Welcome into Bucks Insider.
Come into you from the Bucks Studio, presented by ticketmaster Casey Phillips, here with Senior writer and editor Scott Smith, staff writer Breed Dix, and we were here to cover another week of Bucks news, and man, it's a fun one after that win. What a way to start the season. I just can't get over how perfect that felt. Outside of some injuries, which we will get into because that has definitely turned into a big storyline up for now, let's focus on the positives of that win.
It was so much fun.
First, I mean, Liam Cohen, like he was one of the big storylines coming in.
We wanted to see what was this offense going to look like.
We'd heard a lot about it, but preseason you don't unveil everything, right, and I have to imagine when you get a new offensive coordinator.
This was just about as good as you could hope for in so many ways.
I mean, you have the second most points in Week one, scored on seven of eight non meal down drives, and I mean that many points. They didn't tour over thirty until Week nine last season, so that's already just an incredible amount.
Of points and stats.
And that is if you're able to put up those kind of points, you're gonna win a lot. That's a pretty decent amount of points to go. And I love seeing some stuff we'd wanted to learn about his offense. Right of yes, there was a lot of eleven personnel. Right, we've heard he loves to play mainly that one tight end run game huge, another storyline we've focused a ton on.
There were still aspects I know they're trying to work on in some kings in terms of especially yards per run, you know, in rashads and buckets a little higher because he gets a thirty one yard run. But she saw a lot of variety in it, which I think was really great to see. And third down, I mean Chris Godwin, the god of third down. Yeah, man, I think I'm imagining that's what Liam Cohen's playbook says for third down is find Chris Godwiwin because he was and they were
great on third down, which was incredible. But you know, I mean there were so many different people producing things. Week one, they were the only team to have four different skill players get sixty plus yards from scrimmage.
I didn't even know us.
I'm trying, man, the years and my tenth season, You've rapped off on me, one of just two teams to have three different players all in a receiving touchdown.
So I wow. It was just such an.
Incredible way to see this kickoff of so many people getting involved. You saw some variety in the run game, you saw the offensive line.
Creating some holes. To me, just checked it checked all the boxes of what you wanted to see.
You mentioned third downs. They were nine to thirteen, which is about sixty two fourth best game we've ever had in that category. And to me what it said was how many times do we hear during the off season when Leam Cohan Cohen was at the podium, we want to have answers. We want to have answers for whatever we see. We want Baker to have answers if he if he thinks it's going to be his own and then he sees its, Man, we have an answer for that. That showed up to me on third downs, Yeah, because
you don't know what you're gonna get. But to convert that many third downs means they had answers for what they saw.
Yeah, and Chris Godwin being back in the slot more we see that Just that brings out kind of the best Chris Godwin, you know. But that's where he's got his ability to do everything that he wants.
I might be talking about that a little bit later in the fantasy segment.
Ooh interesting, look at a teaser. Look at you know, how to be doing a teaser.
Of course, part of all that success on the offense was not just Leam Cohen, but Baker Mayfield having himself yes a game.
League best performance led the NFL in passerating and passing touchdowns, was named the FedEx Air Player of the Week. Completed twenty four of thirty passes, had four touchdowns, and had a passer rating of one forty six point four. And there were two drives back to back where he completed all eight attempts. But I think you just saw the poise, the command, and just the him having fun. And he said that over and over and I love they said on the broadcast, but they said, this is just a
special unit and it's tangible. And I think you saw that with Baker Mayfield, whether it was him scrambling the first down celebration, but also just some of the sidear throws he had, but he had full command and got the ball where he needed to go, was smart, was accurate. And then Chris Godwin, as you said, god a third down, had himself a day. Seven of his eight catches resulted in a first down and four were third down conversions.
Physical at the top routes, click out of breaks and just kind of.
Had that ability over the middle of the field on the outbreakers, but kind of became the catalyst. And then Mike Evans two touchdown day. And it's funny because I think we get to the point where you're so accustomed to him making these big plays that it's almost, oh, you know it's a play. But his first touchdown, my god, jaw dropped. The Commander's dB was all over him, held him physical with the line, and he still manages to work over the top haul in the catch on the
go route. But I think too, it's the feel and the timing in the chemistry between Baker Mayfield and Mike Evans in his second year of knowing where to put the ball when Evans is in the one on one, whether it's the back shoulder, inside, outside, and you're seeing the fruition of that and like you mentioned them being in eleven personnel, Mike Evans Chris Godwin. They're going to have to do more in the run game, and I think you saw that, especially with Godwin, and so we
talked about spurring Becky every thirty one yard run. He kind of had the block on the safety to kind of extend that run lane for him. So, just overall, I think those three came up really really big.
Ag instant Landers.
Twenty passes thrown to Mike Evans, Chris Godwin and Rashad White, who are obviously the top three pass catchers on this team, nineteen completed. Wow, the thought that came into my mind regarding Baker during that game. You've heard the phrase before he can make every throw. That just popped into my mind towards the end of that game because Baker can.
Make every throw and was making everything.
I mean, those deep outs are hard. That's a long pass considering how wide the field is, the corner routes. How many times do you throw that corner of the flag route, the shallow outs where the receiver only has like a step of separation, you have to put it right here. He can make every throw.
It's incredible.
Now, we talked a lot about the offense for good reason, but the defense was, of course, a very big story coming out of that game.
For many reasons.
I felt like the three of us were maybe gonna have to suit up at one point. There were injuries going into the game that we already knew about that guys were going to have to step up, and then of course ended up being another guy stepping up and another guy stepping up. But what's to out to you, Scott about a lot of these defensive guys and the way they had to change some of these rotations and play some guys in places they hadn't before.
So you guys get to talk about the offense that was amazingly perfect, which was like the walking wounded. Yeah, okay, so they started. They went into the game without Logan Hall and Colijah Kansy and Ernest Brown who won an endur reserve. So three of the six that they originally kept for the fifty three men roster on the defensive line got hurt in practice between the cutdown to fifty
three and the game, which is pretty ridiculous. So they had to rely on Ben Stilly, who they just signed from Arizona's practice squad, and C. J. Brewer and Mike Green, who they called up from the practice squad, and then of course Vita Vea and Greg Gaines and Will Golston played more than they normally would have, and a great games was playing out of position because he's your backup
nose tackle and now he's playing like three techniques. So great job by those guys, because yes, Jade Daniels, who's electric in the open field, ran for eighty eight yards, but their running backs only ran for fifty yards, and so they did a pretty good job and run defense and that was the key, and there was a decent amount of pressure, so that was good. But then you got the problems on the front end. And then during
the game. Everybody knows this by now, I'm not sharing any new news or anything, but Zion McCom gets a concussion, so Bryce Hall comes in. In the meantime, Josh Hayes, who's one of the other reserves, get hurts his ankle in a punt return. And then at halftime, because you're down to two corners now because Tyreek Funderbrick was a
inactor because he was still overcoming his preseason injury. At halftime, coach Bowls and Coach rosso up to Christian Izzian who's a safety, has played slack corner but hasn't played outside corner since sophomore in high school, and say, hey, you're the next man in if somebody goes down, and then
almost immediately in the same and a half, Bryce Holland. Now, I don't mean to be this levity about this because that was a bad injury and the poor guys out for the season now, But so now you're in, Christian, you're in. And he did a great job. Really, he had a really important third down breakup on the sideline, and otherwise you didn't hear about him, right, That's that's
the thing, yea. So now going into the next game, that's gonna be an issue because Antoine Winfield also got hurt, like on the second to last play of the game. He's your all Pro safety and one of your most indispensable defenders and he's probably not going to be available. So now Christian Izzian is preparing to play safety.
This guy's become just the Swiss Army Knight Adasty.
It's really impressive.
Yeah, it's incredible.
So speaking of all that, it's a good time to talk about the injury report, as sad as it may be.
Yes, we ought names on this life.
Yes, we are shooting this on a Thursday morning. So we only have one injury report so far. There will be two more to go. So based on this first one, what we've heard in press conferences.
Tell us kind of the stage of things on that injury report.
So Clijah Cansei and Antoine one Fiter didn't practice on Wednesday, they probably are not likely to play against the Detroit Lions. Zion McCollum will be interesting to watch to see how he progresses in the concussion protocol. He practiced in a limited fashion on Wednesday, as did act Yes, as did Logan Hall on the defensive line, so both of them potentially have a shot and then also not fun.
Luke Gettikey showed up on.
The report on Wednesday with a concussion as well, so now there will be a monitoring of him and see how he progresses in the concussion protocol to see if they're both eligible to go.
That's worrisome. That is good, Yes, I mean Zion has more time to recover from it than I'm a little more worried about Luke.
Yeah, that's going to be.
Interesting, which would push justin school into right tackle if if necessary.
Yeah, it'll be interesting. All right, This is time for our weekly trivia questions. You take it away, okay.
Last week against Washington, Baker Mayfield compiled a passer rating of one forty six point four, which is close to the perfect rating of one point fifty.
Eight point three.
Three quarterbacks have finished a game with a perfect passer rating and bucks history.
How many of them can you name? I know I can name one. Outside of that, I don't know how confident I am. Yeah, and I could probably name two, but I don't know.
You've seen two of them. Yeah, the other one was well before your time.
That's fair.
All right, Well you guys have a chance to figure that out during the course of the show.
We'll be able the answer at the end. No cheating, no googling, just use them little brains. It's always our challenge here. We know you guys are.
I'll give you a hint. The third quarterback went to the University of Miami.
Oh okay, I likes hints are good. Okay, So, Milestone Tracker.
We always like to do that this time of year as well, to make sure we know what guys are aiming for what so people have something to watch during the rest of the games as well, not just for wins and losses, but guys trying to get certain stats and per usual.
Yeah, the guy that we're tracking. Yeah, it's not surprising. It's milestone.
Mic I promise I will not make this segment about Mike Evans.
I don't think anyone would hate that. I don't think anyone out there is like a lot of them less.
Did you guys see the Kyle Brandt Mike Evans. If you haven't seen Kyle Brant's take on look it up on YouTube or Twitter. It's a really interesting take and very positive. Anyway, Mike Evans scored two touchdowns in that game, like that, throwing his hands at the very last minutes and the dB doesn't know the balls coming. That's the key to that play right there. Ninety six touchdowns, he leap frog DeVante Adams, who did not score in Week one,
into twelfth place all time in NFL history. And he's now four away from becoming the eleventh player in NFL history to get to one hundred touchdown receptions. But also he's now got five hundred ninety points in his career. That's second all time. I mean, he's got all the receiving the records. Now he's coming for the kickers, right, He's like, Okay, I'm coming for the kickers.
He needs three more almost like the kickers are like, come on.
So Martin Gramatica scored five ninety two points in his career with the Bucks. That's the all time franchise record, and Mike is now five ninety. So what we would really love to see is we get stoned at fourth and one at the goal and they decided to send Mike and it would be great if you want he got an a field goal. Yeah, let him kick a field goal and when and get.
The record that way back, I feel like I would believe he could do.
It much more likely he scores another touchdown and he's the all time leader. And the only other all time leaders on their teams in points scored that are not kickers are EMMITTT. Smith and Jerry Rice.
Wow, not too shabby.
Again, the company Smith Jerry Rice not yead company to be keeping. And also I love that if and when this happens, since Martin Gramatica, you know, I.
Like to cover my basis when this happens.
Martin Grammatica calls the Spanish Radio, and we'll get to call this getting broken, and I think that's pretty cool. All right, let's talk some fantasy you kind of teased it earlier. We're going to talk about Mike from Milestone's probablynna.
Talk about chr.
This is mostly a segment where we talk about like what's coming up and try to give advice. But the first thing I'm gonna do here is take a victory lap Ah. Yes, of course, Chris Godwin. Yes, if anybody A, I was adamant take Chris Godwin, take him around earlier than he's projected. Make sure you get him because he is going to be a great fantasy player and great value draft wise compared to where he's supposed to go. And the reasons why I said that all showed up
in Week one. A. Everybody says he's healthiest he's been since he hurt his knee at the end of twenty twenty one. So he can cut off either foot much better than before. B. He's moving back into the slot, and he's in a Cooper Cup type of role. And see they specifically said Liam Cohen and other specifically said they want to get him more looks in the red zone because he only scored like five touchdowns on like
two hundred catches the last two years. That play where he scored was not like Baker going through his reads and then finding Chris. He was the main read. That play was designed for Chris Godwin in the red zone first and goal. This one right here that was designed for him and so and we saw it in training camp in the joint practices too, they are calling up
plays for Chris in the red zone. So if he gets seven eight touchdowns and gets one hundred catches and you got him in the seventh round, that's.
Pretty that's pretty decent. And then also a guy that I think that this is what I've been thinking about pre season of who's going to be interesting from a fantasy standpoint, is Bucky Irving? Because everyone has of course been probably drafting Rashad White for good reason, especially all the catches he makes. We didn't know what Bucky Rashad duo was going to look like, and I think we still are probably seeing what it'll evolved to over the
course of the season. But man, Bucky made a case for being a fantasy guy.
TOAM, So is Bucky fantasy relevant? That's the question. So he had seventy six yards from scrimmage and two catches, so that'd be about like in a PPR league, that's nine point six points, which isn't great. You know, he's probably not a guy you necessarily want to start next week, But the question is do you want to pick him up?
And the answer, the short answer is yes. And part of the is that if most of the impact fantasy players that you get that weren't drafted are picked up in the first couple weeks, so maybe he's going to be Maybe he's going to get a bigger role as time goes by and be worth starting. So take the risk. Now, take the gamble, because if you don't pick him up now, you're probably not gonna get him because somebody else will. Yep, So you don't wait two three weeks to see if
he's still going to do it. You pick him up now and hope it works out. So definitely Bucky iring his fantasy He should be on all rosters at this point.
Okay, And then now we're going to move into our off the field segment, human interests.
This is where we try to help you.
Guys get to know the team a little bit better off of the field and I just have one giant shameless plug for this segment today. So we had Baker Mayfield on for our first episode of Bucks Total Access this week, which I am co hosting with Cambraid this year, which is so fun.
Great to see him back like around the building getting to see the guys. No one doesn't like CAMBRAI I would like to.
I would like to start with that. So Baker came on the show with us and it was phenomenal. If you haven't seen it, go to the Buccaneers YouTube watch the whole thing. So many interesting football parts, but even more funny personality things, which is what I wanted to tease here.
So there's two different clips that we're going to show here.
One that's a little bit about Baker and some of the guys in the way that they bond together, especially on road trips as we come up on our first one. The other is a bit of a funny Cambraight story that is going to be relevant for the Lions.
So to take a lot a little birdie that was.
Walking down the hallway this morning, maybe a big birdie for being honest about it, said, I should ask you who's better.
At Mario Kart, Tristan said this.
Birdie not so secret. Tristan wanted to know who was better at Mario Kart.
You were him.
It pains me to say this. He might be the best Mario Kart player ever seen. It's unbelievable.
He will be shocked you said that. He was like, he won't say me, but he should say me. Did you ever even try to trash talk? Like even once?
I did one time?
And really I still.
Think about it, still think about it. It haunts your dreams at night.
So the guy ended up he lives in Tampa.
Oh, well that was a bad move already.
Yeah. It was to uh alex Anseloon, the linebacker who now plays the Lions. He said something to me.
I said something back.
Do we get to know what I want?
No?
No, no, But that's like I saw him later and like someone else, like he had told someone else that I had said something to him. The whole thing is just a nightmare for me. And yeah, I'm not gonna do it ever again to any capacity. I'll bring it up to him this week.
No, you don't have to, Cambra number one tight end in your hearts. Last didn't we get trash talk? I think is the takeaway.
And as we were about to face alex Anzeloni this week, I thought that was very appropriate and Baker was, you know, I love that about Baker being like do you want me to say how important? You want me to say anything? Ken's like, no, thank you, We're gonna let that die.
And I love it.
Literally, he tried it once, and Chris Godwin has told me the same thing before where he tried trash talking once and he was.
Like, it's just exhausting.
I made my oxygen for others things like.
I'm tired, I don't want to talk, I don't want to deal with it. So he was like, never mind, and I love it.
We're I just feel like our locker room is so full of these guys that are almost too nice to trash talk that there's like I don't it doesn't And maybe a little bit of Baker Mayfield, who is still a very nice guy, but that has a little bit more of that.
That thing you just said about Chris Godwin made me think of something and you just had your shameless plug, So I'll shamelessly plug salty Dogs. Yeah, And we had that's the podcast, go look it up. We had Jalen McMillan on as our guest, and do you know when you asked that question, like, hey, you get to be in the same room with Chris Evans of Chris Godwin and.
Mike Evans would also be cool.
Yeah, Chris, as you know, you learn so much from them, but it's always kind of amorphous, like what do you actually learn? And then Jeff, my co host Jeff Ryan on the show, asked him, can you give so specific, like something that Chris or Mike has taught you? And I saw Jalen kind of start thinking about I'm like, oh, we didn't mean to put you on the spot because that can be a tough question. You have to come up with them. But then he's like, no, no, no, I
got something. Chris Godwin has taught him a manner of breathing when he comes to silent because he says, early in camp or early in theough season, I was like really getting short winded, and I'd come to sideline was winded, and he taught me some breathing techniques that have really helped me a lot, so I don't get fatigued.
That's fascinating.
I mean, you don't normally get that kind of specifics and that Chris just taught and that makes sense that Chris would know that.
Yeah, I think Chris is also pretty into mindfulness and medit a lot of that stuff. So that's really I thought that was very cool. I like that. That's that's great. So now let's go ahead and get into this game this next week against the Lions.
I've asked everyone I've talked to this week in my interviews about is this is this like a revenge game of only like one person is like yes, everyone loves to be like which I think they're lying, but that's just I.
View it that way.
I feel like this is going to be a really fun look at this game that was so fun last year.
Though it didn't in the way we wanted, it was a great game as well. They're a great team, and I think that it's just a it's a fun matchup.
US twice last year. Yeah, I would say more than a revenge game.
It's a measuring stick game, yes, I think, And I mean, of course that's going to be tough with all the injuries that it may change a little bit of that measurement. No excuses, no excuses, You're right, what am I doing here. All right, So Scott, tell me what stands out to you about this matchup and maybe one of the Lions position groups that you're going to be focusing.
It's that offensive line, that dominant offensive line led by Penney Sewel. But they're good across the board, and they took over that game at the end against San Francisco. That was wait, it was the Rams, right, Yeah, that was the most entertaining Other Nard game, the most entertaining game that I saw this weekend. And it went into overtime. They already were doing a great job running the ball and David Montgomery just runs so hard and behind that line they give him just a little bit and he
you know, and he just powerful runner. They took over in an overtime period and just ran the ball down the Rams throat. They really didn't It wasn't all running. There were a few passes, but they really didn't need to pass the ball. And by the time they got to first and goal or whatever down it was, it was like, well, this is a given. There's no way
they're stopping, and so is the most expected thing. When David Montgomery ran in throw the touchdown and now that line is going against the Bucks defensive line, which would normally say, Okay, this is a great Marquee matchup because vite Vea, Klijah, Cancy, Logan Hall, all high draft picks, Will Golston just a nice defensive front to hold up
against them. But you're playing probably almost certainly without Kalijah, right didn you say that in an injury segment, and Logan Hall has a chance, but not necessarily so to me, that's a key thing. And one of the defenders was, oh is Joe Tryan Schenka in the locker room yesterday, was asked how important is it to get pressure on him? And he goes, well, first of all, we got to stop the run. That's the number one thing that we have to do, and that's not going to be easy, and
that could be where this game turns. How well the Bucks can hold up against that incredible offense.
Yeah, and as good as they are in the run game, they have some pretty decent wide receivers. Yes, I mean, that's quite a duo out there, and knowing how beat up the Bucks secondary is, I imagine that that's going to be a huge part of it.
Well, just some of their positionless players, and I think That's one of the things that's so hard about the lines is they have so many weapons on offense that if you game plan for one, well, then somebody else can be to you. They have on Ross Saint Brown, who was a first team All Pro last year. He's a guy that has a variety of releases out of the slot. He kind of does the reverses the screens, but he's a sudden rat runner. He's good on like the two way go the option routes, kind of that
that slot weapon. And then you have a guy like Sam Laporta, who basically took the NFL by storm as a rookie tight end. This is just preposterous to me, but he had eighty six receptions and ten touchdowns. Eighty six receptions is a rookie tight end, so that is the most by that position for rookie in NFL history.
And he's a guy that again can do it all. Todd Boss talked about this a little bit on Bucks Total Access.
But he can stretch the field vertically. He has the strength in line for walking, and then he also has a good feel on routes. He can he's physical, he has the power to power through the jams, and it's kind of that guy that's sort of built with that prerequisite, Dan Campbell Detroit. And then they also have Jamison Williams who can is the deep threat, can beat you over the top, that game changing long speed that's good on
the post routes the corner. So I think, how well the Bucks are able to contain those guys is going to be a key for me.
Yeah, Jamison Williams is the new one there.
I mean, man, he showed out in that game as well. He showed his speed. He needs big deep ball threats. I mean that.
Guy and he's good like on an end round too. Don't forget they took him twelfth overall in twenty twenty two and he was coming off an injury, so he didn't do much as a rookie and last year was kind of disappointing. It was a little bit I think a suspension was involved, But this guy could be I mean, you saw that's a that's a They have returned pretty much everything they had on offense last year and then maybe this guy is their breakout this year. And that's a little scary.
Yeah, And you know, I'm looking at their defense. It's funny.
I felt like I was almost copypasting what I talked about last week with the Commanders of just this overhaul idea of For the Commanders, it was their whole starting defense. Almost this is a little bit more focused on their secondary. But for the second straight year they're overhauling it, which that's that's never great.
You don't want to have to do that.
That means they're like, never mind trying to do it again. So it's gonna be interesting to see what this group looks like this week. For one thing, they traded for our guy Carlton Davis, who everybody's very familiar with, signed I mean Robertson from the Raiders, drafted Terry and Arnold in the first round.
All those guys are starting.
And then by putting Robertson in the slot, that's gonna let them put Brian Branch back into safety, which is so reminiscent of this Antoine Winfield thing. You're so good, let's try you also here and also here, and then it's like no, but you're also you're at.
This safety thing. So Brian Branch looks great.
They've got a whole bunch of new guys back there in their secondary, so I think It's just gonna be interesting to see how that looks when that was one of their few areas of weakness last year in a very very good team and a really good roster, that was that was not their strong suit. So have they improved that this year? And therefore is that going to make them pretty formidable? All Right, So we're gonna close now with our answer to the trivia question.
I read that, Yes, why don't you tell us the one and maybe two that you know?
Well? I mean I knew Baker Mayfield did because I remembered that very distinctly in Green Bay, So that one was very easy. And then I'm like, well, it's probably tom Brady. Like that also feels like just even if I didn't remember the specific game, it's like how Mike Evans is always your person that you're like doubt. And I was like, I'm gonna guess tom Brady. But yeah, the third one you got me.
Well, So tom Brady's was against Detroit. Remember the game he only played the first half, but he did so much that was like the forty seven to seven game. Well, he had enough passing stats that it looked like a full game, and it was a perfect game. And then Blaine Gabbert came in and immediately first pass was a touchdown to Amazing. They were really beat up and hurt by COVID in that game. But anyway, I didn't bring that up because we're playing Detroit. That's a very different team.
I just realized that I didn't do that on purpose. That twenty twenty team. At the end of twenty twenty, they had coaches and players out by the dozens out due to injuries and COVID, So it really wasn't a fair fight, and the Buccaneers are going to win the Super Bowl. The third one, I threw out that hint that it's a guy from Miami. I was kind of trying to be misleading because most you would give a hint.
That's not the point of it.
Most Buccaneer fans, when they think Miami quarterback would think Vinnie testa Verni because we've spent the first overall pick on him in nineteen eighty seven out of the University of Miami, that famous brash Miami team. But no, it's Craig Ericson. Craig Rickson in nineteen ninety four against Indianapolis. Wow, he was the first one ever doing it, and nobody did it again for twenty six years. Wow, but we've had two in the last three years.
A little trick there on your tra question like that you want to make it easy, you can't make it too easy, all right, that's going to do it for us on this edition of Bucks Insider. Thank you so much for being with us. Enjoy that game against the Lions this weekend. We'll see you next week.