PTI - More Significant Record: 2-0 Bucs or 0-2 Texans?

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Michael Wilbon and Tony Kornheiser discuss the Bucs, the Texans, Tom Brady, and Bryson DeChambeau. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, sports fans, the ESPN app has all of ESPN all in one place. The ESPN app is your home to thousands of live events, ESPN shows, and originals across every ESPN network and service. And now you can check if you already have ESPN Unlimited as part of your TV package for no additional calls. Visit activate.esPN.com to learn how to access your account or sign up, then start streaming in the ESPN app. It's all of ESPN all in one place. Sign up or activate now. Pardon the interruption, but I'm Mike Wilbon. Sean McVeigh, Taurus Plan of Fascia on the sidelines, Tony. You have any on-the-job ailments?

I'm Tony Kornhizer. I suffer from narcolepsy, but, you know, only when you're talking. Well, stay out. They'll give me more time before the bell. Just stay gone. Not on out there, big fellow. Yeah. I'll just nod off.

I'll not off to the side like that while you're talking. A great visual. You can just go right through the bell. Yeah. Welcome to PTI boys and girls. in today's episode, The Charges go to 2-0. Tom Brady wears a headset, and Jeff Saturday joins us for five good minutes.

But we begin today with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers going to 2-0 last night by once again scoring the winning points in the last minute of regulation. This time it was a two-yard touchdown run by Rashad White, with six seconds to go to beat Houston 20 to 19. Houston lost at home to drop to 0-2. Wilbon, are you more focused on the 2-0 bucks or the 0-2 Texans? The bucks, Tony, at least for now. And let me just start by saying, you know,

there were times in this late in his college career and early in his pro career, when I saw Baker Mayfield, stop. I mean, stop. It's slurpage of what he was going to be and what he was. And it just seemed completely unnecessary and overstated because it was. But that was then.

Baker Mayfield, and I know there are a lot of elements to the Tampa Bay team. They defend. They can run. They always seem to have terrific offensive line play, even when they're missing their tackles and they move a center out to tackle. They still somehow seem to be able to get it together.

That's good coaching. But Baker Mayfield, man, he just seems to be able to get it done in whatever way you ask. And late in games, Tony, it seems like he does, he's done it once or twice, then he's done it a half dozen times, and now it seems he's on the regular.

The Baker Mayfield is saying, let's go, I got this. And he does. And he has made himself not into just an okay quarterback. A quarterback I think a lot of us would like and a lot of teams should trade their guy for. So Baker Mayfield and Tampa have my attention right now. They win the division anyway.

They look like they won it again. Yeah, I'm going to applaud you for everything that you said because I want to say essentially the same stuff that Baker Mayfield was maligned for years in this league, especially at Cleveland. And what has Cleveland exactly done? without Baker Mayfield. So Tampa Bay doesn't win the Super Bowl,

and they're in a weak division, but they go to the playoffs all the time. Baker Mayfield wins games. That run on 4th and 10 was spectacular last night. And after that, he completed five passes in a row. So, you know, what are we talking about here? The guy is a good professional quarterback who wins games. So let me go over to Houston now,

because Houston is a disappointing team. They're going in the wrong direction right now. Six of their last eight games over two seasons, they've scored 20 or fewer points. Right now they have the fewest points in all of football. They were a sexy pick last year because C.J. Stroud had a great rookie year. But he went the wrong direction last year, and he's continuing that. In the second half last night, Mike, he completed five passes for 76 yards.

That's nothing. And the defense that they have that everybody is salivating about and slobbering over allowed an 80-yard 11-play drive in the last two minutes. So how good was that? The answer is still, you know what, I'm not ready to bury them yet. I think Houston can still be okay, particularly in that division. I think they will be key. They have the problem offensively that a lot of teams have with a defensive coach.

They don't score enough points. You're right about that. But let's, I'm not ready to bury them. You are. We're going to keep that, you know, in mind over the next couple of weeks. Let's move to last night's late game in which the Chargers beat the Raiders 20 to 9 long after Tony was asleep. Justin Herbert threw two first half touchdown passes.

The Child has picked off Gino Smith three times, including once in the end zone, fabulous play in the fourth quarter. Tony, the Chargers are now the only 2-0 team in the AFC West with wins over two division opponents. Are you sold on them? Am I sold on them? I'm not quite sold on them, but let's put the under contract sign out

because I'm close to being sold on them. They beat Kansas City at a neutral site in Brazil. Then they went to Las Vegas and they beat the Raiders and they beat them comfortably. So as you say, they're two and own division and they haven't played at home yet.

And it appears that they have now in Justin Herbert, the guy they thought they were going to get when they drafted him six years ago. I mean, he's got five touchdown passes and no interceptions. And last year he had 23 touchdown passes and just three interceptions. And a lot of this is Jim Harbaugh. The flowering of Justin Herbert was not until Jim Harbaugh got there.

Before Harbaugh got there, he had 42 interceptions in four years, and now he has three in a year plus. And this, Mike, as you know, because you love Harbaugh, I do. This is why you hire Jim Harbaugh to fix your quarterback. And the other reason you hire him is because he makes improvements quickly, which he did at Stanford, which he did with the 49ers, which he did at Michigan, and which he's doing now with the charges. And so you hire him, even though maybe you think he's a loon. But you hire him, because it works. You know, where I wanted to hire him. You know, I screamed about that for years. Hire him. They'd gotten rid of I bruce a year earlier. They could have hired him. It's H&H. It's Herbert and Harbaugh. that, yes, I am bullish on the charges. And you know in previous years for decades, back to when you and I were working sports writers, I would say stop with the chargers because they take a nap.

They do. They take a nap. They're not going to take a nap under Harbaugh, because he's not going to let them. And I'm not giving up on the Chiefs yet, and Denver's really good. Denver got hosed because they would be 2 and 0. They got hosed. That's the only way I see it. And they're going to get Denver.

That's going to be a nice matchup coming in week three. But that's at home. It's at home. It's at home. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got it at home. I wish it was in San Diego, but it's in L.A. That's the way it works these things.

But we still call it San Diego, you and I, and we will call it San Diego. Yep. Let's move to Tom Brady in his dual role as broadcaster and team owner. He broadcasts for Fox and he owns a piece of the Raiders. Last night, Brady looked like Bo Bumble in a jacket and tie sitting in a Raiders' coaching booth on a headset. This is not illegal by NFL rules, but it is causing a stir. Will Bond? Brady in the booth wearing a headset, big deal, little deal, no deal.

Brady in the booth wearing a headset is nothing, nothing a waste of time. And I thought last night, wow, this is like Sean Connery, 1964, in a booth with a headset. I don't care about that at all. The question is, what happens during the week before we get, and usually, and you know about this, having been involved in crew and discussions, I'm going to turn this over to you. That's right. Look, it's a terrible appearance of impropriety. I can't say there's any impropriety.

I don't know. I mean, there were some people at television this ward and saying they know they figure Brady's cheating because he always was involved in other cheating scandals. I'm not going there. The appearance of improprieties is enough that the NFL should say, no, we're not going to have this.

And the improprieties insider trading that if Brady or anybody else wanted to, and you got information, during the week, and then you were in meetings with people on whatever you met, Friday, Saturday. You could divulge state secrets. You could have favorite players on other teams, the appearance of impropriety and conflict of interest. Now, you know this intimately because you sat in on these. What do you think?

Well, let me talk. You know, I mean, I agree with you about the appearance of impropriety. I do not think this is a big deal yet, and I see that the NFL is trying to diffuse it. I do not think it's cheating. I do not think it's awful. But I think it looks bad. Yeah. Okay, when you're in a broadcast crew, in order to make the broadcast better,

you have access to players and to coaches that other people don't have. Because you're asking a lot of questions about a lot of topics, and you're gleaning information. And even though Brady doesn't do it in person, he does it electronically, he still has access to all these players. If he has, Mike, and I'm going to assume you agree with me on this, If he has a different agenda, if his agenda is because he is an owner of the Raiders, then he may be looking for certain kinds of information to pass along.

You know, he has a privilege that no other owner has in talking to these players and these coaches. And so you and I agree, it doesn't look good. Now, the NFL came out today and they said, hey, this is legal. What I would have suggested, and by the way, I would have had Goodell on it and not an underling, because Brady deserves that, what I would have suggested is to say he can't talk to players and coaches within two weeks of a Raiders game.

I think that would have made, you know, everybody feel good because we both agree. There's something that doesn't look right. That's right. And totally, real quickly, just to underscore it is, we're not even saying, this is not Brady's doing. The league has to decide

the appearance here is what? What does this mean for somebody that takes his product seriously and wants its product to be viewed with a certain perspective. What does this? Didn't mean Brady's done anything wrong, but, you know. No, they hasn't. He's going by the rules.

Yes, he's doing what he's allowed to do. Absolutely. Let's take a break. Coming up, if teams had trouble with the tush push before, what do they do now that some Eagles appear to be going early? We're going to ask Jeff Saturday. We'll also ask him whether the Bengals' offensive line deserves heat. But Joe Burroughs turf toe.

By the way, our friend, Grant Hill, is a part owner of the Atlanta Hawks are broadcast on NBC. Yeah. So this could happen to him. Let's get into the NFL trenches with our great friend ESPN NFL analyst, Jeff Saturday. Jeff, we're going to start with everybody's favorite play, the tush push. The Eagles now appear to start early on several of these tush pushes against the chiefs. What should teams or what should the league maybe do about this? Well, I mean, you got to call it when you, if somebody's ahead of the snap count, they got to call it.

But let me put this in perspective. It is not abnormal for offensive linemen to anticipate the snap count that their quarterback is given. So let's just say, you know, you get a hut hut for your cadence. At the end of the first hut, I'm going to start snapping the ball before that second hut comes so that Everybody is moving at the same time. We want to use that as an advantage. We want to use that as a weapon for an offensive lineman. So we aren't waiting for that last T to hit before I snap the ball.

When that, I'm letting that thing rip and let's go. So I think they're trying to anticipate the snap count. So the guards were getting a little bit ahead. They will officiate it down. I am a fan of the tush push. I have put this on record a number of times. There's 31 other teams that could be doing it and are not. for a reason. The Eagles are very effective at it. They're not going to stop until somebody stops it.

They will officiate it better than they did this past week. But I love the play and the execution. All right, Jeff, the Lions offensive line lost Frank Ragnall to retirement. Yet, their line seems to be, you know, still pretty good. They look good in week two against the bears. Meanwhile, the bears cannot get this offensive line together, no matter how many changes they make. How can one outfit be so good at this? another same division be so awful year after year. Yeah. Well, I'll say Hank Frailer, the offensive line coach for the, for the Detroit Lions is a very good coach. And he was a good player as well. And so, and I think what, what they have done is they have, they have likened their offensive line to Dan Campbell. They are a rough and rugged bunch. They want to play the run first

and then get in the past. This is not a team that's going to get back in shotgun, you know, 80% of their snaps and let you just tee off. They want to be coming off the ball, firing off the ball. And I know people don't understand, but when a quarterback goes underneath center and is turning us back to the line of scrimmage, it's a benefit to the offensive line. In the run game and in the play action pass game, when all 11 defenders can see everything that's happening in the shotgun, it makes it hard. I think they do a really good job of balancing it for, so far, the Bears in what they've had pre-Ben Johnson have not been able to figure that part out. I think Ben Johnson will get there. Like I said before, you've got to be patient with this thing.

But he understands that being under center, understanding how to how to formulate that between quarterback and center, and how that will help and translate to the offensive line will be very beneficial for the Bears. We're going to switch over to ask about something and has peeved me now for, I don't know, 48 hours. I thought the defense. leverage penalty called against the Broncos that got the Colts, that game-winning re-kick, was garbage. So, Jeff, does the penalty and the 15-yard punishment for that penalty makes sense to you? And should this particular one even have been called a penalty? Okay, it should have been called. It was a penalty. But here, this is what I equate this to.

This is like the defensive end who's rushing the passer, reaches out, and just, just barely grazes the mask, right, or pushes the mask of the quarterback. And it's roughing the passer or it's the guy who hits the quarterback and tries to fall. And they're like, oh, no, his body splashed on him. It is garbage, right? But it's the rule. And so the referee called it. It's a right call, but it's frustrating, right?

Because you don't want to see games decided by something that tickey tack. If it's, if there was a clear advantage or somebody's getting hurt or it puts somebody at risk, I totally get it. But I'm with you. It's one of those. It can be both, right? It's both and it's garbage because we don't like it, but it is a foul and it should have been called and they did call it. And effectively, you know, the Colts win the game because they get in their shot at kicking the field goal. And the Colts are 2 and O. And Daniel Jones is leading them up and down the field day after day after day. It just seems. Let's go. I mean, he's the MVP right now. I'll get you out of here on this. And we ask you this because of the position you played for all those years.

The Bengals' offensive line is apparently taking heat for Joe Burroughs turf toe. That's your position. It's crazy. Does this make sense to you? Okay. So because people, they equate quarterbacks getting hit to offensive line. And I totally understand that. But I just made this point.

I'm going to make it again. The way the Bengals operate their offense is, is, is, Joe Burrow is in gun a large majority of the time. Everybody in the building knows they're going to pass it. They're not very effective running the football. Defensive players are going to have their ears pin back. And Joe Burrow wants to hold the ball, right? He wants to extend plays.

He wants to make big plays. He wants to manipulate the pocket. Get the ball downfield, all of those things. All of that is inherent risk to a QB. He's going to get hit. And those defensive linemen understand if they are persistent and keep rushing, keep pushing. They're eventually going to put a body on a body. And that's what has happened. It is accumulated in Burroughs career. That's why you see so many injuries.

And it's frustrating because the offensive line ultimately gets blamed. There's a lot of blame to go around in the building with everybody. Everybody involved protecting the quarterback is head coach, offensive coordinator, quarterback, and offensive line. It's everybody involved and they just haven't done a good enough job. Yeah, so get off the center for a little while. Stop. Thank you, Jeff. Get off the whole line. We'll get on this, as always. Yeah. Let's take one last break.

Still to come, the Phillies clinch, the NL East. And a few words about the life and times of the now departed, Robert Redford, who was only in about 30 great movies. At least. At least. Maybe 40. And directed. And directed a few, too.

Yes. Happy time, people. Happy 32nd birthday. birthday, Bryson DeCambo. Of all the players who bolted from the PGA tour for the guaranteed money of the Saudi tour, Deschambo may be the most consistently impressive. In 2024, Deschambo won the U.S. Open at Pinehurst, his second open, beating Rory McElroy when McElroy stumbled on the 18th hole and DeCambo did not. This past year, Deschambo finished T2 in the PGA, T5 in the Masters and top 10 in the British Open. DeCambo is the only American player on the

live tour to qualify for the United States Rider Cup team. And although he wasn't eligible to play in last week's ProCourt championship, Deschambeau showed up to show solidarity with his Ryder Cup teammates who did play. Tony, I can't figure out how I feel year to year about Deschambo. There was a time where I thought he was a villain, a worthy villain, but a villainous sort of figure. And then he just seems to now be happy all the time with everybody. He's high-fiving the gallery.

He's got a different thing. He lost all that crazy muscle mask where he looked like some caricature. I think I like him now, but I'm not sure maybe I'll revert. Hey, tell me in the week, let me know. Happy anniversary, Ryan Fitzpatrick. On this day, seven years ago, playing with Tampa Bay, Fitzpatrick became the first quarterback in NFL history to pass for at least 400 yards and four touchdowns

in each of the first two games of a season. Fitzpatrick played 17 seasons in the NFL, started for nine different teams in NFL record for quarterbacks. He earned $82 million. The highest career earnings ever for a seventh round, pick, which he was out of Harvard in 2005. However, Brock Purdy is about to pass Fitzpatrick money-wise. When Fitzpatrick retired, he had the NFL record for most games played without a

playoff appearance. I like him in the Thursday night pregame show on Amazon Prime, do you? Yeah, he and Andrew Whitworth. It's just a lot of beard. But I like those guys. Why didn't more teams hold on to him longer at quarterback? If you can last 17 years for all those teams, couldn't like, I don't know, just two or three, say, you know, we like you?

I don't understand that either. A melancholy trails to Robert Redford, the great actor died this morning at the age of 89. Redford starred in sports films like the natural and the unseen downhill racer. But his greatest fame came from a run in the late 60s and early 70s that included Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,

three days of the Condor, the Sting, and the great all the president's men. And he also won an Oscar for directing Wilbon's favorite film, Ordinary People. My favorite film ever, Tony. But quick story, don't you remember after playing in all the president's men? After playing Bob Woodward, our dear friend and Idol,

where Robert Redford would come into the Washington Post newsroom to see Woodward and everybody would just stand around and stare at him? That was so crazy that Bob Woodward would just be like he'd walk in front of us. They were great friends for like 50 years. Really? Great friends. Let's go to the big finish quickly. Cade Horton and Paulson.

schemes tonight. I'll bet you're excited. I am fired up, Cade Horton rookie of the year, and he's going to win tonight. Philly's clinched the NL East. That's a big deal, isn't it? Best lineup one through nine in the majors and has been for three years. Jordan Alvarez of the Astros left last night's game with a left ankle sprain. Is that cause for concern? Yeah, we're a couple of weeks from postseason, and they need him to overtake. Yes. Mando Duplan has set the pole vault record for a 14th time. Is that bogus or are you impressed? No, Sergei Bupka did this. He would kick it up a quarter of an inch at every meet

because he got paid every time he raised the record. That's what this guy does. Last one, two WNBA playoff games tonight. Who you got? The dream and the aces will win, close their series out, respectively, and move on. We're out of time. We'll try to do better than next time,

and I am Tony Cornhut. I'm Mike Wilbon. Same time tomorrow, knuckleheads. Thank you.