NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - 2026 NFL Week 1 Recap

Episode Date: September 14, 2026

Gregg Rosenthal, Jourdan Rodrigue and Nick Shook recap every game from Sunday's Week 1 action. The crew breaks down Josh Allen and the Bills finally winning in Houston, how two-point conversions decided the Commanders and Eagles and Lions and Saints games, the Bears and Panthers putting up video game numbers in an all-time shootout, and so much more from Week 1 in the NFL. NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The Chargers charging. It's back. And Sunday night recaps in the Chris Wesleyan podcast studio is back. I'm Greg Rosenthal. I am so excited to be here in the studio. It's the big three. Myself, Jordan Roderig and Nick Shook. That's going to be our Sunday night crew.

I don't know who LeBron is in this. this situation and who's Kyrie and who's Kevin Love. Almost forgot Kevin Love. Let's go. That's me. I'm out of let's. No, you are not. Almost forgot. You are not. Maybe Jordan's LeBron because she knows how to pick the best games of the week.

I did. I got great games. Over-indexing at the top of the show, including the game we got to start with. It was an early game. It was in Houston. Another great one between the Bills and the Texans. They got two downs to make this happen. Look at the bill. So now they've got

go out of bounds or endo, out of bounds or endzo. Trout bubbles the ball. It's free and it's over. Rousseau knocks it away. Bernard of the recovery and Buffalo slams the door shut in Houston. In a game that was dominated by offense, yes, including CJ Stroud. And yes, including the Texans defense struggling, it was a defensive play by Greg Russo that finishes off the Texans. The bills go to Houston. They eliminate some of the

Gremlins in Josh Allen's head when it comes to this matchup. They get the win. 36 to 31. That was Ian Eagle and Ross Tucker on the call. You notice for week one, we got broadcasters. Just because of you know, we don't have the radio guys this week. We'll get them back next week. And I love those two. And I love this game, Jordan. When you think of how this game ended and how we got to that point. What is going to stand out in your head the most? It's two things at once. It is, Josh Allen was absolutely incredible and really more calmly and presently handled this Texan's defense than I'd ever seen him before. He was 20 of 29 for 334 yards, two touchdowns, no interceptions. His connection with Dalton Kincaid made the difference in this passing game. We'll talk

about DJ more in a moment as well, but 130 yards for Dalton Kincaid and just really understood his spots, where to take risks, challenged the Texans defense in so many ways. Texans defense did not look like themselves at all. It was a little striking which defensive group ended the game. It's that Bill's defensive line Dionne Walker setting that play up before with a sack for a loss, moving them outside of the sort of goal to go situation. And then obviously the turnover, C.J. Stroud's second loss fumble of the game, otherwise he played pretty well.

And I want to hear about how the Texans defense struggled, but what's going to stand out to me is, there's a couple times in the fourth quarter where the Texans defense, who's getting so much help from their offense for once, has a chance to put their stamp on the game. They give up a longer field goal drive, but it was only a field goal, but they did give up the lead.

And then at the end of the gate, you mentioned Kincaid had a monster catch on that final drive, 96 yards over seven plays. And it felt like it was a game and definitely a drive there of like almost for this Texans defense. Well, that was the entire game.

I have that written as the title of this game on the Texan side, is the game of almost. And immediately followed, by the way, by big bills plays. Because the bills capitalize after every single, quote, unquote, almost by the Texans. Jalen Petrie almost picked off a screen in the first half. Josh Allen sneaks in a touchdown on the very next play. Reed Blankenship, dives for a pick on a pass intended for DJ Moore,

almost gets it barely whiffs. It's a wide open touchdown instead. And Camari Lasseter has a chance to close the game off of a Josh Allen Yolo ball into the end zone on second and 11. the ball bounces on his hands. It's the game-winning touchdown, the very next play to Josh Palmer on 3rd and 11 with a minute 41 left. Let's go ahead and hear that one. Allen on 3rd and 11.

They handle the rush. He throws it down field. It's called. Palmer, touchdown. Buffalo levers with a fourth quarter potential dagger. Just incredible. Again, on 3 and 11, and you have to go back to week three of 2024 to find the last. last time the Houston Texans gave up more than 34 points in one game.

The demons of 23 to 19 last year washed away in quick succession. And you think about it like pressure wise, you don't need a touchdown there. You're only down a point, but it's so much more emphatic to go in there and get that touchdown to thread the needle between two defenders and send the Texans fans home a little upset. Of course, we're going to mention this all season long, like how big luck is a factor in how these narratives are built because everyone would be killing Josh Allen for that yolo ball he threw. It was a really bad decision. It reminded you of the playoff, Josh Allen. Blasseter didn't

finish the play. But it makes Josh Allen special that the very next snap he told Evan Washburn after the game, you know, he never throws that ball to Josh Palmer. He's not supposed to throw that ball to Josh Palmer essentially. You're not going to make a living throwing that ball because it's too dangerous. But he saw the safety cheating in this play, in this case, Kalin Bullock. And it's a game where they couldn't finish. And there were a couple years ago before I needed to be convinced that this is like a potential all-time defense,

the Texans had chances to finish games. Even last year, like in week one, against the Rams, they've had chances to win games. And if you want to be considered an all-time defense, first you can't give up 36 points. But you got to have a, you got to finish the game when you have a chance. Exactly. And these are the types of plays

that Houston talked about all season last year. And really, it's striking because, A, this entire weekend, for the most part, was like almost as if 2025 never happened. because it's all back to offense now, first of all. And then second of all, this did not look like the Houston, Texan's defense, even of last year, even shades of last year. What was really effective for what for the bills and what Josh Allen did

that changed the entire dynamic of his poise and how he was collected against this group was how he would throw on the move, how he would throw out of structure. The connection with Kincaid, I cannot over-emphasize, including on a play where he moved out of structure to get him like this insane catch that Dalton Kincaid made. To me, that really was a game changer, including at one point, it was like the Texans forgot

that they normally spy Josh Allen in some of these plays where all the eligibles are out. And it was really striking to me. Sometimes the offseason hype is true. Kincaid 5 for 130. Everyone said like, finally.

He's built for a big season. DJ Moore goes over 100. It's really pass heavy. You know, it's disappointing. CJ Stroud, like, even going into today, he's such a focus of the insider reports. He doesn't get the contract extension. They're fighting over on ESPN about like, this guy's a disappointment.

He deserved it. And C.J. Stroud ends up kind of kicking the can contract-wise, even though it sounds like he had a decent offer and betting on himself. And it sounds like for the most part, like it was a good bet today. They just came up a little short. He played well today. Again, the turnovers can't have that happen, cannot have that. that sack late, but the right side of his offensive line, Edding Ingram and Trent Brown had an

awful, awful day. The thing that really settled this offense down was David Montgomery. David Montgomery was outstanding. He goes on paper 60 yards on 20 rushing attempts. He gets two touchdowns and adds a receiving touchdown and he's falling forward every time he makes contact. And the touchdown was really cool. I think we have that call. David Montgomery was really the difference maker early in this game. 13th play of the drive third drive of 12 or more Stride

wide open caught by Texas 1, 2, 3 for David Montgomery He was outstanding in this game I think they're rushing attack you know per snap isn't like amazing but the fact that he goes for a couple

touchdowns is big the offense can feel better and yet they're probably not going to feel that much better overall so That's a huge conference win out of the Buffalo Bills to go on the road, beat Houston to start the season. Another game that's going to matter at the end of the season, any of these division games that happen in week one. I'm going to say it all season long. It's like winning a game and a half. The Packers, in a game they dominated for most of it, could not hold on.

Let's go to Minnesota. Third and five. He still has it. He's got Jefferson over here. in the flat. Jefferson, going for the Yardage, and dives for the pylon, soars through the air, and it's a touchdown. Oh, my goodness. What a play by Justin Jefferson. He didn't want the first down. He wanted the touchdown, and he got it. The Minnesota Vikings, somehow, some way, one by 17 points in a game where, like, into the fourth quarter, they're getting

doubled up in Yardage, getting doubled up in yards per play, and yet they win. 39. to 22. It was great to see Justin Jefferson out there making Justin Jefferson plays. Had a fantastic touchdown earlier in the game. And yes, the Packers, Nick Shook, are going to be wondering, how did this happen? How did this happen? Well, I can tell you exactly how it happened because it was one specific drive in which Packers fans might have a bit of a gripe. They ended up on the wrong side of a couple of flags, some flags that really bought the Vikings' fresh sets of downs, allowed them to continue moving down the field. But even then, the win probability metrics on NextGen didn't believe in the Vikings.

And rightfully so, because through two and a half, three and a half quarters of this game, the Packers were the better team. They just didn't close in the right spots. Let me give you an example here real quick. On this specific drive in which the Vikings end up taking the lead. Well, actually, we'll start at halftime. Win probability 8020 in favor of the Packers. The first penalty on that drive, illegal contact.

It was on a stop that then buys the Vikings a fresh set of downs. Still 67% in favor of Green Bay. There's a roughing the passer call that then buy. them another fresh set of downs. And at that point is the first time all game that win probability dips below 50% for the Packers. And then from there, it was a runaway train except Carson Wentz

got billed out one more time when he threw an interception in the end zone. The Vikings scored then, and then all nightmares happen for the Packers from there because of Brian Flores his defense. It's a great example of a game in which one team for so much of it looks superior. And then managed just to lose by 17 points. Right.

And they had a lead throughout the game. They built it to, what, 22 to 10? as you mentioned, but it was, they weren't like going away with it. You mentioned Carson Wentz. I kind of buried the lead here. Kyler Murray leaves this game with a concussion on the second drive. It couldn't have been a bigger nightmare start for Kyler Murray. On the very first throw he has as a biking, like he just tosses one up against the blitz. He's under pressure, just throws it to no one, essentially, is just a hope ball, gets intercepted. And then he gets hurt on a play where he rolls out and was like a little

indecisive whether he should run or pass it's a third and long he ends up running takes I have a dirty hit I don't know yeah I mean he got down late I can understand why the defender did that it was a Bullard that ended up making the hit it concusses Kyle Murray he's out for the game

and suddenly the Vikings are right back where they were last season which is we have to rely on a backup quarterback and for a while there it looked as bad as it did offensively last year and the defense was keeping them in the game and then the defense slammed the door on the Packers from there because They got so much pressure in Jordan Love's face. They forced two turnovers in the next two Packers' possessions.

And before you knew it, the team that again looked like they were one stop away from closing a week one win that counts as a win and a half, according to your metrics, divisional game. It does. Going home with a loss. Because, you know, the Vikings are one win away here. Like, if they beat the Packers next time from sweeping this, it is annoying a little bit that, like, from this entire off season of, like, talking about who's going to be the backup to Minnesota to, to, to, to, uh, uh, Kyler Murray that Carson Wentz like is immediately in the game and we're back to this world.

Yeah, Carson Wentz is like, it's not just me on paper. I'm actually going to get into the game. I don't, Kevin O'Connell was talking post game about how this seems like it's something they're going to quote unquote feel for a long time or the game itself will have repercussions. And the illusion to that seems sort of about Kyler's injury. You obviously hope that he's okay. I think a lot of us were really excited to see what that was like what that was going to be.

Was there enough time to kind of get a feel for how he was playing? No, it was pretty bad. What was it? It was two disastrous drives. How about the Packers' offensive line in this game? Not getting their hands down when they needed to. I'll tell you that. So many issues with this group.

We know that they don't have a lot of time spent together. We know that it was one of the concerning points with this team going into this season. But the way that they failed to handle Brian Flores's pressure looks, and I'm talking about double mug looks in the A gap. You know he's bringing guys. He's sending them early and often. They blitzed over 78% by the end of the game. Even higher than his usual averages is around 50%,

which is already a league high. They could not handle it. They couldn't handle blitzes. They couldn't handle blitzes with stunts involved. And Love was basically as soon as he got the snap, multiple times, just looking out and be like, I have to throw this away just to save my life. I want to get to like the victory that Carson Wens

helped lead this Viking team too and like give them props. But I will do the thing that our producer. Eric Roberts was already making fun of us for in the newsroom. I like watching the games, by the way, with Jordan's nearby, shook's way down at the other end. He's a little too far away. But Eric is very close. And he's like, oh, the excuses are going to come out for Jordan Love again.

Because up until late in this game, Jordan Love was playing absolutely outstanding. But then they turn it over on Downs. He loses a fumble in the fourth quarter. And then he throws an interception that he should absolutely regret. yet here comes the defense, all this lousy offensive line play. Here are some of the connections that Jordan Love had in this game, the yardage. This against the Vikings defense. 23 yards, 32 yards, 42 yards, 42 yards, 43 yards, and yes, 81 yards.

That's such a good number. Let's actually listen to the call of him hitting Christian Watson. As loves looking for his first completion, he's got it to Watson. Watson taken off down the sidelines. He goes. Watson is not going to be caught. Wow. Where does that leave you?

That's Jim Nance and JJ Y. For a second, I was about to say Tony Romo because it kind of sounded like in there in the moment. How much, like, what is your takeaway? Because Markets Golding knows for 95 yards. Watson ends up with 147, but the running game doesn't work, the defense. You tell me, how are you feeling about the Packers? I'm telling you, before this sequence that I just described,

I felt like, wow, this is a legitimately strong win for them because, like you said, no running game to speak of. This is really all on Jordan Love and finding open guys. Those five numbers that you listed, five completions of 20 or more yards, two to Tucker Kraft, two to Christian Watson, and one to Jonu Smith. Welcome back to the conversation, Jono Smith. And he's doing everything within his power to keep this offense moving and keeping them one step ahead of the Vikings.

But what was so disappointing about this whole experience was that once adversity struck, they once again had no ability to overcome it. It looked like those losses in Chicago late last year. It's the same thing. They spend the entire off season focusing on how we can tear this down, to the studs and start like it's a year one install and, you know, make sure that the, the personalities, everybody knows what their roles are and this is all going to be fixed. And then when adversity struck, they were the same team they were before.

That's kind of the thing with the Packers, too. Yeah. Like, you know, you talk about some teams, oh, like something bad happens to them. They fight back right away. Yeah. That is not the Packers. No. They gave up 15 quarterback hits today.

Dallas Turner had seven on his own. Not sure. I've seen many seven quarterback hit days. So he was getting a lot of pop in camp, too. I just think that that is exactly the story of the Packers that they can't shake. They cannot battle through adversity. And that's frustrating. They can't close.

That has been frustrating. I think it's frustrating for their fan base. You know who can close. And we're going to move on to the next game. But if you get a chance to watch this Carson Wentz two point play, actually, we have so many like great Carson Wentz highlights. I'm a little annoyed. We're not showing more of them.

Hyperbole. But the Carson Wentz, two-point play was such a great example of what Carson Wentz has become because the very play a couple plays before they scored a touchdown on the ground. He throws an interception that's called back by penalty. But then he rolls out

against pressure. When you're watching the TV copy there's like three different defenders in the way and he threads the needle between all three of them. Those are that's a dot and at the time I thought maybe that's going to be the difference in the game. They end up winning by a lot. And you know what it's a breath of fresh air for more than any other person on this planet

for Justin Jefferson? Yes. It finishes the two touchdown catches. He matches last season's total in one game and he can thank Carson Wentz for being healthy enough and skilled enough to find him. Somebody's getting him the ball. And the 39-yard touchdown to Jefferson too was on a truly gorgeous throw. That was a free play and maybe Wentz wouldn't have thrown it otherwise. But he's capable, I think, for short stretches of getting you by. The emphasis there is on short. He's like a golfer who only has one club he can still hit and the driver. Speaking of short, uh, let's talk about. about the game I had.

Let's go to Detroit. Transition. The Saints and the Lions. The longest game that happened today. Yeah, like so many of the games today, it was one-sided until it wasn't. Saints going for two. Yeah, you're going to see a rubber route up at the top. Chuck looking.

He throws to the end zone. Incomplete. The Lions win it. What a game. Indeed. Jonathan Filma, Kenny Albert, on the call. Indeed, it was a great game. 31 to 30.

The Lions win it in overtime. The overtime score 7 for the Lions and the Saints who get the ball second, really get a big time advantage going second. The analytics, I think, are right about that because they went for a fourth and five that I don't think they would have gone for in a different situation. They get it. They move down the field.

They go for the two-point conundi. conversion in large part because there's still 90 seconds left on the clock. I saw a lot of people give Kellanmore a lot of credit here for just like having the stones to go for it. I agree, but actually with 90 seconds left, you actually almost have no choice. The way that the lion's offense was playing that day, you have to assume there's a good chance we're giving up a field goal here. So we have a much better chance of going for the two and they don't get it. And it's an example, Jordan, of the last play of the game not being symbolic, unfortunately, of like, the rest of it. Because Tyler Shuck, after such a slow start to this game, where they did nothing for eight

straight drives, ends up with an incredible game with so many clutch plays. And yet, when you look at that play and the dots afterwards, it looked like he had Chris Olavé in the flat if he was just a little quicker and more decisive. He doesn't throw it. And I think he saw an underneath defender. Saints fans are pointing this out. But it would have been Olave with leverage where if you hit him in stride, he just has to beat one guy.

I think he scores that touchdown. And he'll have a little bit of regrets on a day where he made so many clutch plays and ends up with over 400 yards and three touchdowns on this game. Yeah, I'm literally looking at the moment the ball leaves his hand on my screen right now. And he also has Travis H.N. on the left hand on the backside of the play where he's probably not going to look. So that's so he's not going to look. But to my point, the job is to clear an extra defender out.

So that that defender is maybe supposed to let, you know, Bryce Lance come a little bit free a little bit earlier in the series. Then he maybe doesn't see Olave or maybe he does and see something else. You know, he sees DJ Reed maybe right behind him, ready to jump down, come down in front of the end zone on the play. I think it is maybe an omen or a sign in itself a little bit, Greg, because he's throwing it to Bryce Lance. A good omen, even on an unsuccessful play.

A good omen because even on an unsuccessful play, he's throwing to a guy. He really had a strong end zone connection with, especially in the tight red area, the two point conversion area. You heard about this. I saw it in person. Like he really,

they have a strong. So to me, it's like, okay, yes, they lost this game, but there's stuff here. There's stuff here that they trust,

that they trust to work. I like that take. And I like this. game process-wise for the Saints, as long as they can keep it going better, because their defense ultimately looked better than the 31 points that they gave up. It was only seven in the first half. The Saints' offense kept us giving the ball back to the Lions over and over. They were short fields. There were a ton of big plays for the Saints where there weren't a ton for the Lions, but I also don't want to think, you know, do the thing where we're just talking trash about the team that won the game.

The Lions ultimately get the ball back in overtime. And you could say the Saints' defense played better than it looked like. The Lions and Jared Gough go right down the field. Jemir Gibbs, I don't think he's going to be able to hold up this way, Shooki, but he ends up with 186 yards on 34 touches with two touchdown. So yes, that was a smart first pick overall in fantasy if you had it. Yeah, it's like I felt like every time I peeked over and saw this game, Jamir Gibbs was doing something with the football of his hand or swing at touchdown.

And you're right, the reliance on him is disproportionate. But I have to give the Lions credit because, yes, did they blow a 20? nothing nothing lead in the second half. Yes. And did they have this game in hand

and then suddenly the other team woke up and they didn't know what to do to respond to that? Yes. But they also managed to overcome

the fact that the Saints almost had a game winning field goal if Daniel Carlson's able to keep that thing online. They get the ball in overtime and they go down

the field in their style and score a touchdown and then get the stop on the two point conversion. I mean, there's something within that credit wise that yes, this was ugly and it was kind of on the

edge of our seats but we still come away victorious. I have kind of a larger theme for all these games in this week to keep in mind, which is these games feel like they're one game for two and a half, three quarters

in week one. Just flip. But I think it's partly because it's week one. Everyone is so gas. Now this is an indoor game, but a lot of these games are played in high humidity. But more importantly, none of these players have played any real football. And I do think you see, especially

on defense, and the points, as I alluded to up top, were just through the roof today. in the fourth quarter of these games, like these defenses are gassed and the lions, they're secondary. After, like, they couldn't get quick pressure on Tyler Shuck,

you saw some serious holes in the secondary. And Shuck was just, he was going crazy. Well, that's what we know about him is if he has time to stand in there and he will take the sack. But if he has time to stand in there, then he is going to find the holes in the zones.

10 catches, 182 yards for Chris Olave. and I do want to give Shuck credit. Six 20 plus yard plays in this game. There were so many moments late in this game, you were thinking if Shuck doesn't make a play here, whether it's a fourth down, they had a number of fourth downs with the game on the line, or when he needed to get a touchdown late in the game,

he makes this throw. They get the ball back with two minutes, 32 seconds left. He gets this drive done so quickly that they actually have time to get the ball back and set up that field goal. But I want to play this Tyler Shuck throw to Chris Olavi because it was an absolute thing of beauty.

The Saints Trail 21-0-0 in the third quarter. They scored 17 consecutive points. And now Shuck is going deep. Olavi. He's got it. What a catch. Olavi is that dude. 10 catches, 182 yards.

And the thing I loved about that play was Tyler Shuck was taking a hit as he delivered. in Hutchinson, monster game. Two sacks, four QB hits, 10 pressures. Derek Barnes, a great game with an interception and a sack. The lions were out here doing things. And even if Gough was kind of held by that Brandon Staley defense to a lot of short passes, I still think he was effective overall.

So they get out of there with a victory. And while we're doing themes here, Jordan, I don't know if you notice. It was a little bit of like an NFC North, NFC South, you know, grudge match today. And I was thinking, like, everyone expects the NFC North to have a bunch of playoff teams or have a bunch of good teams. And the NFC South is not going to be great.

And this was a chance for the NFC South to maybe steal a couple wins. The Saints, they came very close, didn't get it done on the road. Could the Panthers win at home against the Bears? Williams, 4-4-4 on the drive, pumps, pressured, gets away from the traffic. Wide open space.

There goes Caleb. Williams to the end zone. His second rushing touchdown of the day and Chicago takes the lead. Congrats to everyone who drafted Caleb Williams in fantasy, too. The idea of him as a difference-making runner, I think, is going to

pick up and pick up. Who is faster than Caleb Williams right now? Ten rushes for 65 yards, part of a monster rushing day, 291 yards by the Bears. They put up 59 points on the Panthers. I mean, poor,

Rice Young, he puts up like the game of his life and they lose by 22 points. 30, like he was great. We got to start with the Bears' offense here, Jordan. What was so special about them today? I mean, Caleb Williams was just dazzling, just dazzling. Really made your riptide look solid today. Oh, yeah. Put him on QB Island.

You know, he was also 21 for 29 passing, 269 yards, and two touchdowns. And very, very importantly, a 72.4 completion percentage. Ben Johnson threw out there that he wants Caleb Williams over 70% all year, which is such a lofty thing. But when you see him do this, what he did today. You know what else he threw out there that he wants to set the all-time record for points? He's on pace. It's just incredible. And really, a couple of things really stood out to me about how Caleb, first of all, ran the ball,

but then also how he managed, like, just overall operated the game. It was so clean from him. So he protected the ball really well this year. Obviously this year he started this way the same. way. But when he's running with the ball, he's doing these things that are so interesting. Like he's changing up his pace. He's moving his eyes so that the defenders hesitate a little bit. He's not only creating space for himself, but he's also sort of navigating if he does want to get the ball and end up going down field. And one of these plays, Ben Johnson has talked a lot about

needing to clean up their second quarter, late second quarter, especially right before the half operation. And here, Caleb Williams on third and 11, hits Kleefe Raymond for 28 yards on an off platform throw. Then he runs in that first of two rushing touchdowns. That's a good call that was at the end of the second quarter. The second quarter. That's exactly like he, Ben Johnson, you are manifesting. We see you. And like they had a score, you know, not too far before that. They finished the game. Strong. I, I apologize to Clef Raymond, by the way, because I was like, okay, you're going to try to have the highest scoring offense of all time. And Caliph Raymond is like your two slash three.

It's like, actually today, Clef Raymond, there won. Yeah. Eight catches, 84 yards. They scored this many points without a single catch from Colston Loveland. Is there a point,

Shook, just kind of looking from the outside too, that like at some point, like, Agiro Averro and this Panthers defense, like, I know it was the Bears, it's a tough week-ween opponent,

but you do want, you spent a lot of money this off season, you want to see more out of them. Yeah, and I kind of had some concerns about this as soon as they lost Nick Scorton to injury early in camp.

Like, you knew that was going to be part of it. But yeah, this is going to be disheartening for anybody who's a defensive coordinator. I mean, Agiro Evereaux has given up 59 points, I believe in week one before. He also was the coordinator

a couple years ago, as Josh Norris pointed out, of the defense that gave up the most points of all time. What is your panic level of just like how much of it was on the Panthers defense? I mean, a lot of it was on the Panthers defense. If you were wondering whether you can still run the ball on the Carolina Panthers, the answer is yes,

you absolutely can still run the ball on the Carolina Panthers. They gave up 224 rushing yards and four touchdowns just to running backs. Hala, William, Williams added another 65 yards and obviously the touchdowns. And the defense allowed a 60% success rate when trying to depend the run. And they had a 50% success rate allowed on all plays, including 552 yards of offense allowed on them.

It is absolutely insane. I don't care how elite your offense is playing. If you can't at least show up to the game, that is unacceptable for the entire. This was the place they invested in the Panthers. And really what it is, too, is Bryce Young, you mention it. Bryce Young did play a very good game. Through interception, it was late in the second quarter.

You know, there were a couple fumbles. There was a muff punt recovered by the bears. There was a Tethroa McMillan fumble, so they lost the turnover battle. But at the same time, and Bryce Young played very, very well. 361 and three touchdowns. And the touchdowns were really smart. One of them was a scramble throw. One of them he ran in himself.

Like, one was a really tough completion probability-wise for, to Jalen Coker, Cokehead shout out. You know, it is really, really tough to go up and have this type of game where there was a point

where they were going shot for shot with each other, these two teams. But like I mentioned about sometimes with the Bears run game, especially felt like last season, it became this like overwhelming like monolithic thing

that just was going to completely smother you. And the thing that really struck me was yes, it was explosive, yes, it was productive. It was smooth. Nice. So smooth for the Bears, for Caleb Williams, for Ben Johnson, for that entire group.

And for the Panthers, it was just like knife through butter. Like we'll see if the Bears defense can hold up, you know, when they, when giving up this many points, 37 points, like isn't that big of an issue. But a lot of the concerns for the Bears in the preseason injury-wise, like Adunzei has a big long catch. they, Manungai missed most of camp. He has a monster game. DeAndre Swift, they signed to a really cool contract extension. I've been amazed to see DeAndre Swift's development into a guy that I don't think his coach is trusted in Detroit.

I think us as analysts didn't really love watching him. Like it was very hit or miss. And he's been a different runner and they gave him a really nice contract this weekend before this game. And then he shows up with 18, you know, rushes, 124 yards in three touchdowns. And then Burden, who is out for most of the camp, like he, he's out there making a ton of plays. Like I mentioned, they didn't get anything from Loveland.

Let's actually go to the break. And let's go to the break on a highlight for our first break on the first week one game of the year. This was just an incredible throw and catch by Caleb Williams, an early firing shot in the MVP race. Okay, that's a little too much for that. We'll be back. in just a minute after the break. Now you set up in the high red area if you're Chicago with three tight ends.

Another fake to Monong guy. William sets up, throws a new double coverage. It is cold combat holding on for the touchdown. What do you mean? Post and Loveland didn't do anything. He's past pro. Caleb Williams to the former Irish baseball player. The music you love.

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I think continued into week one. He had the Commanders Eagles matchup, a game that for a while didn't think was going to be great, but once again got super weird in the fourth quarter. Let's go to Philly. Hertz, third down over the middle. There's Dallas got her. Good move. Dallas Goddard on his horse.

Hit in. Touchdown. That's the second touchdown to Goddard, where the commanders just have not been ready for. They're up there disguised into the line of scrimmage, and they don't get back there to play their responsibility. Back up to an eight-point game, another two-tustown game from Dallas Goddard. How about my goat actually getting trenching analysis into the highlights? Trenching.

Probably the last time, because we'll have the radio guys back, but that was good. Durante Jones is the new coordinator for the commanders. For the most part, he sent a lot of stuff that gave the Eagles a lot of problems. It was a very cool game, I believe, to go back and watch on NFL Plus with the All-22. There was a lot going on schematically on both sides. But that was a fitting way for the Eagles offense, at least to do their part in the fourth quarter. Because even though it was uneven, there were a lot of three-and-outs. There were a lot of punts by the Eagles.

there were a lot of big plays, and it was a clean game from Jalen Hertz. This is the type of winning performance. I think you want out of Jalen Hertz where he ran the ball really well. He made plays on his own. He didn't make any mistakes. And when the commanders gave him an opportunity like there, Jordan, you know, he took advantage of it. Yeah, and they are going to throw so much stuff at you pre-snap. And it sort of bit them there.

I almost wonder if there was an adjustment or something where the Eagles and Sean Manion and the coaches said, hey, we ought to get off the ball faster because they are going to take a little bit of a second here early in this new defensive install to try to get all of these players into their correct assignments and the communication is notorious all along this entire defensive system that Brian Flores is the architect of. So to me, I wonder if that was a little bit of maybe an advantageous opportunity that they tried to take advantage of there. They were playing fast at times and it was really telling, like there's a lot of telling stats in this game. the Eagles only had 10 first downs, which is crazy. Like, their running game was pretty bad. But they still ended up with 318 yards, still ended up with 24 points. So when they hit it, they hit big plays.

Like, their first touchdown of the year was like fourverts with like a couple. Like, it was like a beautiful, like very non-Eagles type of play in a condensed formation. Like, they did a lot of cool things. And yet their defense seemed to get tired late in the game. The commanders drive. down at the end of the game and the commander score two touchdowns in the fourth quarter to make the

Philly crowd really sweat and the game ends up coming down to a two point conversion by the commanders. Let's listen to where it went wrong for Jaden Daniels. A little shuttle pass inside bait. He is stuffed.

Not going to get there. Morrow Jomo with the big play and the Eagles make the stand they needed. You are not the Chiefs. Yeah, what did you think about that call? That's a tough call, but you're getting a little creative. You're thinking maybe you're going to catch them off guard in a situation like that

where you absolutely need the two-point conversion, maybe a little bit of desperation. But also the fact that you got there, you feel like, all right, we're playing fast and loose. Let's just dial it up and see if we catch them off guard. Look, I got to give the commander's credit for hanging in this game. This is a team that a lot of us didn't have high opinions of going into this week. They made it tough on the Eagles who, yeah, we thought their offense would be better. But as we said last week, Greg, what was the one thing we could count on in this game? Out of all four units, it was the Eagles defense.

It was the Eagles defense for three quarters. And then I really do believe the weather was a factor. And just like the not playing in the preseason was a factor. But these players all aghast in the fourth quarter. And the commanders and Jane Daniels started making plays. There was a third and 14. And he just hadn't hit anything all game. He ends up with decent numbers.

But it was really ugly through about three quarters. Jihad Campbell kind of gets. It's caught, like, taking the cheese and just his eyes were in the wrong place. And Daniels hits a third and 14. I believe that was to Antonio Williams for a big play that got them unlocked. Stefan Diggs ends up scoring a touchdown later in that drive. And then he has another drive, which set up that two-point conversion, where ultimately he was making a lot of good decision.

So I know they lost, but I do feel like the way this ended, he'll at least feel a lot better. David Blow will feel better that they fought back a little bit late in this game. Yeah, and the problem with this two-point conversion, I've got my screen grab again, as soon as he sort of pitches the ball here, is that Moro Jomo is able to detach from Nick Aligretti, the guard so quickly when he's seeing the play come into the tunnel, essentially. And Jaden Daniels is not able to hold the ball, pull, and roll to the left side, which had the less defenders on that side or fewer defenders on that side. because Jay Lakes Hunt is sitting right there.

So it's like, yes, they were gasped, in that short area, the Eagles, I'm going to count on them 10, like nine times, nine and a half, nine and three quarters times out of 10 to be able to read and react to those plays in the short area. They're just more experienced in this group is. And what is that a product of? continuity and familiarity within McFangio's defense. And you would think, all right, well, maybe Dan Quinn might get the same thing

from his defense. Most of the defense is rebuilt from what they had last year. And you had an example of Jahad Campbell, maybe taking the cheese a little bit. on that touchdown of Dallas Goddard, that's Sunny Stiles taking a little bit of the cheese as well. Just not being in the right position

at the right time. Glad you mentioned Sunny Stiles. Sunny Stiles, other than that play, was absolutely incredible in this game. It was the most impressive rookie defensive player. I got to watch on Sunday.

I don't know if you guys had any that stood out like that. He had one play where he absolutely truck stick Sequin Barkley and then got the sack after that. He had another couple plays that he really disrupted

two tackles for long. lost total, but also I think was active at times in past defense. And he was. And Jaden Daniels, he was not seeing the field well. And I think on that last play, he says it's an option to throw to Rashad White. And he said his pre-snap read, like how the Eagles were playing it, took him off, Rashad White. If you do look at the dots in the play, like he had Rashad White pretty open there.

Yeah, but you know what? I don't like this whole Zabruder film right down because even in the Detroit game. It's just called watching the tape. There's no guarantee. that they still get across the goal line in that scenario. That's fair. They also had some time left on the clock. So even if they had hit that two point conversion, the way

that the Eagles defense, our offense was playing, I wouldn't have been surprised if they went down the field. Duttevi and Wicks had a big 64-yard catch in this game early. They need to get the Sean Mannion run game going, though, because Sequin Barkley was getting hit in the backfield

a ton. The final stats look okay that he ends up with a 42-yard gain. And then 15 for 83. But for the most part, until that last drive where they did actually get it going, the running game was hit in the backfield like over and over and over again. I think just typically with this system, if it is what I think it is, and we don't quite know exactly what it knows it will be, because it's week one. Self-aware. It is self-aware. But I think by like week six we'll know whether this is going to work or not, honestly.

And I would imagine because of the players that they have available for this particular run game, that it would. But it just takes some time for it to actually function the way that we... So I'm patient with this, eking out. With all these new coordinators. I agree. It's a bigger win for Philadelphia than it is a bad loss by any means, but for Washington. They just needed to escape and they needed to get Kerry McLaurin a little more involved.

Didn't have a catch until late in this game. Chigo Concoe went down with an injury late in this game, so that's something to watch as well. Let's move on. That was close to being the biggest upset to that point in the game. But no, the biggest upset actually went down right across the way here in SoFi. It's the Jordan Roderig, Arizona Cardinals getting it done. They've had red zone trips today, but only got one touchdown. Second down goal to the end zone.

Push it. Caught touchdown! It's McBride. And he beat Turwin-Chains. Ooh, how about Jacoby? How about Tray McBride? You want to put me in the top 15 players in the entire NFL? Maybe I should be even higher.

Nine catches, 95 yards. Like, he's on pace to break another tight-end reception record. At one point, argued for his own first down. Like, they moved the chains for him. It was incredible. I guess the, The crazy part is not just that the Cardinals won this game, Jordan. It's that if you just change the uniform forms,

like there didn't seem to be anything fluky about it. They just seemed like the better team in every way from start to finish. Well, I knew it was the Arizona Cardinals because they still couldn't finish with touchdowns every time they got into the rhythm. You're saying they're charging a little bit there? But this was a crazy game, you guys. I had so much fun actually watching this game

because in parts I just really could not believe. what was happening. That Tray McBride touchdown was set up by a blocked punt by former Los Angeles Chargers Semi Fahoko. And then Justin Herbert threw an interception on a deep pass. It was Andrew Wingard of the Cardinals.

Then this sequence happened. The Chargers were down 23 to 14 and their offense takes over. They were not moving the ball well outside their opening scripted drive. Then they get a penalty, a penalty, a penalty, a pass breakup. Then they have to burn a time out to avoid

a delay of game penalty, pass for 12 yards on 3rd and 30. They're short on a pass on 4th and 18, a penalty, and then a turnover on downs. What most surprised me about this, because I have thought that the Cardinals skill players and the Cardinals offense was going to be quite exciting to watch this year. I've been honking about it all off season. What I was extremely surprised about was the defense. Because again, after that opening scripted drive where it felt like the chargers were using two fields to create that amount of space that they had.

They had plays like they had a goal line stand that was a field goal. They forced a fumble that they turned into a field goal on the other side. Again, they couldn't get into the end zone a ton. They got into the backfield on early downs. They forced the punt that led to the block. Like the second that they sort of settled in and started getting like weird again with what they run on defense, they were a handful for this Chargers team. Yeah.

Like where do you think it went most wrong for Herbert? He throws that, that late interoper. interception. And yeah, if you're checking us out on YouTube, we have all these highlights. And he didn't look at least pressure rate wise and like QB hits sacks. Like it didn't seem like it was necessarily the offensive line. Like where do you think it went wrong for him in the offense? Well, it really went wrong for him in the offense with what actually the Cardinals' offense did on the other side. Because what they did was they played a lot of ball control. The time of possession ended up being 37 minutes and 31 seconds to 22 minutes and 20. They played Harbaugh!

ball. They literally played Harba ball, except they passed it the crap down the field. Like, they weren't, it was, they, they weren't a run heavy team. They were just pass, pass, pass, and aggressive and pushing the ball. And they just kept building these really, really long drives. The Chargers only ran 51 offensive plays. They were two of eight on third down. That combination is going to sink any team in the NFL. I don't care who you are or how exciting your new offensive. Yeah, that's an exact formula for loss. Like, if you just look at it based on just strictly the numbers. You're like, oh, two turnovers, lost time of possession by 15 minutes. Yeah, this is how you lose games, especially in the fourth quarter like that. Not to mention the highlight that we just

played with Justin Herbert throwing the ball interception to Andrew Wingerd, there's two guys downfield. Who are you throwing that too? Are you trusting your arm that much that you can make that play when you got two defenders back there? No, it's not necessarily uncharacteristic of this team. It's just as if because of what happened last year, and it is week one, that maybe they're still trying to figure out exactly who they want to be. Well, it felt like the Cardinals, the way that they controlled the ball and were, they did have an identity and they were aggressive. It felt like it crunched the chargers into pressing so early in this game.

Like with their play calling, you mean? Just with just how they felt. They just felt like they couldn't execute. There was sloppiness on defense. It was almost stunning, I think, to see Jacoby Brissette push the ball as aggressively down the field. as he did to all these skill players, the energy was very much on the Cardinals side.

Like, they're talking at each other between the plays. Like, it was, it was crazy. But how do you apply that pressure? You take an early lead. You take a lead at the halftime. You build on that lead. You make it a nine point lead on the road, home opener.

Fans suddenly, they came in there thinking, we're playing the Cardinals. This should be an easy win. Now everybody's tense. That starts to filter down to the sideline. They're playing tense as well. And the other thing is a quiet sofa. I would get the cart because Cardinals don't really travel.

So it's a rare game where the, the opposing team's not really there. And it's just like a mausoleum. And you get a little bit of a bump with the new coach. First game, everybody's bought into what he's selling. How irresponsible, Jordan, are you going to get this week with the Michael Flur agenda? Not at all. Not at all.

Because it's week one and weird. They're already 25% the way there to hitting their wind total over under for the year. All I'm saying is that the skill guy, if you forget, other than a couple of things, and again, the red zone was one of them, you forget that this was the Arizona Cardinals that are only projected to win four games, watching them play football today. It is week one. It's also playing against a Chris O'Leary group where historically this system will say, okay, we don't want you to throw over the top of us.

We will allow X number of yards. We will allow. But what the Cardinals did that seemed to really frathing. what Chris O'Leary was doing was, first of all, Jacobi Brissette was like, yeah, I don't really care if you blitz me. I am going to get knocked on my back, but I will get the ball out. I mean, how many systems does he have to look good in before we just accept Jacobi Bresed's good? He's been in like 16 different systems. What was cool was, again, to-

Justice for Jacoby. To my point, he had so many answers and it was all through the air. Like, Jeremiah Love brought the juice early. He had some great burst. I think they just eventually thought, okay, we're winning through the air. And so we don't have to use so many carries on this young player who's coming back from an injury. Tyler Algier got in the game and he was good too. But it was interesting because they would do exactly the thing that this defense was almost baiting them to do, which was take big chunks out.

But it was also some tight window throws and some really tough perimeter throws. And like, Jacoby Rosset was like, I do not care if you're going to hit me. I will get the ball out. And it was just one of those formulas that really, really worked against what the defense was trying to do today. And they had confidence that you could see it. You could feel it. even through the TV screen, just the way that these players were carrying themselves

versus how confused the Chargers players and the coaches seemed, frankly. Biggest upset of the day. It's going to be the biggest panic, I think, of maybe of any team after week one. Let's not get carried away. The Chargers. Everybody called down.

Everybody called down. The guy who was supposed to light it up and you get 14 points with Mike McDaniel. It's like, yeah, we could have Greg Roman do this. Let's go to Cincinnati, where the Bengals, avoided having a panicked fan base after week one. The Wesslings were watching this game,

and overall, they approve. All right, Carissa Baker-Mayfield, under pressure. Trouble down, he goes, the ball's out. Loose ball on the turf, and it scooped up. A scoop and a score for Demetrius Knight, and the Bengals take the lead in Cincinnati. Ooh, we'll talk about omens. Baker may have had the chips,

but the Bengals were scooping. going to be tough to top that tonight. The Bengals win 33 to 27 in a game where, yeah, their defense turning the ball over is probably the key when they weren't giving up points. It's a high score in game, but for Demetrius Knight, the beleaguered,

second-year linebacker, getting a touchdown early. One of four times that they turned the Buccaneers over, Baker Mayfield, with some big mistakes. Joe Burrow and the offense did just enough. And so did the defense to hold off Tampa 33 to 27. And yes, that was Kevin Kugler on the call.

So did the defense. I mean, come on. The offseason narrative. The Bengals defense is rebuilt. They're giving Joe Burrow problems. They're going to be great this year. And then they deliver, you want to know how the first four. I mean, they gave up 27 points.

I don't care. You don't know how the first four possessions ended for the Buccaneers. Field goal because the drive stalls. Fumble, fumble. What's that cause by? the Bengals defense. What was the lead for the Bengals after that? 21 to 3. They are the reason that the Bengals were able to win this game. Yes, they finish closer than you'd like for comfort's sake. But look,

you can buy it. I know it's only one week, but I'm buying into the narrative now because what I saw from this unit was a team that played with aggression and confidence and intent and an understanding of what they were supposed to do, which is what the Bengals have not been defensively for so long and it leads them to it. It's just, it's great that they are making plays. Like that, that's what it's always. about. They didn't force a punt. There was only eight drives in this game, so they either gave up a touchdown, or

they gave up a score, or they forced the turnover, which is a tough way to live in the NFL long term, but were there things before we get to the Bengals offense, like on a snap to snap basis or like any players that stood out to you shook like from the defensive

Oh, from the Bengals defense? Well, the guys they went out and got, right? Yeah, I mean, Boy, Amafé had a big play in this. Miles Murphy was part of that sack that forced that fumble. Barrett Carter had eight tackled he led them in tackles and half of a sack. He split that one with Miles Murphy. Dax Hill, we know about him already, but Demetrius Knight is up there in the stats as well. It was a group that played cohesively,

and it's just such a departure from what they've been in recent years. And I know, again, it's only one week, but a lot of storylines in the offseason, we get to the regular season and they don't come true. This one came true for the season. For the first time, maybe in the Zach Taylor era, it was a Bengals team that actually started as if they knew what they were supposed to do and didn't get caught in some crazy, weird, game with a crazy ending.

They just went out there. And because their defense got them so many opportunities earlier, they were able to finish this one off and have a win to be really proud of. What I really liked about this, like looking at the stat sheet from them at the end, is what I really disliked about the way the Panthers lost for the Panthers. Because they went out and invested in a position group that I don't want to say they no-showed, but they really got run all over and passed all over all day. The Bengals, the guys that they went out and invested in Dexter Lawrence,

boy Amafi, Brian Cook. They were disruptive all game. And so for me, I'm like, yes, this is an example of when your front office is aggressive. And then everything else actually shows up and does its part on the other side. We've been saying all offseason, this front office is sending the signal out there. Go do your job now. We're going to finally go out and take these big swings and invest in these players. And they did.

And it worked out for them today. And sometimes it was maybe, you know, speaking of chips with Baker, maybe having a little too much dip. On his chip, there was the play. I think he was scrambling. They were down early. What was it? 14 to 3.

And he's trying to run it in for the end zone. He picks up a first down. You're like, great, Baker. And then he fumbles the ball. And that ends the drive. So Baker giveth and Baker takeeth away. Before we get to the kind of the Bengals offense, what did you think about what Tampa showed offensively?

You know, I think they have a lot to be proud of outside of the turnovers. Look, you live by the Baker. You die by the Baker. This is one of those games in which you died more than you lived. But I think they should feel largely confident in what they had so far. You know, running game-wise, I like what Bucky Irving did. I like Kenny Gamewell, small sample size, but I like his fit in this offense. And, you know, the passing game, I think has a little bit of room to improve.

It didn't feel like they really got Godwin involved that much. Ted Hurst gets three catches late all like in succession, but otherwise wasn't involved. KDoughton had a drop early that they need to clean that stuff up. But it could have been a lot worse, I think. So they should feel fine. Again, six point loss, not a huge deal, but you got to clean up the turnover. How did you think Burrow looked with this, you know, quote unquote, new offense? He looked comfortable.

This whole idea of, oh, he's got to spend more time under center. What's he going to do? How's he going to handle it? He was fine. He did, too. I saw a number, I think, of the first 22 snaps. It was almost split evenly under center versus shotgun. I don't know if that kept up throughout the game.

It's going to, but even that, like having any. stretch where it's close to 50-50 is pretty dramatic for this for this team. So you thought it was different. Because it is surprising to see a game where like Mike Gassicki goes for, you know, 78 yards. That was a favorite target. Yeah. Like Jamar Chase doesn't do much of anything. Like it wasn't an explosive pass. No, but in the moment in which they needed it most, they went back to their trusted guys. It's second and 10. They're looking for one more first down to put the game away. And he finds T. Higgins with a contested catch for a game of 18 that essentially seals it for them. So there's still the Bengals and they'd still know where to go in a time of need. It's just that they don't

only have to rely on that anymore, at least in this game, which is very encouraging. Let's give a shout out to Josiah Trotter. The rookie linebacker for the Bucks, brother Jeremiah, who is on the Eagles right now, had an outrageous game, a pick six as a rookie off Joe Freaking Burrow to turn the game around and really give his team a chance to win. But that's not it. Eleven tackles, a sack. I guess. that interception counts as his past defense and two tackles for loss. I mean, that is an absolutely ridiculous first game for them. Did anyone else stand out like that for you? I mean, largely for this defense, it's a lot of usual suspects. I think I would go back to the Bengals defense and give

a hat tip to Jonathan Allen, who made a nice impact as well. But I mean, Trotter was the story of the day for this group, just with what you listed. Historical context, he did something special too as well with that. His one sack and one interception return for a touchdown is the first time since at least 1982 in which a player recorded a sack and a pick six in their NFL debut. And he joined Paul Tripoli as one of only two Tampa Bay Buccaneers players with a pick six in their NFL debut. Name and some dude. Wait, so like he's the first one. I was like, of course he's the first one. That would

be outrageous if anyone had done that. Well, they only started tracking sacks in 1982. It's like, yeah. Either way, that is that is outrageous performance by him. Yeah, Baker, like the box score looks pretty good, but he lost three fumbles, and that will get you beat. Just got to rein himself in most weeks. Yeah, I mean, we're on what, year eight of that, something like that. Let's go to a man who doesn't have to rein himself in, just needs to stay healthy, and he's going to be pushing for that MVP award.

Once again, it's Lomar Jacks. Lamar finds eight Flowers with tons of room to run. Flowers turns it into another game. Here, Zay is gone. Touchdown! 54 yards and Flowers is flying in Indy. You know what helps you win awards? When you have cool formations like Zay Flowers coming out on a choice route from the backfield,

and you only have to throw the ball about 12 yards. And Zay Flowers is weaving through the defense, like, I don't know, like Prime Michael Vick or something. That was incredible. Zay Flowers had a career high. in receiving yards, and he left the game for good in the second quarter. Who said he didn't deserve to get paid? Right.

Well, I don't know. The haters could say, well, he did leave with a hamstring injury. After 150? Yeah, he had a hamstring injury throughout camp. Yeah, he gets 150 yards. And they were injured at wide receiving. Jacoby Lane hurts his wrist and leaves this game. And it doesn't matter.

The Baltimore Ravens put up a 40 burger on the Colts, 41 to 23, just outrageous numbers for Lamar. who throws for over 300 yards for only the 10th time in his career. That's kind of surprising. Despite throwing the ball only 25 times. So it was a bunch of big plays. He ran the ball fantastically, including a rushing touchdown, 40 yards on the ground. But the thing I like most about this game was that they took a three score lead in the fourth quarter and then they just like held it.

Like John Harbaugh could never. At least when he was the Ravens Good. They simply kept a lead. They just kept it. And it was just a totally normal fourth quarter where both teams scored. and it stayed about the same. You mean to tell me that Ravens fans maybe have a reason to let go of their trust issues?

You can do that? Declan Doyle. Declan Doyle is the new offensive coordinator. He is going to get hired about week five. Let's not really allowed, but the interviews will start happening because everything you could hope for, Jordan, it was better.

And I think Lamar is going to get all the attention in this game. Derek Henry looked awesome and the running game looked awesome. Well, I want you to tell me about it because, Greg, I sit a cube. desk in front of you. And I just kept hearing you make these noises when Derek Henry would do something insane, 144 rushing yards, three touchdown, six yards per carry on 24 carries. Like, between him and Zay Flowers, it's almost 300 scrimmage yards just from two players. Right. And again, Flowers left in the second quarter. He had a chance to, in theory, break the all time receiving

record in this game. I mean, he was on pace. And they're going to need him to get healthy because it's just a thin group. Derek Henry, I made one of those noises. It was actually on... Here's what it was. The screen pass that he took 19 yards where I'd have to go

like study this. If they want to do like an inside-the-play where they fake one play, they fake another way, and they bring him out the backside. And it was just like, at that point in the game, Doyle and the Ravens' offense was in their bag.

But the reason, I think they held the 18-point lead so easily was once they got to the bread and butter late, they just could run the ball very conventionally. And they did not miss Tyler Linderbaum. Like the Raiders very happy to have Tyler Linderbom, but the Ravens did not miss Tyler Linderbom.

And yeah, it was a lot. It was impressive. One of my things that I was hoping for was a very respectable game between the two, like, you know, I guess, like icons that they're still going of the run game. And that is Derek Henry. And also on the other side, Jonathan Taylor, who did add two touch. two touchdowns and was relatively productive, I guess, for the Colts.

I would challenge anyone throughout the course of the season. If you're looking for an NFL plus game, like, this is a great game. Oh, yeah. It's not close at the end, but there was just so much cool stuff. I don't know if we'll see a better game played by two running backs all year. I kept, like, as good as Derek Henry was, I think Jonathan Taylor was better in this game. He looked so explosive. He made so many incredible cuts.

Like, it was as good as I've seen Jonathan Taylor. look. And I know like he didn't have the 80-yard touchdown like he normally has and he ends up with 120-something yards total. But like he in the running game look good. Their offensive line was more of an issue pass protecting for Daniel Jones, who you didn't see him running much. There was one or two times he moved and it was okay. I think it was more that he was playing a Jesse Minter defense. And they, after the first drive where the Colts went right down the field and looked explosive, if he found Josh Downs a couple of times on that drive. There were just no big plays to be had.

They didn't play that badly, I didn't think. Offensively, they just couldn't keep up with this Ravens attack and they couldn't hit big plays. That's what Jesse Minter in this defense did a good job. It was a classic case of getting off of your script because the game dictates that. It requires you to try to make up for a deficit that's been created by some mistakes.

You had an interception for Jones, and then you also had a Taylor fumble that was kind of just a weird fumble that the Ravens recover. And suddenly they're down 22. points and they're trying to scramble and claw their way back so they get completely out of their comfort zone. And so things get weird, you know, when it comes to your script offensively. But overall, yeah, I agree. I mean, Jones, he looked fine. For somebody coming back from injury,

he looked fine. So did Alec Pierce, by the way, coming back from injury. They didn't give him a full complement of snaps, but he was on some in cuts that they don't typically have him do. And I thought he looked good. They just, they probably are a one receiver short. They're not ready yet to keep up in a shootout like this. And I think it was because the Ravens defense has more dynamism this year than they did a year ago. The best pass pressure in this game was Tavarius Robinson. Yep. Of the Ravens who had a sack, a number of hurries. Trey Hendrickson also had, I think, five or six hurries didn't show up in the box score like with a sack or a quarterback hit. But he was around the quarterback. He made Daniel Jones step up according to next gen. Yeah. I don't know who to trust

these days. Pressure rate over 50% for them as well. And you don't what it knows most about this Ravens defense that was supposed to impressive. No, I know. I don't know who to trust like the next gen. Because I love next gen. Proximity. They're like very loose with the They're like GPS. They're like GPS. Right. And then PFF, they had five

pressures for Hendrickson. That felt that felt more right to me. Like it's like they actually made an impact on the play. I don't know. Yeah. But the one thing that I think was most impressive to me about this Ravens defense more than anything is how many times they were contesting attempts on catches. It passes third down, pass breakup, pass break up.

It just felt like every time I got to the next play, pass breakup. Humphrey, great game. Marlon Humphrey, who got banged up late but came back in. He had a forced fumble, like a classic force fumble on Jonathan Taylor, where he ended up ripping it away. Malachi Stark's easily the best game of his career. Jonathan, rather Jesse Minter, at the very end of the game when they needed to finally get a stop, like sent the entire house.

He had been showing so much pressure, but not always sending it. And he showed it. And then at the end, he sends it. And it was a game ceiling sack by Malachi Stark. Like a lot of different players, Kyle Hamilton, had good games for them. And on the flip side, I am going to be curious to see how this game ages for the Ravens. Because I'm a little worried that a lot of offenses are going to score a lot of points on the Colts, based on what I said. Yeah, yeah.

We'll see. That's a fair concern. It's just one game. But Charvarius Ward, not great effort on a couple of plays, looked quite slow on a couple of plays. It's like, and Justin Wally was getting absolutely cooked by Zayflower. Like the secondary Halsey is another player there. It's like, yeah, you have Soss Gardner. Just stay away from him.

They did. They put Zay Flowers inside and they moved it all, him all around, so they avoided Soss Gardner. I have one real. You just can't play like that anymore today. No, you can't. You can't because teams are going to find ways to beat you. I have one real question left for you, though, Greg. Of the catch and run touchdowns we've seen this week, Jackson Smith and Jigbo, Zay Flowers, which one was better?

Oh, Zay Flores. That's one of the, that's got to be one of the best catch and runs of the year. Like that was cool how, how he wove in and out of three or four. And you're not just saying this because the other one was against your New England page? I'm not. I mean, that was just like he caught it and he ran. Dayflowers was epic. Sure.

It was no. Do you know, it's the way. Just downplay it. If I'm going to argue something, I'm going to argue it. Just caught and ran. Anybody could do that. Speaking of like weaving in and out, like we got to go to the next. game. We can't even show you the Lamar Jackson,

Houdini Scramble before, because I want to get to this next game. But I will say that I knew like it was a different Lamar Jackson when early in the game he had a rushing touchdown. And then it's third and 16 and two Colts defenders are all over him, including DeForest Buckner. And he ducks under both of them. They like crash into each other. He breaks a tackle. And he runs for a 16-yard first down, and that leads directly to points. We're not going to another game until we take a break. Let's put a pin in it, and we're going to come back with the Ravens Division rival.

A good day at the top of the AFC North. Not the NFC South. And not the bottom of the AFC. Good, get there, too. Big penalty backs up Baltimore with the play clock at three. Jackson, feeling the pressure. and he stays on his feet. Lamar now is going to take off.

Jackson at the 30 to the outside, and he comes close to a first down. What a play by Lamar Jackson. 17-yard run, and they are moving the chains. The Hard Rock Bet Casino app is here, Ontario. It's safe, secure, and crystal clear with fast payouts and 24-7 local support. You can play over 3,000 games right here,

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for everything you need to know from around the league. Get new episodes of the NFL Report Monday through Friday all season long. Listen to the NFL Report podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When we last left off, NFL Daily's week one recap, We heard the Baltimore Ravens taking care of business on the road. The Pittsburgh Steelers at home in a game they learned that they were going to be facing Cooper Rush over the weekend. Not only Cooper Rush, but Cooper Rush with back spasms.

They better take care of business. Second and ten out of the timeout. It's picked off and it's Watt. He's all over the place. T.J. Wound. It's a touchdown. And it's T.J. Watt at his best. It's a whiplash for me.

I'm just not used to hearing Joe Davis on football. I'm used to it on, you know, Miggie Rojas, home runs for the Dodgers. No, that was T.J. Watt. That was a great defensive performance by the Steelers. They get out of Dodge with a 20 to 13 victory over the Falcons. Shook, are you more impressed by Watt and the defensive performance? Or, like, mildly disappointed that this game was so close until the last few minutes? You know, I think both things can be true.

Okay. First off, who does T.J. Watt think he is. Aiden Hutchinson, just kidding. This is a guy who has done this plenty in his career. And it was fitting for him to do this and kind of finally push the Steelers further enough ahead that they wouldn't have to worry about potentially losing this game to Cooper Rush and the Falcons. Because for a long stretch in this game, it was just to grind it out. How are we going to get to the end here?

Are the Falcons ever going to mount a serious push because they were so limited offensively? But the Steelers defense, what was the number one thing that jumped out to? me, their pass rush. Alex Highsmith, Herbig, Watt, this whole group, just looking really strong. And I think that's the backbone of their team. Because the offense certainly doesn't bring that much

to the table. Aaron Rogers tried plenty to get in touch with D.K. Metcalf. 10 targets, four receptions. The conspiracy bros, not really producing that much, but he didn't have a vintage moment in which he threw a touchdown pass to Pat Fryer in the back of the end zone. A little off platform, little flick of the wrist through traffic for a

touchdown that felt like vintage Rogers. Otherwise, it's more of the same, which is potential might get there, might get there, don't finish the drive, but luckily they were playing Cooper Rush and the Falcon. Do you think it was more on Metcalf or more on Rogers? I did see the deep shot where I thought Metcalf should have made that game. I would say it's probably

lean more toward on Metcalf. He had one where he was interfered with and they didn't call it and they should have. And there's another one where he just didn't catch the football. I think it's something that they have to continue to work on. I wouldn't put that much on Rogers. And on the Falcon's side, you can't run your whole offense through Bejohn Robinson when Cooper rush is your quarterback because

the Steelers are going to know that. They did it early. I mean, you kind of can. He had 173 yards from scrimmings. And they have 13 points. Yeah. Eight catches, 90 yards. Yeah, in a touchdown and then ran the ball well, two.

But just. No, no. 173 scrimmage from Bejohn Robinson of 238 total. Wow. The whole offense. Just saying. I see you, JSN. He's saying, and I will raise you like how much of the offense I am.

That is outrageous. it's kind of tough because did you think the Falcons defense showed something that you could be excited about? Because Aaron Rogers only averaged and I don't know if there's more on Rogers or more on the defense a little over five yards per attempt

which we used to call back in the around the NFL days the Gabbard zone between five and six yards per attempt is the gabbard. Actually, I looked at not this is not the question that you I'm supposed to be answering but I looked at Cooper Rush's air yards per attempt early in the game and the vast majority

were behind the line of script. Which kind of told you what this game went. But yeah, I thought their defense did well. I really do. The success rate for the Steelers overall was 33.3%. A lot of that credit is to the Falcons defense, which kept them in this game. They forced turnovers, oh, a turnover.

And it was a low-scoring, kind of an ugly war of attrition game that ultimately they just didn't have enough offense to win. How, yeah, I wonder how this Joey Porter Jr. situation is playing there. Look, I don't really believe in, like, quote-unquote, distractions. affecting the rest of the team. But I do think it is telling that we get a report before week one that Joey Porter Jr. could still be traded

and they list them as a co-starter. Interesting. You were on the tiny table. You could be dancing on the tiny table forever. You predicted he would get traded to the Cowboys. I think you said this week. I just said they should do it. They should do it.

They should do it. And then they rule them out for this game. Just a weird situation. And reporters kind of can't spot him for a long time before he finally appears in the sideline. And the back injury, you know? Like at this point, I kind of would be surprised if we see Joey Porter Jr. again in a Steelers uniform. Which would be a really sad ending considering his father's history with that team. But I think it's a case of player overvaluing himself as opposed to how the team.

No, because he's going to, well, yeah, having a different value. Because he's going to get his money from someone else. And so they don't particularly want to give him that contract. apparently, and they're going to. Yeah, neither team gets over 300 yards. Neither team averages more than 4.2 yards per play. This probably is not going to be first on my list of games. I mean, it would be a quick watch.

But in the end, you watch them all, so sometimes you watch the bad ones first just to knock them out. You know what wasn't like a competitive game, and yet I am very curious to watch? Your brownies. Because it included the Jacksonville Jaguars, who I believe are one of the most watch. teams in the NFL right now. Let's go to Jacksonville. Lawrence out of the gun, drops back to

pass, pressure's coming again, gets away from it, trying to run away from it, and just to the line of scrimmage, he throws back in the end zone. Caught, touchdown, Jacoby Myers. Of course. Trevor Lawrence went right up to the line. He let it fly for 32 yards. We were trying to come up with which highlight to use here, Chuck, and you were just like, well, you got to go with the last one because of LOLs. Yeah. I mean, also an awesome throw by Trevor Lawrence, but the kind of borderline cocky throw

that's like, well, I'm playing the Browns and we're up by four scores. What the heck? That was pretty sweet, though. I cackled at my desk when this happened just because it was so fitting of how the game was going. 34 to 10, the Jacksonville Jaguars get it done in a game.

Yeah, at one point they led 31 to nothing. The offense for the Browns, look to be as bad as the defense for the first three quarters of this game. I told you. I had the Jags winning this game 30 to 9. And you said I was speaking with my heart. And Browns fans told me that I wasn't giving them a shot. That's really close. They lost 34 to 10.

I was too generous for a long stretch of this game. It was 31 nothing. I mean, come on. Look, all credit due to the Jaguars, they are the superior team here. They played great football. Trevor Lawrence, the offense looked like they didn't miss a beat from where they were last year. The first touchdown pass was a beautiful catch by Parker Washington, diving into the end zone.

He threads the needle on his second touchdown pass in traffic to Cameron for a score. Cam Little gets on the board with a field goal. Brenton Strange scores. Everything was as easy as possibly could be for this Jaguar's offense. And luckily, they were playing the Browns who didn't put up much of a fight. The Jim Schwartz defensive last year is not the defense that you have this year. And your offense is even worse. That was always going to be the risk that you don't hire Jim Schwartz.

You choose Todd Munkin. I guess he's choosing to. John Watson, but you set up a scenario, like a no-win scenario, and you are basically choosing to add a way higher chance that your defense gets significantly worse with a first-time coordinator. And I know they also don't have Miles Garrett. That's a big deal, too. Well, neither do the Rams right now. Right.

We'll mention that later. But, yeah, like that the defense could take a step back while the offense doesn't really look that good. I saw everything I was ever going to need to know about this football game. from a post by my colleague, Zach Jackson, when he said, yeah, that was the same interception we saw thrown almost every single day in training camp, and here it is again. And I knew exactly who he was talking about and exactly what this was. And I am curious, I know you did suffer through this entire, although it must have been fun to watch the Jaguars. It suffered through this entire

game. You know, you're no longer in, like near in the proximity of the Browns. You kind of put some distance. Do you feel free that it just didn't happen while you were in the city? Do you feel like you can recover? a little bit? No, you know, I felt I was always free from it because I had emotionally removed myself years ago. Detached. But what's most important, I think, the lesson we can all learn is setting expectations

and how it can help you move from one day to the next. Because if you were a Browns fan that came into this game with any sort of expectations, you were lying to yourself. And if you didn't have any expectations, you cruised through this one. Because Deshawn Watson was just as bad as you would anticipate. Third throw of the game or of the season, I believe,

pick right over the middle, could see it clear as day. It was just an ugly operate. Let's see that play. The outstanding tight end fanning is on the right side of the offensive line. Watson under pressure Chifted. He closed to his left. Intercepted. At the 20-yard line right out of the gates and the Jaguars will get the football.

The Sean Watson was leading a comfortable drive but Olua Kidd was able to come in and snuff that one out. That is what you call a bad omen for that to happen on the first drive of the game. That's Tom McCarthy. also Foye Aluickin with the Devin Lloyd interception special. And Foye Aluiken is one of the more underrated linebackers in the league. And they kind of chose to pay him in a way over Devin Lloyd. And he's a good player.

So shout out to the Jaguars. Was that Ventrell Miller who did the cartwheel? 51? He did like a cart. It was a cartwheel pressure. It was insane. Best early celebration of the season. I do want to give the Jaguars their flowers.

Chuck, like what impressed you the most? about this team that won 13 games a year ago. And yet not many people had them winning the division coming into it this year. You know, Jordan and I have our Super Bowl champion in their same division. Doesn't mean we don't like the Jaguars too. But this is an impressive way to start their year. Speak for yourself. I have the Jags win.

Okay, there you go. Patrick Claibon had him winning the Super Bowl. Yeah. Let's go. Let's do it. Why not? I mean, it's more of the same. And more of the same good.

You know, it was getting Brian Thomas involved a little bit. It was getting Jacobi Myers a touchdown. It was obviously Parker Washington. Basial Tutin looked good as the lead back for the first time in his career. It was just, it was a complete picture. They looked very prepared. They looked like they didn't have an offseason. And so that's very encouraging for them.

But also, you know, defensively, they got after Watson all day. I think they had five total sacks. Josh Heinz Allen and Trevon Walker combined for three of those five sacks. So just a complete performance. Lawrence had five in completions, four touchdowns. That is incredible. Parker Washington goes five for 83 and one after he more or less does like miss me with that mid-tier wide receiver money. It does sound like he kind of, at least according to the reporters reporting the story, kind of was like, no, I don't, I don't want to negotiate anymore. I'm not going to take the contract offer you had, bet on, bet on yourself because worst case franchise tag sets you up for monster payday.

That may be true, but I would not put it. pass the Jaguars to actually keep these negotiations open. Keep raising the money. I think they'll come. Yeah, I think they will. And Watson's final numbers actually look decent and it's so. They lied. So misleading. It was a lot of garbage time. They lie.

It was cool to see Denzel Boston get a long touchdown late in this game and represent a little bit for that rookie class that we are excited to watch. Todd Munkin was after the game. Like if he's going to continue with Watson, he didn't exactly say yes, which is usually a bad sign. He said it was not all on Watson and that we all struggled. We could have called plays better for him.

But you never know. When you don't declare it right after the game, sometimes there is a change. I tend to think he will get one more game. You know who he's definitely getting one more game? Where there's no quarterback controversy. It's York where Gino Smith is back. The Gino Sons is on.

Got a chance inside the five-yard line. Little misdirection. End around. Sidique bangs it in for the Jets touchdown. Who hands the ball off like Gino Smith? Nobody. That's Spiro Ditas, 23 to 10. What a normal game.

What a professional performance. The Jets outgained the Titans by 172 yards. The most that they've outgained another team in week one since 2014. Probably the most they've done, period. And honestly, the final stats flatter the Titans because they had a late drive that, you know, in garbage time, that made it look a little closer than it really was. It was 359 to 130 before that. Do you know Smith wasn't spectacular in this game?

He did have a drive where he goes 31 yards to Garrett Wilson and 40 to 80 Mitchell back to back. And you're like, all right, we're cooking with gas. But for the most part, he just took what the defense given. They held onto the ball the whole time and, like, they could run the ball. The defense was dominating. They looked awesome. And I know they were playing the Titans, but they weren't going to look like this last year

playing against any team. So a really encouraging first week for the Jets. Yeah, two things really stand out to me. It's similar to the previous game we were talking about. The time of possession, it's like a 17-minute discrepancy in- 38 minutes.

And it was even more dramatic in the first half. It was crazy. Yeah, and then also, Gino Smith didn't get sacked. So I think that the two things combined together, like you're going to be able to play a little bit of possession football.

And I like this. They got a bunch of play makers involved. He was distributing to a bunch of different guys, like he said, handing the ball off really, really well, making plays. And Kenyon, Sadiq was out there, which I wasn't necessarily expecting. Sadiq had three catches for 21 yards. Their other rookie, Omar Cooper made a 30-yard catch, I think, on the first drive of the game, but then left with an injury. So that is something to watch because it doesn't sound amazing. There was some confidence after the game that it wasn't a long-term injury, but we will see. And then they also get A.D. Mitchell involved. Like, it was just a

very composed game by Gino Smith. They honestly should have won this game by a little more. I think they didn't take advantage of some of their drives in the first half. But ultimately, you can't really be too annoyed when it's 23 to 3 midway through the fourth quarter. And I know that that highlight was just a little unsatisfying for you because you wanted to be a big Gino throw for a touchdown, except that didn't exist. But that does not diminish how important he was to this team. Because like you just said, he spread the baller.

Adi Mitchell, the whole not comeback, but Ascension season, begin now. Well, I mean, we do have something what we're calling, you know, what we call in the business a V-O. So, you know, while we're talking, you can see the 40-yard throw that Gino Smith had down the field to A.D. Mitchell. It is really an audio medium here. And did you get a sense on TV copy, like what the environment was like? Because I heard that it was a very, very Jets crowd. They chanted JETS Jets, Jets, Jets, after the second Jets touchdown. And I was already thinking, if this is the bottom of Robert Sala's Titans career, that would be a good thing. Because

if it gets any lower than that, it's like pretty low for Robert Sala to be listening to the JETS, Jets, Jets, Jets, Jets Chan for Nashville, like, it's rough. And at the beginning of the fourth quarter, this thing was emptying out. All the Titans fans pretty much left the building.

Anything on Cam Ward? Everything that you heard and expected from the preseason happened. Yeah. They just didn't look. No. It wasn't as like embarrassing. It was more of the running game that was embarrassing. They didn't have a successful run until the third quarter.

Like, Cam Ward wasn't making mistakes, but it was a lot of like run run pass where it's third and eight and he checks it down for five yards on third and eight. And then you punt. Like it's just a ton of a ton of like third and longs and unsuccessful third and long. I ran through this one already and I just as I was watching, I was thinking like I don't feel like I've seen them hand the ball for a positive gain in ages. You've already watched the condensed version of this game

while prepping for this show when this wasn't your game. If he still worked for a team, he'd say, I just chopped through the tape. I just cried to the tape. I'm a real tape dog. It's really disappointing from a, I felt like Robert Salas' defense, they were overmatched, but they fought for him.

The offense had no life. The drive summaries, they start with a field goal. They fumble on their third possession. There's a billion punts in between and they end with a touchdown that doesn't matter. It was rough. The most surprising and most exciting thing I'll leave you guys with on this game.

I have a Gino Smith text thread. Of course you do. Wow. It's the Gino Hive. It's me, Stephen Ruiz and Mina Kimes. And we were like, Gino looks faster. Like, he legit looks faster this year. Like, we saw it in the preseason.

He looks faster. Went and checked the NGS. He went over 20 miles an hour on him. Oh, he is faster. Best shape of his life. So now we're using NGS. Yes. Okay.

Okay. Let's go to his former team. I think everyone is happy with how the Gino Smith for Kirk Cousins and Fernandez and Fernandez. does the trade worked out on both sides. Everything's good. Cousins will look for the end zone. No, he'll dump it high for Gentie.

Who's going to get into the end zone? And Ashton Genty has his second touchdown of the day. So we talked about the New York Jets. It's feeling so much better after one week than they did a year ago because they played a professional football game, not too flashy, but just beat a bad opponent easily. How about the Las Vegas Raiders doing the exact same? thing, similar scoreline. 27 to 13. Ashton Genti goes for 147 yards from scrimmage,

including six catches, two receiving touchdowns, over 100 yards on the ground. Our guy Malik Washington gets in the mix like Mike Washington, rather. What a great first game for our guy, Clint Kubiak. Yeah, they looked very competent. They looked like they knew where they were supposed to be and what the intent of the plays were. Now, yes, it is the dolphins, the rebuilding dolphins famously. But Ashen Genti specifically was the story of this game to me, because he just really, the confidence in this system, first of all, that he clearly has. And the way that it also is, unlike last year, designed and blocked for him specifically to be a factor not just on the ground, like you said, but also in the past game, there were wheel routes, there were Texas routes.

There was things where he's like tunneling up the middle. He's in space matching up against different types of players that are a clear mismatch, like linebackers or bigger safeties. And this to me was like, hey, you have this player who really, really runs well in space. And after the ball is in his hands, design something for him and then operate it with a line that actually looked like it was there to play football. Unlike last season, Tyler Linderbaum, I think just settling that entire group down. Yeah, we talked about a. win-win. That's a win-win to me because there was a just a like I said a competence to this group.

Creditable offense. Yes, it was. Yes, it was the dolphins. But the dolphins' defense actually, they fought, they scrapped their, you know, it's not going to be perfect. And one of their young corners got picked on for a lot of the game. Johnson got picked on by a lot of the game for a lot of the game. Chris Johnson. But at the same time, like, you know, this, it wasn't just like they rolled over. This was a Raiders defense that did out scheme and out. play through this game. Yeah, Kirk Cousins throws a couple interceptions in this game. You said win-win.

How about that Michael Mayer contract was surprised to see that over the weekend? So he's, you know, formerly the highest tight end taken in a very good tight-end class and hasn't always lived up to his billing statistically. But they give him $15 million a year over the weekend, A, because they need to pay someone, I think, in 2027, 2028. They haven't paid a person on a second contract for five years. Yeah, and teams, by the way, to your point, teams have. to spend that money for a certain

second. But I think it shows maybe they believe how he's going to fit with Brock Bauer's long term in a two tight end offense. He ends up with six catches in this game, only 32 yards. But you know, Kirk Cousin, they're not asking him to go down the field too often. On the other side, I know you want to germ Malik Willis update was not great.

Wasn't the easiest looking. Oh, dare you? Six for 39 on the ground with a nice little touchdown run was nice. Well, if you just let me continue, Greg, instead of just jumping in here. But yes, the touchdown run was awesome. He looked fantastic when he was running, and he threw a couple of nice passes, too. But one of the things that was confusing to me was they kept having him really push the ball,

like push the ball to the point where 16 of his 27 attempts were either on intermediate or deep passes. Yes, they were playing from behind for quite a bit of this game, but it wasn't that far behind to where you can't settle and either designed to have the easier outlets or to actually take them. to me, that's not something that should be happening if you're trying to play a sustainable offense is making your quarterback push the ball like that. Yeah, and look, he's a quarterback who likes to push the ball down the field hasn't actually shown the ability,

and he hasn't been in the game that much at an NFL level to take the easy ones. And like that might be something he needs to work on. And he's got Caleb Douglas and Chris Bell as his starting receivers, two third round rookies. So it's going to take some time. Yeah. It's got to be a very interesting test throughout the course of the season.

Like, how competitive are they? Does everyone just beat up on the dolphins easily? Either way, I think it's a really encouraging first game for the Raiders, just that they can do it to anyone. And especially that they could run the ball consistently. Well, they were fought that with Genti too, the thing that was noticeable about him that wasn't always last year was he was falling forward. He was turning and grinding for extra yards.

Like, it was a great thing to have Mike Washington in there to spell him every once in a while. And then setting up with those more physical runs, setting him up to work in space as well. There was an insane hit on him where he flipped sideways and over and then fell on his hip. He's out for one play.

He comes right back in. To me, he just looks like he's got this confidence that I didn't necessarily see because of how many times he was running or trying to run and he was already getting two defenders behind the line of scrimmage. You know what that sounds like to me? What?

A trope. Change in the culture. Oh, I don't know. We'll see. No, I love that for a first game for the Raiders fans. A good Raiders team makes the NFL better. Jack Best even scored a touchdown. Yeah, first score of the year.

Early score for Batch. That's the Raiders. Let's go now to our final game in the slate, Sunday night football in New Jersey. Scataboo. Walked into the end zone. Touchdown. Giants. All you got to do is follow Patrick Ricard.

to find the football on the other end of these things. There they go. Likeley's going to go right behind him. Scataboo is just going to stroll in. He had no... Look at likely. Somebody. I want to hit somebody.

Come on. Oh, it only took a couple of drives until we saw the backflip touchdown celebration that Cam Scataboo was inevitably going to do ever since the moment where he couldn't land the backflip this off season. He landed it this time and he landed a lot of successful runs. in a 28 to 20 victory by the New York Giants. Scataboo winds up with 81 yards on the ground, but it was the way that they just controlled the clock,

play after play, whether it was him, whether it was Jackson Dart picking up runs when he needed to, and then also finding Isaiah likely for a couple of touchdowns. It surprised me, shook, how much the Giants' offense dominated. this game. I know it says only 28 points, but they barely had any possessions. If not for a Tyrone Tracy fumble and then they finished the game

with the ball, like this team could have gone over 40 points. I sat down and caught myself thinking, what world are we living in in which the giants are dictating the tempo and the level of aggression to the Dallas Cowboys? We're living in the year 2026. This is the John Harbaugh giants and they dominated the Cowboys, at least when it came

to aggression and physicality. And it's really built on the style of players that they've acquired, whether it's, you know, Patrick Ricard, as Chris Collinsworth like to highlight repeatedly, especially in the second half. KM. Scadaboo, we know what he does. He likes to headbutt people and run people over and also do a backflip in pads, but can't do it out of pads. The physics of that still don't make sense. And it's Isaiah likely with two touchdown catches. The new guys, the familiar face in KM. Scadaboo, all coming together to kind of embrace this new identity and take it to the cowboys in a fashion that we haven't seen it a long time. And it was likely that had the key third down catch to seal the game when they're up by eight.

It was likely who had a pretty difficult catch to score what I thought was the most important sequence of the game, Jordan, where Dak Prescott trying to throw the ball out of bounds was a little bit of a fluky interception with under a minute to go in the first half. At that point, it's just 7-7. He doesn't get the ball out of bounds. It's an incredible play. And then Jackson Dart goes down the field for the score. And then they score coming out of the break. And suddenly you're up 14 points. Yeah.

Well, and the Cowboys only possess the ball two times in the second half, which is absolutely insane. It's just, that play, yes, it was a little fluky. It was a little bit weird, but it was indicative of a little bit of that, like, lack of crispness in a lot of different elements for the Cowboys. Like, normally, yeah, you sail that enough, you know, away from, from danger to where that's not happening to you or to the players at least out of bounds when they intercept it. But all game, whether it was missing tackles or starting really sloppy, starting with penalties, clean the penalties that the Cowboys did in the second half.

in the first half started with a bunch of penalties. And it was crazy to me to see them just get pushed back off the line of skirmage. It wasn't crazy to me to see that happen to them defensively, which the Giants did all game. But in terms of just not being able to get off the field, this was, it was crazy to watch the Giants basically do the same thing to them every single play. And, excuse me, yeah, the Giants do the same thing to them every single play. and then they brought a safety down once. The safety gets knocked back. Like, everything is not working for them.

It is insane. I'm glad you brought up the two possessions for the Cowboys in the second half. So after that interception, they only got the ball two more time. I mean, they did have like a three-played, you know, drive where they kneeled it, you know, right at the end. They got one first down at the end of the first half. But then they go touchdown, touchdown in the second half and they lose the game. It really felt like a 2025 Cowboys game because you finished the game, giving up three straight touchdowns.

And the frustrating thing, Shook, is how, like, it was the same play to the flat. So that, it felt a little bit like coaching in addition to just not physically being up for it. Yes. That drove me nuts. Yeah. That drove me so nuts sitting there watching the Giants basically run a flat route three times in a row to Singletary in the exact same spot. And I mentioned at one point they bring Jalen Thompson down. He gets, it's on third and nine.

he gets knocked the heck back. So Singletary picks up a couple of yards. It's another flat route. It is a touchdown to the left. You saw the opening touchdown with Cam Scadaboo also to the left side. It was like they could not solve this area of the field and just physically anything they did was just getting pushed backwards. They could not adjust well enough to it.

And it, you know, like hat tip to Nate Tice who pointed this out, five for five for two touchdowns on flat routes. Are you kidding me? Yeah. It's embarrassing, and yet I don't want to take away from what Dart did because on the less easy plays, I'm thinking of the scrambles in the first half that kept the drives alive. There was a couple good runs in the second half. And then the drive to end the first half, those were outroutes.

And you started to see a little bit of the vision for this offense where fields and likely have a physicality to them, likely was outstanding in this game. Maybe they're MVP. neighbors gets very active, six catches for 69 yards. He felt like he was like getting back into it. And even Mooney had like one nice sideline catch there. So between that and ball control and they had some like Greg Romney like schemed up plays that worked pretty well against these cowboys.

You were like they were putting Dart in a position to succeed. They weren't afraid to run him. He had a couple of design runs too. And so overall the offense was really exciting. And then on the defensive side, like look, they weren't incredible. The Cowboys barely had the ball. But Abdul Carter had five pressures in this game. Shook, I don't know if you saw anything out of the defense in particular.

There's a lot of penalties, which is why the Cowboys only ended up with 244 yards. But ultimately, they did enough to survive in this game. Yeah, I have some concerns about their young secondary and whether it'll hold up over the long term. But, man, that front, and especially the little NASCAR package with Tibido, Burns, and Abdul Carter. I mean, they make a difference there. They can get after guys. At the end, the cornerbacks got injured. Their starters.

Deante Banks and Greg Newsom, who were their starters? Both exited. They were out there competing. They actually, I thought, displayed like a pretty big drop-off when they went out. And then the guys you expected were going to start Colton Hood. And who was it? Drew Phillips is in there. Paulson Adibo went in at the end.

Their big free agent pickup. But either way, like, it was really the offense kind of setting up the defense. Yeah, well, this, first of all, the Cowboys offense is built to play with a lead. And the Giants, obviously, because they can rush the passer so well, they don't want you to play with a lead. They would like you to have to throw the ball on them. They would like you to not run the ball on them.

And they'd like to rush the passer. At one point, they're up 21-7 on the Cowboys. And Dak Prescott had been facing pressure on 45.5% of dropbacks per next-gen. Of those throws, he was two of nine for 15 yards with an interception. And at that point, to me, it's like, okay, not only do the Giants want to be able to play ball control, the Cowboys themselves are not built to overcome a lead like that, clearly, because last year their defense could not force takeaways and get off the field. They could not create like havoc or splash plays.

They couldn't penetrate. This year, once again, they are clearly built to not, to play with a lead essentially, to almost like reverse ball control and acquiesce yards in time if that's the way that the, the only way that the opposing offense can get down the field minus the explosives. And that only works if you already have the lead to begin with. If you can sort of like basically use the other team's weapon against you. But if you're only built to play with a lead, you're not going to be a good team. Exactly.

Exactly. You're not. That's what I'm saying. That's my point. I just, I saw more of the same except like a less productive offense. And it was so telling, I think, if you watch this game and you didn't see the numbers and you didn't even see the score, but you just watched the body language,

you could already tell exactly what was going on because Dak Prescott, never really looked comfortable throughout most of this game. And then in the fourth quarter, when the giants are just draining clock, they held time of possession for nearly 13 to the 15 minutes in the fourth quarter. There's multiple shots of Dak Prescott on the sideline, just staring, waiting for his opportunity. Middle distance. And never. Staring into the middle distance.

Exactly. Basically into nothing, into the void because he's realizing I'm not going to get the ball again and have an opportunity to go try to tie this game. Yeah, four drives over five minutes, two over eight minutes to start the second half. And then they killed the clock to end the game. which is just so satisfying for John Harbaugh in his first game. Really disappointing. And Schottenheimer wears this too.

He doesn't go for a fourth and inches early. And I can't really kill the offense. And even if you look at the numbers, it's like, yeah, Scott's numbers aren't that crazy. They had six drives. They had about 100 yards and pass interference penalties. Like, if you score 20 points on six drives, like, you know, you'd be the best offense in the history of the NFL.

This is on the Cowboys defense, like so many games over the last handful of years. Look, you said, something right before we started as we say goodbye, Jordan. The hype teams. Didn't do too well this week. Rams? Cowboys, a lot of hype. They lost.

Chargers, a lot of offseason attention with Mike McDaniel. A big L. I mean, some of the hype teams may be one out there. Hold on. Yeah. I'm not going to let you slide. Texans also lost. I know.

I know. At least they were playing a good team, shook. Who knows? That was a lot of fun. That was our week one recap. Look, a lot's happening. wise out there and we'll get people updated throughout the week, including Omar Cooper of the Jets has a high ankle sprain. Jacoby Lane of the Ravens has a broken wrist. That could take a little

while. And then Miles Garrett is going to injured reserve is going to miss a month. So that, you know, injury that he was talking about, he needs to get back and get healthy. It's going to take surgery for him to possibly get healthy. A rough Sunday for the Rams as they watch a poorly time. 60 Minutes feature play about their greatness. It was less about the timing of it going up, but just that they're showing that on CBS all day long of like, watch tonight to see how great the Rams are. And then there's clip of Sean McVe,

tough spot. But it's one week in the NFL and we know things are going to turn around fast. We're already off and flying. I'm giving us a W for week one. Let's get out of here. We are going to be here Monday night. Every Monday night, Jordan Rodriguez and I will be. live on YouTube. Join us when we go and we talk about the final game of the week. The Chiefs,

the Broncos, accounts for one and a half wins for whoever wins it. And then we'll be back hitting all the injuries and all the fun stuff during the week with Colleen. Previews. We're off and running. I'm Brett Coleman. And I'm Trevor Sycamma. If you love football and want to understand what's really happening on the field, check out our show, NFL Pro. Every week, we break down the biggest plays, trends, and matchups using exclusive next-gen stats insights and NFL. content you will not find anywhere else. Whether you're new to football, a fantasy football fanag, or a diehard fan. NFL Pro will help you analyze the game like a pro.

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