NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Biggest Surprises of the NFL Season with Ollie Connolly

Episode Date: October 4, 2025

Gregg Rosenthal is joined by Ollie Connolly of The Read-Optional in London to share what teams and trends have surprised them so far this NFL season. They discuss Drake Maye and the Patriots passing game (1:39), troubling Packers trends (12:00) and Sam Darnold excelling in Seattle (20:00).NFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Hey, everybody. Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the 6th, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies to evaluating team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. We study the tape, talk to decision makers, and give you a perspective you won't find anywhere else.

It's everything you need to understand the why behind what happens on Sunday. Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Sticks podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Marcus Grant. And I'm Michael Florio, and together we host the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast. Ready to dominate your fantasy league this season? Then you need the NFL Fantasy Football Podcast, your ultimate source for player news, draft tips, and winning strategies. Whether you're a rookie manager or a fantasy vet. We've got the insight to help you crush your opponents.

Listen to the NFL Fantasy Football podcast on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. Welcome to NFL Daily, where we're still. Still getting over, Nick Benito sacking us earlier this week. I am Greg Rosenthal. I am here in the TalkSport Studios talking to one of my favorite analysts in the game. Yes, it's an extra show.

We're here in London. I wanted to have Ali on more than once. Ali Connolly, welcome. And I love the fact that you are no longer really on Twitter or any social media. So you have no idea what I'm talking about when it comes to Nick Benito. I only know through listening to this show, getting out of the takers fit is fun. You getting burned by the quickest player off the ball in the NFL is one of the highlights

of my season. Totally burned. And the sad thing is I've talked them up. Okay, I've got to get over it. But people just keep bringing it up. So Ollie Connolly runs one of the best substacks and podcasts in the game, the read optional. Go subscribe. It is the best, most in-depth, if you're really into football, podcast out there with

John Ledyard and Ali also writes these great pieces as part of the substack. So we're going to go over just four weeks in, back and forth, just some surprises. And we only have a little bit of time here. So let's just get going with it. I'll have you start. Number one surprise to me is the efficiency of the Patriots passing game. I add high expectations that the McDaniels may punish it, but this has exceeded my expectations. How excited are you feeling?

Are you just sucking up to me, knowing I'm a Patriots fan going with this as your first thing? No, it's kind of a pat on the bag because I did mean as part in the offseason. I did the quarterback draft where you picked for the next three years. And I think I took Drake May like fourth overall. I was kind of having an out-of-body experience. I think I took him forth. So I'm trying to rev my own, you know, crank the juice up. I do think Josh McDaniels has done a really good job watching them every week.

That just looks like, oh yeah, this looks like a highly schemed offense that knows how to get receivers open what have you seen that he's done to help Drake May specifically the thing that really stands out is how expansive it is how sophisticated it is how much new stuff there is every week

and I thought when McDaniels got there it's really this fusion of here's all the glorious stuff when we're in the passing game it's all the Brady goodness and then in the run game I'm going to take all the cam stuff I ran from 2020 and it's the first time in my career

as a coach I've been able to fuse those two ideas together but the volume and the amount of different packages every week, that's not something I kind of associated with Drake May come into the season. I thought maybe he would be a little bit overwhelmed by all the bradiness of the passing game and it would take maybe two years of the partnership to really tap into everything.

So the amount they put on his plate and how successful and how effortless a lot of it looks for me. Guys are wide open, to be fair, but the effortless of him running the whole operation stands out to me. He's so young and the Drake May believers in the draft of which you were one. Nate Tice was certainly one. I always thought he should have gotten more credit for how he read the field, like how smart he was.

How is that showing up? Because there are moments still, like the turnovers as well as he played in the Pittsburgh game other than the turnovers. There are plays where he fritzes out a little bit. What have you like seen in terms of him having that? that balance of, like, being that incredible athlete and just doing kind of what McDaniels wants him to do. I think you're just going to have to live with that being two or so boneheaded plays a game, but that's down from the five to four that was in good weeks last season.

And further long than I thought he would be, everything is just so fast with him, so quick. The decision making, knowing where to go with the ball, his eyes are never in the wrong place. However, he makes a good decision once he gets there, it's kind of a different conversation, but he knows immediately where to attack and does it really quickly and that's just not what was happening last season I mean it was a mess anyway all through last season behind the scenes

obviously on the field I just am surprised he looks so comfortable and I'm surprised how much they've put on his plate so early. I'm excited that he gets a national stage against the bills defense is not playing that well

I think that could be a fun high scoring game I do like there is part of me that is watching it and can't quite believe that a very effective offense exists in the year 2025 in the NFL without a great offensive line in particular and with Hunter Henry probably as the key like pass catcher on the team

like it's Hunter Henry it's digs a little bit now but like the offense kind of goes through Hunter Henry and this is an effective way of like doing business the offense goes through Drake May his threat as a downhill runner makes them essentially plus one in every area of the field

because people are terrified of him running downhill and they've flashed that early on with some of the option game stuff and so it just broadens the field for every defense and so you get why is Hunter Henry who is not quick off the ball wide open

eight yards down the field basically every other play so I think that you're seeing with May this like force multiplying effect that the really great ones have and it's just strange to see guys that open when the talent is

not all the way there and the connection with Diggs now from last week in particular I think that's really ramping up they have great chemistry. May may already be one of the three best back shoulder throw guys in the league that's actually pretty short list at the moment because Aaron's not throwing them so well anymore these days but he just feels like the complete

full field threat individually the way you get with the really great ones Alan Lamar and it's just can you get the consistency that one of the things I do love the granular things about him he's such a power thrower and you love recognizes when he has to take pace off the ball everything about him slows down like you can see him thinking

oh no I've got to be really slow on this one Josh has told me I go one to two and I hit the checkdown and he just seems bored of the easy stuff when he gets to and does the easy stuff compared to when you watch sometimes Daniels and particularly Caleb it's like they're just not interested in the easy work they want to do the really difficult stuff

if we just clip that last 45 seconds and sent it to Bill Simmons he would have you on this podcast. So we need to do this. We need to sell some subscriptions while you're here. We only have so much time, you know, together. How is the Will Campbell experience in your mind so far? Some good run game reps for sure to this untrained eye. The run game reps are legit and getting him out into space is like a prominent part of the offense. There is a shelf life on that stuff. I always think about this with Penny Sewell where they'll have three or four plays a season where it's all out in space

and it's usually like Sunday night football or a prime time game and so I think people believe that's like a core element of the lion's offense where it's like really that's four or five plays a season and he's just a complete freak and 90% of his work is doing the dirty offensive line work at the highest level you can in the league with Campbell I still have real concerns

about absorbing knockback power and not even against a Jared Verth or the truly great power rushes. I just don't think you can quite sink and bend the way the real great ones can to absorb power and so it's more of a finesse game Bradbury's been really good inside

talk about surprise of the season having like a quality centre and a league where there's like three good centres at the moment that's been a surprise but Campbell specifically I still just like sometimes you get in your gut

I'm like I think he could be a really really gifted guard and you could unlock more in the offense with him at guard than just trying to force him and tackle because you took him at a premier spot in the draft my hope was just can he be Anthony Costanzo

not the same style but like that level of player Bernard Reimman, that'd be fine. That'd be fine, but I think he could be Joe Tuny. Okay, God. That's fair. Okay, my first surprise, and I'll speed it up. It's kind of the teams that are bad at rushing the ball. So it's like the whole offseason, oh, it's the year, you know, now where everyone's going to run.

It's like maybe the defenses were more ready for that than we think, first of all. And then it's specifically the teams that are bad at it. Some of them are injuries, the Buccaneers being this bad. largely because of injuries. The 49ers, I'm not sure I'm going to give them that big of a pass. They actually kind of have their group back. They're one of the worst running teams. The Cardinals are one of the worst running teams in the league.

And then if you look at the teams that go heaviest 12 personnel, everyone loves talking about 12 personnel, the extra tight end on the field. And it's up a few percentage points. If you look at the teams that are the heaviest, they're almost uniformly the worst running teams in the league right now. Yeah, which I find interesting. So the Browns are in that mix. The Bears are in that mix.

The Cardinals, the Ravens are in that mix. The Packers are a surprisingly bad running team. They're not as much 12, I don't think. The Chiefs are another team. To me, I'm just grouping all these teams together and curious what you think about, like, some of the teams specifically and why these running games aren't working. Yeah, they each have their own particular challenges. I think something that's important to note is if you just isolate the run game as a

standalone in 2025, it's really difficult to rip something away from it if you don't bring, you almost need to combine like rush success rate with play action explosiveness because they're only investing in the run game to such a degree to hit play action explosives to make it look, smell, feel like they really intend on running the ball and particularly in 12 to try and get some of the mismatch stuff by getting national linebacker on the field. So it's like when you see the C-Ox run game figures, they're pretty poor for a team that have brought in Clint Kuback and you expect to be a very good rushing team

but they are hitting chunk plays all over the place specifically because they're in a formation, in a set, in a look that is telling you we want to run the ball. So as long as your investment, you get the payoff in the play action game, that to me is like perfectly fine. It's if the play action game is poor

and the run game is poor, you're in trouble and it's not that having a good running attack alone creates the play action game, but do you have enough variation, enough different looks in the way you tried to run the ball. If you're just silent as we do one thing. We are a wide zone team.

That's trouble. That's trouble for everyone. If you have a really varied run game and it's just pretty poor, which is what the books have, you can at least get to the play action shots. So maybe the Packers would be an example of like, yeah, it's not totally clicking.

And injuries are certainly a big part of that. But it is setting up like formationally what else we're doing. The Packers in particular is a tough find. LaFleur is like a demigard of my life. I love Matt LaFleau. But he's put together. Even after Sunday night and the clock management. He's put together some pretty ropey game plans by his standards.

I think if you gave him some truth to him, he would say that's not some of my best work. The game plan against the Browns in particular was like a Hall of Fame bad one for him, which I'm sure he would want back. So I think as much as that has gone into it, like their situational play calling is pretty poor. Game planning against the opponent as not being like, let's attack a weakness it's like we're just going to do what we do and that's just never

been the way he's rolled maybe a team that like will benefit from the week off yeah right now but yeah like i don't know just see like just seen like the cardinals make no sense with with a running game this bad to me it feels like they're a little dead on arrival if that's the case the 49ers feel a little i know they're three and one i they'll figure it out if they get everyone healthy but they feel a little bit while we're talking packers i'll just throw up my second one which is that, like, the Packers didn't get a win in a two-game sample against the Browns and the Cowboys. Like, I know you had them winning the Super Bowl, I believe. I think you had them winning the Super Bowl before the Michael Parsons chase.

I mean, and I've done that now for, like, three years in a row, so I'm just going down with the ship until it's proven correct. Like, what, how did that happen? Like, what do you think about these last two weeks? The last two, like I said, the Browns, while I'm being so many penalties and just a pretty poor game plan on. an offense against a team that can only really score 10 points in a game on offense is a bad one. The Cowboys one being the clock management, they're going up against maybe the most cohesive offense in the NFL, and it shows maybe some of the concerns with the Packers' defensively for the fun and joy of all the creativity on the back end and having Micron those guys up

front and the creativity in the pressure game, when it's just one-on-one third down who's got the best players, I still don't know if they stack up with that, and that's where I would get concern okay if they have to go into the link in the playoffs and it's third down and they've got a j brown what are we actually doing here who do we put on dallas goddardar to figure that stuff out so that would be my concern but i still think the underlying profile of what they do explosive plays against good teams um being able to create pressure with four is that's like the super bowl profile yeah i'm not too worried i think they would have been my super bowl pick i had the lions and i wasn't going to just change it for like i'm not i'm not

I'm not worried about the Packers because of those two games, but when I was thinking, like, what was the most surprising thing that happened? Like, that pretty much was it right now. You said something interesting there, though, that the Cowboys were the most cohesive offense potentially in the NFL. Is that on your list? No, that's not.

No, no, no. It should be. Can we talk about that for two minutes? My guy Clayton Adams goes in. They ultimately have the best run game in football. You go look at the Cardinals' run game. It's not looking so pretty. So you say cohesive.

Like, you're talking about the marriage of, the passing game and the running game because I've talked a lot about how just watching Dak, I don't know if you like, I think he's been the best quarterback in the league this year. If I had to choose one, it's tough to choose, like, to not choose Josh Allen, so whatever. You're just picking

like two amazing quarterbacks, but that's the, I love watching the style that that Dak plays. But we haven't talked a lot about the running game. Like, what have you seen in terms of the running game and how that works with the passing game? Yeah, it's they do everything. And

they were not a very good gap-oriented base run team. Basically, ever since Dax being there, it's always been zone and kicking and going and stretching the field and then he would boot out of there. And then when Dax's legs started to go and he stopped using the legs, it was no longer even effective. No one respected the boot out of it. Now they've got Clayton Adams, as we mentioned,

who is the go-to guy for like, you want to build a power spread system, a downhill running attack system. He's the number one guy in the league right now and has been, honestly, for three, four seasons. and you see the impact on the Cardinals when he left. The thing I just love about them is there's a rhythm to great offense, the one you just feel in your bones when it's like this thing rolling down a hill

where it's like they just feel like a freight train. The rhythm they have in and out of the huddle, bouncing between the run game to play action, how it all ties together, to Dack, you know, drop back game from under center to Dax seeing the field and spreading it around. They've been able to marry up like him wanting to be paid to Manning with him accepting like, well,

there has to be some movement, emotion in this offense pre-snap, which he's just never really allowed since Kelamol left. I don't think people, and I would include myself in this, have really wrapped their minds around the fact that they just put up 40 on the defense going into the week that I would have said was the best defense in the league with Cavante Turpin as their number two receiver, Giovante Williams, who's looked great, but as their number one running back, and massive injuries.

On the offensive line, like missing two of their guys in the interior and benching their left tackle during that game. It's kind of a coaching masterpiece, and I'm loving it because I was kind of high, not high, but I thought Brian Schottenheimer could be a better head coach than he was a coordinator. And the Adams higher and the fact that he's empowering him. I think that was the worry in Dallas was like, are they going to let him do this running game? And I guess the answer is yes. based on the training camp I saw, it was the biggest mismatch in any training camp possible was the Cowboys offense versus the Cowboys defense every day.

I think it just gave them so much confidence after that month that no one could tell them anything. We're moving to another surprise. The Lions' defense being this good, this fast, has been a little bit shook because I thought they would be really good by like week 18 and round into form for the playoffs, and it surprises me that they've been able to get up to speed this quickly.

So what about, them because there's not like a secondary pass rusher really other than Aiden Hudgens and so what are they doing that makes it work? I mean Shepard to his credit has basically said and I love when coaches do this like they've been waiting in the sidelines and the wings

for like work on their philosophy and tinkering away and they get put in the big boy chair and it's like I'm going to do everything I think the old guy was doing wrong I'm going to throw everything Aaron Glenn did for the most part and try and build my own style and that's where I thought it would take some time to be like this push-pull tension between we know what's successful

we've run it for years and then Shepa comes in and says what we were doing previously was pretty old-fashioned pretty outdated you see it now with the Jets and it doesn't look so pretty when you don't have Aiden Hutchinson up from

we got to be more of a pressure based team we have the blitz on earlier downs and he's brought them if you go and look at the best teams over the past three seasons defensively they'll have kind of these trigger points in terms like early down blitz rates, sim pressure rate

four-man pressure rate they're above the threshold for all of those best groups in the league to get those pieces to fit into that right to weight. They have obviously a crazy amount of talent. I just thought that would take a lot of time before they could figure it out. And even in week one,

it was pure ego coaching from Shepley's dropping Hutchinson on third down. It's like, okay, this guy's a little over skis. It's a little bit too philosophy over the players. And immediately they just course corrected. And he's like, okay, some of the stuff I did was wrong. Let's go play football. You said like a ridiculous amount of talent.

What Brian Branch stands out, obviously, and Hutchinson is just like premiered. players what are you what are you seeing about like how they're using talent kirby as well McNeil coming back the Lamar game plan when we do like game plans of the year which you probably wouldn't do but I certainly would do set at home on my own it is my goal if anyone from my heart is listening like I've been wanting to hire Ali Connolly for a while and then we would do game plans of the year if you had told me after week long when I saw Kelvin Shepard's game plan which was all about Kelvin Shepard which I

except and he's really articulate and I think he's a fabulous coach, but it was all about look at me. It was a look at me plan. If you told me a few weeks later he would go up against Tom Monkton and Lamar Jackson and undressed him, how would it be flawed? Do you remember where you were when Calvin Shepard was traded for Jerry Hughes one for one? I do not remember, no. And like, it was kind of like a, we don't want, it was kind of just like a mistake trade. Like, whoops, we blew it. And then Jerry Hughes went on to have like one of the most underrated careers ever. And I bring this up roughly once a month for some reason on this show. What's up everybody? Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the Sticks, we take you

inside the game from scouting reports and player development to team building philosophies, coaching trends, and how front offices construct winning rosters. Every week we study the tape, talk to decision makers, and share the insights you won't find anywhere else. Is the kind of conversation that connects the dots, from college football prospects to the NFL stars of tomorrow. We break down the draft, analyze matchups, and evaluate how teams put it all together on game day. Plus, we dig in the coaching strategies, roster construction, and the trends that shape the league year after year. Whether you're a diehard fan or just love understanding the game on a deeper level, we give you the full picture. If you want insight that goes beyond the box score, this podcast is for you.

Don't miss it. Listen to the Move the Six podcast on the IHeart, Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, this is Matt Jones. I'm Drew Franklin. And this is NFL Cover Zero. We're just here to try to give you an NFL perspective a little bit different. Did you see the Colts Pretzel? That was my other big takeaway from that game.

What was that? Oh, my. We think NFL coverage should be informative and entertaining. And twice a week, that is exactly what you're going to get. Listen NFL Cover Zero with Matt Jones and Drew Franklin on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. I'm Marcus Grant.

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Toyota, the official automotive partner of the NFL. Visit Toyota.com slash NFL now to learn more. Give me another surprise. I'm going back to you The Seahawks offense Okay It was one of those ones where I could understand The rationale of every individual move

If you isolated each move And then when we got to the preseason I sat down I looked at the death shot I was like they look like they're worse A quarterback and the receiving core looks worse I'm not sure the line is improved And then when you start seeing them play the games You see how every piece slots in together

And everything amplifies one another Particularly I think with the receiving core Smith and Jigba go into a whole different level but them having kind of a security blanket middle of field guy in Cooper Cubs Horton being the deep threat what they're doing with the tight ends to kind of play underneath then in Jigba's just your three level

we found a superstar type guy and then Donald is just playing unconscious football talk to me more about Donald because I do get the feel I think he's playing even better than he was playing in Minnesota he's doing the easy stuff

but he's making a lot of a tough throws under pressure. He does seem more calm when he's under pressure this year. Yeah, every single throw is effectively in rhythm. And then the one or two times a game that he's not in rhythm, he's making Matthew Stafford throws. And there's not a single throw. He doesn't believe, like, I can rip it down the field.

There's a great shot in the last game where anything off play action is out the hand immediately. And the guys are double covered, and you can see him thinking, if I just put it on someone's face mask I can split double coverage and it's like okay buddy is Sam Donald and he rips it and he can do it Yeah we were at dinner the other night

With our friend Henry Hodson And a couple of the people from the NFL office They were like what's the most surprising thing Give me the two minute recap of this season I couldn't think of anything The only thing I could think of was like I don't know like I don't know If like who are the good teams

Like there's like 10 pretty good teams But I don't think right now I don't know if there's this big separation but in my head the Seahawks are as good as any team in the NFL right now and then I saw this week after that that they were number one in DVOA

at least for now and I was like yeah that kind of checks out to me they kind of do everything well I'm afraid that Sam Darn I'm getting like forget Nick Benito I'm going to be wearing my anti-Sam Darnold bias like in Santa Clara in February at this rate My only concern with them is some of the run game stuff

It is way more varied than you would ever imagine with Clint Kubiak. The first week was basically his dad's call sheet plastered onto the Seahawks. Like he picked up the wrong copy for the game day and then it was like, uh-oh. And then I was like, okay, that is going to run the Kubiak offense. It'll look pretty good. Then everyone else in the defensive side will say, let's go call Wade Phillips, get his old plans and we'll beat the sun, you know, over the head that way. And all of a sudden now they've got this really varied rushing attack.

It's not all that effective. It does trigger some of the play action stuff. I do have a fear that they'll just revert into themselves and be like, the best thing we can do is just give the ball to Kenneth Walker and give him a chance to plant and cut and go. And just Donald is on such a heater. Can that sustain? But I do think they have the best defense top the bottom in the NFL.

Depth, coaching, talent. I just think that will be the best group by the end of the season. And if they don't need Donald to play at this kind of level to go and win multiple playoff games. Right. I think the game we're going to call together on TalkSport. Everyone should check it out. It'll be me and Ali and Will Gavin.

is a reminder how difficult it is to build around defense in the NFL but the Seahawks are the perfect way to do it. They have a really efficient and good offense to support that defense like Darnold doesn't have to do everything and they have an awesome special teams unit I don't know if that's going to continue all year

but they've probably been the best special teams unit led by Jay Harbaugh which leads me to my last surprise this is more of a take that I'm just going to throw by you and see what you think like is John Harbaugh still a good NFL head coach? The thing that I don't like about the national conversation about John Harbour is they just bundle him in as oh he's special teams guy CEO and it's kind of fraudulent

he sits in on every single defensive staff meeting he builds the game plan on defense the defense is an abomination and it's not the first time it's falling off the cliff last season the communication system was an absolute mess he had to call DMPs and be like can you figure out how to get players to communicate for us like that's what they drafted him in to do essentially and no one ever criticized him for it's like well he's not in charge of that he's just the head coach like no he sits in every meeting it's his game plan and it's falling apart

two years in a row i think he does i mean first of all the head coach ultimately deserves responsibility for for everything but yes he's done the hiring he's he has a big hand in that i think he's an intimidating guy and people like that come across him are a little afraid of him in a way that they're not of other NFL head coaches which is interesting because he's not like a burly huge former player but there's just it's always been on my radar there's something

drill sergeant vibes there's something under the surface there they don't really have many places to pivot now either if they just moved on from Zachor and I imagine we will get something where an advisor comes in or we get like the long athletic piece

that is quietly behind the scenes Zachor was removed from some responsibilities and Pagano's taking on some more I imagine that's where we're heading with the thing the talent is just gone now though with all the injuries and losing Madabweke is just brutal. Yeah, the game this week,

they, I think, are missing their five highest paid players. I mean, that's just like, what really can you do? They were on paper the healthiest team in the league last year, and now it's like the opposite. You can lose the talent and say, way not as talented as we should be. You can get lined up. You can communicate.

That's on the staff. Okay, we're going to do this game. We might have, let's talk. We only have a couple minutes left, but... Like, I mentioned these two defenses. I have now drilled down a little bit watching the Browns, my beloved Aiden Huntington from Tulane. Unbelievable.

Looking good. Two side player. Like, one thing I thought about this year is how, because you can see it on the Dallas defense and you can see it on the Green Bay defense, that I may be underrated was just, I shouldn't have. The multiplying effect of a truly...

Great one. Great one. And... watching Malik Collins play the best football of his life and looking at this entire defensive line playing well around Miles Garrett and this defense like what have you seen out of the Browns defense is here Isaiah McGuire too I think he kind of gets bundled in it's like

well Miles is great so that helps him out no he in his own right is a really effective good player they just have the great one and then they've got three really good players beside him which is why they're just dominating everyone and they're probably the most simplistic structurally defensive league in an era of everyone wants to disguise and be creative and the coaches get all the plaudits for there. It's just four guys up front

mauling everyone over and over again. And Alex Wright is one of them. Like that, watching the film and you just love to see it because this team is not great, but Miles Garrett is playing with just an energy that is insane. It just feels like,

like there's not a play. And this was against the lions who have a good offensive line. There's not a play that like he doesn't impact. Like I could find maybe, like four in an entire game which is just crazy and the energy he has like

you can run away from him but he tracks it on the backside it's I'm very excited to just go watch him live even if people like aren't thrilled with the lowest over under in any NFL game this year for Vikings Browns and if he's not impacting the pocket on the play he impacts the play calling they face the most

screens of any team of the last two seasons because people like let's just get the ball out as quick as possible live to play another down and not have him affect things that way. It's just fun to see a defense base say we declare these four guys are coming. Let's see if you can deal with it

and all four guys are really good. It's no longer just that Miles is sensational. It's like they've got a lot of talent there and they roll through. I mean, they've run about seven deep. At this point, Mason Graham is a first round pick and he's in the rotation more than he is like

their most impactful one-on-one player. Just so deep. I can't wait to watch him. If we had more time, I would talk about how much Mason Graham was on the ground in that Lions game but I'm trying to be nice. The closer we get to this game,

I think maybe the Browns are actually going to win because how do you think, okay, that line versus the Brown's offensive the Vikings up front versus the Brown's offensive line is such a mismatch in Dylan Gabriel's the quarterback. And then on the flip side, I think it's even a bigger mess match with how banged up the Vikings are

and it's going against Carson Wentz who's I think been okay actually the last couple weeks on the Carson Went scale but it's going to freak out certainly a handful of snaps like which quarterback do you think will could handle it better that's a tricky one

it's just so unknown with Dylan Gabriel I actually think it will be good for Dylan Gabriel as silly as the sounds for the Browns for him to have a game where he looks really lost and confused and is a bit in over his head I think that will actually work well from long time I'm reminded of when Jordan Love first came into a game against the Chiefs if you remember that one

and Spaggs just blew him apart he didn't not know what was happening in the NFL. And so Love went away and said, I'm dedicating my life to becoming the best guy, pick up the Blitz in pro football. And he actually did it. When he came out to face the Eagles, he torched them. Yeah, but he had like a year to do that. Like, Gabriel's just going to have to start in two weeks.

I think, you know, this idea of like saving a guy for the right defense, the right approach, like go and see the most difficult thing, the most complex thing up front and learn how hard this is. So when you face an easy one, it's going to feel really easy. And then I think just get into big personnel and the same way. has tried to do and say you put your big bodies on the field we'll put ours on he can move a little bit in a way that flacco could not the wenswant to me is horrifying he's maybe the worst guy to throw out there if there's just a four man and go a rush because he just panics anyway so if he's

panicking and there's seven guys back there that this could be two four five turnover game i i think it's going to be ugly fun there's some games that are so ugly they become beautiful and that's the game we are going to call on Sunday. Yes, it'll be the Will Gavin of football games. Thank you, Ollie. Again, everyone, check out the read optional. It was really glad that we could squeeze in this extra show. It's been a great week and a half over in Ireland and now the UK.

We have one more show to go. We will be doing our Sunday night recap in the Talk Sports Studios. I will be with Will and Ollie. We will see you Sunday night. Hey, everybody, Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move the 6th, we take you inside the game from breaking down college prospects and NFL rookies

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