NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal - Teams we feel differently about

Episode Date: August 26, 2015

A room filled with heroes -- Dan Hanzus, Gregg Rosenthal, Chris Wesseling and Marc Sessler – review the latest headlines around the league including the Steelers signing of Mike Vick, Orlando Scandrick's injury and Evan Mathis' decision to sign with the Broncos. The guys then list teams that will leave room for doubt or instill faith after preseason performances.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.

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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 NFL podcast goes to lunch together. Welcome back to another edition of the Around the NFL podcast. My name is Dan Hanzas. joined by a room filled with heroes, Mark Sessler, Chris Wessling, and Greg Rosethol. What's up, boys?

Hey, Dan. Absolutely true, by the way. I think we've talked about it on the show before. We do go to lunch together. Most days, it's a construct of the job. We need to get the lunch out of the way, come back. Other people on this campus, they walk out, they're gone for our 90 minutes. Wes, we've got to keep the news coming.

We don't get a chance to do anything. Hang out with each other. We did have a little tradition on Friday. in the off season, that we would walk down. We got some nice barbecue one day. I do remember on the way back, though, it was just before camp started. Mark was like, well, that's the last time this is happening.

Well, I did send out that Evite for June 2016. That'll be the next time we do anything of a leisurely fashion. That is. I mean, we're in the middle of it now. This is the middle of the preseason. Greg, here's the schedule. Preseason rolls into kickoff Thursday,

rolls into 17 weeks of NFL action. Then we get, you know, what? I'm aware of the schedule. We've been doing this a long time. Season ends. You got the Pro Bowl, which is on the Sunday before the Super Bowl now, the combine after that,

then the draft. Then owners meetings, then mini-cams. All right. Listen, it's about in the middle of June. You will get a breather, Greg. Then contrived controversy, du jour. That's right. Yeah.

Well, all right. So that is the league schedule, Greg. You didn't need that, you're saying. No, I'm aware of it. I've been doing this a long time. Sorry, I apologize. Big show today, and one more, a teaser, Win West's Toaster, a game of skill and valor, the trivia game.

I had reached out. I'm just going to pull back to Curtin a little bit. I had reached out to someone that works at NFL media that I thought, and I'm not going to name him, that I thought really had a chance to take down Wes. Elliot Harrison? I'm not going to say who it was. I'm just going to say he does not want to come on the show,

does not want to do the trivia game. Out of respect for Wes. Come get your whooping, Steiner. At respect for Wes. And so we're going to lean hard on the contestants from America and overseas. And hopefully we find someone that is in the non-tomato can field. People outside of the building have never beaten Wes. I mean, other than Damashek, Wes hasn't beaten anyone inside the building.

He's 0-1 against me. Oh, look how he works bad at him. He takes care of Damashek, but that's bad. it doesn't really count when you beat damage it's basically like a professional literally you are paid for your football opinions against a bunch of amateurs so it's you know to use the mike tyson comparison it's like mike tyson against your grocer or whatever right sully said he's found this time around he's claiming he found some non-tomato cans i'm going to be skeptical before i'm going to be skeptical until it happened and i'm going to put this out there

not to put any pressure on who who might be in the mix to take on west if you got to stink out the joint and West drops like 6-1 and 6-0 hammers on you guys, this game's going away for a while. Or at least until I can find someone who I decide and believe in can take down West. This is going to be some

mani-pack-y-out BS. Once I'm rooting against the contestants now. Get rid of this boring. I like that you're like the Don King of this game. I am. I am. Dan King. You know, this is going to be a Floyd Mayweather where Wes is driving around $90 million sports cars because he doesn't have to beat anybody worth a damn. I'm going to

find a real damn contender for Wes or the game's over. Well, good luck. I like it. The Mayweather comparison is apt because Wes is very successful and is totally boring to watch. Yeah. Wow. I mean, that was... I mean, the game

is boring. You're the boss. Let's start seeing some of this 90 million. All right. On today's show, we have a lot to get to in the news. We have some injuries to talk about. Unfortunately, it's something part of it. I always preface it by saying, unfortunately,

but it's just, this is just a major injury every three days, like on, like without fail, including a big one in Dallas last night. We're talking about some veterans that finally got signed and joined some teams. There's some intriguing juice there. We're going to hit up the Hard Knocks Recap, episode three of the HBO documentary series profiling the Houston Texans in training camp. It aired on Tuesday night.

So we will talk about that show, that excellent show, and then we will get into a segment that I call Teams we feel different about over the course of a calendar month workshopping the title. I know we would through a couple different titles yesterday in the office and that I'm sold on that. I mean, that was the best we got so far. And if anybody can think of a better one, shoot us a tweet.

So teams we feel different about over the course of a calendar month. So basically these are teams that we feel different about than we did back in July over the course of the time. this calendar month. A month ago. All right. And then maybe a surprise at the end of the show. An old friend will stop by.

But before we do any of that, we check in with another, well, young, young-ish friend. He is TD. What is going on, guys? Speaking of games, I came up with a new game to play with around the NFL.

So you guys know your Twitter handle, around the NFL. And now you've got to guess whose tweet was that. So hashtag, whose tweet is this anyway? Once their tweet goes out from around the NFL, guess who sent that out? Yeah. Dan Sessler Gregg.

And guess what? The first time you played this game over the weekend, you were dead wrong. You thought it was me, and it wasn't me. I don't remember what it was, but I wasn't working. This is the first I'm hearing of this, but I like it. I feel like it could promote heat. I love it. Whose tweet is this anyway?

All right. So how do we do this again? You guys sent on a tweet and our listeners on Twitter, is Wes to say his fans. You know, just guess whose tweet is it anyway. It was West the other night, by that. Well, it was either West. Greg.

What was the tweet? Yeah, it was about football. Play action and stuff, so I knew it couldn't be Dan. Why not? Why not? Oh, I just figured it couldn't be, Dan. It also had to do with, like, a big name. I don't know what play action is.

Mark. You know, wait, so Dan isn't, you know, totally encapsulated in football, like 90 hours a week. So he's not qualified. It was like a scientist-type talk, you know? I see that's wrong perception. I don't like your game at all. Let's do some news. Bad blood.

He's trying to get... You got me back, though. I thought you're going to play the whole thing. Thank you, though. I appreciate that. Let's start with the Denver Broncos, who we've talked about, I've had a ton of concerns about their offensive line.

They just added a major name. Evan Mathis, formerly of the Eagles, signed a one-year, $4 million contract with the team on Tuesday that fortifies left guard for them, adds some real veteran experience and a talented guy to a team that had started three players without an NFL snap of experience in their most recent

preseason game. Greg Rosenthal, start with you. A nice win-now move by the ultimate win-now team in the league, isn't it? It's huge. It's at a weak position. The price was right. You said $4 million, but that was with incentives. I mean, they're paying them, I think, $2.5 million base salary, so that's a great deal for John Elway. I read something how they have eight different guys who have been on a first or second team all pro in the last two years. I you don't put everything on that, but people forget, Manning might be injured, or his arm might not be great, but they've got a lot of talent, Mathis adds to that.

They needed to get a veteran on this line, too, though, a lot of young guys. And, you know, we just, Dan just took a knock for not known as football. That's nonsense. In his post, I know what play action is. He pointed out correctly that no GM in the league is doing what John Elway is doing in terms of collecting as much talent from this season alone. he's done a great job of it. Elway does not get the credit he deserves as a general manager.

See, I feel like he does get credit. I will say that he does seem to know how to stretch a buck, and I found it interesting that Peyton Manning takes a $4 million pay cut in the off season. Evan Mathis comes in a $4 million. There cannot be a better way to spend that excess cap money. So in this case, it all pays off in a glorious way for Peyton Manning. By the way, he's like 39 years old now, not moving any faster, so you don't want to have some crappy line in front of you.

This is a perfect signing. Who's not buying that he turned down a deal for $5.5. Oh, no, I'm not buying it for... Not buying it for a second. That was it, reported by Ian Rappaport. I don't doubt that his agent told him that. Right. Because let's be, Frank,

Evan Mathis is hubris, and his overestimation of his own value lost him a significant amount of money. It's because he was going to make... He was going to make... He was going to make... Football Focus, blowing smoke up as you know what all the time. PFF might have cost him a lot.

little bit money. He thought he had more value than he did. He turned down an offer from the Eagles to get a $1 million raise up to $6.5 million because he thought he wanted something long term. He turned that down and he gets $2.5 million. So do you think Evan Mathis, which I agree with the premise, but you think Evan Mathis would have gone to a crappy fourth place team and some other division for another million dollars? Yeah. I mean, is there no part of Evan Mathis that wanted to be part of this team that's going to choose? We didn't want to be part of the Eagles who are a pretty good team. Well, that's fine, but you could argue that. Because a $1 million raise wasn't big enough for him, so I would think that money, yes, is important. You could argue that a month

ago, Evan Mathis would look and today look at Denver as a better Super Bowl contender than the Eagles. Whether he's right or wrong. The teams brought up, you know, around where, like, how many teams are really non-super Bowl contenders? Maybe it was the Raiders or something, and he didn't want to play for the Raiders. But if it was the teams mentioned with Mathis, Jets, Dolphins, it's like, whatever, you could make the Super Bowl. If I'm reading between the tea leaves on Greg's analysis, but the boss is the same, is that money really is the root of all evil that's not what I'm saying it makes the world go round in your in your estimation no I'm I'm saying it was important to Evan Mathis and he cost

himself a lot of money when that was his prime objective he might not be the best guard in the NFL oh just saying if you're only getting 2.5 million base salary you might not be the best guard in the NFL that's what's called Wes's PFF shot of the week that math is just just a weekly segment looking at not a shot at PFF it's a shot at people who take their word as gospel. They do great work. They do awesome. An analytic site that studies every snap had Mathis listed as the number one guard in 2013 and

2012 and number two last year, despite a missing seven games. So they love Mr. Mathis. That's something only a football head would really. Yeah, TD, how about that? Yeah, I mean, he just keeps bringing it over and over. The old butt face. Next up, we head to Big D. Very bad news for

cornerback Orlando Scandrick, who collided with a rookie wide receiver in practice. The result of that collision, a torn ACL and MCL in his right knee. He will miss the remainder of the 2015 season. This is a, speaking of PFF, Skandrick was ranked number 12 out of 120 qualified corners. By far the best cornerback on the Cowboys, Wes, how did they survive this? They lost Sean Lee last year.

They found a way, but now they lose their best cornerback and not a position of strength. Yeah, I mean, I think you said it right there. It's hard to write off the Cowboys defense because they lost guys last year and still survived with a bunch of no-name guys. So in the secondary, Byron Jones, their first-round pick is going to have to step up and play, and they need Morris Claiborne. You know, another first-round pick who's been a massive draft bus. They need him to finally play well.

And Brandon Carr is one of the biggest free agent busts of the last couple years. He's really only on this team because Jerry Jones is a rare owner willing to just pay him anyways because he's going to play. And he's been terrible. Byron Jones isn't healthy. They need Carr to step up. They do have a lot more talent on defense this year than they did a year ago. I think that makes up for it.

Talk about another GM that's done a good job as Jerry Jones went out and took a few risk flyers on some guys like Collins on the offensive line and Gregory on defense. I like the Byron Jones pick. Scandrick looked very good down the stretch, but to lose your top corner, you're in a division with Odell Beckham, Sean Jackson, and an Eagles defense that pretty much does what it want. It's a tough to lose your top cover man in that situation

because they don't have, who's buying into Moe-Claiborne at this point? I'm not. Jerry Jones? Healthy? I mean, who knows if We haven't seen it. Who knows if Byron Jones is on the field? Problem.

Major problem, guys. All right, I take back what I said about the football. Well, it's like, you got the bottom dropped out of the analysis there. I thought you guys had more in the well. You shocked me. I'm sorry. Bad news when you lose your top corner. There it is.

Put a bow on it, baby. Are you, I know Wes isn't going to be. To most people out there, Orlando Scandrick is known not for his play on the field but for his significant other. Are you aware of who his significant other is? No. Probably like a housewife from some city on a show. You pretty much nailed it.

But yes, a very, a very famous one. I'm surprised Dan doesn't know about this. TD, TD's got it. No, I was too busy calling Dan a butt face over his... Oh, come on. What are you going to... By the way, don't beep out butt face. Yeah, we got to stop with the beeps on the unnecessary stuff.

And by the way, you can't call me a butt face because I buried you with it first, so it loses its power at the point. What the hell's going on out of here? I mean, maybe I was the person. She was one of the basketball wives, Dreia, I believe, is her. Was she the one that was with Antoine Walker first? I'm supposed to know this? Like, he mattered in someone?

He pointed out that you wouldn't. I don't think it matters. Congratulations, your wife is a reality star. Let's keep moving. The Pittsburgh Steelers have a new backup quarterback. His name is. Bark. It is Michael Vic.

Yeah, buddy. Michael Vic has a job after months of waiting. The opportunity arose after Bruce Gretkowski suffered a season-ending hand and shoulder injuries in a Sunday's bloodbath against the Packers. Open the door up for Vic, who worked out with a team Tuesday, signed with them Tuesday night. 35-year-old veteran, Mark, what has he got left in the tank? And do you like the signing? Well, I like the signing when they showed the list of the top available quarterbacks if you needed a backup. It is amazingly grizzly.

and Vic at least is someone that Tomlin when Vic got out of jail Tomlin was one of the coaches that had an interest in signing Vic I think the problem I have with Vic is what happened last season where he was on a messy Jets team but after a bad performance

came out and said hey look sorry I didn't prepare it's like you have to you have to take your role seriously I think Pittsburgh's not going to allow for that nonsense he was the best of the guys available it's a much better fit than last year he knows what his role is here

and yeah he has to be better than he was with the Jets because I sent a tweet out a few weeks back about Vic saying how I didn't think he was the answer. This was after Gino Smith got punched. You don't want to bring him back. And I got flooded because Vic has a very dedicated fan base to this day. But you don't know what you're talking about, blah, blah, blah, probably TD. Doesn't think I know what I'm talking about. But the fact of the matter is he wasn't good last year.

He was a bad quarterback. But maybe, Greg, in this situation, he'll be better. Is he worse than Bruce Kedkowski? I doubt it. No. It's an upgrade to me. It's a good thing. I'm not sure if it's an upgrade.

I would say Vic had two of the worst 10 to 15 quarterback performances of the entire season last year in two of his games. We were just unbelievably bad. The rest of his games were fine. I mean, he was okay and looked like a competition. His completion percentage has dipped drastically each season. It's a great situation, though. You're behind a guy who takes a lot of hits. Ben Rathlettersburg has been known to miss a game or two.

You bring in Vic. He's got the best weapons of his career, right? Yeah, that's true. He'll come in in the playoffs. help them to a playoff win, and then they win the Super Bowl, and Michael Vick goes out on top. Wouldn't that be a happy ending for a... It's a lot on there.

Yeah, but look at the difference in skill position between the Jets and the Steelers. If he's even, you know, 60% of what he used to be, I could see him doing some things and if he gets some playing time. Would you rather have starting the game? Michael Vick or Ryan Fitzpatrick? I wouldn't even assume Michael Vick.

I would rather have Fitzpatrick. Fitsy. And I wouldn't assume he's the backup either. Landry Jones has looked pretty good. I would. I think there's a chance that Landry Jones. They're not signing him to be the third string guy. Come on.

There's a chance he doesn't make the team. I think there's a chance he shows up there. And he's a 35-year-old quarterback. I don't know. Landry Jones. I don't think that they feel much for Landry Jones at all. And that's why this happened. They have to get another quarterback in there, at least to take a look.

He's looked okay in the preseason. That's all I'm saying. What's up to you? You got a question for me? Hey, Dan, you want to be football analyst? I got a football question for you. Sure. Wow.

Layed on me. What year was Michael Vake on the cover of Madden? That's not a football question, but I'll give you the answer. Yeah, go ahead. He was the first overall pick in 2001. That's not what I asked. And he was on the cover of Matt in 2003. Close.

We're wrong. 2004. You'll know your football. You're a fool. It's not Dan, do you want to be a football analyst? He already is. That's what he's been employees. For half a decade, he's been doing this job.

Thank you, Mark. I appreciate it. We don't need to justify it to this guy that just asked me a football question about who was on the cover of a video game 12 years ago. Where are we right now? Was it 2004? 2004. And let me tell you something.

Let me give you a little football now, Judge. You would have no idea of. He's on the cover of Madden in the 2004 game, broke his leg in the preseason that year, missed half the year. But you probably wouldn't know that. Probably wouldn't know that, baby. I knew that. Right up your butt.

Your butt face. For anyone listening to the podcast, you know, right now, TD is actually on the floor in a fetal position, sucking his stuff. Sivering. Singing that same song as mom sang to him. Anyone listen to the podcast? Oh, TD, how I love you so much.

You're such a great boy, T. That was a nice song. She's Irish? She sounds nothing like that. Anyone listens to the podcast should be watching a podcast and seeing the great show we're producing here behind it. Oh. That's what I'm busy doing.

Oh, T.D. What are you doing? A disturbing 15 seconds from a company, man. TD, I listened to the show. It wasn't, it was, I don't know what you're talking about. Talking about Madden. That's not football. That's a video game.

Wait, his mom is suddenly from, like, Middle Ireland. She was the extra on boardwalk empire or something. I mean, I lost the impression. It'll come back to me eventually. Moving on, Reggie Wayne has agreed to a one-year deal with the Patriots. This went down on Monday right as we were coming downstairs. So, I want to touch on this. Reggie Wayne entering his 15th season.

Looked, you know, D-U-N done to a lot of people last year. The highest about then. including the people in this room, but perhaps now that he's got that thrown a sleaze on him, you get a little excited about Reggie Wayne having an impact, Greg? I love Reggie Wayne, but I don't, I would be surprised if he had a huge impact. I mean, if he, however, was going to have some success, you would think it would be with Tom Brady,

and, you know, he's a very smart receiver, and maybe he'll be that crafty guy that catches 40 passes. But I would be surprised. How does Reggie Wayne get more guaranteed money than Evan Mathis? He didn't. Did he? He had, what, $450,000? Oh, is that what's guaranteed? Oh, that's up to a 2.0.

But that told me that he's making the team. He will, too. Listen, Adelman is not a lock to play in week one, according to what he said himself. And Brandon LaFelle could open on the PUP list. It's not that Reggie Wayne is being brought in to be a major part of this offense, but Bill Belichick loves this guy, called him versatile. He's a smart player, but he is having to learn a tough playbook out of the gate from the start. Well, it's only because of injuries.

They wouldn't have signed him. They put two receivers on injured reserve this week, Brian Tims and Brandon Gibson, who both had a decent shot to make the team. They have more injuries at receiver, and so you give way a chance. This is Reggie Wayne's age 37 season. Yeah.

And the history of wide receivers 37 or older, basically, unless you're Jerry Rice, you're not helping your team. What if it's just for a couple weeks, though? The Reggie Wayne that we saw last year could not help a team. Now he had surgeries to fix those issues. I don't know what he's going to look like.

this year, but I thought he was the worst starting wide receiver in the NFL last year. He did say, you know, he's had three surgeries in, what, 20 months, and he, maybe he's just saying this, but he said that he was never healthy on any level from week one through the end of the year. Oh, that was obvious. So that's what happens when you're 36-year-old locker theater. But I guess I'm looking at him as, like, a couple-week patch until you get Edelman back, not, you know, you get your, your Lafell back down the road.

They are very thin at the position. I'd be drafted in Danny Amandola in my fantasy league. Number one receiver for the Patriots. This is your chance, right? More on that later. There's a tease. TD, do you have another question? I got another question in the football quiz for you, Dan. A lot of TD's so far on the show.

This is straight football. Reggie Wayne, what hit comedy show did he appear on in the last two years? What comedy show did, this also is not football, by the line. Can I answer this? Yeah, I'll use my lifeline, Wes. Parks and Recreation. Oh, there you go. So, Dan, you're over two.

I'm going to go. You're full. I have no idea. I'll go Shaws of Sunset. No, it was Parks and Rec. West is absolutely correct. Dan's O for two. West is a wonderful win.

All right. Next up, let's talk a little Hard Knocks. Episode 3 and Greg, while we're here, vanity URL, man. Where's the vanity URL? Yes, go to NFL.com, hard knocks the best.

Recap on the web. You know, sometimes I joke about the vanity URL, but this one's simple. NFL.com slash Dan's hot take slash hard knocks slash members. I thought you said. Password Cool Cats.

That's not how the internet works if you're looking for clicks. Oh, okay. Episode three, listen, this season is a lot, to me, a lot better than the previous season. I thought this episode maybe was a little bit of a step back personally. Wow. But still... I thought it was great. Okay, well, we'll get into that.

Maybe what left me a little bit dry was that they had the big hook of the episode, which was the Mallet Hoyer decision by Bill O'Brien. He goes into that office, and you're hoping for some, you know, real dramatics there. Not only you don't ever see the faces or hear anything from either, those quarterbacks, they have Bill O'Brien walk out and the episode ends. I wish I could have seen a little more interaction after that because you don't really get to see that decision too often, especially on TV. So to me, that was the thing I would be disappointed about, but there's a lot of things, Greg, to take out of the episode as well.

Well, first of all, you said it. You don't get to see that. So even that, just having that moment and just knowing. the timeline happened on Monday morning, so that's right before the show. That might have been a little tricky to get that into the show and everything. And I think there is a point where the Texans don't, you know, they have some, they don't have editorial control at all, but they can shut down. They probably don't want to see, they don't want to put Mal and Hoyer in a spot where they're seeing them talk about it or whatever happens after. Maybe it wasn't

even that interest. I thought it was really interesting. And I'm always really jealous of coaches on Hard Knocks in general, and this is a good example, how they have meetings that last like 90 seconds long. Huge decisions. They don't say they're sorry. They don't try to make everyone feel better. Bill O'Brien just sits down and he says it and he gets up and leaves and it's over. That's the big decision. You take inspiration from that. Yeah, I want to have short meetings. I've never

said anything now like that. You don't have any meetings. You're an anti-meeting guy. Well, that's true. I found it interesting for any other team, not on hard knocks, you have to kind of read between the lines. But he said it, Bill O'Brien said, Brian said, Brian Hoyer, listen, you're the starter, but I'm not going to wait for you for eight weeks.

you're bad. I'm going to get, I'm going to get the other guy in there. And he also said, Brian said the same thing to his coaches before that meeting where he said, I think he referred to four weeks. He said, if he's not doing the job, we're going to go to the other guy. So there's no, Brian Hoyer is on a short leash, even if O'Brien used the words he's not on a short leash. He also called him to the coach as basically the same guy, which is funny because you think that, oh, these guys have these takes on these two quarterbacks after all this practice that we can only guess what they're thinking. But they're sitting in the coach room is like, I don't see a whole lot of difference between these two. The leash is not super

short, but if a month this stinks, you're out, baby. I found it telling. He said, you know, Hoyer is more consistent in all aspects. And he said, he kind of said the meeting room, the building, and everything. And I kind of put that against the other scene where Ryan Mallet is involved

in every single game of whatever they called it, kick the gigantic plastic ball tennis thing, which looked like a lot of fun and I thought, we should play that? Do you remember what was it called? The name of the game was It's called Swenis. Swenis.

Swenis looked like a lot of fun, but Ryan Mallet to Swenis was like West to Cornhole. He's in there playing Swenis all day. He's the start. I don't know. That just struck me. He's the Swenis guy. You know what I'm trying?

Greg, Mark, that's true. You know what I mean? It was an absurd game. Mark, you got up this morning. You watched it early on HBO Go. This after Greg gave you the Stern talking to about not watching the last week episode, this time you delivered.

Yeah, I mean, well, you know, number one, I watched last weeks very late in the game, and it hooked me in, so I got up early to watch this. I think for me, all these teams that don't want to do this, especially the marginalized teams that don't get a lot of coverage, bad move, because I think if you're Bill O'Brien, my impression of who Bill O'Brien was a year ago to this summer to after watching these three episodes, completely transformed. I really feel, number one, that he is an excellent coach who is quick with his decisions and he means what he says. But, I mean, listen, it's a cynical world we live in, but when they showed him when he goes home to his family and his kids, I mean, I just think like this guy is the real deal. I mean, if anyone, he is a special needs child, anyone that's ever had that in their life or as a parent dealt with that, the way that he came through that door and became a completely different person. You know, and I think there's a real appreciation for who he is as a father, a husband, but then also as a coach. I just think more coaches should want this. Yeah.

If you can deliver, he's delivered. I mean, he came off extremely well, and he seemed very genuine. My wife had to leave the room during that scene. It was a heavy scene. His son, Jack, is 13 years old, has a very serious birth disorder that he was born with, that he has seizures every morning when he wakes up. He issues with his eyes, clearly, you know, a very disabled child, and to see how he interacted with him and then see him go back to the –

it's amazing because you hear all the times about all the time how much these guys have to put in, how much work, then he goes home and he has all these other obstacles that him and his wife, Colleen, her names, they have to overcome as well. It's pretty amazing. I mean, I don't know how you could root against the guy. That's why, and I agree, I used, the Texans are one of my, have been one of my least favorite teams for a while for no particular reason. And now this is making them like them a lot. And that's why I was thinking about it. It's like, forget the sports Emmy for this show. This should be in the mix for a real Emmys. I mean, what other shows are mixing in just the way it's all cut together?

Yeah, there are real, like, life decisions in terms of the quarterback thing. And then you also have, like, your star quality with J.J. Watt. That's been a lot of fun. And then you have a real heavy sort of life situation in terms of O'Brien. What other shows are showing everything like that? Yeah, Rick Flair and Realti, Randy Macho Man Savage impressions. It doesn't get any better in that. I also think that J.J. Watt and Vince Wilfork together.

Now, I came down hard on Watt in the first episode. I came around. I think, number one, he is who he is. But the two of them, where they're just sitting around talking about. about how much they love breakfast and brunch. And Wilfork is talking about his wife, cooking up a huge breakfast. That's my True Detective Season 3 pairing right there.

Oh, I like that. Wild Fork. And it's a great outlet for fans, and this is why the NFL loves this show, because you become fans of guys you've never heard of before, and it puts a face on them. Like, I am a fan of Charles James now. The rest of his career, I will think, I love that guy.

I'm a fan of Easy. I don't know how to say his name exactly. Guzama, Nwachua. I like Courtney Brown. I mean, that was a nice moment. That moment that you don't even think about, Courtney Brown having a big interception in a preseason game. That was the best moment of his entire career.

Everyone bags on the preseason, and this guy is flipping his game ball on the air with a grin a mile wide in his face. You see, like, how much these things mean to the guy. By the way, Easy, they sent him to NASA. Sometimes hardness teasing his guy's out. Well, him and the whole group went. The whole group goes, and Easy has, these are the comments.

He asked NASA, official. Is there water on space? On space? And then they give him the phone to talk to the guys in the actual space station. And his first question, hello to you, brothers. My name is Easy. I got a couple of questions. Questions. I loved Pluto as a planet. What happened there? On the phone to actual dudes in space. They were looking, the one guy behind him as he was like unfurling these questions. Like the NASA guy behind him was just like, who is this, dude? Like at first, the NASA guy behind who's like trying to save the world

that's his job he has like kind of a bemused grin by the end of it he's like get this clown out of my oh excuse me get this guy out of my studio that moment though NASA has to love it

because his childlike wonder when he was like wait this is the real this is the real thing I mean he was genuinely just like wildly excited like Owen Wilson and Armageddon so he asked him what to eat up there do you guys grieve? Real?

That's right. But somehow, Easy doesn't get a quote of the day. That goes to Chris Polk, running back, a new catchphrase. I'll be using it often. We actually got to cut it for the show. Ooh, ooh, bang, bang, chicken and shrimp. Love it. Well, I guess I'm the only one that liked it.

Sorry, you guys, that I liked it. I love learning about, like, Mike Rabel, who I think is, you find out how hard these position coaches have to work. I mean, it just, you learned, I agree with Greg. The Texans, hard not to really. food form now. I said that. Another great football point by Van Hanses. Chicken and shrimp.

TD, do you have anything else? I have the last question in the football quiz for you, Dan. All right, we're talking hard knocks. I want you to name the seven teams that have appeared on the show Hard Knocks. Oh my God, you're the worst. How is this entertaining for people to listen to? This is a football show. All right, the Cowboys,

Chiefs, the Bengals. Don't help them. The Chiefs, the dolphins, the Jets, the Falcons, The Jaguars. Oh, that wasn't officially... And the Texans. Ravens. There's one more.

There's one more. But you forgot the Ravens. And the Ravens, 2001. There was more than seven. You said Ravens. But there was more than seven. You know what? We're more than seven.

All right. Thank you. That's seven teams. Produced by NFL Films, by the way. TD, I will go check it again, but I'm pretty sure that was more than 17. If you're going to be in charge of a game, know what you're talking about. Yeah, no say. A lot of TD early in the show.

I was going to say a lot of TV early in the show. I was going to say a lot of production meeting, I want the listeners to notice, too. Sometimes when TD, people are going at him, he'll go, all right, well, either way. So we should start an either way counter on Twitter every time he says it. That's my head. Let's move the show on, because, you know, we've got a lot to get to. All right, let's move on.

This is the guy who just asked the random trivia questions. Mundane question about the history of an HBO show. Hard-hidden football questions, guys. All right, enough with you, TD. And no more questions. I think I've proved myself beyond a shadow of a day. doubt. Let's move on to our next segment, which is called teams we feel different about over course of calendar month. Just rolls right out of the mouth. So calendar month, I mean,

we're just counting August. We can't consider the last week of July. You can dip into July a little bit. So maybe on top of it being a little cumbersome, it's not quite accurate. But enough of it's there that people would understand what this is about. Teams that you've felt a certain way about on August 1st or maybe July 26th, and now you feel differently. For one, either good or bad, you just feel differently. It's a home run segment coming at you. Home run, and we'll start with Chris Wessling, the mailman. What is a team that you feel different about over the course of calendar month?

I feel differently about Kevin Patra's Detroit Lions. I think going into training camp, the Vikings were my choice and other people's choice is to be the frisky team in the NFC North. And now I think the Lions are just a better team. They were better last year by quite a bit. And I think they're better this year. You've got questions I have before camp. Is Amir Abdullah an impact rookie?

Will he be splitting with Joyick Bell? Will he be an afterthought? That was one question. How does the defense look without Indyman Su? I mean, this guy was one of the top five players on the defensive side of the ball last year. You know, without Nick Fairley, how is that front seven? And then Eric Ebron, the first round pick last year, was a massive dissonable. disappointment. Matthew Stafford was inconsistent last year. Is that connection between the two

of them fixable? So it gives the offense an explosive third weapon. And then now after a couple weeks of preseason, after training camp, Amir Abdullah has to be one of the favorites for offensive rookie of the year. He looks like an impact player. I think he looks like a star. And he gives this offense another weapon. He fits really well in their offense. And then the front seven looks like they almost killed RG3. I mean, they were all over him. That was their first string defense. They look pretty phenomenal to me. And then if you add Ebron to Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate, this is one of the best trios in the league.

If Ebron makes that leap, this could be an explosive offense. So you would count them as well. It's weird to count a team that made the playoffs last year with an 11 and 5 record, by the way. A better record than Eli Manning and the Giants have had in like seven, had in Super Bowl seasons. Would you count them as a sleeper team then? Because no one's talking about the Lions. Like they're going to be a playoff team. I don't know what the word.

I don't know what the word sleeper means. in sports anymore. It's changed this meaning so much in the past couple of decades, but you're right that nobody's talking about them. Everybody's talking about the Vikings. You're putting them in the playoffs then. Yeah. Wait, I'll throw it out there. Just the heat check on the Lions Jordy Nelson out of the picture. The Lions

all of a sudden looking super frisky, any chance they contend for that division. Sure, why not? Win it outright. Beat out the Packers. There's a chance. There's a chance. Yeah, they beat the Packers once last year. All right, next up, Greg Rosenthal. We would like to know

of the teams that you feel different about over the course of a calendar month. Why don't you give us the same thing, a little before and a little after? Well, you know, going into late July 26th and then into August, because that's the month we're looking at. You know, I'm a Patriots fan. I'm going to start

there. And I just figured, okay, it's the Patriots. Some things don't look great on paper, but they figure everything out. And then, you know, my other second point is like, who really cares at this point? I have experienced more joy because of this great football team than I could possibly hope to imagine. I'm on

the throne of these. Everything is great. It doesn't matter what happened. My third point, because they wanted us to make three, was point number one, was Pat's figure everything out. But I have to admit, after the last few weeks, I feel a little different after the fact. I mean, you look at their wide receiver situation. That's a mess. It's a total disaster right now. Five of their top six wide receivers are injured. When Danny Amandola is the only healthy guy, that's a problem. I mean, Danny Mendolyn is your beacon of health and you're throwing it to Jim A Mundine as your top tight end to start preseason. That's a problem. Running backs are a mess.

You know, guys like Dionne Lewis are playing with the first team. The cornerbacks are a mess. Malcolm Butler is the number one cornerback and Terrell Brown, who's been cut by the 49ers and Raiders is another starter. I like this. Offensive line could be a mess too. A couple of rookies starting. We'll see how that works out. I don't know.

It's just, you know, my fifth point. would be that Pat's figure everything out in the end anyways. It's the Patriots. You know a lot of point. I'm just saying that's a lot. I think Keith Mumfrey is going to end up with 80 catches for 1,000 yards this year. How about that? I'm just saying.

It's all coming, crumbling down. I don't. On one level, like, that's all true. On the other, I feel a disconnect from it all because I'm content. If it all fell apart now, it's been great. That's fine. I mean, that's the throne of ease in a nutshell. Sure.

Apparently, there's a rights issue now with the throne of ease music so we can't play it. I'm getting told behind the glass. Yeah, it has to do with, like, it's like a singer-songwriter from the 13th century up in arms about the fact. There's a minstrel really upset about this. I pulled that audio from seriously a guy that died 400 years ago. We're going to get banged by a copyright lawyer? Hey, man. Classical tracks, man.

You were allowed to play anything that's over 100 years old. That's the rule. That is the rule. Maybe check the rules. There's a test for you, TD. Let's get some old classical music. Stop ruining the show. Do you guys think I'm overreacting to the Patriots?

I think you're reacting fine, but you've said it yourself, It's going to be week eight. They'll be seven and one. We'll forget this part of our game. Greg's absolutely, they'll be four and four at the midway point. And then they'll rally. Probably rally. Do they have more issues right now than they did after the Chiefs blow out in week four last year?

I think so, yeah. Yeah, because Tom Brady wasn't about to sit out the next four games. Sessler. I mean, with the Eagles, I think it's one of, outside of the Niners, one of the teams that the offseason was a little bit seen as a boom or bust because so many changes were being made. And I had my doubts because, because number one, My first question was, all right, you went and got Sam Bradford. I get that everyone likes him like his draft pedigree, and he's a great fit for this offense. But can he walk?

We had not seen a quarterback come off of two massive knee surgeries, so it's a clear question mark. Number two, you know, you got DeMarco Murray, you got Ryan Matthews. Is it too much of a good thing? Is there going to be issues? Are they going to complain about playing time? Can Sam Bradford walk? Well, it was a fair question. Can he walk?

Can he be mobile on a football field? Well, that's two different things, though. I had not seen him walk. I wanted to know. A year ago at this time, he could not walk. Fair question. It's fair question. Number three, is Chip Kelly potentially just insane?

And he's just, you know, he's a king running wild over his kingdom. Now, here we are, you know, a calendar month later from July 26 to August 26, a full calendar month. I feel very confident about this Eagles team. And I probably was late to the draw. I think other people thought, had that confidence all along. I think Bradford, in the one brief drive that we saw, he moved fine. He took a couple big hits, got up. We'll see if that last Murray and Matthews,

I think this is going to sing. We did have them ranked as the number one backfield in our backfield rankings. They got something here. Well, listen, Matthews is, but Matthews is for a better surprise. All these people had said, Matthews is just being signed because they felt bad for him

and he was in the complex. He looks fantastic in this offense. Four stars, a laugh riot. See it today. I'm done. Look at these crazy guys. I'm done. You can't get to a segment without these clowns.

I think the third thing is Chip Kelly, you know, he's put his entire reputation on the line, and I think it works. He's sort of sane. When you get the benefit of the doubt when you're the Patriots, you sign guys, you cut them, it's Belichick, you know what you're doing. I don't think Chip Kelly did not have that reputation in Philly. That's a tough town.

I think he will after this season if they continue to do. Why did you throw your papers down? Why are you so angry? No, I'm not angry. I'm trying to. See it in your eyes. All the script in the show when I got three clowns just shouting.

Crazy likes to Marco. He's out of the gun. Plus, you're making fun of a co-worker who works in our company. Who? Who? Charlie Cassily, who's a gentleman? No, not every old-timey guy is Charlie Cassily.

None of that was Cassily. That's the Cassily voice. No, that was it. That was just a, that was, I was a generic. Take all three of them to HR. These guys are swell. Next point. It was just funny that you said that the two running backs

would really make it sing this year. They are. They are. They were. You are. They were. baby they're going to sound kind of like an old-timey broadway reviewer so i got you that was what i was going for had nothing to do with charlie cass i got you took that personally all right

continue to walk backwards all right here we go um i'll talk about the jets i was very excited about the jets in july and maybe i'll talk i'm sure i'll talk myself into them this is what things looked like um you know in july the jets had potentially the best defensive line in football you had i don't know if you guys know this nickname the sons of anarchy uh for the three sons And then Lenny Williams, taking with six overall pick. You put it all together. Hubba, Hubba. Wilkerson, Harrison, Richardson.

Yes, there you go. Took a minute. Yeah. Anyway. Gino Smith, Greg, even though I've been fighting this since day one, Greg pumping up Gino as a Making the Leap guy. And yeah, I talked myself into that a little bit. I said, yeah, some good reports.

He's hanging out with Brandon Marshall in the good Brandon Marshall year. Maybe some good chemistry. And then, you know, Todd Balls replaces Rex Ryan. Goodbye Circus. It's going to be a tighter ship. It's going to be a new new horizon for the Jets. And now after Sheldon gone at least four, probably more, after all his problems. I already knew he was going to be suspended in four games.

But now who knows what's going to happen after his speed racing debut in St. Louis. You know, Gino can't get past the metal detector now without incident. Can't do it. He's got a lot of them. He's got screws in his jaw because straight up and, you know, sometimes you get far further away from something. And you don't even, did that really happen? his teammate punched him in the jaw and broke it and it ruined his career.

Most likely. Well, to be fair, I don't know if the metal detector thing is going to be a huge setback. They'll still let him through. I mean, does he even have to get through a metal? These guys get like private planes, don't me? Well, no, it wasn't the Geno Smith

had a flare up on Southwest? It was JetBlue, yeah, but that wasn't his fault. Oh, of course not. And finally, gas up the clown car because that was, again, a classic Jets malfunction moment. whole Gino thing. And it took all the attention away from all the positive things and free agent with Revis and a really good draft. And again, made the Jets a punchline. So have I counted out the Jets? Absolutely not. I will never stop believing Gang Green. But there is

some reason for concern. And just keeping it real. That's something I feel different about over the course of a calendar month. The one thing I would take issue with is the fact that they're just a big old clown car again. Because I think you've got a coach and general manager that are on the same page. I think the GM situation is a thousand times better than it was a year ago. Bowles is universally respected. Now, he's encountered a lot of nonsense over the first month, but this isn't what made the Jets a clown car in years past. I see that a little differently. And if they can avoid any other incidents, this will be forgotten by week one. But... I mean, they're a clown car. If one more thing happens, then, you know, Todd Bowles is in trouble.

A lot happens. Long term, I think they're fine. But when the two of the five most high-profile players on the team have, like, disastrous, comical incidents within a couple weeks. All right, that's it for that little talk there. We'll check in with all those teams and see if we're still concerned. Another calendar month from now. Before we get out of here, though, you know, we need to touch base with someone. And it's been a couple of weeks now. And this is a gentleman that he's our New Jersey correspondent.

He's a guy that there's a lot of times where he gets upset about things. And you wonder, oh, is he going to, you know, blow his top? potential for a dangerous situation for all of us. So what we did, we installed this segment into the show that allows our gentlemen from New Jersey to get things off his chest and share them with the world and keep himself sane.

It's a segment that we call, Are you kidding me? With Connor Orr. And here he is. For the first time, our listeners you just know for the first time, we have on Skype, Is Skype paying us for this, by the way?

Are we paying Skype? In contract negotiations. Okay. Connor, Orr, from his haunted mansion in New Jersey. And my goodness, it really does look scary. Does it? Looks beautiful. It's a beautiful sunlit room.

Connor's the one who's scary. He's 15 feet tall right now. How you doing, buddy? Anger monster right here. Well, you know, at his time, I know you've had a couple of weeks to think about something that's really been grinding your gears. So why don't you go ahead and get it off your check. Dan, I think this week we need to talk about the dumbest thing in the NFL preseason,

which is joint practices, without question, the stupidest thing about the NFL free season. Wow, this is actually about the football end of things. Joint practices are stupid. Why? That's right. So why are they so stupid? All right, so you can imagine, like, you know, in high school, when you go out to practice, practice, which is the last experience I've had with, like, a professional practice, but you're already hot and angry and you don't want to be there. So let's bring in people that you don't know that are probably going to make you angrier when it's hot outside. And then let's meet you learn fake plays so as not to give away what your actual plays are. And then expect everyone to totally act, totally mean.

It's all just a wild, dangerous farce. Exactly. And you see, so you see this, and correct me if I'm wrong, as something that there's really nothing to gain from it, it only could promote bad things. This is one of those dumb things that, like, Bill Belichick decided to do once, and then everyone's like, oh, well, if Bill Belichick does it, then we all need to do it because then we'll all have the greatest to you today. Listen to the hooded one, he'll never let you down. Wow. We don't need rights for that. I was waiting for the thing to be over, but I can see myself waiting for it to be over. I'm not good in the video.

No, I think you're doing a great job. So do you have anything else to get off your chest, either about joint practices or something else in life? Well, actually, I'm going to throw a curve-ball at everybody here really quickly and say that I've done a complete about-face on Odell Beckham and that everyone should be completely cool to him because he's now my favorite player. Wow, why is that? Wait a second. Not believable.

For anyone that's unaware, Connor Orr takes a lot of issues with O'Dell Beckham, the talented Giants Receiver being a total egomaniac. What's changed? It was less the ego-maniac. But anyway,

I think that he's making the game fun again and now he's being chastised for celebrations. I think I've come completely full circle and I'm dedicating all my energy to hating Odell Beckham haters. Don't forget, this is a kid's game. Wow. So, in summation, you hate joint practices.

They're all bad. Odell Beckham, forget about what he does, concentrate on the people that are against him for having fun. Like you a week ago. Exactly. And is there anything else you have to say? Well, what are you kidding?

There's some guy in, like, Des Moines that's like, wait a second, I played that riff. How is that not copyrighted? Right. Connor, thank you very much. Be safe. That tree looks like it's potentially dangerous behind you. If this falls down, Martin, my ass is getting a cut in half. It's insane.

It's like 100 feet tall. It's a huge savior. Well, guess what? Connor, you live in a haunted house. I'm sure the spirits will keep the living thing that is a tree away from you and you will be safe. You pay a mortgage, too, buddy. A lot of responsibility for Connor. Thank you very much, Connor, and we'll see you soon.

Thank you, guys. I love seeing Connor. I know he's maybe a little uncomfortable at first about it, but once he gets comfortable. Sneaky factoid about that room, he tells me that whenever the in-laws come over a bunch of other people and it gets a little stressful, that he retreats. That's like a backhouse room. He retreats there and he plays Madden. And he's created a Madden team where Pat Devlin has led the so-called Hajj Paj of players to two straight Madden Super Bowl.

So a lot of action in that room. So in some ways, very mature got the mortgage. And otherwise he's like a 12-year-old. He's like a developing teenager that owns a property in New Jersey. It actually makes a ton of sense because he's a 27-year-old guy that got roped into a mortgage and a fiancé. Well, they didn't get roped into a fiancé. He's still a boy at the same time, so he has these competing influences as adolescence and manhood pulling at him in each direction.

That's fascinating. Yeah, he's got an internal struggle, which is probably where a lot of the, or are you kidding me, angst is born from. I like how when the in-laws come over, he doesn't socialize. He retreats to his deck to play madden. So not allowed, by the way. I think he does to some extent, and then you need a release. Like my in-laws, who I like very much, Bob and Ann Bates, they're coming on tomorrow. They're coming tomorrow night, actually,

saying for the weekend, I'm looking forward to it. Bob Bates, a big-time listener, too. Was wondering why you were in a bad mood today. Not true at all. I'm looking forward to it. If I did not get along with men loves or I didn't feel like hanging out with them and I just disappeared and played video games for an hour,

that wouldn't go over well with the wife. Why does Greg insist on snitching on you today? Well, that was also when you'd call a false snitch. Yeah, that's not snitching. That's called humor. You know, I was making something up for the sake of a joke. That's totally fabricated. That's called condescension.

Listen, lessons in broadcasting just being dispensed at will. All right, that's it for Wednesday's edition of the Around the NFL podcast. We'll be back on Friday with, again, a big show, Win West's Toaster coming up. So make sure you tune in for that. And all the news, of course, another week of preseason action. This is Dan Hansis, signing off for The Quiet Storm, the Mailman, the Boston TV behind the glass. Till 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.

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