The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - First impressions of the 2025 rookie class

Episode Date: August 15, 2025

First impressions are pretty important in all facets of life. So what sort of first impressions did some of the youngsters across the league make in Week 1 of the preseason? Robert Mays, Dave Helman and Derrik Klassen dig into the QBs, the key offensive linemen, Travis Hunter, the rookies on the 49ers defense and more on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Host: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Follow Robert on Bluesky: @robertmays.bsky.socialFollow Derrik on Bluesky: @qbklass.bsky.socialFollow Dave on Bluesky: @davehelman.bsky.socialFollow Robert on X: @robertmaysFollow Derrik on X: @QBKlassFollow Dave on X: @davehelman_Theme song: HauntedWritten by Dylan Slocum, Trevor Dietrich, Ruben Duarte, Kyle McAulay, and Meredith VanWoert / Performed by Spanish Love SongsCourtesy of Pure Noise / By arrangement with Bank Robber Music, LLC Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. I'm Robert May's first impressions of the preseason is what we are digging into today. I know it's been a few days since those games wrapped up, but it's given us time to really go back and study this stuff, getting to go back and watch the quarterbacks that we saw for the first time. All of the rookies, JJ McCarthy getting his first action since his only preseason start from last year, only preseason action from last year. We talked about the offensive tackles that were drafted in the first round, dug into a couple mid-round guards. that had pretty promising preseason debuts.

So we hit it from every angle when it came to preseason first impressions from week one with me, Dave Hellman, and Derek Klesson. Let's get to that conversation right now. First impressions are very important. We hear about that in a lot of different facets of life, and we got plenty of them last weekend in the NFL world. A lot of rookies playing their first preseason games.

We got some offensive and defensive coordinators showing us what they've got for the first time. So that's what we're doing today. We've had a few days to marinate. on the first impressions of the NFL preseason. And we're going to dig through all the ones we thought were notable today, Dave. I love my relationship with football this time of year because I, you know, you've been traveling around the country. You've had a lot of stuff going on.

I have not. I watched preseason football all last weekend. And by like Sunday, by the time I was watching the Bears Dolphins game, I was like, I don't know if I can do this anymore. Like this is, this stops being fun after a while. But then getting a chance to revisit it and just watch it in cutups and get ready for the second week. Like, I'm jacked up again. Like, I'm ready for the next round. I've forgotten how boring a lot of the first weekend was.

Like, it totally reinvigorated me. I got only the best parts. That's how I really enjoyed my experience because I did not watch a lot of it in real time. I just got to hear the initial wave of reactions and then like, oh, this is the stuff I should go back and watch. And so I felt like streamlining it. I really enjoyed my experience over the time. the last 24 hours. I'm like watching all the first round picks and the 10 or 15 plays they played. So I got the best of the best here, Derek. I'm very excited to dig into this conversation.

I'm kind of with Dave though where like I feel like by the fifth preseason game that you've watched over the span of two days like live like the broadcast versions, I'm just like I can't do early fourth quarter of, you know, Panthers versus whatever. Like it's just it doesn't do it for me. But then you go back and watch the film and like, yeah, watching 30 snaps of X first rounder, that still gets me going, realizing what some of these guys look like. I don't want to spoil the list. We're going to talk about some fun ones, but that part is still incredibly gratifying. Speaking of first round picks, we have a fun thing to announce today.

Coming on Monday of next week, we have our first episode of Building the Beast with Dane Bruegler and Dave Helman. So for you draft sickos out there, for everyone that wanted Dane's weekly show back in the athletic football show feed, you're getting it. from the middle of August all the way through the draft next year in late April, early May, Dave. You and Dave, you and Dane will be doing a weekly podcast together. I appreciate this plug. I'm so excited.

As we are recording this, Dane and I have not recorded yet. We record on Friday. And I'm so jacked, man. If you're not familiar with our work before, Dan and I have done a lot of draft work together over the years. We are very, we're good buddies. We're familiar with each other. I think this is going to be a ton of fun. I love college football and I love talking draft.

So, yeah, starting Monday, it'll be in your feet on Monday. We're going to talk about all the exciting players, which positions are exciting in this draft class, which positions maybe aren't so exciting. And we can watch how the college season unfolds to see how that maybe changes our opinions. I am beside myself with excitement. I've been, you know, I've got the rundown ready. I'm ready to go. I'm super pumped for it. I think I mentioned this, but we're calling it Building the Beast.

Obviously, Dane does the beast at the end of every single draft cycle. This is the process of how it gets done. The early experiences with all these guys, how he's looking at all these position groups. So Dave and Dane will be building the beast over the next nine months here. And I am very much looking forward to the process and being a small part of it from afar. Speaking of the NFL draft, let's talk about the first pick in the 2025 NFL draft. Let's dig into our first impressions. of the rookie quarterbacks from this weekend.

And let's start with your guy, Cam Ward, Derek, your early impressions of Cam Ward from his first handful of snaps with the Tennessee Titans. I mean, he looked like what you would think, right? Where like I think on the first drive, he was a little bit, he was a little bit jumpy. Like there was a third and five where I think he could have hit like the little spot route out of a Trips bunch and he just didn't. He turned and bailed and the plans of getting new.

They come back later and get the ball, and then he just looks a lot more comfortable. He's like, you see some of the moments where he's actually speeding up his footwork in a good way to get the ball out and find some of these crossers and find some of these underneath routes. You see some of the aggression down the field. He hit, I think Calvin Ridley on like a big deep over. You know, the aggression then, you know, kind of turns into recklessness because there was a cover two whole shot that he tried to throw where the corner, the corner at no point looks like he's buying the underneath route. And I'll fit it anyway. And which like that in the preseason, sure, if he's still doing that by week six, I'm going to start, you know, getting a little itchy. But for now in the preseason, I'm like, yeah, man, see, you know, see what you can get away with.

Dave, I don't think we've talked about Cam Ward. What were your feelings about Cam Ward coming out? And are you as excited as I think Derek and I are about watching Cam Ward in this offense. Which, I don't study these guys as deeply as Dane does, especially during college football season. But it's just as a college football fan and somebody who stayed up. just for fun to watch Cam Ward play Cal on the West Coast last year. Like, I just, I love this guy. I love what he's all about.

I love the gunslinger approach that he brings to the position. And I wanted to say, watching him back in this game, I think it goes underappreciated that Cam Ward just has a hose. Like, he's just got such a fun arm. And I don't, I know if you follow the draft process, you know that, but I don't feel like he's talked about the right way among like people getting ready for this coming season. I don't think people appreciate his natural talent. Just in general, I wanted to throw this out there too in an attempt to ingratiate myself with Titans fans. Why doesn't anybody give a damn

about Cam Ward? Like why did I have to wait for the replay to hit NextGen and NFL Plus to even be able to watch Cam Ward? Why wasn't he on national TV? Why didn't an NFL network have Cam Ward going against the bucks. It drove me crazy. I don't think people are excited enough for this guy. And yeah, I thought his first action was exactly what I expected him to be. Fearless, trying hard throws, impressive throws. His mechanics weren't always great.

And a lot of the time, it didn't matter because he's got such a strong arm that he can just fire it in there anyway. And he's borderline reckless. Yeah, if you hadn't brought up the whole shot, Derek, I was going to, where he was just like, nah, screw. it. I can do it. And he could not have been more wrong. Like it was a straight up dropped interception. So it was a perfect encapsulation of the good and the bad of Cam Ward. But I think that's going to make him a very fun guy to watch. Stylistically, he's a blessed. And I think you got a little bit of all of that,

even only a handful of snaps. That cover two whole shot, they show single high before the snap. He actually changes the play. He checks to something. And they bail out into cover two. And he just gets fooled or just didn't care. I'm not exactly sure where it lands on that spectrum. But either way, that's what you're getting with Cam Ward. And that big crosser, he hits a Ridley, Derek. He's actually kind of a little late on that. But the arm is good enough where it's like, and he was open enough where he just kind of fires that thing in there. And Derek, we talked about this last week and just the units that could really surprise us this season.

And I talked about the Titans offense because I do think they have the capacity to sneak up on some people because of the offensive line play and the uptick and quarterback quality. And watching them in that game, I want to say this one. time, and I'm not going to say it again for the rest of the podcast. I know it's preseason. I know it's preseason. I don't want to have this caveat about everything we're going to talk about. I know it is. That's an overarching thing for everything we're going to discuss. Under that umbrella, everything they showed me in that game got me more excited about watching this team. Even just the concepts in general and some of the stuff that they're trying to do, a lot of five-man concepts, there's going to be a lot of empty protection where they put a lot on

that offensive line. And they're going to give him options because they think he can handle it. And some of the wrinkles, like the little fast motion to get Ridley into that crosser, the mesh that he hit on third down, the quick throw to Chigoconkwo on third down. And I think Chigukonkwo fits that style of play. Like you're going to spread things out and give him options. That's where Chig is best. So there are just a lot of different layers to what I saw from the Titans offense, even in preseason where I'm like, yeah, I think my excitement about this and wanting to tune into this every week, I think it's kind of warranted based on the early returns, Derek. And you know the biggest difference to me between watching

Cam Ward in this one game again, I know it's preseason, versus like literally any other snap of the Titans offense last year, the quarterback was just doing stuff faster. And he wasn't always right. Again, that cover two whole shot, he's way too aggressive. The time where I mentioned on that third and five where he pulls the rip forward and just bails out of the pocket, he was wrong. But he just does things faster. And I think when you are as talented as he is, he's like a B minus athlete. But then again, the arm talent like Dave mentioned is probably closer to A, especially with all his flexibility and stuff. Like if you're just doing things, faster and giving yourself a chance to go make a play, once you're talented enough and once you start to work out some of the kinks of, okay, what are the things that don't work, then yeah, you're going to be able to do some pretty special stuff. So I'm, again, I don't know exactly when he's going to hit that stride, but I feel pretty confident that we're going to get, we're going to get some really good play down the stretch. And we didn't mention that out route to Calvin Ridley that he layers over the flat defender that was just beautifully talked in there. And again, this is where armed talent comes out, where the arm strength is fine, but he's a layered

thrower. And again, that's the distinction between arm talent and arm strength. He has arm talent. He is a creative thrower that has some clubs in his bag. And I'm excited to watch what this looks like. He can control his arm without straining, which is a huge difference from, we're going to talk about JJ McCarthy a little bit later, but like he strains on every throw and throws 100 miles an hour. It's just different than watching a guy like Cam Ward. If you go back and watch some of those throws, the

layered one that you just mentioned, and I think the deep over too, that's what I mentioned about his mechanics. mechanics. Like some of those throws, he's not even like stepping into it and and having the motion that you would prefer. He can just do that. He can do it from a standstill. He can do it while he's backpedaling. And you'd prefer it not to be that way, but it's, it's really fun that he can. And it probably can lead to some really creative moments where he can make things happen if the play's breaking down or if it's not going the way that it's supposed to. It's not always going to be good. But like I said, I think it's almost always going to be really fun if I had to guess.

My other takeaway from this game is Calvin Ridley is going to get 150 targets this season. Yeah. It's going to happen. And I think it's a better offensive environment. I think he has a chance to have a much more productive season than you might think with a rookie quarterback that in a bottom five offense from last season. Let's get to the other first round quarterback who had played a lot last week for the Giants and Jackson Dart.

Derek, your early impressions of the Jackson Dart experience in New York. It was like, five. which honestly what I thought of him going in was was better than I would have expected. Like there were, I think compared to some of his peers, like what they were asking of him was pretty paired down. It was a lot of rollout. It was a lot of go balls. It was a lot of RPO stuff.

Like they really didn't make him play a lot of NFL quarterback. But there was one rep where he, so he takes his dropback and he actually kind of drifts a little bit at the end of it into his right tackle. And he gets pressure, but he feels it pretty quickly and slides up a couple of times and rips a dig route. And I'm like, okay, if we can start to do that a little bit more cleanly, then that's what NFL quarterback looks like. I also thought in terms of like the good stuff, I was really impressed with how willing he seems to be to just get absolutely smoked by a defender. On the touchdown.

He gets destroyed on the touchdown. Obliterated. And like that was something he did show in college. And if that's coming out of college, it was something I worried about where I was like, is this going to look like early Geno Smith where you're just like taking way too many hits and it's leading to bad balls and interceptions. Or is it going to be like later career, Geno Smith, where you can actually hone that and use that to where you're putting yourself in good positions to make throws. I think still to be determined. But again, the fact that he plays so fearless I thought was good. My biggest concerns were, one, they didn't ask him to do a lot.

And again, I know it's week one preseason. We'll see how that unfolds. But also every throw to the sideline was just bad. Like he missed, he put like a flat rollout throw like at a dude's ankles, which was bad. He, I don't remember who he was throwing to, but it was just like a five-yard hit trout. he throws it like five yards out of bounds. That one was bad. And then there was another like deep 12 yard out that he puts that, you know, if it's a

better corner, is probably picked off. So like those outside throws, I think worried me a little bit. You watched probably watch a decent amount of Jackson Dart in the SEC, Dave. I did. And that's, I feel like preseason and just watching a guy in the NFL for the first time for me is an exercise in dropping my biases. I didn't like, I didn't love Jack. and dart as a draft prospect.

Ole Miss's offense is incredibly hard to translate to the NFL. I attended LSU, so there's probably some inherent bias against Old Miss thrown in there somewhere as well. So, like, I take all of that into it. And like his first possession, you know, he missed like an inbreaker pretty badly on the first possession. I think it was on like third down. And I was like, yeah, okay, this is what I was worried about.

And you kind of feel it snowballing. But then he got out of it, in my opinion, just in the, for the sake of like making an impression, y'all already mentioned the touchdown, but to stand in there, take a hit, deliver a good ball for a touchdown. I know it was just a go ball, but he had the confidence to throw it. He had the tenacity to stand in there and deal with the pressure and the contact. I was very impressed. And as it went from there, I was like, you know what?

If I can leave everything that I thought before on the doorstep and not worry about it, I liked what I saw. And it's just a starting point, but it gave me a very good impression where I was like, okay, he's playing confidently. He's doing the right things more often than not. I liked it. Can I, I want to throw out something that I kind of just thought of with all the ways that I think

they were asking him to use and the type of athlete he is and his ability to just stand in there and get exploded. I think ideally he kind of plays like the best versions of Carson Wentz with the Eagles, where it's a lot of RPO. It's a lot of like just chuck it deep down the sideline. he's a good scrambler you can use him in the quarterback run game again that was a very like fickle way to run an offense but if they can get away with that for a little bit i mean there's something there wondering if he's like a better deep outside the numbers thrower than carson wince was like on outbreaking routes or vertical stuff vertical routes vertical routes just because of how good he was on those vertical routes it'll miss that's what he did

and so i i do think there's probably a pinch more upside on those throws and with wence it was a lot of inbreaking rPO What you saw in this game is it's access RPO's. I mean, the first throw of the game is an access hitch RPO. So I think the way that I see Jackson Dart right now, we'll see how he progresses. It's a lot of outside the number stuff because that's where he's most comfortable. I mean, his best moments in this game. You mentioned the dig, Derek, that I actually thought was, that was one of his better plays. It didn't get caught, but that was one of his better plays.

But I thought his best throw of the day, it was actually on the same concept that Cam Ward hit Calvin Ridley on, where it's a little bit of an out route from number one. it's a corner from the number two, and then it's a flat route on the same side. And he hits the corner route. It's a lot more open than Cam Ward's was, but I thought that was a nice throw. Everything else is very simplified outside the number stuff. They had a four by one to the right where he throws the backside slant.

That's a very easy read. He throws the go ball. And then a decent chunk of his production in this game are flat routes and screens. There was a curl flat that went for like 30 yards, and he completed two screens. So the numbers look pretty good, but I think would you actually parse the production, it was a pretty simplified version of what they asked of him in this game,

which is totally fine. He's a rookie making his first star. He's not going to be a starter. But I think that context is important when you look at the box score and then when you look at what actually comprised his play this weekend. The last thing I want to say is that even some of the positive plays, and Derek, you allude to this a little bit, the pocket movement's pretty erratic, right? And even on the scramble, that's probably a sack. He's a decent athlete. he was a decent athlete in college. But that scramble, he puts his eyes down. He, Michael Hoyt just kind of misses him and then he scrambles for 18 yards.

That's probably a sack. And then that completion that you're talking about where he slides to his left, it's pretty erratic pocket movement. He's not very comfortable. And hopefully that's something that will increase with time. But I do think that was a theme that crept up multiple times while watching him in this game. He at least looks like he was thinking about moving in the pocket, though, which given what he did at all this is an improvement. So we're getting somewhere.

The other point about the Giants I want to make before we move on to our next quarterback, Abdul Carter had three past rush snaps, and he looked ridiculous on those three past rush snaps. And this was against the first team offense for the Bills. And I understand it's preseason, and I'm sure Dion Dawkins is out to lunch out there for his like 10 obligatory plays. But he cooked Osirons torrents, while lined up inside on one pass rush snap, and then got Deon Dawkins with an inside move on another, and then had Dawkins fighting for his life on that third snap where he was out there on an island against him. So everything you could want to

see from Abdul Carter and his preseason debut was on a full display this weekend. Yeah, that one is a little less like, I mean, you know, third, fourth overall pick or whatever just looks like an insane person. That just kind of is what it is. I will say, because of some of the foot stuff coming out of the draft, I was like, is he going to look fully ready week one? He's fine. He looks ready. Yeah, he looks pretty ready. It's funny because the Osirons Torrance has apparently been having a fantastic camp for the bills too. And so Abdul Carter comes out there and just works him the first play that they were going against each other.

And the fact that he's that comfortable working inside and that can get those three guys on the field together and get all your best players on the field together. Excited to watch. Think he's going to add some real juice to that defensive front. Don't think I'm saying anything overly surprising there. Let's talk about a couple more quarterbacks here. Derek, what did you think of the Tyler Shuck debut for the New Orleans Saints this weekend? That one didn't really move me a lot, if I'm being honest.

Like, I thought, I know he made a couple of good throws. Like, I think the ball down the right side line to Kelvin Austin, if that's a faster receiver, that's probably caught. And so I think the downfield accuracy looked good there. Obviously, he hits Mason Tipton on a double move, but like anybody, any quarterback in this class could have thrown that ball. Otherwise, they just didn't make him do a lot. It was a lot of slants.

It was a lot of boot stuff. And I thought, even on a lot of their true dropback stuff, he just looked a little bit slow in his dropback footwork, and then I felt like he was not, he was still not very comfortable when the pocket was condensing on him. There were a couple of instances where it was like he gets to the top of his drop, he feels a body, and there's an open throw to be made in rhythm, and he doesn't make it because he feels a little bit of heat.

And that's just like always what I was going to be worried about with him. So he just, there were a couple of decent throws, but I just felt like they didn't ask a whole lot of him, and there wasn't really that much that stood out in press. us, you know, to me. Dave, you've alluded to this a little bit and how you've talked about Tyler Shuck, and I think it's a good thing to bring up in that if this doesn't work out in the sense that he doesn't like definitively beat out Spencer Rattler for this starting quarterback job,

and Spencer Rattler plays for a decent chunk of this season. And you've burned a top 40 pick in what was already going to be a lost year on a guy who doesn't play that much. That's a tough one. Like this isn't, I think when you're in this sort of rebuilding mode, the way that the Texans handled it with Davis Mills and the way that the Browns may be handling it this year with like Dylan Gabriel or Shadour Sanders where we're going to take a dart throw on a third round or a later guy. If he works out, hopefully he can be a backup for us. In the best case scenario,

we get a Dak Prescott or Russell Wilson, but we don't need it. When that guy is the 40th overall pick, the calculus on that changes. And that's why I think there's probably more urgency with what Tyler Shuck is going to give you, more akin to what it would be if you drafted him in the first round, then a lot of the approaches these teams have taken, whether it's the Desmond Ritter experience or Malik Willis or all these guys taken in the third round where if they work out great, if they don't, you didn't really spend that much to go get that guy. The Saints are in a different situation here. Yeah, and I got some pushback on that that I think is fair to say, you know, if Tyler Shuck doesn't win this job week one, it's not a condemnation on him or suggesting that he can't

go on to become a good player, but he is not on a forgiving timeline with his situation. If he doesn't win the job for week one, that means it'll at least be a few weeks before he gets the opportunity. And again, how good do you have to be to remove the front office's doubt? I mean, you've got to be incredible. And not winning the job week one, again, it's not a career ender, but it's just a sign that that is probably what's going to happen. And so it's, I just think it's a shitty spot for him to be in, to be honest with you. And you look at it and you're like, you know, there are so many interesting players that got drafted him. I mean, Will Johnson comes to mind with what you see he's doing in Arizona, Mason Taylor with the Jets, a couple other guys where you're like,

yeah, in two years, are you going to wish you had that guy or a quarterback who just didn't really have a very long runway? Obviously, we can't guarantee the Saints are going to draft a quarterback in the first round next year right now. But it is. is an educated guess that that could happen. So I just, I hate the timeline for him. Having said that, when I saw the social media highlight of Tyler Shuck throwing the pick six, I expected to go watch him and just think it was a train wreck. It was better than that. Like I thought Tyler Shuck was fine in this game. He bounced back from the pick six to throw a touchdown. One thing that I think is worth noting is just situationally, he led a end of half fuel goal drive, which is an impressive

thing for a first time NFL quarterback to do, even if it is preseason. So I like some of what I saw. I do agree with Derek. He was antsy in the pocket. I don't think he dealt very well with pressure. There were, there was like one really nice throw, I would say, because yeah, I don't think the touchdown was anything super impressive. Other than that, he just didn't fold after throwing a pick six in a game. So I thought it was better than the pick six would have you believe. But yeah, it doesn't. alleviate my concern for the big picture with Tyler Shug. A couple more early rookie impressions. Dave, you wanted to talk about J. J. Lynn Milrow as part of this discussion. Why did you want to dig into what you saw from

Jayon Milro last weekend? So this actually ties really perfectly with the conversation that we had the other day about J.J. McCarthy and the Vikings. And coaching and development has become so good that we can expect extraordinary results from guys we don't know a lot about. or guys who maybe weren't even that impressive in college. And if it sounds like I'm getting over my skis a little bit, I understand Sam Donald's the starter in Seattle. This is all on a longer timeline than soon. But Jalen Milro, on talent alone, the guy could have been a first round pick.

Like he has all the talent you could ever want from a quarterback is just the consistency, the ability to see things, the ability to make the right decision, the ability to just be accurate on a down-in and down-out basis. Like, that was his problem, and that's why he was a third-round pick instead of a top-30 pick. And for his first game ever, I just thought he looked really decisive and comfortable. There were some accurate throws. There was nothing that's going to take your breath away.

Don't get me wrong. But, like, just consistently accurate, consistently making good reads and playing in rhythm. He made a really great throw on a bootleg to get the Seahawks into the red zone where he threw the ball to the spot and not to the receiver. And maybe that's elementary, but like, that's what I want to see from Jalen Milro. I want to see him do stuff like lead receivers. So I thought it was just a very nice first step. And on top of that, he showed all the athleticism that makes him intriguing, right?

Like, the defensive linemen were crashing on him every time he handed off to a running back because they have to account for him. He had a 30-yard keeper. Just, you know, if you didn't already know he was. fast now you know so all of the stuff we like about jalen milro was there and then i thought it was a really nice first step with the stuff that he's not so good at so if i was a seahawk fan i'd be super excited by what i saw yeah with milro there was a chance that he looked like a complete disaster um in week one like especially in week one preseason where he hasn't played very much in the offense doesn't really know the receivers playing behind a backup seahawks offensive line where

the first team offensive line is already not very good. Like there was a chance that this could have just looked like completely disastrous. And like Dave said, it didn't look great. I think everyone has probably seen the rollout throw, which was pretty obviously his best throw. But then everything else kind of looked a little bit more like what you expected where he was a little bit up and down accuracy wise. There was an inbreaker he tried to throw where I think it still gets completed, but he throws it a little late, a little high and a little bit behind. And it's just like when the guy has a step and is going to be open like that, you would rather be able to hit him in the chest and I think that's kind of always going to be the issue with

Milrow at least early on until maybe he irons out some of his mechanics. So yeah, I don't think he's for as much as I have like complained about the why did the Seahawk go and sign Sam Arnold thing. I don't think Jalen Milrow is really going to be stabbing at his job in year one, but still a very exciting prospect to me. The last rookie, less notable rookie quarterback performance, I think we should talk about. I had this a little bit when we did the Beerrider notebook last weekend with our Browns writer, Zach Jackson, just because the game had happened the night before. But Sjorda Sanders, obviously, there's more interest in what he did last weekend than there's ever

going to be a fifth round pick for a variety of reasons. He's more talented than a fifth round pick. The Brown's wide open quarterback situation kind of drives the intrigue in that and a bunch of other reasons. Derek, your initial impressions of what you saw from Shadoura Sanders and that very extended preseason debut because every other quarterback on the Cleveland Browns is either hurt or 40-year-old Joe Flacco. Kind of like I said with Cam Ward, like I think for better or for worse, it was a lot of

of what you expected. Like to me, a lot of his best throws were either outside of the pocket. Like obviously he has the one rolling left where he hits the tight end in in the end zone. That one was solid. He had one or two other throws moving out to his right where I think that's where you saw him be his most accurate as a passer. And so some of those throws were solid. He had one dig route that he just pinned on the guy when he was like almost backed up into

his own end zone, which, again, going back to college, some of those just like, hey, Travis Hunter's running the 16-yard dig here. I'm going to pin it on him. Those were a lot of his best throws in college. So again, to see him already be able to translate that immediately to the NFL, I thought was nice. Some of the stuff that I was worried about were one, he's just like not an explosive athlete in any way.

Like whether it's in the pocket, whether it's his arm talent, whatever it is, he just doesn't have the pop that a lot of other guys do. Like I even, so one of his better plays was, I think. I think it was the second touchdown he threw, where he gets like agat pressure from the left side, back picks it up, and he like sidesteps to his right and then goes and throws the post out for a touchdown. In terms of like process and understanding the game, I think that that is a good play. But his pocket movement to me just looks like he's moving in quicksand.

And I think that's going to have to be quicker in like a real NFL setting. And then the ball is like low and behind on the back hip of the receiver, like almost throwing it back into the DB. And it's just like, I know that's a touchdown. against the panther second string defense, but to me, that does not feel like a touchdown versus a better defense. So that stuff gave me a little bit of a nick.

And then honestly, his placement on a lot of the quick game stuff was kind of worrying to me. Like, he threw what felt like a million slants in this game. And a lot of them were pretty high. And he was really making guys work for it. And that kind of worried me a lot. So, and actually, the one other thing that really concerned me was not even a throw or anything.

There was, I think about 10 minutes left in the second quarter. It was a third and three. And they do this like yo-yo motion. shift with the number two receiver where he comes back to the formation and then goes out, Shadur Sanders doesn't let him get set and snaps the ball and they get a penalty for it. And it's just like, we've got to be cleaner than that. Just little things like that. Which again, that's just rookies are going to do that.

But that's the type of stuff I want to see get cleaned up a little bit. I alluded to this when we, I did just like a really quick breakdown before we did that show last weekend. The reason, the main reason that Dylan Gabriel, I think, has been ahead of Shadur Sanders and the Brown's quarterback competition is the operational stuff. It is spitting out play calls. It is getting things lined up. It's understanding all the mechanics of the offense.

I think Chodor just based on the way, how simple a lot of that Colorado offense was, how the place came in, just a lot of the details of it. He just doesn't have the foundational knowledge about the position that a lot of guys coming from college already have coming into the NFL. And so I think that's one of the reasons he was a little bit behind, Dylan Gabriel, despite what the practice reports would tell you. And so that's not surprising at all that one of those. motions was maybe a little bit flubbed because I think that's just one of the areas where he's had to make up a lot of ground. And overall, I have a similar view on this. I think that that throw out of his end zone, the dig is the best throw he had. You see that all the time on the Colorado tape. He's willing to step up in the pocket and fire that ball over the middle of the field and he's accurate when he does it.

I think it's one of the best things he does. I was actually surprised about the place he made outside of the pocket were more impressive than I expected them to be given some of his limited athleticism. Like off-schedule, Shradur-Sanders is not something I necessarily thought I would see in the first preseason game, but I thought there were some nice moments there. I'm with you on that, the second touchdown, where that looks great when there's one, if you look at the right side of the offensive line, there's absolutely zero penetration on that side. And so he doesn't have to worry about anything.

Anytime there was like an actual mucky pocket, you saw him get a little bit jittery. And the amount of times he tried to escape out the back of the pocket is something that you just can't consistently do when you're not a very good athlete. He was doing the mass scrambles, dude, which like you just, nobody. can do that. Nobody really should do that. And for him to be, you know, like a sea level athlete trying to do it, that was like, I don't know, man. It's one of those games where it was a mixed bag for all the reasons that we're talking about. I want to see more. I thought it was, there were enough impressive moments where I'm like, okay, like, let's see how this goes over the course of the rest

of the preseason. And the unfortunate part about that is now he's hurt. And now he's not going to be able to play this weekend. And so I have no idea. It's probably going to be like four quarters of Snoop Huntley for the Browns this weekend and their second preseason. And so I have no idea. It's probably going to be like four quarters of New Puntley for the Browns this weekend in their second preseason game. The script writers are really going to be in their bag if Dylan Gabriel can get into this game because they're hoping he can, he's healthy enough with his hamstring to play against Philly. And we need that because there will be no measured reaction.

Like Dylan Gabriel will either be good and everybody will say, see, shut up about Shadour or Dylan Gabriel will be bad and it will be Shadur should be QB1. there, as usual, there's no in between here. So I just, I hope we get to see Gabriel for the, for the reaction of it all. I'll just say this now. I don't know what conversation I was kind of saving it for, whether it was the Brown's preview or just the my day that I spent there and in conversations with the people in that building, even just watching practice that day, I understand where people watching practice

are watching some of the throws that Shador makes and say, oh man, like when he's out there, like you see some of the arm talent, he took five sacks in the practice I was at. Like that it's just you're not going to notice that as much during a training camp practice because obviously he's not getting brought down. But I think the timing he's playing within the pocket has been a concern. And then in talking to people there and seeing some clips from practice previously, Dylan Gabriel is just playing much more on time within that offense. If you watch just how he's progressing on time with what they're asking him to do, it's just much more efficient and proficient at this stage than it is for Shadur Sanders. And it's just so hard with context with preseason. There was a pick he threw,

Dylan Gabriel, and one of his worst practices a couple weeks ago. And at the snap, there's a pressure look, and he checks the protection correctly, which he has done consistently throughout camp. He has a very good handle on this stuff. The receiver to the left side

thinks that he's checking the route, and so the receiver stops, and it's an interception. If you're watching practice, there's no way for you to know that. And so there are just so many different layers to what we see and how we process it coming out of these things. And I think that's where we can explain some of the disconnect between Dylan Gabriel

looks like a mess. And then people in the building saying Dylan Gabriel is definitively ahead of Shador Sanders and whatever quarterback competition that we're having right now. So I just think it's important context to be putting into this as we talk about how this is all going to go. Yeah. And like I feel like rookies playing on time trying to do the right thing is always going to lead to more mistakes than rookie playing.

not on time and like looking for the perfect play later in the play. Like that's just naturally how that thing is going to look. So I'm curious to see Dylan Gabriel when he does get a chance to be out there. But he's also hurt. And so I think that's just thrown a wrench into what this competition looks like at this stage. Last quarterback we wanted to hit here. He's not a rookie quarterback, but it's pretty much our first impression of him. And that is J.J. McCarthy and what he did for the Vikings last weekend, Derek.

You alluded to it a little bit earlier. What did you see from J.J. McCarthy in the 20th, 25 debut for the Vikings now asserted starter. Unfortunately, it was not as many reps as I would have liked. I think the starters were only out there for a drive. I would have liked to have seen two or three. The throw the outbreaker he makes to Addison, I think that's where you see what you want out of JJ McCarthy.

Oh boy, do you? Yeah, like it's just like 16 yards down the field just ripping it to his guy. It's like, okay, if we can do that pretty consistently and protect him in a way that he's going to be able to make those throws, that's fine. There was also a dig throw where he tried to put it 100 miles an hour. And he's like trying to throw it right at the break and really make sure he catches his guy in stride, puts it three yards over his head and the guy has no chance to get it. And that's like very clearly to me not a miscommunication of timing or where the route needs to be. That's just like JJ just straight up over through the ball.

And like I think again, by nature of the fact that he is a thrower that when he throws, he's putting everything into it. I think that style of throwing can naturally lead to just a little bit more of erratic ball placement. Now, it's kind of the issue again that I've brought up many times with him before, even in the draft process, like Baker Mayfield. Like Baker Mayfield can throw it through a keyhole the way that we saw from Jay J.J. McCarthy on that throw to Addison. He also, because he's doing that, sometimes you grip the ball a little too tight and you just like overshoot a guy by four yards. And so I'm just hoping that's something he cleans up a little bit more as he gets used to feeling how the bullets are flying again. Because again, once you haven't played for a year,

it can be tricky to feel the timing of that, all that. it was kind of an all or nothing experience with the Vikings offense in that game. All the play action stuff where he can put his foot in the ground and really fire things look great. Anytime he had to show a little bit of nuance on third down or in the pure dropback game, you saw some of the limitations. And it shouldn't be a surprise for a guy who is 22 years old and through 720 passes in his college career. This is going to be a process. But I do think that this offense can be constructed in such a way that you can,

kind of paper over some of those limitations. This team was seventh in the NFL and play action rate last season. I bet that goes up this year. I bet they lean on it even more. And one of the reasons, Dave, I think they can lean on it even more is because the running game is going to have more teeth to it. And so the marriage between those two things, I think allows you to even step further into that world.

You don't need a good running game to use a lot of play action. This has been something we've understood for a very long time. But when you have one, I think that it all starts to come. complement each other a little bit more, and I think you can't lean into it even more, in part, because you're not in those third and fives when you can't use play action. So I think they're set up to give him a chance to succeed, but I do think that what we saw last weekend showed you some of the limitations and where they currently exist. This has the potential to be a well-rounded, devastating offense.

I mean, the additions on the offensive line, the running backs are good. I'm really excited about Jordan Mason being part of this thing. I think that could be incredibly explosive. And JJ, it's not a throw. It doesn't really give you a lot of insight into whether he's going to be a good quarterback, but he picked up a fourth and four with his legs. Like he's an athlete. He can run.

He can do stuff like that. That is very valuable when you talk about staying on the field. So yeah, honestly, I'm with Derek. I had to check myself when I was watching this game. I think I had it on my laptop and I was doing something. else and they came out for the second series and I realized it was Sam Howell and not JJ and I was like, no, what are we doing? I need more.

But then I looked at it and I was like, yeah, they ran 13 plays. Like that, you know, they probably wanted to run 10 to 15 and the first drive was successful. So it makes sense, but I just want to see more. I was very disappointed that he didn't get another possession. Now that we've gotten the boring quarterbacks out of the way, we're going to talk about the real marquee players here in the offensive linemen that we watched this weekend. but first let's take a quick break. Let's take into the first round offensive tackles that we got to watch this weekend, Derek.

This is not surprisingly something you wanted to include in the show, but I was more than willing to dive into this with you. Let's just go in order here. Start with Will Campbell, the fourth overall pick from last year's draft by the New England Patriots, your first impressions of Will Campbell from last weekend. I mean, funny enough, almost like the player we just talked about, J.J. McCarthy, I just wish we got to see more. he only was out there for, I think, like, 11 or 12 reps. And to me, they didn't like, a lot of the plays were reps where it's just like he didn't

have to show a lot. I think on the first play, they had him moving out into space. And, like, that's where I think you see the value of Will Campbell, like, really flying out into the perimeter. They ran two pinpoles with him where he was really out in space and he looked very, very comfortable. He can move. Like, to me, even for his me being a little bit lower on him, I think there's no doubt in

my mind that he's a good enough athlete to do those, what we would consider, like, weaponizing a tackle in the run game. Like I think he can absolutely do that stuff in space. I just thought, you know, kind of like when I watched him in college, I think some of the past protection stuff, I still, even though he didn't have like a clear loss. And again, maybe this is me just having like an optical illusion issue with him. It just looks wrong. Like you can just tell that he's a guy who doesn't take up a lot of space.

And again, I just worry what's that going to look like when he sees, you know, Will McDonald's later this season or or like Jaylon Phillips. just those caliber of pass rushes. I just, I want to see it. I've had the exact same takeaway. All the stuff, the movement stuff in the run game, the two-pin pull reps. I mean, he's a finisher. You saw like the mindset, the aggressiveness.

Like he's a, he's a . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . head out there. Like in a preseason game, the commanders defensive players were not enjoying playing against Will Campbell. And I totally understand that. Even when it wasn't in space, I mean, he was getting good movement on a couple of those double teams with Jared Wilson. Like I'm excited to see how that all comes together. But in the first time, he was really in like a one-on-one pass pro situation. You see Jacob Martin get right into his chest. Like I don't, you don't want to be overwhelmed by some of these cliches we talk about in the pre-draft process. But that lack of length does show up. And so I thought that there was some really nice moments as a run blocker.

And then some of the limitations already in past pro, you see it. So we'll see what happens when those rushers get a little bit better, Dave. But there was some good and I think some let's wait and see with Will Campbell's debut. There's a line in office space where they're talking to their attorney about what prison is like. And the lawyer says, from what I understand, you need to kick somebody's ass the first day. so people know not to mess with you. And I feel like that was Will Campbell's approach to his preseason debut where he's like, you know what?

I'm not going to win every rep, but you're going to feel me. I'm going to kick some ass. I'm going to finish every play. I'm going to try to put as many guys on the ground as possible so people know that I mean business. And I'm sure the Patriots love it. Like that's a very Mike Vrable thing. He clearly plays with an edge that Mike Vrable would want a team to play with.

So I loved all of that. And yeah, he looked great. out in space on the pole plays. Yeah, I didn't see anything that makes me think he's going to be a rookie all pro or anything like that, especially when it comes to past pro. But if that's the attitude you bring to your first day of work, I think that's a successful first step. I'll say that.

And obviously the Strip Sack is a stunt where him and Jerry Wilson get beat. And that's something, they'll work on that. I mean, that's a timing thing. Those are two rookies playing with each other. You'll start to feel that stunt as you play together a little bit more. So even though that's probably the biggest low white of the game, I think that's something that you expect to be cleaned up. The other element of this that's worth bringing up, on one of those pin pull reps, they're getting Trayvion Henderson out in space. And oh boy, are they going to be doing that a lot?

And we talked about this right when they drafted him, Derek, where dropping him into that offense, he's already the most explosive playmaker you have at this point, even if you include Steph Diggs. And to see them get him the ball in space, to see the kickoff return touchdown, I mean, he had like four targets in this game. Like, they are going to include him in a lot of layers of this passing game because he might be their most explosive pass catcher. He was one of those players where I think with some of the rookies, I think there's one level of watching rookie in preseason where it's just like, okay, does he look like he belongs

out there? Like, does he just look fine? And I think a lot of guys, that's just all the box that you're trying to check. And then there's a handful of guys where you're like, oh, that guy obviously looks like an NFL caliber athlete, Henderson was one of them. Again, the kickoff return, some of the stuff they're doing out in space, even on, I want to say it was maybe the last play they had with the starters where Drake May like scrambles out to his left and he scores the touchdown. Even just watching Henderson out of the backfield make his cut on his route, I was like, he's moving, man.

Like he's just very obviously one of the most explosive and quick players on the field. And that says nothing of like how good of a pass protector he is, how just like smart he is with all the stuff that he handles the offense and how much they clearly trust him both at Ohio State, and now it seems like new with New England. So I'm just, he's a player that I wanted to hope would be good going into the season and very, very strong first depression. Let's get to Armand Membo, the seventh overall pick in last year's draft. This is one of those debuts where it's like box checked.

That was my takeaway from the Armand Membue experience in his first collection of plays with the Jets. you see the power, you see his ability to move people in the run game. A couple mental mistakes in the run game just identifying people. But Derek, even in past protection, he's a big, strong man. But him getting to his spot, setting up, like he looked fluid out there. I'm really excited about what this is going to look like with him getting dropped into what is already a pretty talented Jets offensive line. Yeah, like you said, you had a couple of wrong place, wrong time type of mistakes.

Which again, for a rookie, I'm a lot more okay, especially in your first preseason and we're just like living with that. If it's a problem by week 12, then we're going to start to have some conversations. But for now, who cares? It's again, do you look like you belong out there physically? And with Membu, it's, there's no question. Like he just, he is going back to college, the reason I loved him. One, like you mentioned, he's just the smooth operator.

He never feels like he's panicking in his movement in his past sets. And that was part of why I really loved watching him. But then also it's just he, I think more than any of the other tackles in this class. And there were some really good ones. when he really gets too firm hands on you, the rep's over. Like you just there's nothing that's going to have. Like once he gets you, it's done. And I think you saw that in a couple of instances,

both in the run and in the past in this game. So he just, yeah, I don't even know if he was necessarily the best week one rookie tackle, but he'd very obviously check the box to me. Packer starters were out there. I mean, Sean Gary's out there. And Brent Cox, who is a rotational piece that the Packers really like, number 57, he was out there for a couple of those reps. And he more than held his own.

So initially impressed by the Armand Membou experience with the Jets. Let's get to Kelvin Banks, the next rookie offensive tackle drafted. Derek is already smiling. I'm going to say, Derek, just go. You have the floor there. This is why I wanted to talk about the rookie tackles. I was wondering if it was this or Connerley is what you were trying to shoehorn into this discussion. It's a little bit of both.

Connerly was great and we'll get to him. Banks is everyone who listened to us during the draft season knows that this is just the kind of tackle. I love, I mean, 6-5, 315, long arm, like just that type of tackle. I thought he was like truly really, really good. Some of the movement stuff, like he is always going to be a little bit more heavy-footed than some of the other guys. But I still think that he's like a very confident and smooth operator considering that. And then there were just a couple of reps to me where one, you know, we mentioned Will

Campbell struggling a little bit with some of the games. There was one rep where him and Trevor Penning actually did a great job of passing off a twist and Banks just kind of held his own there and did a really good job of getting in front of that. And then there was another rep later on where they get into the red zone, or to the red zone. They're maybe on the 12-yard line, whatever it is.

The edge rusher outside of Banks immediately drops out and he immediately looks over at penning to his right and just malls the defensive lineman next to him, puts them on the ground. And I'm like, hey, man, it's a really good way to help out your guard next to you. When you just have that instant punch put this guy on the ground and I just, for as good as, again,

some of the other rookie tackles are, I really think Banks is the guy where if he just punches you straight in the chest, it probably hurts the most. And he's just a player that, again, I was worried maybe if this was going to go wrong, it would be like, ah, some of these guys just look a little bit too quick for him, at least in week one, not a concern for me at all. You thought he was more impressive than Connerley? I would say it was, don't do that.

They make me choose between my children. They make me choose. I would say it was probably about equal, but it goes back to like stylistically. I just like watching the banks type of player a little bit more. And then Josh Simmons, obviously, is the last one to round this out. Dave, Josh Simmons has been one of the stories of training camp and the fact that he might be able to step in as a competent, maybe above average left tackle for the chiefs from day one would be a coup for them.

Your initial impressions of Josh Simmons in Kansas City in his first game action. I thought I thought it was really good. I was honestly, I was kind of relieved that he was just, good because like I don't have to get on here and gush like he's an all pro already like he he looked fine I love his his movement skills like the way the quickness with which he kicks out I just don't think there are going to be a ton of guys that can like beat him around the corner and he's got plenty of power he didn't do anything overwhelming in this game but you just see it with every snap like he's such an athletic guy really my bigger impression and I know that

that's not the topic. But again, going back to what I said about Tyler Shook, it's the same thing where, you know, there was a clip of Kingsley Sua Mattaeah getting just dump trucked in this game. And it made the rounds on social media. I thought he played a lot better than that clip would have you suggest as well. Like, I don't think he was completely terrible.

So the combination of Josh Simmons just continually checking boxes, along with playing fairly well with the guy next to him, I thought it was, It was super encouraging. I just, I don't think Simmons did anything incredible in this game, but, but I don't need him to either. I'm already plenty impressed. In the best way possible, he was the most boring rookie tackle to go back and watch.

Yeah, it was just unremarkable tape. For all we need from the Chiefs left tackle, God, I will take boring, man. And again, it's not that he did anything wrong. It's just like, almost in the Will Campbell way, there just weren't that many reps where it was like, oh, man, they're really pressuring the left tackle here. And so I just didn't feel like they asked a lot of him, but he didn't make it. any mistake. So I was like, all right, if we can just get along with that for 17 weeks, we'll be in a good spot. The last offensive tackle talk here, Dave, you wanted to talk about

the Pittsburgh Steelers offensive tackles, who we're kind of getting a first impression of, right? We were moving Roger Jones back over to the left side. Treyfondi played a game last year. So an early impression, even if it isn't the first one from these guys. I've been fascinated by them all camp. And it got out to a very uninspiring start. Roderick Jones got hurt early in camp and just the reports coming out of Pittsburgh, La Trobe were just that it didn't look very good. So I was very encouraged just to, or not encouraged, I was very excited to just turn it on and see what it looked like. And then I got encouraged because they played 15 snaps and they were going against Josh Hines Allen and Trayvon Walker. And so we don't have to do a lot of guessing.

Like this was not them going against training camp bodies. they went against a really good pass rush. And I thought they looked pretty good. Like it was a very encouraging first impression for me. No pressures allowed, no sacks allowed. They kept the pocket clean on Mason Rudolph's touchdown in the opening minutes of that game. Troy Fattano did draw an illegal hands to the face. But I thought him in particular, Project Jones didn't do anything wrong.

But I was so impressed with Fattano going against Trayvon Walker. You're talking about a guy with 36-inch arms going against a guy who does not have a remarkable wingspan. And it looked like he was holding, like, you know, have you ever held a cat that's trying to scratch you? And you're just trying to like keep it away, keep it away from the important parts and keep from getting hurt. That's what it looked like. But he did a good job. Like he was holding on for dear life all the time. But he did his job.

And it was a very fun watch to see him deal with not the best edge rusher in the NFL, maybe the physically freakiest. And he held his own. I thought it was really impressive. I was so into how Falunu played. I mean, I will fully admit to the audience, he is a player that I really like to coming out of college

and I thought could be really good. But you know, you kind of mentioned it a little bit, Dave. His hand placement to me is already like very thoughtful and impressive to me. Like he has a pretty good knack for, I think especially younger tackles will have an issue of when they're really trying to punch it guys and extend, they'll lean a little bit too far.

they'll get out over their skis and they'll just kind of lose themselves. Falatano has a really good way of just making sure he's getting full extension from his torso without overleaning, without compromising his base. It's like super impressive to me. And so I thought he played pretty well. Project Jones I would like to see a little bit more of. You know, he didn't have like an egregious loss, but you can still tell he's, I think, a little bit more jumpy in his past sets.

He's a little bit more up and down in the way that he's leaning and lunging a guys in past protection. So, but again, if he can just be fine and we get some of the movement in the run game, then that's probably acceptable. The word I would use for like the ideal Roger Jones we see in 2025 is settled. If he's settled, then I think that this group can be really good because when you watched him last year, you could just kind of see the gears turning. That's actually a pretty generous way of putting it. His head was spinning at times last year where he is just so clearly unsettled in everything he was doing in past protection. And I had a really good conversation when I was in La Trobe with their offensive line coach, Pat Meyer. I was just so interested in so many of the guys he has in his group.

And we went kind of one by one through them. It was actually funny. I told him, I was like, let's go one by one. And we didn't talk about Isaac Salamalo. And he's like, you didn't ask me about Isaac Salamalo. And I was like, I don't have anything to ask. Like, I know exactly who he is. We've read that book.

I love him. Like, he's, I truly love him. And what he brought up is that by moving Broderick over to the left side and having him play next to Salamalo, it has been one of those calls. it has been one of those calming forces. Because last year, not only is he moving from the left side to the right because Dan Moore is a left tackle only, but he's playing next to Mason McCormick for most of that season, you have a guy who's moving positions to right tackle.

And then you have a fourth round rookie who's never played in the league next to him. And so this has come up a lot, as I've talked to offensive wine coaches and offensive coaches in general about what it does playing next to the right people. We mentioned it last week, Derek, when we were talking about J.C. Latham playing next to Kevin Zaitler and just what that does for a young tackle, especially one changing positions. And so I think that's one thing to keep in mind as we try to figure out how settled that position may be for Broderick Jones as he's bounced around a little bit over the first couple years of his career.

Yeah, I really hope it comes together. Because if that offensive line does come together, we've talked about it before, like that kind of has to be the way for that team to be good. And at least Faltona looking as good as he did and Broderick Jones not looking like he's totally swimming. Pretty good start. Pretty good start. I'd be remiss if I didn't mention too, because I was looking at it while I was taking my notes. Our guy, Mike Defabo, wrote a really nice feature about Broderick Jones and Troy Fautano. So if your hopes and dreams hinge on the Steelers offensive line, that's probably worth a read for sure. We're going to take one more

quick break and come back with our last set of first impressions. Derek, you wanted to chat about the Niners defensive rookies. Not all of these are positive first impressions. What did you think of the Niners rookie defenders last weekend? I will try at least to start with something positive to stay in the good graces of Niners fans. I thought what Salah was doing was really interesting. Like I was glad to see him back in the fold. He was getting really aggressive with some of his blitz looks like maybe a little bit too ridiculous in the preseason if we're being honest. But that to me, like when I think of the Niners defenses and they were good over the last handful of years, to me some more of the loading the line

of scrimmage, getting a little bit crazier with the Blitz stuff is a little bit more emblematic of like the D'emico Ryan's era than it was to me the Robert Solera. And not, again, that he didn't do any of that. But that just to me felt a little bit more like a D'Amico Ryan's thing. So to see him immediately trying to do some of that stuff and really open up the playbook, I thought was interesting. However, a lot of my trying to be optimistic about this defense was like, oh, these front players, like, someone will be good.

And I still have a lot of faith in Michael Williams, who did not play. play in this game because he's been a little bit banged up. But the other three, the two defensive tackles, C.J. West and Alfred Collins and then linebacker Nick Martin, they left me wanting. Collins, I think, was fine. Like, he had a couple of nice plays where, you know, they really weren't anywhere. I, you know, put some red check marks next to the plays or anything like that. I think he was okay, just not inspiring in any way. C.J. West was getting moved a lot, especially when teams got four hands on him. And that was pretty concerning to me, again, for a Niners defense that, like the whole issue they had

last year was they couldn't defend the run. And then Nick Martin, the linebacker, you see his speed. Like, he can really run to the sideline. And he put himself in position to make a number of tackles. And then you watch him try to break down for some of those tackles. And he's just a little bit stiff in the hips and can't make the play. And it's just so I really was hoping that week one of the rookies I was betting on was going to work out a little bit better.

And I'm really hoping week two looks a lot more encouraging. Scale of one to ten, how worried are you? I would say like a seven. Maybe seven and a half. Me, after one preseason game, that's enough to put you at a seven. Is that mostly just because you're so bought in on the Niners now that you feel like you can't walk it back?

Yeah, I feel like I over indexed a little bit too hard. And then watching where like my collective grade for those three players was like a 35% out of 100. I'm like, this is tough. The cat has about the good stuff in the first preseason game also apply to the bad stuff. It's still one preseason. game. Yes. I want to be clear they might

look fine later, though. Okay. But if you're not good in a preseason game, that's so much harder to write off than if like being good in a preseason game is whatever. We've seen plenty of guys succeed in that environment who don't succeed in the regular season. But

if you're not succeeding in this environment, how much faith am I supposed to have that it's going to apply to the regular season? I have two very obvious examples on the other side of that. The Cam Newton preseason debut. I mean, so abysmal.

I mean, that's the historic one, right? C.J. Stroud was the other one. Cam Newton was horrendous in the 2011 preseason. And then he comes out and has this monster week one game against the Packers. I believe it was the Packers. And then C.J. Stroud was the Cardinals. That's right. It was the Cardinals.

And then C.J. Stroud was very bad in the preseason and then had one of the best rookie seasons we've ever seen from a quarterback. Okay. Let me rebut, though, because so much of that is mental. Whereas like if you're a DT and you're just getting blown off the ball in the preseason, like that's a lot harder to fix in three weeks than how well you're processing or what the opposing game plan is, all that type of stuff. If you don't have it physically, it's concerning. Not for your entire career, but at least for like September of your rookie year. Yeah, maybe.

I mean, these guys, when did they get into pads? July 28th. So how many padded practices are we talking about here? 10, right? It's still, it's still super, super early for those guys. Denver offensive line they played. So I mean, you know, it's, there's some caveats, I guess. I can understand being a little bit worried, but we have a long way to go before actual football is played. Yeah, I don't want my official panic meter to be like set in stone until the end of preseason. Give me the rest of the two games and then I'll see what

feel going into week one. The guy that needs to make an impact didn't play. Like if Michael Williams is a boss, then none of this matters. And that's why I'm not super worried about it. Let's talk about another rookie defender here, but also offensive player. Your initial impressions of Travis Hunter in Jacksonville, Dave. So if you watch this game, you know that there's not a lot to go off of in the actual stat sheet. He caught two balls and, you know, he played a handful of snaps on defense. It's not anything that's going to look super sexy in a box score. But the reason I just wanted to mention it, other than that, it's the number two pick who plays

both ways. I was just super encouraged by what I saw from the Jags offense. Like, Liam Cohen looks like he knows that it'll be a good idea to get Travis Hunter as many free releases as possible. Felt like he was in like a stack every single time where, you know, Liam Cohen basically made it impossible for him to get pressed off the line, which that's super fun to think that he's going to have a lot of easy releases in this offense. There were quite a few receiver screens from the Jags, which that's something easy that Travis Hunter can do without needing to worry about polishing his game. So I really enjoyed that.

It gave me a lot of optimism for what he's going to look like in the offense. Defensively, this is so funny. Like you draw the exact worst type of matchup, but he had a really nice opportunity at a TFL on Caleb Johnson and just didn't have the horsepower to bring him down, which that's a big ask for a corner as slight as Travis. Hunter to tackle Caleb Johnson. But I kind of, I chuckled when I saw that where I was like, yeah, welcome to the NFL, pal. We'll see what his usage looks like.

How many early down snaps were getting from Travis Hunter on defense early in the season. Yeah, that was like on either side, his, his worst play. And that to me almost was actually, I mean, he is a slider guy. So tackling is going to be a little bit of an issue. But that to me was actually like more of a mental error. Like he's the force defender. And he like flies close to the line of scrimmage, like tight to the formation. I'm like, you're the.

boundary player like you have to be ready to force this and cut it back so i think he just took a weird angle there so and he kind of knew it too like you see him missed the tackle and he just like grabs his helmet he's like oh he was furious yeah um so i thought that was kind of funny in terms of his coverage though again they didn't really target him but you just the movement skills are so obvious man like the way that he's like speed turning on some of these is just like all right he's very obviously a very impressive cover corner and then like you mentioned with the offense it's not necessarily a surprise but I do think it's notable that like on the, I don't know, dozen plays that he spent on offense,

I think only one he was on the line of scrimmage. And it was when he was in a tight bunch, like, tight to the formation where like it, I think they ran away from him anyway. So I just the usage of him, I think was the most notable thing here. Yeah.

And I think the structure of the offense and structurally it was exactly what you'd expect. 84% 11 personnel, all condensed stuff. Even a little motion with him on third and four to get that man's own tell, making things a little bit easier. for the quarterback, the jet sweep to Diami Brown on fourth and one, this is what the Jags offense is going to be. Like, I will see what happens when it's third and seven,

and that offensive wine has to drop back, and we'll see what happens when it's first and 10, and that offensive wine has to create some movement. But I do think that there are going to be a lot more layups within this thing over the course of the season, and that's one of the reasons I'm excited to see it. The other first impression I wanted to discuss in just terms of offensive structure, also in the AFC South,

we got our first glimpse of the Nick Cayley offense in Houston. And like what this thing is going to look like. I was really interested in this because his background, he spent a couple of years in Los Angeles as the Rams tight ends coach and passing game coordinator, but the majority of his time in the NFL has been in that New England Patriot system. And so you watch the first glimpse that we saw of this. And I do think it's going to be like a baby between what the Rams are and what the Patriots have been.

And I think that has a chance to be very cool. They're 17% of their snaps. there in 21 personnel, which not getting a lot of that in Los Angeles, I'll tell you that much. But in New England, that's exactly what sort of frequency we were seeing the last time Josh McDaniels was the offensive coordinator there. 17% 21 personnel with the fullback had been ranked fourth in the NFL last season, behind only the Niners, the Dolphins and the Ravens. And Josh McDaniels is last season with the Patriots, they ranked fourth at 19%.

So it's exactly, I mean, it's one game. But just as like a glimpse, it's like, okay, that's some New England. stuff that we're going to get. 62% 11 personnel. And you saw some of the condensed formations that we get from the Rams in those 11 personnel looks. And then the other Rams-esque wrinkle that I thought was very funny, there was a straight dropback from under center from Davis Mills on the first drive of the game.

And the Rams had really started leaning into that last year. So it's just going to be a hodgepodge of stuff from both of these places. And I'm curious if that makes it feel muddled and a little bit unfocused over the course of the year or if you get the best of both worlds as he tries to blend those together. It's going to be fascinating. Which look, it might. We might get to the point where it feels like they've thrown too much shit at the wall and they don't know who they want to be and all that stuff. Honestly, I can live with that because what we got with the Sloic experience was it just felt like we were too stale. It was too much of the same things. It didn't feel like we had the variety when we

needed it, especially to me on like third, you know, true drop back downs and stuff. It just felt like they didn't have enough that they could go to. And part of that is you have young quarterback. Part of that is the offensive line maybe was not allowing you to get into a whole lot of different things. And then part of it again was, you know, Sloic was still a young play caller. Now I think, you know, Kaylee is still a little bit young in that as well. But CJ Strouds played a little bit more.

They've tried to make these shakeups at the offensive line. So if I just feel even if quality-wise, it's up and down by Halloween, if I just feel like they're trying to work out different kinks instead of trying to run the same issue. offense the way that I felt with the Sloic era, I'll have some like mild degree of enthusiasm by the end of the season. Well, you better because you got a lot riding on the Houston Texans after yesterday. I didn't want to bring that up, but yeah. The last thing I'll mention here, this is something that you won't be able to see in the

structure of the offense, but I do think is notable. Their offensive line coach, Cole Popovich, was actually the assistant offensive line coach for the Texans last year. But he worked with Nick Cayley when they were both in New England. So he's actually a New England guy. And so the Niners tree, they're like base pass protection rules are pretty rigid compared to a lot of other teams. Right. Like they'll, the quarterback, and this is changed depending on where you're going.

Like the lions, for example, the lions have a similar base set of rules and pass protection to what the Shanahan tree does. But Jared Goff can change it at the line of scrimmage if he wants to. So you don't fall into like that level of rigidity. The Channahan team, some of them, and I believe the Texans were one of them, the quarterback doesn't have that sort of control. In the New England system, it's as far away from that as you can possibly be. The quarterback can do anything. The quarterback does all the mic points and has all the control with the line of scrimmage. This is what they did with Brady and this is what they've done forever.

And so Cole Popovich and Nick Haley both come from that New England pass protection world. And so when we're trying to figure out, okay, even if the offensive line personnel-wise is completely unsettled. How can this offensive line and past protection be better than the one last year? These are some of the things that may point us in that direction, even as we have concerns about who's lining up in any of those five spots for the Texans in week one. But what I'm hearing is we're going to put that on C.J. Stroud, and that makes me more optimistic about my belief in the Texans. I tend to think that's how I want my past protection systems to be in the NFL at this point.

I want them to be as flexible as possible. I want the quarterback to have a lot of it. Some guys can handle it. Some guys can't. But I think that it just sets you up for success. And as so many, the game I keep going back to, we've talked about this game a million times. The Texans game against the Packers last year.

And the just stranglehold that Jeff Hathley put Bobby Sloick in that offense in by what he was doing, mugging guys up before the snap and just manipulating them over and over and over again. The playoff game against Kansas City, like teams just were able to pick on them way too easily. So even if it's a learning process for CJ Stroud as he gets more of the stuff put onto his plate, I think the rewards that are waiting for you at the end of the road are probably going to be worth it. And it's just like that's the natural progression of like, you know, football is cyclical, right? Where it's like now that we're having more sim pressures,

defenses are doing a little bit more in terms of their fronts. We're getting weirder stuff. The natural answer is like, yeah, offenses in terms of protection have to have more answers than compared to 10 years ago when everyone was trying to be the Seahawks Legion of Boom and just rush for and do all that. That's why the Shanahan system was able to succeed, where they were like, well, if you're not going to do anything interesting, we can just have these base rules run outside zone and we'll be good. Yeah. And I also think that there are different ways to do this. You know, the Niners, they've had a lot of success. And what they'll do is they'll put it on the quarterback just in a different way. The quarterback has to throw hot if the rules are going to stay the

same. And they've had a lot of success doing that. Some teams, the quarterback may not have as much control at the line of scrimmage, but they run a ton of different protections. So it's hard to understand what you're going to get in any given moment. And then when you get to the Patriot side of this, and other teams do this too, like Josh Allen has all-a-cart ability at the line of scrimmage, Patrick Mahomes has all a card ability at the line of scrimmage in a similar way that Tom Brady would have, then you're putting a ton on the quarterback to make the right decisions. There are benefits and drawbacks to all of this, but I think it's just notable to point out

that the Texans are going a very different direction on that side of things from what they were doing a year ago. A couple more things I wanted to hit on here. I wanted to talk about the Georgia guards. I was just, I think both of those guys, I guess there's three of them now with Jared Davis playing guard for the Patriots, but I was mostly talking about the guys who played guard in college. Tate Routledge in Detroit and Dylan Fairchild in Cincinnati,

they're both linchpin players in offenses that have like very real Super Bowl aspirations. They're day one starters. And Derek, I thought both of them played really well in their preseason debuts. Dylan Fairchild played with the starters. at like the starting offensive line. Tate Ratwicz played with some of the backups from the Lions offensive line with, you know, Giovanni Manu out there and a backup center.

But I was impressed with what I saw from both of those guys. And it actually makes me feel pretty good about what had been kind of quote unquote unsettled spots for these offenses because we'd never seen these guys play. But I think there's reason to believe that those question marks can become good answers for both of these teams. That's interesting. I was a little bit more hesitant to get excited about the way either of them played. I think to be interesting.

So they are, I think they're what they were in college, which is to say when they, when they are strike lands, holy shit, man, like they're going to move somebody. They're going to instantly kill a pass rush rep. Like,

they're just going to take hold of you. And they're going to be able to hold their ground. They're both just really out of control still to me. Like Dylan Fairchild, to me when I watched him a little bit, doesn't really bring his feet with him anywhere, which concerns me a lot. And then Rattledge to me is a player where I feel,

like he's leaning a little bit too much. He feels like he can be heavy-footed at times. So I still think, this is not to say that I think they're going to suck by the way. I just, this to me, there was a clear, like, quality difference to me between watching some of the offensive tackles. And again, those guys were first-round picks, so duh, versus watching these guys who were more mid-round guards where I was like, this is going to have some ups and downs to it. See, I felt that way about Ratledge, because that even in college, he had just like that, that play style and there was a little bit of that. You see him leaning a little bit too much, but I thought that he played with good awareness

and past protection. He can move people in the run game. Even at some of the one-on-one blocks he had in the run game, I thought that he was getting some decent movement. That's going to be a lot more volatile than I think it's going to be for Dylan Fairchild based on what I saw in that game. And I think that's okay. That's just Ratledge's play style, but he looked like he belonged out there.

With Fairchild, that was actually impressed with how settled it kind of felt from him in that game. He was passing things off really well. I thought they were moving off of double teams with good timing. And obviously, he's playing with the starters. So that's hopefully going to look a little bit cleaner. But that was one of those things where I watched him work with Karras and Orlando Brown. And I'm like, this looks pretty good.

Like them playing together, I'm actually very encouraged by the direction this is heading. With Ratlitz playing with the backups, you saw a little bit more volatility. But I think I can understand that this is still pointed in a good direction. I know exactly which play you're talking about, Robert. And it was funny because, like, I turned the Bengals game on. And I call it bored, I guess. Like for the first few snaps, I was like, okay, he's drawing a lot. Like, he's doing a lot of double teams.

Like, he's not doing anything wrong, but this is just not very exciting. And then you get to, like, he has a nice rep in Pass Pro 1V1 where you're like, okay, that was cool. And then it's like the fourth thing in my notes. him and Orlando Brown just beautifully passed off a stunt on like a 10-yard completion, where it looked like they've been doing it for years. And we have a great comparison because you talked about the play with Will Campbell against the commanders where they botched the hell out of it. This is my exact thought.

That's two rookies. I get it. And this is just one rookie playing with Orlando Brown, who's done a lot in this league. But these guys looked like old teammates. Like it was just seamless. and I, like, sat up in my chair where I was like, whoa, that looked really good. Now, the next thing I did was flip over to the other end zone angle just to double check and make sure this was not Jalen Carter, and it was not.

So I think that's worth mentioning. Like, this was not the Eagles starting defensive line. But still, some of the stuff he was doing, he had a really nice seal block on a toss, too, where he just got where he needed to be and walled off the lane. I came away from it really impressed. And it's a small sample size. It's two possessions. So not to say he'll never mess up, but I started the watch very unenthused, and by the end of it,

I was pretty jacked. I think that's a really good way to frame it. And I had the exact same thought about them passing off that stunt. It felt cohesive with those three playing with each other. And I thought that's what I was so encouraged by. And with Routledge, I think it was some of the flashes that we see. It's going to be maybe a little bit up and down. But again, when he starts playing with the starters, what does that end up looking like?

I thought there was some decent movements with Rout. on some of those double teams. Like I came away impressed with both of them, even if I agree with you, Derek. I thought that what we saw from Fairchild was much more just put together in that first glimpse that we saw from him. Fairchild like mentally had it to me. Like that was not the concern.

And then again, when he strikes, it looks really good to me. Again, it was just like some of the one-on-one reps. I was like he's not bringing his feet with him the way I would like. And I think against maybe better players, that's going to hurt him.

But I want to be very clear. I'm still much more excited about him seeing him out there than Cody Ford or Cordell Bolton or whoever it's been for the last three years. Like this is not me saying they should not put him out there and be concerned about that. That's why this is an important thing. It's actually why I wanted to mention it. With Routledge, it's can we get as good as we were on the offensive line last year? And I think that's a tough hill to climb, but I don't think we've talked enough.

I'm up with this on myself. Hank Freely coming back and how well coached that offensive line looks consistently should give us more faith that this can work out. And even if it's not as good as last year's line was with Ragnau and Kevin Zaitware, if it can be 90% of that, the infrastructure and how well that group is taught absolutely plays into it. And again, Ratwitch playing with like decent awareness in if you're uncovered, go look for work. That's what I saw from Christian Hageny last year as a rookie.

Like, their young players are very well coached and that's clear. And I think that should give us some confidence. So if that group can be almost as good as last year's offensive line, Ratwicz has a huge point in that. And I think that we talked about this a little bit on the contender show. The Bengals offensive line should be better. Like, it should be a better group. And those flashes you got from Fairchild point you in that direction.

Like, what they've gotten from the left guard on that offense for the last like five years has been an absolute nightmare. And it's one preseason game, but are my early impressions of what that left side of the line may look like this year, I feel much, much better about it than I have in the very recent past. All right. That is all we've got for today. This will be running on Friday. we will have, I believe, two training camp notebooks coming your guys as way this weekend. That is the plan as it currently stands. Beller can tell me if that's not the case.

Yes, two training camp overbooks coming to your guys this weekend. It's hard to keep all of that straight. One on Saturday, one on Sunday. And then we're going to have two more next week, I believe. We're going to have, I think, almost all of our beatwriters will have appeared on these over the last couple weeks, which I am very, very excited about. I think we're going to have like 23 or 24 of them by the time this all wraps up. So those could be coming your way on Saturday and Sunday.

And then like we mentioned at the top of the show, the first edition of Building the Beast with Dave Hellman and Dane Bruegler will be in your feeds on Monday. So please be on the lookout for that. For now, that's all we got. I appreciate you guys listening. We'll talk to you very soon.