Geoff Schwartz Is Smarter Than You - What Actually Mattered from Preseason Week 1

Episode Date: August 16, 2022

Football is back! Well, almost... Geoff and Matt help you sift through the overreactions and highlights from the first week of the NFL preseason to figure out what is just noise, and what stuff actually matters. From rookie quarterbacks balling out, rookie WRs struggling, Kyler Murray calling plays, and the NFL Top 100, there are a lot of headlines to unpack, so let's get to it.Be sure to rate, follow the podcast, and leave a comment if you enjoyed the listen. Tune in later this week for the South division betting preview, and tweet @geoffschwartz if there are any preseason storylines or player props you want to hear discussed on the pod!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

it's tuesday august 16th i'm jeff schwartz alongside matt ford and this is jeff schwartz smart you powered by the varsity podcast network we're here to talk about preseason headlines which ones are overreactions which ones are worth the hype and we'll talk about deshaun watson we'll talk about everything else that has to do with the nfl preseason the storylines and more i wish we don't talk about deshaun Watson anymore, Matt, but we still have to do that. And so, Matt, how are you, buddy? We don't do this show typically together.

I'm glad to have you in for Gabe, who, as Gabe, like, in this country, I think he's left forever. I think it's over for Gabe. He couldn't, as soon as the actual football started, he was like, you know what, I'm out. It's been more fun just talking shit about Tom Brady conspiracy theories for nine straight months. No, thanks for having me today. With right now, look, I said this on the radio today, and I think it's really true.

Tom Brady is not with Tampa Bay right now as we're recording this. And I really do think they have a family trip planned when he announces retirement. And his wife said, you better be in this freaking trip, buddy. when he announced his retirement, and his wife said, you better be in this freaking trip, buddy. And he's off on an island right now with his family enjoying a vacation. I can't think of any other reason why he would not be at practice. But his plan was still to play this year.

It was just for the Dolphins, right? Well, no. Well, that was before he retired, right? I think it was retirement, right? Because the Flores thing happened. Because that didn't work. Yeah, that didn't work retired, right? I think it was retirement, right? Because the Flores thing happened. Because that didn't work. Yeah, that didn't work and he came back. But I do think that he was planning on this. I can't think of any other reason why he would not practice for 12 days

or whatever it's going to end up being. Unless there's some trouble in paradise, which I feel like we're, I mean. Which is why you better show up on this freaking trip. You better be on this trip, Thomas. I mean, well, that. But in actual, his paradise of a marriage to Giselle. I mean, honestly, like in his, like, there are a lot of things that could be happening now. And no one, everyone's just like, oh, it's fine.

It's Tom Brady. And I feel like it's just flying under the radar a little bit that Tom Brady is just not at camp. And no one really knows why. Like, they switched coaches. Like, I'm not a conspiracy theorist at all with brady that's for the other guy who's usually on this podcast but i genuinely like as we talked about in in the uh preview show that's going to come out later this week like we're just assuming that the bucks are going to be fine but like are they if tom brady is is not like fully committed like what is going to happen to that team this season I feel like that's like this huge domino that could happen in a certain

something it wouldn't be great for our futures that we had but I will tell you what you guys hear the show later this week it's already been recorded because of my schedule and there was a take that man I had that I actually feel stronger about after week one of the preseason so yeah the the comeback player of the year oh yeah love that one definitely definitely like here's what you do since you have a few days like look at all the promos for who has the the best deposit bonus in your local sports book and just deposit some money because as soon as you hear i say it you're gonna be like those like, those guys, those fucking guys, they're giving me free money again.

I'm so grateful to be among the millions of listeners to this show every week. Well, we started a lot of these shows, Matt, with the Deshaun Watson News of the Week, right, or News of the Month, because it continues to be a big part of the conversation. However, we have football now, so we can avoid that until a little bit later, guys. Let's talk about some of the football. Do we overreact? Do we properly react?

Is the hype real? Let's talk about what we've seen so far after one week of preseason football games. Yeah, so why don't I start us off? I'm going to go a little out of order from the prep that we've got here. I want to start with Trey Lance because it seems like i turned on a sports center last night for some godforsaken reason for a few minutes and they were like the hype machine it's it's in full effect and he had a nice pre-season game uh he played better than jordan love who man what if that guy's probably gonna end up being like the answer to weird bar trivia questions pretty soon um lance went four for five for 92 and a touchdown he ran for

seven he looked great this was the first test of like okay this is our starter um bill barnwell today wrote an article about like the guys who were going to vault into superstardom and trey lance he declared was a future supernova in the league. So the hype around this guy is out of control. I'm wondering if you saw something in that first preseason game that made you say, like, yes, the hype is real. This guy is going to be awesome. Or if it's still too early. So the hard part about the preseason, Matt, is it's becoming hard to evaluate ones versus ones and twos versus twos and threes versus threes, right?

Because we're seeing a lot of teams now not play their starters. And then actually, I think we saw more than usual teams play their starters. I mean, I was watching the Seahawks offensive line film today on my flight to – I'm in Philly right now. And they played their starting offensive line minus, I think, Gabe Jackson for the whole first half, where Pittsburgh didn't let one starter touch the field the entire game, right? So it's hard to evaluate, I think, Gabe Jackson for the whole first half, where Pittsburgh didn't let one starter touch the field the entire game, right? So it's hard to evaluate, I think, where teams are, where guys are at, because they're not

playing their counterparts in the preseason. That being said, if you're Trey Lance and you're playing the twos, you should play well against the twos if you're the one, right? So I think that if it looks like it should, that's a good sign. If Trey Lance struggled against the twos, well, then that's a bad sign, right? If you play the Packers second or third string defense, I don't know how many second or third string guys are in there, and you play poorly, that reflects bad on you. If you play well, in my opinion, that's the first step.

Okay. We play well against the twos. Okay. Like let's see us against the ones, obviously in the regular season, but at some point in the preseason, I imagine you'll play the one defense at some point. And I've seen reports all, you know, he struggled at practice again today, back against the Niners one defense, right? That's obviously one of the better defenses in the NFL. So I think the takeaway is, for most of these, is that it should look good if ones are playing twos. If it doesn't, that's a huge concern. So good for Trey Lance.

He passed the first test in a game. He played the backups. Remember, he did play last season in the regular season, so it's not like we haven't seen him play before. But he played well against the backups. Now let's see him play well against the starters. I'm not sure who they're playing next. They're playing the Vikings, I believe.

So let's see if the Vikings play their starters, and let's see him play on the road in Minnesota against, I would imagine, a more formidable defense just because the starters are playing in game two. So that's, I mean, that is the big thing about the preseason is like our guys you know who are they going against they're going against the twos like we're going to talk later in the show about a lot of the rookies who had who had great debuts um going against lesser you know defenses or offenses um but you know i did mention jordan love who laid a stink bomb in his appearance um which i think is just interesting,

given the whole Rodgers situation that he might end up sucking. I guess if somebody plays really poorly in the preseason, how much of a red flag is it? Jordan Love, he against the 49ers went 13 of 24, and then the guy who came in after him was better than him, Danny Etling, household name himself. I'm just curious, with something like that do you put a lot of stock into like a bad performance we're gonna get to plenty more but i'm curious what oh no i certainly do especially this is

year three for him now right year three for jordan love um and he's not even good enough to play well against the twos yeah Yeah, there's serious concern. Also, look, we've said this for a while now. If he was good enough, the Packers would have moved on from Aaron Rodgers by now. Right? Like, they would have been like, okay, fine. You want to hold out? Be my guest.

We're moving on. But Aaron Rodgers knows Jordan Love is not the guy. So he can threaten to hold out and get whatever he wants because the Packers are stuck and they have to pay Rodgers because Love is not that guy. That's a huge part of this. I think that's the first sign that we should have known that maybe Love is not the guy. And I think very clearly by year three, and he's not performing well in the preseason,

huge red flag, Mac. Well, speaking of bad performances, and I know that we don't want to talk about this guy too much uh deshaun watson did play which was just like the ultimate moment of cognitive dissonance for every nfl fan yeah he it was weird watching him play but it just was it was i didn't like it but i mean it's my job i watched him play well even if you were a huge browns fan who's for some reason didn't care

about this you would probably be upset too because he looks absolutely terrible um i think he was one for five uh he just he absolutely just like looked rusty um one one past seven yards uh was his final line in three drives um the fans in jacksonville guess, shout out to them for, uh, screaming some expletives at him. I guess like, what is the thing that we are going to see more of if Watson plays this year? I think we're clearly going to see the crowd screaming at him pretty regularly, but was this like, I mean, you were a big, we were both big Watson guys before all this off the

field stuff came to light. Um, are you at all worried about him as a player with, or do you think this is just a matter of rust? Well, I mentioned the reason why he's playing is because they need to see him in live reps, right? Like they need to see him in the situation.

He hasn't played in over a year, a brand new office. And of course he might not play this season. So you have to get the reps in. And the, the one, um, the, the skill position players

I don't think started. Maybe the tight end started, but I know the running backs did not play. The wide receivers didn't play. The ones at least their elite guys didn't play. Schwartz played. He's kind of a slot guy. There were some drop passes as well. Just remember this guys. If your starting quarterback

is playing, then your quarterback is, I mean, your offensive line is playing, then your quarterback is, I mean, your, your, your offensive line is playing, right? So like if Watson's playing, so is the starting offensive line. If any quarterback is playing the preseason, so is their start. Now their offensive line might play longer than the quarterback, but if the quarterback is in, so when I say the starters are playing, yeah, I mean, look more than half of the starters are playing on the offense. I said that and people were like, Oh, the starters didn't play. No, I mean, more than half played. Six of the 11 played.

Now, they're out, the right tackle who was hurt, but nonetheless, he looked really rusty. He had that first throw, I think it was, that he rolled to his left and just overthrew someone, but there's no surprise to look this way. This was going to happen, in my opinion. I think if he plays this year or not, he's going to start very slow whenever he does play. That's one of the reasons why I think I'm kind of off the Browns

a little bit this year. He's just going to start slow. He hasn't played in over a year. It's a new offense. I have to imagine the distractions of everything that's happening off the field does affect him. I mean, come on, how is it not, right? It's all his doing by the way, right? It's not anyone else's doing. You can't blame this on anyone but him. And there was always going to be rust. I think, again, I go back to what I said

the last topic. I think, you know, things, it's okay for things to look like they should sometimes. And it looked like it should, right they should sometimes and look like it should right like it looked like it should he's gonna struggle if he was way good i would have been like well that's kind of weird maybe we're off but this is what i thought he would look like so i'm not worried about it matt interesting well one thing that i thought was really telling was the reaction afterwards i think people were not so i don't think anyone was surprised to see jacksonville

fans react but i think it was surprised to see Jacksonville fans react, but I think it was just that moment of like, oh, right, like this is going to be really tough for him wherever he goes. Like fans are going to be very loud, very vocal against this guy wherever he goes. So Joel Batonio after the game, the offensive lineman said that more than ever, it's Cleveland against the world that they were, that they were sort of leaning into being the heel. And then a Cleveland podcaster named Garrett Bush said that the Browns locker room team is 100% behind Deshaun Watson. Those who have spent most of their adult lives in high-level sports understand why. I'm looking at someone who's spent a lot of his life in high-level sports and talking about them.

I guess what do you make of this reaction by the Browns and I guess sort of the vibe around the team after this game? Yeah, I would agree with that assessment, at least from the mindset of we have to work together. We have to find a way to work together, right? Just like you guys don't like every co-worker I would imagine you work with. I'm not going to say who you don't like. Can't stand Hank.

But just like, you know, we have to work with people that we don't like. But there's a greater good, and the greater good is winning football games because that makes everyone happy and makes everyone, you know, paid, right? It makes everyone make their money. And there are times you have to put aside.

Like if I'm on an offensive lineman for Deshaun Watson, and I would absolutely never hang out with him probably, right? I'm not hanging out with him. I would do the bare minimum that I have to do to make it work. But I need him to play well because I need to make money, right? Right. And if we all play poorly, we all don't make money. And we all get coaches fired.

And we all get cut and have to move to sit in, move different places. And so you find a place in your mind to where you forget what happened outside the facility. And you just try to work on making sure that it works in the facility for the betterment of everyone else. I've never been in that spot professionally, not in my personal life either. But I've had things come up like the Josh Brown stuff in New York happened after I was there. It actually happened while I was there,

but I didn't know about it until after I left. And I was lockered next to, close to Josh Brown. I probably wouldn't talk to him anymore, but if he needed to win us a kick, Matt, I want us to do not root for him to win us a game. Like, that's the hard part about this. Like, you need Deshaun Watson to help you win football games because if you win, in the end, you're going to make more money.

You're going to have more fun playing football. It's a tough spot to put players in. They're going to obviously say publicly they support him. I would think privately they might feel differently. There also are going to be players just like everything else that think this is a setup. They set him up. They set him up. Come on.

It's a very tough discussion to have about kind of how you should feel versus how players do feel. But I absolutely do believe that that is exactly how the team feels about playing with him. It does not mean that they condone anything he did off the field. It does not mean they're friendly with him. But when they're on the field, you need to win football games and you need to all get along.

You need to play together. You need to have the mentality of we're in this together for the betterment of everyone else. And again, off the field, man, I'm going to never talk to Sean Watson, but on the field, I need to make it work. He's my quarterback. I got to make it work. Josh Brown, on the field, I need to make it work. He's my quarterback. I got to make it work. Josh Brown, by the way, the kicker for the Giants a few years ago who admitted to an abusive relationship with his wife at the time. So I think that, I mean, for, my question is like, this is like a totally different example. And it's, I'm reluctant

to include like someone else's name in a situation like this. But remember how, like, remember how LeBron James went from, like, everyone's favorite player to a villain. And all of a sudden, like, he would go into these arenas and, like, be so unaccustomed to people screaming at him. I mean, again, not comparing what he did and what Deshaun Watson did. him i mean again not comparing what he did and first of all deshaun watson did but just the similar feeling of like wait everyone used to really like me or or you know not necessarily root against me super hard now i show up in an arena and everyone's screaming at me the entire time like watson is one person has to deal with that but like the rest of the team has to deal with that too right like don't you is that something that is like something to watch out

for do you think like whatever like joel betonio doesn't care about what the fans in Baltimore are saying? So that's the part about the distractions that people talk about when it comes to the NFL or really any sports, right? Is that, you know, now Joel Batonio has to answer the questions about how does it make you feel when you hear the crowd chant negative things at Deshaun Watson? How does it make you feel when they say things to you? How does your family feel that you're blocking for Deshaun Watson, right? Like all these questions now, when we talk about distractions, that's what it is. It's not like this thing that happens every second you're in the building. But instead of now answering questions about your game or what you just did or the team, you're answering specific questions that take up your mental space in your head.

What do I say? Do I have to say the right thing? Do I support him? Do I not support him? How do I answer this question right? Am I getting in trouble for saying this and that? That's where distractions come in. And so, yeah, it's going to be a problem all season, Matt.

And again, the uncertainty of when he's going to play plays a role in this. If he plays and they don't play well, then it gets worse. If he plays and they play better, then maybe people forget about it as much. It's going to be, as long as he's there, this is always going to be lingering over the Browns.

Now, in years forward, it won't be as harsh. The spalling won't be as harsh. And I don't imagine the chance will continue. But for right now, yeah, this is what the distractions are. And I could definitely see this having a toll on the team over time, especially if Watson does play early in the season while he's appealing or something. If things don't go well, there could be a lot of insults toward their direction. I mean, I almost think that, and the last thing on this maybe,

I think that it would actually benefit Watson to play this preseason, get some of these unpleasant games for him out of the way, and then be suspended for the year because people forget stuff. And maybe there will be some other thing next year that gets people fired up. And I'm not saying that's a good thing. I'm just saying that's what I've observed watching all of us

and our attention spans. Maybe next year it wouldn't be quite as bad. If I were him, I might be rooting for that. Well, I certainly think the Browns are hoping that next year this subdues, right? I really think that part of signing him is saying, look, we just have to suck up this year, right? We just have to know this year's going to suck.

And by next season, everyone has short memories and we're not talking about it anymore. I mean, there will always be a mention of it. I mean, look, it still happens with Ben Roethlisberger, right? But that's more of a social media thing. It's not being talked about on NFL Network. And I think after Watts comes back, a couple of weeks later,

no one in the mainstream media on the television is talking about it, right? Matt, no, it'll be talked about on social media. Fans might hurl some insults. But as we move away from this, there will be less and less of a directed at him. I think the Browns are banking on that as kind of a strategy of why they signed him. All right.

Well, enough of this guy. I'm so tired of talking about him, and I don't talk about him nearly as much as you and Gabe usually do. Why don't we talk about some of the fun of the preseason, which are some of these quarterbacks coming out and looking really good, and we can maybe touch on some other players too. But Desmond Ritter came out he looks great uh he threw for 103 and two touchdowns um he's somebody that's going to come up in our in our nfc south preview as a as a way to possibly gamble on the falcons sam howell for the commanders came out and had two rushing touchdowns jeff how

about that a little shiver up the spine of carsonz. I guess like for any, and of course, the story, big story, was Kenny Pickett. I have his stats in front of me somewhere here. He went 13 for 15 with two touchdowns. All three of the Steelers quarterbacks look good. So a really nice showing for the three big name rookie quarterbacks, I guess. And Malik Willis already had his good showing too. So I guess what do you make of these guys coming out kind of hot, especially given the sort of muted expectations for the quarterback class in general this year? Do I have to pretend I watched every one of their throws? No, of course not.

My thing is what I mentioned at the top is that, okay, you did it against guys that might not make NFL teams. Now you need to do it against better players. They passed the first test, which is okay, you look like you belonged against the backups, but in some of these cases, you're drafted to play against the starters and win

games. The first step is there. You started out well, but Hank did bring up that Josh Rosen was 6-7 in his first outing as well so I'm still waiting for that guy to be good we were both in on him

we were the thing about the preseason that's really difficult is you can really confirm your priors right on oh I knew Pickett was going to be good

I knew it it's like okay well he played the Seahawks third and fourth string like let's take a deep breath let's you know the Seahawks are and fourth string. Let's take a deep breath. The Seahawks are going to win four games this year. Can you imagine how bad their second and third string is, right?

Yeah. So, again, take it all in. Enjoy watching the games. If it looks like it should, it's a good thing, right? It's a good thing. I mean, people were – the Chiefs offense looked like it should, but they played the Bears backups. It looked like it should, right? They went down the field and scored twice against the Bears backups,

well, once with Mahomes. As they should, right? The first drive went down the field and scored as they should. Like, that should happen. Ones versus twos, right? Like, that should happen. So, like, you know, and so I think it's important to look at where they're playing the competition, evaluate it based off of that.

If it deviates from that, where, like, again, the Chiefs often stalled out, okay, well, that's not good. But they scored. That's what they're supposed to do. Can you pick it? You played the backups. You're the 20th pick overall. You should play well. Well, then what do you do then with a lot of these first round wide receivers who did struggle? Are you sort of saying, hey, don't worry about the fact that, well, Drake Leonard got injured, but like John Dotson, our guy, got zero targets. Chris Alave had one target. Traylon Burks, no catches. Garrett Wilson had three targets, came out with two catches. A little bit of a shaky start for the first round rookie receivers.

with two catches, a little bit of a shaky start for the first round rookie receivers. Is that something you can just say like, okay, like they're playing NFL corners for the first time. Of course, they're going to struggle a little bit. Or is there anything to draw out of these early performances? I know it's sort of hard to evaluate each of these guys, but I guess I'm just curious conceptually what you think of first round guys coming in and maybe not lighting it up right away so there's there's a lot of reasons why why does he remain may not play well um what like did dota just not get open or when it's not throw the ball to him or did i don't know who the who is it sam how did throw the ball to him yeah i saw sky more for the chiefs kind of had you know a couple catches but there were a bunch of opportunities he was open didn't get the ball. George Pickens might be the best receiver of all time after one preseason.

I just think that's a position that's just so hard to evaluate after one game, I think, Matt. Do you remember last preseason when Jamar Chase dropped every pass? Yes. And went on to never drop a pass the entire season? Yeah. So that's a really hard position to evaluate over limited preseason snaps. Yeah, I mean, George Pickens, everybody on Twitter

kept talking about how he's got that dog in him. We've got to take him to the vet because he's got that dog in him. I guess my question, let me ask it how I want to ask it because this is really the question. Everybody's got their fantasy draft in the next week or two. Everybody's got these preseason games, and then people go on you know a show i used to work on good morning football or shows like this and just hype george pickens like

everyone's gonna be talking about him for a week like do we did that matter at all or should we just say like it's the preseason who cares like i i just feel like it's just so hard to make sense for a fantasy player or someone trying to scout these guys like should i take george pickens now like what what what what just happened so matt my fantasy draft is in los angeles with so much of my fox sports employees it's on it's in september early week early before week one are you saying are you staying in my place or where are you staying so here's the thing. They want to do it in person. I want to ask my wife, hey, hon, can I fly to Los Angeles for a fantasy football draft? Hell yeah.

Will I be alive after asking her that question? Because really, I need to know. I've traveled to 10 cities for this show that I'm doing that I'll be able to announce one day. I've traveled to Los Angeles as well this summer. I still have like three more trips to make before the start of the football season. I just don't think asking my wife, can I go to Los Angeles for the fantasy football draft is any good, man. I think I have to do that one on Zoom. What do you think?

I think. I mean, it's a Fox event. Well, no, it's just with Fox, with my coworkers at Fox. It's not a, now, if I can tell her that it's a Fox event, like Fox is paying, if Fox pays for me to come out, then I think I'm obligated to go.

Right. But if I'm paying for myself, I just can't do it. Well, even if it's with like I don't know like who's in the league can you say who's in the league let's litigate this on the air well some of my bosses are okay so this would be good face time with the bosses it's run by Ben

Verlander okay he added some numbers to the text chain I do not know who they are yet so I just gotta figure some of the names out but yeah man I just yeah if figure some of the names out. But yeah, man, I just, yeah, if I can swing it as like a business trip,

like Fox is bringing me out to do some work, then I can work. But if not, I just can't, I can't make it. I have to do this over Zoom. I think you should make every effort to go.

I'll get some bunk beds in our apartment so you can take top bunk. I think you should go on out. I mean, look, I'm a big believer. Next year, I'm in a fantasy league that will be in its 20th year next year. And I'm the youngest person in the league by about 10 years. There's one exception.

Well, you've played for the same league for 20. Alan, have you played? Yeah. How many years have you played? I was in this league then when i was 14 and everyone else was like in their mid-20s it was like at the gym i used to work at have you won yeah oh yeah i'm like i'm like reliably in the top four every every year pretty much but like it's one of those things where it's like listen it's the fantasy and next year we're trying

to get everybody to go to vegas and it's it's hard because like everybody has kids and jobs and commitments and stuff but like i just i do feel like maybe it's hard for you but i do feel like for the rest of us there is this sort of like carve out that we get for fantasy football for like one one weekend a year where we get to just like what we talk about makes no sense to our wives anyway so where you go so what are you doing for this year's draft this year we're just doing it on zoom but but because we're efforting the Vegas trip next year, and that's the one where it's like, you know, we're just saving up our, like, hey, last year I did it at home. Like, how responsible am I?

Like, I saved our family so much money. Now, of course, I'm basically, this trip to Vegas is basically paid for, honey. Like, I think that's most of our strategies. Is like half of the Vegas tourism in August and September just dudes on the fantasy football draft weekend? A thousand percent. You should never – well, August is a terrible time to go to Vegas because of the heat. It's hot and it's outside, yeah. But the two worst times I think to go to Vegas are maybe the two best times to go to Vegas, which are March and August.

Like March Madness, there's not like a bachelorette party in the entire city. It's all dudes. And it's not even bachelor. I went, I went dudes three years ago. Um, no 2019 now, because it was before COVID 2019.

I went with action to March for the first weekend of March madness. And we sat in a, in a, in a box of the West gate. It was insane. One of, one of the, one of the people I was there with,

with action had like 27 Red Bull vodkas in like four days. I'll tell you off air who did, who that was. I know who it is. Was not blackjack. No, it was a guy who lost a bet too. If I, if I recall, I lost a bet too. No blackjack no but it was the guy he lost a bet to if i if i recall i lost a bet too no

blackjack lost a bet too shout out to blackjack who's probably listening not paul either not paul either no but yeah you know who it is so nonetheless um dude so it's intense like you're you're fried after watching basketball all day it's an intense experience i'm not going back i'm not doing that again yeah well i, I'm a big proponent for the in-person fantasy draft because it's all about the back and forth, especially if it's an auction. Well, good luck with that.

And if you do come out, then we'll have to let you guys know. Okay, well, why don't we come back to week one of the preseason? Really glad we get to circle back to that. Why don't we – you mentioned the Chiefs. Everyone's really interested in how things are going to go this year without Tyreek Hill. They came out and did not look great in their first series. You've got incorrect information.

Okay, tell me. They came out and drove the length of field for touchdown the first series okay well they didn't they and then and then mahomes left the game and then mahomes left the game uh well trevor simeon ended up having more uh more accounting stats than mahomes did um most of the people in this game were talking about the grass at soldier field anyway. That was really atrocious. I guess like, okay,

so fine. They ended up having a good first quarter. Clearly I was not dialed into a chiefs bears week. One of the preseason, they did have a first drive without Tyree kill, I guess as a chiefs expert, did you see anything there that puts your concerns about a lack of hill aside,

seeing them go against the Bears? So their first drive was 11 plays and 72 yards. The thing that I saw in week one of the preseason from them was they kind of did a lot of West Coast offense staple formations and personnel groupings and a lot of quick passing game. And it could be all for nothing. It could be all for show. It could be all for show. It could be a situation where Andy Reid ran these things on film. Again, they ran some fullback runs. They had tight end and middle screen, some quick passing game,

an end around. All of this could be done just to make defenses stay up late at night and worry about it in the first month of the season. But I do believe, and I've said this since the Tyreek Hill trade, that I think they're going to go back to more of the basics of the West Coast offense. It might still be from shotgun, but quick passing game, spacing, not looking for that home run, staying in rhythm, right?

Because, look, you can't replace one-for-one like Tyreek Hill did. But you don't need it as much if you stay on schedule, Matt, right? If you take what the defense gives you, if you take the seven yards, you take the eight yards, you take the five-yard run, and you just – you don't worry about, okay, well, it's 38 now. Let's try to find Tyreek Hill somewhere, right? And so that's what I think we saw in a very small glimpse of it in the Chiefs' first drive.

Taking what the defense gave you, going down the field, there was a play-action pass with Travis Custer over the middle. There were some good things. I saw the offensive line was really good again this season. We're not going to know the loss until they play regular season games, but it felt like

what I again, 11-play sample size, felt like what I think they're going to do this season. Give us a, speaking of fantasy, give us a guy among this sort of new group from Juju to this Pacheco guy, the running back. Anybody who you've seen out there who you're like, maybe this is going to be a guy in the offense

who people aren't talking about. Everyone knows Kelsey's going to have a good year. I'm looking down the depth chart a little. Well, you can't take be a guy in the offense who people aren't talking about. Everyone knows Kelsey is going to have a good year. I'm looking down the depth chart a little. Well, you can't take a running back in this offense because Andy Reid rides the hot hand. So if a guy gets hot one week, then he's going to play the next week. So you can't say – you just can't take a running back. Jamal Charles is not there, right?

They have three different guys they're going to rotate through. To me, it's Sky Moore because Sky Moore can just do a bunch of different things. He's going to be an end-around guy, a reverse guy, a screen guy, whereas MVS and Juju probably aren't going to have that role as far as getting as many

touches as Sky Moore might have. He had a really nice catch on the sideline in the first game. That was with Chad Henney, I think. Yeah, with the legend. Alright, interesting. Let's see. What other big takeaways nice catch um on the sideline in the in the first game that was with chad henney i think yeah with the legend yeah all right interesting let's see what other uh what other big takeaways should we do here oh let's talk about zach wilson um who i was reading this headline that hank wrote and i was like wait a second and i guess like the first thing we need to react to is how twitter reacted

which is maybe the biggest takeaway of this whole thing, which is do not listen to the people on Twitter after an injury. The guys with the check mark say they're doctors. Everyone home diagnosed an ACL tear and automatically started trading other quarterbacks to the Jets. Tough beat for Zach Wilson to lead the league in passing yards, right? That bet, you can already throw that one out and we didn't even make it to the second week of the season um I guess like I mean it looks like Zach Wilson will be back in about a month I imagine that that is not great given how much prep time he's going to lose and all that all that practice time with

uh you know Garrett Wilson and the rest of the team. But I guess, what was your takeaway from either the Twitter meltdown or just the Jets in general after that? Well, I think part of the reason why people try to diagnose him is a non-contact injury, right? A lot of those tend to be ACLs. I felt it was an odd diagnosis of a bone bruise without him getting hit on the knee. Unless it happened another time. Like, normally you need to get hit in the knee to get a bone bruise without him getting hit on the knee. Unless it happened another time.

Normally you need to get hit in the knee to get a bone bruise. Him flying to LA to get a knee surgery when there's doctors in New York feels odd a little bit. I don't know what... They're doing exploratory surgery. That doesn't feel great to do like they can't figure out what's happening so they're gonna just do surgery like that

doesn't feel great so I just think it's not none of it's good put it like that I didn't know that they were actually doing that that is really interesting yeah I mean that's a really tough one there was a lot of love for zach wilson in the jets this season i mean if you were them would

you consider i mean everybody was talking about jimmy g our group friend was mentioning it why is that a dumb idea why why like i just don't get i don't get the purpose for that like what what is the what's the purpose of of of bringing him in like to just be like okay like what would you just suck again another high draft pick again and have wilson you know let's say he plays half the season like why would you bring jimmy g and i don't it doesn't make sense to me yeah yeah i agree i wouldn't trade anything for him. If they cut him, a lot of people are doing the solid Jimmy G reunion. If they cut him, sure. He can go anywhere. Which I understand. But I feel like everyone's talking about this trading him.

The Jets should trade for him. That is what I'm talking about. I still think the Cleveland thing maybe makes the most sense. That would be the team that actually could kind of check out to do a one-year thing with Garoppolo. But yeah, the Jets, I don't see it there either. Let's see, what else do we got here, Jeff? Any other big takeaways from week one

or any other just sort of general rules of thumb regarding just how to watch these games? Yeah, a couple of things. We're seeing some different trends in the preseason. One is we've seen more starters play this preseason. I think part of it has to do with quarterback evaluation. Teams are just trying to evaluate their quarterbacks and they need their offense to be out there to be with them, right? Two is that we're just seeing a lot of more complexity early in the season where in the past, in week one of the preseason, man, it just was like base vanilla defenses.

Teams are bringing it now, man. They are bringing it. They're pressuring. They're getting after it. They're trying to confuse these young quarterbacks, and it's a little bit unfair at times to these quarterbacks for that to happen. But that was a big takeaway of mine.

It's like the Giants men were bringing so much pressure. So that's a big takeaway of mine. By the way, Hank just put in a text thread that Adam Schefter tweeted out, it looks more and more unlikely that Saints' Alvin Kamara will be disciplined

this season. Wow. You know the NFL, man. They notoriously take their time on this stuff. Interesting. Well, good scoop by Hank there. It's funny, we've already recorded the NFC South reaction, but I do think, man, what does this do for, I felt like the Saints were kind of hanging on by a thread anyway, but that's a tough beat. I don't think a running back changes my opinion on them.

Oh, it says it's more unlikely that he'll be. Yeah, unlikely, unlikely. I misunderstood, yeah. So that's good news for the Saints then. Never mind, I misunderstood. Yes, good news for the Saints. I just don't think that actually, I don't think this changes much for the Saints. I just don't think that actually... I don't think this changes much for the Saints. It's better than not, but I don't

change my opinion on them very much. Interesting. We're both a little unsure about them. What was your biggest takeaway from the preseason week one from what you saw? Well, at this point, if you're still listening to this show, we're about 40 minutes in. it's time

i think we can reveal one of our favorite guys who's going to come up in this south division preview and it was the emergence of a guy i'm going to be taking my fantasy drafts damian pierce who was buried in the depth chart in that weird florida team and that weird offense. He came out and ran for five carries for 49 yards in the Texans' first preseason game, getting a lot of buzz. All of a sudden, people are talking about Damian Pierce. We were on him. We're going to take a nice bet in the episode you're going to hear.

Should I be putting some stock in that one there? Because I was pretty encouraged by what I saw. You basically said the other day, like, watch out for him. They immediately did great things. I think you're right about that. A couple other news and notes, by the way. The punt guard, Matt Ariza, had an 82-yard punt the other day for Buffalo. It was also a touchback.

It wasn't like a pin down at the one. Matt, he kicked the ball from the seven-yard line, and it went all the way to the other end zone. I feel like that happens more often than not. No, it does not. Definitely not that long. Punts are not that long. It netted 62 yards.

Right. The net of 62 is impressive. You do see sometimes where it just bounces like the 22, and then it just keeps going and going and going. But my favorite thing about him is that people said that he kicked the ball sometimes where it just like bounces like the 22 and then it just like keeps going and going and going. But my favorite thing about him is that people said that he was, uh, that he, that he kicked the ball too far. That's why they didn't draft him higher. I was like, all right, too far.

That sounds like a kick the ball too far. Um, so the punt guard, punt guard, punt God, Matt Ariza. One last thing before you got here, Matt, do you pay attention to the NFL top 100 rankings? I do. Well, you shouldn't because they're a bunch of crock. So the players vote on these, okay? And I assume it's pretty close the same way that it was when I was there in the NFL,

which they come to you one day in like week 15. You're in the lunchroom. They hand you a piece of paper. They say, put your top 15 players on here. So I would write Mitchell Schwartz, then like Eli Manning, I don't know, JPP, Odell, and then my seven favorite offensive linemen

and turn it back in. These are not to be trusted. Matt, do you know, how many NFL players do you work with? I know you work with a couple of them, but not a lot, right? I mean, under 10. Under 10, okay.

Do you think all 10 of those guys you work with are like football fans, though? Like they watch football in their spare time? That's a good question. I mean, there's a difference between watching for work and watching for fun. I guess I'm – but you're saying like are they sitting there and watching? I watch for fun, too. I play a football game, come home and watch more football. I guess I'm, but you're saying like, are they sitting there and watching? I watch for fun too. I play a football game, come home and watch more football.

I love football. There are guys that don't watch football outside of the film room and they're not qualified to decide who the best players in the NFL are. They're just watching film.

Yep. Like, I don't know who the best corners are. Even for myself, who loves, I mean, I know who they are, but I'm not going to vote for them

on the stupid votes. So like, this thing is so silly to me. People get so bent out of shape about this. Don't trust the players. They're not paying attention. They're voting for their friends. They're voting for buddies of theirs. They're trying to vote

for someone because that might get someone else in there. They can't be trusted when it comes to this. They just can't. So don't get bent out of shape about these rankings. Well, one thing that I found kind of interesting, and I've worked alongside NFL films a few times, and you're

right. They literally just give you it looks like a piece of legal pad, and they're like, list some guys. And then they'll usually grab in a media junket, they'll grab you and say, hey, in week 15, you went against Akeem Hicks.

What was that guy like? And then they do those interviews where they're like, man, Akeem Hicks, that guy is strong. He's tough. And then they just cut up. It's sort of like why they have the same couple of voices over and over again because they grab them at a big media session.

Those are done at the Super Bowl. Yeah, I did mine at the Pro Bowl. Pro Bowl and Super Bowl. The guys that you hear talking at those, they don't just bring us all to one location. They do that at the Super Bowl or at the Pro Bowl. They bring you into a room and just ask you questions about certain guys

and that's what they use for the voices on the top 100 list. All right. Anything else, Matt? It's a great show, and it's actually amazing how they put it together. I agree. It's very unscientific, so don't get too rattled about your Mac Jones rankings. I did have one other fun thing that I was tracking, which was the end of the game.

So remember this whole fracas about Cliff Kingsbury saying that, hey, it's actually pretty hard to call the plays. And then Tyler Murray ended up calling some plays in the fourth quarter and they went, it was like punt, punt, end of game or something. He ended up doing terribly. I don't even think they got a first down. Is it harder than it looks? What actually happened there? Or is this just a fun little stunt that we shouldn't read too much into? I wouldn't read much into it.

No? I just wouldn't. This is after the whole accusation of this guy doesn't pay attention to anything. There's no reason to think... He's just calling plays off a sheet of paper. There's no reason to think, yeah, maybe he doesn he doesn't really understand, like, what would go here because he would just sort of take the ball and run around and throw it deep. He's also calling the fourth quarter of the first preseason game.

I mean, I think that a lot of us, I would think that if you asked the starting quarterback to call a series of plays, especially one that's, like, not a rookie, that they would be able to like do something with it because they essentially they might have to do it anyway if their headset goes out right like they have to be ready to make that they have to be able to do that anyway right yes so is it kind of weird that kyler murray that it would be so alien to kyler murray in the first

place that that kingsbury would be like here man you give it a shot you've never done this before like i find that to be kind of weird. The thing that's weird about this is the fact is, again, Kingsbury thought it was necessary to do this to show him how hard his job is. That's the problem. The problem is that does Andy Reid

have to do this to show Pat Mahomes how hard his job is? No. That's the problem. It's not that he made him do it. It's the really nice way of saying it that's the problem it's not that he made him do it it's the fact that he said i need to show him how hard this is by letting him call plays right that's right i think like put it this way if i said to you jeff if you were like hey matt and hank what are we talking about on the show today and i was like i don't know asshole like why don't know, asshole.

Why don't you write some topics for us to come up with? Because then you just didn't respect us. That would be the problem. Not that you didn't know how to produce a rundown that we'd ignore half the time anyway. You know what I mean? I think that that is the more obvious indicator of a problem. The fact that Kyler had to be humbled after this enormous public shaming for the last month, he's still taking his lumps.

I just, something's off with that team, man. It just feels a little fishy. It's certainly off. It's certainly, I'm with you. It's certainly off,

dude. I would sell all futures on them, which we will, I would imagine we're going to do that fairly shortly. Yeah. Oh, nice. Right? Yeah. I, nice. Right?

Yeah. I think their total's in the 8.5-9 range. I think that's going to be a healthy hit on the under there for us. Totally with you, buddy. All right, everyone. Well, I hope you enjoyed the show today. We're back in a couple of days with some more wagering on the NFC and AFC South. We'll make you some money there.

We're part of the Varsity Podcast Network. Please rate, review, subscribe. We'll talk to you guys in a couple of days. Take care, everyone. Have a great couple of days.