The Ringer NFL Show - 'Ringer NFL Show' — The Patriots Fall Flat (Ep. 137)

Episode Date: September 8, 2017

The Ringer’s Robert Mays and Kevin Clark kick off their regular-season show by discussing the shocking Chiefs win over the Patriots (01:30) and why Kansas City will never be in perfect form again this season (05:00). Then the guys look at a possible NFC championship preview in Green Bay (09:30), how Dak Prescott’s true test is still to come (16:30), and why Aaron Donald should sit out the entire season (23:00). Also, Danny Kelly joins to explain why the numbers say Kirk Cousins may have a long day against an underrated Eagles defensive line (30:30). Finally, Robert and Kevin offer some story lines that will dominate NEXT week, including a warning for anyone who thinks the Patriots dynasty is ending (52:30). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

It's the Ringer NFL show. I'm Kevin Clark. I'm joined here with my friend Robert Mays. Good news, NFL fans. Direct TV has expanded NFL Sunday ticket this season. If you live in an apartment or are an enrolled college student, you can now get NFL Sunday ticket without a satellite. Robert, game changer.

That's me, man. I live in an apartment building where I only get this awful version of cable that wouldn't let me DVR the Chiefs Patriots game last night. So I need this, and I'm very happy to get it. I don't know what I would do without Sunday. ticket. I mean, say there's like a Bears Lions game when the Bears are two and eight, why the hell would I want to watch that? I need to watch whatever I want. Or the Bears ever. Yeah, exactly. That's fair. Not just when they're 2 and 8, when they're 0 and oh. I mean, for me,

I live in Los Angeles. I mean, the Rams have a team without their only good player right now, Aaron Donald. And so even if you were thinking, I think this week is Scott Tolzeen against Jared Goff. So I cannot sit there and watch the game. that are delivered to me. And so this is a game changer. I'll be able to get it. You know, I can watch any game I want. I can flip over to some competent quarterback play.

I'm extremely excited about this development. It's a wonderful time. To see if you're eligible, go online to NFL Sundayticket.tv and use promo code Ringer at checkout to save 15%. Welcome to the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer podcast network. I'm Kevin Clark. And joining me on this shocking Friday is my good friend Robert Mays. Robert, how are you processing what we saw in the opening night of the season?

It's not hard to process at all. This is what I expected to happen. I figured that the Chiefs would look like the 98 Vikings. Alex Smith would come out just launching the ball all over the place, throw four touchdowns. They would be the new Super Bowl favorites, according to FBI on ESPN.com. And that the Patriots would look flawed in all these different ways. This is exactly what I expected. Did you not?

This is an important question. What shocked you more? Alex Smith deep ball master, which he was last night, or Andy Reed having all three of his timeouts, both late in the second quarter and late in the fourth quarter. It was probably just the way the Chiefs offense looked. And I made a crack last night on Twitter that they were devised as if they were a high school team that had lesser talent.

So you had to be weird as hell to succeed. And I didn't really mean that in a derisive way. I think people took it that way. Andy Reid makes that work. And last night, you saw some of that. I mean, they did some weird shit. But when you add the downfield element, open up the throttle a little bit, have Alex Smith be willing to make some of those throws.

And the Tyree Kill one, if you can't make that one, you shouldn't be playing quarterback in the NFL. But there were a couple others that Chris Conley, one that got them deep into Patriots territory, the Kareem Hunt touchdown. There was a dime over the middle. He looked really good. And my pessimism about the Chiefs was, why with the guys they have in-house? they didn't bring in anybody else, is this team going to be better than they were last year?

And if you have that create development from Reed and you have them willing to open up throttle a little bit and push it, maybe they can be a team that sticks around to the end of the AFC playoffs. So first of all, my pessimism of the chiefs. And let's get in the offense real quick. So Matt Nagy is their play caller now. I talked to him during the during training camp. And we talked about RPO's. We talked about spreading the field out. I mean, I knew they were going to have this sort of creativity.

But what I didn't anticipate, maybe I should have. is that they had the weapons to really make this go. And, you know, Ty Hill, we know he's the fastest player in the NFL. Guys that Chris Conley were obviously stepping up last night. I mean, I guess we didn't understand how good Hunt was going to be, but now we do. He was so good, man. Jesus, he was good. There was no even the best version of him I could have imagined would not have been the guy

I saw last night. The balance was just unbelievable. The fact that he looked like Marshall Lynch, like in his heyday, when he can get hit in the thigh and just like get onto one foot and not go down. He was really impressive. My pessimism about the chiefs in general was that they fired their GM who I think is one of the best GMs in league. And by the way, the meme going around this morning was, you know, Kareem Hunt was the parting gift from John Dorsey. John Dorsey said, oh, you're going to fire me. By the way, here's an awesome running back. There you go. And here's the awesome roster that I built you.

Other than that, I'm going to go get fired now. Thanks. So I, you know, that, that was my pessimism. There was a little bit of subtraction. You lose Jeremy McLean, that's not good. And maybe those two things are tied together as far as firing Dorsey and being capped out to the point you have to lose Macklin. But, I mean, the tragedy of this team, and there were Chiefs fans who were coming at us last night, which is completely deserved because we really short of the Chiefs. The tragedy is that Eric Barry now has the Achilles injury, and we're never going to see

this team in its perfected form over the course of season. Because this team, the thing we saw last night, and let's not overreact to one game, but the team we saw last night was fun as hell. And I'm really disappointed just as an observer that we're not going to be able to see that Chief's defense with Eric Barry for the season. I totally agree. And I think that one of the reasons they were able to do what they did last night

is that Eric Barry just stuck with Gronk. And they don't have that element anymore. And that's huge. I mean, he's one of the few players in the league that could give Gronk problems. So, again, let's not get ahead of ourselves, but way down the line if these two teams were to play against each other again, that changes this matchup.

But let's, I want to give a lot of credit to the chiefs because they deserve it. But let's talk about the Patriots and their deficiencies for a second. First of all, Brady was not that good last night. I mean, it was not a good Brady game. I felt like he missed some throws, starting from that first one to Dwayne Allen. And then going on, he had some overthrows. A couple of nice ones, a good deep balls to Cook. Yeah.

I still think we didn't see a very good version of Brady last night. The other thing is on defense, cooks open all the time, by the way. Yeah. And I think that there were a couple balls in the intermediate areas of the field. that I thought he could have come down with. He had a nice comeback on the first drive. But right now, he's a deep threat. And that's fine.

He had a couple past interference penalties. He gives them something. And with Hogan, I love to the creativity. I with a Patriots offense. Do you think they can line up everybody everywhere? It's going to be cool. Robert, do you think that cooks would have been better getting paired in the offseason with more of a deep ball specials like Alex Smith?

That was kind of one of the things that I was not worried about, but I wanted to see. I didn't realize your joke. I'm sorry. I thought you were asking me. me an actual question. Yeah, no, he definitely would be better suited for the chief's offense, which I would say the NFL show where everyone gets to jokes 45 seconds after they're made. That's what we're doing here.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, when I think of deep ball specialists in the NFL and deep ball schemes, I pretty much think of the Panthers, the Cardinals, and the Chiefs. So you would want Brandon Cooks in an offense like that. But on defense for New England, we talked about the edge rushers and them being non-existent, and they were last night. And even in that scheme where it's not. built on, you know, penures back and getting after people, they got zero pressure whatsoever.

And that's going to be a problem against really good passing teams with the chiefs, which the chiefs are not necessarily. Two, by the way, the chiefs, real, real quick, the chiefs have won seven straight road games. And in that winning streak, four of those teams have been in the last two Super Bowls, Carolina, Denver, Atlanta, New England. They're a good team, man. They're good. They're good.

The elements that we needed last night for them, they were there. Some of the questions that we had, can they open up the offense? Is Justin Houston healthy? The answer to that looks like yes. I mean, he had two sacks. He played well. Two sacks where he just roasted Marcus Canaan one on one. It wasn't like they were unblocked.

This is just free to have me tap Brady down. He'd beat him up and Cannon's a good player. So that kind of stuff is nice. Also, Terrence Mitchell played really well. That second corner spot was one of the things I was worried about with them and Mitchell came in and played well. I don't know how Gaines is going to hold up in the slot all season, but they had some things fall in a place that needed to for them. Yeah, it was great. So do you want to talk about the Patriots more? Do you want to move on?

Let's move on. No, we had, we talk about Patriots for an hour, but there's some other games this weekend. It's week one. Okay. So to set this up, we're going to be coming to you on Fridays and Tuesdays all season long. On Fridays, we'll be setting up everything you need to know and looking forward to Sunday and Monday. And on Tuesdays, we'll be looking back at the weekend's games. Well,

if Danny Kelly joining us a little later to geek out on some things, that's going to be a recurring series. It'll be all the time, baby. It's going to be nice to have D.K. back.

I'm excited about it. We're just going to get so nerdy with D.K. later. It's going to be great. We're going to do that all season long. But for now, we're going to get things going to get things going to get things going to

totally minutia. And it was so fun. I miss just being able to be a loser with Danny. It, it, you know, I actually liked, I was tweeting from the ringer account yesterday and I saw the tweet where you said, I missed us and you were talking to Danny. I missed us being losers on Twitter together. And I wanted to retweet that.

But I was on the ringer account. I didn't know the corporate policy on retweeting you calling yourself and Danny a loser. I think it's okay. I think everyone at the ringer would agree with that. So we're good. Yeah. It's fine. Okay.

But first thing, we're going to get to something we're going to call favorite four. And these are our top four matchups for the weekend. Robert, why don't you start out with your first one? I mean, I think this is an easy one. Packer Seahawks is a ridiculously good non-prime game for week one. We chatted about this a lot. I mean, a couple different reasons. We don't see contenders go at it in a three o'clock game week one very often.

We get to right now. And I also think that these are good matchups to learn some stuff about what we want to see from these teams. The Seattle offensive line is a problem. One of my concerns about the Green Bay defense is can they get pressure? If they can against this team, they're in trouble. Can the Green Bay offensive line, which has some new pieces, hold up against what might be the best defensive line in the league? A really good question. I just think it's a very good mirror on each side to learn about some of the new elements of both of these guys.

I pick the Seahawks to win the Super Bowl. And one of the reasons is because I just think that defense is so stacked. And so just as a football nerd, I'm excited to see what that defense looks like. Shell-enriched and being worked in so quickly as a three-technique, and he's going against the best quarterback in the NFL. Like, yes, please. And so, like, you know, this is the runaway favor for best matchup of the weekend. These are the two by quarterback rating,

the two best quarterbacks in NFL history who've thrown a thousand attempts. Yeah, that's really fun. I understand that this is a different era and passing is a little bit easier, but, I mean, the two best quarterback ratings and the history of the NFL going against each other in a non-prime time game in week one. Then you throw in Earl Thomas. You know, we talked about, I don't want to get back into how valuable he is. We talked about him on the last show.

But I mean, Earl Thomas, healthy against Aaron Rogers. This was the game where Thomas got hurt last year. And so we didn't get to see that. I mean, this is an awesome, awesome game. Any early predictions? I think that, God, I don't know. That's a really good question. I think that Green Bay wins at home, but it's a really close game.

Sure. So that even, that doesn't say anything bad about the Seahawks. I'm not degrading them in any way. I just think that at home, Green Bay is good enough. The one thing I throw out to watching this one, this is the first game since 2011, first time, since the Packers will go into a season without Josh Sitton or T.J. Lang as their starting guards. This is a big turnover thing.

And against Sheldon Richardson, against Michael Bennett, there's a chance that those two guys just wreck this game. And that's going to tell us a lot about where the Packers are weak going forward. Yeah, no, I agree with that. I mean, but, you know, again, one of the interesting things you pointed out was that the Seahawks offensive line was trash and, and the Packers getting pressure is a big question. So I don't know, you know, Mike Daniels is one of the best players in the NFL.

So it would be interesting to see that that matchup, but I don't know if this is going to be the Seahawks test. I mean, it's really going to come down later in the season as far as can that offensive line just be competent to the point. But on the other hand, I mean, this is going to be probably a matchup of the NFC title team. So what do we know? Yeah. And I mean, if they can't be competent against this team,

then we know they have a problem. Yeah. My matchup, obviously Packer Seahawks seem to be the best matchup of the weekend. Raiders Titans, though, just from an intriguing

future of the sport perspective, I love this game. Yeah, I'm really looking forward to it. But here's the thing, it's not just the quarterbacks, but let's start with the quarterbacks. Derek Carr versus Marcus Mariotta. Carr did last year

what Mariotta should do this year, which is take a average, team and make them not only playoff contenders, but in the, in the fringe of the conversation of the Super Bowl. I think they have the team for it. And I can't wait to see, you know, a couple things. Number one is the Raiders past defense going to be competent. Okay. We're going to find out really quickly because that Titans offense is really good. I mean, generally the, the Raiders defense didn't do, you know, you take Conley, but he hasn't been healthy the entire off season. I mean, I'm not totally confident that

they're going to be significantly better and they're going to get a huge test. On the other hand, I mean, the Titans, I just, I can't wait to see them. This is a big game for them. And I can't wait to see them play a big game because we have not yet seen Mario to play a big game in the NFL. I'm just really excited to see both these guys in this element. I really, I'm looking forward to what the Titans are going to do with their new pieces. How different are the Titans going to look in the ways that we expect them to be, right?

So with all those new receivers, even if Decker isn't going to play, which it seems like it, you assume maybe they'll throw them out there more. Maybe we'll see less heavier sets. If they open it up a little bit, what does it look like? Interestingly enough, they were second in the league in yards per carry last year with three or four receivers on the field. So their running game goes when they spread it out a little bit. So I'm really curious if the new receivers will actually allow them to do what they want to do

better. Those are the type of things you look for on week one. How are this seems going to be different? On the other side of the ball, this is a really good test for Logan Ryan, for Cyprian, just that secondary going against this. sort of passing attack with these sort of receivers. We're going to find out a lot. Can they hold up against one of the best duos in the entire league?

It's a fun just measuring stick for that kind of thing. And guess what, man? Marchand Lynch is Beck. I'm very excited to watch Marchand Lynch play. Yeah. So one thing I do want to say about the quarterbacks, which is pretty important, is that neither of these guys finish the season healthy. Yeah.

And so there is that element of it, which is I think they both actually put their leg. I mean, what are these guys just going to look like in a regular season game? Because, you know, again, we both are not overly concerned with broken legs because it's not an ACL. It's not a, you know, a torn labrum. It's not an Andrew Luck situation where it's a shoulder. So I'm confident these guys will get there, but there might be a little bit of hesitation in both of their games starting out of season just because, you know, when you don't know how the leg is going to react, you do have a slight hesitation. So I'm intrigued to see the injury stuff. Marshaun Lynch, I don't know.

I'm a little bit, I don't want to short Marshawn Lynch in the same way. You know, I don't want to short Tom Brady because I've just seen him do amazing things too many times when I thought he was done. But I am not expecting a whole lot of Marshawn Lynch this year. Oh, I don't think he's going to be that good, but I'm just excited that he's back in my life. I enjoy watching Marshall Lynch play football. I don't remember. I don't remember who said it. I'm sorry, but there was a fantasy expert who tweeted a couple of weeks ago.

He was saying, you know, Lynch was being way overdrafted in all these leagues. and he said, coolness is not a fantasy stat, which I think is a good way to sum up. That's perfect. I think that's a good way to sum up the Marshawn Lynch experiment. One thing to keep in mind, these two teams played last year, and it was a bizarre kind of game when you consider what they're good and bad at. It was a 1710 finish. And the Titans only ran the ball 26 times, even though they average 6.1 yards per carry.

So I would assume that they'll just sit there and try to run people over. So this like a high flying offense that we might see from Tennessee with all these new receivers. We might have to wait one more a week if they do what they should do. Yeah. All right. What's your next matchup? I mean, Giants Cowboys is pretty easy, right?

I mean, this is a team, two teams that went to the playoffs last year, you know, we'll see what happens with Dallas. Zeke Ellie will play in this game. You know, which in a weird way isn't going to tell us what we want to know. What does his offense look like without him? So that, that's a curious kind of wrench into all of this. So I wrote that when I did the Cowboys preview in my power rankings, I told, talked about how advantageous

DAC situations were. You know, we know the players, but the numbers are kind of fascinating. They only faced 75 plays of 3rd and 8 or more last season. Second lowest in the league. 30 of them came against the Giants. 30. That's 40% of those plays in two games.

Prescott was 7 of 17, 4.1 yards per time on those plays. The Giants can slow down the Cowboys in a way that no other defense has been able to in the last year. So can the Giants, defense, be that team again. So I'm intrigued by this because there's a deep weirdness to it in the sense that the

giants may be without O'Do Beckham and certainly not 100% O'Dell Beckham, no matter what happens. And the Cowboys will have Ezekiel Elliott, which they may not starting a week two. Okay. So these teams are not going to be in. Yeah. It's a lot of that. Okay.

But I think what's interesting, you know, Sage Rosenfeld has made a very interesting point towards the end of last season. And I mentioned this today in my will. looking ahead column about Dak Prescott struggling with the most complex of defenses in the NFL. Now, that's just going to happen for a young quarterback. When NFL coordinators throw the kitchen sink at you, there's going to be struggles. Dak will get the hang of it. But the two teams that Dak struggled the most against last year were Minnesota and New York.

And what they did, the commonality between those defenses is they dropped linemen back in coverage and they just gave them looks that maybe you're not going to see in the SEC. I know everyone like to talk about how the SEC prepared. guys for the NFL, great, but they're not dropping linemen like Mike Zimmer is and like Steve Spagnolius. And so it's going to be interesting to me to see the progression DAC took as far as being able to look at those looks and diagnose them and make the plays. Because like you said, they were in 3rd and 8 far too many times last year. And so I'm intrigued to see just the step DAC took as far as reading defenses on Sunday night. Yeah, totally. But the thing is, we're going to

see him without Zeke doing that same thing for six games this season. So again, it's weirdly not going to be something we want to find out because one of the main questions about Dallas, right, was what is that going to look like without Zeke? And we won't know that before this week is over. And the other thing is, what will the Giants receiving court look like now with all all those pieces? Well, if Odo Beckham is not O'Dell Beckham, we don't find that out either. One bit of nerdery before we move on here, Damon Harrison versus Travis Frederick is

line play porn and it is the truth. And I'm very excited about watching it. If you care about those things, sure you don't, check it out. I certainly don't. Okay, next game, Robert. Saints Vikings is one you threw out there, man. I mean, I agree with you. I'm curious as to what you think or as to why you think this is one of the four.

Well, we talked yesterday, and I brought this up, and we both talked about how buzzy this game is. There's two main things I look at when I think about Saints Vikings. Number one is obviously the Adrian Peterson revenge angle. there was so much hype about him in OTAs. And Adrian Peterson is such a hype in OTAs type of guy. But that is he looks great. He's going to be in shape. That's so right.

No, you know what I'm saying? I totally do. He's going to be in shape. Like he's going to have, he's going to look great without the pads on. He's going to at least be able to cut and all that. Not a lot of buzz about him in training camp. And I think there's a reason for that.

And it's the same reason that it took him so long to get a contract. And it took him, you know, a couple of visits and smart teams were visiting with him and he left out of contract. Okay. I don't know if there's a lot left in the tank there, but I do think there's going to be enough kind of FU runs. All you need, Adrian Peterson,

like this is all leading towards Adrian Peterson getting like 12 yards on a carry and then staring down Mike Zimmer. Like that's the only reason. That's the only reason to have this game on Monday night, right? Yeah. Also, I mean, this is a really, really good offense against what should be a really,

really good defense. I was going to get yeah, that's the actual reason. I was going to get to that. That was my second thing in here. Both of these teams in weird,

if everything breaks rights, worlds could be NFC championships type contenders. And what I mean by that is, first of all, the Vikings were the last team to lose a game last year and everyone has moved on from it

because their line was so bad. They made some small improvements. I don't think there'll be enough. But if some miracle is performed and we see an amazing offensive line, then we have to start talking about the NFC North race. Okay. The second part of that is the New Orleans Saints.

I just need professional. That's all I need. That's the bar. I need them to clear because they didn't last year. Right. And then the other thing is, I mean, the Saints are,

again, Drew Brees is going to throw over 5,000 yards. Obviously, the Willie Steen suspension throws a wrench in it, but he will find somebody else. And at some, at what point does Drew Brees just start signing like guys off Bourbon Street? Has that already happened?

Isn't that what Kobe Fleener is? And then, and then, and then turning them into 1,200-yard guys. So, but no, so with the Saints, all they need, again, all they need is some marginal improvement on defense. And we're talking about the NFC South race. And so these are two of what I would describe as the sort of the X-factor teams in the NFL,

where they have some dominant, dominant pieces, some dominant skill groups, elite positions, but they have a fatal flaw. And I think that if I were to guess just by probability, one of them is going to show up on Monday night. We're going to on Tuesday start talking about one of these teams as deep, deep playoff contenders. And I'm intrigued to see who that is. I think that the Vikings offense has a smaller margin to make up than the Saints defense does. That's why I think that I would put my money on the Vikings. But you're right.

I mean, that's exactly what it is. Can one of these units that we're pessimistic about come out and play better than we thought and really validate what this team is overall. Yeah, and we talked about the Saints a couple weeks ago when we're talking about whether or not how many teams could win the Super Bowl. Oddly enough, we kept the Chiefs, we both kept the Chiefs off of our list of teams

that could win the Super Bowl, even though I named 18 teams and I did not include the Chiefs. I was wrong, by the way. But with the Saints, you know, they just have a bunch of young guys. All it takes is two or three guys to make the leap and we're talking about a very different defensive team. All right, buddy. All right, so we're going to have some

Friday features. You will do one, I will do one. The one thing I'm going to do every Friday, it's right up my alley. It's so is. It's a hot take that I actually kind of believe. And what we're going to do here is, look, I do not like hot takes. I do not like hot take culture, but I do like throwing out things that we start, need to start thinking about in a way that I think needs to be informed and not just totally baseless. Like, you know, the difference between a hot take and just a strong opinion is that hot takes are uninformed. And, and I don't like to do that because I think that it's good to talk to coaches. It's good to talk to GMs. It's good to talk to scouts or agents or players and sort of

get a feeling for where the sport is going and then throw it out that way. And so for me, my first hot take that I actually kind of believe is that Aaron Donald, one of the best players in the NFL needs to either hold out for a long time or maybe even skip the season for the sake of the future of NFL contracts. What I mean by that is, you know, first of all, the Rams are going to be bad no matter what. If Aaron Donnell wants to come back for the love of the game because he loves the sport, I understand that. And I wouldn't, I wouldn't criticize him for that. If he can't come to an agreement on a great contract and he wants to come back, I'm not going to criticize him for it. Having said that superstars in the NFL are vastly

vastly underpaid. And I think he needs to make a statement. There's two ways to go about that. Either show up, play out your contract, force your way to free agency, and get, you know, significantly more money than Indomac and Sue got or do what Sean Gilbert did 20 years ago

and just skip the season and almost reset the market. We talk so much about resetting the market and it almost never happens. It almost never happens. Oh, well, you know, every time a quarterback, oh, Matt Stafford, reset the market. No, he didn't. He just got incrementally more than Derek.

Carr and Andrew Luck. Aaron Donald has a chance. The salary cap has been rising $10 million a year for what, the last six years. And I think it's time that a player said, you know what, I'm going to get a contract tied into the salary cap or I'm going to get more money than any. I'm going to get quarterback money at a non-quarterback position. I think Aaron Donald is a test case. And I think that, you know, whatever he wants to do is fine.

I'm not going to get involved in his finances. but I think it would be a very, very interesting development for the future of the league if he decides to take the stand because he's already going to miss week one. The last thing I saw was he was home in Atlanta. He's not even in Los Angeles right now. And so I just, I could see this changing the paradigm because it is clear he's not going to take a contract below what he believes he's worth. So Aaron Donald is the 428th highest paid player in the NFL.

So let's just take out quarterbacks. Let's say 400. Among non-quarterbacks, where would Aaron Donald rank in what he would earn on the open mark? We've had this conversation. Top five? Oh, sure. I mean, it would be him. It would be him.

It would be von Miller. It would be eventually cool. A healthy watt. I mean, those are the guys. You know, like it's. And then, and then if you wanted to, Earl Thomas or some of the Seattle guys. Maybe one secondary player. I totally agree with you.

And this is not one of those situations where a guy's holding out because, well, the he, this is, you know, the common refrain. Well, he signed the contract. You know, it's like, who cared that the market changed? Aaron Donald didn't choose this. Aaron Donald got this deal because this is what the rookie salary scale says. Aaron Donald was not in the room with Robert Kraft and D. Smith in 2011 and Jeff Saturday. He wasn't there. I've said this on more than one occasion. I think he deserves Von Miller-Kille-Mac money because he impacts the game that much. And for him to be making this, I have no problem with it whatsoever. I totally agree with you. And I think with where the Rams

That's why it makes sense. Take your stand. All right, Robert, for your feature, there are so many things we look forward to each weekend. We've hit already some of the biggest matchups and storylines. But what are we missing? That's what we're going to be doing with you. What are we missing as we look forward to week one?

This is my chance to just get real digging down and real nerdy, and I'm really looking forward to it. Every year in week one, I think the element that I'm most interested in, The thing I'm looking for the most is how are these teams with scheme changes going to look when the games matter for the first time? We've seen inklings of it in the preseason, but that never matters. I mean, that's just one sign. Teams don't roll out everything they're going to do.

So the teams I'm going to be watching just to see what is it actually going to look like? What is the scheme going to look like? How do they approach it? Teams like the Chargers with Anthony Lynn coming in there. How is that going to affect Melvin Gordon? What does Kyle Shanahan's offense going to look like in San Francisco? Is Pierre Garsohn going to be this target monster for? there. How does Carlos Hyde look? Their defense. What are those first round highly drafted

defensive linemen going to look like now that they're shifting position and roll a little bit? Is it going to hurt some? Is it going to help others? What's Atlanta going to look like with Sarkisian? The offense probably from a construction standpoint will be similar, but will it have the rhythm? Is it going to be as potent or is it going to be something close to that? With the Rams. We have no Aaron Donald, but we still have a Wade Phillips coordinated defense that has some talent on it. How good can they be based on scheme? What is Jared Gough going to look like with Sean McVeigh? Is it going to matter? These are the things I'm most excited about watching outside of those big name games because this is where the trajectory of franchises changes. Can you get

something out of younger guys that other coaches couldn't? And I think it's going to be fun. I mean, what is Philip Rivers going to look like in this offense? Is it going to help him that there's a little bit less of a load? I don't know the answers to any of these questions. And that's why week one is cool to me. I'm going to go ahead and not watch the ramps. That's fine with that's fine with me. You do you, buddy. I respect that.

Hey, well, do I think that just a cam of Aaron Donald just in his living room with his friends, watching the game would be more interesting to me. He's not going to watch the game. He's going to be lifting. He's going to be in the weight room. He's going to do,

I read the story about Cam Newton playing all those like football pickup games and parks and stuff. He's just going to go and just beat every single flag football guard there is. Or he's going to be playing ping, Pong. He might be better at ping pong than he is at Florida. So, or then he is at football. I don't know why I said Florida. Hey, I'm from Florida. It's interchangeable. Florida is football. Okay. Our next segment, we're going to nerd out with our friend Danny Kelly.

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All right, we're going to welcome in our good friend, the Ringer's own Danny Kelly. Danny. It's time to geek out. you're going to fill us in on some things that no one else wants to see we should be paying attention to hit us hit us with something extremely nerdy

Danny well I'm looking at the I'm looking at the Redskins Eagles game first Mays I know you're going to love this because yeah man I was I circled you're one of the you're one of the biggest Eagles

defensive line and you had well wait a maze Mays you where do you circle your games do you have a big schedule in your apartment yeah yeah it's actually I have a chalkboard in my hall way to write like notes down and then it's next to the chalkboard it's just it's a huge thing

takes up most of my wall just huge circles of games you love i like it in red in red marker for sure anyway uh the um so viny curry timmy jernigan fletcher cox brandon and graham plus they got chris long and derrick barnett this off season i mean that is one of the best defensive lines in the nfell and i don't think people talk about it as much as it deserved you know it doesn't get as much recognition as it deserves. So I'm going to be watching that a lot this week. I think it's a good matchup too because Washington has a very good offensive line as well. And I looked it up last year, Kurt Cousins average 2.18 seconds in time to throw.

It's a new stat that the NFL, the next gen stats guys keep track of. And so that's one of actually the slowest releases of any quarterbacks in the NFL. So, I mean, if the Eagles can get pressure, it could be all. long day for cousins. So I'm going to be looking at that, especially because the, the Eagles secondary is kind of an experience. They've thrown just some guys together. Last year, they were one of the worst groups in the league. They still have a couple of good safeties, but the, the cornerback spot is very up in the air. So I'm going to be looking at how quickly the Eagles can get pressure because that's going to be, I think, a huge key that game. It's going to be a huge key to their

season. I mean, even with Ronald Darby there, which I thought was a very good trade for them, the other best case scenario is that some of those younger corners come along Rassul Douglas I mean obviously who's the Washington kid Danny Sidney Jones yes I mean he's not he's not gonna be ready but if Douglas can get there they want him to be better than Jwin Mills I love the derby trade I think that's huge for them but I do think it's really important for that defensive line to just dominate games it's the best group to me I know that Seattle's front four and the guys starting are better but with long and with Barnett back there I just think

top to bottom, it's, I don't know if it's better in Seattle. So I'm trying to convince myself, but it's really good. It's close enough that it's actually a conversation. Exactly. Because they got six guys. And I'm really curious about what Jernigan's going to look like in those one-on-ones. Now that they have to slide to Cox. And that's what we're, where the Philly was faltered last year, it's because

Benny Logan couldn't take advantage of that. Jernigan can't. He has that ability. And I feel like he's something that could really unlock that entire group when you don't even consider Barnett and Long. Yeah, so the wide nine, that's a big deal in Philly. You know, those guys rush from wide. And so I think interior pressure is going to be big for them because that way you can't just have those guys run past the pocket and step up now.

It's kind of the same deal in Seattle, too, actually speaking of the Seahawks with Sheldon Richardson, I think he's kind of the same element there. But I mean, if they can get interior pressure from, you know, both Cox and Jernigan, like where is a quarterback going to go in that, facing that defense? What do you think about the receivers, Danny? I think that's the other element of this. On both sides with Philly, you know, have a whole new stable of weapons.

With Washington, the question is, can these guys replicate what Jackson and Garsohn were? Because that's what we saw from Cousins for the last couple years. He has such a good situation that it's hard to judge him. So now is the situation going to be worse enough and is it going to take enough of a step back where we find out a little bit more about him? I mean, yeah, we talked about this a couple months ago

how I think that that cousins could possibly have a pretty big regression this year. And I think it's not necessarily even like his fall completely. They're going to be going in with, you know, a bunch of new guys. Essentially, Docton is going to be in there. Terrell prior in there. And it looked like in the preseason they weren't quite on the same page. They don't have the same type of, you know, field stretching deep threat as Deshawn Jackson. He's just not very many of those guys in the NFL.

There's like so one. Sean Jackson is Deshaun Jackson. Right. Exactly. He's like he's a singular like style player. So I mean, I don't know. It's going to be very different. I think, you know, there's a lot of different things that they could do to, you know, they got a lot of talent still. So I think they could still be a very good passing offense. And like I said, they have a good offensive line. And that helps a ton. But yeah, it's, it's just going to be a completely different look for them. I am not as high on the Eagles, by the way, in general as as as you guys are. I just think that, I mean, the wide receiver. in Philly for me, they're an upgrade, but I mean, it's only because there was no way to go but up last year. I mean, they had some of the worst skill position players ever seen last year, especially on the outside. I mean, Al Gore was just a complete waste of space. I mean, so I'm intrigued to see Wentz in that situation. I wrote a column today about which of the sort of 90s generation

of quarterbacks will have the best career in it. And that that group, you know, literally the guys were born in the 90s. That's Dak Prescott. That's Derek Carr, Mariotta, Winston, and Wentz. And I think the best argument for Wence at this point is that he was just put in a really crappy situation in the back half last year. Didn't have Lane Johnson for 10 games. And then he just had some of the, again, some of the worst receivers I've ever seen on an NFL field put together as a group. And so the best argument for him is that he was just, you know, he didn't have the situations that those other guys had. They weren't building a juggernaut around him. And so I'm intrigued to see that team with good wide receivers with an OK.

offensive line. I mean, I want to see Wence play really, really well on Sunday. And that, that's what's intriguing move about that matchup. For me, it's a Jeffrey's health is so important. I mean, if he's healthy, he's a huge upgrade. But the other spot, I agree, is still a question. I mean, Tori Smith is, I don't know what he is at this point. He's better than the guys that last year, probably. But I think that Jeffrey represents the biggest change. If he's right, he's right up there, man. I mean, he's an effective, terrifying threat when he can actually play. Do we think that Matt Collins is going to be a breakout player this year still? I know that we were talking about kind of the first preseason game.

He was looking really good. He's somebody, that position takes longer than we give a credit for, especially when you're not getting all the reps. You know, so I just feel like even if he shows some flashes, but that's what they did. You know, they threw a ton of resources at it. It doesn't necessarily have to be first round picks. If you take some roles there because you need help in those spots, even if he gives you, you know, 10 snaps a game, a couple targets.

maybe he breaks something. They just didn't have that last year. There weren't even the chances of that kind of stuff happening. Yeah. All right, Danny. Let's quickly get to your second nerd out of the week. All right. So the other game I got kind of circled in my mind is the Chargers Broncos.

And I'm particularly excited to see what happens with the Chargers run game this year. I mean, Anthony Lynn, he's a former running back. He came up as a running back's coach. He basically got a head coach job because he did such an amazing job with the Bill's run game last year. I mean, they were dominant on the run game. And so I'm really wondering what stamp he puts on on the Chargers run game. Obviously, you know, they're sticking with the same offensive coordinator,

but I think that Lynn's going to, he's going to bring the run game with him a little bit. And they've got a couple good running backs there, Melvin Gordon, Brandon Oliver. I think that's going to be a good one-two punch. And my question is, like, how exotic are they going to get with that stuff? Because, you know, they don't have the quarterback run style stuff that they had last year with Tyrod Taylor and in Buffalo. But are they going to do some of the. the unbalanced line stuff, you know, how exotic are they going to get? That's going to be the one thing I'm going to be looking for in that Monday night game.

That was the biggest thing with Buffalo last year is that they could do that and overcome what was not a super talented offensive line. That was the most impressive thing. I think in San Diego, that's maybe the key to their success. How much can they mitigate the talent of their individual offensive linemen with scheme? And you're right, with Rivers, it changes. Because that running option and the ability to hold a lineman with your quarterback changes the numbers. We talk about that all the time. Seattle used to do it constantly.

So that's a big question. Will it look the same? Can they get the same efficiency? I mentioned it earlier, Danny. I'm fascinated by it. It'll be one of the things I'm looking at. I don't know what to expect at all. It's one of those things where you kind of go into this season.

I mean, and you can't learn a ton from week one necessarily, but I mean, I'm still like I don't really have any idea of what to expect. All right. So here's my question. How low is the bar for people to think maybe Brock Osweiler should play quarterback in Denver?

because the thing is, it's an intriguing situation because Trevor Simeon is just like not that good, but we know that Brock Osweiler is worse. But I feel like, I mean, if it's two picks, are people going to start calling for Brock freaking Ox Osweiler? I mean, he's at success in Denver. It's the least sexy quarterback competition I can remember in years. No one cares. No one cares who wins. No one's invested in any of the options.

It's so true. And it also kind of just doesn't matter because it's the only way that Broncos are going to win. is if Vaughn Miller like has three strips sacks a game. Yeah, yeah. God, it's really, it's kind of terrifying and kind of sad how quickly Paxton Lynch has become a first round pick they traded up four or two. Should Brock Osweiler be the starting quarterback?

Mahomes is like an afterthought. I'm excuse Mahomes. Lynch is like an afterthought now. Yeah, I know. No, I was thinking, I was about to bring up Mahomes because they also traded up for the end. And then I just instead just accidentally called Paxton Lynch Mahomes.

There you go. He's on your mind. saw how much his career was going down the tank yesterday. I'm still in the preseason. Yeah, I called for Alex Smith to get traded to Jacksonville so that the Jacksonville can compete this year. Maybe they should just trade Mahomes. There you go.

I've seen enough from Alex Smith. He's the best quarterback in the NFL. Okay. Danny, thank you for joining us. Coming up, one of our fellow ringer staffers is already calling for a quarterback change for his team. That's a good way to start the season.

We're also going to be talking about some of the storylines we think will be big after week one is over. But before that, Let's hear from a couple of our sponsors. Before we move on, we've all been waiting for this since February 6th. Now football season is here. Robert, there's no better way to get closer to the game you love than with Draft King's one-week fantasy football. That's true, man. And now Draft King is hosting a $100,000 contest this Sunday that is totally free to enter.

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Best of all, you can kick off the 2017 NFL season with a free NFL game pass trial. Sign up now at NFL.com slash the ringer. That's NFL.com slash the ringer. So throughout this season, we'll be welcoming in various ringer staff members who are huge NFL fans. And today, the inaugural voyage, Ringer MLB show host Michael Bowman. Michael, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to dispense my immense football knowledge on the two of you.

So you wrote an interesting section of the ringer NFL preview that came out today about the Houston Texans. You live in Houston. So Michael, preach to us about the church of Deshawn Watson. Well, my attachment to Deshawn Watson stretches back to his college days where, so I went to the University of South Carolina. I'm a big Gamecock football fan. and after several years of USC destroying Clemson, all of a sudden this dude comes in and just ruins my life. And I'm so happy he's in the NFL now because I'm like,

I'm so sick at him dropping 400 passing yards, 120 rushing yards, you know, dropping bombs to Mike Williams. It's a chapter of my life that I'm very happy to pass on to the AFC South. So I don't, you know, the other thing is, the Texans, I mean, I was just doing a little bit of play indexing before I came on. And like the Texans have made the playoffs four times in the past six years. They won a game three of those four years. And like, T.J. Yates started and won a playoff game for them.

Like, we're so desperate for a quarterback down here that when Brock Osweiler showed up and like everybody, and everybody knew this was a bad idea, except. he showed up and J.J. Watt got hurt and the city went nuts for him. Like, before he threw a pass, he's doing local TV commercials. It's like he's given press conferences, like he's running for Congress, and it could not have been worse. So I think Deshaun Watson represents, you know, whenever he takes over the starting job, if he's mediocre, he might be the best quarterback in franchise history. And this, you know, with Watt and Clowny and Whitney Merciless, and this.

incredible defense and they've got some interesting weapons. Like this is a team that could easily contend for the Super Bowl with just a mediocre quarterback. Before we get to the quarterback talk specifically, Michael, did you just make the phrase play index into a verb? Yeah. I mean, yeah. Okay.

That's a baseball guy. It was great. We do it a lot in baseball. Robert, we had the discussion, I think, on our first preseason show, but the first quarterback needs to be benched. and you said it should be Tom Savage. When do you think that's going to happen? So I was on the Deshaun Watson train early.

I mean, just based on a lot of stuff you said, Michael, the defense will be great. It will be really, really good. And this team has a chance to be really good. So you want to just try to thrust the best quarterback in there as soon as you can to get the most out of that. My concern now is that I've kind of stepped back a little bit because I watched Sean Watson playing the preseason.

It did not go well. He doesn't look like he's ready. And I feel like that's the reason that Tom Savage stays in the game. Because even if Savage is bad, even if he's awful and the offense can't get anything going, the worst thing that could happen is that Bill O'Brien, who's a little scared that maybe his job is on the line, it's been a few years now, that offense doesn't get better, there's going to be some chirping. If he throws Watson in there and Watson is bad and you start to develop bad habits, you start to just be scared, not understand yourself, not understand who you're supposed to be within the offense,

that is the worst outcome. That's the one thing they can't do based on the move they made to go up and get him. When you trade future picks for a guy, you can't let him just fall apart. It's what happened with Jared golf last year. They can't be impatient, and that's why I would hope

that they would do what's in Deshawn Watson's best interest and not necessarily in what's in the best interest of everyone watching the Texans. And I think there's something to that. And I don't necessarily, as eager as I am to see Watson get into games, I don't necessarily disagree with taking him slow, you know, taking him slow. I will say there's an important difference between Watson and golf,

and that's that Watson isn't a broomstick with a blonde wig on. You know, he's got some actual football skills for lack of a better word. That is fair. And I actually wonder how much they risk by starting Savage. Because like this is a team that, like I said, it's been pretty successful over the past few years. And the second highest passer rating in franchise. history belongs to Brian Hoyer.

So, like, there's a limit to how much worse Tom Savage can be than what they've been doing before. So, you know, if they, I don't know when their by week is, but, you know, if you get Tom Savage halfway through the season, you're not out of the race and maybe you bring Watson along slowly. And, like, he's not, I wonder a little bit about his ability to stand up to punishment because he's not a huge guy. I mean, that's, you know, there's a reason you didn't go number one overall.

But, like, the expectations are high because they invested in a quarterback, but also, like, He doesn't have to be very good in order to, he's not going to take a huge public beating, I think. If he's not, if he doesn't show up and turn into Dak Prescott week one. That's fair. Week seven is there by, by the way, which kind of would be the perfect time to do it. I was going to say they have multiple biweeks because they have Scott Tolling and Bordels in the division. So they have like three by weeks. So week one, which is this week.

Yeah. So week one, the rare week one by. Well, we see with three teams this year, this year now, with the dolphins and the bucks. Yeah, phenomenal. Yeah, no, I talked to Bill O'Brien and Rick Smith in the preseason about Deshaun Watson. And one of the things they said, we've talked so much about the spread to pro transition as far as the offensive's go. And they say Deshaun Watson, Clemson put a lot on his plate to the point they feel comfortable throwing a lot at him. And he'll be able to play as a rookie.

Now, the question is just there's two ways to look at it. Number one, Bill O'Brien is still allegedly a quarterback guru. So I do think that he'll be able to get enough out of Tom Savage for him to at least be competent over the course of the season. Having said that, Bill O'Brien has the quickest trigger of any coach in the NFL. I mean, he's ready to bench guys. I mean, he may bench Watson after three plays. I mean, I don't know what to expect from Bill O'Brien because he's just been so,

you know, if it was Bill Belichick, we'd call it flexible. But he's just been so eager to bench guys that I think that he could go to Watson and then go back to Savage. And so that's what's just interesting to me about the Texans. That I hate. That's like the worst thing I could imagine is putting your first round rookie quarterback in and then yanking him because he has a short leash. That's terrible. I would hate that so much, but I wouldn't be surprised. It's amazing because Michael Bowman has watched a lot of Houston Texans football and I bet he thinks that's not the worst possible thing.

because the worst thing you could imagine with the Houston Texans quarterbacks is significantly worse than that. Yeah, he's the best quarterback for the Broncos. That's the worst thing you can imagine. Yeah, exactly. All right, Michael, thank you so much for joining us. Everyone listened to the Ringer M-O-B show. It's heating up.

Michael, what's the most interesting thing of baseball right now? The Dodgers are suddenly really bad. I watched their last couple games. They were on like 110 win pace and they've lost, I think, 12 out of 13. and their local TV announcers are like, the way I put it last night was they sound like guys who incorrectly predicted the rapture and they're sort of going through their issues

live on air right now. So that's a lot of fun right now. So I'd say watch the Dodgers. Meanwhile, Cleveland's on a 15-game winning streak. So we've got both extremes in terms of teams that are going to make the playoffs. Big Cup series, Bowman. Five games up.

They beat up in Milwaukee this week. It's over. It's been over for months. Don't say that to me. I ran into one of those Cubs fans. I ran into one of those Cubs fans last week. And, you know, he was saying, I'm not happy with this season.

You know, I'm like, you guys are in first place. Imagine being up in the division in September. You know, go back three years and say that to yourself. Up five with 27 left. I'm good to go. I feel very good. You guys turned into Red Sox fans so quickly. That's the neatest thing you could say to me.

You must leave the podcast. now. All right, I'm out. Hey, no, so that rapture comment about the Dodgers announcers is also a good way to describe Mays and I talking about the chiefs at the start of this show. Yep. We're just trying to sort of walk around the fact that we

said they'd be terrible and they just destroyed the Patriots. Terrible is overstating it. I said they'd be 13th and I'm still not walking that far back from that. Eric Barry's out for the season. Let's take it easy. It's one game. Yeah. Oh, well. You should never have questioned the fact that Andy Reid is the John the Baptist of the NFL.

Exactly. That's right. We missed that. All right, buddy. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. All right. All right.

Okay, the last thing we want to get to on the Friday show is we're going to start talking about next week's biggest headlines. So we're going to say, okay, the headline on Monday, the headline on Tuesday. What's it going to be? Robert, go ahead. What's your headline on Monday or Tuesday? So I feel like this kind of ties into what happened with the Patriots last night,

but they're too good for this to happen. It feels like every year we have a team that, maybe he was going to bounce back, maybe he was going to take a slide, and then they lose in week one, and we completely overstated it. The two teams I'm thinking about right now, just in this hypothetical, are like Carolina and Atlanta.

Let's say the Niners come out, offense looks good, Shanahan running it, the defense, the pieces kind of come together. Cam's not all the way back. They have a rough outing. Maybe McCaffrey doesn't do so great with that offensive line

against the Niners defensive line that's pretty decent. And people just lose their minds. Oh, man, the Panthers are, we're let's write off the Panthers. They've fallen off. This experiment was terrible. It just feels like one of those is going to happen.

And that they seem like a prime candidate for it. I don't know if they're necessarily the one, but I definitely think there's going to be one team that some lesser opponent jumps on them. We write them off. And then in week eight, they're six and two. Yeah. So this is going to be my headline because it's still going to dominate the news cycle.

The overreaction headline next week is going to be. Is this the end of the Patriots dynasty? Yeah. We've already, not only, I mean, we've done this before. Again, the times. And we've, we've literally done it with the same team. It's ridiculous. And so I think there's, in general, there's going to be the, oh, is it time to go to Garoppolo?

Is it time, you know, do they need, I saw this morning, then you make a trade to help out the pass rush. Has anyone figured it out more often and with more consistency than Bill Belichick? I mean, it's correct. Give it time. I mean, you know, it was interesting to me. Belichick was asked on Friday morning about the depth of wide receiver. And he said, I think the bigger issue is they didn't do a good job, right? And so, like, I don't know.

Maybe he sees this as a personnel problem. But I think overall, it's just he's got new guys. It's going to, you know, it takes time to mesh. No one knows better than Bill Belichick. Basically, Belichick and Carol, they're the ones who know that you need to peak in December, January, and February. That's what you're building your team towards. And that's why the Seahawks, you know, how often have we seen the Seahawks go four and four

in the first two months? We're like, uh-oh, and then all of a sudden, you know, that was the first three years of their dynasty. And so for me, not their, their NFC dynasty at least. And so for me, I just think we're going to have to have a lot of patience, but I think the takes are going to be scorching all weekend. The Patriots scored 27 points. Gronk had a touchdown call back that they didn't turn the ball over on downs on the same

possession. And then they turn the ball over on downs later. in the game. This is not an offense that was a mess yesterday. Against the defense, it's pretty dang good. So I'm feeling just fine about the Patriots. I totally agree with you. I think part of it, you know, Belichick loves to game plan and, and take away what a team does best. And if you heard Rodney Harrison for the game, it was clear that they thought that maybe it was going to be tie hill short passes. You know, they were going to make Alex Smith beat them with a deep ball. And he did. And I just don't think that's, I just kind of think that's a miracle on their, on their part.

And so I, you know, I wouldn't look too deeply at the Patriots defense at this point. I mean, if it becomes a pattern, that's when you start to worry. But I, I'm not as worried as the takes are going to be next week. All right, what's your next headline, Robert? Every year we have the guy who becomes the superstar in week one. You know, it's often a quarterback. Remember, RG3 had that monster game against the Saints, Mario de through all those touchdowns against Tampa Bay.

I mean, there's a rookie that comes out and just lights the world on fire every single year. Whether it sustains is an entirely different question, but it just feels like with all the options this year, we're going to have one of those in 2017, whether it's Dalvin Cook tearing apart the Saints, whether McCaffrey does actually have a big game against San Francisco, maybe Kaiser plays well better than we think he might against that Steelers secondary. One of those guys is going to have that game where we stand up and take notice. And we might just say it's Kareem Hunt. I mean, if this was Sunday, that's what we'd be talking about on Monday.

So with this set of rookie scope position players, it's almost a guarantee. We'll have at least one more of those this week. It's interesting to me. I look at week one in the similar, I look at it in college football. And how often have we seen, you know, Texas plays Notre Dame and one team wins. Then we think that, you know, the team that won is back, right? Or I remember when I was a student in Miami, I went to a Florida State Miami game. And Miami beat them in an incredible game to that.

It was in Tallahassee. I was there. Christian Ponder incomplete pass on fourth down, which, by the way, shape of things to come with Christian Ponder. But, you know, we draw the conclusions because it's all we have to go on, right? And so I think this weekend, there are so many intriguing quarterback matchups. We talked about Marriota versus Carr, Wenz versus Cousins. Someone is going to have a breakout performance from the quarterback perspective, and we're going to crown them probably prematurely. I think that I could see Mariotta. winning on Sunday. And even though I love Marriota, and I think that one day, one day, Marcus Marieto is going to win an MVP award in the NFL, I think that we're probably,

if they win, you know, 30 to 20 on Sunday against a weird Raiders team that's not all the way healthy and still figuring things out on defense, I think we could prematurely crown a quarterback. It's a long season.

The same way we've prematurely crowned the chiefs. I see a, I see a quarterback sort of getting the hype machine going, almost, you know, in a way like Wednesday, last year in the first four weeks of the year. We basically did an emergency once pod and said he was like the best quarterback in the NFL.

That's a great example. I think something's going to happen this week. Yep. That's a great example. That's perfect. Robert, it might be Carson once again. Yeah. Who knows?

I mean, there's so many changes. We've talked about all the things we're going to be looking for with turnover, right? There's so many things that have gone back and forward, new coordinators, new talent. There are just a ton of guys on the board that could be better or different than we think they might be. And I think that's the beauty of week one. That's the thing I'm always excited about.

That's it for today. We'll be back on Tuesday with our reactions to all the action on week one. As always, thanks for listening to the Ringer NFL show and the Ringer podcast network. Appreciate it, guys. Okay, Robert, in case you forgot, you can rewatch every throw, every catch, every fourth and inches of every bear's game or Chiefs Patriots with NFL game pass. I'm glad you think that they're going to be to fourth and inches. That would be really a lot better than I would consider. Excuse me, fourth and 14.

There you go. That's much better. I love punts. Whatever you want to watch, whatever your favorite game is, NFL Game Pass has got it. Get game replays, condense games, the all 22 coaches film, and more. If it's NFL football and it happened, NFL Game Pass has got it. So kick off the 2017 NFL season with a free NFL game pass trial. Sign up now at NFL.com slash the ringer.