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Welcome man, We'll drive in the great episode two sixty one. I am so pumped. Week one is in the books and there are a couple takeaways, but my initial immediate takeaway is kind of the best two teams from last year, they still kind of look like the best two teams, and if you're will Get, if you're a Ravens fan, I think watching Sunday you had to feel a little better about Thursday, because if you watch Sunday, you might have felt like all of these teams would just get
rolled by the Chiefs and we were right there. It really now again it's overreaction Monday Tuesday in this league. But and there's always some bad Week one offensive football. This year it seemed to be somewhat extreme. But here's what I want to do today. So you guys heard me mention the first in pod podcast a ton with Danny Parkins and Andrew Philipponi. They actually both were in here once as got joint guests with me when they
were in New York. Danny has left the pod because now he hosts breakfast Ball Mornings from eight to ten Ey Stern on FS one. But so that pod, by the way, is continuing with taking Danny Parkins place. Is this public or not? Oh boy, well, let me check real quick. It doesn't matter if it's not public. You guys will find out in short order. I'm gonna look real quick because there's an amazing new co host for
that podcast. Okay, yeah, it is public, replacing Danny Parkins on First and Pot with Andrew Philipponi, future NFL Hall of Famer Patrick Peterson, star corner for a decade plus in the league, taking Danny's job. But here's the thing. The thing I loved about that podcast was they did every game every week, their Sunday Night or you know, basically week Recap pod would touch on every single game. So I am going to steal that conceit from them and we are going to go through all sixteen Week
one games. Obviously all sixteen games will not get the same amount of time, but I want to touch on everything from week one in the NFL, and if you guys like it, that's kind of the concept that we'll do every single week. But first, here's what missed the cut. Many Mahomes beat Shador Sanders as I told you what happened, and it was less about him beating Shitdor than it was Nebraska bullying Colorado Center and Sablenka win the US Open that would have been zero for two on my
Bengo card. And Aaron Rodgers Enigma, the Netflix series announced we now see demand demonse. How are you? You? Texted me last night? Aaron Rodgers plays football today? I text you midway through the game kind of uh so, how are you doing this morning? How did Week one treat you? Aside from the fact that you know, the teaser wasn't great, but we'll get to that on Thursday.
Amazingly, it was a good Week one of football Unfortunately, I was moving around a lot, so I caught what I could, but but no I saw I saw some great stuff. I went out to Kansas City, unfortunately the day after the game.
But oh, that's right, I forgot you. My mom, who lives in New York, and Demonzeg who lives in La met in Kansas City. And Demonse saw friends and family. Did you see both my parents? See my mom and my dad?
No, we had dinner at Propos and with Melinda. So with all the whole games, that's really cool.
So you were traveling a bit, so you saw some of the standalone games and what you could on Sunday. But that's fine because I wanted to do the Lion's share. They're talking today anyway. You did see last night last night Niners thirty two Jets nineteen. Uh, what do you think the story of that game last night was? Because to me, it's very clear what it was.
Aaron Rodgers, he was looking old out there. I got order from the producers that there were some similarities to Tamm and Kirk Cousins. I didn't get to see much of that game, but I could tell when he flipped it off to Breeze Hall like the first three plays of the game, how it was going to kind of go and when he needed an evade in the pocket, he couldn't like really make sharp turns. It seemed like
he had to like make more of these like curved routes. Well, he's getting frustrated very easily, very early as well.
So those were my two biggest takeaways. Was first of all, if you just look at the next gen stats as far as time to throw, Aaron Rodgers' third fastest of anybody in the league this weekend. Jaden Daniels, number one rookie making his first start, he was one read, get it out and if he wasn't, he was running. And then Baker Mayfield, who that when that Bucks offense is cooking, boom boom throw and they really did cook. Aaron Rodgers'
third fastest, fourth fastest to a tongue of Ailoa. Fifth fastest Joe Burrow, another guy who people have a little, you know, concerns about his health. Also Aaron only through to the left and only through to Garrett Wilson or Breese Hall with a couple targets. Alan Lazard and I agree with you entirely about the body language piece.
Of it.
The Alan Lazard drop on the first drive, you saw it, and then the Breezehall fumble on the second drive. You saw it. And that, honestly, Aaron Rodgers performance despite that criticism, probably the highlight of the night for Jets fans. What happened to this great defense that I've been told about? Oh, I just wait, just wait until the Jets get a quarterback.
They might have the best defense in the NFL. You allowed the Niners, without their best skill position player, to score on eight consecutive possessions, eight possessions in a row. The Niners put points on the board, two touchdowns and six field goals, and you weren't able to generate any type of pass rush. One of the biggest winners from last night, other than Jordan Mason, probably a son Reddick who had to come away from last night saying you
probably should pay me. Uh that you you probably should go ahead and pay me. There was a weird Sauce Gardener moment in the first Sauce was.
Playing injury and then he's kind of injury.
I don't know, man. They they said he didn't have an injury. He said he got the win knocked out of him. He missed I think eight plays and the Niners moved down the field. I don't know what that was.
It was joint benching Disney guy. The guy hit him really fast and hit him right in the shoulder, and he seemed to be kind of like grabbing at it when he was coming off. I thought he just got one.
But he you know, like a labrum thing or the thing that happened to you. But he but that wasn't it. He had no shoulder injury at all. Yeah, he came back in and when he was asked about it after the game, he said, got the wind knocked out of him. But you're usually not out for that long. The Jets are just the Jets are still the Jets. Guys, they had one awesome drive early.
It seems like you're reading that as something like the sauce Gardener thing. You think that there's something eerie.
I don't know. I don't I don't know. It seemed like he was benched for a series. But that makes no sense. But it also makes no sense for Lisa Saulters to be told that sauce Gardener during the game. She reported it's not injury related. Well, so what are we doing. I don't understand, like, did he I again,
maybe someone will report what it was. But that Jets defense got bullied for three hours last night, and that Jets offense looked like it was being designed a guy who they didn't want as their offensive coordinator, and quarterbacks by a guy who's the oldest quarterback in the league who's coming off of torn achilles. The last time Aaron Rodgers threw for three hundred yards, Dan Campbell had zero
career head coaching wins as the Lions head coach. Dan Campbell's entire tenure of success with the Lions has happened since Aaron Rodgers last threw for three hundred yards. So I I'm not overreacting to week one. What I am doing is reacting to week one and the Jets confirming a lot of my concerns and oh my god, these amazing weapons we have. Well, Mike Williams was on that list. He started the game and then didn't come, you know,
barely played. Uh so the Dusty just text me this Sauce Gardner after the game says it was a tackle that I made. I just had to get my wind back. I just had to shake back when I felt like I was good. I went back on the field. Yeah, no, I that I appreciate you sending me the quote, Dusty, and I had seen that. It was just weird. That was a long absence for getting the winning out of you. Yeah, I mean getting the wind knocked out of you is. And again I'm not doubting Sauce. It was just it
was just weird. The Jets are just weird. And I'm going to show it on First Things First later today. But the the Aaron Rodgers passing chart, it's just the left side of the field, so there's that side of it. I just think the Jets are once again gonna be a seven to eight win team. I don't think they're well coached. I think people have way overrated how good Aaron is going to be. Now people are gonna say, oh,
some of those throws, guys. I remember being a kid watching Dan Marino on the set of the CBS pregame show, and sometimes it's Dan Marino is, you know in his late forties maybe yeah, late forties at the time, well removed from football, but he also tours Achilles oddly, and sometimes they would go to a fake football field or
outside or whatever. And they'd throw the football around and holy shit, man, Dan Marino, even at fifty years old, could sling it tight, spiral, hurt the guy's hands, perfect accuracy. Aaron is going to be able to throw the ball forever. That's not even the majority of quarterbacking. Sobey were like, oh, but look at this throw to Garrett Wilson on the sidelines. He'll be able to do that forever. Aaron Rodgers will be able to win the old school quarterback competition where
you dip the football and paint. There's targets with bullseyes moving around on the field and you try to You try to hit him forever. But if he can't move, and if you don't trust yourself to be able to escape, it's not going. And your offensive coordinator can't scheme stuff up for you could be tough. Now on the other side of it, all right, the Niners looked awesome. Jordan Mason, the young running back, was great, great, and I know people want to hear it. I thought brock Bern he
played pretty damn well. I know the numbers were pedestrian, but this is where I don't really care about the numbers. I thought that this was more impressive of a quarterbacking performance from Brock than some of his three touchdown, zero interception, one thirty quarterback rating games. I thought there was one drive he was shaky, well, the very beginning of the game was a little shaky, and one drive I think third quarter he was shaky. Other than that, he didn't
miss a whole hell of a lot of passes. He had some really good, play good passes. Ayuk didn't do him a favor on that end zone drop, and I thought he was really good. Now, I tweeted this and this is the question I want to ask demon day before we move on to the next game. When Jordan Mason was out there crushing, I said, by the Brock already corollary, everyone must now believe Jordan Mason is a top five back in football. So if I were to go on TV and say, holy Molly, Jordan Mason, guy's
a superstar. Look at what he did, I think people would push back and say, well, it's the Shanahan system. It's it's you know what I mean. There's We've seen a lot of guys in that system, his dad's system, in his at that position have success. And I would say, yeah, that is exactly correct. Now, whether or not those same people want to allow me to do similar math like that on party is, I guess their call. But I
thought he was excellent. I thought the Niners defense was excellent, and I think this was a great wee in for San Francisco because sadly the Rams will deal with them later. Had a lot of injuries and lost a game. The Niners got through this game mostly unscathed and looked awesome. So that was my take.
He said that he he said that he knew that he was going to be the starter on Friday. So do you think that they the forty nine ers are obligated to come out and say something. Is that kind of weird?
Well, so if listen that is, that would be a rules violation, I'd be lying about the injury report. Oddly, Kyle Shanahan was asked about it after the game, and he said, I definitively did not tell Jordan that I told him to be ready for a lot of action. He said, maybe one of his position coaches told him that to gass him up, but we didn't know until earlier today that Christian was definitively out. I actually believe
Kyle Shannon hand here. You can say that's naive. But the reason I believe Kyle Shanahan is because if this news, if Jordan knew it on Friday, Vegas would have found out before the team released it, and you could get Jordan Mason over thirteen rushing yards Monday at four pm. So I don't I don't think that the Niners knew McCaffrey was I know, I don't think that the Niners knew McCaffrey was out Friday night. I don't I think that that level that news would have trickled out into
the betting markets. And so I actually, yes, it would be a huge violation. Lying on the injury report it's a big deal. Uh. But and lying that you call a guy questionable when he's really doubtful. Those types of things not much you can.
Do it a whole player.
You know three before the game that this player is out, and you don't have even having listed as doubtful. That would be a big deal. But I actually believe them. All right, now, let's get to come on. I mean this, you know, the game of the week. Yeah, let's get to it. Kant City twenty seven, Demand's beloved Ravens twenty. So I'm gonna go first and then you and then you go to Monsey.
Uh.
And I obviously talked about this a lot on TV and now it's like five days old, so I'll actually be oddly quick here. Thursday night games are not perfect for our podcast to discuss because we're not on, you know, till Tuesday morning. But the Chiefs looked far and away like the best team in the league. And the Niners may be listen, the Niners played so well yesterday, they
maybe have a similar claim. But the Chiefs did whatever they wanted and didn't even play close to a perfect game, didn't have Hollywood and Kelsey didn't do much, and it was against a Baltimore team that was peak motivation, and you could tell because of how Lamar played in that game, and Kansas City controlled every second of that game. And if people want to say, oh yeah, but listen, Baltimore did almost have a chance to steal the game. That
did happen. But for the Chiefs to play that efficiently and well, despite Mahomes having like a B minus level Mahomes game and a truly awful turnover that you never see out of him, I think Bode's really well for the Chiefs moving forward this season. Demond's a your thoughts on that game, most notably from the Ravens perspective.
Well, I don't think the Chiefs were able to do whatever they wanted. I think the Baltimore defense did a very good job at giving Lamar Jackson the offense chances to go and take the lead and get back in the game. Just didn't do it. And you would think with penalties being such a big part negatively in the in the AFC Championship Game last year, that they wouldn't have came out and gotten twenty penalties in the first game.
I think that they did do whatever it took, you know, to get in the game, which meant Lamar's gonna freaking take it up the field every single time. I don't love that, but I mean, if that's what we gotta do, we gotta do. I wouldn't say that he was scared of throwing the ball. I don't think his old line was really giving him a chance in the beginning of the game. I think when there were guys open, he found him. Obviously. You hate the Za Flowers mistouchdown pass.
That was that. That was kind of bad. That was a tough one.
Well, so a couple of things. I so, first of all, on the penalty side of it, at some point, you are who you are. And the Ravens are somewhat immature team. And Isaiah likely after the game with his nonsense of you know, that'll be the worst we play all year. We'll see how they look in the playoffs. You'll see all the two time defending champs look in the playoffs. They're probably gonna look pretty good, Buddy, and Roquan Smith with his Patrick flopped and I've got something for eighty eight.
I think the Ravens are a somewhat emotionally immature team. So I thought Lamar played. I thought Lamar played this game demande like a psychopath. I thought he was trying to initiate contact. It's one thing to have Lamar be like, you know what we've got, this is such a huge game, I'm gonna run the ball. But there were plenty of times he could have gone out of bounds, and he lowered his shoulder to not even get extra yards he had already he picked up the first down and could
have slid and took the punishment. And now and I don't know if you saw it. He missed practiced yesterday. Quote A little sore is what the reporting is. Now. When I heard he missed practice, I assumed, you know, you know what. I assumed Lamar had the flu for the thirty eighth time as a professional athlete. But they're saying he's a little sore. I just thought that game, for good or for bad demons was the full Lamar Jackson viewing experience. The like some runs that are just
so frustrating if you're the defense. Some miss layups and miss deep throws, a couple holy crap, How did he get out of it? And then great passes, and then you know that Baltimore's in the game late with a chance to steal it. Like I I thought, I don't think Lamar. I didn't think Lamar played well. I thought Lamar played exciting. But I thought that and he had some great plays. But he's gotta be better if they're
gonna beat Kansas City in a big spot. All his completions can't be He had sixteen passes demons at or behind the line of scrimmage, and the Chiefs clearly were not scared of getting beat over the top now likely's really good and credit to him. I thought he had an awesome game and it's a shame for him that, you know, he missed the potential touchdown. But as you mentioned, the likely piece doesn't happen if Lamar makes a better
play to say, it just doesn't. And then after the game he said, I wasn't even going for Zay, all right, but that's that. You know, that game's five days ago at this point, so we can move on the other So we'll do all the standalone games in the A blocked them, will rapid fire through the others, Philly, Green Bay. So Jordan. Some good news on Jordan Love. They're not putting him on the r which means they think there's
a chance he misses less than four games. So that's kind of best case scenario for them that he could potentially only miss three games. I still would anticipate that he misses four. Bad news to Monse is this part of it. I didn't think he looked sharp seventeen of thirty four. I thought that they left some meat on the bone and kind of let Philly get away with one. Because and this is where Eagles fans are gonna be
furious with me, but I don't really care. Saquan was awesome, and you know right now my Saquon take is trending to wrong. We'll see how how it goes at the end of the year. He was great. Jalen Hurts was bad in this game. He had three turnovers, could have had five. The defense looks like the defense from last year, and they immediately missed Jason Kelcey, the tush push failed. They they had bad snaps. Like if I'm an Eagles fan,
I am not. My concerns about this team heading into the year, about the how Kelsey's gonna they're gonna deal with the departure of Kelsey, about how the defense is gonna look, and is Jalen Hurts going to get over his turnover problem from last year? None of those are answered now. Aj Brown's awesome and Kellen Moore seemed to be able to use Devantae Smith more creatively than they were last year. And Saquon. I can't say enough about
how good Saquon was. But I tweeted during the game, and I will reiterate it that I picked both of these teams, the Packers and the Eagles, to finish third in their divisions and miss the playoffs, and I feel
fine about both of those predictions. Right now. I don't think Philly's very good despite the win, and I think that there is going to be way too much smoke on the Eagles against the Falcons at home Kirk Cousins after that awful performance on Monday Night Football, and we can talk about that on the gambling show for the Packers. I said this on TV when it happened, and I'll say it again here. I think going into the season with the only other quarterback on your roster being Malik
Willis was negligent. And you obviously don't want Jordan Love to get hurt. But Malik Willis, God Love him, is not an NFL quarterback. In his career, he has zero touchdowns, three picks, a rating of forty eight. He's never been able to click in now again, he's only thrown sixty seven passes. And if people want to say he's going to be better with Mike, with Matt Lafleur, I could buy that long term. Get him in the building for a year, get him in the meetings, get him on
the practice field. For him to have to play right now is disastrous and if I'm Green Bay, I am seriously considering calling Ryan Tannehill.
Yeah, I mean I'm like, hey for somebody.
Yeah, I mean I would. I would consider calling Ryan Tannehill and being like, hey, can you play a couple games for us? Week three at your old team, the Titans. You want to play that game Week four at home against Minnesota? And then if Jordan's not back Week five against the Rams, like, because I think the Packers. Listen. I wasn't as high on the Packers as correct. I wasn't as high on the Packers as others going into
the year. Uh, but let's say I was wrong. Let's say all the people that really believed in them were right. You can survive a month without your quarterback. If you go one in three, you can. You can survive one and three, you certainly can. You're fine at two and two. You can't survive zero and four. And I just don't know who you're beating now again, if you don't sign another guy, and it's Malik Willis versus Will Levis, you know, in week three, I mean that's an all time bad
quarterback matchup. Milik Willis used to play, you know, backup Will Levis so maybe you can win that game either way. But the tough part of your schedule if you're the Packers, starts in mid October. Start mid October. Here's what it is at oor. Sorry, Texans, Jags, Lions, Bears, Niners, Dolphins, Lions, Seahawks, Saints, Vikings, Bears. So that that middle kind of two fifths of your schedule you need to have. You can't be three and six going into that. You just can't. So that's that's
my takeaway there. And then we will go to Sunday Night Football Lions Rams. This was a weird one because the Lions had full control, then the Rams took back control, then the Lions had a chance to win it in regulation. This was a gambling death. Now I have the Rams plus four and a half. On this show, it was three and a half, but on TV and in the actual bet I made was plus four and a half. The Lions are down three with the ball inside the
twenty with a minute left, and I'm like, okay. When they get the ball, I'm like, okay, just either zero points or a touchdown, zero points or a touchdown. Just not overtime, Just not overtime. It of course goes to overtime. When it goes overtime, I'm like, all right, just let the Rams get the ball first. If the Rams get the ball first, they score a touchdown, the game's over. They kick a field goal. I'm not gonna lose by five. They turn the ball over or punt, Detroit will just
kick a field goal to win it. Detroit gets the ball first, okay, anything but a touchdown, and then Detroit just down the Rams throat runs the ball basically every play. I thought this. I thought the Rams played valiantly given all their injuries, but those injuries are gonna really hurt them. Steve Avela, their great young guard, is out a month, Pukaakua out a month. They their their backup left tackle got injured, and their third string left tackle was in
rough shape during this game. So that was a damaging game for the Rams. For the Lions, there were a few yikes from Jared Goff, a few uh oh moments from Golf, But aside from that, you have to love how they played. They were tough, they knew what they want to do, they ran the ball when they wanted to uh And that's a great win for them. It's a great win for them in a game they easily
could have lost. And if you asked me, the biggest winners as far as Super Bowl chances from Week one have to be the Lions in the Niners, because the Niners saw their biggest division competition lose a game they could have won in Week one in the Rams and have a bunch of injuries. And the Lions saw their biggest division competition in according to Vegas in the Packers lose a game they could have won and have their
quarterback go down. And so you know, so those two teams had really really good weekends as far as their ability to win their games their biggest competition, you know, not being able to win theirs. All right, those are the four standalone games. We have twelve other games to get to. I'm going to try to do two minutes a game, get through them in twenty four minutes. We'll see if I can do it. That's next, Hey, guys,
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You t up which game we're going to be talking about, and I'll take it from there, and you know, you chime in accordingly. But I think I know which game they're gonna make me start with. But go ahead, what's the first one.
It's time for Trash Hour Miami twenty to Jacksonville seventeen.
Yeah, okay, so listen, obviously the big news out of this game was not actually out of this game. And you know what, real quick producers, I'm gonna give you something on the fly. I apologize. Can you guys put a two minute clock on that resets for each game and I'll see if I can actually do this to these dozen games two minutes each. The real story out of this game was what happened with Tyreek Hill before the game. I think I'm going to do a lot
on that on Thursday. I think on Thursday, i'mnna do the gambling show, and then that I don't want to do that. In there's that is such a multi layered thing, and so I don't even want to do it right now. What I do want to do is talk about the Jacksonville Jaguars inventing ways to lose once again, so people can blame Trevor if they want. Trevor played fine. He had one of the prettiest passes anyone had all Sunday. That touchdown, you know, kind of layered in the back
of the end zone. He also had another one that would have been a touchdown. There was past interference in the end zone. Still hit the guy in the stomach and they ended up getting a touchdown out of it. But there's up seventeen to seven late third, Miami's done nothing. Travis atn pardon me is walking into the end zone and a perfect peanut punch by Javon Holland. And this is the sequence of events. It's about to be Jaggs
twenty four to seven. And these are the next place it is at tean fumble Tyreek kill eighty yard touchdown fumble on the kickoff by Jacksonville that they recover, and then three plays later, Doug Peterson goes for a fourth and one running back sweep on his own thirty and all of a sudden, it's a tie game. Or it's basically the Dolphins ended up missing that field gladly, but they ended up coming back to win. The Jags have
to learn how to win football games. The Dolphins were dead in the water, and you fumble going into the end zone. All of a sudden, the Dolphins have this rallying moment given what happened Tyreek and his teammates before the game. The Jags have a devastating loss, and once again the Jags start the season behind the eight ball. Now luckily they have the Browns next week. More on them in a moment. Demon's next game.
We got Chicago twenty four to Tennessee's seventeen.
Yees. So listen, Caleb Williams had ninety three yards. That's what everyone wants me to talk about here. He looked out of sorts. He couldn't rush the exactly. It is a different league. This is also the perfect start for my Super Bowl pick won, the perfect start for Caleb, but for the Bears, and if there was a little bit of Caleb, this is gonna be easy. This is gonna be like college. This is a good reminder. Playing
the damn Titans and you got cooked. But despite that, because the Bears defense and special teams was so great, and because Will Levis is just awful, and Titans fans got mad at me all summer for telling them that their quarterback. I was like, why don't you believe in the Titans? I don't know you guys fired Mike Rabel and you're rolling with Will Levis. You don't seem to know what you're doing.
Uh.
The Titans invented a way to lose that game, block punt, touchdown, terrible pick six, another stripsack, just a disaster. And now the Bears won what will end up being the worst game, maybe of Caleb's career, And so do I think he'll be a little more locked in. Do I think he had a few butterflies? Now I am worried. They all three of their receivers got dinged. Were awaiting the results of a Doonsday's MRI. That's you know, that's obviously concerning.
But I cannot wait for Caleb against CJ Sunday Night Football, National TV, and I think Caleb will be exponentially better than he was. And this Bear's defense was spectacular, So bad game Caleb. Great win by the Bears. And the three quarterbacks in recent history who have won a Super Bowl in year two, No one's been there in year one, Big Ben Russ, Tom Brady. What do they all have in common? All had great defenses. So for the Bears,
I thought this was fine for Caleb. I mean, nothing but painful film to watch, which could be good for him. All right.
Next you got Houston, Houston twenty nine to Indianapolis twenty seven.
All right, this was one of the most exciting games of the day. Did you see demons that throw from Anthony Richardson?
Yeah, seven yards in the air.
But yet he had won with a guy at his feet, a guy in his face, couldn't step into it seventy yards in the air. Anthony Richardson completed nine passes. He had two hundred and twelve yards, nine completions for two hundred and twelve yards and one in. I mean, the guy's electric. Now he's not that accurate and he's gonna have some issues, but holy smokes, this electric and then Ciej surgical your guy, bro. Uh, I mean, obviously you gotta give credit where it's due. I can't just make
everything just about the quarterbacks. Joe Mixon was unreal thirty carries, buck fifty nine, but Ciej deep passes to Nico and then short passes to Diggs for touchdowns. I thought that was a very interesting thing. Nico's gonna go deep, Digs is gonna be our red zone or first down guy, and then we're gonna add to it. One of the best plays of the day in the NFL. So here's the situation. The the Cults have gone on three straight
possessions touchdown, touchdown, touchdown. Now the Texans have gone touchdown, touchdown, So it's a back and forth. At the end of the game, the Texans have the ball trying to grind clock. It is, uh, where is this play here. It is it's third and eleven. Okay, if you punt that. If you don't pick this up, it is going to be colts ball. Two minutes left down, two third and eleven, two minute warning, up by two against a team you haven't stopped all half. CJ perfect twelve yard pass to
Nicocollins to essentially ice the game. That's big time, man, that is big time. And so if you're a Texans fan, got to tighten up the defense a bit. But that is a great win. And I thought one of the plays of the day was CJ to Nico for those twelve those eleven yards. You got anything you want to add before we go to the next game.
Uh No, I mean, I think coming into this season, people were skeptical about Diggs going to Houston, I mean, including myself, with his personality and everything. But I do think he's gonna end up being exactly what it looks like on paper with him being the receiver he was. I get I guess not at the tail end of his bill season, but you put a great wide receiver in there with a young, talented quarterback and it's showing and I think they're gonna well listen. I eight, uh.
I mean, as long as Diggs is happy, he'll be helpful, and he's gonna be happy. A couple of touchdowns he'll be happy with. It is still to me something to monitor, all right, next game.
Next, you got New England sixteen Cincinnati's ten.
Oh wait, no, I'm.
Sorry, buff you got Buffalo's thirty four at Arizona's twenty eight. My apologies.
All right, So, first of all, let me be fair to the Cardinals. It sure seemed like pass interference on that fourth down play. It wasn't a hail Mary. They were deep in Buffalo territory down. I mean, this is a brutal if you're a Cardinals fan, this is painful. It's fourth and seven, there's thirty seconds left, you're at the Bills thirty two, you're down six, and Kyler threw it to Dorsch inside the ten and it was one of those Bills defender back to the play hits him
and the ref kept his flag in his pocket. If he throws it, you're gonna have four shots into the end zone. So that's painful if you're Arizona. With that said, Arizona did not deserve to win this game, Arizona jumped out to an early lead. Then they simply could not stop the Bills on the ground and couldn't stop Josh Allen. And while I get frustrated because it took literally one day and you had Rex Ryan on ESPN yesterday say
Josh Allen's the best player in the league. Like it took one day for people to be like, you know what, he is better than Patrick Mahomes. When Josh is playing this way, Yeah, he had the one fumble, but where he's running at will and the whole offense is on him. If you're not an excellent defense, you're just not gonna be able to sustain it for sixty minutes. Like players like Josh or Lamar against average or bad defenses can just break the team and they're gonna score thirty plus points.
And I thought Josh was exceptional in this game. Now he started the game without a rap on his left hand. He left the game with a rap on his left hand. And we'll know, we'll see if taking this level of punishment is sustainable over the course of the year. But that's what their offense is gonna have to be a whole hell of a lot of Josh Allen, and that was an excellent win to I mean, it's a weird to say an excellent win, but to come from behind like that at what were they down seventeen to three?
They were down seventeen to three. To come from behind seventeen to three and get your season off on a good note after another devastating playoff loss. A lot of credit to the Bills there. I think people are surprised when I give the Bills credit, but I'm just fair. All right. Now, we'll get to the game you mentioned before.
It was excited to I guess I was just too excited to get to this one. We got New England sixteen Cincinnati's ten. No, you felt very well, so excited to get to it. Well, because we had the gambling show and this bet was on the sheet, and I said, I don't like this one. It's a lot of points. Cincinnati doesn't start off the season's hot. I don't know how bad New England's going to be, but I mean, clearly they were able to hang with Joe Burrow on the Bengals.
So okay, so you were one hundred correct. I mean I had the Bengals laying eight and a half and they lost out with credit to New England because they, you know, they just said we're just gonna run the ball and play great defense and that was enough. I mean, Jacoby was not good in this game. I'm not gonna act like Jacoby was terrible, but Jacoby's he didn't win because Jacoby threw the ball twenty four times for one hundred and twenty yards. But he had no touchdowns, he
had no picks, he had no fumbles. He didn't kill him. And the Patriots, who I thought, you know, might struggle to win four games, stole one. The story, though, is Cincinnati, and Cincinnati finishes almost every year hot, but they don't have home field. They're playing road games in the playoffs, after the division, after the wildcard round because they are now one in eight in weeks one and two with
Joe Burrow can't happen and Cincinnati is a team to watch. Higgins, they didn't pay him all of a sudden late in the week hamstring out Jamar Chase. They didn't pay him all of a sudden late in the week. Questionable with food poisoning, one of my hottest takes is adults don't actually get food poisoning. I don't ever. I don't ever buy food poisoning is like in a pro athlete is
out because of this, they're either hungover or lying. That's one of my general hot takes is I don't think the adults food poisoning.
As an adult, when was the last time you got food poisoning.
The I've as an adult, I have never had food poisoning where it's like, man, I don't think I'm going to be able to work tomorrow. It's never happened to me. Never. It's not like like the There's never been a moment where it's like, oh, man I ate something bad Tuesday night,
I'm questionable for work Wednesday. It's never happened. And so whenever it was like, oh, Jamar Chase added to the injury report on Friday, and they said it was food poisoning, Like I just don't Again I said it's a hot take, and doctors might disagree with me, I just don't believe it, and so correct. The whole thing is just and and Burt Listen, is Burrow still hurt as wild suggested, or is he just terrible early in years? I don't know,
Or is the combination of the two. But that that's bad news man, and I'm gonna again go to the final play of the game. It's second and seven. Okay. The situation is, there's a minute fifty left. Cincinnati's down six. If they can stop New England twice, they're gonna get the ball with a minute forty because they have two timeouts to go. Drive the field and runs Ramandre Stevenson. He gets hit two yards pass line scrimmage and the Bengals just can't get him on the ground. He gets
nine yards of the game's over. What you know, they're running, you call the right defense, you hit Remandre and he's just tougher than you. And the drive before man, cincinn nowt he gets the ball three minutes left, down six, supposed to be Joe Burrow time incomplete to Yoshavas incomplete, to Moss, incomplete to Moss or no, I'm sorry, short of the sticks to Moss. And now you're punting bad news man. And who do the Bengals have next week? Oh, no,
big deal. They're just at Kansas City. That's that. That's a problem. All right. Uh, let's go to the next game.
It's Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh eighteen to Atlanta's ten nasty game over there.
Well, yes and no. If you're Mike Tomlin, you loved every minute of it. Yeah, this is what the Steelers. This is the Steelers once beat the Chiefs in a playoff game where the Chiefs scored two touchdowns and the Steelers scored zero touchdowns. They just beat the Falcons in a regular season game where that they scored zero touchdowns the Falcons scored one. Justin fields. Was fine, not electric, but fine. And you do wonder what this does for
that quarterback competition. But the story of the game, of course is Kirk Cousins looked awful. Awful. Now was that first game back post achilles? He'll be way better or was that? No? Man, the guy's in his late thirties. He tore his achilles. He's not gonna be the same player that will determine the success of the Falcon season. Now, glass half full. This is why we drafted Michael Pennocks.
Glass half empty. Because you drafted Michael Pinnicks, you now already have a quarterback controversy one game into the contract of your one hundred and eighty million dollar quarterback. Depends on how you want to look at it. I actually think the real story of this game was TJ. Watt was sensational. TJ. Watt finished the game with one sack, two TFLs, three quarterback hits, and a fumble recovery. Twice. TJ Watt had strip sacks called back due to questionable penalties.
He could have legitimately had three sacks, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries in this game. He won them the game along with Boswell, who not only kicks the six field goals, but their punter gets hurt. Boswell has the punt and hits one awesome punt. So shout out to the Steelers for the most Steelers Z win you can imagine. Next.
Yep, so you got New Orleans forty seven to Carolina's ten.
Okay, Saints fans, I suppose you deserve some credit for scoring forty seven points. I I'm gonna be totally honest with the audience on this one. There were two games this weekend that I was like, well, I won't watch a second of that. Unfortunately, one of them was the local New York game, so even with my TV setup, I couldn't get away from it. The other one was this so I don't. I've got no analysis other than
this is the sign that your team is cooked. If I'm not watching the game and they cut to red zone on your game, okay, and your team has the ball and I'm like, oh, huge play. The Panthers have the ball. This must be a turnover, Like if it comes to red zone and I'm like and they're like, oh, big play just happened in Carolina and they show it to me and Carolina has the ball and I'm like, okay, So this is either a huge, you know, a forty plus yard offensive play because they're not in the red
zone yet, or a disaster. No, my money's on disaster. And that's exactly what happened repeatedly. And I know people think this is fascile analysis, but I just continue to be correct. Bryce Young cannot see over his offensive lineman. He is too short, and I am sorry, but he is not going to be good.
Is he smaller than Kyler Murray? So he's.
Yes, I think they're the same height. But Kyler is such a dynamic athlete. He does so much of his stuff where there's no offensive linement. He's running out to the sign. Bryce can't do that. Bryce needs to be in the pocket, and.
I mean time there's some uncomfortable conversations for Carolina.
We're close to it. It were very close to it. All right, this is the next game. Demon's that every time they cut to it on red zone and the Giants will go ahead and say the score.
Sorry, it's Minnesota twenty eight to the Giant six.
Yeah. Every time they cut to it on red zone, I was like, all right, what did Daniel Jones do? I mean? And it wasn't like, oh, what did Daniel Jones do? Was uh, oh, what did Daniel Jones do? I mean a lot of people are going to lose their jobs there, unfortunately. I just He's had sixty career starts, twenty of them they have not had a passing touchdown. He was brutal in this game. Malik Neighbors seems already frustrated.
Flip side, flip side, Man, it won't last. But Sam Darnald out there vindicating the last six years of Colin Coward's takes. Coward has loved Donald for almost a decade and won't give up on him, and Donald was cooking early in this game. And listen, I think one of the better offensive coaches in football is Kevin O'Connell with the Vikings now, and this was a game they had to win because if you're a Vikings fan, the schedule
softens up majorly later in the year. But can I just tell you the Viking next, I don't know, half dozen games, Niners, Texans, Packers, Jets, Lions, Rams, Holy you don't have a moment to breathe, so you had to win that game free And yeah, your easiest game is the Jets, for real, and it's Darnold against the Jets, Like that's gotta I mean, maybe that goes well or maybe that's a disaster. On the Giant side of things, I just I eat. The Giant schedule is the following
demonse at the Commanders. This week we'll see at the Browns and then home for the Cowboys on a short week on Thursday night football. I think that Cowboys game on Thursday night will be Daniel Jones's last start as a Giant. I do because some of it he has like twenty some million that gets guaranteed if he gets hurt during the year, but it's not guaranteed now, so they're gonna have to pull the plug early and I.
Think giving them Bennybuye is.
What they're gonna want to do. No, I think it'll be Drew Lock. You can't put Timmy DeVito out there either. I think it'll be Drew Lock.
All right, next, but next we got Dallas is thirty three to Cleveland seventeen.
Yeah, listen, this obviously could have been higher in the show, but we spent so much time talking about it on TV, and it's so two things Dallas related, then one thing Cleveland related. First thing Dallas related. I spent a lot of time being loud and wrong about the Cowboys not signing Dak Prescott. I was wrong. I just thought that he was gonna want to test free agency, and I thought they would be squeamish about paying him sixty million a year and giving him more than two hundred and
thirty million guaranteed. Both happened. So that's done. That's first point. So I was just flat wrong on it. Second Cowboys point, they looked awesome and defensively that's more about Deshaun more on him in a moment, but offensively, that Cleveland team was dominant in that building all last year, and the Cowboys did what they wanted to do so props to the Cowboys, a ton of offseason noise and a plus week one game. On the Cleveland side of things, I mean,
they're just ruined at quarterback. And once again we find ourselves in a position where it's weird to talk about Deshaun Watson because just yesterday another horrifying allegation came out again from the same from four years ago, but a lawsuit was filed where I mean, you can fill in the blanks on what you think he's alleged to have done, except this was with a woman he's you know, allegedly supposedly was on a date with. So you have that, you have the fact that he might be the worst
quarterback in the NFL. Then you also have this fact he's uncuttable. One hundred and seventy two million of cap hits still owed to this guy. And so I saw the Browns.
I saw a take that said, Deshaun Watson doesn't want to play football anymore. He doesn't even really enjoy being out there. It doesn't look like he does, to be honest.
I so I think that's correct, and I think the Deshaun Watson on my shoulder is sore is a very attle bit of that last year, with that weird time where he wasn't playing, it seemed like he could have been Yeah, and so I mean, but he's not going to retire because they got to pay him this money. And I know that some of those aggregator accounts have speculated, oh, with this new allegation, well, the Browns be able to
get out of his contract. When we talk about how terrible the Deshaun Watson trade and contract was, I want to remind people his agent got in there language that says he will not forfeit his signing bonus or any future guaranteed salary with a suspension. So maybe they could try to claw some of it back, but I don't think so. And so listen you it's not as if the Browns traded for Deshaun Watson not knowing uh, he hasn't played in a year and he has twenty credible accusers.
They did it eyes wide open, and this is kind of what you get. So is listen, it is what it is. But that team's offense is broken and they should play Jamis. But when you owe a guy one hundred and seventy two million of cap over the next two years, that's a hard thing to do, all right.
Last three quickly, Tampa baysed thirty seven to Washington's twenty. Baker show Dagger Dagger. I don't know if it was obviously on my teaser, but oh I think maybe I don't know. I don't know if I wasn't watching too much Commanders football last year. But maybe that's a secondary problem. Maybe their secondary is just bad this.
Well, they couldn't get a pass rush. Baker was getting the ball out immediately. Listen, man, Mike Evan's really good. The kid they drafted. It made a big play. Godwins good and Baker was absolutely dealing. These Baker numbers over his last seven games are in sane Baker's averaging including the playoffs, like three hundred yards a game, a one to eleven rating, a bunch of touchdowns only like two.
He's been awesome for now like half a season. The sad thing for Tampa is this, in this game, they lost Antoine Winfield and three corners, so they had three or four pardon me, injuries to their secondary in one game. And that's what can really kill you is those cluster injuries. Those can be very hard to deal with and having the Lions next week, that could be a really rough
spot to be dealing with those injuries. For the story on the Washington side of things is Jaden didn't get the crap kicked out of him and played pretty well. I think sixteen carries is too much, but in fact, I know it's too much. But if you're but Washington, it's really how does Jaden look on that piece of it? Demon's a this is a weird one. Your teasers A good bet if you're told Washington's gonna score twenty and
they do, Yeah, you know what I mean. But it was just Tampa's offense and Baker was unstoppable.
Yeah, I just I didn't respect Baker enough. It's how I saw it, was how I see it now.
But well, listen, I think it was hard to just maybe they score thirty seven points. All right, let's do the last two quickly.
So you got Seattle's twenty six to Denvers twenty.
All right. Bonnicks threw the ball forty two times for one hundred and thirty eight yards, and Broncos fans got mad at me when I said I was not impressed by him in the preseason, And then I thought Sean Payton was trying to, you know, trick people and prove some things. I do not think Bonnicks is an NFL quarterback. I think he will have better moments obviously than this one.
But if the Seahawks clearly said, you're not gonna throw the ball down the field, We're gonna play man to man and dare you to do something, and he couldn't man to man single high heat up the you know, get after the quarterback. Hell of a debut for Mike McDonald with Seattle and uh Gino made one terrible mistake, but aside from that was good Seattle. A lot of the smart folks like Seattle. They get the Patriots next week.
They so they can start two and oh they should start two and oh, and then they have Dolphins Lions before they get the Giants. You gotta think if they can just split with Dolphins Lions, all of a sudden, the Seahawks are starting four and one. The Broncos, on the other hand, man that it really is a beautiful gift that the AFC West has bo Nicks as a
quarterback in it and then Antonio Pierce as a head coach. Sorry, but let's get to the last game because it had, honest to god, one of the single worst coaching decisions in the history of the NFL was in this game. That's not an exaggeration. Give me the last time.
Yes, So we've got a Chargers twenty two to the Raiders ten.
Okay, So here's the situation, guys. Uh it is. I want to get it exactly right. Yeah, it's fourth and one on the Chargers' forty three yard line, you're down six in the fourth quarter with seven minutes left, and Antonio Pierce punted the ball. Bill Barnwell tweeted, the last sixty six times a team has been in that situation, they have gone for it. Uh, that's like a a just simplely can't do it. I will never trust you again. Thing. It's your first game as a full time head coach.
You have fourth and one, you're on your opponent's side of the field, it's the fourth quarter, you're down six, and you call a punt and then you defend it after the game. That can't happen. Just can't happen. Now, the flip side Chargers, what a vintage hardball game. We're just gonna run, run, run, play great defense. We're eventually gonna pop a big one and they end up running the ball twenty seven times for one seventy six Herbert only throws for one hundred and forty four yards, but
it doesn't matter. They control the game the whole basically from the second half on, and the Chargers are going to be a pain in the ass this year. I think they're gonna be three to oher headed into Kansas City or hosting kansaity, pardon me in a month. And absolutely, this Chargers team, they have to start the year, Demanse. Remember that last place schedule. Look at this for the Chargers, Raiders,
then Panthers, Steelers, Chiefs, Broncos, Cardinals, Saints Brown's Titans. That's the Chargers opening schedule.
That's fun.
Raiders, Panthers, Steelers, Chiefs, which is brutal, Broncos, Cardinals, Saints Brown's Titans. I mean they can get off to an amazing start, and then they end the year Demonse with these three games Bronco's Patriots, Raiders. Pretty good. All right, we did it. It's a long show, but it was worth it. Answer a couple very quick questions. Next, then I gotta get out of here. What's right, All right, welcome back in What's Right with Nick? Right, I gotta go.
I'm getting texted by Coward's producer because I haven't responded to him. We got our show, We got a ton to do. I'll get to your listener questions. We have saved some of them. We'll try to get them to you on Thursday for our gambling show. But I gotta get to work. To mon'say, great job, see you guys. I'll be on with Colin in about ninety minutes beyond First Things First, in about three hours.
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