The Ringer NFL Show - Week 1 Recap: Brady’s Bucs Debut, Cam Newton’s New Patriots, and Listener Questions | The Ringer NFL Show

Episode Date: September 14, 2020

The Ringer’s Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti discuss Sunday’s NFL games, including Tom Brady’s underwhelming debut in Tampa Bay (03:59). They also go over the Patriots’ victory over the Miami Dolphins and what Cam Newton brings to the franchise (25:04). Later they get into the week’s winners and losers (38:12) and then get to your listener questions. Hosts: Kevin Clark and Nora Princiotti Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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whether that's NBA, soccer, golf, the whole deal. Heineken is there. Pick up a pack or have it delivered today and drink responsibly. It is the Ringer NFL show, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I'm Kevin Clark. Joined on a Sunday night for week one. We made it. It's the Ringer's Nora Prenciotti.

Nora, how is your viewing experience today? Was it weird? Did you notice the lack of crowds? Yeah. Well, so the whole thing was weird for me personally, honestly, Kevin, because I've spent, you know, I haven't watched football this way in a long time, just sitting and consuming multiple games at once.

I mean, I would get a few, when I was covering the Patriots, I would get a few weekends like that a year, but not like this. So it was actually, it was really cool, but it was really different. And I don't know if it's because this year has just been crazy and we've all been anticipating this day for so long. But one, I woke up this morning and I was just hyper, beyond belief.

So I went out to my deck and like was doing a little like Instagram live workout thing. And I was just like doing jumping jacks, but turning it into a weird dance thing. And then all of a sudden made direct eye contact with somebody who lives like building across for me who was out on their roof. And I was like, this is mortifying. But you know what? We will sacrifice my pride in exchange for a great NFL Sunday. and then kicked off, everything was going great. Then at around 4 p.m., I realized I hadn't fed myself.

Yeah, that happened to me. That happened to me. Well, after lunchtime, I was like, man, I haven't even had anything yet. Yeah, so then I got a sweet green. I did not get sweet green. But I will say that I slept about, I don't know, two or three hours. Like it was like a literal toddler. I just stayed up because I was so excited.

And I wasn't, it was just very strange. and I was just really, I don't know. I mean, there was so much to process on this Sunday, and there's a lot to get to. And the fact that the Cowboys just lost, and it's going to be the third or fourth or fifth thing we talk about in this episode shows you how jam-packed today was and how much news there was.

I do want to point out that this is one of five shows on the ringer NFL show feed this week. That is going to be every week for the next whatever, 20 weeks, whatever the NFL does puts together the next couple of months. Ryan Chaser and Colerite will be here on Tuesday as well. And then Warren Sharp has two shows later in the week. We couldn't be more excited about these additions. It's going to be amazing.

But we kick things off with the first Sunday show with a headline. It's Tom Brady. It's Bill Belichick. Now, the New Orleans Saints beat the Bucks 3423. The Patriots beat the Dolphins 21 to 11. Those two games are linked. We'll get to how they're linked in a second. but I want to start with just your impressions of Tom Brady and the Bucks

because this is something we've been watching for months. My feelings on them as a team, as a franchise, as an offense, have just changed almost weekly and nothing's happened. And that's the thing. For the first time in seven months, something happened today. We saw something in front of our eyes. And so every theory we had, every feeling we had, every educated guess we had about what this is.

Tampa team would look like. It was all just stabs in the dark. Now we got to see it. It was underwhelming. That will probably change. First impressions of Tampa Bay, Nora. Tampa Bay. Well, it's funny that you talk about, you know,

just all the lead up and wondering what this was going to feel like, even beyond the results, the stats, whatever, just sort of what, like, what was going to be palpable from this day. And I don't know if it's because I covered Tom Brady in New England, But this was the one where it just felt strange to me. Like he goes in and he's wearing a creamsicle t-shirt. And it's like the Tom Ford suit is gone. And there were some things where, you know,

so he looked pretty out of sync in a lot of moments in that offense. And there were times when it looked very familiar, actually, just having watched him in New England last year, where you see some of the past. and they're so crisp and they're so precise and it's like, yeah, that's Tom Brady. And then there's a few more. You know, we'll talk about his two interceptions where it just, you know, it doesn't feel quite like the Tom Brady of old would have done that.

And I don't know if that's a projection. I don't know if that's just sort of the power of narrative. But you start to see, you know, you wonder if you ascribe it to age. You wonder if you ascribe it to just the different. of this year, you wonder if you ascribe it to changing teams after 20 years. And it's a really interesting test case of everything that I think we're going through in this weird, crazy start to the season because there's all these, you know, these what ifs and extra variables. And when you have something that feels very different in a lot of ways, you're kind of bouncing around and wondering

what it would be. I mean, so he threw two interceptions. We can talk about that. One thing that I thought was really interesting, Bruce Ariens afterwards, just came out and said that they were both his fault. Brady's fault. He said Mike Evans had read the coverage right in the first one.

Brady did not. I'm curious, when you look at that quote, having covered a coach who, the only coach Tom Brady's ever known, who does not give out such blame for interviews, or excuse me, in interviews for interceptions,

as we know, he does not give out much. Do you think that there's, I don't know, he thinks he's going to be a bit taken aback by that because that's just never really happened to Tom Brady before that on the interview podium, a coach says, here's what happened and it was Tom Brady's fault. Yeah, so here's the Brouserian's quote. He said, Mike read it right and it should have been across his face,

but Tom just overthrew it. And the other was a screen pass with an outlet called and he threw the outlet and it was a pick six. Bad decision. So if anybody didn't, you know, didn't hear that from Bruce Ariens, it was pretty, doesn't get much clearer than that, right? And Bill Belichick was never shy to dole out criticism to Tom Brady in private. But the difference is having it happen in public, right?

And I actually think that- And that's specific as well. Right. I actually think that it's probably less of an issue than it may get made out to be. because one of the things that I think Brady will really love and probably already does really love about playing in Tampa and about playing for Bruce Ariens. And this is something that I've heard from, you know,

people sort of in Brady's orbit that he was really excited about is just that Bruce Ariens is a relationships person in a way that Bill Belichick can be with players after they're done playing for him. But that's not how he sees coaching. And so he's going to have this opportunity there. And I don't think a week run result does anything to change that to be with a coach who, you know, they're going to be buddy, buddy and they're going to be sort of mono-a-mono

and how they talk to each other and how much time they spend together and how often they communicate and share ideas. And Arians will probably take input on the offense that maybe Belichick wasn't towards the end. And I think all of those things will probably give them a foundation that's actually going to be more important because Brady's used to hearing the criticism in private. And I bet that that, you know, it still matters to him if everybody else gets to hear it too. But I bet it doesn't make as big of a difference just because he's used to hearing it. And I think that he will have a good thing with Arians and understand that that's just sort of what comes with it. That said, he's got to know that, you know, for better or worse, every game and this entire season for him and however long he lasts in Tampa, or if he goes somewhere else, I guess,

it's all going to be sort of a referendum on his decision to leave New England, and that's really personal to him. So he didn't look happy after the game, and he looked a sort of extra degree of unhappy beyond just normal Tom Brady loss, sad face. we will unpack that specific decision in a bit. I think that when I talk to people who have either coached Tom Brady

or been around that Patriots organization, you know this far, far better than I do, having been in that locker room every day. But Tom Brady wants to be coached really hard. And he tells people that. And he's told Bill O'Brien that, and Josh and Daniels that,

Charlie Weiss that. There are some superstar quarterbacks who want, I don't want to say to be coddled, but I don't think that they want to be treated like they all. are the freshman trying to make the JV team here. Okay. And it points in his career.

I think Tom Brady has liked that. And so I think that if Bruce Ariens is saying this is his fault or whatever, I'm with you. Belichick has probably said things 500 times worse in private. And we didn't hear about it. So I think he's going to be fine with that. Now, Tom Brady had a bad game. He had some very weird passes.

Going back to last year now, he's the first quarterback to have three straight games with a pick six since Blaine Gabbert, his backup, and Matt Schaubb did it in 2013. That's a long time. The two-point conversion pass he had was, don't take this the wrong way, Josh Allen-esque.

A lot of people pointed this out. Now, I do want to say, I saw this very quick Bill's rant. The Bill's did a great job today. We'll talk about them later in a segment. But every time someone throws like an awful pass, who's a superstar now, there's a weird collection of Bill's fans

who are like, if this were Josh Allen, that should have gone viral. It's like, okay, I got you. We're all set. Like, just because your quarterback does this every once in a strong people make fun of it doesn't mean we have to just point on everything. Anyway, having said that all, Tom Brady on that two-point conversion did, as many people pointed out, look a little bit Josh Allen-esque as far as so when the ball goes. He said it himself, just terrible turnovers. I just, I don't know. I mean, this was what I feared. I've been asked a couple of times over the past few weeks.

If it doesn't click, why doesn't it click? And the answer for me was time and cohesion. And every GM and coach said it was going to take a while for anybody new to get on the same page where that's a play caller, quarterback, wide receiver, whatever. And Tom Brady is into precision. And he's into, if he throws the ball 15 yards down the field and it's off by half an inch, he knows about it. He's mad at himself and he wants to work on it 500 times.

UCLA in June. He didn't get that this time. He doesn't know where everybody is in the building. I mean, it's a little thing. There are tens of thousands of reasons teams win football games over the, over the course of a year, right? Like little small things. One rep here, one rep there. One extra sprint here. One extra sprint there. One extra install package they got in May. Like in a normal year, you can have these tiny little edges to add up to big things. That's how the Patriots have won for years. And I think when you're starting to build a new culture, there in Tampa Bay, and they are trying to change the culture. I mean, he's coming in for James Winston.

I don't think that just from a play calling standpoint, just from a play style standpoint, I mean, things are going to change when you go from James Winston and Tom Freak and Brady. And I don't think it's one of the rare things that I will ascribe the COVID off season to is if Tom Brady and the Bucks get off to a slow September, I expect them to get better as the season goes along because they don't get that ramp up period. That seems right to me. I'll also just loop back to that Bill's point. Kevin is at by Kevin Clark on Twitter for our bills fan listeners.

That's at by Kevin Clark. I'll just direct you his way. I like the bills. I like the bills and I like what they're doing right now. I'm just saying there's a weird fan thing right now where anytime there's a bad pass, we have to make comparisons. I'm merely presenting your contact information. It's kind of a cell phone.

In case any of our wonderful listeners would like to share. their thoughts. But I think what you're saying makes a lot of sense. The receivers, you know, Brady, so Chris Godwin had six catches for 79 yards. Scotty Miller had five for 73. Those seemed like the

connections that were crisper than the rest. Notably, Mike Evans was a non-factor. But that's not to say that Tom Brady and Mike Evans won't find a way to work. I'm pretty sure that's going to be fine. I'm sure they'll sort it

out. However, I do think we've heard a lot and even seen like on Tom Brady's Instagram and stuff. He has given some props to Godwin and Miller. I don't think that that's a coincidence that it seemed like he had taken a liking to those guys pretty early. And I had always thought, you know, or at least wondered as he adjust to playing there, that there could be sort of a really pivotal moment at some point this season where he's getting up to speed with these receivers.

And there are some things that he's just not going to have a Brady to Julian Edelman connection with any of these guys after a few months. It's just that rapport is not there and it's not going to be there. And there are elements of talent

and physical skill that are there in spades in a way that he didn't have in New England. So it's not as if it's you know, there's a lot of pros, but one of the cons is that he's just not going to have that. And for a player who does like things to be really precise and does care a lot about his individual quarterback to receiver connection, there's probably going to be a moment or two this season

where he's just going to have to kind of accept that there will be more unknowns. And I'm interested to see if they do get, you know, progressively much better over the course of the season. like I think we both think that they will. That to me will speak really highly of Brady actually because it'll tell me that when he's encountered those moments in practice where, you know, someone took 11 steps before breaking instead of 12, then he just said, you know what, pick your battles.

And there's going to have to be some of that for them this year as as, you know, well orchestrated as that offense can be. So that's what I'm curious to see because I don't think this will happen. But obviously, if he starts freezing guys out, that's not good. And that's the worst case scenario. I think it's highly unlikely, but it's something to watch. He's lost four games in week one in his career. And the previous three times has made the Super Bowl.

Well, that's good. In the same way that we're all, we've all been so hesitant to count out the Patriots at any point over the past decade, decade and a half, two decades, whatever you want to call it. I think that I'm not going to pronounce Tom Brady anything, but in the mix to make the playoffs until I've seen a hell

of a lot more, a hell of a lot more. Speaking of old guys, Drew Brice. So both Sean Peyton and Drew Brie's described themselves as awful on Sunday. Peyton said it was as bad a game as I've had as a play caller.

It was a team that I don't know if they genuinely believe that or they're just trying to say that they're going to get better too in the same way the bucks are going to get better uh first of all the fact that breeze and brady were even here i mean these guys played each other in college in 1999 and there were both teams the saints in the bucks their top draft picks this year were both born in 1999 and so the fact that maybe they looked a little rusty after a weird off season i'm i'm okay with that in both regards drew breeze finally look downfield. Congratulations to Drew Brees for being a

downfield pastor again. He had a 47-yard to Jared Cook. I thought the Saints team looked pretty good. They looked like the team that I expect them to look like. What did you see from them? Yeah. So, Breeze had 160 yards, no picks. They were all complaining afterwards and self-flagellating, which I think is, you know, better to fix your mistakes after a win than after a loss. I, um, there was an interesting story and I'm forgetting who wrote it.

And I'm going to feel really bad about this because it was very good. about, I would never forget to give you credit. It was me. I lived to give you props. I might know. I might know or I may have written it. It was about what Breeze did over the off season to get stronger in his lower body so that his downfield passing would improve. And apparently the goal that he and Tom House set was that he wanted to be throwing 60 yards when they were training.

and you know what? That's that's some offseason hypey stuff. But then you come out week one and throw a 47 yarder to Jared Cook. Even that small sample size I think is encouraging because it's just been such, it's been such a thing with Breeze over the last year plus just if that's where we're going to see his age. and I mean, I thought their defense looked incredible. And that as someone who picked the Saints to win the Super Bowl, really the only thing where I felt like,

I got to grit my teeth through this is what Strubury is going to look like in December. And who knows, it's September. But it's better than the alternative is what I'll say, to see him look downfield again. Yeah. And this Saints team will get better too, probably. And I think that Peyton's exaggerating when he says it's about a bad game as he's had.

But I feel like the fact that they're able to make plays take advantage of Brady's mistakes. I feel like that bodes well for them, the NFC South. I do very quickly want to talk about the shot of Josh Rosen sitting in the stands. We're getting more because players, be they on practice squad or in active, are sitting in the stands. This happened with the soccer Champions League as well. Everything looks about 20% more sad because they're just totally. alone. They're like seven rows away from anybody else for social distancing. And the shot of Rosen on in the stands was just, it was a little grim. If you put the Sarah McLaughlin

like ASPCA commercial music over that, like that would, I mean, I would not have shown up to this podcast. It would have just been too. Can you? There was there was a crew of quarterbacks in the building for this game. So it was Tom Brady, Drew Brise, Tom Brady's backup Blaine Gabbard, his backup. although he probably won't play this year. Josh Rosen, who was just going to learn. He's just going to be a learning guy this year. And then on the other side,

Tayson Hill, who is Tayson Hill, and James Winston. I mean, that's a group. That's a group of quarterbacks. That is the only way to describe them. Rank those quarterbacks.

Okay, well, let me take a quick detour on this. I'm very frustrated by the Saints' quarterback depth chart. In so much that Taysam Hill, touches the ball every 20 plays and they don't do anything with it. And yet, Sean Peyton has built the most efficient offense basically in history. Yeah. So that would be, that, that's one reason. But here's the other. I am desperate to see what post-LASIC Jammis is. Or Sean Payton James, just in

general. No. So, yes, that's great. And I think that would be great. And Sean Payton's an incredible coach. I am so fascinated to know what having LASIC surgery. did for him. And I guess there's no reason that, you know, he can't go get another job and compete to start somewhere and we can get a better sense of, it's not like LASIC wears off, or at least not to my knowledge. But I'm impatient. I know. It would be kind of a, kind of a bummer. But, okay, so let's go, who, I guess. So Brady overbreed. I think is where I'm going. And then

James Taysome Rosen Gabbert. Gabbard Rosen, Gabbard, Rosen, Gabbard. I'd actually say Gabbard over Rosen. I thought you were going to say LASIC, James is number one in the whole deal. I would just go, I would go Breeze Brady, James, Gabbard, Taseom Hill.

I guess Tassum. I mean, I don't. Depends what you're looking for. And then Rosen. Anyway, that, that, That's just an aside that we all needed. All right. I'm a long time Josh Rosen stand, too. Today's episode is brought to you by Heineken.

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Hey, guys, football season is at Subway. They make it easy to make a good call on food. So here's a little segment called Bad Call Good Call. where we'll take a look at some of the good and bad plays from the last week. Here it is. This week's bad calls Kevin Stefansky, new Browns coach, calling a fake punt early in a game against the defending AFC North champion Baltimore Ravens. I understand wanting to make a statement. I understand wanting to be aggressive.

I'm all four going board on fourth down, but the Ravens are a really good team. To have that sort of failure early in the Brown season is not a good omen, and I just think it was a little too aggressive. This week's good call, Sean Payton of the New Orleans Saints calling for what amounts to an on-site kick. It was basically a skied down-the-field kick that the Bucks simply couldn't handle. The Saints get the ballback and the Saints win in a crucial matchup against Tom Brady and the 10-5 Buccaneers. I thought that was just the right amount of aggression. It doesn't cost you much if you fail, but the rewards obviously are there.

Another bad call from last week, me eating too many nachos, just weighed down with nachos. Not exactly my greatest decision. This week, why not make a good call instead? Like a chicken terriaki from Subway. Another good call? Getting a free footlong when you buy two at participating Subway restaurants. All right, guys, let's make some good calls this week. Order and pay contact free in the Subway app

for quick and easy pickup or delivery on game day or any day. It's footlong season at Subway. Eat fresh. Freshly prepared in front of you. The other game that's linked to this one is the Patriots 21 to 11 win over the Miami Dolphins. Kim Newton, it looked as good as he could possibly look. I think he probably exceeded the expectations for week one. The first touchdown, I think, showed a touchdown run from Newton,

showed what kind of offensive creativity we're going to see this year and how Josh Daniels is going to scheme this up. Darren Wolves, he had a really good breakdown. Basically, they pulled the tackle, which most people are not used to seeing as a lead blocker, and that created some hesitation near the goal line. linebackers just not used to seeing it. The blocking was there. And I think Cam Newton looks like probably the best case scenario, Cam Newton,

which was never going to be 2015 Cam Newton, but it was just early 2018 Cam Newton. And I think that he's probably never going to be MVP again. But I think he's got a real chance to be special in this offense. What's just stood out for you? Well, so first of all, he looks healthy. you know, that's, that's the biggest thing, right? So he ran for 75 yards. They were running power in the red zone.

By the way, I think this is going to be a thing going forward. It's unfair to reduce Cam Newton to his, just his athleticism and just what he can do on the ground. But I want to make the point really, really clear that that's going to be really, really, really important because the Patriots have been terrible in short yardage for the majority of two seasons in particular last season. They really struggled there. So it's not that that's all Cam Newton's capable of by any means. And they were 5 of 10 on third downs, 101 on 4th down, which was a Newton run in this game. Having those kinds of results for the 2019 Patriots would have made a lot of things different. So they're running a very different offense now and a lot of things have changed.

But that is something where they were particularly weak last season that he is really the perfect player to improve if he's healthy, which, again, it seems like he is. Now, they ran a really simple game plan. You know, it was when they were passing, it was a lot of play action, only one throw longer than 20 yards, which was on a busted coverage to Ryan Izzo, who's one of their tight ends. We'll see, you know, what this looks like in a few weeks and how much they can add to it. One thing Newton said after the game that I thought was really interesting was that he was just over the moon about what it was like to just sit on the sideline and talk to Josh McDaniels during the game and go over plays and what was working.

He said the dialogue we had on the sideline was unbelievable. McDaniels being transparent as well as myself on how we could attack this defense. And he just seemed really excited about it. So I guess that bodes pretty well for them being able to open it up a little bit as they go down the line here. I mean, you know, the dolphins, I think, are a team that we both think is spunky, but is probably not going to win the Super Bowl this year. I'm not ready to overreact to a win over the dolphins in week one. What I'm encouraged by, if I'm looking at this from a football perspective,

is just the things I wanted to see are their health, scheme creativity. I never doubted it as far as the scheme stuff because, you know, look, I've written this. Josh and Daniels went to Florida 14 years ago, met with Dan Mullen, basically learned the Alex Smith, Urban Meyer offense, and that was the same offense,

which at that exact time had Cam Newton in it, before, obviously, his journey, which you can hear all about on the Cam Chronicles here on the NFL show feed with her buddy Tyler Times. But I think there's an element where they were waiting their whole career, Bill and Josh, to start scheming up this sort of stuff. There's a reason you saw a little bit of creativity with it.

Cam Newton broke the single season, a single game record for quarterback rushing guards. He had, my Reese had this on, he had, in the first half, they averaged almost seven yards per carry on zone reads. Also, Mike Reese, interestingly enough, the run to seal out the game was an 11 yarder on second and one. They had seven offensive linemen, two tight ends and one fullback on the field. They're going to try to play bully ball with Cam. This is something Bill Belichick has always loved

physicality, all that stuff and this is not nothing new. It's just they're going to do different stuff with their quarterback and they're going to get, it's going to be very, as you said, simplified. It's going to be a little bit old school,

but it's going to be creative. I'm really interested to see it. Other thing, though, in particular early this year, I mean, we've touched on already how much we want to ascribe to COVID off season and what that means

and when that can be sort of even maybe overblown. because I think we're seeing a lot of things that look relatively normal. But to me, there is something to the Patriots being one of the first three teams. The others were the Colts and the Bills, who at the start of all of this, when it was clear that OTAs mini-camps weren't happening, they were the first three teams to say, okay, well, we're going to start our virtual physical training program as soon as we can. And we'll send them whatever equipment that we can, we're going to start it.

Absolutely as soon as possible. Bill Belichick was saying things like, well, we know from the lockout year and just from experience in general that teaching them the plays, we're going to be okay doing that. We have to get them in shape. So they put a lot of work into doing that. And I'm not saying that that's the only way to do that, by the way, because I've been really impressed with what the saints have done, which is actually basically the opposite thing and just said, go do your thing. But. in both cases, what ties those together is that there's a clear plan, but the Patriots embraced that the biggest challenge was going to be the physicality and getting everybody in shape. And then they also go sign a 250-pound quarterback. And they've already, you know, their offensive line is one of the strengths of the team. They play with a fullback. And there's something to be said coming out of this however many months stretch

where a lot of guys weren't going to their normal gyms. They weren't training with their teams. To a degree, we might have just seen this with the Ravens, too. Just go crush people. And I don't know if it's going to work in December and January, but I think it works in September a little bit. I talked to guys, a lot of guys, who did not have the normal weightlifting regimen in the offseason.

And maybe they were able to get dumbbell somewhere or whatever, but it was a lot of bodyweight stuff. And I thought, I think it's a really tough time to try to tackle Camp Newton right now. That's how I'll talk. that up. I interviewed a trainer in the spring who was telling me that he had he had linemen who were pushing their cars in their garage because you just, you can't train for that without weights. You need something to mimic the resistance of moving bodies in a football game. And they did not have that. So again, maybe down the line in the playoffs, this isn't so much of a factor,

but I think that we're seeing it be one right now. I was doing the car thing too, just to my gym was closed. I don't know what to say to that. If you try to do that in Los Angeles, list you'd be thrown in jail. I also, you're not, the streets are so narrow here. It'd be really hard to do. Maybe like a smart car. Once you get it going. Maybe once you get it going.

All right. Let's get to the bigger topic here before we move on to our winners and losers, which is every time the Patriots win, the bucks lose, or vice versa, this is going to feed into the broader conversation of Brady versus Belichick. And our buddy Ryan Rusillo had a jokey power ranking where Belichick was number one and Brady was number two right now. And I feel like a lot of media unironically threw it out there and said, oh, first blood for Belichick.

And I just, again, I just think that's very strange. The Patriots were playing the Dolphins fresh off one of the strangest years they've ever had as far as roster rebuilding. And they're just not ready to compete. And then Tom Brady and the Bucks were playing in New Orleans against one of the best coaching quarterback combos we've seen in decades. Okay. So different circumstances.

But I want to ask you, do you feel as if both of those guys or you can go ahead and include it? Because I've heard it's even broader. There's a lot of people who think they're responsible for the success in New England, obviously. Do you feel like there's a lot of people who view this in New England as a year to prove who was more important? Yeah.

I think it will. Now, there's probably a lot of people where if you asked them, you know, you have to choose one or the other. They might say, well, you can't. It's a little bit of both. But do people think along those lines? I think they absolutely do. I mean, in my beloved former employer, the Boston Globe, I was reading all of their coverage after the game. And there was a headline that was like, just checking in. Belichick one, Brady Zero. And that's totally in the water stream because it was in the water stream before Brady left, right? And there's such a curiosity, I think. You know, some of it is palace intrigue stuff and drama, drama, drama. But there's also a a real curiosity in that that was an unprecedented 20 years. And we've never really seen anything like that

in the NFL before. And it's pretty natural to want to know who was responsible for what and who deserves credit. And I think any sane person is going to recognize that it's both. And it's also a lot of other people. And it's also, you know, the crafts and and some luck and being in the AFC East. And the list goes on and on. But those two are going to be linked forever, whether they like it or not. I think on the whole, they like it more than they don't. But we're going to deal with this probably all season unless a really, really clear divide happens. And by the way, even if it,

even if it does, if one of them tanks and one of them's great, it's just going to come back around the next year as long as they keep playing. I think the thing that we're also just going to forget about it. Like in 10 years, we're going to forget that Tom Brady, unless he wins a Super Bowl,

played an age 43 season in Tampa Bay. And I don't think that the fact that he's playing longer than anybody except like Vinny Testa Verdi, I don't think that matters when you're trying to decipher who was responsible for this. Like, I just don't think, I don't think he can really glean anything when, when really what Tom Brady's doing is a, a noble experiment to see how long he can, he can go. I mean, he should not be playing right now by all.

And this is true of Breeze as well. Both them, by the way, when you talk about Tom House earlier, both of those guys, Nolan Ryan threw till he was 46. And I think even though Breeze has that NBC deal is probably going to retire this year, the belief in those sort of systems is 46 is possible. And so, yeah, obviously you're getting sacked and stuff. So it's obviously different. Howes, by the way, once told me that Breeze and Nolan Ryan had the exact same throwing stroke.

So that's that. But I think that I just think this is, I don't think it's an unanswerable question now. Like you would have to get Tom Brady out of that system at age 30. too. Right. Well, I mean, there was a thing that would happen at the end of every game in New England for the last however many years where the PR staff would just pass out pages of paper with all sorts of game notes. And it was always just 20 lines long of various records that Tom Brady had either passed like Warren Moon or beaten himself or just extended his thing. Like when he goes into the Hall of Fame, he's going to hug Belichick and it's going to be a whole whole. And it's going to be a whole lot of the year. And it's going to be a whole. thing and absolutely we're probably not going to be thinking a lot about Tampa. But

this year I'm Tampa. Are we going to say that all year? I've said it twice. I don't see any reason to stop. Okay. The thing that's going to be great this year is just whenever Belichick gets asked questions about Brady and how the bucks are doing and just pretends that he couldn't

possibly have seen a snap. of Buccaneers football. We're not getting, we wish them well, we're not, we're not getting ready for them. So I haven't, yeah, you'd have to have,

haven't really caught up with them. You'd have to ask, uh, you'd, you'd have to ask those guys about that. I'm not really, you know, I'm on the teams we play and I'm really more worried about us,

but you'd have to ask them about that. Wish them well. All right, let's get to winners and losers. Let's start with your first winner. So my first winner, Mr. Unlimited himself, Russell Wilson,

Seattle, Seahawks. So he goes, 31 of 35. By the way, big, big week, I haven't done all the math on this, so I guess I could be wrong, but at least anecdotally, seems like a good week for completion percentage with a lot of- Yes. We'll get to that. We'll get to that in my first winner. Don't spoil it. Go ahead. Okay. I don't know what yours is. So 31 to 35, 322 yards, four touchdowns, 143 passer rating. Most importantly. third quarter. They're up by two. They've got a fourth and five. Russ throws a 38 yard touchdown to D.K. Metcalf. Now, I don't know about you, Kevin. I would call that cooking. Yes. They have let Russ cook. This is the fourth time in Russell's career. So this is all off season. Everybody's worried about whether or not Russ is going to get to cook. John Breach from CBS says this. It's the fourth time in his career. The Seahawks have run the ball 20 or fewer times. in a game where Russell Wilson throws 35 times or more.

He's like frigging. This is it. This is what they were asking. That's it. Salpe, exactly. This is what Seahawks fans were asking for. Is what Russell Wilson was asking. We put the ball on his hands.

They beat the Atlanta Falcons 38 to 25. I liked this. I liked this. I also liked just the idea. I like the idea of Pete Carroll, letting Russ cook all year and having established the run for five decades. You established the run. run in the fight at the university of the Pacific in 1973,

NC State, all those places he was at, the Patriots in the 90s, the Jets, before that, USC established the run. Don't need to establish anymore. They're biting. They're biting on the play action. They're biting on the play action. I love this.

All right. So did this give you any, again, and this is one big point I want to make, we're going to try to not react, overreact to some of these week one stuff, but we haven't seen anything else other than these 16 games. And so there's going to, by nature,

be we haven't seen preseason, we haven't seen even training camp practices, we haven't seen OTAs, there's going to be overreactions. Did anything change about how you feel about the Seahawks this season having watched today and watching a little bit of cooking, I guess you could say? Not again, like we're talking about,

not to overreact, but to see the 49ers not have a good day, it made me question if my prediction of the balance of power in that division might not come true. That's certainly possible. In less of the week one overreaction mode, though, the thing that it made me think about was that, you know, we've been talking about continuity and the value of it for a long time. And I wonder if there's a little bit of a tweak to that.

where, I mean, obviously the Seahawks have plenty of continuity, quarterback, offensive coordinator, coach. You know, that's, they would be high in continuity rankings. But we've been talking, you know, this has been a thing. The let rest cook narrative has been a part of our lives for a long time. And so what we are hoping that what we just saw represents not just the Seahawks, being really good this year, but a philosophical change in how they're going to play offense, right? But the thing that's interesting about that to me is that, so next-gen stats, their account tweeted this. So Russell's one of the best deep ball throwers in football, if not the best.

And he is first in deep-ball completions, touchdowns, yards, and expected completion percentage since 2016. So this is a known quantity thing about Russell Wilson, right? Like, that's why we tweet, let Russ cook, you know, until the cows come home. And they're embracing something that we've already been aware of, right? They're embracing something that we know to be true and saying, here's what this guy has to offer. It's not a risk. It's not a risk. It's not a risk at all. It's no such, it's not a risk-averse thing because there's no risk. We know who Russell Wilson is. It's like the risk and like going to the beach or something else that ends awesomely. I don't know where I was going there. What just happened? I was trying to come up on the fly with something that

just like always goes really well. And I, I went with going to the beach. You can't, you know what? I tried to go to the beach this weekend with my wife and there's, there's smoky air everywhere. That's true. How is that beach trip for us? How are you guys doing with that, by the way? Everybody hanging in? I mean, it's not, Northern California is significantly worse. And hopefully, hopefully everything works out for everybody. Um, yes. All right. So any last thoughts in Cior? Go ahead. I started to tweak a little bit just sort of my theory of continuity, right? Where it's like, you can change,

but just change in smart ways. Change in ways that send you to the beach. Change in ways that let rest cook. The beach came back. I'm sorry, I had to bring it back. No, I knew the beach wasn't gone from the entire conversation. All right, my first winner,

this is a Mia Coppah, because I think that even if it's not all that real, he's still much better than I thought. It's Mr. Gardner Minshu. So there were a couple people who said this, and I will kind of summarize their thoughts. Gardner Minshu seemed like a fun story last year,

and I think that we all got caught up in more of the fun story part than the good quarterback part, the mustache, Uncle Rico stuff. And yeah, he had a really good season. But, man, when I watched him play today under Jay Gruden, and maybe there's something there. Remember, Jay Gruden worked miracles, in Cincinnati with Andy Dalton. You know, the play calling was okay in Washington.

Obviously, not exactly Vince Lombardi there, but... He's a good play caller. He's a good play caller. This Jaguar's team really shocked me on Sunday. So they beat the Indianapolis Colts, my pick to win the division 27 to 20. Philip Rivers throws two interceptions. This was a team I thought,

and I think everyone thought, we're tanking. And this was a Colts team. I thought people were going to, I thought we're going to contend and be in playing a divisional weekend. Our friend Greg Rosenthal, who I think is smart as hell, picked the Colts to win the Super Bowl. And I think if I wasn't so addicted to picking the Chiefs and the Ravens in the AFT championship game, I would have had, I would at least thought about the Colts. But that's just not the life I've chosen. I've chosen the life where I pick the Chiefs and the Ravens to play in the ATT championship game every single time. but by the way, just generally in Philip Rivers, the Rivers Chargers thing is the exact opposite of the Patriots Brady thing because both of them ended up in the same situation they've always been in,

which is screwing up in the fourth quarter. And the Chargers ended up winning, by the way, and we'll get to that. But we never knew if Philip Rivers is always down in the fourth quarter or always playing a close game in the fourth quarter because he was on the Chargers or because he was Philip Rivers.

And it turns out, like with the Patriots, the answer is both. Franchise and quarterback aligned perfectly to do the exact opposite of what the Patriots do. Anyway, back to Gardner Menchew. Gardner Manchu is the first player from according to Adam Schefter to throw at least three touchdown passes and complete 95% of his passes

in the first week of the year. completed 46 of 59 passes, 468 yards against in his last two games, both against the Colts. It is the fourth best single game completion percentage of all time Sunday when he was 19 for 20. This is a quarterback who is not tanking for Trevor. Yeah. So it's funny that the stat that you just said, I bookmarked that too. And I'm looking at my notes here. And I have a bunch of stuff like that.

and I'm just like, what does it all mean? You know? Some of it always comes together in a complete picture. And this is just like, what's the end game here? Like what? It's to make me as mad as possible about the Colts and Philip Brooks. We're going to find, by the way, we're going to find out in like, I don't know, three months or 30 years that Philip Rivers like stole some sort of special rock or talism

from. He stole a mummy. Yeah, exactly, like from the Chargers facility. And he took all the Chargers energy with him. And now he's stuck with it. And he has like a ghost. So Leonard Fournett going straight into old takes exposed by saying for the first about Tom Brady for the first time in my life, I have a real quarterback this week. Gardneros throws three touchdowns.

Tom Brady lays an egg. And Leonard Fornet does not play a huge role in it. Again, I think that I think the Fournet, I think. was mostly a shot up like Bordals, by the way, or the guys in LSU, Les Miles wasn't able to develop. But I just, I think that the actions the Jaguars took,

got everybody off the scent of this could be a pesky team. I saw a reference to this. Basically, Chris Long said they're a young team, not a bad team in Jacksonville, which having seen this, it seems like he's dead on. So I don't know. I mean,

I think that this is not, for me, this went from a team that looked like it was, it was headed to the number one overall pick to almost, listen, I'm not going to say that they're this year's darlings or anything. I'm just saying, we saw it on Sunday. They're a team that's going to win games they shouldn't. And I find that very interesting.

Gardner-Minch is such an interesting player because he's a really good deep ball thrower. And it's not because he's got a cannon arm, but, you know, he's got touch. He's got accuracy. And can I tell you a weird Jay Gruden story? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So when I, so I worked in Washington for like four. months, four or five months.

Uh, and I wanted to go back to Boston. So I was kind of like, I got to find some good story and just like knock it out of the park and then, you know, kind of have proven myself and I'll try to do that. And it was right after Sean McVade left. So, um, Jay Gruden was going back to being the play caller. And so I did this story that was kind of about his, his offensive philosophy and tracing it way back. And everybody there told me that John Gruden was never going to talk to me because he didn't do stories about his brother anymore and he'd done too many and whatever. But I called him

anyway because I figured why not. And he picks up and he tells me that he's he's got a flight that's delayed by like three hours and he's just sitting at the airport. So he's like, oh, what the heck? So I totally like score on this interview because John Gruden happened to be sitting waiting at the airport. But the most interesting thing that he told me was that when they worked together in Tampa, he credited Jay with all of their downfield

passing. And I thought that was really interesting just because, you know, we think of Jay Gruden as a West Coast offense guy and not necessarily someone who loves that. But his brother was explaining to me how over time that's actually been really different. And I wonder if that combination could be really cool because if you are sort of, you know, a guy who loves to design offenses and to design plays like Jay Gruden, having a quarterback like Minchu, who's, you know,

Josh Allen, he is not, but he's more precise, that's kind of what you want. That's a better match. So like you said, the Jaguars are not winning the Super Bowl. I guess never say never, but they have an impressive collection of athletic players. They are young. And I do think that sometimes for a team that is enveloped by a lot of chaos, there are some, there's some infrastructure there that's actually pretty strong. I think Doug Moran's a good coach. I totally agree. They just sort of happen to have a lot of players who yell and scream on the way out,

and that's fine. But yes, yes. They lead the league in players who absolutely despise their own team. Right. And there's just like an incredibly emotional breakup between player and team. They're at the top of the leaderboard. Tough leaderboard to get to the top. of because the Jets exist.

Sure. But when I look at the draft, they looked like they were taking projects. I just felt like their actions were telling me that this was going to be a step back season. That's all. And it wasn't, I didn't think, I thought there was a plan there.

Maybe there's a different guy making the draft picks at some point. Maybe there's a different coach at Doug Marum. Isn't the guy there for long term. I mean, they kept him around last year after he was on the hot seat, obviously. But listen, the Jaguar's conversation is, is I'm intrigued to see what happens next. Yeah. That's all.

That's all. I mean, I just feel like they could be a team that that has everybody on kind of an upset alert. All right. Your next winner. So my second one is just bitterness and Aaron Rogers and revenge and the Packers offense looking great. They beat the Vikings 43 to 34. Rogers goes 32 for 44, 364 yards, four touchdowns, just,

picking on a Viking secondary that I'm kind of kicking myself, again, not trying to overreact too much from week one, but that had seemed like a weakness for them. And it sure does after one game. But, you know, Rogers and Devante Adams were really strong. He threw a 45-yard touchdown to Marcus Veldes-Cantling, hit Alamazar for another one. you're suddenly feeling like,

oh, do the Packers actually kind of have receivers? Or if they have Aaron Rogers, are these receivers good enough maybe? So this was another one that tripped me into a way too early rethinking of, did I get this division right? They lose their right guard, Lane Taylor, but just in general, that offense looked great. And I think if,

you're someone who, like me, was looking at Ann Rogers and thinking, well, you're probably going to want to show some people some things this year. I would say feather in that cap. Yeah. Vikings disappointed me a lot. Their secondary is just now where it needs to be. I still think that they've got a chance to be a playoff team, but I just, I didn't expect, I expect a little more from them. So Rogers, I kind of expected this. There's a reason I picked them. to win the division in Green Bay because I just think that it pissed off Aaron Rogers is a very good thing, kind of like what you're talking about. My curiosity is, you know, when Peter King was on this podcast a couple months ago, we talked about how it's up to Rogers. You know, Rogers could make Jordan

Lovin and Jim McGroplo and play so well that they have to trade him. And if you have to spend, I don't know the answer. It's kind of philosophical, right? If Rogers' career is revitalized because he got pissed off at a second round pick. Is that worth a second round pick? Yeah, probably, right? Yeah. I mean, it's so unscientific, but I just feel like it's a funny exercise.

Like, if you have to spend a second round pick to get your quarterback so pissed off and he gets locked in in a year where he's making $35 million against cap or whatever it is and he's in his, you know, starting to get in the toilet of his career, I just think it's a funny exercise. That's not why they made the pick.

That's not why they made the pick. And that's not why they made the draft that they made where they're trying to become San Francisco 2.0, but I just do think it's a, it's a funny byproduct of it. And I'm intrigued to see kind of the next steps on that. Anything else on Packers? It's, well, what you're saying is, is, look, hypothetical question, but it's, it's Aaron Rogers, right? Like a pumped up Aaron Rogers is, that's one thing. And, you know, I'm not saying he hit three different receivers for touchdowns to say that Alan Lazard is, you know, Randy Moss here. But he's, but he's,

Aaron Rogers. So he can, there's, I know we talk a lot about him doing more with less, but he can do that. Doesn't mean he should have to. Doesn't mean he can't be upset if he's asked to. But let's not discount this guy, which should be obvious, but I think after today bears repeating. Okay. My next winner is DeAndre Hopkins. So the Cardinals beat the Niners, 24 to 20. I did not see this coming. I saw Kylo Murray being as to this podcast, an MVP type candidate this year, but I didn't think he was going to get there because I didn't think that team was good enough or the infrastructure was good enough. They beat the defending NFC champions in a very strange game, but DeAndre Hopkins had more

catches. A lot of people pointed this out on Sunday than the Texans wide receivers did combined on Thursday night. Deshaun Watson's numbers, especially downfield, not particularly good on Thursday night against Kansas Chiefs. And Kyler goes 26 of 40, 230 yards. 100 yards on 11 rushes. The NFC West was already, I considered it such a, to use a soccer term, a group of death,

that I kind of dismissed the Cardinals because I just thought there wasn't any way for them to get in. All of a sudden, you know, the Niners were five and one in division games last year. That was a large reason for their record and the reason that they were playing home playoff games and hosting the NFC championship game.

And when I start to look at this, I just think that, you know, you start stealing these games and all of a sudden, you know, you're in the playoff race. Your record is what you say you are. And you are what your record says you are. Excuse me. Kittle gets a little banged up. The Cardinals did a nice job even when he wasn't banged up of taking him away. They were just not going to let him be a factor.

And then the wide receivers on the outside is didn't do enough. And that leads me to Jimmy Garoppolo, who was bad. Jimmy Garapolo is probably the reason that this team lost the game on Zay. And we've had this debate. I had it with Riscilla last week about Garapolo. I think with Kyle Shanahan, he's good enough. At some point, when you're given Kyle Shanahan, he should just be better. He's given one of the two best play callers in football,

and he throws bad passes far too often. And I think that, you know, the color guy said it, I'm sorry, I blanked on his name, but whoever the color analyst was on, in Sunday's game, said, you know, the route running was good on the fourth down the end of the game. The pass was just bad. And I kept seeing that throughout the fourth quarter. Route was good.

There was a hole there. The pass was bad. And I'm just getting a little disappointed with Jimmy Garoppolo, who's making in the mid-20s against the cap. And I keep saying my defense on the Groppoena, contract is you're paying a tax to not find out what finding a new quarterback would look like. And then I watch games like that and I start to wonder, well, maybe there might not be a risk. Now, I'm still generally a Jimmy Garoppolo fan.

I just think today was bad. And I come away as a Jimmy Garoppolo fan discouraged. Having said that, this is pro-Chaler Murray podcast. I'm glad to see him at Hopkins do well. Yeah. It was interesting to see, you know, I always laugh when people say some type of receiver is a young quarterback's best friend or a tight end is a young quarterback's best friend. Like young quarterbacks have like 80 best friends. But you look at how they're using Hopkins and his average depth of target was like 11 yards. He's just oddly being or not oddly, but he's, I think, in a way that's a little bit different from how people. envision it, he's like the world's

greatest possession receiver who, you know, he could take an eight-yard slant and just destroy people, but he's going to be a really consistent chain mover for them. He's, so PFF had this.

In the last three seasons, he's only behind Michael Thomas and Julio Jones in catches for a first down. He's had 218 in the last three seasons. That's great for them. You know, there's no couple highlight real plays, and he'll have plenty of those that are more valuable than that, and particularly in that offense, and particularly for Kyler. So I just, yeah, there's, I mean, there's basically nothing that that you saw from them that wasn't super encouraging, and that would have to be one of the more surprising results.

I still, I picked the Niners to make the Super Bowl. I continue to pick them to make the Super Bowl. I think the ingredients are there. I think when they get to full health, things will look a little better. But I did not like what I saw on Sunday. I'm not, again, I'm not here to overreact. I'm just saying, well-oh. Jimmy Garoppelow is also not what you would call a low variance quarterback.

So. All right. Your last winner. Joe Burrow. Yeah. And Joe Burrow lost because the Chargers failed to Charger, because Philip Rivers took all of their chargersness to Indianapolis. But so here's what happened to the Bengals.

Their kicker missed what would have been a game-tying field goal after his leg cramped up mid-kick. They ended up losing the Chargers 1613. He also had a Burrow had a potential game-winning touchdown to AJ Green negated by OPI. So there's some bad stuff, right? But here's why Joe Burrow is a winner. One, his last drive that would have been the game winner if there hadn't been the OPI call in that play, he gets a ball. There's three minutes left, 82 yards. He just looks cool as a cucumber. Like, he got them in position to score if that one play had gone differently. And the Bengals, it's not about this year. So I think seeing that is incredible. And not to be Mr. Old Krusty football guy here, but I was reading tweets from the. Ben Baby, who covers them for ESPN. Great dude.

Great dude. Huge boxing fan. Ben Baby loves boxing. We talk boxing. That's all. We talk boxing and the Bengals. We just chop it up about those two things and only those two things. Boxing and Bengals with Ben Baby.

I love it. But so he tweeted this. He said Joe Burrow was essentially teed up to blame the loss on the OPI call and he absolutely refused to do it. And he also said that their left tackle Jonah Williams said that Burrow went around the locker room to check up on everybody after the loss. And again, this is where I'm going to be Mr. Old Krusty football guy. That's kind of all you can ask right now from the Bengals.

Like, just be a good dude, be a good teammate. He was 23 or 36, 193 yards, an interception, took three sacks. Like, it's not spectacular. It's Bengalsy. But he had that one drive where he looked really sharp. He looked like he was, you know, ready for the moment. and I think that counts as a win. So I am positing here that Joe Burrow is a winner of week one.

So I agree with you. I put all of my eggs in the basket of year two for a young quarterback. And when I think about what needs to happen in year one, it's an educational process, just getting on the same page with everybody. It's getting to know what the NFL speed is like, I guess you could say. I've been to Kansas City. I've talked to the people there about including Mahomes, what Mahomes' first season was like.

And playing behind Alex Smith and the education there, Lamar Jackson, same situation. Joe Burrow is going to take a huge jump as his career continues. And what I was excited to see today was, I mean, he looked ready. Like, he doesn't look like he's going to be,

he's not going to be a superstar this year, but he looks like he's, I know that we're getting into old crusty scout talk here, but he's making all the throws. And he was just missing. on some of these throws. And again, we're going to get the Cowboys game here in a minute.

But like, without an OPI call that kind of Casey Hayward sold just a little tiny bit, it's a different game. And maybe they win that. And obviously, it's the kick at the end. He can't control that. You know,

I think that doing a little bit of losing is probably fine. They can, he can grow a little bit. He can keep making some nice throws. And they can get a high pick. And they can build from there. So I just, there's just certain things I want to see this year.

I have no expectations for Joe Burrow. except look like an NFL quarterback who's getting ready to take a huge leap in year two and year three. That's all. I'm with you. All right. My last winner is Lamar Jackson. 20 of 25, 275 yards passing three touchdowns. Career best is VASPN.

Career best, nine of 10 for 180 yards on throws 10 or 10 yards or longer downfield. So all summer long, John Harbaugh talked about throwing deep. A lot of the PFF guys talked about just the next level of him as a passer, how he needs. I guess the point that some of the analysts people have made is that you're going to need to drop back and pass sometimes. And he hasn't shown consistently the ability to be elite there. I think you're starting to see that you're going to see him as a passer developed this year and how he's going to be able to take advantage of defenses that are already stretched. thin. I could not have been more impressed with the Ravens today. Patrick Queen looked great.

J.K. Dobbins looked great. This was just, you know, Jackson had a 99-yard touchdown drive at one point. The Browns looked terrible. I don't know. I'm of two minds on this. I kind of think you throw out. If you get the crap knocked at you by the Ravens right now, I think you kind of set that aside. We had a lot of people who were doing, we're doing some Twitter questions later. We have a lot of people ask about the Browns and just what's going on there and whether or not they're done for the year. I actually don't think they are. I think the Ravens are on another plane. Like in the same way, I know it's not the same because it obviously wasn't, the final score was significantly different. But like, I don't think you really can read all that much into the Texans on Thursday

night because I think the chiefs are just damn good. Can I read you a funny quote? You may, you probably saw this, but it just made me laugh. So John Harbaugh, after the game, and I'm sure there there's like added context in this, but he says about Lamar, he goes, he was probably the difference in the game. And I just, that made me laugh so hard because like, thanks John. Yeah, he's he's on another planet right now. So yeah, that's a, that's an astute observation, my guy. They look awesome. They look awesome. No, no further analysis needed. All right, first loser. The old quarterbacks. We talked a little bit about Breeze here and we talked a little bit about Brady. So we can kind of keep this one

quick. And actually, we also talked about rivers. But those guys, they're just on notice. They're on a little bit of notice. They're just something to flag. They're waiting test results. They're awaiting test results. That has like a different connotation than it would have a year ago. Oh, right. No, I didn't

mean that that. But I'll leave it at this. None of them lit the world on fire. So I wrote a thing last week about, I think, 2019 was the year of the passing of the torch between the older generation and the younger generation. I feel like, again, we probably don't respect enough, even though we have individual respect for Brady and Breeze and Manning and all those guys and Philip Rivers and Aaron Rogers is a little be younger than those guys. But I mean, it's unprecedented what that generation is doing. And I feel like 2019 was the passing of the torch and I feel like the torch has been passed. I don't, I don't really,

this is Patrick Mahomes and Lamar Jackson and Deshawn Watson and Russell Wilson's league. now. And I don't think that was true two years ago. So I think that they're, I don't have huge expectations for any of those guys, really. And I think that at some point you just have to bet that one

or two of them might not be a productive quarterback for the end of the year. And that's all based on bad luck and oh, someone got hit in the knee or whatever. I mean, it was just, I think so much of the rules have changed so much that that luck

ends up being in their favor in the sense that, you know, the body weight rule, for instance, has held them so much because you're not getting driven to the ground as much, all that stuff. But I just feel like if you're an old quarterback right now, this is not your league. And I think we're going to see that play out over the course of the year. All right. My first loser, it's NFC East contenders. So you and I, everybody else here at the third. ringer, Danny Kelly,

Cahillian Jones, Danny Hyfitz, the whole crew. Sitting around and saying Eagles, Cowboys, Eagles, Cowboys, Eagles, Cowboys, Eagles, Cowboys, well, they both lost. The Washington football team is in

first place going into Monday. The Giants will play, the Steelers. We'll see how that goes. These are two different losses. I don't think going into Los Angeles in a new stadium

and losing to a Rams team is, I'm not, putting anybody on notice for that one. Rams, by the way, looked pretty good. I think better than maybe people thought they would. The Cowboys win that game or at least get close to it. If that very, very fishy Michael Gallup OPI goes, does not get called.

I don't know about that one. I think you cannot reverse a game-changing play like that on something you're not totally sure of. By the way, Lindsay Jones, our friend of Lindsey Jones tweeted this in the morning. She said, oh, yeah, it's quiet, but they got rid of the past interference replay review. and I just slipped my mind just wasn't top of mind and then of course it becomes

one of the biggest story lines of the day that you cannot review that anymore the NFL doesn't care to do that stuff anymore so I think that's I'm not I'm not super upset at the Cowboys

even if they should have won that game the Eagles wolf okay so they lose the Washington football team went to sec eight times now they lost Andre Dillard and Brandon Brooks we've talked about this before

Carson Wentz started the game 14 of 17 for 180 yards two touchdowns Gordon John Clark finished his last 25 passes he completed 10 of them for 88 yards

two interceptions Chase Young had a good game this is you know this Washington football team is not they're not tanking but there is no injury excuse there's no

any excuse to be a team like the Eagles and lose this game. And I am, the Eagles were a team that I had winning the division for the early part of the year and then the injury started to pile up and then we did our official predictions.

I picked the Cowboys. But I still have high expectations for this Eagles team and this roster with the coaching staff and the front office and just the pure talent they have everywhere. Zach Ertz did not have a good game, did not speak to the media. Man, I did not see this coming out of the Eagles.

It's interesting because I think we've talked recently about your story of talking to people there after they won the Super Bowl and hearing so much, well, the reason we want is we built through the lines. And that's a philosophy that's worked so well for them. But you do start to see what happens when what's normally in advantage there starts to get taken away. And, you know, that's a, that's a defense in Washington that has a ton of playmakers and a lot of talent. But they couldn't do anything. and that's that's a different, like you're saying, it's a different kind of situation than,

oh, you lose a nail bite or call doesn't go your way, whatever. That's getting totally, you know, shown up by a team that just should be in a different place than the Eagles. Yeah, I mean, once we're just missing throws, and that was the point Ryan Clark made. There are speed guys on the field, and he just wasn't hitting them at the rate he should have. And he didn't take advantage of mismatches.

And I just, I don't know. Again, it's week one of the weirdest offseason in history. I'm not ready to give anybody to put a team like that officially on notice, but they're in range. Okay. And I want to address the Cowboys really quickly to sort of close the loop on the NFC East. But even though I like the Rams better as a team, there were still some concerning things. So Layton Van derrash fractures collarbone. Jalen Smith had a bad game in coverage.

And Blake Jarwin also had an injury. And so there were some bad signs I saw out of the Cowboys. But I generally, again, these are two separate losses. I just did not expect in any way the two teams that I consider the NFC's contenders to be 0 and two coming into Sunday night. That's all. Yeah. That's all. All right.

Your next loser. Let's talk about special teams, Kevin. Yeah. Oh, wow. this is this I was on this I was on this early I feel like yeah you really were you actually were I'm it was Rick Spielman's point and then I stole Rick Spielman's point to me and made it my point that's a great just keep that in your pocket it's it's a good trait to have is it's the ability to shamelessly steal from people who tell you things totally so what we're referring to is the idea that special teams

because of the limited practice time this off season were going to be that was going to be an area in which we were really going to be able to see the difference. No live reps. I'm going to name, name some things that happened today, and you tell me if you think we are seeing a difference. So the Seahawks, Margie's Blair forced a fumble on a fake punt. Just in the Ravens Browns game, the Browns run a failed fake punt from their own 30,

missed an extra point, a missed 41-yard field goal. I'm not blaming COVID for that fake punt. So do you know who also tried a fake pun in his own half in his first game as Browns coach? Bill Belichick. It's Hugh Jackson. Oh, sight difference between those two gentlemen. It's Hugh Jackson. We're just going to leave that there.

We're going to move on because we like Kevin Stefansky. In the Patriots game, Demer Byrne muffed a punt and then got benched. Their kicker, Nick Folk also missed a field goal for the bucks. Ryan Suckup had a kick blocked. Jaden Micken's muff to kick off late in the second half when they were trying to come back. So that's,

it's a loser for the special teams units across the league. It is a winner for you and for Rick Spielman and for that point. I'm glad Rick's Pseman got a win on Sunday because he did not get one on the field. All right, I'm going to rant about the Lions for a second. So we're

having this production meeting. I'm going to group beast. two teams together. Because when we're having our production meeting, I said the Jets were a loser. And Craig Horlebeck, who we love, integral part of the team, said, why are the Jets losers? We knew they were going to lose and they lost. It's the way they lost and the hint of suggestion of your long desperation. It appears to me that Adam Gase has solved the Jets' biggest problem, biggest question, excuse me, biggest question, which is how. much do you pay Sam Darnold if you're going to give him a big contract? Because he looks

like a guy since he, since Gace inherited him who's not capable or worthy of a big contract. Problem solved. Adam Gase. Problem solved. You've ruined Sam Darn. And I think that bringing Adam Gase back was one of the worst moves of 2019. His continued employment every game that he has, every game he coaches is among the worst moves. At this point, I think there's, I think there's There might be one person on the planet who thinks he should be the Jets coach. And it just happens in a grand coincidence to be the owner of the Jets. That's it. He's the guy.

What are the odds? And I just don't understand it. And now, so I will give credit where credits do, because this is also a Jamal Adams point. Jamal Adams was asked about an offense scoring 38 points. He said, quote, I'm not used to it. They moved him around. Jamal Adams rushed the passer in Seattle in Atlanta with Seattle. 10 times. He said he wasn't bored.

I was a shot at Greg Williams, obviously, because of their spat earlier in August. But Marcus May had a very good game. He was the guy that came in for Adams. So even though Adams had 12 tackles, a sack, two tackles for loss, and two QB hits. Marcus May also had double-digit tackles, also got in the backfield, got two sacks. So credit were credits due. But I don't know, man, the Jets, they just, they were making, I wasn't going to to say uncharacteristic mistakes, but they were characteristic mistakes.

They never really looked like they were going to threaten the bills. Sean Fennacy, one of our bosses here at the Ringer, basically wondered if they were tanking without saying that they're tanking. And the points he was making, you know, wide open division, they did not build a competitive team in the offseason with $35 million in cap space, traded their best player, second best player opted out, C.G.M. Mosley, will not fire an incompetent coach until later in the season. And so Sean says, quote, this is tanking and all but name. I don't know.

I'm not that generous. I think maybe they're trying to win. And this is their version of that. And that's much worse news. I'm on your side of that. Because if we talk about what looked extra frisky with the Jaguars, a young athletic team that seems to be playing beyond itself maybe a little bit, that's a team that we thought was tanking.

And then even if they'll probably have a high pick at the end of this year. Like, that's probably still going to be the case. I like Joe Douglas. I just randomly fist pumped. I'm not sure why I did that. Like three full fist pumps. I don't know why I did that. That's okay.

I brought up the beach. You did a random fist pump. For Joe Douglas, of all people. For Joe Douglas. I've met him once for five seconds, three years ago. I'm fist pumping all of a sudden. That's what's great about you, Kevin. You're an enthusiastic guy.

I connect with people immediately to the point that years later I'm fist pumping. All right. All right. All right. We're going back to the Jets. it's it's not the same it's if you're if you're doing a tear down rebuild one get rid of the coach that hasn't gotten any results for you and two get a new one who can develop the good young players that you can get with your draft capital i just uh and the darnald thing i think makes

it impossible i mean it'll make it'll probably make that question never really get answered of how good he could have been for them because it's just, there has been so much wasted time there. And I think it's, you know, it's not for me to excuse or not excuse, but it just seems like

one of the biggest missed opportunities because even if Sam Darnold was not your favorite of that quarterback class, he's certainly a guy with talent. And it's just at this point, the infrastructure has not been there whatsoever. So when they go out and they have 11 possessions, six punts, two turnovers,

4.8 yards per play. Not only is that not winning football, it's also not developmental football. Like, no one there is getting better. So I don't think it's a tank, but if it's a tank, they're doing it wrong. Marcus May won't be getting better. We're monitoring Marcus May.

Marcus May just might be good. He might not be getting better, though. Again, we're monitoring it. He's on the watch list. Okay. All right. Lions rant? I have another rant. Yeah, it's about the Lions.

So our friend Warren Sharp, our friend and colleague, he's got this. The Lions became the fourth team, 2006. I was starting college to blow a 17 or more point lead in the fourth quarter. Teams had been 779 and 3,

a 99.6 win percentage in that span. Well, guess who lost? Oh, Matt Patricia. So first of all, Jamie Collins gets kicked out of the game. I'm not really sure what was happening. I get the intent. Don't make contact with a ref, Jamie Collins. Even if you're trying to figure out,

even if you're trying to show what it happened. Okay, I feel like there's some rules there. Let's go ahead and I kicked out. You're too valuable player. Jamie Collins is a good player. The Lions don't have enough of those. Don't leave the game. It's like when you're in middle school and you have a crush on someone so you like make up

excuses to touch them. Like not a good idea. Not a good idea. In middle school, not a good idea for Jamie Collins. Not a good idea at all. So Trubisky, Mitch Trubiskyy, 20 or 36, 242 yards, three touches. He played one good quarter. One of our, one of our editors joked.

He gets his about one good quarter a month. Okay. Well, guess who was against this time? It was the Bears. This keeps happening. This is the second year in a row where they have a week one disaster with Detroit. Last year, they played a weird game in Arizona. They should have won and ended up tying because of an ill-fated timeout.

Matthew Stafford is stuck in football jail. DeAndre Swift, they're running back, dropped a pass in the end zone. Matt Nagy Cullet said, what a break. Matthew Stafford then threw another incomplete pass. At some point, I look at this Lions team, and I think that they have enough talent to be in these games, but I don't think, Matt Patricia gives them any advantage whatsoever. I'm trying to think about, I'm trying to think in the moment if there's any rebuttal to this. I don't know if there's any area he gives them an advantage in over another coach, any other coach. any other coach.

I don't think Matt Neggy is Bill Parcells here, but I think Matt Neggie edges out Matt Patricia in a number of areas. I haven't done a full tale of the tape. But when I watch the Lions, and I look at a guy like Matthew Stafford, who I love, and I look at some of the talent on that team or the talent that they've,

you want to talk about a team where guys just love complaining about the organization on their way out. You got to start with Detroit Lions. I mean, Jacksonville has the belt, on that right now. Call up Darius Slay. Yeah.

Yeah, you're looking at Detroit right now. I don't know, man. I just, I don't know how you can look at Detroit and say, Matt Patricia deserves continued employment there. I just, he was not even a very good defensive coordinator with the Patriots. That seems impossible. And I just, I'm tired of watching this team. I have no rooting interest in the NFL at all,

except good stories and good football. I just hate Washington's team. Well, because it's disappointing because Matt Stafford's a really good quarterback and we just don't get to have that fun. Life's not fair. Life's not fair. You're Matthew Stafford. You're a great quarterback and you go to the wrong place and life is not fair.

Yeah. Matthew Stafford's better than Josh Rosen. All right. Let's get to the Twitter question. So we're going to try to do reader questions every week depending on how much time we have. I just think it's a really fun way to get the viewers involved. Tapping in the creativity of our listeners. Let's start with Brett Ungashik at Brando Gashik on Twitter.

This one is accompanied by a deep sigh. You have to build a team around Baker, Mayfield, or Gardner Minchu. Who do you choose? Nora. So I'm going to walk you through my process when you sent me this question, which, by the way, Brett, great question. Thank you for it. Great question. My immediate reaction was Baker.

And that is ultimately who I still chose. But immediately I go, this is, this is frustrating. But Baker has a longer track record, even if it is not a more recent track record, of playing quality football. And I still believe that he can recapture that. But then I started looking for, you know, what can actually tell me that this might be true. And I started poking around the stats that tend to be most consistent year over year. So I looked up there grades from a clean pocket last year. And Gardner

Minchu from Pro Football Focus graded an 84. Baker was 75. He was 86 in 2018. But obviously, much worse year last season. And everywhere I looked kind of thinking, well, maybe just from eyeballing them last year, maybe this would be a way to make that argument. It was more and more in Gardner Manchu's favor. So I'm still, I'm sticking with my gut reaction of Baker, but man, this is a tough one. So I think this is a good exercise

because I don't think, with the exception of, although we've been talking about Jay Gordon, talking about this episode, like either of these guys have been in a particularly good infrastructure. Baker-Mayfield was given Hugh Jackson. Then he was given Freddie Kitchens. He did very, very well concerning the circumstances to set the rookie touchdown record in 2018. Last year, he just like a mess.

He's got all sorts of bad habits. I'll let Freddie Kitchens have a huge percentage of the blame there. But it's not like Gardner Minshue got Andy Reid or Kyle Shanahan here. Right. And it's not like he was given. Mike Evans or D'Andre Hopkins here, okay? Baker Mayfield was given O'Dell Beckham. And they can't figure out.

Kevin Stefansky said it today. They can't figure out why they can't get on the same page. And today, he had three receptions for 22 yards. And the line was improved this year. And I'm not, again, I don't want, I feel uncomfortable We'll answer this question after week one. But partly because I just think you have to throw any results against the Ravens out if you're a team like the Browns because you're not competing with the Ravens.

By the way. You play the Bengals on Thursday night. That's who you're competing against. By the way, just talking about good situations and bad situations that Baker Mayfield's been in, watching Mark Andrews just have like an amazing, wonderful game with Lamar Jackson. Like that had to be other side of the glass reaching out tier in your eyes. I miss you. Like,

oof. Anyway, I've been so frustrated with Baker Mayfield today and last year and so impressed with Gardner-Minchu. We're going to throw out

the draft labels, throw out the hype, throw out the fact that we devoted an entire week last year to hyping up the Cleveland Browns before you were here. You would have stopped us

from doing it. We'd just say, guys, don't do it. Come on. This will age terribly. And I stand by. Every article is solid.

Every article is solid. Having said that, you get Gardner Minshu right now. I think I have to take him. That might change next week. They might change next week. It would have changed last week. But I think right now, having seen what I've seen, which is Baker Mayfield did not look like he improved this off season.

Gardner Minchew looks like he did. I don't know. All right. Second question. This is from, he goes by coach. Should John Gruden start wearing Tommy Bahama on the sideline. So this comes from the fact that John Gruden was wearing a polo and a mask that looked

a little. There were some masks that were too tight. Mike McCarthy had a mask that was too tight today. John Gruden did not look good on the sidelines in the heat. Basically, he's asking, should John Gruden just go full? No, I mean, this, I'm sorry, it's objective. I'm sorry, it's objective. He did not, he looked a little disheveled on the sideline.

Coach here is asking. if we get them a large Tommy Bahama relax shirt. Okay, so I took this, I took this question actually differently. I guess I wasn't paying as much attention. I took it as should he do that a la Andy Reed as like a charming quirk? And my answer to that was no because Gruden's kind of like a maverick. He's not taking anybody's bit. Like that's not, he should go like get an earring or something crazy.

like do your own thing, John Gruden. However, every coach wears Tommy Bahama. A hundred percent. Yeah, but like Andy Reid, except not the young guy, like the flat bill cap guys like Kyle Shanahan and stuff. Yeah, they don't wear Tommy Baham.

But everybody over 50 when, by the way, Kyle Shanahan and Tomahawk Bay will wear Tommy Bahama when they're 50. I got to, but I got to be real here. Like, no offense, coach. Great, great question.

But I really did interpret it as a, would this be, just a fun thing for him to do question. I mean, I get that it's, it's hot there, but men have so many options for like sweat wicking things, and I'm just, I'm

not here for it. All right. Last question. It's from at Chief Resilient CM. If you could put Matt Stafford on a contender, where would you put him? So I'm torn between the chargers and the bears, but I think I would put them on the chargers. Great receivers. A lot of bad luck.

But maybe their mutual bad luck would balance itself out. Putting him on the Chargers is a tough one. I mean, that's because it's putting him directly in Philip Rivers territory. Like Philip Rivers territory for just crazy Philip Rivers things to happen? Yeah, yeah, I'm saying Stafford. That stuff already happens to Stafford. Now you're putting him with the organization where it happens most often.

That's all. What about the San Francisco 49ers? Yeah, that's a fun. That would be fun. I'd like to see it. I would like to see it. It's not going to happen. It's unfortunately not going to happen.

I'm just saying in the fantasy lane where we can put Matthew Stafford someplace where it would make sense. You give him one of the two best play callers in football and it's an upgrade. I'm still like a little, I'm hanging on to the Jimmy thing, which is why I didn't like I was,

you know, those are. I am too. Well, right. So then my answers are places where it's kind of like. I'm sorry. Excuse me. Excuse me.

Did you see Mitchell Trubiskyykew today? The biscuit. Did you see Mitch. Trubisky ball out today and now you think that we're going to replace him? By the way, this happened when I said the thing about the men having sweat-waking shirt options. Somebody, and I forget who it was, but maybe it was when we were doing a show, maybe it was with Evan Silva or somebody. Somebody said that the way that they could tell when you like really respect a guest or someone that you're talking to is that do, do, you have like a little that's right or sort of like verbal thing once they finish a point. And it

cracked me up when someone said it because you don't remember this? This was like a couple weeks ago. I wish I had better specifics on this story, but I don't. But I remembered the general arc of the story because what occurred to me was the number of times I say something and then there's just a blank look on your face. Like what do we do with this? All right. So we're going to get to tomorrow's clickbait. Craig Horlebeck invented this on Sunday. morning and I really enjoy it. It's just what the hottest takes are going to be this week. It's a marriage of a couple of different segments we've had through the years.

What do you think, Nora? Well, this is a good one because we were just talking about this. I think it's going to be, this is Jimmy Garablo's last year with the 49ers. Jimmy Garablo is going to get benched. It's done. You know, people will cite the dead money if they moved on from him. they'd only have 2.8 million in dead money on that contract, and they'd save $24 million against the cap going forward.

But we're talking about clickbait. They don't even need to get into it. Jimmy, Niners, break up imminent. I think that the Brady, I think that there's going to be a lot of calls from the fringe of the football media that this Brady thing is just not going to work. And I think that those people don't know what they're talking about, but I think that there's going to be, people are going to be like, oh, Jamis could have thrown interception.

Jamis could have done pick sixes. to be fair, James could have done pick sixes. James could have done pick sixes. Josh Rosen could have done pick sixes. We don't know because we don't know post-Lasic James. Playing Gabbard could have got any of some pick-sixes. Anyway, they're going to get better kind of what we talked about at the beginning of the show. They're going to get better as the season goes on.

But I don't necessarily think that clickbait, click-bait media is ready to adjust to that reality. Did anything with the lack of crowd noise surprise you? So it seems like it's, I thought it sounded pretty good on the broadcasts. Some were a little weird than others. Because you can hear the echoes. You can hear the echoes. And we don't, you know, we've probably gone long here. So I wrote a story about how that was going to be different this year.

Basically, sound bouncing off walls and domes and everything. It's, that's, there's a reason that that's. different, basically. It did seem like in the stadium, Bruce Ariens was upset that it was too quiet. We've definitely seen some players talking about being able to, you know, hear everything. So it's something to watch for sure.

They're much quieter, even if the broadcasts do a good job of making it sound like they aren't when we're at home. It's much quieter in there than it normally is. So something to consider. It's a great story. Everybody should go read it. And now I thought it was interesting. interesting when they said Everson Griffin went off sides

in the Sunday night game because the hard counts are just going to work more. And I've heard so many, and I'm sure you've heard that too, I've heard so many different theories about how that's going to work where, oh, they're going to be able to jump the snap count. Oh, they're going to be they're not going to be able to jump the snap count because they're more

a subtle hard count. It's going to be like, I've heard every single theory about defensive line to the point that I'm just not believing any of it. Well, and that was interesting that that was the first sort of, that was like a big one that that we heard about, where it was obvious that the lack of noise was influencing it, because in general, I'd talk to more people about how it was going to be tough for offenses. Right.

Just because of what was going to come through on broadcast copy. But it just, yeah, there's going to be tons of ramifications from it, and it'll change throughout the year. And, you know, we have no idea if by the end of the season there will be more fans and stuff. But it's possible that it was extra quiet in the Superdome because people were seeing, being Josh Rosen and they just felt sad because I think there were a few like practice squad guys and maybe family members or somebody in there. But, you know, that we can't count that out as a factor too. Nora, this was great. I'm really excited for this season and these podcasts.

Thanks for listening to the McGon-FEL show. This is the Sunday night recap edition. Make sure you're following us. Next up on this feed, this Tuesday is the new player insight-driven show with Ryan Chaser and Colwright. Have a good week, everybody. We'll see you Thursday. All right, guys. We made the... some bad calls and good calls this week. But remember, it's footlong season at Subway, so let's try to keep them mainly good, okay? You can start by grabbing a delicious, freshly prepared footlong with all your favorite topics and order ahead in the Subway app for contact, free ordering and payment to make pickup or delivery quick and easy. So forget about that fried,

greasy food and grab a tasty footlong on game day or any day because it's footlong season at Subway.