Halford & Brough in the Morning - The Seahawks Start Their Season With A Win

Episode Date: September 9, 2024

In hour one, Mike & Jason look back at the previous day in sports (3:00), they break down Week 1 with Too Deep Zone NFL Insider Mike Tanier (28:22), plus they discuss a Quinn Hughes interview with Sportsnet's Iain MacIntyre on expectations for this season (42:26). This podcast is produced by Andy Cole and Greg Balloch. The views and opinions expressed in this podcast are those of the hosts and guests and do not necessarily reflect the position of Rogers Media Inc. or any affiliate.

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I got a job to do, and my job is to come inside of this stadium. Good morning, Vancouver. Six o'clock on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. It is Halford. It is Bruv.

It is Sportsnet 650. We are coming to you live from the Kintex Studios and beautiful Fairview Slopes in Vancouver. Jason, good morning. Good morning. Adog, good morning to you. Good morning. And Laddie, welcome back. And good morning to you as well.

Hello, hello. Hi, Laddie. How are you, buddy? Did you have a good vacation? I am so happy to be up at five in the morning. Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. Halford, Brother of the Morning is brought to you by Vancouver Honda,

Vancouver's premier destination for Honda customers. They have a friendly, knowledgeable staff that can help with anything you're looking for, sales, financing, service, or parts. We are in hour one of the program. Hour one is brought to you by Northstar Metal Recycling, Vancouver's premier metal recycler, pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling. Vancouver's premier metal recycler pays the highest prices on scrap metal. Northstar Metal Recycling. They recycle, you get paid.

Visit them at 1170 Powell Street in Vancouver. We are coming to you live from the Kintec studio. Kintec, Canada's favorite orthotics provider powered by thousands of five-star Google reviews. So, Rafi, what are you waiting for? Kintec. So now things are really getting back into the groove. This is the first time all four of us

have been together in six weeks. The band is back together. The season has started officially now. The Fearless Foursome, known as the Halford and Brough Show, all back together. We have a loaded opening segment because we have so many things to get into from the weekend that was in sports. Tonight, we've got Monday Night Football for the first time this year. The Milford is today as well i forgot about that always a very important date on the canucks calendar i had my first beer league

hockey game last jason had his first beer league hockey game last night update i still suck jason didn't play well in his first beer league hockey game last night did you win we tied nice we tied we blew it in beer league fashion took a late penalty and then gave up a power play call you win? We tied. Nice! Tie, tie, tie, tie. We blew it in beer league fashion, took a late penalty, and then gave up a power play goal. You guys have ties? I like that they have ties. Yeah, you don't do three on three and then shootouts and whatever? You know, there's other people that need to play

on the ice, right? Like, fellas, we gave you a chance to decide it. You decided not to. It's a tie. And we're all like, I don't want to play anymore. See you later. Yeah, three on three, There seems like a lot of skating involved. We're going to pass on that. We'll take the tie. So we also have a lot of sports to get into.

We have a huge guest list today. Begins at 630. Mike Tanier, our NFL insider from the two deep zone. We're going to talk to him about everything that happened on Sunday. What a Sunday in the National Football League. A lot of good games in the 10 o'clock slate. Seahawks. That was a roller coaster in the one Football League. A lot of good games in the 10 o'clock slate. Seahawks, that was a roller coaster in the 1 o'clock.

And then, of course, you had a very good game last night between the Rams and the Lions on Sunday Night Football. We can also preview Monday Night Football with Mike because we've got another good one tonight. It is the San Francisco 49ers against Aaron Rodgers and the New York Jets. So Mike Tanier at 6.30, 7 o'clock. First-time guest on the program, J.C. Abbott from Three Down Nation. He covers the BC Lions for that Canadian Football League outlet.

What a performance by the BC Lions in Montreal on the weekend. Huge victory, statement victory, 37-23. They led wire to wire for the second straight week, and they beat the CFL's top team in their own barn, in their own stadium, in their own market. So we'll talk to JC Abbott about that at 7 o'clock. 7.30, Brent LaValle, the manager, head coach of the Vancouver Canadiens, is going to join us.

So the C's. Is he related to Dave LaValle? No, because that was Dave Valley. Right. They both pronounce and spell their last names differently. But Brent LaValle is going to join us at 7.30. So the Seas get their Northwest League Championship underway on Tuesday.

They play the first two games at Nat Bailey. So if you want to get tickets Tuesday and Wednesday, then there's a day off, and then they go for the back end of the best of five to Spokane. So it's a best of five and then they go for the back end of the best of five to Spokane. So it's a best of five. Obviously, first one to three wins it, so they get the first two games in that.

They got to defend this championship. I know. And it's interesting because they didn't actually win either half of the league. They were the best second place, because Spokane won the first half and the second half. So Spokane may be the favorite going into this one. That's why they get the home field advantage.

So we'll talk to Brent about all that at 7.30. 8 o'clock, Satyar Shah, Sportsnet 650's very own, is going to join us. It's a big week for the Vancouver Canucks. We finally are going to start to get more audio coming in. They're doing the Milford today, which usually kicks off the beginning unofficially of the training camp slash preseason slash rookie camp. Of course, Young Stars is this week as well.

So, Sad, I don't know if he's going up for that one. We'll find out at 8 o'clock, though. I want to talk to Sad about a few things that Quinn Hughes had to say to Ian McIntyre in an article on Sportsnet.ca. So, perhaps Quinn Hughes will be our focus today. If you want to text in to the Dunbar Lumber text line, it's 650-650. The Bridge Street Dunbar Lumber in Ladner has moved to ProGasway in Tilbury's Industrial Park. More room, more product, more awesome.

Details at DunbarLumber.com. That is what's happening on the program today. Laddy, let's tell everybody what happened. Hey, did you guys see the game last night? No. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy your life can be. What happened? I missed all the action because I was... We know how busy

your life can be. What happened? You missed that? What happened? What Happened is brought to you by the BC Construction Safety Alliance.

Making safety simpler by giving construction companies the best in tools, resources, and safety training. Visit them online at bccsa.ca. It was actually

difficult to pick where we were going to start this morning because there were so many things that happened this weekend. But we're giving the local team some love. After going five games without a win, oh, the BC Lions are back, baby. The Lions secured their second straight victory, this time against the East leading Alouettes, as mentioned, 37-23.

Second straight game they've led wire to wire. Big win on Friday night in Montreal. Big performance by a number of players, but William Stanback, who does not care for the Montreal Alouettes, his former team, 128 yards on the ground and a touchdown. Nathan Rourke put up 37 points despite losing the turnover battle. Really, really, really impressive win for the Lions on Friday night. William Stanback was

really good. He ran the ball down the throats of the team that decided they didn't really want him anymore, despite the fact that he's a good player. Having a good running game often isn't top of mind when you talk about CFL, but it is really important. The other guys came to

play as well. Nathan Rourke, people will say, oh, I'm looking at the box square, three interceptions. The other guys came to play as well. Nathan Rourke, people will say, oh, I'm looking at the box square, three interceptions. Two of them were kind of bad luck. Should have been almost caught by his receivers. They deflected and went to the Alouettes. The other one was Nathan Rourke's fault. There was also a fumble in there, not by Nathan Rourke, by William Stanback.

So there was a turnover problem for the BC Lions. And I think the final score, which was heavily in favor of the BC Lions, suggests that they really did dominate this game against, you could, I don't think there was any debate that they were the best team in the CFL, maybe up until that point. But all of a sudden, the BC Lions are very much back on track. Two wins in a row. The turnaround started in Victoria against Ottawa.

It's now four games that Nathan Rourke has played. The first game looked very rusty. The second game was meh. The third game was much improved in the fourth game. Again, he had these turnover issues, but he still, let's put it this way. I like this team a lot more with him at quarterback than with Vernon Adams as a starter that's no disrespect to Vernon Adams but I just really like Nathan Marker as a quarterback he can make things happen

and you know I like him on the team I like that they've got Matthew Betts back it's not like his numbers have exploded since he's been back, although he does have a few sacks here and there. But when you add a player like that, it helps everyone on defense. And I also think the team was embarrassed by the way they were playing at times during that losing streak. They started to tackle better. So all of a sudden, you're looking at the West division,

and it's a two-horse race for first in the West. It's the Bombers and the Lions. The Lions have no more games remaining against Winnipeg. Each team is seven and six. So the Bombers hold the tiebreaker with that two-in-one record

in their series this season. We went into this season going, I really hope the CFL Western Final is at BC Place and the Lions would obviously be in it. And that would mean they would have hopefully two games in the playoffs, both at home, the West Final and the Grey Cup. Looked pretty good.

Yeah. For the start of the season, they started out five and one. You're like, well, this could happen. The Bombers were struggling. And then the Lions went through a bad stretch. They lost five in a row. They had some injuries to Vernon Adams.

They bring in Nathan Rourke. They bring back Matthew Betts. Now they're 7-6, but so are the Bombers because the Bombers have turned things around. They swept the Rough Riders in their back-to-back series. So it's going to be a fun stretch. It's going to be a fun stretch. It's going to be a fun stretch drive. The Lions, at the very least, need to have one playoff game at BC Place. Ultimately, you want to have that West Final there,

but I suppose we'd be okay if they had the West Semi-Final there. But I just don't want to go to Winnipeg again for the West Final. Winnipeg, they got off to a rough start. Still a very good team there. Yeah. And just one final note on Stan Beck. It's funny because a big reason why he joined the BC Lions was because of his relationship with Vernon Adams,

who he, of course, played with in Montreal, and they developed some chemistry. You know, small sample size and everything, but the last two games, it actually looks like Nathan Rourke might have unlocked something with Stanback. Either his passing allowing the running game to open up, but Stanback's also caught the ball out of the backfield pretty well. Like, he's been a real deciding factor.

I believe he was the leading receiver in the game at Royal Athletic Park, the touchdown Pacific. And it just looks like an offense, as you said, that it just, eye test just looks better. Like it looks like it's going to be more dangerous moving forward. Seven o'clock, we'll talk to JC Abbott, a writer for Three Down Nation. If you don't know JC, you should be reading his stuff. He's probably, in my opinion,

the guy who's providing the best written BC Lions analysis out there. I read his articles. After every game, he's got 10 thoughts on the game. He led with William Stanback in this game, but really good analysis, good sharp writing, and that's why we have JC Abbott on at 7 o'clock to talk about this suddenly surging BC Lions team. They host the Toronto Argonauts, another good team.

Slumping Argonauts, another good team, although Chad Kelly didn't look very good against the Ottawa Red Blacks over the weekend, and they lost to Ottawa. This was going to be a really tough stretch for the Lions. When you looked at the four games in a row that had to go to Ottawa,

then host Ottawa, then go to Montreal, then come back and host Toronto. Didn't get off to a very good start had to go to Ottawa, then host Ottawa, then go to Montreal, then come back and host Toronto. Didn't get off to a very good start. They went to Ottawa, lost. But since then, they've beaten Ottawa, gone to Montreal and beaten them. And now if they can get a win at home against the Argos, if they aren't already catapulted down the stretch drive,

then they definitely will be with a win over the Argos. So we'll talk to JC Abbott about that. Halford, you are very much looking forward to the soccer game between Canada and the United States. Two traditional soccer powers in the men's game. It was good to see Canada win this game over the Americans. The Canadian men ended a 67-year drought, got their first win on American soil in nearly 70 years with a 2-1 victory in Kansas City. In front of a sparse crowd, I might add.

Real problems for USA Soccer right now. But Jonathan David with the eventual match-winning goal. Here's what it sounded like, courtesy of Luke Wildman. Given away, though, to Jonathan David. David through for Kyle Lowry. It's Jonathan David. And it's 2-0 for Canada. In the 58th minute, Jonathan David scores in this stadium as he did in Copa America.

And Jesse Marsh celebrates a two goal lead. So you heard him allude to Copa America there. This performance coming off the heels of what was a very, very successful Copa America for the Canadian team is only further lifted spirits. The interesting thing about... Two things for this one. One, you could tell that Jesse Marsh wanted to rub a little bit more salt in the very open wounds of U.S. soccer.

They are in a tailspin right now. It sounds as though that the Pochettino hire is like almost done, but he wasn't there on the weekend. They had an interim manager, and they just looked like a sort of rudderless team. So that was one narrative, the Jesse Marsh part of it. The second part of it. Did they have their full squad?

Was Pulisic playing? Yeah, Pulisic was there. I mean, they're always missing. Like Sergino Dest has a torn ACL, and Tyler Adams was out with an injury. But the U.S. has such depth of squad that they have guys that are playing in Europe that can't get in to the lineup.

So they were able to on the weekend. But the other part of Jesse Marsh's narrative arc, I would say, is the style that he wanted to play. He wanted this team to be very aggressive and forward pressing and trying to turn the ball over high and turn those... In hockey terms, forechecking. He wants the forecheck. He wants the forecheck high and aggressive.

If you can beat them over the top, try your best. But it was very interesting to see it actually pay off in terms of turning the ball over getting chance creation from those turnovers and most importantly finishing yeah that was the big difference here you saw the canadian team at times in copa squander a lot of chances and you were kind of left shaking your head like when are they going to finish jonathan david you know it's funny we had james sharman on the show on friday and you were asking like what is with this jonathan david guy because when i watch him play for canada it always seems kind of underwhelming right uh he was very good he was very very good um positionally turning balls over forcing the u.s into errors and then he

scored what we played the audio what proved to be the game-winning match i want to get a shuffleberg jersey um we're working on getting shuffleberg on the show we just made contact this morning i don't know if it's going to come off this week but we need to get a Shaffelberg jersey. We're working on getting Shaffelberg on the show. We just made contact this morning. I don't know if it's going to come off this week, but we need to get behind. This guy's a great story. The Maritime Messi himself, Jacob Shaffelberg. What's he like in MLS? Is he a star in the MLS, or is he?

He's a fan favorite in Nashville. He's a regular contributor, plays a lot. His goal scoring rate with Canada is higher. I mean, because he scores almost every match now. But he's a very talented player. And that's one that TFC is going to look back on and kick themselves over repeatedly because they had a young, very talented Canadian player

in their ranks. And instead of trying to get him to grow into being a starting player for them they let him walk so they could sign a bunch of overpaid italians what is canada's depth like now is it improving it's just i mean obviously it's as good as it's ever been very interesting a lot of people that i talked to in the aftermath because i only got to watch bits and pieces of this game i was over in in Victoria for soccer matches of our own on the weekend. A lot of people said, if you want to talk about depth of squad, the best Canadian player might have been Vancouver Whitecaps' very own Ali Ahmed.

They said he got a surprise start from Jesse Marsh, and then Ahmed talked afterwards and said, Marsh actually challenged him. He's like, you're an incredibly talented player, but you don't play with enough intensity consistently. It's like you need to be going 100 miles an hour non-stop and he did especially for jesse marsh which correct me if i'm wrong here if you're gonna play an attacking pressing style that uses up energy right yep it's very so you need to be able to bring in subs who can do the same thing you gotta've got to have a deep team. You've got to use your bench, correct?

Yeah, and you also can't take your foot off the pedal. They were showing clips in the 84th minute where Ahmed was still chasing guys down and hounding them and not taking any steps off. It was very impressive for a guy that, you know, he's 23, so he's not super young, but he's young enough. And I think he's really finding his stride right now. It was a great performance again from Canada.

And it was funny. I was watching a lot of the Fox soccer analysis. How are the Americans responding? They are not happy, like at all, right? They're not happy that an American is doing this to the American team. You know, what's interesting is they said that a lot, they're getting a lot of like calls and texts and everything from American soccer supporters

who are saying, hey, all the attributes the Canadian team has, we're actually jealous of them because that's how we want our team to play, with energy and with drive and passion and turning the ball over and playing with a high press. So it's a very interesting time. And a singular objective, you know? From what I heard of the Americans, the questions that the fans were asking was,

what are we trying to do here? What are we doing here? What is the game plan? And with the Canadians, it seems pretty obvious. Just see that ball? We want to go get it. Yep. Let's talk about the Seattle Seahawks now

to finish off the segment. That was, God, I hate cliches, but it was a tale of two halves on Sunday at Lumen Field. The Seattle Seahawks rallied from an absolutely awful start on Sunday, decided to finally get Ken Walker involved in the game, made some solid defensive

plays, and they eventually beat the Broncos 26-20 at Lumen Field to win their season opener at home. So their first three offensive plays were Geno Smith getting sacked, Geno Smith throwing an interception. Then they got the ball back. And then they got the ball back and had a false start. And it was a really good false start.

It was. Of the three plays, their false start, very nice. Very nicely pulled off by the Seattle Seahawks. Good technique. One of these days, I thought it might change with a new coach in Mike McDonald. One of these days I will learn, only watch the second half of the Seahawks because if you watch the first half of the Seahawks, you're going to say some stuff.

You're going to have, like, this team is terrible. I'm never watching them again. You might tweet some things out. Yeah, you might tweet some things out. It's like, this team is terrible. I'm never watching them again. You might tweet some things out. Yeah, you might tweet some things out. It's like, this is awful. And then in the second half, not all the time, but more often than not, they're better. They kind of turn things around a little bit.

Now, they didn't do enough of that last season, which is why Pete Carroll is no longer the coach and Mike McDonald is the coach. The bad of the game against Denver, it was just obvious, the offensive line. It was the one issue that, the one major, major issue that we were all worried as Seahawks fans heading into the season

and people who weren't Seahawks fans were saying, good luck with that offensive line. And the Broncos, to their credit, recognized that and they just had pressure on every play. Yep. They just, we're going to send everyone. And the word that I heard used approximately 6,000 times in the post-game show, either by the Seahawks players

or the media covering the team, adjustments. Yeah. They made adjustments. And they did. Well, and they did. and they did yeah right i mean to give you an idea how bad that first half was the first three plays as mentioned all negative plays then the seahawks surrendered not one but two safeties to the denver broncos that's the first time in seven years that that's happened i thought the refs were just praying. You know, they were making that safety symbol.

Look at these very faithful referees. They love it. They love it. And there was almost. It's like that emoji, praying emoji out there. It was almost a third praying opportunity as well. Because Kenneth Walker, after two safeties that had already been called, took a handoff in the end zone and almost got dropped in the end zone.

He fumbled it a little bit. Managed to get i'm like i can't i don't know what the gambling odds would have been for three safeties in the first half of football it would have been like plus nine million you would have made so much money anyway the adjustments came they you know it was funny so at the half i'm watching the walk-off interview that mike mcdonald did with the sideline reporter and he kept his composure. Youngest coach in the NFL. Didn't freak out, right? Can't have anyone losing their composure.

And he just kept saying, we got to establish the run. We got to establish the run. Well, they came out and did it on the first drive out of halftime. Sorry, not the first drive because they forced the three and out. That was a punt. And then they just got kenneth walker involved and he ran for 53 yards combined on that first drive after and the plays are smart because it was like run it away from the offensive line you know don't run it right up the middle

just swing them to the outside leave the offensive line behind you the smoldering mess that it is run away from that just get outside just get outside those tackles, man, and away you go. I really like the game by Tyler Lockett as well. Some clutch catches down the stretch to finish off the Denver Broncos. It's a quiet day for DK except for a bad penalty he took. Two bad penalties. That negated a Kenneth Walker touchdown. I think he only caught the ball three or four times. Tyler Lockett had a good game.

So just one thing on that, though. He was shadowed the entire game by Patrick Sertan, who got that huge contract last week. Yeah. Well, if DK wants a huge contract of his own, then he's going to have to get open. Yeah, and it's funny because that happened two years ago. Oh, no, he was shadowed.

When they played Denver two years ago in the Russell Wilson return game. And he actually had a good game that day. He caught a lot of balls. It was just, everything was off in that game, I felt. Except for the run game in the second half. And here's what I'll say. On the defensive side of the ball, the tackling was great.

I thought the tackling was top-notch. They know yak yards for the Broncos. And the Broncos needed them because apparently Bo Nix is still not ready to throw the ball beyond like 10 yards, right? I felt a bit bad for Bo Nix. It was a tough situation to be in, but it was a learning experience for him. Sure, and he did score a touchdown late to make it kind of interesting. I thought he had a courageous game for what he did.

A lot of these quarterbacks kind of shrink from the moment. I don't think watching it that he shrunk from the moment. He's just not good enough right now. Right. By the way, I don't know how much you watched of all the rookie quarterbacks in week one, though, of all the guys that got drafted in this very ballyhooed class, but it wasn't a great day for any of them. No.

Caleb won, but thanks to his defense. Yeah, right. And like Jayden Daniels. More thanks to like Will Levis. Yeah, Will Levis was, I don't even know where to go. We'll talk about that stuff later because we do need to get to all those. But as for this game, like not enough positives for me to be super optimistic because even though like the defensive side of the ball,

how I was going to finish that point was like Bo Nix was so limited in what he could do and the throws he could make. Like they need, basically it was going to be, he was could do and the throws he could make. Basically, he was going to dump the ball off or make short passes, and they needed yak yards, and they never got them. They never materialized. The Seahawks did a good job of tackling. When they see a better quarterback that can make more throws,

that'll be a more indicative test of where this defense is at. But for week one, they made all the tackles they needed to. I thought Jordan Love played really well, though I think you pointed out he blew a tackle early in the game. Well, it was a tough play to make, but he didn't make the tackle, and I just kind of noted it, and then he played

a lot better. So, next Sunday, the Seahawks go to New England to play the team that ruined 90% of survivor pools over the weekend by beating the Cincinnati Bengals. So it's a battle of 1-0 teams next Sunday in New England between the Seahawks and the Patriots. After that, the Seahawks come home to face Tyreek Hill and Miami Dolphins, who got themselves a win against the Jacksonville Jaguars.

The Jags kind of blew that one. Yep, they did. They could have put that away. They fumbled it through the end zone. Should have been at least a field goal on that play. And credit to the Dolphins who made plays and ultimately won the game. And then in week four, the Seahawks go to Detroit to play the Lions. So it's an actually interesting first four games for the Seahawks.

You had Bo Nix at home. You know, a lot of fans in Seattle knew him from his college days. Then you go to New England, which a lot of people thought might be the worst team in the NFL this season. Well, they're 1-0. Miami will be a fun game. And then into Detroit to play the Lions, the team a lot of people are picking to go to the Super Bowl this year out of the NFC. And who got a win last night against the Rams.

Hey, do you think the Rams miss Aaron Donald? Yeah. I mean, you know what? Okay. I was happy to watch it. I'm like, oh, look, it's easier to run against the Rams. Yeah, well, especially in overtime, right? It's like, we're just going to put this right where Aaron Donald used to be.

But yeah, it was interesting watching that game because, you know, the Rams like Puka Nakua got hurt. They were always sort of just hanging around in the game. And then Matt Stafford and Cooper Cup kind of did their thing to keep it close. But yeah, in the end, Detroit gets the victory. So they moved to 1- to 1-0 and then the Ram yeah so you look at the Seahawks now in the division uh decent start because the Cardinals lost yesterday and the Rams lost yesterday as well and we'll see what happens with the Niners tonight okay we got to go to break when we come back more NFL talk to come Mike Tanier our NFL insider from the two deep zone is going

to join us a lot to get into from the games yesterday. We really only talked about the Seahawks. So everything else from the National Football League coming up next on the Halford and Brough Show on Sportsnet 650. 6.33 on a Monday. Happy Monday, everybody. You know it's sports season when the crazy horns are going. This is a very early crazy horns, Laddie. Coming in hot.

A lot of people, you know, had a nice weekend. It's Monday. They don't want to go to work. We're just trying to get them off to a good start. Yeah, this. Get Monday going with a bang. Just look in your t-shirt. It says sports with an exclamation mark. Yeah, I got to take a picture of it later. So we're going to a bang. Just looking at your t-shirt, it says sports with an exclamation mark.

Yeah, I gotta take a picture of it later. We're gonna go to Sports Station. All sports happen. Speaking of Twitter, I don't know if you guys saw the picture that I posted from Sunday, but there's a feature now. Not that I'm trying to promote an alternate broadcaster or product, but

if you have, now it's very specific, but if you have DAZN and you and you play it through apple tv you can orchestrate your tv to have a quad box like multi-view you can have you can break your screen up into four now if you do that and you put nfl's red zone channel in one of the boxes. Sometimes it goes into quad box mode. Whoa. Thereby giving you the Octo box. It's pretty cool.

And then you just like see everything. Yep. And also it was too much. Right. It was too much. I got really confused. Okay. We got to get to Mike Tannier here.

We've only got a few minutes with Mike Tannier to go through everything that happened in the weekend in the NFL. Mike, good morning. How are you? I'm doing great. It sounds like the Octobox on the home television is a great way to see tiny, tiny little ants running around your screen and figuring out what's going on.

Yeah, Bryce Young looks especially small on the Octobox. He's an aphid. He's an aphid among the ants. Yeah, perfect. Okay, let's talk about another quarterback matchup that we saw in the NFL on Sunday, and that is Dak Prescott,

the newly richer Dak Prescott for the Dallas Cowboys, and the rich Deshaun Watson. Tell us how,. Tell us your thoughts on both Dak signing the contract extension and the money he's going to be making and also how screwed the Browns are with Deshaun Watson. Well, you know, the Cowboys are not screwed. They spent a lot of that offseason making a big drama out of these contract extensions, not just Prescott, but Cowboys are not screwed. They spent a lot of that offseason making a big drama out of these contract extensions,

not just Prescott, but C.D. Lamb. Took care of both of them. And you see the results on the field out there. They look like they always look in the regular season. This is a very tough opponent in the regular season with lots of front-line talent. Back played well. Lamb played well. Micah Parsons played well.

You know, the kicker played well, like some of the other guys played well. And you get this big win. And the narrative around the Cowboys was so poisonous during the offseason. I think that folks lost track of the fact that they're a really, really good team. They're a Super Bowl contender who are going to win 12, 13 games. And the Browns, I mean, I just – Deshaun Watson has looked bad for three years. He has looked below average, mediocre, not that athletic, you know, not that good on the run, not that accurate.

For three years, this is who they are. This is who he is. The Browns are in deep trouble. It's diminishing returns. And they're not only in trouble for this year, but they're in trouble for subsequent years because of the way they designed that contract. Let's stay in the Browns division, the Pittsburgh Steelers.

So weird game, right? Like Russell Wilson is named the starter going into the season, named a captain. Then he's hurt, so they go to Justin Fields. They don't score a touchdown. They still win 18-10. Six Chris Boswell field goals. I guess the question is, do they need Russell Wilson in Pittsburgh,

or are they going to be fine doing what they do with Justin Fields? Define fine. If fine means that you can muck out wins against other kind of sort of okay teams with 57, 51, 56 short field goals by your kicker over and over again, hoping that the ball bounces off, the snap bounces off a motion man so you get the ball to get some of these points. Yeah, they can do that. The Steelers have done that for many years.

It's just a matter of, you know, is the goal another 9-8 season and then you don't know who your quarterback is and, you know, T.J. Watt gets a year older and Pickens wants his money? That shouldn't be the goal and I think the Steelers have to look at this and say we have to figure out our offense which of these guys is our quarterback because we know our defense is going to be pretty darn good special teams can help us out along the way we can't just keep on doing what we've been doing for the last two three four years how good is T.J. Watt just watching him play I mean he's he was I

actually insulted some Steelers fans because I was like, TJ Watt is the only good thing about watching the Steelers, and they took it personal. But it was kind of like a compliment, too. He is unbelievable as a player. Yeah, he's the only part that's fun. He's the only part that's like, man, this guy is dominating. And they're like, what about the kicker?

He can kick from so far. They're like, nobody watches the kicker. It's disappointing when the field goal kicker comes out. Right. It's great that the kicker is good. Like, oh, goody, field goals. I mean, come on, Steelers. You used to watch Justin Tucker and the Ravens win games like this,

and you would laugh at them. That's what you would do. But Watson's fantastic. There are some great edge rushers. Aiden Hutchinson in the late game. Max Crosby in a losing effort. Watching these guys one-on-one sometimes, the game within the game, is so entertaining that it can keep you going during some of these

18-10 Steelers-Falcons slugfest. Who was the best rookie quarterback that you saw in action? Nobody. I'm going to go with Caleb. Yeah, they were all pretty bad. I'm going to go with Caleb. Yeah, they were all pretty bad. I'm going to go with Caleb Williams, although he did almost nothing. He did not turn the ball over. He did not make any mistakes.

He made one good run that I saw, two or three good throws that I saw. The Bears win on an interception return, where the interception is absolutely ridiculous by Will Levis, and on a blocked kick and on a bunch of long field goals. But, you know, you go go out there you manufacture the win all three of these guys I'm just glad I didn't get involved in the preseason narrative about which one is the most like Patrick Mahomes and which one is the most like Drew Brees and just said yeah this is preseason football let's wait for the real games to start these guys are all a work in progress so caleb williams first overall pick

heisman trophy winner in 2002 another former heisman trophy winner and first overall pick bryce young 2023 that's not that long ago what where is bryce young right now and he's is he setting short quarterbacks back decades after all the uh the gains that some of the the shorter stature quarterbacks made. Yeah, I think that there's going to be a little bit more of a pause because when he came in looking like a JV high school point guard, everyone was like, well, Kyler Murray's had some success and Russell Wilson had all kinds of success. And he's smaller than that.

He's actually smaller than them weight-wise i think he's about a half inch to an inch shorter size-wise and you can't just say well because these two guys succeeded that you can put you know uh a bus boy out there a bus boy size athlete and say he's going to succeed now the panthers have all kinds of other problems their defense is horrendous so the supporting cast is weak this is a a bad team top to bottom, but Young is not going to be able to elevate them. And I think this is going to be a problem that persists. And I don't know how he turns the corner with this team and has any success after two years of getting beaten up, showing that he can't see the middle of the field, showing that his athleticism

is not quite on par with guys like Russell Wilson in their prime. And it's a tough look for the Carolina Panthers. Is it fair to say that Cincinnati had the most disappointing day? Yeah, except that, you know, it's the Bengals in week one, and you should never have your hopes high. But this is a team that, you know, look like they're going to score a touchdown. They get a penalty, then they get a turnover. They muff a punt deep in their own penalty, then they get a turnover. They muff a

punt deep in their own territory, which leads to a field goal. They're punting late in the game when trailing and saying, oh, we need to trust our defense out there. You know, when you've got Joe Barrow and Jamar Chase is playing and you're supposed to be the dominant team, oh, let's hope our defense can get one stop. And of course, all it takes is one cut

back for the Patriots to steal a win. Very tough beginning for the Bengots to steal a game to steal a win very tough beginning for the Bengals and while I think they're going to turn things around I just don't know how you move forward saying oh here we are again we're we're giving up early season games and we're going to be behind the real contenders for the rest of the season was there any team that you watched that you thought might not be a very good team and thought maybe they will be I know it's only one game and you don't want to might not be a very good team and thought maybe they will be i know it's only one game and you don't want to get tricked by a short sample size but uh any games

catch you by surprise in a positive way yeah well the saints were a team that like the uh the old dvoa football outsiders guys were high on not because they're great but because their schedule's easy and 47 to 10 kind of shows you that it's well, I don't think they're a 47-10 kind of team. They're facing an ACC-level opponent, but they can be solid and they can win these games they're supposed to win when they've got a lot of speed on offense and they've got some veterans on defense. You know, the Seahawks, like, they were really awful at the beginning of that game,

but they turned it around. They turned it around. They looked very good in the third quarter. They took their feet off the gas a little bit. While I was stunned by how bad they were in the first quarter, I was stunned by how bad the Eagles were in the first quarter and the Bills were in the first quarter. A lot of teams had to shake some rust off. The Seahawks looked a little bit more impressive when they needed to in the second half. What did you think of the Sunday night or Detroit gets the overtime win over the Rams? We were talking about, and because we've seen this guy and he's terrified us for so long,

the Rams are a pretty different defense without Aaron Donald. Yeah. Although their defense really, they came around when they needed to in the second half. And it's like, wow, this is a different defense. And then came overtime. And I think they were out of guys and they were out of breath. And Dan Campbell was out of patience and said, go get them, guys. And the Lions went into Cro-Magnon mode with two tight ends in the fullback and just said, inside run, and let's see if you can stop it. And they can't. Big question for the Rams.

I mean, Donald is a little bit of a question because he's an irreplaceable kind of guy. We're waiting on Puk and Nakua injury news. So that's one team if it's Cup and Nakua and all the things Sean McCay can do with those two guys. It's a very different team if he's only got one of those guys and everything has to be creativity and scheme, and the Rams will not be able to keep up in that situation.

Okay, so I spent a lot of last season ragging on the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and when they made it to the playoffs, I was like, oh, hopefully they'll get out of here. Four touchdowns for Baker. That offense punted once yesterday. I know it was the Commanders, and I know things were flowing, and I think it's the offensive coordinator,

Liam Cohen, he called a great game, but I watched bits and pieces of it. I didn't watch the thing tip the tail, but it looked like a very, very dynamic offense, and one that might be fun to watch as opposed to what it was at times last year during the regular season, which was very static and very boring. Yeah, it's a little more lively. Of course, Mike Evans is very good.

Chris Godwin is very good. They've got guys on the offensive line like Wirfs who are very, very good. They added a running back now in the kid from Oregon, Irving. Bucky Irving. Yeah, they're not just handing off for one yard on first down and then saying we've got to go pass, pass. Bucky Irving can move the ball a little bit, and they're throwing the ball in the screen game is better.

So they're another team that you can look at and say, yeah, it's a little bit of a mirage playing a rookie quarterback and a commander's team that's in rebuilding mode. But you can see the way the 9-10 wins, and you can see the way to, yeah, being a little more interesting to watch, and Baker Mayfield kind of coming into his own. I know folks are saying

it, you know, the Browns deserve it. Baker Mayfield is now a better quarterback than Deshaun Watson. You know, they earn that on merit. But it's true, and, you know, the Buccaneers are a team with an easy, easy schedule that can make some noise this year. Real quick,

before I let you go, Monday night football, what kind of chances are you getting Aaron Rodgers against the San Francisco team tonight? You know, Aaron Rodgers is so much a person who has been under wraps for this whole preseason. And I've heard so many rumors about him.

I am in wait and see mode. I got to see him moving around the pocket a little bit before I make any pronouncements about the Jets. So that's where I'm at, and even with him in his peak, I would turn around and say this should be a 49ers win because they're at full strength. They're coming off of that season they had last year, and all of their contract problems have been solved.

Mike, you're the best, buddy. Thanks for doing this. We really appreciate it. Enjoy Monday night football. We'll talk again next week. You got it. Take care and enjoy the week. You too. Thanks. That's Mike Tannier, our NFL insider. It's the two deep zone sub stack. Visit it. Mike Tannier sub stack. You can visit him at Mike Tannier on Twitter as well. All right. So we've done a lot of football soccer football canadian and nfl uh soccer we

talked about canada's win over the americans the whitecaps also had a scoreless draw at home scoreless draw yeah at home so we're not going to talk much about this it's just a way to throw it out there let's just do it real quick okay um everyone to the let's play all the goal clips all right let's move on this is there's a couple things that when you're presenting the the sport and to the general public and people that might not know that much about it there's two things that always kill you and you have no defense against one is all the diving right the theatrics the simulation the faking of injuries and you just kind of throw your hands up you're like yeah it's part of the game yeah and the other one is the nil nil draw people just can't wrap their head around it they're like so you went to a game that started and then ended the same way

that it started yeah and i'm like yep nothing was proven no goals were scored nothing was decided their chances yeah there were some. Oh, good. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Whitecaps were missing seven or eight regulars.

I won't go through them all. It's so stupid. It is really ridiculous that MLS would play these games during an international break when Canada and the United States are playing against each other. Yeah, like everyone was playing, right? So they were missing seven or eight guys to do that, and Brian White's still out with a concussion.

So the lineup that they put out there, the fact that they got any sort of points from the match was good. However, when the match started and you realized that Dallas was playing terribly, we're just not interested, it suddenly became one where it's like, you should probably get more than just a singular point from that. They did not. Nil-nil draw for the Whitecaps.

They've now got a very busy next couple weeks coming up. Okay, let's do some hockey. Okay. Because Quinn Hughes had an interview with Ian McIntyre. If you want to read the article, it's up on sportsnet.ca right now. It's the Jake Milford

golf classic today. All the Canucks will be playing. They'll be doing audio or they'll be doing interviews. So we'll have some audio to play on the station. All the big questions will be out there. I don't know if the coach or any of the management will speak today. They might save that for later. At the MILF?

Yeah, I have no idea. But I know that quinn hughes did have an interview with imac and um i think the five key words from quinn hughes were i think we'll be better even better than last season it's good he's following the messaging from above because that's exactly what alvin and rutherford have said and it's exactly what talkett said as well um it's a good captain. Well, I mean, he threw out pretty good reasons. He said, we added a lot of depth up front. We added some guys like Jake DeBrus that can really play

and maybe contribute on the power play. And then he said, I was pretty vocal with Patrick Balvin about bringing in Kiefer Sherwood, just playing him in the playoffs against Nashville and seeing his competitiveness and what he brings. You need guys like that on a championship team. Good job. I'm going to read that again.

Yeah, good job, Hughes. You need guys like that on a championship team. I forget which NHL analyst said it, but there was one tweet that caught my eye over the weekend where the guy said, the Canucks have the best bottom six in the NHL. The best bottom six in the NHL. The best bottom six in the NHL. Well, if you think about that third line. Now, I don't know about every team's bottom six.

If you think about that third line, you've got, if Garland and Dakota Joshua are still on that line, we'll see if Teddy Bluger's the center of that. Hugh Suter obviously won't be Lindholm because he's in Boston now. And then you get bringing in guys like Sherwood and, Sherwood and maybe Danton Hynans on that line, there is definitely, I don't disagree with that opinion. They have a lot of depth. They have a lot of depth. Maybe too much.

Where's Sprong going to go? Too much depth. Oh, yeah! The question marks will be on the back end with some of the changes that they've made and whether or not they decide to split up Hronik and Hughes. There's good things about keeping them together. There's also knock-on effects to keeping them together.

And we'll see what the new guys on the back end look like, guys like Derek Forbart and Vincent Derrionet. And then, obviously, we all know that goaltending is a question mark heading into the season with the health of Thatcher Demko and Artur Silovs and the changes they made with Ian Clark. But Quinn Hughes, very optimistic about the way the lineup looked. And I think that's how we all felt as free agency unfolded. We were maybe sad that a guy like Nikita Zdorov won't be on the team anymore. And he moved on.

He went with Lindholm to Boston. And he played some really good hockey, especially in the playoffs. And his personality is endearing. A lot of people really like the guy. But he played himself out of signing with the Canucks because they just couldn't afford him. They made other decisions. They kept a guy like Dakota Joshua, who we wondered if he had become too expensive

for the Vancouver Canucks, but they kept him. And I think that what they did, bringing in guys like Forbert and Darnay, those were good moves considering what they were working with. And I really like the fact that those guys are penalty killing aces yeah and they're big and they're big they're big you know it's interesting it's like well we can't re-sign zadaroff but can we replicate him like in size cumulatively we're gonna get two other guys that aren't as talented as he is they're still big

and they can still do some of the things um i also think that the way the blue line is built and given how this team approached its business last year, they might not be done tinkering to that blue line. I mean, that was one of the things that they did last year. You looked at the team going into training camp and you're like, oh, they got some holes. And then they quickly went about patching them. And then through the early parts of the regular season as well, right?

Making the Zdorov trade at one point. So I'll be curious to see all that. So it was interesting. He was also asked asked by imac who remembered the bubble and the canucks had a good bubble because it feels like 600 years ago the bubble do you remember the bubble and then promptly fell apart now some of that was they weren't ready. They were immature as a team. They lost some guys, some popular guys in the room. That's, I think, the big one.

There's a lot of things that I think contributed to that. It was miserable, I think, being on the team, being on a Canadian team during that all-Canadian division. That was two coaches ago. It was Travis Green. Then Bruce Boudreau came in. There was a slight bump, the Bruce bump, which went away. And, you know, eventually it led to Rick Tockett.

It feels like a long time ago, but it really wasn't. It was only a few years ago. But Hughes was asked, you know, essentially, is there any risk in that happening again? He said, when that did happen, we were an up-and-coming young team. Now I'm going to be 25. Petey's going to be 26. Demko 29.

Millsy is 32. Brock is older. We've got Hronik and DeBrus, some other younger guys, and some depth pieces. I'm five times the player that I was that season. Oof. Five times. I think I've arrived.

Well, he's the Norse Trophy winner. Yeah, that's fair. I think I've arrived as a player, and Petey has, and all these guys have. I think we're at the top of our games, and then we've got an amazing coaching staff, and our systems are going to be so dialed in, and I think we're just more mature because we went through all that.

We learned from that. We should be a really good team. Now it's an interesting read. Go to sportsnet.ca if you want to read it. He also talks about the pressure of returning as a Norris Trophy winner. He said he talked to Roman Yossi about that and Yossi gave him some advice. So go read it at sportsnet.ca. Maybe we'll talk a little bit more about Quinn Hughes when Sat joins us at 8 o'clock in a couple of hours.

But coming up next, JC Abbott. We've never spoken on the air with JC Abbott, but I've read a lot of his stuff on 3 Down Nation. Really good BC Lions beat writer. And we'll talk about the Lions' big win in Montreal over the weekend. A real statement win for a team that now has Nathan Rourke back, Matthew Betts back, and also they seem to have their groove back as

they've now beaten Ottawa and Montreal. They'll host Toronto on Friday the 13th at BC Place. And we'll talk to JC Abbott about the BC Lions coming up next on the Halford & Brough Show on Sportsnet 650.