Green Light with Chris Long - NFL Week 1 Recap & Superlatives. Rob Ninkovich on Patriots. Moonshine Minshew.

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

(0:57) - Football is Back, Weekend Recap, Worst Losses and Joe Burrow! (40:27) - Rob Ninko on the Patriots, the Saints, Tom Brady, and his correct Green Bay vs Minnesota Prediction. (1:13:37) - Chris and Macon on NFL Week 1 Superlatives. Green Light with Chris Long: Subscribe and enjoy weekly content including podcasts, documentaries, live chats, celebrity interviews and more including hot news items, trending discussions from the NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA, NCAA are just a small part of what we will be sharing with you. http://bit.ly/chalknetwork Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before you do, I just came out with a nickname. Yeah. That is going to stick. Okay. Jags tanking for a guy named Sunshine and Trevor Lawrence. They call him Sunshine down there in Clemson, South Carolina. How about Gardner Minshu ruining this? He's moonshine.

Now, now, I'm serious. I want to, I want this to stick, go viral. So I go to pro football reference to look up his existing nicknames. Because you know there's so many. And there are only two. mustache and jockstrap king it sure wasn't I seeing the teams back out there on the gridiron over the weekend lucky for us that was just week one

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That's $1 to win $100 when you use promo code green light during signup for a limited time only at Draft King Sportsbook. Must be 21 or older, New Jersey, Indiana, or Pennsylvania only. Bonus comprised of a first deposit bonus and a first bet match, each up to $500. Deposit bonus requires 25 times play-through, restrictions of life. See draftees.com slash sportsbook for details. Gambling problem, call 1-800 gambler or in Indiana, 1-800-9 with it. It's football season, guys. I'm your host, Chris Long.

This is my co-host, Making Gunner. F-O-O-T-B-A-L, that's football. Yeah, I was wondering where you're going. And last week you had the LL Cool J. Now you've got the spelling. The spelling. It brings a lot to the table here. My esteem co-host, Makin Gunner.

This is the Greenlight Pod. And I want to wish everybody a happy morning, even if most Eagles fans are already drinking. And, you know, as we record this midday Monday, I still mean that. You probably are already drinking. It's probably Miller time. It's so bad.

bad dude you know this pot is going to come out before monday night football by the time monday night football happens you won't feel a thing so uh that'd be nine and seven nine and seven and now oh and one with a loss to the washington football team and we'll get to them you got to go to uh no you get l a at home next week which the rams um are inexplicably dogs i saw that i i don't know what to make of that. Um, Aaron Donald, if Aaron Donald just gets off the bus, it's going to be a long day. I want to remind everybody to rate and subscribe. I don't feel like I do that enough. You know, I know when I listened to podcasts in the past, they were very diligent about that and I have failed you, the listener. Give us five stars if we deserve it. Give us one star if we deserve it,

but comment more, you know, I do check the comments on our podcast to see how bad we suck or how good we're doing. And I don't, so give it to me on the reel. Yeah, give it to make on the real. And remember, we've got this Tuesday time machine thing where, well, it's going to be Thursday time machine. I already messed it up there. So there's your first, talk to me about it. There's your first error, because I know you like to do, you know, you point out my mistakes at the end of the show. I beat you to it there. Thursday time machine is a deal we have where we record on Thursdays to go out Friday during the football season and usually right before the Thursday night game. So we're going to have a breakdown of the Thursday night ball game,

Balgham every Friday morning and then directly following that breakdown, which is recorded late at night, our picks from before the game. And we're going to find out who's good at this and who's not. We're going to pick scores and whoever gets closer each week is the winner. week one chiefs win by 14 i had them by 16 you had them by 11 that gives me the one zero edge so what we need you the listener to do is take to the comments and tell us what should be at stake and we want to decide something by this thursday or friday so we know how hard we have to try at this because if it's something like me gluing a bunch of pubic hairs to my face some some just sadistic shit you guys are

going to put in in the comments or you know we already have the last place you know we already have the last player in fantasy football in the Seville Gentlemen's League, you know, taking to a billboard on 29 north outside of Charlottesville. I'm looking after week one like I might be on that billboard. So let's make this gentle but something fun, okay? Put it in the comments. What does the loser have to do after 16 weeks of an NFL season in relation to Thursday time machine?

Take to the comments. By the way. Yeah. We face time for that final meaningless field goal, which gave me the one zero edge. That was so fucked. And Thursday time machine. Can you explain what happened here? Well, for starters, my 30 to 14 pick was looking very possible for a while.

And then for a good five, seven, eight minute stretch of football time, you were clearly going to win. Yeah, clearly. And then what was it? Maybe an on-side attempt by Houston? I don't know. Kansas City gets it down. There was an onside kick and the real, the Kansas City picks it up and takes it all the way down to like the 20. So simultaneously as I'm losing this, I'm feeling bad for people who had the under because 53 and a half turned into 54 in the nose.

And you had picked 3119. It looked like our final was going to be 3120 and you were going to gloat your face off. 3420 happens and you come away with the time machine. Yeah. Awesome. Awesome. I'm 0 and 1. Making with a good start.

Who said playing football in actual? makes you any better at this shit. It don't. Yeah. For the record, Macon never played football. If you haven't seen him before, he's not a football build.

I've had a few dreams, though, over the course of my life, where I'm actually in our high school uniform. Which you never wore because you never played. Playing for John Blake. And I'm a, shout out to John Blake. I'm a tight end and I catch a touchdown pass.

It's like a recurring dream that I've had three times. That would be cool. You might want to see somebody about that. They can tell you what it means. This week, week one overall it's a win for me I mean this was a big win and that's my takeaway

for the NFL for sports fans for the football players and it was a week of wins and losses I mean we'll get to some of the losses there were some really bad ones it felt like I don't know if it was because of no runway no preseason it just there was no warm up

to some of the sucking that happened and the hopes were never humbled in preseason or camp with the access that the media has for some of these teams or doesn't have and then you roll the ball out there and just get crushed and we know the teams we're talking about we'll get to those in a while but it was a win the moment i woke up sunday morning i felt that cool air relatively speaking living here in virginia was probably still a pretty hot day objectively

but cool air donuts grubhubhub shout out to grubhub shout out to duck donuts Charlottesville, Virginia. I'm sure it was raining. It rains every freaking day. No, that's not true. It's been nice here. The rain's good. We needed it.

A whiteboard with a bunch of stupid bets, you know, in my office. I mean, it's just such a warm feeling. It's comforting. And again, I'll remind people who listen to the pod. When I played,

I hated the fall. It was subconscious because of the grind, because of the pressure. I never saw any value in that season. There was no, what was August? That's training camp. What was September? Oh, you guys rave about pumpkin spice and red leaves.

Like, I don't give a shit. I just think about Toral and, you know, going over in a primetime game. Like, that's all I'm thinking about in the fall. Now I love it. It's beautiful. It makes sense. I feel football in the air.

And it was a big win. It was a win for the NFL, first and foremost, because there were no fans in the stands. So you didn't have to hear the racists in Kansas City. repeat that performance on Sunday. So that was kind of an inadvertent win, although Jacksonville had some fans in the stands, and I didn't look closely at how they dealt with some of the watered down social justice

that we're seeing on the field on Sunday. Thursday night football, we know the ratings were down a bit. It is an election year. If you haven't heard, it is an election year. And the NBA playoffs, there's a lot to that. We'll see how the ratings kind of settle through the week here. but friend of the program Michael Rubin who is Fanatics Bigwig

says NFL sales jump more than 35% for opening weekend versus last year which is a big jump for those of you who aren't math majors and he notes that it's the best start ever for them so we'll keep an eye on the ratings Fanatics is up close games we had a bunch of ones well it felt like a bunch of one score games

we had Philip Rivers doing the Philip Rivers thing I mean, which is just clockwork. It was like breaking in a new home, you know, like a dog that walks in a new home has got to piss on the floor. You know, Phil just had to do the Phil thing. He had to be down in the fourth quarter. I put my phone down.

I had Indy in a parlay. And I said to myself, well, this one's over, right? The Jags are tanking. This is a Super Bowl team. This is the AFC North champion Indianapolis Colts. It's Frank Reich. It's Phillip Rivers.

It's a reunion. That O-Line's so good. And what you saw was more of the same lately. So that felt right in a really fucked up way. We had a fourth quarter Tribusky comeback. Three touchdowns. Not how you drew it up, but that's the NFL. So you had predictability.

You had unpredictability. You had Aaron Rogers looking vintage. I mean, him rolling right, throwing a dart at that near pylon is porn. It's football porn. There should be an explicit warning when you watch Aaron Rogers do that. There should be like an NC17 rating on that. Aaron Razors. Cowboy Reed thought that was funny. He doesn't laugh a lot behind all the equipment we have at the Greenlight Studios, but he thought that was funny. So Aaron Rogers looked awesome. I mean, they crushed him in time of possession. Over 500 yards. We'll get to that.

and a little bit. We had a 17-point comeback, which kind of tortured me and a bunch of Philly fans. And all in all, six one-score games, actually, was what it was, and a bunch of them came down to the last drive.

It felt like home and away, very evenly distributed. We had 13 games over Sunday, I believe it was, seven home, six away. Those were the winners. And I think coming into the season, And we were really curious how this whole thing looked, how it felt, how teams had advantages or didn't have advantages.

And honestly, this neutral site thing, if yesterday's any indication, is going to add to the parity in the league and the unpredictability, which is a good thing. And I think there's no bigger success for the league. And we've sat here and lauded the NBA and the NBA players. and I kind of took a shot at NFL players. I was one of them. Last year it just wasn't, it wasn't promising during CBA negotiations that she had 500 players who didn't vote.

You know, bigger rosters were not bubbling. Over the summer and the spring, I'm okay with saying I'm wrong. I didn't think this was going to start on time. I still think there's a hiccup at some point here. I still think they could bubble for the playoffs. but I was wrong. I didn't know they could pull this off.

3,600 tests went off without a hiccup going into Sunday and that includes like staff and all types of personnel. Yeah, that's unbelievable because you have not only the 53 guys traveling but what, at least double that

in terms of coaches and staff. For sure. I mean, who, mighty impressive. And as we've mentioned, the stakes are high in the NFL because there's so many older position coaches there's so many players on the team

there's big dudes I don't know how some big dudes would handle getting COVID I don't want to find out hot take here our NFL players the most responsible population in America well and maybe we don't

hey week one getting off without a hitch awesome now let's see what happens this is the test the playoffs so to speak to COVID playoffs have begun because and I'll get to this in a bit the Raiders got off a five hour flight

in their new city in Vegas and they're feeling pretty good about that win. Those wins feel good. Right, and the virus doesn't care about the win or the flight or week two. Nah, the virus is not real... I mean, like, the virus doesn't care who's favored in Philly this Sunday.

That's right. And I just thought it was a big victory. The fact that they pulled this off is great. Now, Macon makes a great point. Beat me to it. The real test starts now. But week one, was a resounding win for the NFL.

And they pulled off delivering a product that made us feel normal and want more. And hopeful because, yes, it looks different because there aren't any fans. So we're in the midst of something here and it's gonna take sacrifices. Yes. But hey, do your part.

Yep. It takes all of us as the LA Rams reminded us last night. And again, someday things will look as they once did. You might wanna be careful saying it takes all of us. That's pretty controversial. That's a pretty controversial narrative on race relations in the NFL. You might want to be careful writing that in the- That was virus relations.

Yeah. You just want to be careful. You don't want to piss people off saying it takes all of us. That can be really divisive. Yeah, and racism. I mean, that's a bold statement that some teams. Ending racism, you might want to just massage that conversation in America. So it's a big win.

But there was, And you know this, every Sunday, there's a that moment. And that's what the NFL thrives on. A lot of times it's the late game. It's a bunch of people. And Philip Rivers is often a supporting actor in these that moments as kind of the character they kill off in the end. And he's running around like a chicken with his head cut off,

down a touchdown. And the sun's going down. And he's going to make the Sunday scary's work worse. We've talked about this. You know, you're already thinking about going back to work. And Philip Rivers, I don't know if it's comforting to see him fail or it makes you more anxious. but he was there.

He was there in the early game for once. Bless it to Pete. Dagummit. Yeah. I mean, that was what he was saying on the sideline yesterday. On cue, Philip Rivers playing his part in the early game. The guy who took center stage in the late game was Joe Burrow. And that was a big win for the NFL.

There is no better feeling, as I said, than that moment as an NFL fan. And week one, that moment was occupied by, Joe Burrow with a big assist from Kevin Harlan. This came in a situation where you have two teams who are probably not going to make the playoffs. A game in Cincinnati with a dude with the stripes on his helmet and the entire football universe leaning in. That was that lean-in moment.

I hadn't stood up like that all day. I didn't even have a rooting interest other than Joe Burrow and the over five and a half wins that I put, like a mortgage down in Vegas this year. But I'm not a Bengals fan. I love Joe Burrow like everybody else seems to and I couldn't wait to see him take the field. I missed his first snap and I was bummed out about it.

I was looking at another game. It's that kind of anticipation. But that this rookie quarterback that everybody is focused on gets the ball down a score under two minutes, Kevin Harlan against a stick. if test in the LA Chargers defense. And he passed it, really. He wasn't spectacular all day.

23 of 36 for 193 in a pick. Yep. Eight for 46 on the ground with a TD. Yeah, that was quite the TD too. He was out there getting sexy on him. He wasn't spectacular, as you just mentioned, but on that last drive, the poise, the zip on those outbreaking routes,

the timing, the footwork in the pocket is really that climbing. the pocket, that feeling Joey Bosa, that feeling the rushers, because he's gonna feel a lot of rushers this year, he's gotta get really used to that. The resiliency after he made a mistake, that kind of Brett Favre play, not so fast Joe,

that Melvin Ingram picked off, which is a great play by Melvin as well, but there's no excuse to flip that ball in that situation. The mix and fumble, he's gonna be hard to rattle. You know, he's gonna need that. we knew that coming in. You know, the defense is going to be a problem in Sincere. But he also faced a pretty good defense himself, Joe Burrow did. And that was a great test. I think they're going to be in a lot of ball games this year as they get better and better. And that was a very,

very big win for the NFL that I believe, and I don't have to go door to door to check on this as a hypothesis, but that everybody was tuned into CBS at that point on the edge of their at 7.10 p.m., I believe it was, on a Sunday evening, and it felt right. And Joe Burrow looks like he's, at the very least, a guy who's going to compete in this league. And a ballgame, as you noted, on paper, uninteresting. Who cares about that game? Yeah. Except gamblers.

It's very rare that you have a meaningless game in the NFL that people are really tuned into that have no money on it. And then we had the 31-yard kick that sent it to overtime. Oh, yeah, I forgot how that ended. Yeah. Well, we don't want to spoil that for anybody who didn't see it. We'll get to that later. And I had, you know, it wasn't, for me, it was extra disappointing because there were two, two-minute drives I felt like I got robbed of.

You know I'm team Matt Stafford. That could have ended way differently. We'll get to Y in a bit. but in a way we got robbed of this very memorable Joe Burrow experience so to speak on a Sunday in that big moment where he just dropped his nuts and put him in the wheelbarrow like Stan's dad in South Park like we got robbed of it by a kicker and a push-off I mean it sucked so QB wins but as far as finding the next burrow is concerned one of my biggest take was we don't know who's going to land Joe Burrow.

The bottom of this league looks, the floor looks way different than we thought it did. And the big question is going to be, is that a function of week one, being a great equalizer? Or is that a function of Garner-Minshu doing what we feared he might do and fucking this whole, you know,

T-law down to Jacksonville thing up? I mean, 19 of 20, three touchdowns, 173. Fourth best completion percentage of all time, minimum 10 throws. He's a guy who when you talk to talk to offensive players that are out of the game because I talk to a few of them

because I can't figure him inch you out. He's a guy who's going to make bad defenses look good. Somebody said he's like Fitzpatrick, and I think that's a huge compliment because Fitzpatrick is one of my favorite players. And maybe he's a Fitzpatrick. it's Patrick Plus, okay? Because I'm not taking anything away

from what he just did. The sense is that he's gonna ruin some bad teams days. But when I heard my buddy say that, I thought to myself, do you mean Indy's a bad team? The defense at the very least doesn't look complete right now. And on the other end, Jacksonville really might play themselves into a situation where they don't find themselves

with the first pick. And it's the same deal with Washington. That's a team that I thought was gonna be challenging Jacksonville for that bottom spot. Season's young. The season's young. Chase Young. They certainly could be bad, but that was a big win for them yesterday.

And I know I'm about to get on my Eagle soapbox and focus on the birds fucking it up, but they deserve credit. So before you do, I just came out with a nickname that is gonna stick. Okay. Jags tanking for a guy named Sunshine and Trevor Lawrence. They call him Sunshine down there in Clemson, South Carolina.

How about Gardner Minshu ruining this? He's moonshine. Now, I'm serious. I want this to stick, go viral. So I go to pro football reference to look up his existing nicknames. Because you know there's so many.

And there are only two. Moustache and Jockstrap King. Okay. Okay, not bad. I didn't get to be jockstrap king. I think all, because he just walked around the locker room and only the... But I made that cool.

I was doing that in fucking 08. Ask anybody in St. Louis. I had to, I just wore a jockstrap obnoxious. Moonshine menshoe? Moonshine min shoe would be terrific. I think, dude, I've... Yeah.

We're doing the distancing pound, the air pound here. I think we're going to blast that out. And we might put some ad money behind that or like, you know, like we might... Beautiful. How do they do that? where you juice the odds of people

seeing your social, we promote it. We're gonna do that. Let me rant about what I think is the worst loss of the week and you can tell me what you think. Okay. I think it's the Philadelphia Eagles and we've got a few bad losses to choose from, Indy, San Francisco, Cleveland, the Jets, Detroit.

And there were a few others that I'm sure you're sitting here. What about my team? We had a terrible loss. Did you have the kind of loss the Eagles had where they blow a 17 point lead to a team that we thought was possibly gonna go 1 in 15 or 0 in 16? Also, the Philly loss was compounded by, I'm thinking, take the first half under.

Teams are gonna be rusty, that sort of thing. So I put in my little bet and it wasn't so little, but I put it in a first half under at 27. And the way it got killed was Logan Thomas on a busted coverage in the corner of the end zone against my former team. To put this in perspective, I'm watching my former team lose me money and the guy catching the ball is a former quarterback

from the team I hate the most in college football, Logan Thomas. That's how my Sunday started when it came to the ball. the gambling. It finished strong, but in reality, the O-line stuff, okay, we were down three starters at game time when you count Dillard, Brooks, and Lane Johnson, three very important pieces. Even before Lane Johnson said, I'm out, which is very understandable, by the way, he had surgery two weeks ago, and I had heard that there was some like, hey, could you play for us? Could you play? You know, do you think you could give it what you got? And that's pretty normal. in the NFL. But my reaction to that is, it's two things. He just had surgery. He should look out for himself

because guess what? You're going to need him more than you needed him. You thought you needed him today. You're going to need him down the line. You're going to need him to beat the big boys, not just Washington. And my second, my follow up to that is, if you need Lane Johnson to beat the Washington football team, you're in trouble. Like, Lane Johnson is a terrific player, one of the best tackles in football. But if it's that close and you need Lane Johnson to play, if he's the excuse, why he didn't win, that's a problem. And I said this to somebody in Philly a couple days ago, I said they're one injury away from it being a disaster up front.

They got that one injury effectively in Lane sitting out, and then they added another one with the guy who's barely ever played Driscoll heading to the locker room, that shot of the empty stadium, him entering the tunnel. It was just peak dysfunction for the Eagles offensive line group. And this is a team that ironically, This has been one of the strongest units

in a league the past couple years and it's just been depleted and depleted. The O line was all over the place. It'd be one thing if they were just getting beat and I know that all we're talking about today is the Washington D line and the dominance they showed statistically. They're very dominant, they played hard,

but there were a lot of gimmies there. And you're not gonna beat teams in this league where you give up six sacks. You can get beat for six sacks can still win. But if you give up six sacks, and I understand they had eight, but I'm talking about six were just gimmies, where guys didn't really do anything other than make the tackle or play hard or finish. It's bad. Washington had eight sacks, 10 tackles for loss, 14 quarterback hits. Carrigan had a couple off the bench. Good player. Good player. It's kind of

curious. I can't quite figure out why he's coming off the bench. It must be because he's old. There's no other, there's no other. I mean, I understand that you drafted these two guys early, but he's still your best rusher. Anyways, broke the franchise record with 92 now in the SAC department. Offensively, the big question this year coming in was assuming the O line was was okay, can you push the ball down the field? We had a surprise activation from Jalen Rager, which is supposed to be a big deal. And immediately you're like, this pays off. you had a 50-yard bomb to Rager. You didn't have a 50-yard game through the passing game

weeks 2 through 17 last year. So immediately you're like, if you're an Eagles fan who watched that same team trot out there last year in Washington and find themselves down 17-0, and you're up 17-0, you've got the big plays working. Carson Wentz for the first 28 minutes looks like a Hall of Famer. You're thinking to yourself, and I'm thinking to myself,

this team is better than I thought they were going to be. And this is without Miles Sanders. and this is without getting Zach Ertz, you know, overly into the game plan. Goddard was there. Goddard was definitely there, which could be a hot button topic around the facility this week. But you got to catch that ball on fourth and six if you want the big deal.

Zach knows that. Zach knows that. On the Zach thing, I do think, and I know he can handle this, he's one of the best players I played with. He's a total stud. And I understand the business of things. if he wants to turn the frustration into something this year,

there's a difference between being mad and being sad. Go play mad. Don't play sad. I'm not saying he played sad yesterday, but I know sometimes that when you're pissed off and the front office is fucking you or doesn't appreciate you so much, you can get in these funks where you're like, why, dude?

Like, I just don't get it. And it may be valid. I don't know. Maybe, you know, they like cheaper options. Maybe they like Godder just as much as Ertz going forward. but take it out on Howie Roseman go take it out on him on the field and I think we'll see that from Zach Hertz in the future

they got the chunk plays going we mentioned that those were missing but there was nothing intermediate all their gains felt like they were 50 yards or two yards and they struggled in the middle and I know they want to run the ball more with the 17-0 lead

with whom You know, I love Corey Clement, love Boston Scott, but you don't have a feature back. And, you know, it really hurt him. And after the 28 minute period, Carson went on this meltdown track. First 28 minutes, 14 of 18, 18, 182, two touchdowns, next 33 minutes, 10 of 24, 88 yards, two picks. It truly looked bad. And I think with Carson sometimes, and I'm not making an excuse for him,

He's not the only reason they lost the game yesterday, but he's a big reason they lost the game yesterday. When you're down 17-0-0 and you've checked that box off, we're not at the let's smell blood and take more shots and push the ball down the field juncture yet with this team. You got that lead, changed the way you operate a little bit, and those two picks were bad. There were two fumbles.

There was a third pick that got called back. The first one with 144 left in the second quarter was a huge pick. because Washington hadn't gotten anything done, except for that Haskin scramble on bad rush lanes by that nickel group for Philly. And this leads to a Logan Thomas coverage breakdown that I mentioned that was very bad for your boy. Second pick is the Morland pick out of JMU.

The second one was bad. It was to start the second half, and it leads to a touchdown as well. So, you know, and then you're looking at the next drive, Carson third down in the red zone, up three, in the second half again at the 20. takes a sack for a loss of 13, and Jake misses a field goal. So, like, these are the things that he can't do.

And a couple of the sacks were on him where he's holding the ball too long. He's not careful with the ball. Fourth down, late in their own territory, they go for it. Boston Scott busts the protection on fourth down. That's what happened there. You know, he's supposed to pick up, I believe it was Bostic on the AA Blitz. And instead, he kind of just vacates. and Carson's fucked.

So the blame is everywhere. Everybody shares in that blame, but the quarterback, if he had just not thrown those picks, he could have took a beating all day and they'd still won the game. And this conversation on Monday would be way different.

It would be, hey guys, we've got to fix this shit, but we kind of understand most of these guys haven't played ball before, at least our franchise quarterback was sharp. He can't be a compounding reason why they're struggling. And of course, down seven late,

your last gasp, third medium, he overthrows Deshawn, and then Ertz drops the ball and fourth down. So your best players have to play better. And defense played just fine. Defense actually played better than I think people realize. That defense is going to be better than people realize. But the playmaking wasn't there.

And what you get is 27 unanswered points, all on drive starting in Eagles territory, which is tough. So terrible loss. Yeah, as Joe fan, guy who hasn't played for the Philadelphia Eagles, not yet at least. I'm sick of this team. It's a constipated franchise. Oh, fuck.

Like February 4th, 2018 in U.S. Bank Stadium feels like about a decade ago. And some personnel is different. Frank Reich is no longer in the building. And maybe you miss fun players like and I, a Jai,

your boy LaGarrett was on that squad. Who can forget? Bo Allen C Long But now it's just It's all potential Last year Especially a sexy pick

To win the East And 9 and 7 Yeah It seems to be a 500 club And I'm I'm kind of tired of No

I'm wrong Carson Wins Actually is a top five quarterback Well I don't think he's top five I haven't said he's top five I haven't said he's top five now. He's got top five ability. I think he's top 10.

Okay. And I think top 10 is in question. Let's see it. Time to see it. After a performance like that yesterday, obviously, but let's not forget what he did last year with nothing around him. And I think yesterday what happened is he got confident and he got greedy and it's good that he got confident. The spin zone, I think it's good that they were pushing the ball down the field. Carson's saying, okay, like I want to go for the jugular. Pump the brakes a little bit. Let's get this thing under control. As I said, and this puts him behind the eight ball, You look at Dallas, you look at how they were tracking. It was big, they lost that game last night.

So essentially, that's a big deal that Dallas dropped that game last night. But you did just lose a game to Washington, and those are supposed to be gimmies. And we said going into the season, if the Rams are four and four at the break, I'll feel pretty good. Because I think they're going to be, or not the Rams, the Eagles, they're going to get better as the season goes on. And Dallas is going to play better teams on the back half of the schedule. It's like it's inverted between these two teams and schedule strength. they have time. I'm not hitting the like,

it's over button. It's week one, okay? Last year they got jumped and got lucky enough, you know, to storm back in Washington. So this team, I think when you mentioned 17,

I hope it's not a product of 17 was a great team, but it's not a sustainable thing with the program they have. I hope it's not that situation. I have faith in Doug, you know, how he's got to be better. He knows that.

You look at the draft picks that are on the field and not on the field. The attrition there, you look at the choosing flash over experience in some spots, Ligarrett Blunt should still be on this team basically. You know, like, or a Ligarit Blunt should still, that's a perfect example, a Bo Allen, not the sexiest guy to keep around, but. Well, yeah, I mean, speak for yourself. Yeah, he likes to think so. But, you know, turning over and getting these young guys that are all promise and talent.

You're trying to get young, but you're not healthy. How are you young and not healthy? And this is two years running now. Yes, yes. So maybe they do look different with O-line and with Miles Sanders. I think Miles Sanders is going to make a big deal. I think the O-line's going to get a little bit more patched up, but you don't have a lot of, as you saw, leeway.

Eagles needed three scoring drives that were all predicated on big plays. They have to be better at moving the field and moving the ball down the field. Goddert was the best weapon underneath. And again, Ertz will be better. I think he's got to play mad, not upset. And the big decision I would look at before the half as the Doug took a timeout and Carson threw that pick.

That was the only thing for me that was like a glaring game management issue. But eventually Washington deserves credit. They won the game. Big day for them as winners. Last time Washington was down 17 was in one was 2015 against Tampa Bet. Good news for Philly. Saw a nice rush from Josh Sweat. That was great.

That's the flash of ability that we've talked about. And I didn't focus too much on the secondary. I got to go back and watch, but Jalen Mills at safety, he's going to stick his nose in there. I like that. Do you agree that's the worst loss of the Sunday slate? In two words?

Yeah. I do. We have Indy, which is a bad loss. I think it's bad because Philip Rivers looks the same. It's not so bad maybe because Gardner Minshu was the best quarterback in the state of Florida over the weekend and probably an all-time great if we're looking at Sunday. So that's got to make Indy feel better. At least you lost the Minshue.

You had two bad drops on third and fourth down. The Colts kind of beat themselves. They outgain them by 200 yards. Maybe that's the silver lining. And I love T.Y. Hilton saying I lost the game. You know, just lay it out there. There was more to it than him, but that's the leadership you need. San Francisco, I don't think it's, I am worried about San Francisco. I picked Seattle, obviously. But I don't think this is so bad because Arizona played them tough last year. This looked a lot like, you know, last year, plus D-Hop

plus another year in the system for Kyler and all those players. The receivers are banged up in San Francisco. I would say it's bad because it's a division game and Jimmy G. continues to struggle. He has not moved on from that overthrow in the Super Bowl. Those two playoff outings where they were hiding him.

This was a big game for him momentum-wise. And, on a chance to go ahead. He misses Bourne in the end zone, and then he throws it inside of Trent Taylor on fourth down. They also got stuffed on a fourth and goal late, and he missed Kittle that led to him getting twisted up, which is not like Jimmy's fault,

but it's a bad throw. It's like another bad throw where something can go wrong, and the cars were down 10-0-0-0-0-blocked to punt. Everything changed. Detroit was a bad loss because of what happened last year and just knowing what you're going to need to do to keep pace with Green Bay.

Last year, you blew a lead. I think it was an 18 point lead or something to Arizona, and you tied that ballgame on a late mishap with Beville. And I just remember thinking, fuck, this team's got promised, and they blow that game, they blow the Green Bay game on a bad call early. More of the same. More of the same.

And I know Tribisky's been better against them than most teams. Not good enough. New York Jets, bad loss. but the positive one day closer to freeing Sam Darnold. That's a bad loss for the Jets? The bills are just good. The bills are really good, but the heat is on for Adam Gase.

And every bad loss that's lopsided, and this was a big like, what are the bills going to look like? I think it's a little bit unfair on Sam Darnold. The weaponry is just non-existent. The team is barren of talent. Joe Douglas is going to go to work up there, but maybe one positive for Jets fans.

is every time this happens this year, you get closer to a fresh start for Sam Donald, new staff, that sort of thing. Cleveland, terrible loss. That's all I have for you. I'm not going to talk about Cleveland until they're good anymore, until they're actually good. And I love the players on that team,

but for some reason, the sum of the parts is not adding up. There was a loss that some people are like, what about the Tampa Bay loss? I don't think it's a bad loss. I think they lost to a team that could be in the Super Bowl. I think if you thought that they were going to be lighten the world on fire week one

with the new system, that sort of thing, you were mistaken, you know how this thing works. Who better to bring in to talk about that and the new look paths than Rob Ninkovich? And we'll also hit Green Bay, I think, because he's gloating over his Packers' pick. So let's get my old teammate on,

longtime Patriot, current ESPN stud, Rob Ninkovich. First Greenlight hotline guest. of the 2020 season. And it's a fitting one we had, as I mentioned, a couple marquee games that this guy should know pretty well. And that's Rob Ninkovich, the guy from ESPN who hasn't gotten a haircut the entire pandemic

and has really let the beard go. Rob, how are we doing? Did you get a haircut? Of course I did. Now I look handsome GQ style, you know? That's me. When you think of Rob Nikovic, you think handsome. That's what I think. That's one of the first thing. I think of. I also think of versatile

Patriot way, do your job. Yeah, underpaid. I think that, too. Hypochondriac. Yep, I just had to check my head of Zappel for anything. I feel good. Feel good. Okay, so Rob Ningevich got through the first NFL Sunday

without any injuries from the from the ESPN studios. Rob, let's start with your old team in New England. I'm going to float this, okay. First, is it fair to say the dolphins got better in the offseason?

Yes or no? No. Okay, well then that might be the answer to question too, because a lot of people would say they got better, and this was less competitive than the game nine months ago that the Patriots lost at home. So the follow question is, did the Patriots actually get better in a real weird way?

I mean, I think it's a combination of having Bill Belichick as your head coach, number one, is going to give you basically the upper hand with not having a normal offseason with OTA's mini-camp, training camp, pre-season games, all those things that come together that help a team be prepared for week one. I think we saw a lot of games where just a lot of sloppy football. I mean, I'm talking just bad, bad coaching, bad football, bad execution. So when I watch the Patriots, I feel like number one, Bill Belichick, definitely had those guys prepared and ready to go. And look, Miami, yeah, on paper, they look like they're a better roster. But we all know what on paper means.

It all comes down to how you go out there on the field and how you play as a unit. So, you know, I take everything with a grand assault with week one. I feel like, you know, I watch some of these games and it just doesn't look like, you know, like these teams are firing on all cylinders. So hopefully, you know, a couple weeks, you know, there's 16 teams that are pissed off right now and there's 16 teams that are happy. So Rob, you might want to make that 17 teams that are pissed off

because the Jags might not be real happy. They got that first win under their belt. This Gardner Minchew kids going to blow the whole thing with Trevor Lawrence. New England, are you buying this? Is this more of a nuisance thing? Like as defensive players, you look at them yesterday, they just seem to have,

and this is to Josh and Bill's credit. I don't think people realize how much they do this with some players, they lean into that player's strength. And they've just accepted that, hey, we're going to pound people this year. And that includes with our quarterback. Is this more of a nuisance than it is like something that raises their ceiling for defenders to prepare for? Well, I mean, you all, you know this, Chris.

You'll be in a defensive end. You play the RPO option type, you know, game plan. And it takes a lot of time to go through all the possibilities on, you know, if the quarterback keeps it, if the quarterback gives it. If they slow, do we slow play? Do we hit the dive quick, which is like, do we hit the running back every single time really fast? I just feel like when you have that, when you're playing against that as a defense, it just takes a little bit more time to prepare for it because you understand, like, look, we have a quarterback here that can run out of the pocket. We know that is in-pocket accuracy sometimes could be questionable. So I think I'm buying, yes, I knew that the Patriots would be able to run the football. That's their bread and butter.

We saw in 18 when they won the Super Bowl, it was because they were able to run the football with success. And then you throw in the play action pass and there you are, you're wide open receivers. But my biggest concern, my biggest question mark would be, can the Patriots score quickly? Can they take the football and score within three to four plays? I don't think so. I think it's methodical, 10-play drive, run, run, run, play action. They might get into trouble when they're playing a team like Seattle. We'll see, you know, this weekend coming up.

If they play a team that scores quickly and can put a lot of points up, you can't win football games just run on the football. You have to be able to drop back, throw the ball deep, throw the ball down the field, make completions, and score through the air. So my biggest critique would be, my biggest critique would be, can the Patriots score quickly when they're playing a team like Kansas City, like the Ravens, like Seattle, all these teams that can score at will. That's why I think it might be more of a nuisance situation than a situation where your ceiling is raised.

I think this team has a slightly lower ceiling than last year's team. You know, definitely lower. Yeah, yeah. But that's at this point. And I know that I've heard from inside that camp that maybe the arm strength is an issue or the accuracy deep. He's still working out the Kim. throwing it deep. You know, we saw a lot of darts inside, and he looked good throwing those

intermediate kind of passing the slants, that sort of thing. They spread people out yesterday. They ran the light boxes. You mentioned the play action pass. All of it seems to be an indicator for, hey, we're going to do this, and they'll improve it doing this through the year, as we know about the Patriots making. You had a question for Rob. Yeah, Rob, I've been told that you big-brained defenders catch up to these gimmicky college-looking. looking offenses. Five quarterbacks led their teams in rushing Sunday. Lamar, Russell Wilson, Josh Allen, Cam Newton, Kyler Murray. Those teams went five in O. Is that a thing? Is that a coincidence? Is that just week one? What do you think? Well, I mean, obviously our big, huge,

massive brains as defenders, we can, you know, change on the fly and we can throw in new things. What I want to see is if I'm running a defense, I'm the D coordinator, and they're going to run those type of RPO style plays where the quarterback is live and ready to hit. I'm telling my D.N. an outside linebacker, I don't care about the mesh. I don't care about the running back. I want you to light up the quarterback every play. And I want you to make him give the football up, because if he's going to be a runner, he's going to be hit every single play. When you slow play stuff and you're starting to guess, okay, who's got the ball, where's it going? The quarterback's not getting hit. I want to see the quarterback get hit because at the end of the day, the more you get hit

as a quarterback, you still got to drop back and throw the football. You get hit sometimes you get, you know, you don't know what's going to happen. You get beat up. So, you know, for me, for me, if I was the D coordinator for Miami and I was watching some of these plays with Calvin O.A. And they're trying to slow play. And I know it tries to give everyone else time to respond to that. But I would just say, look, I'm one of these here. I want you just to shoot for Cam Newton. I want you to hit them as hard as you can. Yeah, yeah, and that can be controversial, but like we'd been in situations before in St. Louis where we had Cap or Russ or different guys running this reed offense. A lot of that, that exaggerated pole action where you're hanging out in that mesh, go blow that mesh up.

Go hit that outside leg. You know, and that's football. You do that to a running back. Exactly. But the thing that you can catch some of these offenses in is it's a spontaneous, play of, okay, they're slow playing it, they're slow playing it. This is how they're going to play it as a defense. And then you just say, okay, on this particular one, this next series, every time they do this, I want you to get off the ball as fast you can and hit the quarterback

right in the numbers. It's easier said than done, but it's still, you know, because that mesh can sometimes come quicker than a defense van who's in a five, seven-yard sprint to the mesh point. But it's a nice strategy. And it's something that I think teams are going to employ this year when they play the Pats is they really build this kind of bully because that's what they're going to be is they're going to beat up teams that can't handle this stuff and you mention the continuity factor

out of the gate. I share that sentiment with you. This is more of a function of New England is, we've already talked about this on the show. New England is that team that's been together. Even though their quarterback is different, even though there's turnover, their coordinators are on the same page and they've got

Bill Belichick. So I think they only get better at this and week one doesn't necessarily mean they're going to win the Super Bowl. It just means they're a bit ahead of everybody else. How about Jules? 600th reception. He's 70-something behind West Walker. A, does he get it this year?

B, how much does this mean to Jules? I would like to say that yes, it means a lot to Jules. He'd love to be the number one. I think he can't attain that this year. I'm not sure that that's going to happen this season. It might take them one more. you saw a lot less of him during this game, this past game, because I think he's on a snap count right now.

It looks like they're trying to take care of him a little bit. I know he was on the injury report with a knee, something going on with that. So when I see that, I just get concerned about, okay, 34 years old. Everyone talks about, oh, like they got Julian, they got Julian. Like, yeah, they got Julian. I love Julian. He's a freaking maniac out there, and he's going to go across the middle every single time, and he's going to love contact and want to try and get after people.

But at the end of the day, look, when you got 75,000 miles tires that are, you know, they're ready to go, you never know. You never know. So for me, I think that he's going to have the opportunity to definitely be close this year. But now it's just a limitation of, you know, can his body hold up this season. I mean, they're going to try. He had five receptions. You know, another issue that they're going to have is when you're playing the Patriots,

if I'm playing the Patriots, number one, I'm double in 11, double Jules, because I'm going to let somebody else go out there and make a play for me. And if they can't get it done, because they don't have any, you know, they don't have three big weapons on offense as receiving targets. They don't have that, you know, so I'm going to make sure I take care of the quarterback, keep them in the pocket, and I'm going to take care of Julian. Yeah, you make a great point. I mean, there's one guy that probably built trust because yesterday, and by the way, this offense continued to get better as the day went on. I think that's going to be a microcosm of the season, depending on who they play.

Again, they play Seattle next week. It might be out the door, especially the way they're throwing the ball around the yard. But three drives in the second half go for touchdowns. I guess it was Harry fumbled the ball. That's something that Bill is going to lose confidence in a guy over quick, and there's one guy that he's going to feel like his safety blanket. And that was Julian Edelman,

who had still 80 yards on six touches. Yeah, no. I mean, I think that obviously, Julian is one of the most diligent, hardworking. I mean, you know you can count on him week in and week out. So I hope that he can get it done this year. Yeah. But, you know, we'll see what happens.

At 34, look, I didn't play at 33. I was 32 and I said, I'm, see you later. Yeah, it's hard at 34. I played at 33, almost 34. It's different. It's just, everything's different. You just don't. And, you know, have all these young.

dudes. When I watch the game now, I see all these dudes and they're just young and, you know, they don't have any thought of self, like, if I do this, how am I going to feel? Like, these dudes are just flying around. They're hitting people. You know, I was watching

your boy, Aaron Donald, literally baptized dude. Like, did you see that play where he swam the guard and then Zeke tried to block him and he literally, like, just he, the Zeke looked like the woman in Yellowstone National

Park that the bison took for a ride like it was just like he made him look like a guy who's never you know picked up a free runner. He hit him with the undertaker. He hit him with the undertaker move. It's just ridiculous. It was beautiful. By the way, I mean

that's one thing as we get into the NFL season every week one. It's like can we bank on this guy being good? Can we bang? Aaron Donald is so good. It's gotten boring. Like that performance for anybody else last night is going to be front page news, you know, one of the biggest headlines, and he just does it with regularity. And it's one of those things I was sitting there thinking last night, we wear this phrase out

or this sentiment out a little bit too much with pro sports. If you don't like this guy, there's something wrong with you. I can find a reason not to like a bunch of superstars in sports. If you don't like Aaron Donald, there's something wrong with you. I really do believe that. Also, by the way, I didn't want to leave James White out as a security blanket in addition to Jules. It's not like they have nobody they can trust there. Bill's a delight in interviews right now. Is this the new Bill Belichick or is he poking and prodding Tom down there in Tampa? Just talking about Cam, talking him up? I mean, look, I think that we all know that Bill is a very smart coach, football coach, but I think that he's also like a psychologist

and he understands each and every, he knows each and every player. He knows how to get the best out of each person. You know, he seems like he wins on every contract. He seems like he gets the best out of everybody. And he understands how to coach. So when you have that ability, he knows that Cam, when he's flying high confidence and he knows that Bill Belichick is talking great about him, that he's probably going to wear.

He might wear an orange suit next weekend. I don't know. Right. But you know he's going to be excited and, you know, he's going to be happy and smiling and doing all those things. I don't think that a critiqued or a nitpicked Cam Newton is necessarily the most confident best player on a team. So look, they're great. They're 1 and 0 right now.

The Patriots are 1 and 0. It's amazing. But if they're 2 and 2 or, you know, if they hit a little bump. Yeah, the headlines will come and, you know, Cam will have a bad press conference, which isn't an issue in New England to, you know, kind of shirk the media. but does this feel like a rental to you? I mean, because this feels like maybe one of the best mutually exclusive kind of I scratch your back, you scratch my back,

we do this for a year, things of all time. Is there any way you see this going more than a year with Cam in New England and what would be the future if not? I don't, I think it's a rental. I don't see them sign in a big long-term contract because at the end of the day, you know, Cam's 31 years old. I don't know, it's just because he's so tall, but he doesn't look very fast.

It's not like he looks like he's like pulling away from everybody on the field. Right. So, I mean, is he going to be a better runner in the next three to four years? Like, I don't think so. He's already had a bunch of, you know, big contact damage, whatever you want to call it. He's taking a lot of abuse over his career. And we all know how that stuff piles on later in your career when you get older. And when I see Cam in the pocket, I just don't see the accuracy yet.

So if I don't see that, right now. I don't think I want to pay a 31-year-old mobile quarterback a ton of money when I have question marks about can he throw the ball down the field. So we all know the importance of being able to throw the football. That's the most important thing of a quarterback. Can you throw with accuracy? So I think it's a one-year deal. Cam's going to try and go out there and put his best efforts out there to show everybody he's back and, you know, to kind of, I guess, show Carolina you messed up and everybody else that didn't pay me, screw you. They're both on a mission.

They're both on a mission. Yeah. It's like one of those things where, you know, I think they respect that about each other. And I can imagine Bill. Bill respects players, and he respects certain players that you would never imagine that he really likes or respects.

Like, and you've been there. But hearing him talk about certain players that you're like, I never would have guessed you liked that guy. And it seems like he covets, I don't know if he covets the opportunity to be the guy that got Cam back on. his feet to stick it to Tom or if he just likes Cam and thinks he's been a hell of a tough football player, resilient football player, and a guy with high peaks, you know, the MVP year and that sort of

thing. Bill respects guys around a league. And I do think it's a mixture of both. Okay, New Orleans, Tampa Bay. This game to me was a microcosm of week one. And it's, you know, it's, I do think the hype is real on the Saints. They showed that yesterday. You've got continuity. We talked about that. They are the epitome of a team with continuity coming into the season and they played hard. You could feel like it was kind of like, hey, motherfucker, you're not our division

rival. We're like kind of just, we're annoyed that people are talking about you as much as they are and we've been waiting for this day. And Drew Breeze, a lot of that is, I feel like, hey, Tom, you finally came down here without your buddies. This isn't a panic game, though, for you.

Am I on track with that? Yeah, no, not at all. I mean, you think about the amount of time that Drew Brees and Sean Payton have been together. They've been together since 2006, right? So every situation, every single play, you know, that comes down to the field, I bet you Drew Brees could almost like just call the plays or, you know, go back to the head coach and they understand, you know, every situation, every possibility. And at the end of the day, we just saw a lot of sloppy, terrible football by Tampa.

I mean, I think they had like a fourth and two opportunity with a hard count and New Orleans hard counted them and they had a guy jump off sides. I mean, that's absolutely terrible football. Yeah, it's the worst feeling in the world. Look, it's fourth and one, fourth and two and it's like midfield. What's the first thing everybody's yelling at each other on the deal line? Yeah, it's whatever your code is for hard count, you know, it's don't jump. Don't be an idiot. Don't jump.

Don't watch the ball. if you got to back up a half step, do that. So to see that and then you see, you know, the miscommunication there with Tom and the receiver and throwing the interception, the second interception, the pick six, you know, obviously that you don't want to see that by your quarterback. I think he just was kind of frustrated trying to get back into things. But they were close. I mean, they were within seven at one point in that game.

And then it just got away from them quickly. And then the sky kick where they muffed that and they turned the ball low, So look, when you have two turnovers on offense and you turn the ball over and you have a field goal blocked, I mean, that's terrible. You lose all three phases of football, you're not going to win a football game. So, you know, they had a field goal block for points. They must have kickoff return. Obviously gives the same opportunity to score. Throw two interceptions, throw a pick six.

I mean, that's terrible football. So I'm going to talk that up. I'm talking that up to week one, not having the ability to do a lot of. lot of things that they would have had if they had a normal offseason, a normal preseason with timing and all that stuff. So you got to hope that they're getting on track quickly. I mean, hats off to the Saints. I feel like their defense was playing really, really tough football. A couple calls there that were questionable to me. I think there was a pass interference in the end zone that they didn't throw a flag on, which would definitely set the sent Tampa up on the one-yard

line. But yeah, at the end of the day, it's definitely, it looks like Saints are the top and that division. And if you're the Saints, I'm sure Sean Payton, every single day of this offseason in training camp, or basically just training camp, was telling those guys, telling every single one of these guys in the locker room, nobody's even counting us, counting us in this thing. They're talking about Tampa and all the weapons and Tom Brady. Screw that. We're the top dogs. We've been here for a long time. Let's go out there and let's shut everybody up and let's go out there and make a statement. And they were able to do that on defense. Offensively, I think they didn't look so hot.

I mean, you know, Camara's a freak. But Drew Brees, I mean, he only threw for like, what, 200-something yards? Like, he didn't have usually throws for that in a half, you know? So offensively, you could just tell that the timing and, you know, offensive line play, all that stuff wasn't crisp yet. Rob, Tom throws a pick six, as you mentioned. That's three straight games with pick sixes. Last guy to do that was Matt Schaub.

You mentioned the two picks in total. Bruce Ariens blamed Tom. I'll ask both you guys this. Bruce Ariens blamed Tom for both of those post-game. How do you think Tom responds to that? Did Bill do anything like that? It seemed like he wouldn't be so blatant with blame, if you will. Yeah, I just don't think Bill's going to tell you the truth.

And it feels like Bruce Ariens personally, at least, is a guy who's always going to just be as honest as he can. He's very blunt. How does Tom respond to that? Well, that's the question. And Tom, I mean, Rob would know better than me. I think Tom would be completely fine with the honesty,

because he knows deep down inside that it's on him anyway. So, you know, to go publicly and to say, like, yeah, that's on Tom. Like the second that he throws that ball and it's picked and it's going back the other way, I mean, they put the camera on him. You could tell he knows. He knows. He's taking his helmet off. He's pissed off at himself.

You know, he comes off on the sideline, looks at the, you know, looks at the tablet. He knows exactly what went wrong in that particular situation. So, you know, look, I don't think it's a big deal for Bruce to come out in the media and say that because Tom knows that. I think that it'd be different that when you're in a closed setting in front of your teammates, if a coach tries to like kind of like embarrass you, you know. But I mean, Tom's got a PhD in being yelled at in front of his peers. Yeah, exactly. So I think like Tom, has been in a situation where

situations where Bill has, you know, call them a so-called whatever, greatest player, so-called, yeah, in front of the team.

And, like, you're sitting there and you're like, whoa. It's kind of comedy. It's funny to be in those meetings. That's curious stuff. And that,

you know, that pisses Tom off. But then, you know, the thing that I've learned over the years is Tom plays better when he's pissed off. So,

yeah. I think that that's another thing. Go back to the Bill's like that. The Cam, the Cam thing. Tom. Tom plays better, angry and mad. And I think Cam plays better, happy, and go lucky.

And if he gets mad, he starts to pout and goes the other way. So I think Tom is better when he's motivated and pissed off. And, you know, like, I'm sure this week in practice, it's going to be a different type of atmosphere in Tampa for him. He's probably not going to be super happy and not smile a lot. He's probably going to be yelling at dudes trying to get everybody on the same page. You know, he might even yell at the special teams. I don't know, but I'm just saying that I'm not worried about that particular situation. Yeah.

We all saw what happened, you know, I was surprised. Honestly, in that game, I was surprised I didn't see any grunk like up the middle. That was a, that was a, how did he look physically to you, though? I don't, I feel like I didn't see the speed. Yeah. That I didn't see the speed and the separation. but I wasn't expecting to see speed in Gronk at this point in his career. I was anticipating them in the red zone being like, okay, we're from the 20-yard in,

Rob's our O2 guy target because he's so big and we could put the ball where we want it. But I also think that when you have Rob in those situations, just like the first touchdown on that Tom through, it brings attention to Rob and then opens other guys up. Yeah, and Rob, and Rob, only two for 11 on three times. targets. And you're right. I think obviously Rob Nikovic didn't do the Madden ratings for Grunk. I mean, they had him down like he was a world beater and he's one of the best to ever do it, if not the best to ever do it. But people don't realize it's hard to come back. And so they got torched too on defense. And that's one thing that I don't think we should have been

that surprised about late in the year last year. We kind of thought this defense has kind of turned the corner. They've arrived. If you look at game two last year, they got torched against the Saints. be one of those things that's going to take 35 points to win that game down the stretch here. And I also think, to your point, I'm not worried about Tom. I worried about the team buying into everything. You know, like in New England,

you've got the goat in your locker room with you, you got the hoodie. The guys are conditioned to chill the fuck out. And on the other side of things, when it comes to the bucks, you've got Leonard Fernette getting caught up in the hype, you know, doing that edited picture of, you know, Tom and him and Mike Evans

and all those guys walking. into the MGM or whatever it was to watch a fight like that superimposed thing. They're buying into the hype. I think this team and NFL fans needed this Sunday where they saw it reinforced that New Orleans is the king

of this division for now. And that could change down the line, but right now they're the better team. So Tom again, three such multiple INT games in 2018. There's no need to panic. He's still going to be the Tom Brady the past couple years. Mike Evans

and let's he magically got bad and somebody did some, you know, you know, put a, put a hex on him. There's no need to panic. He didn't touch the ball until the fourth quarter. So I don't think that's going to be normal all year long. Rob, I want to give you your props on something real quick. Okay, please do.

You called the Green Bay thing. Not that it was a hot, hot take, but people kind of, including myself, are dismissive of the pack. I feel scorned after last year. and high on Minnesota. Talk to me about what you saw yesterday in Green Bay or in Minnesota. Yeah, so okay, I was on Friday talking about basically that matchup and every single person wanted to jump onto the Vikings.

You know, they're a better team, Green Bay. Even though Green Bay was, what, 13 and 3 last year, made it into the championship game. Nobody wanted to talk to me about Green Bay, you know, Bart Scott, you know, he was adamant that the Vikings were the better team and that they're going to run away with this because they have the running game and their defense and all the front that they have and yada, yada, yada. And Aaron Rogers goes out there and not only does he score more touchdowns ever in his first game, but he basically shut up any single doubter of the Green Bay Packers and that they are not a better team this year because of the fact that they didn't go out. and get an offensive receiver, that they are a better team this year than last year. I said they would be, and my number one reason for that was because I am not seeing Aaron Rogers, and I've played Aaron Rogers, and that dude is terrifying.

So I've never seen an Aaron Rogers so pissed off and focused. And that was my reasoning for saying, like, look, this is going to be a different dude this year because there's been so many bad talking, bad Aaron Rogers is losing it, look at his last couple seasons and the dude played lights out lights out so i think i said that it was going to be a green bay back into the championship game i think they might even get to the super bowl this year that's my super bowl take um it's a green bay raven's matchup that's my take for the super war uh i like that actually after yesterday but again it's week one we got to take take your own advice rob 522 yards of total off

offense, time of possession, 41 minutes to 19 minutes. I think it says more about the Vikings than Green Bay, but it is a good sign for Green Bay for sure. Did you watch Alden Smith last night? I did watch Alden Smith. Yes, I did. I was excited for him. I was really excited for him.

He was one of my favorites in division seeing him. He had a chance to be one of the best pass rushes of all time. Ironically, I think where Dallas is going to get a lot of value out of him is in the run game. He was hard to block in the run game last night. He's heavier. He's focused. I don't think he has the same pop as a run. rusher, but maybe they don't need that from him.

Yeah, look, I'm always happy to see guys that have another opportunity that when you see them back out on the field, you hope that things are different and he's learned and matured. So now hopefully you can give the Cowboys, you know, another spark on defense. Looks like they're going to lose. Is it Vanderlesh? Vander Esh. Yeah, that's bad. Bandash.

They lost him with a collarbone. So that's a blow of his defense. So look, what's the best scenario for a defense that they have multiple pass rushers that you can rotate in? And I think the Cowboys have a good amount of front guys that you can rotate and you can feel confident that those guys are going to be able to get after the quarterback. Yeah, I think they have a lot of options right now, but they have to pan out, you know, and some of them were high risk, high reward picks. And one thing that I want to bring up, which I'm super pumped, that Ryan Kerrigan for Washington just became their, their all-time leading sack guy in his 10th season. The dude almost has 100 sacks. So think about that.

10 sacks a year, basically, on average. He had two in his first game. I mean, he's going to have a bunch this year. So he's probably going to have over 100 after this year's up. I just want to say that dude is beat. He's been doing it a long time. And nobody talks. They're talking about trading the guy.

They're talking about the rookie that they just drafted. They're not talking about the guy that's got almost 100 sacks. Yeah, it's wild. That would drive me crazy. You just now, albeit, and we hit this earlier a little bit, we'll talk about it later,

but Washington, there were some real layups and gimmies, but this dude, Ryan, does not get enough love. And the fact that he's not trotting out there and hearing his name called, I'll never get that.

He's your best player. I don't care who you drafted. Until you're proven otherwise, this guy has been the heart and and he passes Dexter Manley for the all-time sack lead in that franchise, which is saying something. So kudos to him. Let's do the score picks tonight for the Monday night games.

We've got Tennessee, Denver and Pittsburgh, New York. I'll start Tennessee, Denver. I'm going 24 to 16. Rob, what are you looking at? I'm definitely going. I'm definitely going with Tennessee. I don't know what that offensive line for Denver is going to look like. you know you definitely look at the offense in Tennessee

and the running game and you know they have a quarterback hopefully you can jump back into where he was last year so I'm going with Tennessee I think they're going to win pretty good pretty easily 2817 okay make who you got we all like Tennessee so far yeah I like Titans 24 Broncos 20 Cortland Sutton game time decision I think he changes things for that offense I'm going to go identical scores and go G-Men

over the Steelers 2420. Drug tests. We've got to do some drug tests here. Obviously, we don't drug test all the people at Greenlight, but we should drug test making after that pick. My Super Bowl pick, the Pittsburgh Steelers are going to start off hot on offense. 30 to 17. They win that one on the road against the G-Men.

Short trip to New York. I mean, good old Joe Judge. I mean, he had to round up the boys. He was like, come on, man, what are we doing? We've got to restart this thing. So I don't think that the G men are going to be able to beat Pittsburgh. You know, you got Rafflesberger back. Connor in the running back position, do the beast.

So I'm going Pittsburgh, 31, 20. Nice. I like it. We're kind of in the same neighborhood here, and we've got one dude who's smoking crack here. I'm not smoking crack. Have you ever tried? He seems very calm. If he's smoking crack, he seems very calm.

He has a calmest voice for a dude who's on hard drugs, picking the Giants tonight to beat my Super Bowl team in the Pittsburgh Steelers. Hey, Rob, Niko, Nikovich, the legend, the Patriots legend, the ESPN rising star. The cell phone salesman. The Cologne and Celfone salesman in the middle of the mall. The guy who sells Cologne in the middle of the mall with a haircut like you had for most of the pandemic. I'm glad to hear you're cleaned up and we'll get you back here on Greenlight Hotline another time. Thanks Rob.

Thank you. See you guys. All right, bro. By the way, it was great talk to Rob Ninkovich. Niko, pride of Purdue. Purdue. Fan of the pod, friend of the program. That's right. Yeah, it's good to have friends and fans like that.

I mean, he's one of the best. Speaking of superlatives, see how I did that? Yeah, nice. Yeah. We got some superlatives. for NFL week one, and we'll probably close most of our Monday shows for your drive home with some of the things we noticed that stood out. And sorry if you think this is boring,

we're going to try to make it. How are we going to try to make this? Nah, it's going to be sick. It's going to be a sick segment. There are two that are just this week. Let's start with those, huh? Okay. Which one do you want to start with? Weirdest new uniform, and we're not talking about the laundry itself. and its player inside the jersey. No, we're going to dig into the laundry later this week because there's an in-depth analysis brewing here. For me, it's Jason Witten,

16 seasons in Dallas, one in the booth with hair, follicles on his head. Yeah. And now, Cowboys have been around since, what, 1960 or so. Yeah. Now he's playing with Las Vegas Raiders around since Sunday. And still wearing that 82, but that hit different, as the kids say.

Yeah. Now no longer with the hair follicles once more. The top is... Put the top down. Top is down. And for me, that was a shock to the system. Not a big day for Jason Whitten and a big win for Las Vegas.

But that was uncomfortable. Convertible Witten. That's right. We gotten used to desensitized to Tom Brady in Tampa Bay with all of the hubbub. Yeah. Here's the thing about,

I also do not have Tom Brady. I saw more of Tom Brady in a Bucks uniform before I actually saw him in a Bucks uniform, like edits, promotional stuff. Tom is a walking brand. So I saw more of Tom Brady in that uniform than I did of like Josh Freeman

in that uniform over five years and I played Josh Freeman twice or three times. Tom, Tom Brandy. Tompah, Tom Brandy. You're a machine with the fucking nicknames today. Golly. Tom Brandy, Tampa. Tampa Brady. Yeah. He's trademarked that. He strolled in with that t-shirt that looked kind of sick. It looks soft.

I mean, you know his t-shirts are the softest cotton. Yeah. You know, it's not Brady for me. By the way, Ossemily in Kansas City was a football weird fit for me that worked out really well. I mean, I thought Gap Scheme guy and he's going in there and kicking people's asses, giving them a new angle in Kansas City. I'm going to say, Philip Rivers. Okay, we had no warm up.

Okay, he's got no social media footprint. The only video he did in the offseason was him at his beach house on the shitter doing like a message to like, hey, welcome to Indy. I'm excited to be here and he's on the shitter. Like I hear kids in the background. He's definitely in a bathroom. I'm not saying he's taking a dump,

but he sequestered himself to the bathroom. Well, with nine children. Yeah, nine kids. Like, I don't care if you own Evander Holyfield's mansion, now Rick Ross's mansion, which is you the real estate guy. Have you seen that mansion? I haven't. Looks like the green briar down there.

But like... No, that's going to cost you a pretty penny to heat and cool, Chris. It is. Yeah, Philip Rivers should think about like an efficient heating and cooling you. Spray foam that joint. Yes, you talked to making about this. But there was no warm up. We just had that one video that was just so like, it was shot like, you know, the,

if you've seen the disaster artist, the original movie, it was shot that way. and all of a sudden he's just this guy in a baggy jersey running out on the field in Jacksonville in front of the pissy pool there and he's got he's got a weird number in that uniform and the thing about India is we've seen kind of one quarterback and two quarterbacks for most of the last 20 years and you thought you might have some continuity with Jacoby but welcome to the NFL Indianapolis you're going to see a bunch of new quarterbacks

for a little bit here I'm going to say it was super weird to see him in that jersey. Also, his brand is just his van, his conversion van. He doesn't need anything else. Let's go best and worst stadium presentation. Okay, I had to go Chris Collinsworth on you. But SOFi is like the, I don't know, the hot girl who doesn't have to try. I mean, you didn't need to pump in noise.

You didn't need to put fake fans in there. See, I think the Death Star is the hot girl that doesn't have to try. So far, man. What a bute. They did put some fans in there. The Guess Who, or you remember with the Guess Who game?

Kind of a connection to four type of. Yeah, I used to play that in. Does your guy have a mustache? Yeah. Yeah. When I went to like ADD therapy as a kid, like to try to get me to focus, like they used to play that stuff with me.

Yeah, did it take? I don't know, I'm kind of producing a fucking podcast now. So, so far, didn't need to try. It's just so daggone beautiful. And it should be for $5 billion. I saw a good tweet. It was, you know, they keep talking about how it costs $5 billion as if that's a good thing and shouldn't be horrifying to all of us.

Right. Right. That's like, five bill was spent on a sports stadium. With the situation we have now, you know, maybe we should rethink that. I'm going to go golly you said best stadium I thought the Rams were a weird midfield logo away from being kind of perfect

yeah they went with the alternate midfield I'm gonna go Detroit they fooled me with the fans they like there was literally a moment where up in the end zone they showed the fans and they were all sitting there I go what are they doing they're not distancing in Detroit they were like Obi-1 Canobi up there

like just high deaf hologram like R2D2 shot it out that's Star Wars I know we talked about that last week is a movie with Darth Vader. Darth Vader, father, Luke Skywalker, protagonist. Antagonist. Yeah, um, fake. Yes, fake movie.

Uh, the fans almost had me fool until I realized there were a lot of them, and they weren't very aggressive looking. You know, like Detroit, Michigan folks have an edge, and I mean that as a compliment. Like, they just look like they're not here to fuck around. They're here to watch their lions. And they know how it's gonna end, but they're gonna grin and bear it. Uh, there was one that stood out negative. to me, if I may, and that was the Superdome.

Maybe there's an intentional impending doom factor that they're trying to gin up in that stadium, but watching that game late, can we move those early so the Sunday scleries don't hit while you're watching that game? I mean, they've done nothing to try to augment that stadium. Not even an LED light bulb in the place. Nothing.

You go from that lion stadium to that stadium. By the way, I think all football should be played outside of the stadium. There's no fans. It's just way better on the eyes. It's like going from one of those expensive light bulbs to the shitty yellow ones. That's what it was going from there to the Superdome. And it's like a bunch of black backgrounds. It's like shadowy.

It looks like an NCAA, you know, regional where they put it in some big stadium. It's like beyond the crowd. It's just the abyss. And I'm afraid to go up there. And it kind of worked yesterday. So maybe keep it going, New Orleans, because that was uninviting. Super Dome. Construction started, 1971. Yeah, it looks that way.

Best and Worst plane rides, for those of y'all who listened to me on Ryan Rissillo's pod last year, don't worry, I'm not stealing from the ringer. This was actually my idea, and I cleared it with Ryan. So, Makin, why don't you start it off? Best plane ride goes to the Chicago Bears. For starters, no Kyle Long on that bird. Yeah, so immediately a plus. It smells better.

Yeah. Short flights are great. Yeah. Way better than long flights. Google.com has that flight at one hour, 10 minutes for people like you and me. And you know that's shorter. On a charter flight, they always lie. They can cruise.

That's probably 40 minutes. Topps. Due west. Yeah. Going over Lake Michigan. I'm not a big lake guy, but as far as lakes go, Lake Michigan, a pretty sweet one. I'm a huge lake guy. And that one looks like the ocean, so I don't love it.

And, oh, bad take. And first week one win, Ford to Bears. since 2013, which is nutty. And they did it in quite a fashion, as you mentioned earlier, Mitch, with three TDs in the fourth quarter to come back. That's my best one. Hey, speaking of Detroit,

from which the flight emanated. Yeah, nice word. Atlanta, Georgia, west of Detroit. I know I kind of mess with your brain a couple weeks ago. That is a mind, you know what. I don't like to cuss. Geographic, mind, F. Yeah, that is.

is effed up. Yeah. It's really effed up. Yeah. Okay, that's my best. And they call it the Midwest. That's right. The whole Midwest thing,

we have to discuss that another day. I don't, I think that's one of the biggest misnomer's. I argued with Julian Edelman at a team dinner for an hour about what constituted the Midwest. We've got to have him on one time to finish that argument.

Who was your worst plane ride? Worst plane ride, Cleveland Browns, in part because you might have heard on a previous pot. them in my Super Bowl. Yeah, that was bad. And what do you, what do you, what do you say if you're Kevin's Defansky?

I mean, the players are already thinking, oh, well, we must suck once again, right? Yeah, they kind of shit to bed. That's a good ball club they played. But you're going Baltimore to Cleveland and your points four, six, points against 38. And it, I don't know. They're looking forward to game number two. I'm told, well, here's another thing, why it's a best. plane ride you're playing on Thursday so talk about Sunday Scaries you're on the

plane thinking about how you got to get ready to go in a must win game yeah it's the Cincinnati bingles on Thursday night yeah they go oh and two there yeah problems yeah they probably got the bubble guts going into that one mm-hmm yep yep yep um shitty it's just a shitty situation I uh oh I gotcha uh I'll go best plane ride first I wanted to put the Raiders. They played like poop. Yeah, they played like poop. You got it.

Now you're here. I want to, can you excuse yourself from this segment now? Yeah. Okay. Like excuse yourself, like go to the bathroom is what I meant. Raiders, okay? This was a great plane ride. Full elimination.

Yeah, I don't want to eliminate the Browns yet. Raiders because they're about to get beat a lot. I think like the first half of this schedule for them is, brutal. They needed this win. They survived the scary new team that looks exciting on the East Coast, long flight. So this was a trap for them. I mean, this is petrifying. No preseason. Can you think of a more mysterious start to a season than, you know, Matt Ruhle's tenure in Carolina because of our circumstances right now? I would say it's a great plane ride because this is the only bar that you can hit. Any of these plane rides are great because these are the only bars that you can with no

stigma hit right now as a player. And the liquor, I don't know, John Gruden's, he's old NFL, so maybe the liquor's flow in there. Some of the new NFL guys are like, we don't drink on the plane. Like, Coach, I just damn near killed myself for you for three hours and I'm about to have a heat stroke. Can I please drink some crown apple or whatever's being passed around? That was the D-line drink of choice in St. Louis. Now, is that just bringing it on under your arm or is that a sneak-on situation?

You don't have to sneak it on. They don't check your bags like that. So I would say them, especially because they can't hit the strip, they got to get it in. But I'm going to say, and I won't say Green Bay because I don't know if you're afraid to walk by his seat. If you're, you know, Jordan Love or the head coach or anybody in the front office because he's just still fuming. I'm going to say Seattle. Okay, that's my Super Bowl pick, long flight. They look like it's a new offense.

It's scary. They look like they've heard the analytics nerds, which is let Russ. Cook. 10 to 13 first plays were passes. Play action pass is kind of like heavily featured for them. 12 of the first 16 plays if you count a penalty were all passed and those are scripted plays.

So shoddy dialed these up. This is a good sign. Russ said he wants to play more like Kansas City. He said it in the off season. 14 to 12 in the third quarter they go for the dagger and one of the biggest plays of the weekend in my opinion on fourth and five at the Atlanta 38 and they hit

DK Metcalfe. He gets the inside release. least and it's over from then. 35 throws and they were not down. He completed 31 of them. Okay, two drops, one batted down. Did I say MVP? I think I said MVP. It's kind of like when Kauai got unleashed on a different kind of scale.

Russ is no longer, you know, a spectacular role player. He's going to be the reason they win this year and it's going to be awesome. Your best player should never be a role player. I'll say worst flights indie for the reasons we talked about. Just a bad, bad start for them and they lose Marlon Mack. Let's go Hollow Man. This is the, this is going to be the recurring superlative paying homage to Kevin Bacon's role in the classic Hollow Man, where he becomes invisible.

And I think some players around the league every Monday want to become invisible. This is an easy one for me, the Bengals kicker, brutal. I would also say Swift's drop in Detroit. But the Bengals kicker, not just because he missed, but because people are wondering if he sold that. Tom Pelliserro who has a, uh, has the shield behind his head on his Twitter avatar. So that means he knows what he's talking about. He reports here this afternoon that Randy Bullock's calf issue is quote, nothing serious, according to a source. Well, because it was a cramp, evidently. And it also was like a cramp that happened after the kick if you're watching.

after the kick that was in the aisle of section 113 as opposed to through the goalposts. Dude, he missed like all the virtual fans. Yes. I do think those empty stadiums, it makes it seem like the goalposts are narrower. I think it does too. I think it does too. And all in all, I feel bad for me because he ruined, you know, what everybody wanted to see, which was overtime Joe Burrow.

Also shout out to Rona Mitra, one of my childhood crushes, Hollow Man. Great movie guys. No spoilers, but Kevin Bacon's invisible. Fly on the wall. This is an award for a position group, a player, a unit that we'd really love to be in the meeting room of this week. And I don't know if I'd want to be in that Eagles O line room, but this is an easy pick for me

because it was like the biggest disaster positionally in the NFL this weekend on the best team. But if you're Steve Stoutland and he's a great coach, I don't know if you get mad at these guys. what do you expect? Like these guys have never played. You know, like it just doesn't make any sense.

To scream at these dudes on a Monday, how are you going to get them better? That's the question. I'd love to see what Stoutland, who's a great coach, has in store for this week in practice for those guys. So on Monday,

are you off? What's a typical week? Maybe if you win, you're off? Yeah, this year everybody gets victory Mondays because of COVID. Okay, and then Tuesday, I assume your head coach,

is addressing you. Yes. And then are you broken up into offense defense or is it straight into your room? Head coach addresses you in New England. They, you know,

tear the entire team a new asshole, win or lose in the big room, which I thought was great. But then generally after that they say, go to your room. Okay.

And is that offense and defense? Yeah. And a lot of times after a loss, you're going to go in and you're going to meet as a unit in, you know, you have your coordinator, whether it's Schwartz or,

you know, I guess it would be Doug Peterson. in Philly that's going to lead that meeting and then you're gonna break down to your position rooms. And it's funny because head coach is the least panicked because unless his job's on the line, he can feel like he can really meet things head on. The coordinators are a little bit more panicked.

And then as you break down into your position rooms, those are the most expendable coaches, their assholes are puckered. And, you know, the quiet before your coach, you'll walk in after a defensive coordinator meeting after a bad loss and it's kind of quiet, everybody's clearing their throat, you know, kind of milling around,

and the coach will walk in, not make eye contact with anybody. It's one of the worst feelings in the NFL. I did it so many times. Coach walks in, passes everybody, usually sit in the back of the room, and no eye contact. And it's a sit down, quietly fire up the film.

You know what, fuck it, guys, take five. And that is like, when you got to take five before the meeting starts, in that fashion, it's going to be a long day. And I think we've got some of that. Well, colts.com tells me that Alan Williams, with 29 years experience is the defensive backs and safety's coach for a unit, and maybe it wasn't all the secondary,

but for a unit that gave Gardner Minshu a 142.3 rating on Sunday. Yeah, it's going to be a bad day. So, you know, this looks like a mild, mannered gentleman, this Alan Williams. So I would be curious to be a fly on the wall in that room as he addresses his group. Yeah, probably some cussing even for that cat. give me a panic and I'll give you a don't panic

my panic is Odell Beckham because at this point and try to do this without making try to do this without yeah I'm not gonna yes without making jokes okay okay hey Odell are you just not good anymore I mean what's the deal you were the most electrifying player in the league not long ago wearing blue

for a team in New York. Three catches on 10 targets on Sunday for 22 yards. Last year, I happened to manage Mr. Beckham and fantasy football stunk up the place

after spending round one, maybe pick nine, pick 10. With Odell, I mean, the problem seemed to be many in Cleveland, but if I'm Odell, I mean, guys gotten paid so don't panic too much there buddy but you're um you're not what you once were and

it went downhill in a hurry so making gunners panicked on adele beckham and that's a former giants fan um current giants fan former giant well yeah is anybody really a giants fan anymore yeah uh i'll go don't panic alvin kamara 12 carries 16 yards but against that Tampa bay front who i learned a lot of times last year is going to hold individual rushers down. They're really stout. Where it mattered to me was in the second half of the season last year, he didn't get

the ball in the red zone. Okay. He got the ball in the red zone yesterday. And that's a big deal. And the contract's behind you. I know that in New Orleans you wonder if they know what the cap is. But I think this was, you know, if it's a win now situation, you need this guy, you need him happy.

And he looks happier. 12 carries for 16 but paid hurt twice paid hurt twice uh give me a pump the brakes i'll go scam newton and i don't have a lot of analytics behind it the numbers look fine uh it looked good on the ground but it was the miami dolphins let's not let's not uh pencil the pets in for the playoffs just yet also do not snatch cam's fucking chain that's That's right. That's disrespectful. Do not do that.

Listen, that's the first time that's happening in Foxborough. Tom never got his chain. That, okay. Tom tucked that chain deep in, which is a power move by a Cam. And I love the nod to Harvey Updike there with the Scam Newton, rest in peace, our guy. Our guy. Well, he was my guy for a while in that I'd love to look up videos of Harvey Updike and Paul Finebaum talking about poisoning the tumor trees.

Yeah. Paul. Spike 80 juice. They're not dead now, but they will be. And there was a long silence. I'm going to pump the brakes on the Washington D line. That's not being disrespectful. That's not saying they're not.

Listen, I compared them to our group in St. Louis. I don't think they have any rusher like Robert Quinn. I don't think there is proven. But what we shared in these two units is depth. I mean, just a wave of bodies. and effort. And they played with effort yesterday. And sometimes there's going to be games where you get most of your sacks on gimmies.

I mean, there was Chase Young who really had an encouraging first day, but like, again, let's not get carried away. Nice instincts to spin off the chip, but supposedly Boston Scott's not even supposed to be chipping him there. They let,

they let another dude run free. They've got coverage sacks. You've got a G-Poll in past protection. that they beat. So they weren't winning in orthodox ways. I didn't see them win a lot of like true one-on-ones, but I am excited to watch them play all year. But pump the brakes on them being like the next fearsome foursome. And this is a, this is a new one that I want to roll out here. Way way way? Yeah, it's one of those things that like everybody has a come on man, but you can't just call it, come on, man. That's right. Copyright infringement. Copyright infringement. Infringement.

So I decided to get my son involved, Waylon, who's four years old. What happened out there, Dada? That's good. What happened out there, Dad. That is our, come on, man. So let me explain to you, Whalen, what happened with Jamie Collins.

When you put that thing in slow motion and it looks pretty benign. And I am not one to get outraged about that. I mean, probably in the context of what was happening, Jamie Collins lowered his head to show the official what he was alleging a Cleveland Brown, or not a Cleveland Browns player, I'm stuck in the Midwestern dumpster fire organization

washing machine here. But Chicago Bears. Chicago Bears. What's another one as of late? He was showing what a bear player was doing and lowering his head, and I tend to agree with him. A lot of these calls, it's like who's initiating the head to head.

Jamie Collins got ejected for like nothing. It was just so avoided. I understand the letter of the law thing. He probably should have been ejected, but I think it was a little bit like ticky tack. Also, I think it's the same ref. I read this. I don't know if it's true that ejected Earl Thomas.

But like Maddie P, man, my NFC North Dark Horse, 18 point lead I mentioned earlier, 17.4 quarter comeback gave up yesterday. That entire game was like, oh, what happened out there, da-da. So, Whalen, what had happened was when I picked the lions, think they were going to lay an egg the first game

and cap it off with a swift drop. Also, there were a few coaching instances that were really questionable over the weekend. You had the McCarthy 4th and 3 on the LA 11, down 3, short of the sticks. In the fourth quarter,

I mean, fewer than 12 minutes to go in what felt like a game between two playoff teams, I thought. Yes, and actually a very competitive ball game. We can talk about the Cowboys. I want to do deeper dive on them later this week. Tie it up, Mike.

You know, Aaron Donald was the story there. I mean, Aaron Donald is, is otherworldly. My, my D.P.O.I. on a sturdy-ass limb.

Your chalky D-P-O-Y, you know, he looked great. And there's the Earl Thomas conversation there in Dallas that we have to have because Dallas, Twitter was asking for old Thomas,

like first thing in the morning this morning. There was also the, push off? Was that a push off in your opinion? I know, but I will say that the acting by Jalen Ramsey was very good. Like, I didn't think it was over the top.

I thought it was just the right amount and borne out by the flag. Yeah, for sure. Dan Quinn, Owen 4 on 4th Downs versus Seattle. The one that they could have gotten was a fake punt that a safety fumbled and gave back to Seattle. Also, Joe Brady's

fourth and inches call. That's one of those things where you're just kind of trying to get too fancy. You're probably feeling yourself a little bit, 30 points in your first outing. You hand the ball to a fullback, not CMC. I'll chalk that up to a style points deal. Let's do shoutouts. I've got,

I want to shout out a couple of people. First and foremost, Kyle Long, my brother, did four hours of TV Sunday morning, marathon for this cat, just out of league. I thought he did a really good job. And I think the crew there at CBS, tops the other pregame show,

You know, it's like, it's one of the things like when you drop your kids off at the babysitter's house. You want to feel good about it. That's always going to be my little brother. So I want to feel good about the fact that he's on set with some people who aren't going to act like douchebags

or screw him up. London Fletcher's great as a former player. Amy Trask, you know, as a former executive in the history with the Raiders and that sort of thing. And everybody on that set's awesome. So shout out to Kyle Long. Also shout out to Norris Jenkins.

The Jack Rabbit. Jack Rabbit, my old buddy from St. Louis, finally finding himself on a winning team, the pick six, Jenkins and Jenkins, the law firm. Also, Nelson Aguilar. I didn't even know where, I forgot where Nelly went. And I love Nellie until he caught a ball in the corner of the end zone for a touchdown for the Raiders. And I thought that was, it was, it was cool to see that. Because if you know Philly and you know what he's been through the last couple of years, and a lot of it he brought on himself at times, I wanted to see him get a fresh start. and it looks like he's got one.

Also, Alden Smith, one of my favorite players of all time. We talked about it, favorite rushers of all time in that window that he got to 30 sacks so quickly, historically, he was on pace to be the best of all time.

Took a five-year hiatus, put on some pounds, trained with Jay Glazer, got his life together. First and foremost, that's what I love, because there was a time where I wasn't sure

when we would read that headline about Alden Smith, you know, and I have always liked the dude. He put on the weight. He doesn't look like he has, the same pop and pass rush, that's fine. He looks tough to block in those creases.

You get those big wings, tight end, tight end, these tight spaces. He is killing it in the run game. He had 11 tackles. You know, some guys are just talented. Five years out of the game. The talent's one thing, but also the work ethic and the intestinal fortitude

to pull yourself out of that hole. Shout out to him. Great to see. Yeah, also great to see Tommy Ryan. Shout out to Tommy Ryan. from my group texts, my gambling group text, who went 9-0 in the first 9 NFL picks against the spread this weekend.

I didn't even check to see if you went 10 and 0. We'll get back to you later this week. Stockwatch. Stock watch. Up. I'm going Brandon Staley. Rams D. Coordinator. That's going to be a big story this week.

We'll hit that later. Jamal Adams, Monster Statline. He watched the Jets get carved by the bills. And then down. I'm going to go pre-season. season football stock is down. Hallelujah. Wish that happened when I was playing. Not that I wish we got here how we got here,

but it would be nice to not have preseason football for players. Running backs, this is an interesting one. Thursday night we said everybody's going to run for 150. You know what I mean? It's just going to be one of those weekends. People are going to lean on the run game. Not a single rusher over 100 yards.

Does that change tonight? Does that change tonight? Denver, no Tennessee. Maybe Giants, maybe Steelers, Probably not. I'll say yes, over 100 for Derek Henry. For either Derek Henry or Sequin Barclay. Yeah, I don't think Sequin's going for over 100. I thought you might say that.

I think Connor has a shot at going for a century. But like not a single back over the century mark. It's pretty wild. And by the way, AP was right in there. Yeah. I mean, he just does not fucking age. This guy is the Nugentics guy. He's going to go right off the field and take that guy's job when he dies

at the ripe old age of at 130. You know the guy with the jeans that has his shirt off in the magazines. He's like uncomfortably old but kind of jacked. I'm going to say I do. Yeah, that's Adrian Peterson is going to take his job. Right. You guys go to the booth. This guy's going to make New Jenets money.

I got a segment for you. Yeah. Viewing party. I like that segment. Who was having fun watching ball for whatever reason? Me, Chris Long. I mean, like I hate seeing the Eagles lose, but you know

it's just like man I'm glad I'm not out there for that it's just like I don't I wouldn't say I'm having fun but playing in front of no fans is not appetizing former players I'm thinking sitting there like man these guys

hats off to him uh Jason Garrett and Arod watching the cowboy and yes I call him Arod I won't stop watching the cowboys Aaron Razors watching the Cowboys struggle to move the ball I mean think about that

you're up there you've got two people keying in on Mike McCarthy in prime time in different corners of the country and not a corner of the country's upper Midwest back to the Midwest conversation but they're just feeling good about the fact that the Cowboys struggle to move the ball

with all that weaponry and who would have thought Green Bay had all the studs at Whiteout? Yeah, you're right even though Devante went for about 25 catches and 600 yards but yeah spread it out a bit. Yeah, I mean like but getting the role players involved was nice.

Also, Bill O'Brien obviously had a tough watch Sunday. This is a bad viewing party. This is like watching a horror movie, watching DeAndre Hopkins, set personal records in Arizona and take them to the next level, get a win. Also, I don't know, I heard of off-the-wall theory that Dabo could be eyeing that Jacksonville job

and a package deal. With sunshine. Dabbo's pretty, he's pretty nervous about that prospect at this point. Yeah, Jags want to know. Jags want to know, jagging off. Okay, I got one.

You ready? Yeah. He had fun. Charles, Frederick, Kitchens, Jr. Yeah, he's sitting there with a... And guess where he's sitting? He's sitting up with the New York football Giants, tight ends coach,

getting ready to play. He's excited about week one, and he sees his former team, the team that axed him, just gets smashed 30 to six. Wasn't me? That's right. Wasn't me.

Why do I feel like his voice sounds like Jeff Foxworthies, no matter what? Because he's an Alabama guy? I don't know, maybe. And no shade. Game ball. Yeah, I'll go first because yours is better than mine. But Kyler Murray, man, there were some expectations and one for one so far. I'm sure this has been said, Kyler the creator.

And that's a little more cringeworthy. I don't actually know who Tyler the creator is. Let me search that right now. I just know that he's somebody and Kyler, the creator, which sounds like, it just sounds like terrible Monday morning television. No, it's not bad. It's not bad.

If you said it in the way that you were trying to climb the ladder at ESPN or NFL network, it would sound bad. 26 of 40, 230 yards, touchdown in a pick, but more importantly, 91 yards on the ground with a touchdown, kept a very good San Francisco defense off balance, and the cards are 1-0. I would say the second part remains to be seen. San Francisco has a lot to prove with those departures.

Ron Rivera is my game ball. This is a dude that has just always radiated class to me. And maybe I miss something in his Wikipedia. It feels like one of those guys that you're like, I must be missing something. Did he kill a guy at some point? Like he's just he's just a good man. And when I see him around NFL circles, he's he's classy.

He's just an old NFL guy that people respect. And obviously as a player's background and he enters this, this losing culture. As we said, one of the worst offseason where you couldn't even celebrate your, you know, your victories, like hiring the first black president in the NFL. in the history of the league. Because you're just stubbornly letting go of your derogatory nickname or the Geist News or any number of things that have happened to this team over the offseason. I'm probably forgetting a few. Oh, yeah.

The giant sexual harassment scandal, which should be unacceptable around workplaces that are male dominated. Like these are all big issues that the progressive NFL fan and really any NFL fan should be saying, like, we got to get this stuff out of our game. game and one ray of hope for liking the Washington football team this year, besides the players on the field, is Ron Rivera. And I think that he's going to get his players to buy in and he's going to get fans to buy in to seeing a glimmer of hope that one day as he outlasts Dan Snyder, that's my hot take,

this is an organization we can look at as being a real positive presence in the league. And you could tell after the game what he's done is he's gotten that team to buy in as winners. And there's a big difference between being a perpetual loser and at least the team, even if you don't have a winning record that thinks like winners. And they thought like winners yesterday

and they got the win. So game ball, Ron Rivera. And he gets the IV at halftime. I mean, yeah, he's got cancer. Yeah. In the age of COVID, and he's out there coaching, that's got to be humbling for everybody

in that organization, including Jack Del Rio, who put his foot in his mouth a week before he made that announcement. So a big shout out to Ron Rivera, somebody I greatly admire, and let's give him the green light game ball.

Without further ado, let's get you on your merry way. And I just read across the ticker, non-football news, scientists detect potential sign of extraterrestrial life on Venus. It's not real stuff, man. No, it's real stuff.

Come get us. Y'all take care. Come get the Cleveland Browns and the Philadelphia Eagles too. Hey, y'all take care. We'll see you later in the week.