OverDrive - Willson on the CFL league changes, a fourth down in the league and Week 3 headlines

Episode Date: September 22, 2025

TSN NFL Analyst Luke Willson joined OverDrive to discuss the headlines around Week 3, the Eagles' comeback win against the Rams, the kickers' performance in the games, the Chargers' winning ways to begin the season, the Ravens and Lions on MNF, the CFL's changes and more.

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Visit bell.ca for more details and to check availability. Bell, internet, just got better. Help you smell! What the... Owen Wilson is cooking. Yeah, there he is. You know who wasn't happy, Hayes? This guy.

That's the worst bad beat of all time, and certainly since we've been doing it. I've never... I can't believe he picked it up and took it to the house. So, to give you a little context for me as well here, I'm sitting there and, you know, obviously it was Friday, we're at BMO.

It's a bit of a ballsy pick, you know, going on the ramp. on the road. Right. And, you know, I'm sick of my neck out there a little bit in noodles, so, you know, I send a text, which I shouldn't have done when they were up 19, and I said, how about that Rams pick? Yeah. And the group.

Yeah. And now, fast forward, we get there, and we're on the desk. We're meeting Kara Wagland, myself and Davis Sanchez, and we're talking about something else, and behind the TV screen is a, excuse me, the camera is a few screens, and one of them has the game on. Watching Matthew Stafford, boom, boom, boom, right down the field. I'm like, seen this before. We're good.

And I'm counting down. I'm like, okay, even if they get stopped, anything but a turnover, I'm good. Like turnover for a touchdown. Yeah. So I'm like, covers there, we're even, we're feeling good. Yeah. We're live on television, and I'm watching, like, I think Dave's is talking, and I'm watching behind the camera and it be like, okay.

And then I see it blocked. And at first I'm like, no big deal. Because we still cover. Right, exactly. Jump on it. And then I see Jordan Davis pick it up, and I think to myself, one, someone's going to tackle him, or two, you know, kind of one of those rules when the game's over. You just never want to risk it. He's going to slide.

The game's over. There's no time. Get down. Zero's on the clock. And then all of a sudden I see him running and running, and there's just no Rams on the screen. He was flying. Flying in my head almost exploded. I'm on live TV and I'm like, I can't.

want to drop some profanity right now. Don't worry, Dugie, I won't. I was so enraged. I'm like, there is no way that I stuck my neck out there to take the Rams on the road. They should have won the game, let alone covered. Yeah. And Jordan

Davis just returned a blocked field goal to beat the cover, beat the spread. I was... That he blocked. Like, dude, it's the craziest finish I've ever seen. And that was the theme of the day. Blocking field goal kick, the Packers, the game was over.

It gets blocked, and then Flacco to his credit, goes down the field, and there was another game. Was it the Cardinals, Niners game? I can't remember. No, it was the Bucks game. Now, the Bucks end up still winning, but the Bucs had the wild one where the Jets came back and Baker had to lead a drive there. Crazy. What was it about yesterday where all of a sudden no one can get a field goal in the air? It was funny because we went over on Jay a little bit. Everyone was a little more individual. So Cardi for the Rams, he simply was hitting those balls too low. Like, especially the first one he missed, not even the game winner, if you look at the

protection from the sideline view, it is almost perfect. You know, and I think the first one was 36. The last one was, I think, mid-40s. You've got to kick the ball high. Like, how we were always told is, okay, outside, if we do all our splits right, somebody from the edge should be beat with operation, meaning snap, hold, kick timing, we should be able to beat the outside edge rusher by the time of our operation time. Right. How these guys are taught to kick these days is to really pop the ball up so that if you don't allow penetration,

even guys' hands up, it's too high. Like the first one, the second one had more penetration, but I'm like, you just missed the kick, bro. Like you drilled it. And again, it's different if it's a 65-yard and you really got to push the ball. I couldn't get over that. Cardi does it not once, but twice. Now, the Packers won, not on the, not on the kicker. If you watch that thing, they got beat, the side got concave, they got beat up front,

like, it's just bad protection. You know? Yeah, what was your biggest shock yesterday in the game? Was it in all the games? Was it Green Bay losing? Was it the Cowboys losing? Like, what was, you know, your overall take? The Rams not covering, notwithstanding.

Yeah, yeah. Outside of that. There's a few noodles. I think one, you mentioned the Cowboys. Generally speaking, when you have a group that is that bad, meaning their defense, because the Cowboys' offense is good. The Cowboys' offense, and I'll stand by that. But you generally see improvements from week to week.

You know, hey, this isn't working. Let's kind of shrink the playbook. Let's get back to fundamentals. It's really preach fundamentals. You know, maybe we'll add some new wrinkles in, try different guys and even like the idea that, hey, nothing we've done is work, so if we kind of like

not create a new defensive scheme but throw more wrinkles in, it generally or at least catch people off guard so you get a couple stops. The Cowboys' defense has been an utter abomination for three straight weeks. So that was a bit shocking that there was just no improvement

and made Caleb Williams look like John Elway at times. And he's been real tough. I think the most shocking thing though, if I want to be honest was Ben Johnson's post-game speech. I think I heard that in like my fifth grade class. You know, that was like a logo. I don't know if Doogie can pull up the good, better, best.

I'm like, this was one of the most unbelievable things I've ever heard. I don't really, it's hard for me to wrap my head around. Like in a bad way or a good way? Terrible way. Maybe the worst way of all time. All right, good. That's what I figured. Yeah.

Just confirming that. I was shocked. I'm like, yeah, this was stuff we said in elementary school. but and then you know back to going on the field it's tough for me to get over that Green Bay I'm not surprised by listen Cleveland's defense is good exactly and here's what I was worried about

a trap game though Brian right you thought that was exactly again easy for me to say now I'm telling you I was talking a lot of Packer fans over the weekend I thought they'd win but I said be careful because they're still I think the youngest team of the league if not the youngest close to it they've had two home games they're running on a high Cleveland, you know, their defense is really good.

It's a tough place to play in, and they're reading their press clippings, and they're talking going 17 and O, and they're getting cocky. I think this is a good thing. I think Matt Lafleur secretly loves that this happened. And it's an AFC opponent, you know, so tiebreaker-wise, not a huge implication. And you've got to win next week, then a buy. Totally. So they've got to win next week, clearly, and you're three-and-one into the buy,

and you'll be okay. The only thing that's tough, Hayes, is, and I mean, everyone, lives in, you've got to get over it. But when you play a defense like that, you know, you play a Miles Garrett, it's such a slog all game, and you do enough to, like, put your fuel goal unit in position to win you a ball game. It just is a, it's like a- It's crushing.

It is crushing. They should have that. They still should have won in the- Yes, they have no business losing that game. No, but they did. And, like, you look at some surprises in the NFL. I look at the Niners who found a way to win yesterday. Mac Jones escaping for his life in the end zone, which was incredible.

But they're 3-0, which I didn't see coming. I know 9-R fans are waiting to pounds because I had a bunch of them yelling at me in the summer when I didn't think they would be that competitive this year. But now Nick Bose is done for the year. He's torn his ACL. He's done for the year. You know, they've survived without party, and Jones has been fine. Yesterday was a weird, low-scoring game.

But I don't know, man. I don't know how it's going to work for the Niners. Like, you're 3-0, but how do you feel today? And this is what's tough. You know, if I had to give an MVP out to the Niners right now, would go to defensive coordinator Robert Sala. But losing Nick Bosa is crushing. You know, and it's funny because it's weird how these narratives get created

where because they have such a good staff, you know, they've got Kyle Shanahan, obviously, an offensive guru, Kubiak, and I get them all confused, but I believe Clay is the OC there, not Clint. Clint is in Seattle. You know the third. brother's name is Klein. I played with him in calling. Of course it is. It's true story.

Why wouldn't it be? Confusing for everybody. Sherry, Darrell, and Darrell. You know, but I think that's pretty, obviously, the dad, Kubiak, the Mike Shanahan offense, you know, good football lineage there, and Robert Sala is cream of the crop when it comes to de-corinators.

So for some reason, it's like, oh, you know, Nick Boas is out, but the Niner, like the narratives of the Niner still might be good. Like, could you imagine, you know, If we were, you know, last year when Aiden Hutchinson got heard from the lions, it was like, the sky is falling. Right. And eventually it did.

Correct. So I really do think the Niners are in trouble. Not trouble in the sense are going to be awful. But I did have them as like an outside kind of looking in team to be a Super Bowl contender, not in my, let's call it top four, top five. But I thought they'd, you know, be in the conversation of the next group. And right now it's like kiddle. gone for a while. We don't know when Purdy's coming

back. Iyuk is the big question mark when he's going to come back. Jennings has been out I mean these are their best guys. Nick Bose has now done for the year. This is a very very tough you know situation for the Niners. Tough division too. All the other teams are two and one. Totally. What about the

I mean are the Chargers for real? They're for real. Noodles. They're for real. Like the Chargers four years ago don't win that game yesterday. And the biggest thing for me right now has been Greg Roman and I've played in his offense is one of those guys

that he's always had this very electric run game it's been complex there's been like come up to the line of scrimmage and we can flip the run over or we can just say can and we got to go to the second run and you've got to know it's like the full back tight end okay we got to all just like it's not really a motion thing it's more of a shift

and it's worked it's worked well but I've never seen him have a offense that throws the ball as well you know, that's kind of why they got rid of them, not, you know, part of the way since they got rid of them, part of ways in Baltimore was because, hey, Lamar wanted to take that next step as a passer. You know, same thing. Roman was calling Kaepernick's guy, and Kaepernick could obviously sling it, but you never really thought of him as like, hey, this guy's a pure pocket guy, where right now Herbert is absolutely humming.

I mean, throwing the ball all over the place, making a ton of plays. The defense looks very, very good, making a lot of plays of key moments. they're winning ball games Harbaugh's got this team bought in it seems like I can't say enough and like Denver it's tough they're one and two now and they've lost two games on last second field goals and the one of them the guy missed and they had that leveraging penalty right last week Danny times man Danny 3&O Indiana Jones Indiana Jones Indiana Jones 3 and oh man the guy's Peyton Manning when he puts on that

no question that's incredible yeah but you're right charges three divisional games too right Three and O against the division, which is mighty impressive. It's starting a year like that. Well, you mentioned the Lions a moment ago, and it segues into the Monday night or tonight. Ravens Lions, one of these two teams facing one and two, which is pretty crazy. Hazenbro and O'Clock will get to my pick in a moment, and it is locked in. I've spoken to my friend from the West Coast.

He's still in Vancouver, I think. Enjoying his life, eh? Yeah, he's having a great time. But where do you see this one going tonight? Ravens Lions. To be honest and I'm really glad that I'm not calling this game. It's a tough game. Big spread 4 and a half. It's a tough game and

both teams kind of had Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in their first two weeks. You look at Detroit and got absolutely smacked. I was embarrassed by Green Bay. Now again I was on here in Lambo Mike's first day. Green Bay is a legitimate

team. You know, they kind of got behind. I get it and then they come back and they smoke the bears, although the bears did win yesterday, I think the bears are pathetic. Stink. And Dallas is worse. Totally. It's hard to put stock in that game, but in the same breath, like I'm not saying the Lions are a bad football team because of week one.

So there's a lot of questions, I think, that still need to be answered there. And you look at Baltimore, it's kind of similar where week one, you know, obviously offensively, they looked like a juggernaut, which is kind of what we all expected. Week 2, like Henry did not go off. Obviously, they got a win, but that was also because they got a lot of turnovers against Joe Flacco. And the question mark now becomes

is Baltimore's defense in the same spot they were at the beginning of last year? I don't know if you remember last season. The second half of the season, Baltimore's defense, was electric, unbelievable. The first half, they were awful. And they were awful against Josh Allen. And again, this is what I'm saying tonight's going to answer

a lot of questions. MVP, Josh Allen. and the guy was playing out of his mind. And then they were really good against Joe Flacko, tough to put stock in that. So that's why, again, I'm glad we don't have this pick. And I'm glad we won last night. We should have been two and oh.

We should be one up right now. Worst beat of all time. Sure. But you'll probably choke this one a night and we'll be even seeing. Quickly, before I get to my pick, I do want to point out the doogie jam job on Friday. That line was charges minus two and a half. And he pushed it to three.

Forever. And literally as I'm reading it, I'm at Bimo Field. I got a million things on a go. And I'm like, all right, let's get to the 4 p.m. game. And he's in my ear going, it's up to 3, which I don't believe it actually was. I think he pushed it to 3 before the line actually moves. My man, my man, dude, he's trying to keep things close this year. And I appreciate that.

He's a puppet master and he wants you guys to stay in. Yeah, until he sends a text on noodles, you were on that one. He sends a text sister day after the push, hey, Haysenborough up 3. I said, no, they're not. Which is more proof that the guy was being fraudulent because he forgot that he had jammed himself. up with the fake push. I was still like seething after that end of the Rams game. And I'm like, do not give these guys a bonus point, do you.

It was a push. It was a push. Chargers by three. It's all good. But we're going to take the Ravens tonight. Now, we're laying the four and a half. A game like this, it starts with who do I think is going to win a game? I think Baltimore is going to win a game. I think Baltimore wins. They're at home. I don't love Jared Goff on the road. I think this is where the coordinators really show up.

Like you said at Lambo, they had all summer to prepare for that. they didn't look great. Jared Goff is splits Ford Field and on the road very different under the lights tonight. I just, I feel like this is a Lamar Jackson special tonight. I think he cooks tonight. I think he goes off.

I think the Ravens again showed up pretty well defensively last week. Everything you said is accurate. It's Joe Flacco, but I think them at home is pretty significant. Going to Josh Allen, like on the road, Josh Allen week one, that's as tough as it gets, man, the way Allen's playing. So, you know, I see Ravens

win this by a touchdown. I could see Jared Gothor on a late pick to end it. That's my prediction. That's our prediction. Hazenbro locking it in Ravens. Mine is four and a half. Pick is locked. I'll be honest. I don't think the lines are that bad. Four and a half points worse than Baltimore?

I think they're a good team. I think the lines I'm not saying they're going to win, but I'd be surprised if this is more than a field goal game. Okay. Well, there you go. You guys are happy. And all of a sudden, we're even, Stephen. All right. We'll see what comes of it tonight. All right. The CFO. rule changes.

I saw you tweeting about it, and you've been talking about it. So they announced it today. Stuart Johnston will join us later this hour. And they're going to move the goalpost back eventually. They're going to shrink the end zone. They're going to shrink the field. It's no longer 110 yards. It's going to be 100.

Same width. You're going to move the benches, right? They're going to modify the rouge. Yes. What do you make of these rules and how much of an impact do you think it's going to have on, you know, the fans, ultimately, because that's the only reason you make a move like this? The only thing I was a bit confused about

was taking out the 55. I think all the rest of them are just almost no-brainers. I think it's a great play. What's tough is you've got to understand the whole context of everything. You look at the end zones and it's like, oh, well, we have 15-yard end zones.

Okay, well, right now we don't even have standard there's nine teams and two of the teams don't have regular size end zones. Like you can't, if you want, want to like button this league up and you want to grow this as a professional football league, you can't stroll in with nine teams and one of them, which we were at the game, has 18-yard end zones instead of 20 yards. And if you go play at McGill, it's not a full square. It's the actual like the corners are clipped because of the size. So I love the idea that it's 15 yards.

And I love personally for me that it's going to be standardized across the league. Again, Could you guys imagine going to a hockey game? And all of a sudden, like, hey, if we play in Boston this week, the net is bigger or the net's not as small. Well, it used to be, Luke, like, before the cookie cutter rinks, you go to Boston, that rink was not 200 by 80. Correct. It was 185 by, you know, 75 type of, like, some of these rinks in different cities were smaller or more unique. It had different glass, all of that type of stuff. But nowadays, everything is standard cookie cups.

Cutter because you expect to play on the same field, same ice, same, you name it in any city. But that wasn't the case years ago. Now it is. It's the standard case. And noodles, I'm glad you brought that up because like, and I get that it's unique and it's fun. Like, hey, you know, 35, 40 years

ago, you know, you'd go to a rank and that, you know, it's a little different. But in today's day and age, you can't have those things. Like, if you want gambling to become a thing, which I know I'm, you know, not the biggest gambler on planet Earth, but I know it's a big revenue generator for the league,

for bringing fans into the league. Like, we've got to be honest. And I don't work at FanDuel, but I can imagine that whoever's making the CFO odds probably doesn't love that the end zones are two yards smaller at BMO. You know, how do we do the

analytics on that? Like, you know, there's a million things where you have to standardize things. It's just the reality of the situation. And so I love the end zone thing. The goalposts, I think, is phenomenal. Again, it's one of those ordeals where, hey, we don't really need to be shaping skinny post balls around goalposts

if you're a quarterback. It's always looked awkward. It never, I get it uniquely Canadian, but unnecessary. And you said something there, Hayes, and there's a big thing online now. It's a war on Twitter, but like Canadian, uniquely Canadian. I thought it did a phenomenal job. Let me just go over some Canadian things real quick. Okay, first off, you have 12 guys in the field.

Secondly, you have 15-yard end zones. Third, you have 64 width field. Fourth, everyone can be in motion. Fifth, there's three downs. Six, the entire special teams, with regards to ball is live right away on kickoffs. Okay, there's no fair catches on punts. All of that, Canadian. Oh, by the way, 21 guys per roster have to be Canadian.

Their definition is not exactly Canadian citizen, but most of them are. There's the odd one where it's like, hey, I played college in Canada, et cetera. Almost every aspect of this league is Canadian. Almost every single thing. And I think it's great. It's the Canadian Football League. It should have those things. But if we make a tweak to the end zone and still, I don't know another league that's 15-yard end zones.

Maybe I'm not a big, I don't know how many. other football leagues, so maybe Europe had it. I don't know. 15-yard end zone. You know what that is? It's still uniquely Canadian. That's not an NFL end zone. So it's weird because everyone's like, oh, you know, we're trending towards four downs. No, we're not. There's like a million things in this league that make it uniquely Canadian. Just because it's different and they're trying to bring new fans in does not make it bad or anti-Canadian.

Okay. Something that's Sean brought to you by Boston Pizza, Canada's favorite sports bar. I enjoy $15 lunch at BP where you get an entree, a side, and a drink, and you get it all in 20 minutes or less. A fast lunch doesn't have to be fast food. See you for a $15 fast lunch of your local Boston pizza. We've been asking that. You know, if you're going to make changes, if you really want to make a ripple effect here, should the CFL go to four downs? No, never. Click that, doogie.

No, never? No. Listen, hey, you know, as far as this is a personal opinion, like I like to try and split these things I say with this. CFL and like what's based in film, like I'll say this is factual. I watch a lot. I buzzed a lot of CFL film versus like this is an opinion.

Okay. Right now, there's, you saw a BMO, there's not a lot of fans of the CFL, especially in Ontario. Obviously, Winnipeg, Saskatchewan are a bit of an outlier. Hamilton is very hit or miss. You know, a much better

as far as quantity goes of fans than Toronto. out. But if you pull the three down card and make this like a feeder league personally, again, an opinion, I don't really think that that drives many more people to see it.

There are a lot of NFL snobs out there, which I like. I'm an NFL guy. But I don't think they're going to be like, oh, now I'm going to watch the CFL because it's American football rules. That's not, I don't think that happens. So again, I think you keep as many Canadian aspects of the game

as you can, but also bring And, like, hey, this just looks better. It's more professional. It's better for the guys. I mean, look at, think about the, you guys are going to laugh at this, but I was joking, like, the sideline thing. So for us, like, if you're on offense and you're, you know, sitting there and you're waiting for personnel, let's see you're the extra old linemen. It's when they go jumbo. We're 310 pounds.

So what you do is like, hey, on the sideline, the coach would be like, hey, alert jumbo, you know, we're getting into the red zone or like short yardage. It's jumbo personnel. Yeah. You follow the personnel coach in the sideline, whoever's calling that in. Generally, if the offensive coordinator is there, you're hovering around him. Imagine, like, oh, the ball's in the seven, you're 310 pounds, and you've got to be on your own 45 because there's two teams in the sideline. The coach calls Jumbo, and you've got to do a nice 65-yard hustle in there.

Oh, by the way, we want to talk about gameplay. The play clock and the game clock are not mirrored. so the play, excuse me, the game clock is running, but we're now waiting for the extra 6-0 linemen to come in so that we can start the play clock. Like, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, and they're little things. You get them out of the way.

It's going to be a smoother game. Guys are now sitting on the 35, right by the coach, subs go in, clock's moving, games going. This is great. Like, that small change for the fluidity of the game is great. And it's just the pushback on something. I feel for students. It's ridiculous.

NFL fans are sensitive, man. They always feel like, and yet it's because of what you said, you know, like the reason they're making these changes is try to get new fans. I don't know if these are going to get you new fans. So this is where I. I don't know if they will. You said what you said about the four downs, and I agree with that. I agree.

But that would lead to the biggest ripple of, like, biggest response. Like that's, because I said earlier, what makes the CFL, the CFL is three downs. Yes. Like, first and foremost, you mentioned a lot of other important things, motion, 12 guys, but it's really three downs like the fundamentals of football you have you have one less down per possession it's very significant

in terms of the way the game is played but you know I don't know I worry Hayes like yeah there'll be an effect on this but and I think we've briefly talked about this there's a operations cap in the CFL and I don't have time to go down that rabbit hole

but how it was implemented but basically there's a certain salary slash number of coaches and operational people that are allowed team by team. And it's way too low. So it's one of those things who are like, as far as the on-field product goes, until we get to the point where like we have sufficient coaches

and film guys and strength coaches and nutritionists and all of the above, it's going to be very tough for me to think that like there's going to be a drastic improvement. Right. Now, those things do matter in the staying age. Like I talked to a gentleman The other day, played eight years in the CFL

recently retired and was like, I didn't have a positional coach at any time in my career in CFL. Like for me, I was the only guy, we were the only organization group that didn't have two positional guys in Seattle. Generally, you have like your wide receivers coach

and your wide receivers coach assistant. You know, your tight end coach, we only had one, but generally you have like an assistant or a tight end's quality control guy. Two guys in the court. These isn't, like the coordinator floats. You know, the offense corner floats. Well, it's the chicken of the egg, though, right?

Correct. The owners will say we don't have the money. And that's exactly what ends up happening. So if this leads to money, which now we can bump the cap, you know, the operations cap I'm talking about? It's good things. All right. Well, we'll ask the commissioner in 15 minutes on this. Ravens pick locked in. Good luck tonight, Parsi.

Can't wait. Can't wait. All right, there he is. Luke Wilson. Look what we've found. And your first place to hear it all. It's IHeart, new music. Your digital station for brand new drops, fresh finds, and tomorrow's bangers. Updated daily.

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