NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - NFL Around the League: Week 1 Recap - September 8th, 2013

Episode Date: September 9, 2013

A room full of heroes, Gregg Rosenthal, Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler and Chris Wesseling break down everything you need to know about all of the Week 1 action. Get caught up on all the analysis and key takeaways from each game. Join the conversation on Twitter: @NFL_ATL or #NFLATL.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL Daily YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/nflpodcastsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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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. The Around the League podcast doesn't watch soccer. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the League podcast. My name is Dan Hansis. We're joined by a room full of heroes, Chris Wessling, Mark Zessler, and Greg Rosenthal. What's up, boys?

Hey, Dan. How are you? In prime time. It's Sunday. We have so many games to talk about. This is weird. This is a new thing. We are, for the first time ever, some Maiden Voyage.

We're doing a Sunday night podcast because we couldn't wait to talk about the games that we saw today. A lot of close games, right? Pretty good week one on balance. Quite good. Quite good. Wes had the best game of the day We signed out games and Wesleyan had Packers 49ers I think that's the game of the day

It was rivety Yeah why do we start there Let's start talking about the games You did the Packers and the Niners Wes Well we kind of talked about this in our preview Friday That the Packers spent the offseason Studying up for the read option And wouldn't it be great if Greg Roman came out

And kind of just ignored the read option And went with something new And then we see Packers had no answer For Kaepernick's arm and just the awesomeness, the awesome physicality of Anquan Bolden. They just had no answer, and those two guys just carved them up all day. How scary is Colin Kaepernick? I mean, how do you stop him?

He threw for over 400 yards today, over 10 yards per attempt. It's all going down the field. Vernon David, you know, the big question all offseason was wide receivers. What's going to happen to wide receiver position for them? And they just roll up yards throwing up the middle to Vernon Davis and Bolden. Yeah, you figure. Cramtree didn't do anything in his career until really Capernaic took over. Maybe the ingredient here is Capernaic, not the wide receiver.

He is just a number one receiver maker. Well, part of the issue here from the flip side is Green Bay's defense, which spent an entire off-season planning for this game, could not have laid a bigger egg. Disasterous showing. You can dress it up any way you want. Gave up 494 yards, inexcusable. Hard to call this a super bowl.

Bowl team when they're doing that. They pretty much left the middle of the field wide open the whole game. Well, you said hard to call them a Super Bowl team, but it's the fourth quarter. It's a one-score game. It's back and forth against, you know, one of the best teams in the league. On the road. I mean, it's not like I didn't think it was a terrible performance. It's an incomplete team.

Defensively, it was pretty bad, but I think the 49ers are going to be a tough team to stop in general. You're right, though. They spent the offseason putting resources on the defense and that obviously didn't help out too much. I think the answer to your question, how do you stop Kaepernick, was probably the way Clay Matthews played. Keep hitting him over and over and over again,

and one of those times maybe he won't get up. Well, that actually brings up a great quote Kaepernick had after the game. Of course, people are going to remember big turning play in the game was Clay Matthews at the late hit. It got offset on penalties, and then the referee blew it, and instead of it being fourth and two, they said third and six, do it over, Anquam Bolden scored a touchdown. That was a big storyline here.

after the game, Kaepernick had the line. If intimidation is your game plan, I hope you have a better one, referring to Matthews. And in general, it was clear they were trying to get it after Kaepernick,

but he's just not a guy that's going to be rattled. Can we agree that no team in the league has a bigger issue with NFL officials than the Packers over the last two seasons? They have gotten some bad luck. I give Mike McCarthy credit.

He took the high road after the game. He would not bite on that hurting them at all. He said it was not a factor. and, you know, I can see why his defense couldn't get the stops when it mattered. His offense played very well, though. We asked what is the 49ers defense going to look like this year? They didn't really stop Aaron Rogers much in this game either. Okay, so that was just one game.

We should go. Let's go around the horse because we all had a couple games, at least two games. I will take the next one. Let's go with the Jets, my Jets, taking care of business at home against the Tampa Bay Bucks, Gino Smith's debut Basically exactly what I thought was going to happen Which was he was going to make some mistakes Maybe make a few plays

And then they get lucky on that miraculous Late hit near miraculous Is it count as a miracle? It's not a miracle because I picked it Hero pick baby Not the win Just getting that hit at the end of the game The game was over

They were midfield seven seconds to go And it was an iffy call Very iffy Can't do it though You can't hit the quarterback Well, let me ask you, because I don't think the rest of us watch this game as closely as you. What is your take on how Gino Smith played? I think he was up and down.

He made some plays and he made some killer mistakes, and I think that's going to happen a lot. But I also think we're going to see this game, this type of game a lot, where the Jets are going to, the defense is going to keep them in the game. Then it comes down to if Gino makes enough mistakes. I don't change my viewpoint on the team. I still think it's a five to seven-win team, max. But it was nice to get a win.

Gino made history. Did you know that? No, what did you do? First quarterback since the merger drafted in the second round or later to throw for 250 yards and have his team win on kickoff weekend while eating an ice cream sandwich wearing a parasol and dancing an Irish chick. That's something though. I mean, this couldn't have been a worse month and they come out and they get a victory. And, you know, I didn't watch the game either really except for at the end.

But it didn't look like a fluke. They had 22 first downs. The Bucks only had 12. It was an even game between two flawed teams, and the Jets scratch went out. And before we move on to the next game, I will say I have a lot of concerns about the Bucks going forward. You know, I didn't put much into it when Josh Freeman lost his captain patch. But to see the dissension on the sideline, and when you guys watching him, you'll see the same thing. Donald Penn at one point slammed his helmet down and walked to the other side of the bench and sat down.

They don't seem to be the team. They seemed a little youngy. It was a little Rahim Morrissey today, which was strange. All right, let's keep moving on. Greg, you want to tell us about one of your games? Panthers Seahawks was the premier game I watched. And my big takeaway was, while we're all talking about hurry up offenses, and everyone's got to get more plays in, and that's the way of the NFL. Two really good teams, I think the Panthers are going to be good,

are going the opposite way. This was a, you know, I think each team had about eight possessions. There was only about 50 plays on one side, 60 on the other. The two teams really looked like they did last year, which is that the defenses were good and the Seattle Seahawks came away with the win in the fourth quarter. Russell Wilson was getting pressured all day

and then when the fourth quarter came, their last three drives are a long drive field goal, long drive with touchdown with a vertical pass, and then a six-minute drive to end the game, which was just a killer, and the Panthers make the big mistake. So it looked like these two teams from a year ago. Panther is good but not quite good enough in the big moments.

I thought the one coaching decision that impressed me the most today was Jim Harbaugh going for it on 4th and 2 and converting with Anquan Bolden instead of playing it safe and punning On the opposite side Was there anything from Mike Shuler where you said Boy, they ought to stop running the ball

They ought to play more aggressively with the lead Yeah, it felt like they were sitting on a 4-point lead in the third quarter It was a lot of run-run pass And it was a lot of let's play to the defense And let them win And for a while that's working They're getting a ton of pressure up the middle

They totally stopped Marshawn Lynch I mean, I said that was going to be the matchup of the game. The Seahawks had no running game whatsoever, but it just felt like the Panthers were so conservative, and they're playing it close to the vest, and then surprise, surprise, Russell Wilson beats you at the end. Why do that with Cam Newton at quarterback? Their offense wasn't good in the preseason either.

DeAngelo Williams had a really nice game. They kind of built the entire game playing around him, but four and a half yards a pop on the ground after a while, it's not really that exciting. They're still haunted by the ghost of John. I'm Fox. All right, Mark, what about you? Well, I wouldn't say that I was awarded with a premier game today.

I got, listen, it doesn't always happen. But I watched Cleveland go down in epic flames to the dolphins. And I would say it was a very sloppy game by both second year quarterbacks. Tanna Hill and Weed and both were punished by what looked to be actually pretty good front sevens for Cleveland and Miami. That might be the positive takeaway for both teams. But Weed in three first half picks, basically a worst-case scenario. It was a repeat of what he did in his opener last year, minus getting completely sunk under an American flag.

Yeah, that was right. So it was a bit of enough. Progress. Yeah, there was... Those weren't all on him, though, those picks, right? They were not. In fact, I mean, you know, it looked like the second and third one I would put more on the receiver,

except Whedon does not place the ball where the receiver is going to do something different than Tippet in cases. It's easy to say, oh, the receiver, went out the receiver's hands, it's not on Whedon, but, you know, a second look, and I took a quick one after I left work today. I do

put it on Whedon, to be honest. He was not sharp today on any level. It's a huge concern for Cleveland. What I did like, though, was they held Miami to 20 yards rushing on 23 attempts and had a ton of pressure on Tanna Hill. So

you know, it's a young team. That's the positive down the stretch for Cleveland. For Miami, they sacked Whedon six times, so they also, in their defensive additions in the offseason, got some production out of those players. I'm starting it a little nervous about some of these making the leap candidates. Lamar Miller is right near the top of the list. Did he not look good? Ten rushes, three yards. They just couldn't get anything going on any level with the rushing

game. And I agree because I thought Miller looked like a guy they were setting up to be sort of an explosive ball carrier, an element they haven't had in the past. And listen, it did not translate. They couldn't move the ball. They couldn't sustain anything with the running game today. How about the number one guy on the list, Ryan Tannahill, the battle of the second-year quarterbacks. We're all kind of expecting this guy to take a second-year leap. The big difference between him and Whedon, judging two second-year guys, was that both of them had a really ugly start.

Tannahill worked his way through it and made some plays down the stretch. He scored points. I mean, that's all you got to do. It's a quarterback-driven league. Cleveland does not have a quarterback that I see right now that can do that. And I saw a quiet start by Mike Wallace. One catch, 15 yards. All right, Wes, what do you got?

My other big game today was Falcons Saints, which came down to the wire. Falcons, I have more concerns about the Falcons than the Saints in this game. The Saints basically looked like the same team they were a year ago and the year before that. The Falcons, the offense wasn't quite as good with Roddy White unable to push off that sprained ankle. You could tell he was playing behind Harry Douglas most of the game. And the offensive line is an issue. We figured that might be an issue, and it definitely was. when you're giving up three sacks in one half to the Saints.

And I think they went two turnovers in five, three and outs in seven out of eight series in the second half for the Falcons. So that was a problem. Wouldn't you think that one of the worst defenses in NFL history that you've been saying could stop the Saints from winning seven or eight games even this year wouldn't be able to do that? Well, that's a fair point. From my game watching, what I got out of it was it was more about

the Falcons offense than the Saints' defense. I did see Rob Ryan and his Shakespearean haircut whipping up and down the sideline in a frenzy. I mean, how did he make up for all the injuries they've had? He faced an offensive line that couldn't block. That's how he made up for it. Bad Santa was going crazy at the end of that game. That's a big win.

What did I tell you the other day, though, about this rivalry? Every game comes down to the last play. It's always a classic. And Stephen Jackson and Tony Gonzalez look a step slower to me this year. interesting the saints are the only i think they're the only team that are in first place by themselves the rest of that division's o and one they're one and oh i like the idea of rob and rex ryan having a nice phone call sharing a hoagie on uh some type of video chat you alone you know very exciting um you know speaking of west uh it's time to talk a little bit about will chris wessling

eat his softball pants um you know terrell prior this this is what he's maybe achieving here for us. He may actually make the Raiders watchable this season, which is not, which is no small task. I mean, they hung in there in Indianapolis. They got beat on a late touchdown run

by Andrew Luck, who looks like every bit the MVP candidate, I think he will be. But it was prior that he, that's what I took out of that game, that he made some big runs. He set a Raiders record for a quarterback, went over 100 yards. I think he was the leading rusher today, period, that of anybody

in the NFL with the 112 yards, I believe. So, and he threw two bad picks, but that's going to happen. He doesn't have a lot of experience, but this guy made some plays, and he was clearly the right guy for the job. What happened with the cults? Because this is the game I would have said, if it were 45 to 7, I wouldn't have blinked. Why was it this close? It was very strange because it started out very well.

Like luck was on target. He started out 8 for 8 for 113 yards and two touchdowns. So everything seemed to be going to script. And then they just got bogged down. And one thing that did jump out to me was Reggie Wayne still looks like Reggie Wayne, but T.Y Hilton was quiet, and D.HB didn't do much. Kobe Fleener had one catch. Dwayne Allen had a nice touchdown catch, but then left with, I believe, a hip injury or a rib injury.

So they didn't get a lot of help other than Wayne. Let me ask you the same question as I asked earlier. Was this a play-calling issue? Did the Colts go way too conservative when they had the lead? because they were up 14 to nothing, and it looked like they were going to blow the Raiders out of the building. I don't think they got conservative because they didn't really push the running game. As a lot of teams, it didn't seem like a lot of teams were pushing the running game today.

But they just weren't – you just got to give the Raiders credit on defense. I think they just played very well. We have to? Yeah, we have to do it. And, Wes, even though 0-1 in the standings, I think you've got to worry a little bit. It's no fun if I don't have to worry a little bit. This is the best-case scenario for me. A lot of fabric.

A lot of fabric. Let me say this. Next week, the Raiders open their home slate with the Jacksonville Jags who lost by like a 28-2 score today. So one or one might be staring at us this time next week. They got to feel pretty good going into Indianapolis having a chance. Dennis Allen and his gang a misfit. Judging from my Twitter feed, their fans are feeling awfully good. Yeah, that's good.

All right, Greg, what's your other game? Patriots and Bills was a lot closer than a lot of people. people expected it was a sloppy game, I think, for both teams, especially the Patriots, who really gave away a lot of points. I think it just reminded us that the Patriots with Tom Brady and all these young guys, it's going to take some time because you saw all those rookies that we heard about all preseason struggle. Aaron Dobson didn't even play in the game. He got hurt.

Kimbril Tompkins had a bunch of drops, mental errors, really blew up a couple of plays where he ran the wrong route. He clearly wasn't on the same page. Zach Sudfeld didn't have any catches. He tried to catch one, dropped it, was intercepted, and the Bill's score points right at the end of the first half. So a lot of mental errors by the Patriots, but then in the end, their defense forced, I think,

four or five straight three and outs to end the game, something like that, and they get six points and kick the field goal to win it at the end. It's kind of more of the same Patriots. Don't play that well, but they get a win in the division. This Bill's fan base has watched Buffalo lose 19 of the last. 20 games against the Patriots. That is a rough, and usually it's week one too. It's really rough.

What about the defense of New England? Because you talked them up a couple weeks ago. For the most part, they played really well. You know, seven of the points from Buffalo came from a long fumble return. Another seven points, like I said, was set up by an interception. They got all the stops at the end of the game when they absolutely needed to. I think it was the bills had two first downs in their last five drives. The Patriots' offense did not take over this game in the fourth.

quarter when you think they would have. They got a couple field goals, but they really battled for it, and they had to pun a couple times. The bills had a chance to take this game and run with it. They really couldn't, but I do think there are some positives. I think E.J. Manuel, for his first start, looked pretty good. His numbers could have been a lot better. There was a penalty called back, a big play, a drop called back, ruined a nice throw by him. He was pretty calm, didn't make many big mistakes. I would feel very good about E.J. Manuel after one start. I'm starting to wonder if the ATL team collectively slept on him as a offensive rookie

of the year candidate because none of the five of us picked him. There's a lot of Eddie Lacey love. No E.J. love. I still have no E.J. love. Why is that, though? I just don't trust him to be a difference maker of quarterback because I think they're going to be run heavy all year. And they tried to be today, and C.J. Spiller had an awful time of it.

And Bill Belichick always tries to take away your big weapon, and he did it. C.J. Spiller only had 50 yards. Fred Jackson had double that, I believe. Real quick, one question. Did the Patriots do anything creative with Vareen, or was he just in because Ridley fumbled? He was in earlier before Ridley fumbled. Stephen Ridley got benched after he fumbled the ball.

Didn't even get tackled, just fumbled it, and he didn't play the rest of the game. So Vareen ran the ball very well. He also caught seven passes. Yeah, they were using him as a receiver here and there. After that, it was mostly at running back. He played very well. Julian Edelman, there's a make-in-the-leave.

candidate that had a nice day. There we go. Seven catches. We were remiss. We didn't mention Jordan Cameron. Big game, making elite candidate. That's right. Yeah, Edelman was in the game early and often.

It really wasn't just injuries, and he was a big factor. If Amandola and Edelman didn't make great catches in the second half of this game, contested catches, I don't think the Patriots win. All right. Mark, because I can't believe we didn't lead with this game, but Mark, why don't you tell us a little bit about your second game of the day? It is a shame because this was a bona fide barn burner. No, actually, I was excited to cover this game.

Chiefs 28 Jaguars 2. I know it sounds like a punchline. Parenthetically, is the only game in NFL history to ever end up 28 to 2. Boom. My takeaway was that the Jaguars, scoring two points on offense, was so fitting for what I saw today. Because actually that came from a defensive play.

But, boy, Jacksonville would kill to have E.J. Manuel. Yes. Whether or not Wes feels how. highly on this youngster. I will say... Youngster. He's a lot younger than I am. He's a young man. That's the first time the youngster has been dropped. The youngster. But, um, you know, I don't care what they do with Blaine Gabbard. Nothing seems to change. And they had this up-tempo, quick release pass game. You know, no one saw fewer seconds in the pocket before

throwing up. Blah, blah, blah. It doesn't matter. Because they couldn't get anything done. This team, the Jacksonville, advanced beyond its 36-yard. line once all game. What? Once. What? Can we get a Gabbard zone update? Was he well under five yards per cent?

As Dan said, right in the office, the gabbert zone just the boundary got a little tighter. It's harder for anyone else to get in that room. I think Gabbard saw some numbers in the preseason. He realized that the Gabbard zone wasn't hard enough to get into. So now he wants to be the only guy that can be in the Gabbard zone. And, you know, did we make clear what the Gabbard zone is exactly? I think it's around five yards. Five yards per attempt or under.

So today he had 35 attempts for 121 yards, that's 3.5. And that's after racking up some garbage time. It was all garbage time. He was at 3.04 going into like the middle of the fourth quarter. Real quick, on the flip side, I felt, and what I wrote about today was that what the Chiefs did, and they're not going to, you know, I think they're a little overrated coming to the season. But this was the blueprint of what I think Andy Reid said. This is the parts that I have.

This is what I want to do with Alex Smith and the other guys around him. Smith was exactly who we thought he would be. He wasn't out, he didn't blow you away with his arm, but he was efficient. He didn't make mistakes. I think he had like a 90, close to 100 passing rating. How many touchdowns did he throw for today? Two. Which is the same amount as they had the entire last season?

Right, they saw, and you saw a couple teams today. But a couple teams that upgraded their quarterback position, this is one of them. I could already, like, I could smell the glowing Peter King write up about Andy Reid tomorrow morning. Of course. It's only one week, and you don't want to overreact, but there's no worse week than the Jaguars scoring two points at home. I mean, that is just a killer after the entire office season, new regime, and you have two points, and Gabbard gets a little hurt at the end of the game.

It's miserable. Does that even matter if he got hurt? No, I think they'd be better off with Chad Henney. They're going to stick with Blaine Gabbard, though, Steve Weishar. NFL Network Zone has reported. Wes. My other game was We're just going to throw it out there on Sunday nights

We're feeling loose after being here for 14 hours Was a pretty big surprise That the Titans go into Pittsburgh And we're the more physical team Offense and defense They pushed the Steelers around Manhandled them in the trenches Steelers

My biggest takeaway from the game was Steelers have no playmakers on offense Their backfield is a mess They couldn't run the ball at all The Marquise Pouncy injury really hurt them. The offense just kind of ground to a halt after that. It could be a really long season for the Steelers. I mean, it's only one week, but without Levi-on-Bell, you know,

Stevens-Howings is out. That's not a huge loss, but that backfield looks like a mess. Well, to review, they lost three players it looks like for the season today. LaRad Stevens-Halling, their backup running back has a torn ACL. Marcus Pouncey has a torn ACL and Larry Foote tore his biceps. So that's three pretty key players out for the season. What about with Tennessee? I know their defense basically sealed this for them,

but we heard a lot about Locker and the new offense. Did you see hints of that being anything we can hang our hat on? Not really. They were basically just grinding it out. They got a lead, and then they just went with Sean Green. Well, Sean Green got injured. They went with Chris Johnson and then Jackie Battle in short yardage. but they ran 42 times, the Steelers ran 15 times.

So what you're trying to say is my Ben Rothesberger MVP pick, Steelers making the AFC conference title game pick, not looking good after one week. Well, this sets up nicely for you because if he gets everyone to lower the expectations to this point and then they win the division, there's some MVP love. It's actually funny because an outspoken NFL.com editor actually shouted across the room at one point,

hey Greg your MVP pick's not looking to leading to Greg using some choice words as a response and included an expletive that's only in a newsroom would you be able to get away with it in an office setting what's looking a little better was the hero pick that I put on top of the Titans before this weekend

we'll have to do I guess our hero pick round that was as subtle as a Dieter Brock job drop All right so I think we're getting near the end of the line here my other game which was actually a good game. The Cardinals and Rams. The Rams pulled it out with a late field goal by Greg the leg. You know, these two teams, they're not getting as much publicity as the other two NFC West teams,

but I think they're good. I think they're going to be competitive in almost every game. And, you know, I thought the thing that jumped out to me, and Greg and I talked about it downstairs, was, you know, they have, now Carson Palmer is showing that he can play still, and they have some receivers that could play. And probably the thing that made me most happy besides the Jets win. was seeing Larry Fitzgerald

able to be Larry Fitzgerald again. And he was, what, the third leading receiver in terms of yardage on that team today? Yeah, he was. They had a lot of they had great bounce. I think they had something like 20 catches for 260 yards and the two scores between Andre Roberts, Michael Floyd,

and Fitz, with Fitz having both the touchdown. So that's something to look at for. The other thing, you know, we talked about Wes and I have Honey Badger as the defensive rookie of the year and he made an amazing play and Jared Cook who had a great game

for the Rams today he might be a real difference maker but Honey Badger had this amazing punchout play that led to a turnover a force fumble and a turnover so those are two pretty good teams I think Jared Cook was the most striking

part of that game for me what it says about Chris Palmer and the old Titans offensive coaches that they underutilized him so much his first game with the Rams and he has a career day goes for what seven, 150 and touchdowns would have been three touchdowns if not for that money badger play and just look

dynamite and sam bradford uh this is obviously a pivotal season in his career and he he got off to a nice start and uh you know they didn't figure out we're still waiting for tavan austin to explode uh they try to get him the ball but really nothing came of it but once he gets going uh they they have a chance to put up some points and bradford's in a good spot i think it's they tried to get him the ball but brian schadenheimer's their coordinator six catches 41 yards i think there was a lot of positives to take away from both team. I mean, we were talking, how many wide receiver cores, I know you mentioned it, are better.

Michael Floyd just looked sensational making a couple big plays, and Andre Roberts was probably the best wide receiver in this game. It's a heartbreaker, though, to lose a game in the division. You're up 11 in the second half. That's a big win for St. Louis right off the bat to have kind of that gut

check type of win, the game you're supposed to win at home, and they get it done. Andre Roberts is probably one of the better players in the NFL who is not a house old name. Nobody knows who he is, and he's a really good player. 327 yards, by the way, for Carson Palmer. I know they didn't win the game, but just after what they had last year, it's such a big upgrade. He looked good. He was throwing the ball really well. Okay, so then Kevin Patra, our Chicago correspondent, ATL writer, he was on the

Lions, Vikings, and also he covered the Bears bangles. Anybody have any thoughts about those games? The Bengals. Well, Mark Tressman and the Jay Cutler offense looked pretty good in the second half from everything. I talked with Kevin. He did a good write-up after the game and thought that Cutler and this offense wouldn't have made that comeback in the past. I mean, they're down a couple scores in the second half. They get a couple touchdowns to pull off the win at home. Quiet some buzz on your Bengals, Chris. Well, it looked to me like AJ Green was probably the best player on that field. Unstoppable. I mean, Peanut Tillman is one of the top five or six cornerbacks.

in the league, and AJ Green gave him all he could handle, and then some. Well, and, you know, Chicago did not give up a sack all day long against what I think is, honestly, a top five pass rush. That's huge. That's a big, big story, considering where they're coming from. And the Bengals are part of an AFC North that didn't win a game today. The entire division lost, 0 and 4. I will jump in for the Lions and Vikings game.

I was talking about the Reggie Bush hype train for about three months. months and kind of saying it was a bit of a mockery because what has he done his whole career? But turns out maybe this actually is finally the time where he becomes the explosive USC Reggie Bush that we were always promised but never quite saw. He made some huge plays in that game, including I believe he turned a screen pass into a 75-yard touchdown. Maybe, you know, people forget before Javad Best, his career was cut short by the concussions that he was such a nice fit in that offense.

if Bush can fill that role, you know, they're going to give people a lot of problems. Yeah, that's important because from what I understand, Bush, after hearing your words, was in a real malaise, like he really couldn't get himself out of that until today. He called me, actually. He said, I don't understand, and you don't believe in me. But I will show you on week one, and he did it. The joick store looked pretty good, too. I think that was when I turned to you during the game, Wes,

and you basically let me know that he had more receptions than Bush at one point. I thought that was a bit of a surprise. Yeah, he had two TDs, and he looked, Joy, Bill always looks good. How about Peterson? He has a 78-yard touchdown run. Right. Finishes, though, with 93 yards. He got 15 yards on his next 17 carries, I think, and after the game said that's easily the best defensive line in the league.

Well, the lines didn't win a division game last year. So, I know it's only week one, but they've already done something they didn't do all of last year. That's a big step. And for Indomacan Su, getting all of the. publicity. Nick Fairley outplayed him again. Fairley was awesome today. I think one and a half sacks was always in the backfield. I think Fairly might be the better player. And by the way, Sue, it must be said, he had another pretty dirty play today. He cut out the Viking Center, Sullivan's knee from behind

what should have been an easy pick six that got called back because of that, and then Stafford threw interception later when they got the ball back, so it basically cost them a touchdown. I don't know. You know, Clay Matthews does the same thing, and people don't go crazy, but with Sue, the reason why they do is because he does this stuff consistently. Like, when is he going to, you know, grow up a little? Clay Matthews was frothing at the mouth today. He was. He was fun watching him.

He was everywhere. And then finally, the Sunday night game, this was not how tough Tom Coughlin wanted to start his season. I was actually thinking his head might explode on the sideline today. Well, this game was a great example of why the NFCE should not be in prime time so much. After a great Sunday, I watched a lot of good game. Pretty much every game I watched that was high quality. This was probably the worst played game I saw all day. Well, I'll use this opportunity to apologize to anyone who read my making the leap piece from last week when I had David Wilson at the top.

And he fumbled twice, maybe entrenched in Coughlin's doghouse right now. He fumbled twice. The second fumble was returned for a backbreaking touchdown. And actually, then he was on the sideline for the start of the next drive. And it was almost deja vu because it was almost exact. The only thing that was missing was him crying, which was what happened last season opener against the Cowboys a year ago. I mean, listen, Tom Clothin does not have a lot of options right now running back, so I don't know if David Wilson now is out of the picture for them for a while.

I'm sure he won't be, but if they did have more options, I think this would be a very bad sign for him. The very bad start for the Giants. You know what concerns me about them is, A, their defensive backfield, to me, seems to be a complete shambles. They've got Denver coming up next week. I just, this is a team that needs to be firing on all cylinders on offense. They're going to have to outscore teams by a margin to, you know, even have any chance to succeed in this division. Well, like with everything else, it's one week. Let's not get carried away.

It's David Wilson has some fumbles. I think he'll be a centerpiece in their offense, and I think he'll have a good seat. Yeah, I still think he's a difference-making talent. Tonight was just a worst-case scenario for him. And I'll be a Tony Romo defender. One thing a guy does not get enough credit for, he's a tough guy. he took a pretty crushing double hit at the end of the half and he came back, missed one snap

and then he actually got his ankle rolled up in the third quarter and he stayed in the game for that. I mean, the guy, he's tough, he's a tough player. And the uncanny thing about the Giants is whenever you think they're in a bad spot, that's when they win a game. So just looking ahead to that progress game up. That's when they win seven games and walk away with the Lombardi is what they do.

Right. All right, so that is around the horn, the week one around the horn. Is that taken around the horn? I think it is, actually, by like multiple networks. All right, okay. We'll work on something else for that. How about around the league?

Around the league? That sounds boring. I feel like we can do better than that, too. All right, cool. So we will be back on Wednesday, right, Greg? We will be back on Wednesday, yeah. Very exciting. Enjoy Monday night football, as we will, for the mailman, the sizzler, the boss,

K. Rich behind the glass until Wednesday. I have a big legal file full of, newspaper articles of why I was breaking up with the Cincinnati Bengals about 10 or 15 years ago. You broke up with the team yourself? Yeah, well, I feel like they kind of left me at the altar and gave me no choice. If they're not going to love me, why would I love him back?

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