in hanging out with Jeff Schwartz and Eric Mangini. We go to Atlanta where, according to Ian Rappaport, Michael Pennix Jr. still has a great shot at landing the starting quarter.

quarterback job. This despite coming off the serious ACL injury only nine months ago, the Rapidport reporting that Tua Tungoviovo's preseason and practice performance have made naming him the starter, quote, impossible. You don't see that every day. Michael Penix will not play in the third and final preseason game on Friday. Kevin Stefanski citing three practices, just not enough to put him out there for a game. But coach, how bad of a sign is this for your Guy Tua? It's not great. No, it is not.

It's not great. When you're in a quarterback competition against yourself and you're losing it, that's not a good sign. You think? Yeah. It was a quarterback competition of one. Yeah, and he lost. And he came in second. He lost.

He came in second. That's challenging. That's hard to do. And it's probably a little disheartening for Atlanta. I will say, though, that maybe it's a learning curve. even though he's a veteran quarterback, some guys learn offenses at different rates than other guys learn offenses, even being a veteran. And you remember in Miami, there was a lot of feeling that that Turo was underachieving significantly.

And Mike McDaniel comes in, a lot of positive things there. So it could be an element of that. But the fact that Pennix hasn't practiced, we're not really even sure when he's going to get, you know, 100% fully cleared contact, all those things. You know, that timeline is still a little, little big. They say he's cleared for contact now, but they're obviously not comfortable putting him

in a live game situation. Yeah, and then hopefully that's just, just precautionary. And if you want to look at it, glass half full, maybe Pennix is just having a great early run and he's continued to develop. So that could be our glass half full side to it. That still would not be a good side for Tua though.

Listen, two is 28 years old, and it feels like he's closer to the end of his career than the beginning. The worst team in the NFL, Miami, is carrying a $99 million dead cap hit for him to not be on the team. And he just seemingly, although it hasn't been announced yet, he seemingly is about to lose a quarterback competition to a guy who wasn't participating in it, who has 12 career starts and is coming off his third lifetime ACL injury. Like, it's not like they're handing this job back to Drake May or to Jaden Daniels or Caleb Williams, like guys who have accomplished a lot from that draft class in the NFL. They're handing it to a guy who hangs out around 60% completion with 12 career starts. So it's, this is a very bad sign for Tua.

Tua looks like a player that's lost his confidence at that position, right? And a lot of that has come down to the injuries. We've seen the more injured he's gotten in his career, the more quickly it looks like he wants to get rid of the ball. and the more quickly he wants to get rid of the ball, so he doesn't get hit. Because the next hit could be the last hit of his career, unfortunately, right? That's how serious injuries are. And you have to play as a player fast and with confidence. Otherwise, you can't play this game.

You can't play this game any slower than it's required of you, right? And so I think that's what Tua looks like. When you watch even the clips of the preseason games, you know, third and long, balls go in two yards, you know, in the ground. He fumbled the first snap of the game, like things like that, where it just is not playing confidently, and I don't think he's going to get it back. It feels like we've seen that backslide now throughout his career, the more injured he's gone.

And I'd imagine he's going to probably be the backup this year, maybe not. He'll be in the NFL for a while, coach. But I think his confidence is shot. That's what looks like to me when I watch a player like that. I'm not ready to go that far. Remember, Baker Mayfield and Sam Darnel were both in Carolina. And they both got cut by Carolina and went other places. And now both them are, I think they both had two, one of a different.

stop after Carolina before they found their home. They went to the Rams. Yeah. And so there is a component of that too. And to some degree, it's in Atlanta's best interest that Pennix is the starter. If you're going to

lean towards someone, you would like your former first round draft pick that you organizationally picked. But not this GM or coach. Totally get that, but still he's younger. Ideally, he hits, and you got an answer for a long time, you would like that to work out. So I don't think Tua is done

yet, but it is concerning that he's not winning this clearly. It does fight the difference between Tua and those guys just the arm, right? Like, Baker never lost his arm. We see that right now. Donald never lost his arm. I just feel like Tua is sort of at the point now where he doesn't trust his body, doesn't trust himself throwing the football down the field. And hopefully they can bring out. The fantasy can coach. We know he can coach. We saw what he did all the quarter of in Cleveland. And so maybe you, you know, you two against opportunity, it panics is not healthy. But I've never heard a report impossible. They said it would be,

it would have been impossible to name him the starting quarterback based on how he's been playing in practice. I don't, have you heard a report like that? I never heard a report like that. Well, yeah, the media has been known to juice up some storylines. But they got that from the Falcons though, didn't they probably? I, I'm not sure what, where he sourced it from. I obviously wouldn't want to guess at his sourcing. I will say Ian Rappaport is not exactly known as a sensationalist hot take artist.

You know what I mean? That's not what he normally is known for. Yeah, it just depends on where that information is coming from. Is it coming from extremely high levels? Yeah, I don't know. Fair enough. Yeah, fair enough, yes. Depends.

Whoever is making the decision are they the ones. I would also think, though, agendas. Maybe. I would also think, like, not even because they drafted him, not even because, like, kids have bought his jersey, but the potential ceiling of Pennix I do think is higher than

Tua's if Tua is a hit away from a season or a career being over and Michael Pennex has a canon. They spent a lot of draft capital on Drake London and Kyle Pitts and Bejohn Robinson to be big play guys. There's a version of Atlanta's offense that I've felt like for a

couple of years now is like, why can't this be a top five offense in football with just the pure speed? Every year we say that because they're loaded offensively. The old line, too, has a bunch of number ones and twos on it. That whole offense is loaded. But I wouldn't think you would want a quarterback with physical limitations to, even if he at times with Tyreek and Waddle years ago with McDaniel's offense had the number one offense and they had the 70-point game. I know that for a brief moment in time, he did it. But it seems

like if I was betting on a ceiling, like of everything, Atlanta has a top eight. offense in the NFL this year. How did they get there? I would think it would be on the quarterback who could throw it all over the field as opposed to the guy with some serious limited physical abilities. But your point about two is injury status is valid, but Pennix has the same problem. Guy hurt multiple times in college, hurt in pro football. This isn't this isn't a young and durable quarterback. It is not. This is the opposite of that. And really, that was a concern by a lot of teams when he came out is were these injuries, things that are

sort of freak things that happen in college, but not necessarily going to carry on to pro football. And unfortunately, we're seeing some of the same pattern in pro football. But Pennix? Say what you will about him. He will be on the left hash mark and he will rip a 15-yard out route to the right sideline.

That guy is not afraid to let it rip. Let's go to Denver. Broncos and Bo Nix. They're looking to build off of last year's very impressive run all the way to the AFC title game. Of course, Bo Nix breaks his ankle in that. game. Broncos beatwriter Jeff Legwald about their quarterback hope slowing down, leading to another step forward, including he had this quote from Sean Payton. He said he does a very good job of avoiding a sack, the minus play. And because of that, he's very good with his progression. He's not

someone who's slow to progress and slow to process. It's the other way. But I'd rather deal with that than a slow processor who's getting sacked. All right, so we know that Sean Payton loves Bownecks. From the, every single time he's spoken about him, it's been glowing other than the ankle injury stuff, which was a little weird. Do you think it is more likely that Bo Nix, who again, I would say, even as someone who's not the biggest believer in him, he does need better PR because he has more wins and touchdowns than anyone else in that draft class and all we do is talk about Jaden, Caleb,

and Drake, he's got more wins and more touchdowns than any of them. But do you think it is more likely that he takes a step forward or step back? With those two presented to me, I would say step back, but I do think he just is what he is at this point. He looks at the same quarterback he was in college. I watched every one of his snaps at Oregon. He looks exactly the same guy in Denver. He's consistent, right?

He's not going to make mistakes, as coach said, but he's not going to push the ball down the field all that often. We know his air yards was short. His sort of advanced stats kind of put him right in the middle of the NFL. He gets a bump up because he can run the ball, which is great in certain situations for them. You know, Sean Payne needs to get him to throw the ball in between the hashes. I think he was fifth worst,

the NFL just completes percentage in the middle of the hash is like there's things to work on. But that's sort of the issues that, not issues the wrong word to say, it's what he was in college. He didn't throw a ball a ton between the hashes and college, right? If it was, it was very far deep down the field. And so this is what he is.

And they built the office. I give Sean Payton credit. They built the offense around what he can do, what he can do. Like they do a really good job of maximizing his talents. So if I had to pick one of the other, I would say probably back is the wrong way to put it. I don't think coach he's given to become a pro ball

or all pro type player. I think he sort of is what he is. He's very steady. He's good at certain things. He's got to get better at certain things. But he's also just kind of, I think he's set at what he's going to be in the NFL. What I really like that Sean said is that he is quick to process. And the ability to avoid negative plays, that's the first step.

Most games in the NFL are lost, not won. So to avoid being able to avoid losing games and process quickly. And Sean talking about the fact that he may have to slow his progression down a little bit, or is processing down. little bit, that's a good problem to have, especially with the young quarterback. Every coverage has an answer to every defense. And the key is whether or not the quarterback can find that answer. And Tom was so good at it because of how smart he was, Tom Brady and Peyton Manning, those guy, Drew Brees. They could get the answers to the question before the test. And it looks like he

has that ability to be able to continue to improve mentally. And maybe it's not going to be the biggest plays down the field, but not losing games, not having negative plays, getting the ball to the right place, allowing everybody else to play, being able to then play complementary football, and getting better each year because you're working, studying, and figuring things out more. Those are all positives. I do think there's a little bit something, too, that bonus sort of made every big play when he had to this year. But there were a lot of games where you're watching, you're like, I didn't think he'd make that throw. And he makes that throw on third down. They had 11, one-score victories.

Yeah, and a lot of that was, again, Bodex making a big throw. Bodex making a big play at the end of the game. It might not have been pretty for a little bit of time. Then boom, he makes that big play. So there is that part of his game, which I really do enjoy. And how many times have we talked about NVPs who in big moments have come up short? Yeah.

We've talked about a lot of MVPs who are unbelievable, unbelievable, and then there's the biggest moment, and they come up short. so to have a young quarterback being able to show that he can deliver in what were the biggest moments for him, that's another really encouraging thing. Yeah, I would bet on step back, but I think that he is solid. I think he's a good, and I think that the Jalen Waddle edition is going to help those between the hash marks numbers. You gave him a legitimate number one. And I get why Broncos fans are defensive about him.

He's like, wait a minute. He keeps winning. And he's been very consistent. Let's just throw it up real quick. The year one, year two numbers, it's just really consistent, except the wins improved dramatically. And he's the first quarterback to have double-digit wins, 30-plus touchdowns in his first two years.

And they're like, he's got more touchdowns and wins than Caleb, Drake, and Jaden. And if he didn't break his ankle, we'd be talking about Bo Nix, AFC champion, and him in the – he would have been the one who got blown out by Seattle in the Super Bowl. So I get why Broncos fans are a total believer in them, but I just don't see them winning 14 games.

So the team is going to take a step back, and my guess is that we'll get painted onto Bo Nix, even if he is a solid quarterback. It's pretty hard to win 14 games back to back. Yeah, it's pretty hard. Add him to the regression candidate list. Are the Giants a sleeping giant? You get it?

I got it. You get it? Fairly. All right. I'll say it slower for you. Coming up. First thing's first. So Giants wide receiver, Malik,

neighbors took part full live speed drills for the second day in a row as he pushes to be ready for New York season opener against the Cowboys September 13th. There's a lot of optimism around this Giants team obviously with they've had a very very busy off season. I've made my case on this so I'll go and start with Jeff the former giant. This was a stock. Are you buying? I think I'm buying. I don't know how high I'm buying it too but I think I'm buying year one. It's just first and foremost, just the coaching change makes the team better, right? We talked a lot about John Hobba

earlier and his success in Baltimore. It's just going to be a better coach football team. I think neighbors coming back healthy is a big linchpin for the offense, right? We saw how important he can be to this offense. The offense line's healthier this season, right? You'd imagine that Dart has hopefully figured out how to protect us by it a little bit better.

They've made adjustments on defense and they added the roster's gone a lot better. The only question I have, and I've said this for a couple weeks now, is I don't know if I trust the offensive to coaching staff. Matt Nagy on his own has not been as good than when he's been with Andy Reid and we saw last couple years in Kansas City kind of backslide. You and Forger saw with your bears

it wasn't as good. They're sort of blending a bunch of offensive coach concepts together with Callahan there and Roman there and with Nagy there. So I sort of have to have a question about offensive philosophy but I think coach, they've upgraded their roster, they've upgraded their coaching staff. They've done facility upgrades. They've upgraded the analytics department there.

They've upgraded the training staff. Like they've done a lot of upgrades just holistically to the entire team. They're going to be better this year. I don't know how high the stock is going to go, but you have to, I think, buy them for now and the future. I don't know how much I'm buying, because I have a lot of questions. Can they stop the run? That's the first. They were atrocious against the run last year. They were, and who did they trade away? Dexter Lawrence. Okay, so that concerns me, and Jackson Dark, can he stay healthy? That's a big concern, obviously. Can Scataboo stay healthy? No. Can Malik neighbors stay healthy? So there's, I mean, there's three. I mean, there's

three big, big components to their offense, and we're not really sure whether or not we're going to see them, 17 games, 12 games, 8 games, those are big things that need to be answered. And then when you look at the division, everybody loves Dallas, and they've got the greatest offense on Earth. And then Philadelphia won the Super Bowl two years ago. Washington, we'll see what version of Jade we get back, but that's a pretty competitive division as well.

So it's exciting that Neighbors is back. Hopefully he'll be back for the entire season. The track record, though, hasn't been very strong in terms of their ability as collectively to stay healthy. And did they answer the stop the run question? I think they're less of a stock and more crypto. A lot of volatility. I think there are more questions about the Giants

than any team in the NFL. But could go well. There are answers to those questions. Could they be better stopping the run even without losing Dexter Lawrence? Well, maybe they had maybe the worst linebacker core in the NFL last year, and they added Arvel Reese with a top 10 pick, and they have a new coaching staff. That could help. They have a really good pass rush.

They were top seven or eight in pass rush win rate. Last year with Brian Burns and Abdul Carter and Tibido. So if they play with more leads and have more time. to actually unleash their pass rush, that could help. Jackson Dart had multiple touchdowns in 10 of 12 games, and he only played in one game with Malik Neighbors. So you give him Malik Neighbors and Isaiah likely. And as much question as I think is totally valid

about the blending of the different offensive philosophies on that coaching staff, probably not firing their play caller in Week 10 and their head coach like they did last year. So it should at least be an upgrade of what Jackson Dart dealt with last year. Offensive line's been a question for the Giants for years, added a top 10 pick on the offensive line. So they got a lot of questions,

but there are potential answers in-house, I think, for all of them. So I do think that they are a sneaky wild card team this year. Now, they might be a year away from that for Jackson Dart needing two years in a system and continuity and all that. So maybe it's a year too soon to put them there, but I think firmly they are heading in the right direction.

So this for you isn't a sleeper, it's a deep sleeper? See, the new layer of sleeper? I don't like how Nick labeled the deep sleeper. Yeah. Yeah, I think that they are, I think that for me, they would qualify as a deep sleeper. Two teams clearly better than them in the division. Washington may be on their level.

A ton of question. Like, could they finish in last place and win six games? Seven games? Sure. But could the Giants play with some leads? Pass rush gets home. Jackson Dart takes a leap. I think Malik neighbors is a top 10 receiver in football.

You put a big play quarterback with a big play receiver. I think there is an upside to this team this year. There's a lot of exciting components to the Giants when they're all out there. And both offensively and defensively, they can do a lot of things. Abdul Carter looks like he's going to be unbelievable. Yeah, they can do so many things in terms of pass rush. But one of the most frustrating things in the world is if you never get a chance to pass rush. Yep.

So you've got all these weapons, but if someone can just run the ball down your throat the entire game, people are happy to do that and demoralize you, and that slows down pass rush. rushers in general. Offensively, they've got exciting players, big personalities. And I like the components of the offensive staff. I think Greg Roman brings a very unique running game to that offense. It's challenging and can do a lot of things and has value. The division isn't anywhere near locked, and typically in that division, somebody new wins every year. So I guess I don't own a lot I don't own any crypto. So I guess I don't want it to be more than maybe 5% of your portfolio.

Not investing in the diets if that's where I have to go with it. Don't turn into first things first for financial advice. Keep it a little dabble, a little sprinkle. Dany, crypto and gambling. Danny's investment. I should start a podcast. I got thoughts. I don't know if they're good.

But I got a lot of thoughts. Badge Malh's in week one. He's starting. But what problems is he facing? It's coming up. First things first. Hour number two. First things first. Should have never used that crypto analogy on the Giants. Just talking portfolios over here. I'm out here with two guys whose portfolios are strong to quite strong.

Meanwhile, your boy rents. We got busy hour number two though. Miles Garrett continues to miss practice for what they're calling minor knee swelling. Shaw McFey doesn't sound too worried. Should we be when we talk Rams and a super team. Meanwhile, the Eagles host over 40,000 fans at the link, that's half a Shane Gillis show. For an open practice, Hurts though, throws two touchdowns, has two picks. We expecting struggles for Jalen Hertz in the new offense with Sean Mannion.

But we begin hour number two with Patrick Mahomes. It's been a while. Who, despite not playing in any preseason game, says he is on track to return to the field in time for Casey's opener against the Broncos, September 14th. This is Mahomes on how he is preparing for week one. Take a listen.

I'm someone that you put something out in front of me. I want to go out and get it. I want to go out and maximize every single opportunity, every rep in the weight room, every hour that I can spend in the building to get my body right. And so this has always been the plan. Be ready for training camp, get all the reps in training camp, prepare your body that way, so that when you get to week one, you're ready to play the game and you've had the right amount of time off. And so from the day that I got the surgery as quick as I did to hopefully the first game of the year,

the plan will go accordingly. plan will go accordingly, and I'll be able to go out there and be myself. All right, so Jeff, you call yourself a Chiefs fan, and you played for the Chiefs, your brother played for the Chiefs in one ring, you follow them very closely. What concerns for Mahomes do you have? Let's assume he plays, and he will. For Mahomes, week one, what are your concerns? Not the season, just week one?

Just trust and confidence, right? When you're coming back from injury, that's the toughest part as a player, is trusting your body to do the same things you did previously, and then, of course, doing that with people running around your legs. He's like to make that first throw when someone's around his legs, how does he do that with confidence, right? How do you not have a flashback to the bad things that happen? I've done various points in my career where I've missed a season and come back.

I've had where I've missed a couple weeks to come back, and every time you step on that field, you think to yourself, okay, like, do I still have it? Do I still have it, right? Because practice is not a game. Practice is what it is. There's a value to it, obviously. But the games ramp up, right? Week one is a certain tempo, and then week eight is a certain tempo.

Then obviously the playoffs becomes a tempo that's ramped up a lot. So for me, it's just how confident does he look in week one? It might not be that confident in week one. It might take week two and week three and week four. What do the chiefs do offensively to help Mahomes? They got Kenneth Walker for a reason. And when you look at what they've done schematically in the preseason, I get everyone and says, oh, preseason doesn't matter.

No, it matters a little bit. And the chiefs are under center a little bit more, right? Coach, like they're running the ball under center. They're doing a little more plaction pass under center. The screen game appears to be back a little bit. little bit. Now they have more of a running back that I think can do it where they really didn't have backs previously. They could do the screen game. So I want to see the trust he has himself, the movement skills that he has, and then I want to see how the offense evolves around the

homes and he returns from injury. I think he will be fine at some point this season coach. It might not be week one. Week one might be a little bit off. You know, the wide receivers. He hasn't, you know, he hasn't really worked with this group altogether. There's a fifth round pick in Cyrus Allen who they're hoping he gets a lot of run. You know, obviously, Rishi Rice, how healthy is he coming off his summer. So there's a lot of questions I have just sort of week one, what it looks like. I have a ton of faith. It'll look good by week three or four coach. I think he'll be fine soon enough. Yeah, I agree with their approach of not playing him in the preseason. And the big difference is everything's been controlled. And so now in the game, he's just going to have to react.

So his instincts are going to kick in. And how will his body respond when he's reacting instinctively as opposed to what's been a controlled environment? So there's that component of it, will he still be looking to vacate the pocket and run around and make plays, which has been such a core part of what he does, but probably isn't the best thing for him to do much early on? What factor will rust come into play with this? Last year, he was sacked at the highest rate he had been sacked in his career. So as that problem been fixed and, and, you know, or are we going to have more of the same this season? This season? And look, he didn't play very well last year.

At the end of the year, he did not play very well at all. So it's not like he's coming off this elite season, having the injury going into the next year. Where is he just compared to where he finished the season last year? How much of that is injury? How much of that is whatever it was last year? So I, maybe this will come back to Vibe. I have a lot of concerns about the Chiefs week one.

I don't have a lot of Mahomes concerns week one. week one. Guys come back from ACL injuries and are fine, especially like the elite Superman type athletes of which he clearly is. I don't, I've got no indication from him at any point that he personally is going to be limited by this.

Like, what version of Rishi Rice are we getting week one? That's, I got some questions about him. He has not been the most dependable person since he's been in the league. I think the Chiefs Offensive Line is going to to be fine, but I don't know that they're going to be great week one against the Broncos pass rush. They have some injuries on the O line right now in the Broncos pass rush is excellent. How much does Travis Kelsey have left? How much does Chris Jones have left? Is that have they found

a pass rush in the offseason to make Bo Nix uncomfortable? Is the completely retooled secondary that's very young going to be ready week one going up against Bo Nix and Sean Payton and Jalen Waddle being added there? Like I, Denver's a tough week one assignment for Kansas. Kansas City. You know, and that could be what comes down to the division and all that. I just, I get why we talk about it. And I'm not saying it is not a story. He hasn't played in the preseason.

We haven't seen him since the injury. But I will be very surprised if by the third quarter of that game, we're talking about Mahomes being limited by his knee. But if all the things that you have questions about, if some of those play a big factor, they can't deal with the pass rush. So now you've got Mahomes coming off an injury, having to deal with a leaky officer. offensive line. If they get behind Denver and he's got to extend a bunch of plays, how well is he going to be able to do that? And he is an elite athlete and he's done everything that he's been asked to do and he's been very proactive with the way that he's rehabbed this, which is exactly what you'd like to see. There is a difference, though, between seeing it in the controlled

environment and actually having to respond and go through those first few times where scar tissue pops or, you know, there's a noise you're not used to. All the things that come with rehabbing from an injury. There's always that first contact you have and doesn't feel maybe quite right. You think to yourself like, did this happen again? Right. Like, is that just like a little scar tissue breaking up or is that little inflammation here and there, which he'll have the first time he gets hit?

You've been something, Dan, that's important to know because it's hard to quantify this, but I think it's certainly true. The guys I play with their superstars, they recover from injury better than the regular people do. the regular athletes. I was going to say you're kind of yourself as a regular person. And like, no, in this instance, I am. Like, I had the same injury, Alex Mackett, who was a center for the Browns at the same time with the same injury.

He's a much better athlete than me. He came back. He was fine. I never recovered quite the same way. I played with Adrian Peterson one year where he had a sports hernia. He played the entire backhand season with sports. He didn't practice all week. Played on Sunday.

Rush for 200 yards on a Sunday. These guys that are just these extra special players, one of their superpowers is extra special recovery. And Mahomes is one of these guys. too that's going to come back from his injury. We've seen him at different times throughout his career, come back from injury and play and play fine. You don't even notice it's going to happen. And so I do expect him

to make a full recovery and to come back. But that first hit's going to be so important. How does that first it happen? It's just a regular sack. Is it someone at his legs? Is it a scramble? I'm curious how he responds to that one hit first time. I think he'll be fine after

that. What I found with injuries and athletes, there are differences but each guy, that's why we never would talk about timelines for injury recovery, because you can say an ACL should take this amount of time. But what we found is each human being responds a little bit different to the same injury. And I really am hopeful that this is as good a recovery as Patrick has portrayed it to be. I had many coaches tell me timelines, so maybe I should have played for you.

Be back by week six. I had many coaches tell me, oh, it's a three-week injury, right? Right, Schwartz? Yeah, I've maybe had different experience than you. We never talked about time. Publicly or internally? Internally, you know what ranges are, but each guy was so different, and some guys can come back a lot quicker,

and some guys take longer, so if you just let it happen, how it happens, it always worked out better. It's not fun being the longer guy sometimes. Why aren't you back? And they're like, what's wrong with you? I can't walk yet, coach. That's why I'm not playing.

Have you seen my ankle? Let's talk about another superstar with an injury. not quite as serious as Patrick Mahomes. We go to LA where you might have heard the Rams made a small edition, best defensive player of his generation in Miles Garrett, but he's been sidelined with what they're calling minor knee swelling. He's missed 12 practices due to the swelling. Now their head coach, Sean McVeigh was asked,

are you guys just being really cautious or is this really serious? Take a listen. We are. Yeah. You know, it's really just the goal is, is what can we do to be able to get him, you know, ready to roll for Australia and what does that look like? and that's kind of where you see that approach. So we were looking this up. Miles Garrett has not missed a game due to a football injury since his rookie year.

Rookie year had a concussion, I think it was an ankle injury, missed like five games. Since every game he's missed, it was a game for rest, he's missed, suspension, car accident, COVID. This guy plays. He's like a bionic man. So I am assuming that Miles Garrett is okay here. I don't know if anyone disagrees they can weigh in. But it did bring up the thought of like,

is injury the only thing that could derail the Rams? It's probably not great. He's missed 12 practice with a swollen knee and that 15-hour flights Australia is not going to help him. That's not going to be great. I'm actually kind of curious about that. Now the Rams decided to sort of fly in and fly out like a regular schedule and not give themselves the opportunity to sort of get acclimated there.

That's a long flight. And what happens during flying, you swell. So I'm curious to see how that swelling goes for him. But, yeah, I mean, injuries, I feel like when you look at the roster they have, it's not a very top-heavy roster, it's a lot of depth. So injuries don't kill them. But if Miles Garrett's healthy and the top-line guys are healthy, they're going to win a ton of football games.

They made the changes coach. They needed, right? They needed more pass rush. They got it. They need secondary. They got it. The offense we know is good. Obviously, Pukukua at some point this year,

playing a lot of football would certainly help them as well. But it's not nothing to miss 12 practice with a swollen knee. It might not be long term, but it could be something they have to manage throughout the season. Yeah, when you look at their stats last year, so they finished first in total offense, first in points, first in passing offense, and I think it was seventh in rushing offense. So that's on that side. On the defensive side, they finished 10th in points, and I think it was 17th or 18th, and past defense, and that was the weakness. So what do they do? They go get the two hardest positions, which is cornerback.

They get two starting cornerbacks and a defensive end. So that's what you're always looking for in the draft. Corners and defensive ends, that's going to affect the passing game. And the defensive end they get is the defensive MVP with 23 sacks. So the difference between them and Seattle is three points over three games. You would assume that them addressing those positions of need and they're just being a three-point differential. And I know it can go any way at any point. but you understand why there's so much hype behind the Rams.

With him missing 12 practices, I feel like the Rams give a little bit more rest to players than a lot of coaches do. Yeah, McVeigh is, I don't play the guys who matter in the precinct. He also doesn't travel them. They don't even travel to away games. Yeah, it's a different approach, but it's been an approach that's worked really well for him,

and he has had a lot of older players that he's managed successfully. and to what you had talked about with Miles, he hasn't missed because of a football-related injury. So you'd imagine this is precautionary. Let's get him feeling as good as we possibly can. And last season, Matthew Stafford, we were talking about, is he going to play, look how much practice he's missed, and that worked out, okay.

I ended up getting off the Rams last year because Stafford didn't practice the entire summer. I'm like, oh, older quarterback going to hurt his back again in the season. Then he obviously made all of us to get off the Rams. Rams. Yeah, it was just an MVP year, led the league in touchdowns, no big deal. I was trying to think about it, because injuries can derail any team. I do think that they are a top heavy roster. Even though they have drafted well, they do not have Blue Chip draft prospects because they

keep trading away their first round picks in order to give themselves a top, top heavy roster. So they're the type of team where like if the wrong guy or guys get hurt, I feel like they maybe don't have as much depth behind them. They've got stars at a lot of positions. So that would be one thing. But think about what you just said. They have stars in a lot of positions. They do stars at a lot of positions.

Most teams, if the wrong guy gets hurt, he's the star. And then there's a supporting cast. They have a lot of people who could be on the marquee. What about just age? I know you don't normally just completely fall off a cliff at quarterback. But Stafford is 38. Now, it'd be rare to go from MVP to bad, but like, Devante Adams led the league in touchdowns last year. It's 33.

Stafford's 38. There's a potential Puka suspension. There's a potential Alaric Jackson, their left tackle suspension. People don't really love Coleman Shelton as the Senate. Like, the offensive line is... It's a question mark. Is polarizing, I would say, in the NFL community? Like, I'm grasping at trust.

Any team in the league would trade their problems for the Rams problems. But I do think that it's a top-heavy roster with some of their stars are old. And we talk about this a lot. The older teams, the problem is, as the season goes on, those guys slow down. The injuries mount. We see it with San Francisco. They typically have one of the oldest roster in the league. We saw it with Washington.

I think they have the oldest roster in the league. So if you lean towards age experience, you have the downside of a higher injury probability. where the younger rosters, but mid-season, those guys tend to take a leap because they're getting stronger, they're building, and they're getting more experience. So, yeah, it's a real concern. And the other nice thing we didn't talk about is Aaron Donald may come out of retirement and play, and it's not like they're adding another star potentially that's just sitting there at any point they can push the button and if he wants to come back and add him to the roster.

I think the good thing for the Rams is the age, though, is really only a handful of guys, right? Stafford, obviously. And then you would have Devante Adams, and I guess you put Miles Gair in that category. He's 30. Like, it's not like the Niners who just have sort of a plethora of older players. There's a mix with the Rams of young and old, everyone needs to remain healthy. You know, the age thing now, man, the guys, the way they recover and the prehab and rehab and rehab and rehab stuff, guys just play longer now, and they do it at a higher rate, especially a quarterback position ever before. And so I don't really worry as much about that.

I do think when it starts going downhill, especially quarterback, it's pretty noticeable. Like, it comes off a cliff pretty fast. But guys just play so much longer now. I don't really, the age to me is not as much of a concern. Specifically, that position is really, it's ever been. Yeah, recovery's so much better. Taking care of your body has improved so much over time. The amount of wear and tear that you get during the course of the season because of the

limited and padded practices, preseason shorter. It's been a lot of things that have helped contribute to that. When we, I knew we were doing this topic, I spent a lot of time looking at the Rams roster. And I was just like, I mean, it's really good. It's really good. Kyron Williams has just been crazy productive. They can run the ball. They've got two awesome receivers.

They have some tight end depth. They've got a great coach, a great quarterback, a great pass rush. They've got youth on the defensive line. Now they have talent in their secondary. Continuity of system on both sides of the ball. It's tough. We are any team in the league, would trade problems.

It feels like they're also protecting themselves at some place too because like Blake Korn comes in all the time and rushes really well for them. Right. And we know running back as a heavily injured position. They've invested a quarterback, right? Ty Simpson might not be ready to play now, but they have someone there who in theory is talented enough to play for them if Stafford misses any sort of weeks too. So they've done a good job.

I think I'm backfilling some of the important positions that do tend to have a little more injury. Got to fly all the way to Australia though, lose to a talented Niners team. And you'd be 0-1 though in one of the toughest divisions in football. We got a little no huddle with some of the big news coming out of the preseason, including an interesting display from Jalen Hertz in the new offense. Up and down, performance. Discussing it's a sign of things to come.

This weekend on Fox, it's the Stars of IndyCar, take on America's legendary Oval, the Milwaukee Mile, two races and two days, Saturday, 2.30 Eastern, and then Sunday at one Easter. Of course, on Fox. We're going to run a little no huddle across. across the NFL here, starting in Philadelphia, where Jalen Hertz mixed reviews.

During an open practice, about 40,000 in attendance, in which he threw two touchdowns and had two picks, including a pick six. I'm sure everyone in Philly just, you know, calm, level-headed reaction. Well, you know, it's two sides to every coin in training camp. You throw an interception.

It's like, hey, our defense is going to be awesome this year. All right, coach. You expecting struggles from Jalen Hertz in this new offense? I'm not 100% sure what to expect because they've been hit or miss on their OCs, right? They hit on one, they miss on the next one. They hit on one, they miss on the next one. So this one should hit based off of the pattern. If that's how it works, yes, I would be a much better roulette player.

Based off the pattern that we've seen so far. And to me, it's not just about Jalen Hertz. It's about Sequan Barkley, and it's about how effectively they run the ball. see the Sequodum two years ago, the explosive plays, the volume of production, or is it going to be closer to what we saw last year? And that's going to be a big component of how successful Jaylin is. With the subtraction of A.J. Brown, I think there's going to be an addition in chemistry. And in typical Eagle style, they went out and found a lot of answers at Receiver. And they threw a lot of resources at trying to compensate for what they're going to potentially lose from

AJ Brown in inability. How well those guys mix, that that's a component of it as well. And if they can get to his saying, what is it, 100% accountability and 0% entitlement. And if that's the case, this could be a very effective offense. That was a mantra that you loved. I love it. You love that a lot more than Dax's greatest offense there is, their Gotti offense. Yes, that should be copyrighted. Boring. Go ahead. I have my doubts about this offense this year.

Look, all interception are not creating going training camp. There are sometimes when coaches ask, hey, we're throwing the ball deep today, right? We're working on this and that. And you're going to throw interception. I think we put way too much stock into that. Obviously, off one of these videos, it looked like a throw was late. You get it happens. You're working on things.

There's a rhyme or reason why you might throw interception. Like, that one right there looks late. I mean, whatever. We don't know what the play was. So I'm not really worried about that. What I am worried about is a first-time play caller who's bringing in a brand-new offense that they have not run at all,

the new offense of a line coach. And the things that are done in this offense are things Jalen Hertz has never done. He's never had his back to the defense on a plaction pass before. This team has not run outside zone before. This team has not measured in these things. You have a coach who has not had to make adjustments yet

with a quarterback and reports are Jalen Hertz doesn't make adjustments that well. So you mess these things together, how fast can you put this together with, I think, a fan base that wants results now and it's going to want the coach to show them that things are happening fast. So I have, my antennas are up, but coach's point is very well said. They have a very talented roster, right, especially on offense and on defense. Of course, you know. One of the most talented in the NFL. So they might be able to overcome some of these issues early on with just functionality of the offense because, say, going to Berkeley, he breaks the tackle and goes to the score, you know, scores a touchdown.

Or Hertz throws a bomb and goes deeper. Hertz breaks the tackling and goes long. Like there's ways to make up for maybe a little bit of sputterness in the offense with just some explosive plays. I think the defense should be great. I think Devante Smith is a legit number one. Sequon's obviously fantastic. And Jalen Hertz has a ton of leadership and he's a gamer.

And so there's a lot of things to really like. I do have questions about his ability as a pure passer. So I'm not the biggest fan of counting on him to run an explosive offense because of him. Like when they were in explosive offense two years ago, it was like their offensive line was crazy good, crazy healthy, and Saquan Barkley was healthy, and then everything else kind of fell into place behind it. I wanted to show you guys this.

I didn't really know what to make of it, like other than it's interesting, and on Wilds is something or nothing barometer, this hit me as something. Sean Mannion, coach Jordan Love, now he's coming over to coach Jalen Hertz. I don't look at Jordan Love and Jalen Hertz as being stylistically, particularly similar.

but their numbers are remarkably similar, down to air yards per pass, and time to throw being within hundreds of a second. And at times, Jordan Love did play for stretches of football like an MVP candidate. So my lean on this was it's something, and maybe I should be a little bit more optimistic about it. This offense has for years now produced MVP caliber quarterbacks. And MVP's, to be honest with you, right? It's produced both those things. So it's an offense that has been successful. You know, but Jordan Love to me, the Packers, like, just kind of like, man,

like is that what you want, Jaylon Hurts? I think the Eagles hope that that's, they're better than Jordan. He's better than Jordan Love as a quarterback. I think they take meh if they win. But they've had that, right? Yeah, and they won a Super Bowl. Right. So I take meh again to win a Super Bowl.

And it's interesting. We talk about the Ravens with a first-time coordinator and MVP, and people are excited to join, you know, this is fantastic and Lamar and how exciting the offense is. But it's the same thing in Philadelphia, and then there's concern, and it's really, we're talking about apples to apples in terms of new guys, first-time play callers, former MVP's,

maybe a different, stylistically very different. but it's about the running game first in Philadelphia to me, and then everything builds off of that. Let's keep the know how it'll go and keep the pace up here as we go to Minnesota. QB2 is where now the quarterback battle is between J.J. McCarthy, who was their 10th overall pick in 2024 and veteran Carson Wentz, these guys splitting reps in practice and expected to split reps in the upcoming preseason game. Jeff, you expect J.J. McCarthy to be on the vote.

Vikings roster at all in week one? Think of it as their choice. He would not be on the roster. I think they would find the trade partner and he'd be out of there and then just move on and say, hey, we're done. Like he's never becoming the starter again. Kyler Murray's that guy. They've clearly coached passed on him. It feels like they would like him to not be on the roster

in week one if possible. I could see him not being on the roster. I would imagine they'll probably lean towards keeping him on the roster because they're into him for the money and he can get another year of potential development. You can see, you know, what happens moving forward. There's enough of a

track record of former number ones going on and having success elsewhere where you may not want to risk that. Now, it's a function of what's JJ like in the room? What's he like in the building? How difficult is he going to make it for the organization to keep him? Because guys can, guys can not shoot their way out of an organization, but definitely make it noisy enough so that the conversations ramp up organization as to, do we want to continue to deal with this headache? There's been no indication that he's going to make a lot of noise here. And my guess is the Vikings would not cut him because of what you're talking about, trading up for him, even though they just traded up one spot and the money and the contract

and where they drafted him. Like, if he plays well in this preseason game and the Steelers called and said, fourth round pick for J.J. McCarthy, who says no? I do think for... The Vikings would, I mean, the series would then have four. the same quarterbacks, but sure. But yes. I mean, fourth round pick, I think they would absolutely do fourth round pick.

I think if someone is willing to offer you a fourth round pick, I don't think they're giving them away for a sixth or seventh round pick, which, given how many players go back to college football now, those picks are, honestly, like six and seventh round picks have very little value in the end. They never had a ton of value, but they have even less value now because players are staying in college longer, so the guys who are bottom draft picks are not as good. But I think if you got a mid-round pick for J.J. McCarthy, they'd be compelled to move off of him. So what makes you think another team in the league is looking at this

and going, okay, he lost to Kyla Murray, he lost the Carson Wentz. No, we should do, we should give up a fourth round draft pick and eat his money. I'm not, I'm not saying that that team exists right now, but if somebody, I think that there is an argument to be made. I would not make it, but I think there is an argument to be made that J.J. McCarthy has not gotten enough of a chance to be given up on for the 10th overall pick in the draft. So if another team won't... Really, though? Really? He got every...

He got every option in the world to start. They got rid of Sam Darnold. That's about the biggest chance you could have gotten. He got an opportunity to play. And now he had an opportunity to compete for the number one spot. And he had an opportunity to compete for the number two spot. So if you lose after they trade Sam Darnold, you can't win the spot there. Then you come back and they bring somebody else in and you lose to him.

and then they come back and say, hey, now you've got to fight for your two spot, and you lose to him. At what point is it his responsibility to justify staying there? Again, I would not make the argument, but he doesn't have a lot of game film. Yeah, there's a reason why. He's not beating out the people in front of them. Sure. You could say that about a lot of guys who haven't played.

Well, they haven't played because the guy in front of them is better. But he literally had everything lined up to be successful. And a lot of people feel like that offense and that offensive coordinator and that head coach and that system was, he was a quarterback whisper, right? Well, I have made that argument that if you can't succeed, like, I've made it about Kyler. Like if you, if Kyler doesn't succeed in Minnesota, I'll have serious questions about if he will be viewed as someone who can succeed anywhere. top wide receiver duo playing a dome great play caller Brian Flores led defense maybe middle of the road offensive line to pretty good tackles good running game good tight ends like yeah it is definitely an alarm that J.J. McCarthy cannot succeed in Minnesota. Yeah if you're the 10th pick in the draft and and

everybody wants you to be successful and you have a guy that that in your words is a quarterback whisperer and did it with cousins and Darnold yeah who are both veteran quarterback that that and that he inherited as opposed to developed. So if it doesn't work, at what point is it JJ's responsibility? Probably now, but I think a team might still fall for him. Next up on the no huddle, the Dolphins. All right, so their offense, I guess it really struggled yesterday, at least according to Omar Kelly and the Miami Herald. He was not subtle about this coach. Dolphins practice is over. The Dolphins offense was a disaster. They were so bad, Malik Willis got the team together for a talk midway through.

It didn't help. What do you think about that character, say? So we talked about this earlier. So I said there can be a little bit of spice in these tweets or spice in the way these are projected. So this is a disaster. And then when we talked about 2-0, I forgot that the- It was impossible. So that wasn't possible.

This is a disaster. I imagine that it was probably a pretty sloppy practice. And those happen sometimes in training camp where it's just a bad day, quarterback center exchanges, snap counts. And you go through that. Do I think it's indicative of exactly how it's going to go throughout the course of the season? No, there was a lot of really exciting thoughts about Miami's office. and Malik, when camp started, would I be excited as a head coach to have a day like that this late in training camp?

No, but I think maybe it's not a total, we can't label it's total disaster right now. There were other tweets that describe the practice as being very difficult as well. It wasn't just one from that. Look, I think Miami just offensively is not as talented as their opponents are going to face this year. That comes down until a lot of it, right? You look at the weapons they have, the offensive line. They have some individually good pieces on the offensive line, but as a unit, not very good.

Running back is outstanding, as we know. A quarterback, I have my doubts on. And so you've a brand new coach, new coaching staff. Coach, right, you're going to have bad days. You would like them to be, like, you know, day four in training camp, not whatever today is, day 23 of training camp. I mean, you're almost in, like, game prep for week one time. Like, it's almost go time now to start right, you know, for week one.

So it's a bad time to have a practice like this. So when we talk about court, we just talk about JJ and how little he's played. Malik Willis is three and three as a starter. I like Malik Willis. I know, but he's six games. He has played, he has started six NFL games. So the dolphins might have Owen 17 written all over them. Like, I'm on Owen 17 watch if they lose week one.

Can I make the case real quick? They play the Jets twice. I know. But okay, I know, but can I make the case real quick? They are carrying, I'm a big follow-the-money guy, they're carrying $179 million in dead cap space, which means they are paying a- Which is ridiculous.

It's a record-shattering number. So that means they are paying $179 million this year to players who are not on their team. Tua, Tyreek. It's over half the cap. Correct. Over half the cap. Tua, Tyreek, Chubb, Ramsey, Waddle,

paying all these guys a ton of money. If they don't win in Vegas Week 1, And sure, the Jets games, I'm with you. Other than the Jets games, you want to tell me? I mean, I like there. They're going to be a touchdown underdog in 15 games. When you are paying over half of your roster in terms of the cap to not be there, it's a new coach, a new GM, a new quarterback.

They're trying to be terrible by design for next year. If your best thing is your running game, because I do like their offensive line and I love A. There's pieces that are really good. But if you're down 17-0 and you have to abandon the run game. Look at the back half of that schedule. Like, you know, when you think about 0-N-17, you think about, okay, are there games the end of the season when you're playing opponents that don't need to win? The Bears will need to win, the Packers don't need to win, the Chargers will need to win,

the bills and patrons will only need to win. Like, you'll need to win. Your opponents don't need to win all those games. It's a difficult schedule to see, like, where the wins are. They might be upset here or there, of course, because that's national football league. Everyone gets paid to go play on something. Sundays, but the schedule is setting up, Coach, we're like, it's a possibility. I don't think it's going to happen. No one's ever gone 0.17. It's a possibility. If they lose to Vegas week one,

oh and 17, watch. Yeah, they haven't won through week 12. It's going to get. Yeah. It's pretty tough, right? That last third is ridiculous. And again, follow the money. They're not trying to win. Like, they took the dead cap hit onto a by design to sh. They did it a year after signing him to that four-year, $212 million extension. They're like, nah. We'll just take $99 million of dead cap onto it. How many starts from Weeklis this year? He gets a full season and at some point they bring Quinn yours.

I don't think he gets a full season. I think you see Quinn yours. Yeah, I agree too. I feel bad for Malik Willis, man. I liked him in Green Bay. Give that kid a shot. Well, he's going to get more of a shot than he's had to his old career. That's true. That's true.

Make or break year for Bryce Young. I don't know if this is the endorsement I would want from my coach or my boss is at Fox. You'll hear it coming up. First things first. Tomorrow night, we've got a good one coming your way on FS1. Otani and the Dodgers. It's a potential playoff preview against the Cunia Jr. and the Braves. Coverage begins 6 Easter on FS1.

It's right after the OT. Afternoon headlines sponsored by Ram Trucks. Nothing stops RAM. Now, there's been a lot of speculation about the future of Brighton. Young in Carolina. And yesterday, Panthers head coach Dave Canales was asked directly by Stephen A. Smith if he viewed Bryce Young as his franchise quarterback and Canales answered with quote, he is right now, end quote. Now he went on to praise Bryce for his progress and say that that was a front office decision, but certainly not an obviously we view him that way type of answer.

Former Panther. Yeah. Jeff Schwartz. Do you view this as a make or break year for Bryce Young? Yeah, absolutely. The Panthers have put into place things to help him, right? They drafted TMAC last year, offensive rookie year. He was awesome.

Which was... I loved watching Patrick. I felt like so expected when he watched his film in college. I think there was some over-thinking group think when it came to, like, his route running in college. He's really good. He was good in the NFL, shocker. They went and got Monroe Freeling and Wright. They love Monroe Freeling and right tackle, and he's...

I like Monroe Feeling, too. Okay, so, like, yeah. And they've obviously had to use him immediately. because if they had some injuries with Ikees out at left tackle, then Taylor Mohn had the blood clot, so he stepped in right away. They've tried to build up interior offensive line. The guys are healthier now, which is good, because with a shorter quarterback, you need a firm front of the pocket.

So they got big offensive guards immediately once they ended up with Bryce Young. So they put those in place, right? Titan is still a question mark, but they have Brooks in the backfield, now healthy and running back. And one thing they did this offseason was Canales gave up play calling duties. they decided that they wanted a coordinator that was maybe a little more aggressive that could bring out some of better qualities in Bryce Young and let Canal sort of manage the entire game

instead of being the offensive play caller throughout the game. So they've done everything, coach, to make it successful for Bryce. It's not up to him to do it. It's not up to him. He's not got his long-term contract yet. Again, this staff did not draft him. Like, there's not that connection to having drafted in Bryce Young. So absolutely it's a big year for him.

Yeah, I said in the press conference one year that Chad, was our quarterback right now. And I wasn't saying that in the sense that I was looking to bench him. I was just saying that everybody in training camp is in competition, including the quarterback. But that those two words cause so many problems afterwards because of the same reason that it's causing problems here, where he could have just said, hey, he's made a lot of progress, we're going to see where it goes. And I'm sure that's what he's saying is this is an evolving organization. This is a, the front office has ultimate control.

We're going to see what happens, which he followed up with. And when you look at Bryce Young, he had a lot of career highs last year. He was 8 and 8, which is his best record, 23 touchdowns, which is a high. Now, 11 touchdowns was one higher than last year, so that's where he dipped. 63% completion, 87.8 passer rating, and his sacks were down at 5.3%. So all those numbers are progress. But none of them scream franchise quarterback. And when you're taken as high as he is,

and this is a little bit of the Caleb, you know, situation where expectations were really high, performance of the first year wasn't very good. So now any incremental progress people are excited about. But Caleb's progress is more exciting than what Bryce's progress has been. Well, listen, I know we have some disagreements on Caleb, like pretty different, physical profiles of player, right?

In terms of like the... Yeah, I'm not saying they're apples. I'm just saying number one overall draft picks that underachieve the first year. Everybody's wondering, did they make a mistake? And it's the same thing for the Prince. It didn't have a very good first year, had a much better second year, although their second years have been better than any of Bryce's years so far. And in the comparison game, just if you do think the narrative to that stuff factors in,

And like C.J. Stroud was picked after Bryce, the second pick to the first. He outperformed him. He's had more success in the NFL. The Bears traded with the Panthers for that draft pick that ended up becoming Caleb Williams. Right. So like, like Panthers fans are like, oh my God, we could have had CJ Stroud and we could have just waited a year and been really bad. And we could have had Caleb Williams. And we're stuck with Bryce Young. What I will say for Bryce Young, of course, it's a make-a-break year. He was extension eligible. They didn't give him an extension. They picked up the fifth year option. So just like C.J. Stroud, it is a or break year. But what I will say for him is, I think he is bringing the who was better, Bryce or CJ. That is becoming a real debate again. Like, if we look at it, that's absolutely a debate again. It was not the first year and a half into their career. Last 20 games, I'm not saying the stuff on the right is great in terms of you want more than 211 yards per game. Like, he's not explosive yet. And there are some physical limitations, obviously, with a 510 quarterback. but a 90 passer rating, and he's gotten a new coach, and he finally has weapons and they're building around.

Like, he is trending in the right direction. They played the Rams tough at the end of last year. They got better as the year went on. Like, there is a reason to believe in Bryce Young and Carolina. I'm not saying I do, but he is at least trending upwards. Well, I watch a lot of Carolina Panthers because my son, Zach is a big Carolina Panthers fan. So I end up watching a lot of games,

and he has improved substantially from where he was.