The Athletic Football Show: A show about the NFL - What we're excited to watch in Week 1 + A new look for The Athletic Football Show

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

Football friends, we have made it back to the start of another NFL season. We hope you enjoy the crazy six-month ride with us. To kick off the season, Robert Mays, Derrik Klassen and Dave Helman highlight what they're excited to watch in Week 1 on this episode of The Athletic Football Show.Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/npVXkk3cSubscribe to The Athletic Football Show⁠Apple⁠⁠Spotify⁠⁠YouTube⁠Rundown (timestamps are approximate)5:43 We're in studio!9:57 Lamar vs. Josh13:52 Chiefs-Chargers21:50 The Ben Johnson Bears27:53 Can the Giants front create the weird Week 1 game?30:30 The sicko games on the noon slate36:31 Proof-of-concept matchups (HOU OL vs. LAR DL, Raiders offense vs. Patriots defense)38:30 The loaded afternoon slate43:22 The potential uh-oh games48:47 Aaron Rodgers vs. the Jets52:00 Michael Penix Jr. vs. Todd BowlesHost: Robert MaysCo-Hosts: Derrik Klassen and Dave HelmanExecutive Producer: Michael BellerProducer: Michael BellerFollow 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 Mays. Week 1 is officially here. You guys are probably listening to this on Thursday morning. We've got, I don't know, 12 hours until there's actual football games tonight. Could not be more excited. I've also got some other fun news to share about the athletic football show overall and what the 2025 season is going to look like.

I'm not going to spoil that. We kicked off the show with that. So that is going to come to you right off the top. But for our week one preview, we're doing something. similar to what we did last year. Because these teams are, there's so many unknowns about them coming into the year, we didn't really go super deep on any individual matchups and what each side of the ball is going to look like.

We just talked about the things that we're excited to watch in week one. We hit, I believe, on every single one of the games in some capacity during this conversation. The week one or the week two preview will look and feel a lot different than this one. But for today, we really just talked about what we're looking forward to watching on the first Thursday, Friday, Sunday, and Monday of the NFL season. So let's get to that conversation with me, Dave Hellman, and Derek Klausen right now. There is football tonight. Officially NFL football that matters tonight.

We're not talking about preseason games. This is not the Hall of Fame game where we pretend that it matters. And then it really, really doesn't, even though Kiantre Lambert Smith was great. There is real NFL football between the defending champions and the Dallas Cowboys tonight, Derek. And I'm very, very ready for it. I could not be more ready, man. I think we joked about when the preseason first started that like the first week of preseason does feel fun. It feels like football is back and we're kind of there.

And then weeks two and three of preseason are like, all right, enough of this shit, man. Like, let's actually play some real games. And so the fact that we finally get, the defending champions get to play some football again, I couldn't be more excited. Well, not only that, but since we downsize to three preseason games, the weight feels longer too. Like the preseason finale used to be like a week before the Thursday night kickoff. And now it's two. and this two weeks where you're getting no new information, like you're not getting really the camp reports anymore,

you're just bathing in what you already know over and over and over again. So yes, I am beyond ready for some new information. This week is going to look a little different than our normal in-season cadence is going to look, including this show. This is technically our week one preview. It's going to feel a lot different than our in-season previews are going to feel. We could easily talk about what the Eagles are going to do on third down against the Cowboys. I don't even know what the Cowboys offense is going to be. And so there are so many

curveballs that we get in week one. I think so many question marks about who these teams want to be, what these units are going to look like that we're going to do the same treatment, Derek, today that I think we did going into week one last season. We're just going to talk about like 10 things. We are excited to watch in week one. And hopefully a couple of those are going to hit on a couple of the answers that we want from week one. Yeah, this is actually a fun exercise to have done last year because I think some of them can be specific to week one, right? Like just a matchup that I want to see in week one and it might not matter for weeks two and beyond. And then some of them are like, is this going to be a little bit of a sneak

peek for what we get for the rest of the season? Which like, I remember last year, mine was like, I think Joe Alt and the Raiders started against Max Crosby and the, and against the Raiders. And I was like, that is cool for week one, but also holds weight for the rest of the season. So like, that's what kind of why I think this exercise is pretty fun. I'm pretty sure we'll have a lot of different buckets of things that you're used from here. I have an entire part of the Sun Bay Slate. Like I have four games that I want to talk about. Oh, I did that too. That's great. Okay. So we'll have plenty of stuff to hit on. I'm going to start this off today because there's probably a little bit of an elephant in the room for people who are watching this show right now.

The first thing I'm excited about with week one is that we're going to watch it here together at the studio that we now have for the athletic football show in Chicago. For those of you guys watching on YouTube, you're seeing a very different sort of presentation than you probably ever seen before. for those of you guys listening to the audio version of this, we encourage you guys to come check out the video version because in 2025, the athletic football show is going to be coming to you guys from this studio for every recap show, every preview show over the course of the year.

We're going to have a ton of different stuff coming from here. We have a little area in a different part of the office here where we're going to watch the games together. This is a very different feel from anything that we have ever done before. And I am incredibly excited to make it happen. I can't think of anything more fun than spending my Sundays and some Thursdays and some Mondays watching football with people who know and love the game passionately. And then bringing it to all of y'all. Like this whole thing is going to be so excited.

I feel like I timed my sign up pretty well here with all of this kicking off. Dave, obviously lives in Chicago. Derek, you're going to spend a huge chunk of the season here, which I'm already deeply appreciative of. But you like it here. So I feel that bad making you be here. Let's check in with him after mid-season and see how he feels about it. The cold might be a slightly different piece. Yeah.

When we get towards the playoffs and it starts to get a little bit below freezing, my California life of being used to more like 100 degrees in the Central Valley. I think that is going to be a little bit of a shock for me. But otherwise, I have loved my time here. And this is not a hostage situation, that's for sure. I'm going to lay out what the weeks are going to look like on the athletic football show. We're going to be posting this all over social media on Thursday. But if you guys have not,

seen any of that. Just a quick rundown. Mondays are going to be the same as they've always been. We're going to do our recap shows. They're going to feel very similar to the other recap shows that we've been. That's going to be the three of us. On Tuesday, we're going to bring something back that we had done in some form in previous years. And now that we're going back to five days a week, I really wanted to do this again because to me, it's a useful exercise. Me and you, Derek, are going to do something akin to the Monday hangover that we used to do on Tuesdays this year. So just three games that we did not get to on the Sunday recap. And then a few other things, other segments. that we're going to throw on to that Tuesday show as well.

Wednesday, you guys have heard the first couple episodes of this, Building the Beast with Dave Hellman and Dave Brugler. Our weekly draft show is back. Dave and Dane have done a fantastic job in those first couple episodes. You guys have worked together for a very long time. Very excited to have that as part of the slate this year. It was perfect for you to be able to kind of be the host of that show with Dane, considering you guys have such a good history together.

It's like stepping into a comfy pair of sneakers you hadn't had on in a while. It's like, yeah, this feels right. This feels good. Thursday is just going to be me and our rotating cast. You know, we've done this in the past. We have outside voices on. Those will be maybe some of the reported episodes that we want to do. Just a little sandbox for us to play around in.

And then on Fridays, we are going to have our weekly preview, which is, again, going to be the three of us. So Monday through Friday, all throughout the season, five days a week. We are back to that cadence. A few other small things to consider. Monday night football recaps every week on the YouTube channel this year. We're not going to have them in the feed, but they are going to be available on YouTube. sometimes it'll be two of us, sometimes it'll be three of us, we'll rotate that. And then Thursday night, same kind of deal.

So we'll have Monday night and Thursday night recaps in the YouTube channel for you guys every single week. And one more new wrinkle this year. We're launching a Discord for the show. We now have a little community that we're able to tap into being here in the office watching these games together. We want you guys to have a community, a space where you can gather, talk about football in the ways that fans of this show might want to talk about football.

I know I will be there a ton, especially. early in the season tonight when we're watching the Thursday night game. I will be in there. So please come. We highly encourage you guys to do it. We would love for that to be a place where it really does feel lively and just always moving. So very, very excited about that this year. That is the housekeeping stuff, but it is something I am very excited about with week one.

Derek, let's get to yours. What are you excited to watch from the week one slate of NFL games? I mean, I'm picking the easiest one on the board here. The two MVP candidates play each other. We should get that out of the way. We get it out of the way. Let's just get that out of the way. This is true story.

I did not remember that until I opened the schedule this morning. There are two things that if people knew the lack of knowledge I have about them, it would be deeply embarrassing for me. One, it's like who the punters are for every NFL team as someone who does this every day. My hit rate would be horrific. Two, I don't know what the schedule looks like at any moment until I open it that week. Oh, me neither. And so this morning when I was like, all right, what does the week one slate even look like

and seeing Ravens bills? I was like, oh shit, the Ravens and the bills play on Sunday night. That is, I empathize with that so much. I've had there's so many times where like on a Friday afternoon, I'm talking to my friends. And they're like, man, Sunday. Like, who's playing this week? I'm like, I don't remember. Like, I just recorded our preview and I could not tell you the games until like I just love

rolling up Sunday morning. Like, even though at that by that point I've done all the previews, it's just one of those things that in and out of the brain until the games pop up again. I assume all three of us had Ravens bills on our list of things we wanted to watch in week one. I technically left it off because I knew we would get there. Like there was no way we weren't. going to talk about this. So it was there in spirit.

We have the two essential co- MVPs from last season playing against each other. What are some of the maybe one or two lines down the bill, things that you're watching for in that game that you're particularly interested in? I mean, I do still think that there's a chance that when you look at the way that the Ravens defense is constructed, like with all of the stuff that the bills want to do

with getting heavier and getting into 12 personnel and stuff like that, I do think that like there are like the Ravens' front is good, but I do think it's a little thin. And a lot of their guys, like, even though they defended the run well last year, there's to me a chance that the bills can kind of run all over them, which, which that I'm definitely looking forward to. And then I really just want to see, like, I think we've talked about, even though this Buffalo team is really, really good, offensively, the skill group still feels like we want to see Dalton Kincaid take his step. We want to see Keon Coleman take his step. Getting to play this Baltimore secondary, like, right out of the gate

is a pretty good test to like, do those guys have it or not. And I'll do on the flip side. I'm curious what the Buffalo front and that group looks like against the Ravens team that's going to try to run the ball down their throats. And so I think there are a bunch of different things, even outside of the quarterbacks, Dave, where I'm going to have some answers at the end of this game that I just do not have right now. Bill's skill players is an easy one, but it makes sense. There's just, you know, we're signing up for another year of hoping about Dalton Kincaid. We're curious what year two, Keon Coleman looks like. Josh Palmer is one of those things where like on the surface, it's not a terribly exciting free agency.

pickup but when you're playing with Josh Allen, the intrigue is just that much higher and maybe I hate to be fantasy football guy, but I did a draft last night where I was like, Josh Palmer's still sitting here and we're like three rounds away from the end of this thing? Like that seems dumb. Why don't like, why aren't more people excited about this guy? And I just, part of my brain thinks like, yeah, even like a guy like Josh Palmer could be due for a breakout. And so we finally get to see what that looks like.

I'm excited the Ravens offensive line in year two, like running it back. and I had so many concerns about those guys last year. They looked well-founded for about three weeks, and then I was not worried about it by the end of September. I'm curious to see what that looks like in year two, like Roger Rosengarten. Like what does he look like as a year-two player? They were good last year.

Can they be dominant? Like what is the ceiling for the Ravens offensive line, I think is super interesting. Bringing up that game that the Ravens played against the Chiefs last year, I think is an important thing to do. Just a reminder, just a caution. This is an extended preseason. what we see on Sunday or Thursday or Monday

is not necessarily an indicator of what we're going to see over the course of the season. So I just have to remind myself of that as much as anybody. Like, just take a breath. This is not going to define what these seasons look like for these teams. But when it comes to deployment, when it comes to the structure of certain things,

I think that's what I'm really curious about when we go into week one. Let's get to the next one here, Dave. What do you got? What is your number one thing that you were excited to watch from the week one slate? So Josh and Lamar, the obvious headliner, but for me, after that, the second best game is Chiefs Chargers. And I am excited about every single aspect of it.

And it goes multiple layers. I know the Packers play the Lions. I get it. I'm super pumped for Chargers Chiefs. And I'll tell you why. And before I even get into the football of it all, I love this Friday night opener thing. And like, I am somebody that. that typically hates, the NFL just pushes and pushes and pushes.

Like they're trying to monopolize every day of the week. They're trying to make more money. Red Zone has commercials now, which I could do a whole podcast about how mad that makes me. I kind of love this Friday night opener thing. Like I'll give them the credit of saying, if they played every Friday, I would riot. I would be mad.

But we've waited seven months. Yeah, to pick two good teams to go play a Friday night game. And the Brazil part is interesting. I don't know if that really matters to those of us that'll be watching on TV. But it's just cool. Like you get another matchup. It's an excuse to stay in and like order a pizza and watch football. And then it's just a really intriguing game for me.

Like it's our first look at what we hope could be a more explosive chiefs team. I know Rishi Rice isn't available, but year two, Xavier Worthy, healthy Hollywood Brown, healthy Isaiah Pacheco. Travis Kelsey didn't spend his year at the Erez tour this year. So like there's so much reason for optimism that this could be a chief's team more akin to what we remember from a few years ago. Our first real look at Josh Simmons at left tackle. And then on the flip side, the Rishan Slater thing I've said several times, it hurts my enthusiasm for the Chargers a little bit. But it's still our first good look at Amari in Hampton as well as Joe Alt getting a big test at left tackle. There's just there's a lot to like about this matchup.

And having it be in a standalone window on Friday night. It's really exciting to me. I'm curious, I think as we talked about the Chargers over the last couple weeks or so, when we did the Winspool draft earlier this week, there wasn't a lot of collective enthusiasm for the Chargers. And I don't even think that's necessarily a statement on how good the Chargers are going to be. I think because they didn't do a lot this off season, it's just one of those things where it's kind of like,

I still have felt like they don't have firepower. And like they are a team that like, I know, I don't know how many of us even picked them to make the playoffs. I don't think any of us did. And if they do, I don't think it would be that surprising. They just feel like a team that if they're the seventh or sixth seed like, what can they accomplish? Well, I don't know if that's right or wrong. I want to know if we're corrects to feel that way. That's kind of where I see.

And so, and again, we may not have the exact answers to this in week one. But let's say we go into that game and Lab McConkey looks incredible. And we get like a splashy Keandre Lambert Smith play. And now Marion Hampton looks like he has some juice. The offensive line looks okay against the Chief's defensive line that while they added guys to it this offseason is still somewhat of an underwhelming unit with some question marks. Like, I'm open to the idea that the Chargers are more exciting than we've made them out to be recently.

But that's one of the things I'm looking forward to having a little bit more of an answer on. The other thing, too, is I have a high degree of confidence that it'll be a good game because it always is. Yeah. It's funny because even when the Chargers were bad. They always played the Chiefs pretty well. The Chiefs are seven and one against the Chargers over the last four years, and they've won seven in a row.

So on one hand, it is not a tightly contested series. but the average margin of victory in those games is five points. That's what I was going to ask you. I'm sure it's less than a touchdown. A lot of those have gone down like the final play. Only one of those eight games was decided by more than seven points. Like it is always a good game. And some of them are slugfest.

Some of them are shootouts. Like there's no like you don't know what you're going to get before we watch it. So one way or the other, I think it's going to be a really good game. And you're right not to overreact to week one, but hopefully we see a more explosive chief's offense. And hopefully the Chargers show us more than maybe we're giving I'm credit for.

And there are layers to what the Chargers are on defense that I'm curious about. Structurally, what are they doing? Are they trying more stuff than they did last year? Do we see a little bit more man coverage? Are they a little bit more aggressive? What does the cornerback groom even look like given the personnel that's on the field for the chief? So that's always what week one is to me.

It's like some of these questions we have about what do these teams even want to be? I have a lot of those about the Chargers and that may kind of reframe how I feel about them and like the enthusiasm that we feel for them. That's kind of where I'm at with this game is like the layering between like what are these two teams going to do differently? Because I think last year specifically when we got the Jesse Mentor defense and a Mahomes and Chiefs offense that was as dink and dunk as it's ever been, it was a lot of like,

this is the one defense that asks you to be perfect every play. But this is kind of the one offense that could do that pretty consistently. But one of my other things that had to be excited about was like, I've said it before. Mahomes is going to throw the deep ball this year. Hell or high water, he is going to throw the deep ball this year. And I think in week one, he's going to come out and start to try some stuff and see how that happens. This was a Chargers team that was generally decent at preventing the deep ball,

but there were a handful of games last year against like the Bucks or the Ravens or the Bengals where the really good and even one of the Chiefs games where the really good quarterbacks could get them. And I just want to see if they can change things up a little bit, be a little bit better there. And then to the other point, like, I've said it before on a different show too. When they brought five, it was like three deep three under fire zone so much of the time. And like that's cool for like a baby's first time calling defense. But this is like, like I really think mentor is good at the job and I would like to see him expand that a little bit more because I think just throwing simple fire zones at Patrick Mahomes is like it's a little bit too

easy of a test for a guy. I will say the Chief scored 36 combined points in their two games against the Chargers last year. There was some ugliness on offense for the Chiefs in both of those Chargers games and so even if it is somewhat of a simple test for Patrick Mahomes where you're really asking the quarterback to be correct all the time, the Chief's offense I think did have their share of issues against the Chargers last year. So I'll be curious to see how that shakes out.

All right, before we move on, we're going to take our first quick break. So we've hit two of those prime time games. I'll do the third one here. I'm excited to watch the Ben Johnson Bears. Like I. In person. Are you really? Like, how do you earnestly feel about it?

And so that's kind of why I wanted to talk about this. I know that I'm like Ero or most of the time when it comes to the Bears. And it's part of that is just me protecting myself a little bit. But I'm excited to watch how this goes. And I'm going to be there. I'm looking forward to that part of it. as much as anything. I've been to probably two Bears games.

My dad died in 2009. And so the last game I went to with him was in 2008. It was an incredible game. It was a Sunday night, Bears Eagles game that had a goal line stand in the goal line that we were sitting in. But after that, I didn't go to many in part, you know, for a lot of different reasons, but I think it's because I work on Sundays. Like I can't go to the games. And so that's why we wanted to go to this Monday night game. And, you know, our tickets growing up were in the North End zone. We went probably four or five times a year. Truly like my

favorite place to be in the world when I was a kid was there with my dad at those games. And I just haven't been that often as an adult because this is my job. And so to go there, to sit in the same seats, who knows how much longer they'll be in Chicago. And like, I do love what Soldrefield is. Like, I love where it's situated, like the walk from the car, like through museum campus to the game. Like, to me, there's always been something magical about that. I'll miss that when it's gone.

My wife has never been to a game before. So, like, there are just so many elements of this where I'm very, very excited for, the football fan aspect of this. And then that's before you even get to this very, very good offensive coordinator who is now the play caller for this team. And I've said this a bunch of different times over the course of the offseason.

They don't know if this is going to work. I don't know. But I know that this is the right choice. I know that trying to tap into this version of a coaching staff, this sort of identity where we're going to try to get R. McVeigh or Shanahan or all these other guys who've been able to do this

in the Lefleur, O'Connell. Look in the division. how many examples there are. This has worked for a lot of teams. The Bears have never even tried to do this. Matt Nagy was not the primary play caller for the Chiefs before he was hired to be the Bears head coach. And so this is the path that I would have supported.

And now we get to find out, not in week one, but over the first half of this season, was this right? Is this going to work even if the process was sounder than any head coaching process they followed in a very long time? Is the vast majority of your fear based around the fact that if it doesn't work, there's nowhere else to look. Like that what else is there? Yes.

Like, if this doesn't work, I don't know what I'm going to do. Like, the guy who is supposed to be a surefire quarterback prospect, a guy who was among the three or four best play callers in the league for multiple years, produced elite offenses without like a truly top tier league quarterback. The hit rate on these guys is very, very high. And we've just never, as a franchise, the bears have never chased one of them. And I'm curious to see how this ultimately shakes out. I'm not trying to, well, I can't rub salt in the wound because we don't even know what's going to happen yet.

But like it's funny. There are lasting wounds, though. There's plenty of them to find. I'm just thinking about the fact that like Josh Allen was pick eight from Wyoming and didn't have good college tape. And Lamar Jackson fell to the end of the first round. That's a whole other podcast, by the way. Sure. Of course.

Patrick Mahomes was picked 10. And at the time, not everybody was on board that that was a smart. thing to do. And all and like, and it clearly worked for all of those teams. And the bears get the number one pick that you're not supposed to have to think about and the head coach that looks as close to a slam dunk as you could reasonably expect. And if it doesn't work, that sucks, man. Like you find success in so many unorthodox ways in this league and like the, the path that's supposed to work. That's tough. Have you already crafted what is like worst case scenario that you would still be okay with where you can be like, this is a,

fine experience, but it, you know. I think if the offense looks uneven against a Brian Flores defense, but you can see the vision, you can see the tangible improvement. Like it's not 10 unblocked pressures? Yeah. And I think that you see the improvement in the process in the pocket and just you feel like, all right, I understand what he's trying to do. He's going to the right places.

He's playing in time enough. There are going to be some moments on Monday playing against that sort of defense where it's going to be frustrating. It's game one of a new system. but I think as long as you come out of there feeling like, all right, they are on solid enough ground on this side of the ball that over the course of the year, I have faith in this working.

To me, that's a win. I don't think they have to win this game. I don't think the offense has to look great. I think you need to have enough confidence and enough hope coming out of it that you think for 17 games, I have some belief in where this is going to go. I'm jealous of the experience. And like the result will impact that for sure.

But yeah, like the picture you painted of like walking in and Soldier Field can be kind of a pain to get to, but once you're there, it is elite. Like, on the lakefront in September for a game like that, like that's about as good as watching football can get. I don't have to do it very often, and so I've romanticized it, but like we went to a concert at Northern Ireland in Chicago,

which is right next to Soldier Fields near museum campus, like two weeks ago. My wife and I walked from our parking spot on Michigan Avenue. I love it. Like, there's something about it to me that I've always appreciated and getting a chance to do it again. I'm very much looking forward to it. All right, Derek, let's get to your next one.

What are you excited to watch from this year's week one slate? Mine is, this is another one that is like, as an individual matchup, I'm very excited to see. And then also, like, this might help shape the way that the season is going to go. What New York's front might be able to do in terms of like the, oh, no, week one game for, like, type of upset against Washington? I think it's really, really interesting because I think, I mean, who is going to be the oh, no, week one game is also like a good thing to talk about. Exactly.

And like, I've got another candidate for that, but this is one of them is like New York. I mean, they are like in terms of Super Raw. It's like the third lowest that you can get. So this is obviously not a team that people think is going to be that exciting. And even if you wanted to be excited about New York, a lot of that is like when Jackson Dart plays for a lot of people. And he's obviously not going to play week one. So I think week one is just about like how good does Abdul Carter look? How good does Brian Burns look?

Kay Bon Thibito getting bumped down. Does that help him? Obviously, Dexter Lawrence, going against a Washington offensive line that like the tackles are clearly better now. the interior, especially without Sam Cosmi, is still... I believe it's Nick Allegretti who was practicing next to Conorley, right, tackle today when I was watching some of those clips on Wednesday. And that's not great. Obviously, because of Dexter Lawrence specifically,

but they've added a bunch of other interior players as depth there. Carter's going to bump inside. Carter's going to do it. Exactly. Like, they just have so many guys that these guards are going to get tested. And Daniels is a very good quarterback. He is still a very high pressure to sack rate quarterback. And so he's going to have plays where he gets outside of the pocket.

but like, is this just like a weird week one game where he just takes five sacks? And this is the weird like loss that we look back on in week eight and be like, man, how did that happen? The only thing I will say about this, we said this on the AFS NFC East preview. And somebody pointed this out. It was actually a really good thing to point out. If you look at Jane Daniels has sacked a lot last year. If you look at how he was sacked, it's a lot of sacks for like zero yards or negative one yards. So if you look at the collect, the amount of times he was sacked and like the collective EPA lost on sacks last year.

year. There is no bigger gap for any player than for Jaden Daniels because a lot of his sacks, quote unquote, are him just ducking out of bounds of the line of scrimmage, which drives the offensive line coach insane. But it still does not detract a lot of value from your offense or him losing like a yard because he's trying to scramble.

So just I thought that was an interesting context where like the sack numbers for him are a little bit heightened compared to the actual impact they're having on Washington's offense. He doesn't take the Will Levis eight yard back all the time. A few rules. Derek, you had a great

line on a show we did over the summer talking about Madden sacks or like you can't play Madden's style. Yeah. Jaden Daniels can play Madden's style or at least get away. Because he's 04 Michael Vitt. Yeah. You can get away with it way more often than your average quarterback. That's a game where like I do think there's a ton of intrigue in week one because of the front because of Washington's offense. Just looking at some of the other games on this noon slate, is there a worse collective vibes game from the week one slate. I know. Dolphins is not. Dolphins. Absolutely not. No. There is not. I did not know that game was happening. until like 10 seconds ago.

And that is a tough week one game. Derek and I were ranting about this yesterday where I'm sorry if you're a Dolphins or Colts fan and you're listening to this. But like from the macro perspective, there's almost nothing that could happen in that game that would like register with me beyond like if I mean even if the dolphins like looked like the 22 dolphins and they put up 45 points, I'd be like, yeah, well, they can do that. So what? That's what they do.

I think it's actually on the flip side. I think that if either of those teams look just awful, especially on offense, you can potentially take it as a signal like, all right, is that what's happening here? Are we, that's fair? Are we starting to slow descent into garbage over the course of the season with these teams? The, like, that is the collective just vibes seller for week one. There is no doubt in my mind.

And there's a Raiders Patriots game. Raiders Patriots is exciting. That's great. That just tells you all you need to know about the Dolphins Colts game is that there is no worse vibes game on the schedule. And the Cardinals play, the Saints and the Raiders play the Patriots, then Dolphins Colts. The combined over under for like win totals for Dolphins Colts versus Raiders Patriots

is probably about the same, but I am like a thousand times more excited to watch Raiders Patriots. I almost consider Raiders Patriots like must see TV, which is insane. But there's just so much interesting about those two teams. Looking at the Noon Slate, the other game that I'm sure most normal human beings are just not even going to think about as they're like building their multi-view and is going to be one of the first games I throw in there on one of those TVs outside is Panthers Jags. So I'm pumped about Panthers Jags. The number two item on my list of things I'm most.

Number two item. I wrote in my notes, Panthers at Jags is the ultimate reward for stupid optimistic sickos like us. I'm so excited for that game. It's really so disappointing when one of them just looks awful. It'll probably not live up to what I have it build as in my head. But like from a narrative perspective as well as a football perspective, there's just a lot going on here.

Yeah, I mean, like, they're essentially doing the same thing in different conferences, like turbulent, shitty couple of years for both of these teams. It's felt a little more stable in Carolina, which is an incredible thing to say. But that is like it's, they're still down near the bottom of the NFL when you just talk about all the shit that's gone on with them over the last two or three years. Same thing with the Jags. It feels like a lifetime ago, by the way, that the Jags did the whole Trent Balke thing where they did a search and then they were going to land on the guy.

And then they kicked Trent Balky out of there and went after Liam Cohen. And Liam Cohen was going to stay with the bucks. And then he didn't stay with the bucks. Like that all happened this year. I can't believe that. Part of me is that I had Liam Cohen as the Jacks head coach on like Halloween last year. I was just like, this seems right. Like you think about what he looks like, what Trevor needs.

Like this is a fit that makes sense. And then so I kind of had just come to terms that was going to happen. No inside information. It's like this just this marriage actually computes. And then it was going to happen and then it didn't happen. And so I think I've just kind of had it written stone that that was going to be the 20, 25 Jags for a very long time. I just love the synergy here.

Two mid-90s expansions teams. That's also part of it. Anytime these two teams play against each other, there's like a little bit of, there's a warmth to it. Named after cats. They both have number one overall picket quarterback who hasn't lived up to the hype. They both were like the Todd Bulls, Buccaneers will save us.

Like they both hired Todd Bowles as offensive coordinator. They're like, oh, my God, they're right. The parallels here are crazy. Yeah. And then on top of that, they both have reason to be excited that this year could be different. Bryce Young gets Tederoa McMillan. And Bryce Young looked good at this in the second half last year, despite what Derek is going to try to tell you. They revamped the defense.

You know what? We're all excited about week one. I'll let it go for now. Save the negativity. You don't get to just escape this. When Bryce y'all looks great on Sunday. Oh, no. I'm not hiding from the take.

I'm saying I'll let you guys have your fun for now. When we get to revisit this in like week five, I don't want to hear it if they're struggling in the third quarter. All right. Like I said, week one, we can, I'll let everyone have fun.

I think it's a good measuring stick for the Jags offense, too, because even if Carolina's defense has better players on it because they spent a small fortune this off season, it's still probably not going to be a good unit. And so I'm just curious what the Liam Cohen

Tremor Lawrence offense looks like in week one. And we did all of this, and we haven't said Travis Hunter yet. Yeah. And so he's officially listed as a starting receiver and a second string corner on the depth chart. So I would guess we'll see a lot more of him on offense than defense,

but who the hell knows what they have planned or how they might try to get him out on the field in different packages and things like that. So outside of the major primetime games, I'm probably the most excited about this game, which I hate myself for feeling that way. But it's true. Do you know there was a time where the Jags and the Panthers were not a part of the NFL? I did know that actually. I have, even though it was, you know, before my time, I have some degree of NFL history in me. So there was, I mean, they came to league in 95, correct? I believe so. 95. And I was 8 years old. Jags and Panthers swag at that point was like

It was hot You had to have it The teal and the electric blue Like you had to have it I mean the panthers The panthers scheme is like insane Yeah the panth All the Panthers colors like at that moment

Like you had to make sure that you had at least one piece of Pentheus memorabilia even if you didn't give a shit about the Panthers As like an eight year old kid in 1995 Not only that am I crazy or Yeah they both made the Conference Championship games like Either their first or second season in the league Like just immediate success out the gate

don't ignore the other 30 years of history. But yeah. Derek, what's your next one? What are you excited to watch in week one this year? I actually had another one that was like a little bit similar to what we're talking about or what you were just talking about with like, okay, the Jaguars offense should be able to handle the Panthers defense. And I kind of had like a little list of just like proof of.

I want to be clear about this. They better. Yeah, they better. It is not they should. It's they better. That's a subtle but important detail. I think that is true. And for some of these other ones I had like a little bit of like a just proof

concept matchups that are just like, like unit versus unit. So one I already talked about a little bit, the New York defensive line versus Washington offensive line. I think that's one of them. Las Vegas is offense versus the Patriots defense, specifically because I think it's a weird matchup in that when I imagine what the Patriots defense should be good at,

it's like, well, you have Christian Gonzalez, you have Carlton Davis. You're just going to play man coverage with people. He's going to play man coverage on Brock Bowers in that situation. Well, and that's the thing. It's like the Raiders offense is not living through their, like their receivers. So if you man up on any of their receivers,

they don't care. So it's like, yeah, are we going to get a lot of Carlton Davis on Brock Bowers? Or like, what does the run game look like versus a little bit of a revamped and hopefully healthier New England front? So, like, I think that one's a really good one. The other two that I think are absolutely critical for how these team seasons are going to go. Houston's offensive line versus the Rams defensive line. That is like, they don't even have to look good.

It just has to kind of like what you were talking about earlier with the Bears, proof of concept. Like, do not be embarrassing. Do not let Chris Shula just throw a million blitzes at you. And then similarly, like the Miami. amy offensive line. This Colts defensive line is good enough to beat you up if you don't look good. And so those two offensive lines, they need to show some signs of life,

like pretty much right away. All right. So let's talk about the Texans Rams game. The entire afternoon slate is one of the things that I'm looking forward to watching. Like if you look at the afternoon slate of games, the ones slated to kick off, now we watch football in the central time zone now. So there are three o'clock games.

Yes. So you guys want to start getting used to that. That I'm still going to back. These are the three o'clock games. When I wake up. on Sunday morning and have like four hours to kill before games start. Oh, I'm going to be miserable. It's beautiful. It's the best time of the year to be out.

Get out. Go for a walk. There's plenty of stuff to do. Get some coffee. Just maintain your sanity. But looking at those four games at three o'clock, here are the fourth three o'clock and three 25 games in the slate this week this year or this week in week one. 49er Seahawks, Titans, Broncos, Lions Packers, and Texans Rams.

Those are seven playoff teams each. for you and I, seven of those eight teams because we both pick the Titans to be a wildcard team. So the worst game on that slate for most sane people is Titans Broncos, which is a game I am fascinated to watch. I think that's an uh-oh game. I really think that might be an uh-oh game.

You get the number one pick in the draft playing against a lot of people's consensus best defense in the NFL coming into the season and a Titans team that I'm really curious about. The only team that I did not pick to make the playoffs of those eight teams is the Seattle Seahawks, who I think are one of the most interesting teams

in the NFL period. We get our first look at the Seattle offensive experiment, going against the Niners team with all those moving pieces on defense, and then the Seahawks defense, which I think can be excellent. Now you get it tested in week one against the

Niners offense that not at full strength, but Joanne Jennings is hopefully going to play. You still have to deal with Pierceall, McCaffrey, George Kittle. Like, this is still a Niners offense that we all believe is going to be pretty good. And so the measuring sticks on so many different fronts in those four games.

Exactly what you talked about. We got our first glimpse at the Nick Haley offense. Stafford's healthy against a Texan's defense that has a chance to be the best in the league. And we haven't even talked about Lions Packers, which might be the best game on the entire slate. I do feel guilty that we've said so little about Lions Packers. I think it's just because we know what it is. We know how good it is.

There's not as much like we know how good it is. No, there's plenty of intrigue, but like we just, we know how good it is and we know that we expect both of those teams to be really good. And so don't get me wrong. I am elated to watch that game. But there's nothing that could happen there that would drastically influence my opinion of either of those teams. That's fair.

I think it's just for me, there are some things I'm curious about. Of course. What does the John Morton offense look like? What does the Calvin Shepherd defense look like? What does Michael Parsons look like on the Packers defense? Like that entire afternoon slate, I'm almost annoyed. Yes. And how much good stuff there is because it's going to be impossible to properly focus on like one

or two of those games in real time. Sometimes I get pissed at the league for putting like 10 games at noon and then there's two games on in the late afternoon. And it's like, well, one of these is a dud. Surely we could have put some more games on in the late afternoon. But looking at this, I'm like, how do you expect me to keep up with all this shit? Like it's one thing to balance eight games at noon. But when it's this many heavy hitters, like there's no, there's no Colts Titans here for me to sort of phase out. I got to keep an eye on everything going on here.

Well, guess what? We're going to have four televisions on that wall outside. And so one of them will be tuned to every single one of these games. So all of them will be on at the same time. I'm very much looking forward to that sort of set up for all of us as the season goes on here. All right. Before we move on, we're going to take one more quick break. I think you're next, Dave.

I don't know how many more that you have. What are you excited to watch in week one? Let's just keep this conversation going because one of the things that I'm excited about is you've been calling them the uh-oh games. Bellar called them the the drop the bloodbath game for Survivor's Bloodbath games Yeah for Survivor I just think there are

By my count there are like five games In week one That have the potential To go drastically different From like the established order of things So right out of the top of my head Tampa Bay is a road favorite in Atlanta Which like that makes sense

But those games are always crazy Not only are they always crazy, but we don't know what Michael Pinnock's is. No. Like, I would expect, I would guess Tampa Bay wins that game, but if Michael Pinnock's is the man, maybe not. Cincinnati, we should never take Cincinnati in week one for granted ever after the last few years. If the Bengals lose to the Browns. They did it a couple years ago.

I don't know what I'm going to do. The Bengals got smashed by Cleveland in week one like two years ago. I remember. They've already done this. It was in the rain. It was in the rain, but that was also, we had no idea with the Brown's defense. was going to be that year. And that was that moment

where we were just like, holy shit. I think Burrow was like not healthy like during that early part of the season, which has happened a couple times for him. Like, but like that's kind of the thing. In the way that I've said that like,

I won't ever count out Derek Henry until he's not playing. I will never count on the Bengals on September until they proved to me otherwise. Like I'm just over it. If they can't play well against this version of the Browns in week one this year, then I.

So there's more though. So we already talked about Washington. Washington's getting six and a half points against New York, which in a division, Vision game is calling them New York. I don't know if I've ever referred to the Giants as New York in my 40 years on this planet. The New York football Giants. Yeah. So there's the Giants.

Against New York is just, I've never done ever seen. They're getting six and a half points. I like saying cities. I don't know. They didn't beat the Giants by six points in either game last year. It's easy. Like, you see the 12 wins and you know they got to the NFC title game. They were in dog fights in both of those.

Like the second one. The second one, they had like a double digit lead in the fourth quarter and the Giants tried to rally. but the first one, that was the one where I don't think the Giants even scored a touchdown. It was 21 to 18 and the Giants just kicked like six fuel goals. Denver is a huge favorite against Tennessee. Rightfully so, but Cam Ward is the ultimate equalizer there. And San Francisco is a road favorite too, which I would say they should be, but

crazier things have happened than the Seahawks rising up with a, you know, a new quarterback and early in Mike McDonald's career. And so I'm just interested, of course, we don't want to overreact to week one. And teams slip up in week one and wind up being just fine all the time. Like I remember a few years ago. You remember when the Packers played the Saints in Jacksonville and the Saints just smushed them? Didn't James throw for like six touchdowns that day or something stupid like that? That was the other thing.

It was James Winston Saints. That's how weird that season was. So that year the Packers rebounded to win 13 games. Who cares? Like you just bad day to start the season. But I can't stop thinking about 2022 Seattle, Denver, the Gino Smith, they wrote me off. I didn't write back game. And last year, Cincinnati, New England, sometimes this shit matters.

Like sometimes Seattle wins a game on Monday night football. And it's the first week of them making the playoffs with Gino Smith. That was also the Nate Hackett clock management. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That whole game game. That was one of those. When that game happened, you were like, oh, that's how this season's going to go.

That's exactly how that season went, by the way. It was such an omen for the entire Russ era in Denver. Same thing with New England beating Cincinnati last year. Like it's a fluky result, but it's the reason Cincinnati didn't make the playoffs. So yes, you don't want to overreact to week one, but a few of these things could wind up mattering a lot. And particularly in the case of like Cam Ward and Michael Pinnock Jr. I'll even throw in Seattle too. And honestly, even the Bears.

The Bears are a home underdog, which is interesting to me, considering J.J. McCarthy has not played in the NFL yet. All of these things have a chance to be major statements for teams that are trying to turn over a new leaf in a new regime, whether it's, you know, here in Chicago, whether it's, again, with a number one overall picket quarterback. So I'm not going to overreact to week one, but there's a lot of potential for, like, statement upsets this weekend. This is always a process in the first couple weeks of the season, but like what is real and what is not? Like, which, oh, shit moment from Sunday actually matters, which, oh, shit moment from Sunday doesn't actually matter. that's going to be something that it's going to take us a while to figure out. And I'm sure we'll say some stupid shit about both of them in the process. Yeah, is the Saints scoring 75 points in the first two weeks real?

Like that type of thing? If the Saints score 35 against the Cardinals on Sunday, we were wrong about a lot. We were wrong about the Cardinals. I didn't even mention the Cardinals being touchdown road favorites in New Orleans because I don't think that much of the Saints. But holy shit, we would definitely be talking about that if New Orleans finds a way to win that game. And that's one of the only two games we have not talked. about yet in some capacity. I'm really excited to see what the Cardinals defense looks like.

And I think that they're probably going to handle the Saints offense no matter what their season long quality is. But that defense with all those new pieces, what do the Cardinals do? How do they want to play? You know, what is just schematically, what do the Cardinals look like on that side of the ball? I'm very curious about. And the only other game we haven't talked about in any capacity involves Aaron Rogers playing against the Jets, which is crazy that we waited that long. Yeah. I mean, like, even if maybe that's not quite as interesting for the things we're looking for in week one, plenty to care about when it comes to that game. That's the thing for me. I don't really care so much about that part of it. I care about like these are of a lot of the young offensive lines in the league. Like these are the two that we have like, if they goes right, like this kind of swings their season. And like they're both playing against two really good fronts on either side. Like I think that part of it is pretty interesting.

Tough data point earlier today though. I mean, for like a huge portion of the season, that's brutal for a job. team where he was your most proven young offensive lineman at this point. I used to think I used to have this thing where I was like if you can just get to the start of the season and get into in season practice mode because in season practices are different than even training camp practices. Like you're keeping an eye on your players and trying to stay fresh. You're not going that hard. I used to think that if you got to the regular season, you weren't going to lose anybody during

practice. And that is like so out the window. I don't want to say it happens all the time, but it happens reliably now where even once you get into in-season practice, guys are going down. And I don't know if that's a reality of the practice rules of the NFL, where you're just more susceptible to that type of stuff, or it's just a generational run of bad luck.

But I bet if I went back over every year over the last four or five years, you can find an example of a team losing somebody really important during practice. And I hate that. The only other one that we didn't touch on at all this week was Jill and Coker, you know, missing now. several weeks with the quad injury he suffered in practice, which becomes even worse after trading Adam Thielen. Which, I mean, it's great from the Vikings perspective and it's a homecoming and he fills a need,

but did the Panthers need to do it other than like wanting to make Adam Thielan happy, I guess? I think you got a decent return when it comes to the draft capital. You save a little bit of money and I think they thought Jalen Coker was like ready for a bigger role. And he's only going to be out for hopefully for like four to six weeks. So hopefully they'll be okay and be able to sustain this. But I think that's a situation where it's found at draft capital and we wanted to give this guy more opportunities of anyway. So you leave yourself a little bit exposed for a situation exactly like this, but I don't

mind the Panthers doing that. I think it makes sense on multiple different levels. All right. Anything else? We've mentioned every game in some capacity. Anything else from the week one slate that you guys are excited to watch that we did not already hit. I do have one more.

We talked about Falcons Bucks a little bit, but I do think that like the, the, Todd Bowles versus young quarterback thing specifically is very interesting to me. I think that would be true of any young quarterback. I mean, we even saw last year, granted, it was Jane Daniels's first start, but it was one of the worst games that he played last year where he was, it was a lot of like, they were throwing a lot of screens, he was not very comfortable in the pocket. He was running around a lot. And again, part of that first rookie game.

But this is also one of, you know, Michael Pennix has not played that many games. And so I think him having to face Todd Bowles is interesting in a vacuum, but also Pennix last year versus the Blitz, kind of not impressive numbers. He didn't take any sacks, which like we've talked about. That is what he does. He is very, very good at getting the ball out and not taking sacks. However, when the ball came out on plays against five rushers last year, he only completed 54.3% of his passes.

The list of guys who completed fewer than that against the blitz, Joe Flacco, Tyler Huntley, Spencer Rattler, Mason Rudolph, Jacoby Brissette, Anthony Richardson, and DTR. It's a very small sample. How many dropbacks are there against the Blitz for Michael. It was like 30-something. It was a good amount. I mean, he played like they played the Giants. He played Dan Quinn.

Like he played the Panthers. Like it was, it's not, it's obviously not nearly as big of a sample as all these guys. But like I do have concerns about what he can do. Even coming into the league, what he can do against the blitz if he's not perfect in terms of replacing the ball with the blitz because he's not that good of an athlete and he's not that good of a

creator. And so if he can't get a little bit more perfect in that sense, what does it look like? and this is, Todd Bulls is going to do some stuff, man. Building on that, the Falcons are down their top two options at right tackle. That's the other thing. And that's where Hassan Redick likes to line up. So, I mean, we're not going to know the answer to how much gas Hassan Redick has in the tank off of this game. But I can't say I'd be surprised if he's somebody we're talking about getting to play against, you know, a third option.

If he looks bad, you're right, you're right. But I don't expect that to happen for some reason. that's all we got to think that is every single game in some capacity that we have talked about heading into week one this will be in your guys's feeds on thursday we are going to drop the thursday night football recap that we're going to do into the feed on friday that is not going to be a normal thing because the previews are going to run on friday typically but because this is going into week one we have a thursday night kickoff game we wanted to have the preview coming to your guys's way on thursday night football recap in your podcast feeds after that, starting next week, including Sunday night, we will be in our regular season cadence. Like we've done for the past several years, those Sunday night recaps will be live on YouTube. Please come check those out.

The YouTube channel link is in the description. The link to the Discord is going to be in the description of this episode. So please sign up for that. We will be in there during the Thursday night kickoff game tonight. We would love if you guys would come hang out with us. And then we will be here on Sunday. Sunday night, 10.30 p.m. Central time. I was going to say same place, same time. Very different place. We've ever done it before, but at the exact same time that we have done it before.

So please come back and hang out for that. And then we will be getting rolling with our in season schedule. So very much looking forward to that, very much looking forward to this season here with you guys. For now, that's all we got. Appreciate you guys listening. Talk to you very soon.