The Herd with Colin Cowherd - Colin Cowherd Podcast - Prime Cuts: Von Miller, Packers Insider Tyler Dunne, Brady Return Game Pick

Episode Date: October 2, 2021

The best of this week's Colin Cowherd Podcast! First, Colin's top takes, including his reaction to the Rams dominant performance against Brady and the Bucs, why Tom Brady is thriving in his post-Belichick divorce life, and his surprise team of the young NFL season (2:00).Then, Super Bowl MVP and 8-time Pro Bowler Von Miller explains why rookie corner Patrick Surtain II is unlike any other rookie he's ever seen, reveals how the "No Fly Zone" defense knew they would dominate Cam Newton and the Panthers in Super Bowl 50, and the surprising answer to which offensive lineman has given him the most problems (20:00). Next, Packers Insider Tyler Dunne weighs in on this Green Bay team's surprising strength, and their biggest weakness (30:00). And finally, Action Network CCO Chad Millman tells Colin the sharp play in Brady's hyped return to face Belichick and the Pats in Foxboro on Sunday Night (37:00).Make sure you follow Colin and The Volume on Twitter for the latest content and updates and check out FanDuel for the best wagering and daily fantasy action! Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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More ways to win. This is Prime Cuts, the best of the column coward podcast. Man, did we have another great week? Super Bowl MVP eight-time Pro Bowl or Vaughn Miller with the Broncos told me about the most polished rookie he's ever seen. My Packer go-to guy, Tyler Dunn. We discuss what's good and not so good about this year's Green Bay team. And then my buddy, Chad Millman, we have our best bets, NFL week four, good podcast.

First, my top takes of the week. Number one, the Rams, pretty much dominating Tom Brady and the Buccaneers. There are games throughout the course of a season, which are really difficult games to win. For instance, we always know that road teams on Thursday night football, that's a tough spot. You know, if a team was opening a stadium, you know, the Bears playing the, the Rams at SoFi, first time with fans. That's a tough spot. I thought Tampa Bay really just didn't bring the energy the Rams did. That game felt so big in Los Angeles, Sean McVe, Matt Stafford facing the Super Bowl champions. And that is not a knock on the Buccaneers,

Bruce Ariens, and Tom Brady. But, you know, the NFL, there are upsets. There are certain games like the Bills and the Steelers, week one. You just have to pretend it never happened. If they met again, the bills would win by three touchdowns. Last year, the Jags beat the Colts in week one. The Jags never won another game. In September, crazy shit happens. Teams aren't ready. They go into Florida, the sun, and they just evaporate. I thought the Buccaneers just stepped into a Hornets Nest. SoFi Stadium. I had several friends there. It was deafening. And it felt like a Super Bowl. And it just, to me, it felt so much more important to the Rams than it did to the Bucks. And I don't think Tampa ever matched the urgency I felt from the Rams.

You know, the Rams are a team. And I think they match up with Tampa. And not everybody does. But they have a superstar corner in Jalen Ramsey. And you can put him on Mike Evans and basically take Mike Evans out of a game. That's a big deal when you face Tampa. You've got to have a star receiver. They also create a pass rush, an interior pass rush with Aaron Donald.

Tom Brady has always struggled with an interior pass rush. They're also a team that will test your corners. Matt Stafford loves to go over the top, and that's arguably the weakness of the Buccaneers. So I think the Rams have a lot of components that are going to challenge the Buccaneers if they met again. An elite show-stopping corner to take out Mike Evans mostly. the ability to score quickly on Tampa's corners, the weakness I think of their team, and an interior pressure component in Aaron Donald, which can frustrate Tom Brady. But I thought that game was all about intensity and urgency.

And I find myself fascinated watching McVeigh and Matt Stafford's relationship with McVe running down the sidelines. I don't know if I'm more interested in the Rams or that relationship. At some point, I think Jared Goff's got to be watching this somewhere at his home in Michigan and thinking, wow, they don't miss me at all. You know, and it's interesting, so much about this league is health. And an interesting player for the Rams is Deshawn Jackson. And I was talking to Les Sneed during the offseason about this.

And he felt that the Rams with Goff were too reliant on 11 and 12 play drives. And that you've got to be able to do what the chiefs can do, which is score quickly. You can't ask your offense to be perfect. I mean, you could have an excellent offensive line, but one holding calls. blows up a drive or one mistake by a right tackle blows up a drive. And so the ability with Deshaun Jackson to go over the top and get big chunks of yards quickly, it's a home run hitter in baseball, that you sometimes not every inning can be about two doubles, three singles.

Sometimes you need a three-run jack. And I think Deshaun Jackson, his health is always a concern, but you can see the speed and how he takes the top off. He's a wild card. If he is healthy in the playoffs, you do not want to. face the Rams at Sofi with Deshawn Jackson. You do not want to face that team. This week, the talk inevitably is about Belichick and Brady colliding in Foxborough on Sunday night, Buck's Patriots matchup. Because we all love drama, we love tabloid headlines. And this story has generated lots of them.

Belichick treated Brady like a child. The feud ruined a dynasty. None of course are true. But I think for the sake of drama, many people are ignoring the basic human element at the heart of this story. There was a study I saw about a year ago. It was conducted by the co-author of Freakonomics, Stephen Levitt. He's an economist at the University of Chicago. And he asked about 20,000 people to make a decision in their life on a dilemma they were currently facing. And the decision had to be made solely based on the results of a coin toss. And the dilemma was, should I start my own business, should I propose, should I grow a beard? And if the coin landed on heads, then they had to make the subsequent change, tails, and they didn't.

So what were the results? When the researchers followed up six months later, they found that for the important decisions like quitting a job or ending a relationship, Brady, people who were told to make a change were more sad. satisfied and happier and productive than those who maintained the status quo. And I think that's important to note with Brady. It's very easy to just say, well, he inherited better players. But he isn't just revitalized because he left Belichick. It's because he made a massive change in his life that had far-reaching benefits in his approach to everything.

And I say this because I've done it three times myself. And there is a productivity jump. and an inertia and an energy and spark that is created from the fear of a new job, from the apprehension, the anxiety of a new environment and a new job. I've done this three times. I'm a better broadcaster today than five years ago. Why? Because there's a certain energy that is created by changing environments, changing coasts,

changing people. Not every single element of my current job is better than my former job. But what happens when you push yourself into a new space is the enemy of great is content. And most people listening to this podcast, men or women, are underachieving at some point in your life. And you're underachieving, not because you don't have talent, is because you're content. You're not creating new energy. It's not just that he got Mike Evans. I would argue that his leadership improved, that his productivity personally improved.

He's in a better place. He went from dour, cold, freezing weather to sunshine. New assistance, new playbook. Had to learn them very quickly. All these things, it's like battery cables to your life. And I can speak to this because I've seen it happen to me three different times. All of them post 40, 45 years old. If Brady stays in New England, it's not just about the lack of wide receiver.

Weapons. Same playbook. Same people. Same weather. Same drive. No freshness. No newness. And I think a lot of this has revitalized, jump started, sort of an energy within Tom. And I know this sounds very Zen and very Phil Jackson. But anybody listening to this show that has started a new challenging job, it really enhances your abilities, all of them emotionally and physically. And I think what happens to a lot of people is you get content. Same drive, same people, same book, same coaching. You're a chef, same menu, same restaurant. And then you decide, I'm going to open up a new restaurant. And a year later, you're like, oh, I was so stale. It's not the restaurant was bad. That's not it. But some of this with Brady, he's happier, he's more joyful,

he's more challenged. Day to day, his productivity beyond just football, I bet, if you ask Tom has improved. I noticed something last week and called friends on this. Andy Reid did not look right two weeks ago. I thought his skin pallor, he looked pale. After the game, the loss to the chargers in Kansas City, he was rushed to the hospital. He's now in good shape. But, you know, Andy's been doing this for a long time. I just, I worry about his health. You know, as I watch that game, and I'm kind of over-waring about who the best quarterback is. But when you're young, and you win a Super Bowl like Aaron Rogers or a Patrick Mahomes, you are pretty much anointed the best young quarterback in the game.

But when I watch Justin Herbert and I watch Patrick Mahomes on the same field, folks, I don't see a gap at all. I don't see a gap at all. In fact, I would argue that Herbert almost makes it look easier. He's a little bigger, a little thicker than Mahomes. He doesn't have the hardware. And Mahomes deserves to be called the best quarterback in the game. I don't care about the list.

When you watch those two together, you tell me, you tell me the gap. I don't see it. I think Herbert has a rifle. I think he has an effortless throwing motion. He was a 4-2 student in biology at Oregon. So smart, he was a tutor during classes. He's won a lot of football games at the collegiate level. And last year set all sorts of records with a bad offensive line and a coach

Anthony Lynn, who is viewed by the people that I trust in the league more as a coordinator or a college head coach, as much as he is, an NFL head coach. They don't think of him much in that space. You know, we've all got this victory parade for the Chiefs over the next decade. I think the Chiefs, if you told me, over, under, Chiefs win six AFC West titles the next 10 years. I'd say under. I think the surprise team in the league to me is the Raiders. They're three and O, and I picked him to be in last place.

Two things are happening. Gus Bradley, the defensive coordinator, deserves a great deal of credit. Now, a lot of people think Gus Bradley deserves a second head coaching job. He brought a lot of his guys with him, a lot of his coaches. The Raiders went and acquired a Baltimore Raven on their defensive front. What they're really doing now is getting a tremendous pass rush. As Greg Kosell told me this week in the herd, the Raiders are getting a tremendous. tremendous pass rush without bringing extra people. That is elevated what I perceive to be an okay

secondary. Also, we know this through the years. You do not have to nail your first round picks. Belichick hasn't. Pete Carroll hasn't. The Raiders haven't. Be careful about being too punitive on teams having some real misses with their draft picks. So much of this league is quarterback play protecting him and the bottom half of your roster. There are very few teams in this league with a top 12 quarterback and Derek Carr is an offensive line that can protect him that don't win. Right now the Raiders are given Derek Carr time to throw. They ran the ball yesterday better than they had, but Derek Carr is getting time to throw and they're creating a massive pass rush without bringing extra people. And somebody told me this

years ago, it's so simple, and I think I've said this multiple times. If you have the most comfortable quarterback during a game, you'll win about 75% of the games. And Derek Carr is much more comfortable than the three quarterbacks he has faced so far this year. That's the easiest way to explain it. If there's one team in the league, I think I have whiffed on, as long as they're healthy, the Raiders are going to be a really, really tough out. And I'm happy for Derek Carr. You know, he entered the league from Fresno State so you didn't watch him on television. He was a second round guy, not a first guy. And he was also, he came to a team that was a mess.

So how you enter a company is often how you're viewed. If you start in the mail room, you're not going to be viewed the same way, even if you rise through the ranks as somebody who started in the corner office. And we didn't watch Derek Carr in college and he didn't go in the first round. And he went to a lousy team. The Raiders were a mess. he's gone through coaches, but if you're really honest with yourself and you look at the data that matters for a quarterback, Derek Carr with time to throw is a really, really good player. After 20 years in the same sideline, Tom Brady and Belichick meet this weekend as opponents.

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Shopify.com slash C-O-L-I-N. Look through your children's eyes to see the true magic of a forest. It's a storybook world for them. You look and see a tree. They see the wrinkled face of a wizard with arms outstretched to the sky. They see treasure and pebbles. They see a windy path that could lead to adventure. And they see you.

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Vaughn Miller is now joining us today. You know, I said all off-season, I said Denver is a great roster. They need to upgrade it corner. And they got to stop making mistakes a quarterback. So when I made my prediction, I'm like, I know their talent's good, but I don't know if Patrick Chertan's ready to play. Teddy Bridgewater is new. So Bridgewater is done when he's done his whole career. Figures it out quickly.

A lot of completions, no mistakes. But let's start on the defensive side with the rookie from Alabama. How many practices, Vaughn, are you watching that young corner? How many does it take for you to go? Oh, shit. He gets it. This kid can play. Since day one.

He's the most polished rookie that I've ever seen. Wow. He's the most polished rookie that I've ever. And this is on my team, other teams. This could be any rookie that I've ever seen in national football league. Patrick Sertan is the most polished DB that I've ever seen. Like rookie DB that I've ever seen. It's just a little bit more experiencing.

He's going to be the top corner in the league. In a matter of time, he's going to get paid $25 million. going to be the next franchise corner. Patrick Sartan, he really has it all. He can run fast. You know, he's tall. He's ranger. You know, he can guard a slot receiver. He can guard your big possession receiver. When the ball is in the air, he turns into a receiver. It's anybody's ball. You know, and these receivers, you know, they don't really fight for the ball like DB's doing. Patrick Sartan is six, two and a half, you know, 200, 200 pounds. And he can run, you know, four or three. He has all the footwork. He has all the smarts. He is the most

polished rookie that I've ever seen in my life. Wow. That's incredible. Von, go back in your career, take people listening. How long, I mean, could you tell instantly with the really great young players you face, like a Mahomes, could you tell instantly, oh yeah, that's going to work? Or can you sense fear instantly and go, you know, this kid, he doesn't like the pocket. He doesn't like, he doesn't like footsteps. Can you tell right away. Yeah, 100%, you can tell it right away. You know, Patrick Mulhams, he was just fearless.

You know, he just got it. He was confident. You know, he faced other rookie quarterbacks. You know, they're struggling with the reeds. They're, you know, scrambling out the pocket, you know, struggling trying to push the ball, push the ball down field. And I think we watch it at weekend and week out, you know, when you have young guys, you know, struggle.

When I really think about it, young guys with success, Patrick Mahomes is really, there's not been a young guy that had that type of success like Patrick Mahomes. Andrew Luck had, You know, he had a ton of success early on in his career as well. And I think he developed into the quarterback that, you know, everybody knew he could be like later down in his career. But right off the bat, like, nobody's like Patrick Mahomes.

When you were part of the no-fly zone, do you remember thinking? Because this defense has a chance to be really special now that you have Fuller and Patrick Certanick Corner. When you were on the field, did you feel like Vaughn, that's one of the top five defenses maybe ever that you control the game. The defense controlled the game. Could you sense it?

Could you sense offenses were frustrated? Like, take me to the best year, the best defensive year you ever played and what it's like. Yeah, I mean, it had to be 2015 with the Denver Broncos in No Fly Zone as well. And we just had all the different elements to have a dominant defense. You know, you have to have that swag to be.

dominant defense. You have to have that confidence. That was in no flaw zone. A key to lead, or if he says he's going to do something, he's going to do it. Or he's going, he's going to die trying to do it. Then you mix a key to lead with Chris Harris. Chris Harris is a verbal guy as well. And then you have the two slob knockers with Doran,

with Doran Stewart and T.J. Ward. So we can back up everything that we're talking. And then we got the rush to, we got the rush for me and DeMargis and Derek Wolf and Malik Jackson. And then we had guys off the ball, We had linebackers that could cover, had line by Zaki Blitz with Brandon Marshall, Brandon Marshall, Ty Davis, Danny Treveit.

You know, these guys, they could do anything that you could ask them do, linebacker-wise. And we just had all the elements. We had a smart play caller. We had an experience play caller as well with Coach Phillips. Coach Kubiak was one of the coaches that no other coach could coach that team like Coach Kubiak did. He just was a great, he was able to. relate to everybody on that team.

He was able to talk and get the most out of everybody on that team. And this team had Peyton Matting, Akitle, you know, myself, you know, we had Danube, Chavez. And we had people from all different walks of life. And Coach Kubiak was the guy that really managed everybody and had everybody on the same page. But back to that defense, Akeep to Lee was definitely the confidence of that team.

Really? You know, he was definitely the confidence of that team. He would say whatever in the media would say whatever out in public. And we were like, Like, yeah, Akie Deleu said it, we don't go out there and do it. I remember playing, I remember two weeks before the Super Bowl. And Akib, it was our first time watching film when in Carolina Panthers. And Akie was like, yeah, we got this.

It's over. We're going to lock down the receivers. They ain't got nothing for us. We're going to lock down the receivers. And it just started one day and it just created this confidence. Like, yeah, they undefeated. But Akie said that they're going to lock down the corners. And all we got to do is rush.

And if all I had to do is rush, and I feel pretty good. and my chances to rush. Like the key to lead was standing in public, in the locker room, whatever there. We're going to lock down their receivers. That was a huge element of the game that was already taken out of the game plan. We had Chris Harris and Keith to lead.

We had Bradley Roebe. He was a young guy. He was a strap artist as well. And we had all of these guys. And the confidence really came from the key. I think the enforcers were, you know, T.J. Ward and Dorian Stewart. Yeah, T.

T.J. was a big hitter. We had DeMarcus Ware, one of the best pass versus that ever played us in National Football League. And I was his robbing. You know, he was Batman. I was robbing whatever, you know, game, whatever stuff we watched on the family. He would tell me to do what I would do it. He never let me in a bad direction. He said, Vaughn, all you have to do is do this.

That's what I did. It didn't work. And then we had big guys to take, you know, the pressure off of us in the middle with Malik Jackson and Derek Wolf and Antonio Smil. You know, this just goes on and on and on. We were just super stacked. We had the confidence. We had the swag. We had the intelligence.

We had the experience. We had everything that it took to be a dominant defense for sure. One time, Ray Lewis told me that Willie Roof of Kansas City, he was like, Colin, you can't even, it's country strong. Like, I couldn't even. And Ray Lewis is one of the great players. Has there ever been one offensive linemen that, Vaughn, you're just like, okay, that's genetics. Like, I can't, I can't move him. You know, the office alone that I go,

you, so all the big time offensive alumni, like, you know, Tyrone Smith, the Lane Johnson, the, you know, the Williams, you know, it's, you know, going against those guys, you, you prepare for these guys all year, you know. For me, I think the toughest challenge for me was Mitchell Schwartz, and you wouldn't expect it. Really? You wouldn't, you wouldn't expect it.

And I think Mr. Swartz having a quarterback like Patrick from a home that, to really play to, you know, Mitchell's angles. You know, I had the toughest time with Mitchell Schwartz. You know, I'm really surprised that he's not on a team right now. Because I always had the toughest time with Mitchell Sports. I think he's the one opposite alarm in that only, he only gave me one like sack. Wow. He would always, it would always be so tough to play Mitchell Sports.

And then the Kansas City Chiefs with Patrick Mahomes and everybody else. Was it the hands? Was it leverage? I don't know what it was. He was a smaller. He was a smaller officer. Yes. He was a smaller office alone, but he just, I don't know, I just, maybe I was in my own here.

I always had such, I always had the toughest time with Mitchell Swartz. And I would see other guys have success versus Mitchell Schwartz. But whenever I went against him, it would be the weirdest thing for me. Like any move that I would try, he would be sitting on it. And anything, any good rush that I would have, Patrick Mahomes would, you know, he would trump that and, you know, scramble, you know, throw the ball all the way. But playing against Mitchell Swartz. and the Kansas City Chiefs was always a tough, you know, time for me.

I don't know what it was. And it's shocking to me that Mitchell Swartz is not on a team right now because I know he still has a good football level. All right, let's bring on Tyler Dunn, founder of go-longtd.com, a newsletter dedicated to enterprising pro football journalism and a guy I lean on when it comes to the Green Bay Packers. Where do you land today? I mean, you know, it's funny.

I look at the Packers. I think they miss David Boktiari at left tackle. I sometimes I worry about them at corner beyond Jaya Alexander. I worry about their second corner. I worry about David Bactiari. They got a pretty good pass rush tonight. I got to tell you, and that's a good Niner offensive front. Where do you land with the Packers today?

What are you really happy with and what concerns you? I think you have to be thrilled, number one, with Aaron Rogers' play. I mean, two weeks ago, rightfully so, a lot of us were questions. his desire, how best that he wasn't at this season. It did not look good. It was ugly against New Orleans. And I think that that was a quarterback tonight that delivered in big moments like he has his whole career.

So that's probably what's giving them a sigh relief more than anything is the quarterback that was MVP last season. That's what you saw against San Francisco. Defensively, though, man, I mean, that's about as impressive as Green Bay's defense looked in a long way. That's what I thought. I mean, they got pressure from, you know, guys like Dean Lowry. I mean, you see that spin move.

He's right in Roblo's face. At corner, you know, Eric Stokes, I know he's young. He's going to give up plays. Hey, he had a couple of, I'll tell you what, Tyler, he's sticky. You don't separate from him. When they took him, you know, I had a couple scouts reach out to me and so listen, like, whoa, this guy can play. I mean, they just got themselves a player.

Maybe Aaron Rogers doesn't like it. It's not a weapon. That's a cornerback that's going to play. sooner rather than later, which is such a premium position, as we're talking about with this game in San Francisco, needing an Eric scope. So I think the upgrade from Kevin King

in a big way there. And I mean, yeah, there were penalties. It kind of muddied the game up a little bit. But I think defensively, after what you saw against the Saints, and really that first half against the Lions was just as ugly, that's about as good as Green Bay's defense has looked in a long,

long time. You know, the Rams really match up with Tampa well, Tyler, corner and Jalen Ramsey, as do the Packers. So you can kind of take Mike Evans out and force Tom to go to second, third options. The second thing of which the Packers had tonight, Kenny Clark creates an interior pass rush. Aaron Donald creates a rush on Tom Brady's feet. That's the way to kind of make Tom move.

And those are two big things. I think the Packers have an elite corner. They can get a, sometimes they can get that interior rush, which is big. you know, we forget that Green Bay had Tampa in real trouble. When I watched this game tonight, I don't know if I felt this way about the Packers in two years. I thought they kind of physically took it to the Niners. I really did a lot on the line of scrimmage. It's a very good point.

You know, just that physicality. Yes. Every time they go up with Santa Clara, it's like, and, you know, throw in Seattle too. We're going back a few years, but those Legion of Boom teams, and then it kind of spilled into San Francisco. It's kind of year to year, coach to coach,

error to error. The Packers just look soft against these teams. Yeah. And they get their butts kicked. And that wasn't the case. You know what I mean? Like even if they would have lost that game, you're right. Up front, they were pushing people around. And they're pushing people around without some of their big bodies in there.

I mean, they're missing a lot of their big men. They do a lot of that stuff. So offensively And defensively, I think the fact that, you know, San Francisco didn't just play downhill the whole game and run for 200 yards. It says a lot about your progress as a defense. It says a lot about Brian Gutikins, you know? I mean, he's the GM that the quarterback himself put under fire for six months. And that was a team with a roster ready for this moment, right? Ready to kind of beat a team that's pushed them around year to year.

I think that top to bottom the rosters, it's strong and it's strong with that kind of. a player with that kind of mentality that Green Bay's been lacking most of Aaron Rogers' career. Yeah, I feel like Amari Rogers or Randall Cobb probably Randall Cobb in the next month, but Amari Rogers probably beyond. And I don't know how it's going at practice and I don't get the inside stuff on this. I think he has to emerge at some point this season. Is that fair? The Clemson kid? I just, when I watch Green Bay, my one big push is, listen, man, you face, you face like let's say the Packers face the Rams and Jalen Ramsey takes Devante to some degree out of it. Like you've got to have a second and a third weapon.

Now, I will say this, Green Bay has done a great job to develop some young tight ends over the years and they've got another one. But I just feel like they've got to develop a second. I mean, because now you look at the Rams. If you get into a shootout with the Rams, I got Cooper Cup. I go Robert Woods. They use their tight ends. I have Deshawn Jackson. I have Van Jefferson.

Like, Jair is not going to be as, you know, you can just throw the ball on the other side of the field. When I look at the, it's really funny, Tyler, I look at the AFC. I really like Buffalo. And you cover the entire league. I think the charges are for real. Kansas City will be fine. Baltimore's a tough out. So is Cleveland.

When I look at the NFC, I really, I'm Tampa Rams. how do you think the Packers match up with the Rams? Because I think they match up with Tampa. I do. I think Alexander can take Evans out. They'll get a bull rush. I don't know if they match up with the Rams. The Rams, I mean, they just dragged Tampa into a shoe down.

Tampa couldn't keep up. Couldn't keep up. That score doesn't really do that game justice. I think anybody watching that drive-for-drive. I mean, they just slapping around. It was ugly. So I think right now the Rams, we'll see if they keep this up, right? I mean, eventually you've got to think some smart coaches, smart coordinators are going to throw something at John McVey.

Similar. I mean, Bill Belichick in that Super Bowl, he made Sean McVeigh look like a high school coach. He had no answers for anything. So at some point, can they figure this out? Right now they can't. Right now the Rams are scoring at will. Every game is going to be a shootout. I mean, Matt Stafford looks like a robot back there.

I mean, just picking and choosing whoever he wants, whenever he wants. And if you're Green Bay, you're probably going to have to play that type of. game. I tend to agree with you. You're going to have to win in the 30s. You're up to win with somebody else stepping up because in their defense, I mean, that's the standard. I mean, teams are copying what the Rams have done with Jalen Ramsey. And, you know, you have one corner. You let him take somebody away and you kind of bring a safe, another safety over there to the other side. You bracket two back there if you need to, force teams to go the long way. They're going to have to score to keep up. And I, I, I, I, I,

kind of like rationalizing and conditioning and everything I say because I do like Marquez Valda's scandling. I think that there's a lot to love there, his size and speed. There's so much good. And then, you know, he might have a drop. He might fall down at the top of a route. He'll have that one mistake that kind of drives fans nuts. The fumble against Indianapolis last year.

They're relying on him. So one way or another, the season could come down to Velda scandal. All right, my buddy, Chad Millman, Chief Content Officer, Action Network. This game, I'm going to let you lead me. Because when I don't understand something, I am willing to acknowledge, I'm not the smartest guy in the room, and I take advice and I listen. I don't understand the Patriots Buccaneers line. The Buccaneers are better. The Buccaneers are good news.

Coming off a loss. Anything about overlooking Mack Jones, not going to happen. Brady's not going to overlook going to Foxborough. If you really look at what the Patriots do, they're averaging about three yards an air pass. They have no ability to beat you deep, which is the Buccaneers' primary weakness. They're secondary with injuries. So the Buccaneers weakness is really the weakness that can't, it won't be beaten by New England. This line should be bigger.

I think New England is over their head. I think if any player in this game is nervous, it's Mack Jones facing his idol. I don't think it's Brady returning to a very familiar environment. I think V-to-Via and that defensive front, I think Todd Bowles to this point has not had many zero blitzes. They've been playing a little bit of a bend, don't break defense. I think they're going to be a little more aggressive for the first time this year. I think it could get ugly.

I would take Tampa Bay to win by 10 or more, but I don't understand the line. So explain it to me. The line is the way it is right now because Bookman. are deathly afraid of what happens if they go any higher. Because right now it's at seven points. Every time it goes to seven and a half, if it gets there, huge, huge money will come in on the Patriots. And it's not because everyone thinks it's going to be a very close game. It's not because people think Bill Belichick is the genius that he is or is not, depending on if he has Tom Brady, it's only because of how these games play out. And this is

where it always gets interesting about betting. It's what we're talking about, right? It's not about the Buccaneers and the Patriots. It's about the number. It's not about the Jets game and the Titans game. It's about the number. You play home dogs at that big of a number because over the long term, that's how you make a bigger ROI. It's not a sexy answer. Like it's not a, okay, here's what happens in this game and this is why you want to play the Buccaneers or the Patriots. It's only about the number. So many times I can tell you, betters won't even look at the teams. They'll just look at the number and see who's home in a way and feel like they have an edge by playing the side where there's a huge home

underdog. That's just how it goes sometimes. In this game, there is 93% of the money and 92% of the tickets coming in on the Buccaneers. Every scenario there is says play the Patriots. I'm not going to. Like to me, it's just like if I'm playing the Patriots, it's a little bit of a taste because that's what you do with that kind of number. But I don't love it. I like the Jets on the Money Line more than I like the Patriots against the Buccaneers.

All right, Melman. Good talking about you. See you, brother. and find the way to wow this valentines with 1800 flowers.com. From classic roses and bouquets to decadent chocolate-covered berries, gourmet treats, and more. Surprise your valentine with 1,800flowers.com. Right now, get the 18-stem enchanted rose medley for $3999, or upgrade to 24 red roses for $10 more. Go to 1,800flowers.com slash tune in.

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