NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Preseason Crystal Ball Predictions

Episode Date: August 10, 2017

A room filled with heroes – Dan Hanzus, Marc Sessler, Chris Wesseling & Gregg Rosenthal – recap all the latest news from around the NFL including Devonta Freeman's five year contract extension, Jay Cutler impressing in Miami, and Charger's Cornerback Brandon Flowers retiring. The heroes also discuss what to watch during preseason Week 1.  Spoiler alert: our review of Hard Knocks Ep. 1 is here.Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comNFL 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. The Around the NFL podcast are huge in Japan. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast presented by New Era. My name is Dan Hansis and I'm joined by a room. Feld of the Heroes, Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosenthal.

What's up, boys? Hey, Dan. Greg, with his own life became huge in Japan by marrying a woman who hails from Japan Oh, yeah, she, you know, she... More than we can say. Families in Japan.

You know, she was California, Japan growing up. Own it. I go. I go a lot. I'm big. It's nice being around people where I'm an average height. Are you average height when you go to Japan? Still probably a little short, but no, there's, yeah, it makes sense. I'm like the tallest person in our family. Very cultured.

Great. Are you really? I mean, we're all about the same. You're not like an oak tree, you know Not an insult I'm just saying like There are people that are shorter than you I figured like the men Also all the men in the family

Well no no I'm not counting And by the way you have a I'm not a toddler at home I'm not counting my brother And my father The people I grew up with That's no longer my family As far as I'm talking about my Japanese family

Bad news for the rest of the Rosenthal Klan Greg has basically disowned you Over the last 24 hours Welcome back, everybody. This is the Wednesday show, the Wednesday video show, which you could check out at NFL.com slash ATN video, which will go up tonight Wednesday at 9 p.m. Eastern, 6 p.m. Pacific. You're overseas?

Yeah, figure it out. Figure it out. Or you could just go to that website literally at any point this week after that and watch it. There will be videos on the site. I like urgency from the overseas crowd, so figure it out. As quickly as possible. A bit being told in the inner earpiece that it's 9.30 p.m. Eastern 6.30. That's a change.

That's a programming change, isn't it? No, I think it's always been 930, but that's a rough start for. Yeah, blow it. It's going to be a lot to overcome. Anyway. All right, so 930, 6.30 deal with it. Wes? Yes, sir.

You know, we don't always get Westivis anymore. Famously, West celebrating the Cincinnati Bengals, bowing out of the playoffs immediately. in the first Saturday of January. But you know we do get every year, NFL preseason. And I know you love the NFL preseason, Wes. It's coming up. It's starting in earnest.

Well, one of those events is a celebration. The Bengals losing every year in January. So I figured since you love the training camp so much or the preseason so much, we're going to have our spotlight where we talk about some preseason games. We're going to do a whole segment later in the show today. More preseason. It's exciting.

Today's show is a good one, by the way. It's a good show today. Jay Cutler, he's in Miami now. That man's got a mind. What is it? Like an elephant? Is that what they say? Like the elephant remembers everything?

Is that a true thing? How do we even know that? Elephants are very smart. Yeah, but honestly, not that smart. They're empaths too. Oh, yeah? What do they do? What do they do that is so smart?

I mean, I understand in nature they're smart, but they're not really back to any sort of technological achievement or any achievement of any nature. Like, do they know Excel? No, they don't do spreadsheets. Hard Knocks is back. Also, we're going to talk about that. You can check out the Hard Knocks Recaps written by the old Zusser,

and we're going to talk about the season premiere, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, a nice start to that season. And also, somebody got paid. Devonto Freeman. The Atlanta Falcons got a new deal. What does that mean for Freeman? Probably a nice financial setup for his family for the rest of his life and perhaps future Freeman generations.

But what does it mean also for other running backs? notably one in Pittsburgh that is trying to get paid as well. So all that coming up today, very good show. I'm excited. Yeah, I mean, it was a little bit of a hard pivot out of the elephant talk. I think we should go back to that for 10, 15 minutes before moving on.

Yeah, I just feel like you're afraid of the topic. I think it's a topic that you don't want to say it changes the way we think about animals. The elephant is actually the elephant in the room here. Hey, elephants, come back to us a little bit about how smart you are. We got you. A little overrated. The dolphins got you. You know, most of the porpoens.

You're right. It's only like two mammals. Well, you know, chimpanzees. All right. Before we get into the news, we'll say hello. Sitting in a big room behind the glass today. So many new era hats as well. I mean, they cannot say that we are not embracing our sponsor. There's Emma VP behind the glass. Hey, Emma.

What's going on, guys? Happy to be back. Now, is there some type of power move going on right now? Because Sully is behind the glass, but he's tucked under a bucket hat, bucket hat working the graphic side of things yeah you might be on to something in the corner interesting i always i always immediately think that sully probably unfortunately got into some day drinking very early in the morning has been you know put into the backgrounds uh all right let's do some news emma i feel like the crocodile hono with roaches you know what i'm saying

all right now let's start yes with the two-time pro ball running back devonta freeman a new five-year contract extension that makes them the NFL's highest-paid running back according to Mike Silver. The extension pays out $41.25 million. The Falcons confirmed that extension on Wednesday morning, former Florida State star, really emerged last year as a true, you know,

you could argue borderline superstar in the league last year with that type of potential. And West, now the Falcons have done business. Is it smart? age where nobody wants to pay running back to give a guy like Freeman this nice a deal. Sure is. He's the most productive running back in the NFL over the last two years in terms of

rushing yards, rushing touchdowns, and yards from scrimmage. He and Tavent Coleman are the best complementary backfield in the NFL. And they're really not paying him that much. You look, LaDaney and Tomlinson in 2004, this is 13 years ago, became the highest paid running back in the NFL with 21 million in guarantees. 13 years ago, DeMonte Freeman's getting 22 million in games. guarantees. It's basically no progress whatsoever for running back. Unbelievable. In fact, they make quite a bit less money on average than they did a decade ago.

Well, they produce less overall. The fact that Devante Freeman is the only player in the NFL to have a thousand rushing yards in each of the last two seasons is an outrageous. It's an anomaly. You would not expect that too often. But in this room, you know, I'm not going to toot our own horn too much. But we've been saying for years that Devante Freeman, one of the most underrated, underappreciated players in the league in terms of the value that he brings, that he doesn't need 400 touches to be valuable because he can do everything. I mean, he's so good between the tackles.

He's so good in the passing game. He's a lot of fun to watch, so it makes a lot of sense to make this commitment. Part of this deal came because of the way he was used in Kyle Shanahan's scheme, 22 touchdowns over two years. Kyle Shanahan loves his running backs, and he makes them productive, and this is not unusual. but I think it only adds pressure to Steve Sarkozy. And you are taking...

Pressure Valve? It's not pressure valve. It's just regular human pressure this week. Again, this is a guy that's never called plays at the NFL level, and he's replacing one of the best in-game play callers of our generation in Kyle Shanahan who used Freeman in so many different ways. It's going to be interesting to see with all those characters on that offense, especially Freeman, how they get out of the gate early. We should mention that Freeman, the last couple carries,

the last couple of minutes. Those are things that he has to get past. He had a chance to win the Super Bowl by picking up a first down. He was a big part in blowing that block, which eventually turned that game around. People complained that they didn't run the ball at the end of that game.

They didn't run the ball well. They had about three or four runs where if they picked up three or four yards in those plays, they win that game. Because their center was playing on a broken leg. He also had some fantastic plays in that Super Bowl too. It wasn't his fault, just that running game. Hey, Mark.

Yes. Freeman had. 27 touchdowns in the past two seasons. I'm talking on the ground, baby. 22 touchdowns. Wow. 22 touchdowns on the ground. Yeah, but you were talking more like how he's valuable

in a lot of ways to the offense, so I think you would include all sorts of questions. Well, you've done that for me. Can I? In a totally flattering way. I'd like to make a request. Yes. Don't correct Mark anymore.

Oh. Yeah, hear that? Why not? Because he's a good guy. I mean, sit down. Are the kissing cousins back? Oh, they're back. Wow, all right.

That's good to hear. He's a good guy. We're in a post-truth society. Are we trying, are we, are we at the era now where we need to protect Mark from himself and it's better to just stay out of the way, even if there's errors involved? Well, I think that's called football season. Yeah. That may make sense. Look at this guy.

Look at this guy. Wow. All right, Wes. Thank you, though. Greg just fired the gun. I will take it under advisement. How about that? It will come back your way.

Uh-oh. Watch out. I guarantee. Hey, Jay Cutler's back in town with the, well, not back in town. He's in Miami now. He's on the Dolphins reunited with Adam Gase, who he had some success with in Chicago. Adam Gase, who is a guy that knows how to coach up quarterbacks,

we're told. Cutler apparently looks the same according to the coach in practice, even joining training camp late the way he has. Here's what Jay Cutler had to say when he was asked how much he remembers from the offense he was in in Chicago. Is it like a crash course today? Um, you know, it's kind of a crash course if you already took the course before. So, uh, some of the, some of the run game stuff changed.

Passing games is kind of relatively the same. Protections, they change up a little bit. So, um, you know, just kind of working with Bo out there and just going through the run game and, uh, making sure I'm thinking on that. But, you know, it had to come back to a day. He's good. Here's what he said. Basically everything with the offense and, you know, the biggest thing for him was just kind of getting that feel with the rush. It's one thing to throw a little more routes on air or one-on-ones,

but they get in there and be able to take some reps with the line in there. And just be able to see everything kind of develop and our player's body language, how they run routes. I mean, that's the biggest difference for them and just kind of getting that feel back in the pass rush. That was case after Cutler there. Mark, are you buying into this idea that it will be kind of a seamless transition into the Dolphins offense?

I think it's a good pairing. I don't know why I should be so impressed that a quarterback remembers a playbook that he was deeply engaged in less than two years ago, that this is something in theory you're pouring over 12 hours a day, not just during the football season, but all year long a document, that you then go with other humans practice over and over for hours and hours a day, and that roughly, you know, 20 months later, oh, I still remember that vaguely. And that's impressive to me.

I mean, let's slow down on that. This takes me back to 2009 when Brett Favre shows up in Vikings training camp after the camp's over. So in late August, after they recruited him, goes out and has the best age 40 season in NFL history, the best season by any Vikings quarterback in history after missing all of training camp and not getting any rapport with his new receiver. It's a reminder that OTA's mini-camps and even training camp to an extent, a little overrated. They're essentially there just to keep NFL network on the air. I'm more impressed physically.

been getting great ratings on Inside Training Camp Live. This is this network guy over here. RIP ended today. That's one small step for man, one giant's, what in the hell? Is that NFL network's Greg Rosenthal? Moving on, moving on. Did you have something else? I was got to say, I was more impressed.

See, the network brass sport anymore? I'm enjoying this as a J. Cutler fan, because this is the honeymoon period. This is probably the peak of what? Jay Cutler's time in Miami is really going to be, even though I believe it'll be better. People reporting that he's dropping 40, 50-yard passes on a dime in his first practice back, like after not throwing the ball. He's like the natural.

It's everything else you can't do. That's the problem. Read defenses and all that. Moving on, it's all over for Brandon Flowers in the NFL. The former Chargers and Chiefs running back cornerback announced on Instagram that he is retiring from the NFL, spent nine years in the league. Steve Weish of the network, Greg's colleague, first reported the development.

The Chargers cut ties with Flowers back in March. Flowers is a pretty big deal when they signed him a couple years ago as a free agent, but injuries caught up to him. He missed most of the last season, 31 years old, the end for Brandon Flowers. But in his day, a few years back, he was one of the better cornerbacks in the league. But it happens quick. We learned with Thorel Revis. These guys disappear quickly at that position.

Well, it's another player whose career is over because it can. concussions. It's a hundred, you know, he has been struggling with concussions and last year had not recovered from one. It's like, this is happening more and more. This was a guy who signed a deal with San Diego, played very well, and then signed another big time deal. So he kind of has that security long term, but his life has changed. Like, it just feels like this wasn't happening that much 10 years ago where we heard players retiring solely because of concussions and that's what this is. Well, we saw that first wave with the Niners where it was Chris Borland. and Patrick Willis, that everyone, all injuries and the physical body,

if it isn't perfect, players are willing to cut bait with their pro football careers a lot sooner than we ever would have imagined as kids. For the last time, perhaps, on this podcast. Oh. Take it away, scary obese woman from True Detective Season 1. You want to make flowers today? One more time. You want to make flowers today?

Rule of threes. You want to make flowers? What a run. I've got a proposal. You know, the best defensive player on the Patriot Super Bowl championship, young player, Trey Flowers, could come up.

It's not the same. About every time Eric Flowers allows a sack. You hammering. We have to, maybe we'll have a vote. I just always thought Brendan Flowers is going to, that was kind of his thing. We can't wrap this into a New England Patriot's success story. That's true, dude.

I don't want. It's not going to worry. I don't want that stank on it. Just one more thought on this. How impressive is Terrence Newman going to be 39 years old? still playing cornerback at a high level, and Dorel Rivas and Brandon Flowers

is nearly 10 years younger than him, no longer in the league. In other news, John Elway make Elway great again. Listen, this is what John Elway had to say, the general manager of the Denver Broncos. There was a report out there floated by 104.3 of the fan.

I guess that's a local. Mark, you spent some time up in Denver. Is that a local station? by a reporter named Sandy Clow. Oh, it's a Clow bomb. It feels like something we would create in this. Like a fake Twitter account. Anyway, Sandy Clow reported that the Broncos were actively pursuing A.J. McCarrin,

the backup quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals, of course. This type of report comes to light, I guess, after there have been reports that the camp battle between Trevor Simeon and Paxton Lynch hasn't been going to gangbusters. So this report gets floated. that Denver's poking around looking for maybe another option. John Elway not having it, by the way. He tweets out early this morning. Rumor of us being interested in anyone other than the QBs we have

is another example of irresponsible fake news. An absolute voice double. This tweets not for John. That rumor doesn't pass this. smell test. What's AJ McCarran giving you that Trevor Simeon and Paxton Lynch aren't? Can someone tell me why everyone if this is, you know, the Denver Post shot this down is 150% false, which is really false.

What is with AJ McCarran? What is the love affair, even with fake reports about AJ McCarran? Can we calm down a little bit? Well, with Cleveland, it had ties to Hugh Jackson and Cleveland had no quarterback, so it made a little bit more sense there. I'm with you. I don't see why Elway would pick A.J. McCarran out of any possible trades. Why is that we blasting this? We would have never heard about this rumor because there's just some... Sandy Clow has a wide net that she...

We'll never heard about it. She spreads. Do we see what you're doing with your fake news, John Elway? We saw you at the inauguration for Donald Trump. Saw you there, buddy. I don't pass the sniff test here. I think the appeal is A.J. McCarran hasn't failed yet. That's true for a lot of young backups.

Bance Joseph was in Cincinnati with him. He's the defensive backs coach. Good call, Wes. You've done it again. You pieced it together and connected the dots. What? Moving on to the throne of ease. Oh, my God, it keeps getting better.

I mean, this winning streak is unprecedented. It's like the stock market in the late 90s being a Patriots fan right now. Because not only... What an analogy. You're winning Super Bowls constantly. Tom Brady is hot and ageless. No one's reporting on the fact that he had a major facelift at some point, like a face-off.

Well, you've reported on that a few times. A couple of times hasn't stuck. Stacey Clowbom. She reports something. You don't know that it's a she. It's Sandy Clow. We don't know if it's a he or a she. So Stacey is a little aggressive.

Yeah, we should dip into that and figure that out. Anyway, so things are good for the Patriots. So good that they can go on and buy two, the first team ever, to buy their own travel jets, a pair of 767s that outfitted. if you're watching on our video show outfitted with all the Patriots colors and logos and even on the tail is that what they call it the tail that will work aerodynamics not really my specialty five trophies Lombardi trophies you know ponderous man but not only a couple takeaways here first of all they are the first team to ever do this in the NFL the jets can

cost anywhere between ESPN kind of took a wide berth on the estimate the price tag is between 5 and 65 million for a used aircraft which they've pretty wide range yeah but a new one's 200 million each they're not getting 200 they're not buying 200 million dollars jets who cares anyway but why not because that would cost like half a billion dollars almost they've got it no one else is surprised that no team's ever done this before a team has with you the sea hawks I read somewhere that the Seahawks once did it, but it turned out not to be cost effective. There's a whole backstory here that the airline industry,

these type of jets, you need the big jets that can facilitate the entire team, staff, and all the equipment. Those type of jets that are needed for the charter type travel are starting to be grounded for good because they're getting older and the airlines are saying we don't want to refurbish it. It's not cost effective. So these planes are starting to disappear. So this might end up being a model.

that other teams follow. Who cares? But anyway, the fact that they have two planes, I just thought was interesting, too. It's like they have a backup plane. Well, I remember flying out of Terminal 5, I believe, JFK, there was the JetBlue Jets planes. I would refuse to fly on those.

I mean, it was just a regular Jets blue, but it had, you know, pictures of the Jets. Those were all over the place. They still are, I believe. Will, can we? You don't feel safe right now. It's just a partner. Well, I wouldn't do that.

Will, can you? throw up that the image again, too. One more thing I want to point out in the tweet is that the Patriots spell aircrafts with a K, like the owner's name. So it's cute. Next year, when they have to paint another

Lombardi onto the tail, they're going to be complaining about there not being enough room as they did with their banners in their stadium. There's not enough room. If you're going to have a Brady plane, you have to have a Garoppel plane. Back up. That's it. It's the President and vice president. Did you read that in my post? I made the same joke.

I didn't, no, but good joke. No, that's right. It's just, like, Wes got the credit for it, but I wrote it a day earlier. Sorry. Are you accusing West? Ah, just like the West thing where you, like, put me on blast for correcting Mark.

Now he's a little bit of tension on him, that's all. Wow. And then, you know, a little joke thievery, and now we're fine. I thought his correction of you was absolutely on point. What you just did was uncalled for. Perhaps. Great job on the hard knocks. Recap.

Oh, thanks. All even now. Not too transparent. All right. Finally in the news, Brock Osweiler and the Browns. I love everything about this place. I love being a brown and I'm just very thankful to be here. That's going on here. What's going on? I mean, a week ago, Mark's tweeting that he's all in and Deshaun Watson is killing everybody in practice. Kaiser, baby. Deshaun Kaiser, excuse me. And then everyone is saying, oh, this is all trending in that direction. Now there's an ESPN report that Brock Oswald is expected to start the start.

season but we'll see he's starting the first preseason game at the very least and then the browns put out a social media a tweet that is a it's like Brock rocks and then there is a bunch of like 80s guitar noodling and then a basically a highlight reel of Brock Osweiler checkdown passes and Brown's practice and I just essentially what it was and I just it just seems like These two kids are falling in love. The Browns of Brock Osweiler. Your thoughts, Mark? Well, number one, I watched that scrimmage they had last Friday

where you saw Cody Kessler, Kaiser, and Osweiler all kind of switching with various groups. Brock Osweiler to me, just looking at him as an overall quarterback, looked no different to me than he did last year. Nothing stood out as something had been fixed or corrected. So this is something that I literally am not panicked over at all because, again, it's shifted me into a place where I have zero emotions attached to this team if Kaiser's not going to be on the field. But secondly, give me a break that we're figuring out who the starting quarterback of this team is

before they've played a preseason game. Brock Osweiler, of any quarterback on that roster has the chance to undo all this fair praise. Reportedly, he's had his best couple days of practice since they gave him that first team. What does that mean, though? Cody Kessler is now third team exclusively, and Kaiser's with the second team. team. So if nothing else, it feels like it's down to Brock and Kaiser, just those. Cody Kessler is now the Bryce Petty of the Browns quarterback battle, just an afterthought it appears. He's right, because Osweiler didn't replace Kaiser, replace Kessler, who came in as the guy with the most experience,

which is very little, if you think about the NFL in general, very little, but he had the most with Hugh, and he's been essentially shoved out of the picture. I think if Brock Osweiler starts week one, you've got to readjust your pain rankings and put Browns fans at number one again. And not be so sure about your Jets getting the number one pick necessarily. Well, it's just funny because I remember when that trade went down, I was talking to this room like Browns, don't do it. Don't have us in August talking about Brock Osweiler perhaps starting the season. And these guys, man, they just, you know, and I have nothing to say.

I'm a Jetsman. They don't have a quarterback. Yeah, but how are we thinking that this guy is the guy that should be starting week one? After everything we've seen. They literally were on the phone after they acquired him trying to get another. team to take on half his salary in a trade no other team would do that well in theory the other idea not saying they're this smart but maybe they're what they're doing they can over the next two weeks to showcase them in case someone has a terrible injury and needs to go last resort make a

trade for him i don't know who that would be well we'll get to that a little bit later uh when we talk about uh some of our preseason crystal ball uh predictions west buckley your chimstraff for that Crystal ball is going out of style like quicksand. I mean, you just don't hear about it. Who's using them? It's like not since Wizard of Oz have we seen a crystal ball. That's fair. We need something new.

Even like a modern-day psychic along the streets in L.A. They're all over the place. You don't walk in. There's a crystal ball in there. I didn't want or two. I didn't watch any of that stuff like Lord of the Rings or Harry Prince in the pauper. What's the other one?

This is your Belichick's MySpace commentary, right? Yeah, what's the Harry Potter? Yes. Is there some type of update that we can use as a ref instead of crystal ball that's going on in those fantasy series? Not a Harry Potter fan, don't know. You're going to have to ask a different room. All right, fair enough. That's what's happening in the news.

All right, time for the training camp spotlight presented by New Era. And we thought what with preseason games opening up for all the teams this week, that we'd check in on two games that are going to air on NFL Network. There are six games on NFL Network airwaves this from Thursday through Sunday. So that's pretty cool if you're into that sort of thing. We're going to study two of them, or not so much study, but say one thing to watch in each game. And we will start with the Bears and Broncos.

Greg, do you want to get us going with that? What is one thing to watch in Bears, Broncos? The best thing to watch in the preseason is young quarterbacks, especially ones you haven't seen before. So I want to see Mitchell Trubisky play football. Like I've never seen that at a pro level. There actually have been some positive reports about how his arm looks and doing some good things in practice.

So that's what I'm looking for in this game. Just see what's a Trubisky like. What happened? Yeah, I would like, I'm interested in that. And he's got to play a lot because he's the clear backup. He'll probably play it two full quarters. It's actually one of the rare good preseason games in theory because the Broncos are going to have a quarterback of note

playing deep into the game with Simeon and Lynch. Right. You're going to get to see. I'm more interesting than that. I mean, Wes is laughing at us. I mean, because Mark's right. All preseason games are good in theory. Well, at best in theory.

I mean, some are not good in theory. It does matter to this Broncos competition, though. It matters to the Broncos competition, West, right? If one significantly outplays the other over the next two weeks, that person, that quarterback's going to be starting. Sure, it matters until next week's game renders this week's meaningless and then the regular season renders the entire preseason meaning. Well, the regular season is also meaningless in the big picture.

well if you want to get well the super bowl renders the entire operation meaningless if in life i guess you could say is that's what i mean meaningless because it ends this podcast meaningless in the big picture elephants meaningless oh it always were super overrated it was a good show done with elephants keep him out of the circus we had fun it is there better than that uh how about chiefs 49ers now mark i'll throw it to you on this one and west you could jump in if you have something that that's getting you fired up. Chiefs 49ers, one thing to watch in that game. Well, can I give you two things real fast?

Sure. I want to see if there's any visual effect of like Kyle Shanahan running this offense for the 49ers after watching the disaster it was last season. And I really want to see Patrick Mahomes. I mean, it's not going to be for, it's probably going to be for, what, a quarter and a half? I'm excited to see. The one thing about the first week of the preseason, it's your chance to see all these guys we've been writing about with very little knowledge of who they are.

Yeah, Wes has said, you've said in the past, you can watch some. running backs to kind of see how they're looking. And there's two in this game, Kareem Hunt, who might wind up being the starter as a rookie. And a guy, Matt Breda, I don't even know if that's pronounced correct, but he has been getting a lot of write-ups in San Francisco, potentially as the primary backup and could be in the mix. I don't know. I just want to see who this guy is.

I do like the idea of Kyle Shannon opening up his bag of tricks in the preseason opening that will be happening. Like Chip Kelly, just running teams up and down the field in August. If you remember when RG3 was a rookie, Kyle Shanhan's slow played the entire NFL in the preseason and then unleashed him in week one. But you ruined my brushback. I was going to give you. Quarterbacks aren't the thing to watch in the preseason. It's so misleading because of the vanilla defense.

It's running backs that I want to see, like you mentioned, Kareem Hunt and the hyper-motivated Carlos Hyde. A lot of hide heat in this room and I like it. A lot of bad. Something the track is almost uncomfortable. That was training camp. spotlight presented by New Era. Hey, speaking of New Era, New Era's NFL training collection has a great combination of innovative performance and style.

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Buy a cap. Buy a hat. I mean, a lot of hats here. People thought we couldn't get more hats on the set than last week. We're not allowed to talk about the hats. They were wrong. Just look at the hats. First rule of the hats.

no one there's no talking about the hats okay what do we want to talk about next so much to get you do you want to do a little preseason crystal ball you want to do it i think we should i mean we've told the people we don't have to do it we can bail on it no i like it's follow through west i mean if we're going to have a crystal ball let's do it bring it back we're bringing back to crystal ball how about that as a segment that's going to be tougher than bringing back your old dean scream what happened to the dean scream let's let's look that out let's take that sucker up i'm sure we'll come some point. Wes,

since you are the preseason star around here, why don't you get us going and take a look in a gander into your big old crystal ball? Patriots lose a game this month for the last time all season. That's my crystal ball. You kind of just cheated. You just did a crystal ball for the whole season.

I see what you're doing. They'll lose the game this month. And then people will say, oh, yeah, the Patriots aren't unstoppable. People will read too much into it, and then they'll just fly. through the schedule like they always do. Tom Brady, I think, is better now than he was in 2007. People underrate their coaching stability

to keep guys like Josh McDaniels and Matt Patricia in-house. They just keep getting better. They're not just more talented. They're deeper. They're more versatile. They're more well-balanced. They can run a lot of different alignments and personnel. Hard to go undefeated.

Can I just say all kidding aside, do you actually believe Patriots going 19 and 0? You think it's happening? Yes. Wow. I mean, just look at rosters. Who's even close to them? Well, offensively, I think it's by far the best offensive roster they've had with coaching everything considered.

By far better than 2007, which many people consider the greatest of all time. Going into the season, I think just overall, it's better. It's significantly better. Defensively, you know, front seven. It's a good front seven. It's fine. They led the NFL in total points on defense. defense last year, and then they went out and got Stefan Gilmore and David Harris.

I mean, great, great secondary, defensively in the front seven. Tony Ealy's there. Stuff to not lose a game. I predict a huge letdown season for the Patriots, 16 and 3. Where does that loss? Where does that third loss come? Somewhere before the playoffs. Season finale.

Not a huge letdown season. It better not be the season finale because it's against the Jets. Season finale against the Jets when the Patriots are resting all their players. I still don't think the Jets would lose that game. He went big with the crystal ball. I think Wes might be falling for the past. a little bit in a real way, maybe... Carrying that water.

Yeah, but a little bit more than water. A little bit more like maybe it's time to find a new team fall in love again. No, I mean, I just like good football. And they deserve your respect, I think. A couple of water boys buried underneath the mass turnpike. We know that. Cessler, you're up.

All right, by the end of the preseason one question, everyone will be asking, how will Colin Kaepernick fare as Jacksonville's starting quarterback on the heels of the team releasing a totally defunct Blake Bortles. See, we talked in the pre-production meeting about not going too deep into the wilderness. You're right at the edge.

That's where I thought you'd want me to be. Yeah, I like you there. I thought you were going to correct another statistic. I didn't even read the rest of it. I put no stats in there, nothing. That is just crazy enough to happen. I don't know about cutting. Wait, did they'll cut Blake Bortles?

Cutting Bordals? Initially, I thought, trade, but who can you trade them to? And for what? Get, like, a late round pick for Blake Bordels. but if Blakeboard, let's enter a world that Marks put us in, which I don't think is that crazy. We're in the wilderness, not too deep. Which is a world in the wilderness where Blake Bortles has an absolutely awful August.

Do they start thinking about other options? I think it's fair to wonder that. Well, didn't they have to? I saw a sentiment today that Blake Bortles is single-handedly holding the Jaguars back from reaching their potential. He's not. Their front office shares that blame as well. for not coming up with a backup plan at quarterback when you had all offseason to do it. And we sat here in October and November of last season saying,

Blake Bortles is holding this entire franchise hostage. You can't keep running him out there every week as a competitive liability. They didn't come up with a Plan B in the offseason. And Plan B was right in front of them. I'm not going to say now Jay Cutler is this guy that's a great quarterback and is going to lead teams to the Promise Land. But he got signed a couple days ago. He got signed in August.

And you sat on Chad Henney as your backup. Whether you're a fan of Cutler or not, he would at least give you a chance. I don't think they have a chance at Bortle's Flames out. Well, Cutler never would have gone to the job. I think the Cutler-Gaest thing is the only reason Cutler's even on a team right now. But Colin Kaepernick, Nathaniel Hackett and Buffalo, I don't think he did a great thing, but he's worked with a lot of different types of quarterbacks. And I think that him and Marone would be potentially open to the possibility of using Kaepernick.

I'll just say again, because Rapsheet corrected me on Twitter the other day. Jay Cutler was looking hard. for a job. It wasn't like he was looking for the perfect opportunity. Before he signed that Fox deal, he was actively, his agent was making phone calls. Post Fox, though? Before Fox. He was looking for a job and he could not get a nibble and then he turned the page.

And then once the Dolphins came, then it was like, should I do it? I need Kristen to help me with this. But this was not a situation where he was like, I need the perfect. Got, the Jets did the return of, Jets did not return his phone call. The Jets. Well, because we know what the Jets are up to him. There's sub-logic, though, in a really run-based offense, what they want to do there that Kaepernick could fit.

I think the owner there in Jacksonville would be someone who would be more open to it than other owners too. Greg, you're up. Eric, crystal ball time. Take it out. Maybe we should get a crystal ball effect the next time we do this. Three weeks of the preseason. Or an actual crystal ball in the studio.

That would be nice. That's a good idea. Three weeks of the preseason games have evaporated. The Texans need a wide receiver. it's becoming more clear, and the Philadelphia Eagles trade Jordan Matthews to the Houston Texans for a mid-round pick. Let's say fourth-round pick. Jordan Matthews goes in there, be the starting wide receiver across from DeAndre Hopkins. Gives them a chance, gives them something.

So all this Nelson Aguilar hype carries over, he's having a nice preseason, and they make the move. Jordan wrote about that and the what we learned yesterday. Sure did. Did a great job on that what we learned. Great job on what we learned. Thank you, buddy. I think that Eagle don't really need Jordan Matthews. I think Jordan Matthews has done a lot volume-wise in terms of,

but he doesn't make much happen after the catch. They've got four receivers. He's in the final year of his contract. And I think Houston's under the radar are kind of a team that there's a lot of pressure on that team, I feel like, to win now, even though they've got a weird quarterback situation. They have really high expectations for themselves. They're like the Cardinals last year.

saying like okay we made it into the playoffs like this is our year that we're going over the top and I'm thinking like really the Texans are that team I don't see that I think that's fair that's fair that would be a nice fit is Tori Smith any good by the way because shouldn't they maybe just wait to see if that guy could still play before they start trading away pieces it's a fair point he's had one of the worst catch percentages in the league since he the last couple years in San Francisco but he's apparently played pretty well in training camp all right uh my turn uh all right Andrew luck not going to play in the preseason. I'm not hanging on any onions there.

I think that's a very strong possibility. But I believe if that leads to no preseason and they do put him on the pup, an intriguing option will be added to the Colts quarterback room in the near future. Because if you think about it, let's say I am not, I'm, you know, it's all guesswork. But if he does, if this continues to go slowly,

they throw him on the pup, which means six weeks out at the least, that means they still probably think they have a choice. chance to make a move in the division once he returns, hoping he returns after six weeks. They need to get to luck in decent shape. They can't just lean on Scott Tolzine. I think they go and get somebody, any of these names. Maybe a Brock Osweiler, for instance, in a trade, maybe RG3. I don't know.

I would have to check in on that. Somebody out there to add to that quarterback room if he ends up going on Pupp. I thought you were going to go with the cloak and dagger routine and just withhold all intriguing names brought me right i was got to say like you need to bring that crystal ball back into the shop here let me let me shine it up i'll need a little more than intriguing i'll give you some you ready here we go capernick capernick i'll throw them in there how about a little hmm clipboard jesus that's not i think you're going to have to trade for an intriguing name because they're not out there about j j kini g j kinney yeah so somebody there's somebody gets cut some type of trade i my my

crystal ball prediction is there's somebody else in that room When you think of that defense, you don't think of a lot of huge difference makers yet on the Colts defense. And the reports out of Colts practice are that the offense essentially can't do anything. That Scott Tolzeen and the other quarterbacks there aren't getting anything done, to the point where it's almost hard to evaluate what else is going on. Remember the Steelers game last year? When Tolzine started, that was a brutal football game. Sean Hill started week one.

He's another guy out there. Started week one and won a game last year. How about that? I'm intrigued by Sean Hill more than I am Scott Tolzee. I'll do a little Seth Lobato. How about that? Who is that? Is that a procedure?

Seth Lobato. He's out there on the free agent market. What about Seth DeValb. He's not a quarterback. He'll say sort of a game-changing tight end. He's like a set record in the AFC North. Movable chess piece. Total movable chess piece.

All right, there we go. That's our preseason crystal ball. Finally, and let me just add right now, first, spoiler alert to the U.K. listeners. We're about to talk about hard knocks. That again, it's really not an excuse for you to turn this show off right now because on NFL.com streaming now through next week, next Tuesday, you can watch the premiere of Hard Knocks. Oh, yeah.

Great theme song. I wrote this on my Hard Knocks Recap. If I could have one song to soundtrack my entire life, just looping in eternity. It's a Hard Knocks theme. I feel like my life, it would have purpose, I would be driven, and I would succeed if this song was keeping me afloat. I'd like if it was an uncut version of your life

and there's hours of you at a desk just typing, and this music's just playing over it. My mouth opens, sonor. Do you think it works in the bedroom? What do you mean? I mean, I'm just saying, like, it's playing all the time in your life, every situation. Craig, must you go there? I'd appreciate it.

I'm just saying, honestly, I'm saying what everyone thought about. Well, it's what you thought. Entered by mine. Weird dude, bro. Anyway, the season premiere of Hard Knocks, Tampa Bay Bucking,ers, and I thought my initial takeaway, and then I'll throw it to all you guys because I know all you guys watched it as well, was that I think they did a nice job in the fact that, They have a bigger, more chess pieces to use that again to work with than, say, the Rams season last year,

where by the fourth episode, they were sending the guy that didn't believe in dinosaurs to Disneyland and then to a museum about dinosaurs. It was like, clearly they had kind of hit a wall in terms of what direction to take the show. This season, they have so many things, so many directions to take the show, so many interesting personalities, the fact that it's a team on the rise, it's a really good team for this type of treatment. So I'd like the choice to really make episode one about the guy that's the focal point of the franchise right now, James Winston, and it was really his show.

And they showed his life growing up in Alabama, and they showed his relationship with Dark Cutter. In fact, I think we have a clip here, something I found interesting. This is, all coaches asked a lot of their quarterbacks, but it's interesting. This guy's 23 years old still. Winston's so young, 23, and his coach is asking him to perform like some of the best quarterbacks in the history of the NFL, because that's the type of potential this guy has. Let's listen in. As far as doing too much, I just want to have a good understanding of how much is doing too much.

Okay, that's a great question. And here's what I would say on that is we have a good defense now. So maybe we've got to cut our risk a little bit. Your M.O. and your career was you've always been a risk taker, even if it got you in trouble early in a game, either you've been good enough or your team's been good enough to bail you out of it. And now we have a good team. We have by far the best team we've had since you've been in the NFL. And you are a guy that's able to win a game.

But also, we don't need you to lose the game for us. You're the only guy that can really lose a game for us. I mean, because no one else touches the ball enough. So there's a fine line there, and you're a great competitor, but we've got to get some patience in there. Now we need you to be a great quarterback. You play a different style quarterback than Tom Brady. You play a closer style to Aaron Rogers, both great quarterbacks, both guys that would be in the Hall of Fame. Now it's time, even though they got years on you, you've got to play like that.

Because it's, shoot, that's just the way this league is. They don't care if you're 23 or 39 to get the respect you want. and to go where our team wants, more than anything. Greg, I'll start with you. I thought Winston came off very well. It came off as an affable guy. I like the end of the episode when they showed. And some people said, oh, you guys killed JJ Watt

for doing the practice alone by himself. But that felt way more manufactured than Winston getting up at 5 a.m. and being the first in the gym, the first in the weight room, which is all the stuff you hear about guys like Aaron Rogers and Tom Brady. I thought Winston came up very well, and I would feel very good if I was a Bucks fan watching this episode. Absolutely.

The advantage of this show is that the superstars on their team are the best personalities, are great personalities, not just James Winston, but Deshaun Jackson and Gerald McCoy, who were both featured heavily. I mean, I love getting to know James Winston because he's such an engaging personality. He has such a great story. I mean, the most telling part of that whole show for me with James Winston was him in the audience while all of his teammates were singing because no one was having more fun and going more wild than James Winston. And he just seems like a guy that's like a great teammate that his teammates love,

that there's no errors about him, that he's kind of tight with everyone on the team. What about the daily turn down service? He passed up at the Marriott so he could collect more points, hotel points. I mean, he's just kind of a bit of a different dude. My wife was way in on that. I was writing the recap and I got this text, how she was just all fired up about that. Then she said, full disclosure, she said that he was her favorite player and that she did a cursory Google search.

and then thought a little differently about the situation. But, yeah, go ahead, Mark. I mean, for me it felt like, and I appreciate what you said about them holding back on some of the other star characters and central figures because I didn't learn much about anyone other than James Winston. To me, it felt like an excellent documentary on James Winston interrupted by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Because I wanted to know more about his life and everything. And when he went home and he visited with family and stuff, that to me was very rewarding documentary footage. I'm waiting to learn more about the rest of this team. I did come away with a good impression of Dirk Hutter. I think that he's not flashy, but he had maintained good control over the team, and he seems to be the right coach for them right now.

But I need to see more in the next episode. I thought from a pure football perspective, they did a great job of outlining the macro viewpoint of James Winston, which is when you're an athlete, throw out all the stats. Here's what matters. The feeling in your teammates and your coach's head in their mind, when you're up to bat, when you're on the pitcher's mound, when you're throwing the ball as a quarterback,

when you're catching the ball as a wide receiver, and you can tell the bucks know that James Winston is a franchise quarterback. The Gerald McCoy segment where he's like, it doesn't matter about anyone else. All that matters is number three. That's the macro viewpoint. The micro view point, 2013, Dirk Cutter, driving home the point, everybody knows you're a potential franchise quarterback.

Everybody loves your potential, but right now you're a turnover-prone quarterback who's inconsistent, and if we're going to, our roster strong enough right now, we can get to the playoffs, but you've got to get reeled in a little bit. One of the best moments was when Cutter and went at Winston at the end of the episode. After a terrible practice. And he went at him and everyone's gathering around and Winston had this thousand-yard stare on his face. He had no answers.

He had no answers for like, why did you do that? He basically had no answers. And then you remembered, oh, yeah, he's a 23-year-old third-year quarterback who is prone to mistakes. That's their Cutter interview that we listened to. The one other thing that I took from it is this Bucks team knows that they're supposed to be good. And I always think that's, I think that's dangerous. Like him saying that line to James Winston, you have a good defense. This is by far the best team you've had.

I immediately as a Patriots fan think Bill Batchettich never would say that. He would never think that because they don't have a team yet. They don't have a defense yet. They don't know what they are. And I always think, and they have all this attention on that, and it's tough to go, it's a lot easier to go from whatever they were in 2015 to 9 and 7 than it is to take that next step. And part of it is the expectations. And I think even as a coach, him thinking that way was telling to me. I mean, they certainly appear to be buying into their own hype.

But that can work both ways. We saw six years ago in the show, Rex Ryan, telling these guys that were going to win a Super Bowl and they almost got there. You could win with that type of attitude. It's definitely a different one than Bill Belich. there's no doubt about that yeah i think if you haven't won in 10 years you have to approach it a little bit differently than bill belichick where the expectation is every year you're going to be a super bowl contender i guess i just mean that they they they it's i think it's a smart thing to feel like you're starting from scratch because they don't know what what they have another thing you know

in terms of personalities was the awe that the teammates had in deshawn jackson i thought was telling like it's pretty rare in the NFL that other players are just like oh my god but there were just some comments like Ryan Fitzpatrick and Chris Baker just being like I can't believe like watching this guy he's just different than any other NFL player and I was thinking how unique he is is that he is known as the fastest guy in the field he looks like a jitterbug and he's 31 years old he's not supposed to like at this age these type of guys these small frame guys are not supposed to be still moving like they're 24 he's kind of an interesting guy and then they did they dug in a little bit on Mike Evans as well and and it really it really reinforced to me how great

assigning that was how well those guys compliment each other and just how much potential is there does that do those two feel a little bit like we're really trying to be best friends it's not really working organically but we're going to keep trying really hard well get some camera time i i i guess one thing is when i i'm not a rose-colored glasses person when it comes to hard knocks like i i i've seen some episodes that are that that i learned so much about people on the team and so much about the way the team functions that I loved watching Jeremy McNichols utterly lost in the game plan at practice not knowing where you're saying that to me was informative like that's what it's like to be a rookie running back there is a lot of stuff going on though in some of these hard knocks episodes that feel

a little paint by numbers if they're not taking you deeper than you expected to go if they go through the motions it can turn into that kind of a show like Riley Bullock I believe is your Bulla was his name the third string middle lineback I thought that was a really interesting point that cutter made at a team meeting that you don't need to be a start of be a leader that hey here's this undrafted rookie middle linebacker and you kind of saw it through the show kind of being a leader i was following you know like that that's one thing i like about hard knox not to mention he had a set of pipes i mean i love that singing this the whole singing it's always fun there are there are familiar beats at this point but like i love it i love it as much as i love

opening day of the season everything is kind of familiar but it's i love every time there's been 500 singing competitions on this series but it's always fun to see how the guys react like this year, because I remember growing up watching it after S&L as a kid, amateur night at the Apollo, there was the guy the executioner who would come out. Doug Martin. Yeah, would get booed off the stage. Doug Martin comes out and he does a perfect rendition or impression of the executioner, even with like the Michael Jackson moonwalk and the point back to his seat.

I mean, that to me is so fun. Even if it's familiar, it's still a lot of fun. And it's just the show is done so well. I mean, the way the episode ended, they perfectly, they pivoted out of that terrible practice into the pre-dawn wake-up time with the motivational speaker that James Winston wakes up to every day, which is kind of interesting, and him going back to work. And it just, these guys that do the show, they're the best in the business at it. It actually ended even after that with a lot of Game of Thrones talk, and it really drove home the point. 2017 in America, pop culture is dominated by that television show.

Yeah. Yeah, for sure. It passed the wife test. So, like, your wife was very... My wife loved it. My, Emeka always watches the first episode with me or so, and then often just tails off. But that one, she actually stayed,

watched through the whole thing, and she was in. Because I think probably because of just the personalities, because James Winston, she's like, all right, I'm in. I'm going to watch her out. This is your wife from Japan, why Greg is very big in Japan. Back around. And then in the preview, for episode two.

It's almost catered for the round the NFL podcast. Not only did they tease digging into the kicker battle between Aguayo and Falk. Let's go home and visit the Grimes family.

Miko Grimes gets onto the boom mic and starts talking about her life as the wife of Brent Grimes. And Greg, I know you're a little bit interesting to see whether that you come up.

You think I'm going to come up. They're just going to be talking about me. I don't know. Well, there are also so many. That would be great. I don't want to say force, but so many cutaways to NFL network footage that there's a chance we could potentially see Greg at some point on the show.

Oh, you know Greg was thinking that. Well, suddenly, everyone who watched that show is like, I must come up with Buck's topics immediately to get on this show somehow. Well, one of the things we've learned from Hard Knocks over the years is how much the coaching staff does pay attention to. Yes. They read Roto World. They read NFL.com.

They sat there and watched James Winston's appearance on Good Morning Football. All the coaches sitting in Dirk Cutter's office. So if you want to watch the episode, again, NFL.com slash hard knocks. It will be on the website through Tuesday after that. You either got to subscribe to HBO or Jack somebody's HBO Go password. It's one of those situations. You've got to figure it out. What do you want from me?

Well, HBO now doesn't telecast until the next morning. so it's this beautiful August ritual where before coming to work I wake up at four in the morning to watch this, which may be coloring my opinion of the show. I do the same thing. Well, it's that or show up to work.

Four seems early. It's not HBO now, please. It's HBO a day after everyone else is what I call it. You're just putting on the hard hat. Yeah, I'm not saying it's a tough task. I'm just saying there are things like, you know, I'm just saying it may color my opinion of the show someone.

All right, Mark, okay. Sorry, it is the greatest show ever created on cable television. Take it easy, buddy. All right, there you go. So we will be back on Friday. I have a huge announcement for the listeners on Friday. I'm just going to tease it. Total tease.

Double T. Any hints? It is something the audience has been waiting for. Wow. Patiently, it's borderline. line rude that it's been it's taken this long you're coming back as the shield softball manager that i am very it's going to be the body i don't think i'm coming you know ESPN has the body issue yeah the body episode that explains why it's not on the video it's not the video episode this uh triple

scoop triple source no it's it's more like a you know big horns oh bugles bugles at the top of the castle and the all the villagers down below here you hear you type got you So make sure he stay tuned for that Friday. Clarion call. A clarion call, bra. All right, that's it. We'll be back Friday. So thank you, everyone, for listening.

This is Dan Hansis, signing off for Quiet Storm, the mailman, the boss, M-Ap, Will, Sully, hiding, everybody else. Until Friday. Hey everybody, Daniel Jeremiah here. And I'm Bucky Brooks. On Move to Six, 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. This is an IHeart podcast.