The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - Mailbag: Vikings fans want change, Eagles illusions, Carson Wentz & the Colts, new jersey numbers & more with Mike Sando

Episode Date: September 14, 2021

The Athletic's Senior Writer / Football GM co-host Mike Sando joins Robert Mays for the first Athletic Football Show mailbag of the season as Minnesota Vikings fans aren't happy, Colts fans are curious about Carson Wentz, the Eagles might be seeing an illusion, jersey number controversy, the Broncos offense looking unexpectedly sharp and more. Want to leave a message? Call 872-222-7073 or email [e-mail] Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the Athletic Football Show. Welcome to the Athletic Football Show. Today is Tuesday, September 14th. I'm Robert Mays, and joining me today, it's my good friend Mike Sando. Mike, how you doing? I'm doing well, Robert. It's great to be here.

We've got week one in the books, which sure beats sticking with all those off-season storylines that just stayed frozen for so long. It is so nice to no longer speculate and get to react to something for the first time and so long. It's always one of my favorite parts of this is that I no longer have to predict anything. I just get to see what happened and then talk about it, which is the best. So for people who do not know, we're recording this on Monday.

It is running on Tuesday. Every single Tuesday during the season. We are doing a mailbag. You guys are the best. You sent in questions. You called in with voicemails. I knew you would not let me down and you came through like you always do. We got some really good ones.

I am very excited to dig into this. this today and every other Tuesday for the rest of the season here. All right. Let's start it off with what I believe is the perfect voicemail for the first morning after Monday of the NFL season. It was just so pitch perfect that I felt like we had to kick it off with this. Hello, my name is Alex. I am in the state of despair.

Is my examiner going to get fired? Thanks. So good I love how invested people are I mean you see it in the full stadiums I mean and you go all in

you know and then not that you would know as a bear stand because everything's gone right for so long Oh yeah right exactly I don't know that tone whatsoever And then you go to Cincinnati where the

shoot they can't complete a pass I mean Burrow doesn't look right Jamar Chase looks like he hasn't played in five years instead of one. And you lose to the Bengals. I mean, how many games are the Bengals won since Martin Lewis left like two? You go the whole off season and you spin all the moves into this positive, optimistic, we can do this if this goes right and this goes right.

That's what you spend March through September 1st doing as an NFL fan. And then in the span of three hours, it can just all fall apart. And the Vikings, I don't think they play 10. terribly yesterday. Obviously, that's not the outcome that you want. But I do think that Alex represents the feelings of a lot of people that are NFL fans this morning. That sigh and just everything that encompasses that sigh and that feeling, this is where we had to begin. I will say one more piece of Vikings to spare before we move on. Joe Thomas emailed and asks if I could play guard for the Minnesota Vikings. The answer is probably not well right now.

I never could. It's Joe Thomas. If it's a real Joe Thomas, he probably could. If it's a real Joe Thomas, he should just do it, even though me and the real Joe Thomas weigh like the same amount right now. I was on the road for about a month. I've had trouble getting back in like a healthy diet here. So I'm tipping the scales in about 190, which isn't great for me, but I still don't think I'd be able to hold up very well against Larry Ogun Joby. So I'm not sure I'd be an upgrade at this point from Minnesota. Oh, man. I'll tell you, though, you couldn't look worse than the guys trying to block Chandler Jones yesterday, which by the way, isn't Arizona on an upcoming scale? schedule, aren't they coming up here for the Vikings? What a call by you. In our NFC West preview, you said the one guy on the Cardinals that you wanted to watch was Chandler Jones. That is one of the best preseason calls I've heard from anyone over the last month or so. You should be very proud of yourself.

Well, I was very proud. I finally got something right, so I think I even tweeted it, you know. But yeah, the Vikings are playing Chandler Jones next week in week two. So I think they'll really shut him down and everything will be fine. Yeah, absolutely. this question. It's all good. That first round tackle that's not playing right now. I'm sure that won't be a big deal for the Vikings at all against the guy who had five sacks in week one. They're going to play Chandar Jones. Darisov will not give up a sack. I mean, I'm confident

of that. Let's get to another email question here from Riswan Khan. I answered a lot of this stuff yesterday on the show with Nate, but we haven't had a chance to talk to you about week one. So I wanted to get your take on this. He asked, which team did you have the most concern with this weekend and which team blew you away? I'll let you take this one. I was really concerned for Tennessee and for Atlanta, the two Arthur Smith teams, are the teams that were supposed to benefit and be hurt by him. And I was like, if Atlanta would have been amazing, you'd feel maybe even worse for Tennessee, right? Because it was like, oh, that was clearly the key.

So hopefully these were kind of one-off games. But I've been feeling worried for Tennessee even for a while. Like even last year, I feel like they've had a trition on their roster. You know, they haven't necessarily, they've had some misses in the draft. They've had some misses in free agency. And they just show up to win nine, ten, eleven games. Like it just keeps happening. And like the results have somehow been better than what I've expected all the time.

And so every time they stumble, I feel like, okay, this could be it. But I feel like this may be the start of something here that's not as good for them. It just looked terrible. And then you see the stat that they had two play action pass attempts? Oh, I was going to get to that. We have several Titans questions. So we can dig into that in a second. And Atlanta was your other team.

Atlanta was just because, like, we could debate and say they should have taken a quarterback or all this. But if you're going to go the Matt Ryan route, it's not like he's, we'd never seen Matt Ryan play before. I felt like, okay, Arthur Smith and Matt Ryan have basically been at summer camp sharing the same cabin. And so as we've watched some of these other relationships, McVeigh with Stafford, right? I want to come out in week one and feel like, hey, you know what? You got these two guys together, and I can see where this is going, even if they lost the game or whatever. But when you have 35 pass attempts and have 164 yards, and there's some of those hits on the quarterback where it's like, I don't know if Matt Ryan's going to be playing in three weeks if he's taking up slow already.

I was just a little concerned. I expected more a little bit more offensively. So we'll get into the Titans in a second. I definitely want to dig into that. And we'll talk about the Falcons in relation to the Eagles a little bit because we have several Eagles questions. Who is a team that impressed you yesterday that really kind of blew you away that you did not expect to see? I can't believe the Saints won by 35. Yeah.

I have the same thing for me. Yeah. We've seen, you know, like, okay, the Packers can have had some bad games before. I mean, they lost badly at, you know, at, you know, at Tampers. Tampa last year. But, you know, they were, they like had a 10 or 14 point lead to start the game. They did something. I just think when you go the whole game holding this Packers team down to three points. And even though James Winston wasn't slicing and dying, he had five touchdown passes. He did everything they asked him to. This goes on the wall of fame of Sean

Peyton to me. Like, he's going to be a Hall of Fame coach because of association with Drew Brees and what they accomplished together. But these are the moments. Like, if you look at Andy Reed, it's not just Mahomes who plays great. The other guys who he's been with had their best years with him, too. Sean Payton goes in. He's nine and two now the last few years when Teddy Bridgewater, who's 5 and 1, when Taysam Hill, and when James Winston starts.

And some of that's, they're better on defense and all that, but I don't care. I mean, this is like good football coaching. I mean, this offense, it's exactly what you want to see from them. right tons of play action i want to see that james u's play action like 40% of his dropbacks yesterday which was one of the highest marks in the entire league running game that you can lean on with camara and that offensive line all you need him do is be efficient take care of the ball play great defense and let's see what this team can be i totally agree we talked about them at length with nate yesterday i was blown away by how well they played all right we got several titans questions i'm several it's always

funny to watch how this happens all the questions come in bunches there is not scattered questions about each team. The results push certain fan bases to ask questions both good and bad. So there's the fan bases that are completely freaking out right now like Tennessee are. They're the fan bases that are kind of peeking their head out being like, wait a second, that was pretty good, huh? Should I get excited? Should I not? We have a couple of those to get to. But there were multiple questions about the Titans and how bad they looked. Justin Vera sent one in. Tucker Carnes sent one in. He just thinks that Arthur's Smith should go back. That that's, that's in everyone's best interest right now, which, hey, listen.

You have a, you know, you have a six-month, no questions asked return policy, just like at a major retailer, you know, and you say, hey, look, we'll take care of you on this one. Let's just reverse it. Give somebody on that tight, earned that Falcon staff a chance to be the head coach. I totally understand it. It might be in everyone's best interest. Let's combine all of these just into one question, and let me ask you on a scale of one to ten. We got into a little bit, but just digging into a little bit further. How worried are you about the Titans? On a scale of one to ten, I'm probably a six and a half to a seven worried. It's pretty good. That's pretty high. I always ask like, I mean, it's one game. And I looked at it last year. I think they lost three

games by double figures last year. So sometimes you get a team that can play a certain way and they can look really bad when they're out of their game. Yeah. You know what I mean? Minnesota, some of these heavy play action teams. Look at, look at, you know, we can be in the Super Bowl with Garoppelow and then we can just want to ditch everything and what happened, right? The pressures are coming or whatever. So one week isn't enough for me to just throw it all out. But I have, the concerns I have is like, okay, what do they hang their hat on? You know, I think Vrable is a good head coach with the communication with the players and that. They've got that. Is there a schemer that they've got that they're hanging it on?

Is there, can you hang it on Tannenhill or does he sort of have to be helped by other things? What does Derek Henry, when does he fall off? You know, those sorts of things I've been wondering about anyway. So when you have a result this bad, it's natural to think of them all. I'm still worried about them all. But I'd probably be worried about him a little bit,

even if they'd played better. I think they could be fine, right? It's week one. It's one game. The Cardinals have a lot of talent up front of, defensively. Chandler Jones wrecked that game in a way a few players do. But this is what the darkest timeline would look like for them, right? This is the concern that we had coming into the year where the offense is just a shoddier knockoff of the one that we've seen over the last

couple years with Arthur Smith and the defense is still a mess. So if you still have a way below average defense and you're getting carved up every single week and your offense is whatever, I think they still have enough talent offensively to be fine no matter what happens. happens. But if you're merely fine and your defense is still bad, this thing is kind of over. I mean, whatever window they had then has passed. And again, I'm not saying that's the case, but that is what it would look like. And I think we got our first inkling of that yesterday. Right. I feel like they did an amazing job maxing out what they had. Totally.

And they got them. It was amazing. It really did a great job. I don't think it's practical. Because you talking about it in past tense. Yeah. I don't think I never thought it was practical to just stay like that forever. I think you have factors that contribute to that that there's been some erosion on. They've had these players like Jack Conklin and Corey Davis, who you didn't want to go all in on and give the huge contract, but you're like better if they're on your team. You know what I mean? They've kind of gotten stuck in the middle on a few of their guys where they're like, okay, maybe they made the right decision, but they're not a better football team because of it.

And I feel like there's just been a few of those. I think they've hit on Justin Simmons and some other things, but you know, you miss on a number one pick, the offensive lineman you pick, right? There's just been some subtractions. You have a Dean Peas leave, you know, that's before. You have an Arthur Smith leave. There's just enough things that have made it harder for me that I think it's going to be harder for them. To me, it's I look at what happened, and this is unfair to do the Titans, but it's natural for me to do. Look what happened when Melvin Ingram yesterday, right?

Melvin Ingram comes to Pittsburgh, he signs a one year, $4 million deal to sign with the Steelers. He's excellent yesterday. He played fantastic. He was all over the place. And Bud Dupree is making $16 million for the Titans this year as a high-priced free agent.

He had two pressures yesterday. And who knows what's going to happen over the course of the season? That to me is the difference. That when you have these teams that just continue to maximize all the players that cycle through there. And then you have these other teams that feel like they need to solve these problems by

overspending in free agency where you have, you're doing this on Bud Dupree, you're doing this on Kenny Galladay, all those types of players. Clowny. They're all guys who didn't play their best ball when they were. The Raiders do this consistently. And it just feels like the Titans might be in that place defensively. And then you look at what happened on offense, two play action attempts yesterday. And I know how that happens, right?

Yeah. They had five play action dropbacks. two of them were sacks. One of them was a strip sack that essentially swung the game. So if you're Todd Downing, I'm sure you're sitting there being like, well, I'm not doing that shit again. No, because the guy's going to take the hand off or tackle my guy while he's still holding the ball out, you know? Yes, but part of play action is understanding how to protect it, right? This team last year had no offensive tackles.

That Luana wasn't even on the field. I know he wasn't good yesterday, but he was not here last season. And what they did is they built this fortress around Ryan Tannahill with all these max protections and were still able to get the most out of their play action game, even when they couldn't block anybody. Yesterday, they probably didn't go into the game thinking they wouldn't be able to block anybody, so they didn't have that car in their back pocket. But this is where you see the cracks start to form. They could be totally fine.

But this is the version of the Titans that I was worried about coming into the season. Yep. And maybe it was exploited by the perfect storm of Chander Jones and J.J. Watt, in a week one game, right? You might be a little bit concerned over the course of a season. Chander Jones was out part of last year, JJ Watt. They're both in their 30s, but you got them both right out of the gates really fresh with a lot of game planning, game plan time for Arizona and all that.

So maybe you can write it off to that. I just think there's some other things like you talked about that are bigger picture issues that are still going to be there even if they win next week. This is not a question from Reader, but I want to ask you because you're on the committee. You think a lot about this. Do you think Chandler Jones blogs in the Hall of Fame? I think now I like to research it. So, you know, I would like to look into it.

Don't hold me to this. But I would sure think that he's training that. What does he have? He has 102 sacks. 102 sacks. And what's his number of seasons? He has played, this is his 10th year. 10th season?

So that's 10 sacks a year for 10 years. Like, it doesn't feel for whatever reason like you just say, oh, automatically yes. But it feels like there's a case. And so what you do to get in now is just have a couple more great years, you know, and just finish it off. And then you're right there. Let's say he's 31.

Yep. Let's say he gets, and he has five already. Let's say he gets 18 sacks this year. And let's say he gets another 12 in 2022. Let's say he's at 30 more. So 132 over his career. And he missed most of last season. So it's only 125 total games that he has 102 sacks.

Like if you get to 130, you're starting to creep up there on the all-time list. He's only been a two-time all-pro. He probably need to rack up a couple more of those. But it's an interesting case. Some of this, I hate that all-pro stuff, though, for some of these, like here in Arizona. People don't even know he's there. Yeah, I agree. what I mean. Like if he's doing this whole thing for the Giants or the Patriots or some Bears team

that's doing something, people know about them more. Look at, I love that pro football reference went back to 1960 with their sacks. Yeah. That's aimed exactly at you, by the way. It is. I love it. Just Google all-time sack leader and like the second or third result will be pro football reference. And you can kind of see like if you play that game, if you get to, if you get to one, year with Claude Humphrey, Jim Marshall, who, Bud Grant's 94. He'll come on your show today and argue for him and say he was even better and more important than Alan Page. Coy Bacon's got 130. Great, very colorful player. No one knows about him. Al Baker's got 131. Leslie O'Neill, 132. So see what I mean. Carlisle or 133. John Abraham, 133 and a half. So you're in that mode

where people are going, go, oh, maybe that guy should be in, right? As opposed to, you get 10 more, you're in the 140s. Now you're with Jason Taylor, Michael Strayhan, Lawrence Taylor, and people go, oh, geez, this guy's in, right? You know what I mean? But what's the difference?

Like, it's interesting. I did not expect to be thinking about that this morning, but you look at it, it's like, oh, he's only 31. Like, let's say he gets a couple more 15 sack seasons. We use overrated way too much. Most guys that we call underrated are not underrated.

Chandler Jones really is underrated. He is somebody we do not think and talk about nearly enough. Yep. All right, speaking of teams that we got a lot of questions about here, let's get to our first voicemail about the Eagles. Hey, guys, big fan of the show. My name's Connor from Philadelphia, right in the heart of the city. Huge dire Eagles fan, obviously.

My question is, after week one, great, great, great win. But don't know if I should be tempering my expectations if Atlanta is just that bad, or if Jalen Hertz is the real deal. and we finally have a wire receiver one. Thanks so much. And again, big fan of the show. Have a good one. I thought the Eagles played great yesterday.

I thought the Jalen Hertz looked really good yesterday. And such good for Nick Siriani. That's what I will say. After the start and after kind of the dialogue around him, after that first press conference, and I said it when we did NFC's preview with Shield. I had no idea what to expect from this team. If you're spinning the best case scenario, you say,

we got a lot of talent up front. on both sides of the ball. Can that carry us? But I still had no idea what they look like offensively, what the skill position players would look like, what the structure of it would look like. I thought that this version of it where you're really beating people up up front

on both sides of the ball and Hertz just does everything that you ask of him and pretty much every single facet of the game, this is an Eagles team that is going to be a pain to deal with over the course of the season if they play like this. Absolutely. So remember last week when I pulled the executives

on ranking the teams in each conference to one to 16? So here were the votes we got in the Eagles. They're all over the place. Fifth in the NFC. That's good to know that it was all over the place and they had them all over the place. Yeah, because there's question marks too. So here were the rankings, five different guys.

Fifth in the NFC, seventh, 10th, 14, and 14. God, that's amazing. So if you're a 14, you're thinking, you know what? I don't think Jalen Hertz can do it. I just don't, I don't think he's good enough. But the people that made the case for Philly, were like, look, they're good on both lines. And Jalen Hertz is going to be better than people think. And to be determined, if you want to sign up for it forever, we don't have to decide that.

We can be highly encouraged. Do you buy a jersey right away? I mean, I don't know. You probably wait a few weeks. But like, I just love the fact that we're talking about this instead of Carson Wentz just looked okay yesterday. And they played a close game against Atlanta. And we're not really sure. This just feels like the freshness they need.

And I just like him. I like what he brings to the team whether or not he pans out anyway. Like the team responds to him. You can see it last year. I think it's part of the reason Carson Wentz isn't there. So let's just let it play out. I mean, I know this. I do a lot of stuff with Randy Mueller, former two-time GM.

He looked at it on Twitter today was like, this was highly encouraging what he showed. It was totally different from last year. I totally agree. You know, and that's a quarterback evaluator in the NFL for 35 years, you know, so let's be excited. He did so many good things yesterday. The thing that impressed me most is how comfortable he looked when there was pressure. There was not a lot of it. That Eagles offensive line is very good.

Obviously, they signed Jordan a lot of that extension. You know, with all those guys healthy, that's the only question. What does that line look like if they start losing people? But when they're 100% healthy at the beginning of the season, it's one of the better offensive lines in the entire league. Jeff Stout, when their offensive line coach, is back. You expect that group to play really well, and they did. He was pressured nine times during that game. Every single time he was, he was fine. He either stepped up in the pocket and

escaped or escaped right or left and made a little bit of something happen. I mean, he looked so composed, even as things started devolve around him, and he made a lot of big plays when he had to improvise and make some second reaction stuff happen. And then you look at the actual quarterbacking that he did, the throw of Devante Smith on that little rubrod for the touchdown was beautiful. He was making some stuff happen outside of the pocket. He layered a couple throws to the second level. I thought they did a really good job of giving him some cheapies. The first two passes of the game were little swings to Quez Watkins that ended up being after the catch monster gains. And that's just a way to kind of get your guys involved. His

area arts per target was like three yesterday, I think because they threw through so many screens, but it's not as if he wasn't making a scattered throw down the field here and there. So I was somebody that last year thought that he was a quarterback thrust into a situation and was not asked to do a lot of quarterback stuff. I thought that yesterday he looked five times more comfortable than he ever did at any point last season. Me too. I think he's going to keep him competitive in here. Now, their next five games are against teams that are five and oh, including both Super Bowl teams from last year and San Francisco this week. So I think there will be some ups and downs, you know, but I just liked what I saw. And I was like, I debated. I didn't really write about

it today because I, you know, you're watching 16 games. Sometimes you feel like you don't, watch them all closely and all the way through initially. And I was just like, but every time I looked at the Eagle game, he's just dropping a ball in there. You know, it was like, geez. Like, I never saw him do something bad. So I'm, I'm really optimistic on it. And, you know, it's all we can go on, right? We don't have to sign them to a five-year deal. We can be excited. Well, I do want to ask you, though. The follow-up question we had was from John Arth, and he asked, as an Eagles fan, I'm optimistic about Jaywin Hurts and really want him to work out. But what should the Eagles do if he's just okay?

If he's bad, they'll just pick a new quarterback. But say he's in the range of the 17th to 25th best quarterback in the league. Is that guy worth building around? Curious to hear your thoughts? Because obviously, this team is in a fascinating position. They have a ton of aging veterans next year. Do they stick around with those guys? Do they keep some of this roster intact?

that's a big question. They have an extra first round pick after trading down in this year's draft. So they're going to have two picks in the first round and the potential to package some picks maybe for a quarterback. So they're going to have avenues to adding someone next year. So if Jaylen Hertz is just somewhere in the middle, I do think he raises a good point. It kind of muddies the picture for them and what it should look like in 2022. You'd almost hope he was really good or really bad. It's really easy for me to say you should always be looking and bring someone in. but look, they brought in Hertz with Carson Wens. It wasn't exactly the smoothest thing. If one team is going to always be looking to bring somebody in, it's this team.

I'll tell you that right now. Yeah, but I think you keep doing that. And, you know, if Carson Wenz couldn't handle it, then send him to Indy. You know, I think Jalen Hertz can handle it. I just think I really like his makeup from what I've seen. So I think you do keep looking and it's, look, I mean, I go back the ultimate exam. example is when the Packers had Brett Farb, they're getting Mark Brunel. They're getting tied up. It's the most important position, and teams don't feel like they can afford to or they

just don't do it, have a plan to be continuing developing guys there. I think they got mocked. Hallie Rosemma got mocked for the, right, the quarterback, what do you say, the quarterback factory or that we want to be a quarterback doing it all the time. But the idea is totally solid. Let's just say, put it this way. Let's just say you really liked what you were seeing from Jalen Hertz and you thought there was a chance he could be in the top 12 quarterbacks. But he wasn't yet, but you thought he could be.

Does that mean you don't look into Russell Wilson if he's available for three number ones? Why wouldn't you? It just changes what you're looking for. I think if you feel like he's the 17th best quarterback, then you're not in the market for the 17th best quarterback, right? If Kirk Cousins

becomes available, you're not like Gall. I think that's exactly right. If there's a clear upgrade available, then be open to that idea, but don't just want to change quarterbacks for the sake of changing quarterbacks. But always be looking to get better at that position unless you have a top-tier guy, right? I think that's fair. I mean, look at the Rams. They had Jared Goff.

It'd be very easy for them to say we had our guy. I like the fact that they were like, you know what, we think we can get 20% better. And we think that's the difference for us winning at all. I totally agree. And I just think that that's how you have to think about it. It's not you have to replace him if he's the 17th best quarterback. It's let's be open to the idea of replacing him if he's the 17th best quarterback. But if that guy doesn't come along, then you see what you have and you keep on building.

The interesting thing is what to do, though, in the draft, I think it's easier to get a veteran. But when it's a speculative pick, like, let's just say the draft plays out and there's a Mac Jones type available there. That's an interesting thing. Then are you really going to use a first round pick for Mac Jones if you feel pretty darn good about this guy but aren't sure Mac's better? That's harder to do. I think the Mac Jones thing is, it's rare, right? Like the fourth quarterback taken, a guy taking in the middle of the first round, that's usually not a recipe to finding the right quarterback.

But Justin Fields. So I think that's almost an exception. If they can trade up next year for Justin Fields and we like Joe and Hertz, is that enough of a jump for you know what I mean? It gets a little gray or you're going to have different people in your building. I totally agree. Yeah. There's no easy answer here.

There really is no easy answer. All right. We got speaking, we're talking about, again, the teams that are kind of peeking their head out being like, Could we be good? We got several questions about a seemingly resurgent Denver Broncos offense. Let's get to one of those right now. Hey, Robert, big fan of the pod. This is Jackson from Wichita, Kansas.

I just wanted to know your guys' thoughts on how the Broncos' offense looks specifically. I know we could talk about the defense versus Daniel Jones. So they go along. But I want to know how what we thought, Teddy looking. I thought it was pretty smooth. Some of those scrambles and extension plays, It's something that I hadn't really seen much that I was expecting much from him after this preseason. But I just want to know, what do we think about that offense and kind of what they're feeling can be after going up against what was kind of expected to be a really good giant defense.

Again, love your guys, break down the pod. I hope you get to this question and have a good rest of your day. That's a great question. Yeah, it's great. Good listeners here, May. I really do. Trust me. That's why we're doing this.

Because like, what I love about it is that like it caused me to like think of something. I looked up something that I'm learning here because people are bringing it. Devin Harvey asks, I know you've been excited about what Patrick Graham could do with the Giants defense this year. But week one was underwhelming getting carved up by Bridgewater and the Broncos without having Judy for half the game. Was week one just a great game planned by Shermer, Bridgewater, or did you see major holes with the Giants defense? What do you think about that? I was very surprised that Denver moved up and down the field like that, scored like they did, especially then with the stuff we're talking about with being aggressive and all of that.

I think it was totally different. I think it's concerning. I think it's just concerning for the Giants because I think we already feel glass is half empty on quarterback offense scheme, that whole side of the ball, right? Offensive line, the quarterback, what they're doing. we already feel like eh so then we have to be really great in the other areas right the defense special teams that's what our coach is

so I think it's concerning you know I'm not saying they're just going to suck on defense all year but that can't happen they're playing Teddy Bridgewater I thought they looked okay I mean I thought that the Broncos did a really good job of managing the game you know they had three fourth downs over the course of the game that they ended up picking up

including a fourth and seven on a field goal drive that they had. And the ways that they made game time, game management decisions in this game, I think really helped them. Tons of play action, some smart uses of empty and high leverage moments where you're really leaning on your skill position talent. There was one play. It was the third down where they had Cortland Sutton in the slot and he was just working

against the slot corner. He got a little bit of separation. Jerry Judy working one-on-one in some of those situations. This is what the Broncos wanted. This is why you go after a guy like Teddy Bridgewater because you've convinced yourself, we don't need somebody that's going to make all of these jaw-dropping throws. We have everything else. Like the running game was solid yesterday. They have a decent offensive line. You have Melvin Gordon and Giovante Williams back there. You have all of these receivers. Tim Patrick beat

James Bradbury for a touchdown yesterday. They have a deep collection of skill position players. They have an NFL offensive coordinator in Pat Schumer. And they have a workable quarterback. Like if the Broncos are sitting there and they're the 15th best offense in the league, which they might be able to, if that's what we, if they're going to continue to do what they did yesterday, I think you should be encouraged. I think the Giants defense will probably be okay. I wasn't overly concerned. I was more impressed by the fact that this version of the Broncos offense is enough with the right decision making to make this a playoff team.

Fourth and seven from the 37 is classic no man's land. That's where they went for it. Classic no man's land. And it's just real easy to just punt. If they punt in that situation. Especially when you're a 60s land. something defensive-minded head coach. Yes, it's very easy to punt.

And like, you know, you might get the fourth down bot or, you know, Brian Burke or somebody's, no offense, Brian. I didn't mean to say your name like that. I revere you. But somebody that Vic Fangio's not even going to, he's not even in those waters, really. You wouldn't think. They might notice it, but there's not going to be like a story in the Denver Post. No one's going to ask him at the press conference.

Why didn't you go for it on fourth and seven? He can just say it's fourth and seven. We didn't think we can get it. Everyone's going to believe him. they went for it on fourth down three times in the first three quarters of the game they have never done more than once in the first three quarters i exclude fourth quarter because we'll all go for them when we're yeah yeah right but in the first three quarters and it was a record yesterday there were 28 of those um for the week going for it on fourth down that's the most i went back i was going in true media i went back like 10 years and you keep going back and you're down to like 13 then no one did it so i'm safe and saying in the history of football 28 fourth down go for it's in the first three quarters of games. And we're not even done. We've got the Ravens who do that already.

This is going to be a record week for this. So even a Vic Fangio now is doing this. It's wonderful. I think this is a vote of confidence in your quarterback, too. They were dead last in aggressiveness last year. The aggressiveness index the football outsiders does. And when you don't trust your quarterback to do anything, that probably helps. So with the Rams yesterday.

Remember how conservative Sean McVeigh is. been on Fort Down a lot of the time over the last couple years when Jared Gough was there. It's a lot easier to go forward on fourth down when you trust the guy playing quarterback for you. It sure is. That seems to be what happened with the Broncos yesterday. So I'm in wait and C mode with this. Like I'm not going to make any sweeping declarations. I was impressed with the Broncos yesterday.

I am not yet concerned with the Giants defense. Joe Tabaris asked a very similar question. He said the Broncos win is more about the Broncos actually having an offense or the Giants falling short. I think it's a little bit of both. I am just, I'm feeling good about where. the Broncos are at. It's a bummer about Jerry Judy. He looked really good. The way the component pieces of that offense fit. And also, like, the Broncos, Albert O fumbled inside the five. Hamler dropped a touchdown. I mean, this could have been a bigger day for them. But when you think

about it with Hamler and Sutton and Fant, Fant looked great yesterday, Fant and Judy, like all the pieces fit together. Taking Judy out of that equation, even if you can plug Tim Patrick into it, is kind of a bummer. I think they're going to be okay, though. Yeah, this is one of those teams. we just talked about Philadelphia a couple of minutes ago. Kind of one of those teams where you felt like you could make a plausible scenario where they go either way. You know what I mean? Like it just doesn't work and you're Teddy's not the guy and Vic Fang, whatever, you know. So this was a really nice first step forward.

And Denver's got Jacksonville, the Jets, you know. It gets tougher. They got the Raven Steelers, Raiders in there, Cleveland. There's some tougher teams. But this could be a nice little start for them. Sort of sticking with the Broncos here. I love this question from Kurt Bullard. So imagine you're the Denver Broncos.

Your goal is to get to the playoffs as many times as you can over the next 15 years. You have the option to swap divisions with any other team in the league to avoid Mahomes and Herbert. I.e. if you swap to the Packers, they'd be in the AFC West and you'd be in the NFC North. I appreciate the explanation there. However, if you do this, you have to completely sit out three seasons. So you only get 12 years to accomplish it. Would you do it? and who would you swap with?

I love these types of questions. This is awesome. I mean, I immediately kind of thought of the NFC North. You figure Rogers isn't going to be there anymore, right? I'm not sure. Justin Fields may be good, but he may just be okay, right?

And the other teams don't really have answers for the long term. You can also swap with the Packers so that you can just get the Packers out of the NFC North. Yeah, but Rogers isn't going to be there in three years anyway, in my opinion. So would you say, okay, of those remaining teams, Fields maybe has the best chance to be a good quarterback. I'll just swap with Chicago. I'll wait the next three years.

Roger's going to be out of the picture by then, right? I mean, would you consider that as your team to get out for the future? Or no, you just want to play against Chicago every year because you've felt Chicago that long. That's defensible too. I would probably swap with the Packers. Just because even without Rogers, I think that their overall roster health is pretty good. I think every other team in the NFC North, even beyond the quarterbacks, what are the lions over the next three years? What are the Vikings over the next three years if this thing goes south?

The Bears, even with Justin Fields, I think they have several huge looming question marks. Yeah, and organizationally, too, you know, the Packers have been. Yes. their warts. You know, I think another interesting one in here would be Buffalo. Let's just say if you got Buffalo out of the East East and you figure, hey, Belichick's not going to do this forever, right? Kraft is whatever, 77, 78. Would you be willing to wait out them or no, do you feel like now? You may feel now like, geez, the Jet's got foundation of something. The Dolphins got flories. New England's going to be in New England. Maybe you wouldn't do that at all. Maybe the AFC East's future looks better than we would have said, not that long ago. The only other division I would consider outside of the NFC North is probably the AFC South. Because even with Lawrence, you could just swap with the Jags if you wanted to. So you've got Tennessee, which we just talked about, who knows what the next decade of

Titans football is going to look like. You have the Texans who are in full-scale rebuilding mode. And you have the Colts who, I think both of us have a lot of faith in the people making the decisions over there. But who knows what the Colts are going to look like, how this Carson Wentz thing goes, all of that. The AFC South is the only one of the one I would consider. But just to make it clear, I would do this 100% of the time. If it was only three years that I got to avoid Mahomes and Herbert over the next decade, I would do this every single time. It wouldn't

even be a question. Like, what would you do with your roster during that time? Would the players keep coming to practice? I think there would be a lack of motivation. I mean, guys would be getting high all the time and they wouldn't be worried about missing games. That sounds great. They'd be relaxed when they got back. You could do like some put-put-puck golf outings. I was talking about guys in the front of these. I was talking about guys in the front of us. It should be high all the time.

Maybe they already are. That's why they make some of these decisions. I think that you absolutely do it. If you could avoid those two guys, I mean, we'll talk about Herbert here in a second. But I absolutely think that you would consider it, even if you lose those three years. Because avoiding Mahomes, avoiding Justin Herbert, even avoiding the chargers at this point, I think would probably be worth it. All right. Speaking of Justin Herbert, Sean from Nashville,

asks our next question here via voice. Hi, Robert. This is Sean from Nashville at Shottie Pat on Twitter. Love the show. Thank you all the time for everything you do. I'm not going to ask the Lions question because I actually want you to ask Mike a question, and there's nothing interesting to say about the Lions. Mike, your annual quarterback fears is one of two Bibles I recognize in the house.

I'm Irish Catholic. You can probably guess what the other one is, and I love it. I have a hypothetical overreaction question for you based on week one, which one of the following scenarios is more likely. Aaron Rogers is Tier 2 in 2022 or Kyler Murray and Justin Herbert or Tier 1. I tend to say the latter. I think Tyler is very, very underrated, given what an amazing athlete he is.

And I don't need to see anything about Herbert that Robert hasn't already said on the show. Love you guys so much. Thank you for all you do. Appreciate that little note at the end there from Sean. Makes me feel good. Sometimes I worry that no one listens to the show. So I appreciate what people say stuff like that. John, tier one question.

Tier one question. We're clearly unanimous tier one votes on Sean for his question. I love his little, you know, and I'm looking at anywhere I can wriggle off the hook here a little bit. Like, okay, no, I'm going to answer this straight on. So I think Aaron Rogers is going to be tier one in this year and next year. I don't see, you know, obviously yesterday or Sunday was bad. But I don't think he's going to come off of that. When you do the two-quarterback parlay,

and you say Herbert and Murray, like, I'm not 100% sure that Murray is going to be Tier 1 a year from now. I mean, the concern on him last year was could he hold up durability-wise over the whole season being such a smaller guy, you know, and the style of play that he has. And I think that's still a very valid question. I think we need to revisit him over the second half of the year. And even if you have a good year, like we saw Josh Allen had a good year last year, you got 20 Tier 1 votes. he came in the top of tier two. So I think, and Herbert, Herbert rocketed up, but he wasn't like, he got like four tier one votes. So I think what's going to happen is if those guys Herbert and Murray play the way you, Sean, from Nashville,

thinks that they are likely to play, I think they're going to be knocking. Herbert will maybe get in the bottom of tier one. And Kyler Murray would be knocking at the door of tier one. And I just have still enough questions about Kyler and Murray, not the talent, just the overall consistency over a course of a season, both durability and just consistency see a play because I think you could put together a highlight reel of him last year. It looked like a tier one quarterback. But you could also put together an equal length one where you would be wondering. And so we need to see that over the course of a full year. And I think the voters

will have to see that too. I wish I could get odds on Justin Herbert being a tier one quarterback next year. I know that you could just rig it. But I wish I could put actual money on Justin Herbert being a tier one quarter. Because I think I get pretty good odds. If I was doing it against, like, people around the league, and they're like, all right, I'll give you five to one on it. I'd probably take those. Like, I legitimately think he has a chance to be one of the guys by the end of this year.

Five to one. I mean, don't you think there's a possibility that's even shorter than that? I mean, wouldn't you say that, I mean, I think he's on course. I think people feel like he's on course to be a tier one. Okay. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm, I feel like I'm outside. I feel like I'm more in the mind. minority than I am, but I just watch him yesterday.

It's like, I don't know. I think he's headed that direction. Like, I put it to you this way. I think by the end of this year. I got to stop talking about him. I'm going to get myself in trouble. But I think he'll be higher next year than he was this year. Don't you agree?

You know what I mean? He was high this year. He came in top 10 range, you know? I think he'll, I think he'll get a, have a higher average vote next year, I would think. I don't see a huge red flag that he's going to fly back, fly backwards, you know? Oh, I absolutely. I think he will be held in higher esteem at the end of. this year than he was at the end of last year.

I would 100% believe that. Yeah. All right. Let's get to another team that we had several questions about. A lot of questions about the Indianapolis Colts yesterday. A fan base that tends to be a little fatalistic, so I'm not necessarily surprised. Let's get to our first one here from Josh. Hey, guys. This is Josh Raymer from Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Love the show. Colts fan, little bums with the week one outcome against a really feisty Seahawks team. But I'm curious with all the hubbub surrounding Carson. in the preseason. Did you all see enough from him behind a really patchwork offensive line to be encouraged that maybe this Colts team could do something in 2021? Or are there deeper problems that you think are going to submarine this team moving forward? Thanks, y'all. Appreciate that from Josh. We got several questions about the Colts, their quarterback, their offensive line. Brett Ungshik asks if we should be worried about the offensive line. So, Mike, we're a

week into the Carson Wentz era here, are you a little bit concerned about what you saw from Indianapolis yesterday? You know, not overly. I know it's been pointed out they haven't won. I don't think they've won a season opener since like Jack Trudeau was the quarterback there in 1980s. Well, they've a new quarterback every single year. So it's the first game for the first quarterback every single year.

In fact, Trudeau may start in week six this year. You know, it may come to that. I hope not Colts fans. I mean, geez, you've done it. Your team's done about everything right, except that position got sideways, as we all know. I had concerns coming in anyway. I mean, I think they're good. I think they're solid.

I think they're going to be good. I think they're probably going to have a winning record. So all of those things. Like, I don't think the fundamentals are changed. I don't think Frank Reich's going to lose the locker room or they've got bad guys. I don't think any of that. I just have been generally worried about Carson Wentz. When you have to be worried about can you stay on the field and can you play well.

It's not either or. Like some people, you're like, if this guy can stay in the field, I know he's good. But the third thing with him is, like, I think part of really checking the box as a quarterback, too, is reaching everyone in your locker room and being the really guys who really elevate. So I think Carson and Lance, I think they can scheme him. I think he can play well enough for them to be a team that has a chance to win in the wild card round. Yeah, I don't think he played great yesterday, but I don't think he was terrible. No. I mean, you look at it.

He wasn't asked to do a lot, a lot of screens. I think he had the fourth or fifth lowest average depth of target in the entire league last year. It was the third highest percentage, excuse me, the third lowest percentage of passes that went five or more air yards over the course of the day. You think about how many targets they had to running backs. I think they were a little bit worried about the pass rush, which made sense to try to get the ball out of his hands a little bit, throw a few more screens. There were a couple plays that it seemed like some of those bad habits are creeping back in where he was bailing from clean pockets or double clutching the ball a little bit. But there were no doubts that that offensive line did struggle. You know, when you have Julian Davenport in their playing left tackle, you can try to give him help.

But I think the Seahawks did a really smart job scheming up one-on-once. You know, the first sack that Rashim Green had, they did a really good job of overloading one side. So they had to slide the protection that way. He's one-on-one against Davenport. He roasts him. The other sack on Davenport's side, they had kind of a simulated look, simulated pressure. They had somebody walked up and dropped back. So you have Quentin-Blocking nobody.

Davenport's one-on-one with, I believe, Benton-Mio was on the, other one. So, I mean, and they have a lot of guys that we talked about that coming in. You were excited about Daryl Taylor. I thought that the interior of their defensive line played well. Like Brian Mone, number 90, he was just like a monstrous dude that I'd never heard of before was flashing a little bit. I thought that Taylor was really good. So I think that this team on defense for Seattle. Rashim Green was very good too. Yeah. I think that team has a chance to be pretty good on defense. And you have, again, your third string left tackle in there until Eric Fisher comes back. So once made a couple decent throws in the

The first touchdown throw to Paris, or excuse me, Zach Pasco was pretty good. He made a couple other solid on-time throws. But this is a guy that is coming into a new offense with new skill position players and didn't practice. He didn't have a training camp. He was hurt for most of it. And then he was out with COVID for another chunk of it.

I think it's going to take a month for him to really settle in. And it's not as though it looked like a disaster. You know, this is one fumble. They go for on fourth down. or they don't get they miss a fort down when he fumbles a snap there's like little things here and there so i don't think it was that bad i think that over the course of the season they're going to be okay and i i generally agree i just i think they're aiming for higher you know i think they're aiming they feel like they've really done a great job putting their team together and karsman wens has to

be like he has to move the needle for them you can't just manage it like is he going to be as good as philip rivers was last year in the next two years three years i i don't know you know they're playing the rams this week right they've got my Miami and Baltimore coming up with pretty good defensive teams and schemes. So I do think it could be a little choppy. I think they're going to be the fundamentals are okay. But I just didn't, they had 45% of the yards and 48% of their first downs in the fourth quarter when they were down by double figures, and it was just meaningless to me.

I just thought he didn't affect the game in any way. And I'm worried about him staying healthy. Even there's one play he dives ahead and he's down, but like the ball comes out. Yeah. He's down on the play. It's never going to show up as a negative play for Carson Wentz. But, like, I've seen him get hurt on that play. Judavian Clowny hit him in the playoff game.

I've seen him fumble the ball on that play. I just hope for them that they can get all of that out of him and that, like, he can not only play well, but stay healthy. Play well and stay well. Those are huge concerns that I still have for him now, next week, two months from now. My executive worry on him, when I did my exec's worries for each team, was that they're sitting there at six and six. with him. And he's not bad and he's not great. And that he plays two, three more games,

they give away a first round pick. And they're not sure how great they're going to get of Carson Wenz. And that seems like it might be what's going to happen. Yeah, it does seem like that to me. But now that said, I went to, you were at their camp, right? You went, you went to the Colts camp. Twice. I was at the Colts camp. They loved what they saw from Carson Wents in the first six days before he got hurt. So after a tough law, I'm amplifying the concerns that I already had. So if you're a Colts fan listening to this, just take that into account.

I couldn't be wrong on that. And the things they saw that made them want to get him and the things that they saw when he started out in camp could be what they get from him long term and they could know it and criticisms like I'm raising just could fall by the boards. So, you know, I think you trust in who they've got leading and running that team.

I just have my questions. All right. Last one here. We got so many good ones. I really hope you guys keep sending these in. Again, we're going to do this every single week. I'm going to try to get to as many of them as I can. I couldn't finish the post-week-1 mailbag, though, without addressing this.

Tim Polichick asks, simple question, which player looks the best with the new expanded uniform numbers? I was entranced by this yesterday. I was confused. I was excited. I was very happy that some guys had changed. Were there one or two guys that jumped out to you yesterday that had changed their number? numbers. Well, I was totally insane. This is the first time I've ever been similar to Tom Brady in that I was also like, what's going on here? This is confusing me. I wish I was at once happy

that these guys can do it. But like the one that just caught my attention was Carlos Dunlap wearing number eight. Okay. And I don't know. He's six foot six, two eighty eight five pounds. And he's wearing like, you know, Marcus Mariotas jersey or something, you know, and I'm just like, I'm just like this, that's just what struck me. It was one of the morning games and I live in Seattle area, so, you know, I've got all the games on, but I had, I had the sound on for that one early and I was just like, that stood out to me. That really stood out to me and I was like, okay. And you saw it, like, I was confused a couple times. You saw two players for a team. Who did Arizona have too. You know, the Cardinals

were having like, Buda Baker's coming up in six, right? Buda Baker's wearing three. Three. Byron Murphy was wearing seven. The Cardinals were a disaster yesterday. I could not keep track. So that was the other team because I was really interested in the Cardinals. And I just screwed that up. I just messed up Buda Baker's number because they got guys flying all over the place. So they had

Byron Murphy was number seven. Byron Murphy was number seven, Buda Baker was number three. Isaiah Simmons is number nine. Yep. And it was just confusing for me. Maybe that's really what this was for Tennessee. Maybe it was just those single digit jerseys.

They're like, shoot, that looks like the guy who plays for us on offense. I have a few that really stood out to me. Kyle Pitts is instantly one of the coolest looking. players in the league wearing number eight. Like the way that he looks wearing number eight is incredible. The other guy that really jumped out to me, though, Shaq Thompson, who changed his number like 10 seconds before the game started yesterday, was wearing number seven for the Panthers, and he was incredible.

He made like five splash plays yesterday. Wherein number seven, I really appreciated that. And then Matt Judon, just being an ass kicker wearing number nine, huge fan of that. I'm going to be confused for so long. Like when I was watching the Panthers yesterday and he was wearing seven, I was like, I have no idea who that is. I have no idea what's going on. But hopefully I will lock in within like the first month of the season. I actually had a couple where I tried to look it up and it wasn't updated yet.

Like if you go to Carolina, like anybody who knows if you've been following the league of teams or something, if you want depth charts for years, guys on teams, they go to our lads. They go to our lads.com for depth charts. Yes. Our lads. Right. So I'm on our lads right now for Carolina. What number you're looking for? Seven. Shag Thompson is seven. Seven. Now, he's 54 on here, buddy. Sorry. Yeah. You're screwed. The only one, all of them makes sense, right? So if you look at all of the number changes league-wide that people had before the year. For the most part, all of them are single digits.

Isaiah Simmons, Bootho Baker, Hollywood Brown, Emmanuel Sanders, we're number one. That one was confusing to me yesterday, too. Eddie Jackson wearing number four. That one just made me sad. Most of them are single digits. Darius Williams wearing 11 for the Rams, that's bullshit. Like, a cornerback should not be allowed to wear number 11. Like, it's not even that cool looking. He's like a smaller guy. That's the only one where I'm like, this, this is not okay. Like, somebody had to step in here. Yeah, number 11 exactly. Yeah, I immediately you're thinking of great number 11s, right? Larry Fitzgerald or whoever is wearing number 11. receivers. That's who I'm thinking of.

Tall receivers. You're right. Darius Williams. Yeah, Darius Williams is out there. He was out. Oh, yeah, right. Jordan Fuller was number four. So yeah, it's taking well to get used to, but it's okay, ultimately. The guys seem happy about it. Like, the littlest things can be big things to the guys to the players. So I think that's pretty cool. If they like it, I like it, I like it, even though it totally threw me off. And I was Googling people that I would normally know who they are. I, this is the one play.

place where me and Tom Brady have a lot of shared opinions. And me and Tom Brady are just old and no longer fun where we're looking around and being, this is just too confusing and I'm tired of it. But I'm getting used to it. I'm getting better. All right, Mike Sando, you have to go. And I appreciate you coming to do this and taking the time out to do this.

And remember to hear Sando on Saturdays on the athletic football show feed on the athletic app or by subscribing to the Athletic Audio Plus on Apple Podcasts. We will be doing this every single week with a different rotating co-host. I think I have next week's in mind, but I don't want to lock it in quite yet. I don't want to spoil it. But we'll be back doing this next week. Please keep sending in your questions. Please keep using the voicemail line.

Please keep using the email. I will keep tweeting that out over the next week or so. I really, really appreciate you guys sending them in. The reason that we're doing this, sincerely, is because every time we do a mailbag, you guys do great. And you make it worthwhile and worth the time because you put in the effort. And it makes things much easier on us to allow this show. to happen in a crowded week of other shows.

So thank you very much for taking the time to do that. Thank you to taking time to listen. We will be back tomorrow with Jordan Roderig and Mitchell Schwartz. Very excited about that show. So please come back and check that out. In the meantime, please rate and review the podcast on your podcast platform of choice. Please subscribe to The Athletic. Theathletic.com slash football show.

So much great stuff up there. We'll be back tomorrow. Talk to you guys soon. with the athletic football show.