Vikings Injured, Finding Betting Value & Nick’s Coaching Hotline

Bobby Canavali. Watch Unstoppable now exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.

We'll open up the coaching hotline all of that, but first let me tell you what missed the cut. Not on today's show is Micah Parson's playing running back at practice, even though I thought that was fun. Josh Allen calls Zen's his secret trick. Oh, Josh, let me tell you not to give the bills some added advice, but pop on a couple stage one nicotine patches buddy before a game. You will focus and feel alive the way you never have.

And Jim Harbaugh says at thanks but no thanks to Colin Kaepernick the quarterback, but is open to Colin Kaepernick the coach. Demonse, good to see you, And I'm now gonna tell you don't know the story I'm about to tell. It's not about you. I always feel bad when I tell Demanse a story that's about him that he doesn't know. I'm gonna tell that's not what's happening here. But I think you'll like this story. So eight years ago I went to literally like eight years almost to the day,

I went to Syracuse and did a talk. So that was before first things first existed, when I was just filling in and going on Collins Show. I went to Syracuse and it wasn't like a big formal thing. Like in a theater. It was at the radio station that formed my career War and they announced it to the kids who were working at WAR that they could come and you know, I basically talk and answer questions whatever it was. And one of the people there was ty Butler,

who if you know Demons, you've met him. He was a student there. He ended up working with me on What's Right with Nick Wright, the radio show on Mad Dogs Sports Radio. And now tye is a local New York sports talk star. He works for ESPN New York. He does stuff on TV. He and I have become friends. And you know, Syracuse and War is you know, kind of not It's not the only place, but it is

the place for young aspiring sportscasters. And during the Olympics, I'm watching Noah Eagle and I've been I've obviously been aware of Noah for years. In Noah's dad is Iron Eagle, who was a Syracuse legend and a great broadcast for forty years or thirty years. I don't want to date him. And Noah did the Clippers job and has gotten some big gigs and was doing the Olympics with Dwayne Wade. But that's all I had thought of when I saw Noah Eagle over the years was us as a young kid.

And to me, there is a real Joe Buck Jack Buck possibility of And this is a high compliment. Jack Buck was one of the greatest broadcasters ever. His son Joe, Joe might not like me saying this, but I believe has surpassed him. Where Joe is now maybe the greatest him costas obviously Al Michael's play by play guy ever, where the dad was a legend and the son maybe

overtook him. It's too early to say that's going to happen with Noah and I an Eagle, but after his performance in these Olympics, it's on the board, his kids twenty seven years old and crushed it met the moment consistently on the men's and women's basketball and his profile is only going to grow. And his dad is a legend, a Hall of Fame broadcaster, and maybe he'll surpass it. Uh So here's the reason I'm telling the story right now. And I said the eight years ago thing. During the Olympics,

something occurred to me. I was like, did I ever talk to Noah Egle Because I was like, wait, he was probably at Syracuse when I did that talk, and so I went to my email and typed into the search bar Noah Eagle, and this came up, and I want to read it to the audience. Mister Wright. My name is Noah Eagle, and I was amongst the crowd and new house last night to listen to you speak. I enjoyed your stories and great piece of advice. I'm sorry I couldn't stay longer afterward to come up and

introduce and formally introduced myself. Oh that's funny, it says formerly, he meant formally. I work at both War and Z eighty nine, and to hear you talk about how both played such a vital role in your future success was a reminder how great Syracuse is. I'm a big fan of yours and love what you've been doing at Fox. I look forward to seeing what the future as in

store for your career. I was honored to be able to hear you speak and hope to meet you one day in person, And thankfully, because I'm not good at email, I did respond. It was like a couple weeks later I responded, it was nice to meet you, appreciate the note. Keep in touch, but that was crazy to me, Like it's a crazy to me for a couple of reasons. One is I'm now officially like the old guy. Like this guy who's calling the Olympics heard was at a

talk I gave when he was in college. It also speaks to his meteoric rise that he was sending me that email on August thirty first, twenty sixteen, and on August tenth, twenty twenty four, he's calling the gold medal game for the men's Olympic team. I mean, it's pretty remarkable.

I mean, listen his dad's iron eagle. I think he had plenty of inspiration separate from it, but it all, it's the It's just it was really I couldn't believe when I saw that and on Tuesday, I when I said, remind me telling Noah Eagle story, that's the one that I wanted to tell. So shout out to him. Good for him, Uh, good for great you know, a great

young broadcaster, and he is. You know, Joe Joe Buck talked about this because there's a lot of broadcasters that got their foot in the door because their dad was a great broadcaster. And then the question is, you know, do you kick the door open? How well do you do? Joe obviously is the gold standard of that. But Noah's doing a hell of a job. All right, let's talk football here to Monsey and to some sad news.

ever playing a single snap. So you might say, well, that's crazy, And then I thought about it. I'm like, well, that would mean you would have to get injured before Week one, which is what happened to him. So it is relative. We've had guys sit their whole rookie season. We've had guys like Anthony Richardson play briefly, get hurt and then miss time. He's the first guy first round quarterback ever to miss his entire rookie no, so, but

that was that was not his rooki year. That was he got injured in the seton in it in year two and he got there. And there have been plenty of guys to play zero snaps their rookie year, but not because of injury. It was because of a Mahomes Alex Smith situation. But even in that situation, Mahomes played the final game of that season. So it is it

is brutal for Minnesota for this season. The bright side is twofold one is the torn meniscus is a tricky one because there's two procedures you can do and it's counterintuitive as far as the impact it has and how it works. If you tear your meniscus, you can do a procedure where they just trim the meniscus, basically shorten it, and you can be back in a month. The other option they have is to repair the meniscus, fix the tear, and you're out four to six months. So why wouldn't

they just trim it. The reason you choose to repair it and not just trim it is because the trim can shorten your career and lead to longer term knee issues. Dwayne Wade is a guy who early in his basketball career suffered a torn meniscus. They trimmed it, and he would tell you that's one of the reasons that eight nine years later he had all those knee issues and now he's calling the Olympics alongside Noah Eagle. What Lebron his draft mate play in the Olympics when d Wade's

career ended years ago. So the I was worried that the Vikings were going to and JJ was going to opt to do the trim because man, I don't want to miss this full season. You do a trim, I could be back out there by week two or three. They did the judicious smart thing. But it's just so whack for them that he's now out for the year.

I doubt it changed. They're over under uh much because a rookie JJ McCarthy versus Sam Darnold, who's just gonna be bad. But you know, it's a seven year vet. They they're over under before the injury was seven and a half. My guess is it's still right around that still. So I don't actually think it impacts their ability. It lowers their ceiling this year because maybe JJ was gonna light the world on fire, and I did love his performance in that preseason game, but it it does not.

It doesn't really make them, you know, the worst team in football this season anything like that. Uh, it's just a bummer because you wanted him to take his lumps this season. You wanted him, you wanted him to learn from this season. Now, one bright side is that I think JJ what JJ was going to be if he played Week one. The second youngest quarterback to ever start a game in the NFL. The youngest was actually Darnold.

He's twenty one years old, Okay, so even with him missing this year, he's going to start his career at twenty two years old. Compare that to, for example, Michael Pinnix, who is twenty four. Bo Knicks who turns twenty five this season or at the very end of this season. So he's still so young that I think he'll be okay. It's just if you're a Viking fan, You've had such a sad offseason. You had a play a player die tragically in a car accident, you had two other corners injured,

the Addison injury. Here is the one thing I'm gonna say about carted off and training camp. That can be a misleading thing, and people covering these teams need to need to do a better job of clarifying. So, for example, yesterday I'm driving into work and I see Chiefs right tackle Juwan Taylor carted off the field, and I'm like, you've gotta be kidding me. But what happened was he tweaked his shoulder and he rode off the field in the front seat of the golf cart. So carted off

in the regulars season means devastating, awful injury. Carted off in preseason can mean that. It can also mean they have carts all over the place, and if a guy gets dinged, he rides in the cart. You know what, I mean to the training room, and so it's so, but that Addison got it. You know, Addison got in trouble this offseason and then also got injured, So it hasn't it obviously has been a brutal offseason for the Vikings,

and you feel for him. I do think their their course of action here was the smart one, and I'm glad this is the path that they took. I just think if you're a Vikings fan, now you don't have much reason to care about this season.

of coke. And you don't want to go to someone that when you hang out with them, when they go to dinner, they ask the waiter to tell them every item in every dish because they can't have gluten or sugar or wheat, and they don't drink coffee and any of it. Those two extremes both will ruin your night. So here's my point. You don't want a guy throwing a pick every day at training camp, and you don't

want a guy who's thrown none at training camp. Again, I don't think it's everything, but I don't think it's nothing. And again people can make fun of me for this. They asked me on the show what's the right amount of training camp interceptions? And I said, I don't know, probably how many mahomes is thrown whatever, however many he's thrown is probably the right amount. I think we're taking a few internet hits. So let's take a Wick break, come back and give some coaches some advice. We'll do

that next What's Right? Welcome back in What's Driving? Nick Right? Apologize for those slight technical difficulties to monsday. Before we get to our coaches corner or coaches hotline, I should say, uh, let's keep the show going talking little packers Texans.

the Lions won four. The Jags obviously fire their coach, the Lions don't, and the next year those two teams kind of came out of nowhere. Both came on strong at the end of the season. The Lions end up winning their final game of the year against Green Bay, but still missing the playoffs. The Jags surge into the playoffs win a playoff game that was them two years ago. And both of them came into last season as trendy

popular picks, the Lions and the Jags. Young quarterback in Jacksonville, you know, kind of quarterback on a second chance, not necessarily young in Detroit, but both of those teams were the trendy. They were too popular to even be called sleepers. People really believed in them. And one of them lived up to all those expectations. In Detroit won game the first game of the year against Kansas City. They were, you know, putting Marquis Spots got to the NFC Championship game.

The other one the Jags ended up, I think because Trevor got hurt. But whatever, having a very disappointing season, falling short of expectations. The reason I tell that story is the Jags Texan I'm sorry, the Jags Lions last year remind me a lot, not even because they're both from the NFC North and the AFC South of the Packers Texans. This year teams that two years ago we would have thought were, you know, in the kind of

no man's land rebuilding figuring it out. Last year. Both came on very strong at the end of the year, played their best football after not being very good early in the year. At the end of the year, one playoff games, and both of them are considered kind of fringe Super Bowl contenders. This year, I'm here to tell you NFL history tells us one of those two teams is going to disappoint because progression in this league is

not linear. It's not the NBA, where it's like you're awful, you get to five hundred, you finally make the playoffs, you finally go on a playoff run, and then you can win a championship. In the NFL, progression is more like you go up, take a couple steps back, go up, go up again, step back. That's how it is historically for players and for teams, and for the.

entirety of what we saw from them. The Packers are considered have a lot, a lot of hype for a team that through fifteen weeks last year was six and eight, six and eight, and then they win their final three games, they blow out the Cowboys, they're in great position in round two, or seemingly great position, and then lose, and now everyone believes in them. The Texans are going for it, adding Digs, adding Danell Hunter, adding Joe Mixon, and I

get that, and I respect it. Point where I am willing and we'll see when we come back from vacation and we do our official picks and predictions and bets all of that, which of these two teams I land on. The point I'm making demands is, if NFL history is our guide, one of these two teams is going to fall woefully short of expectations. And I I right now

am leaning. I think the Texans are better than the Packers, but I think the Texans are more likely to be the team that deals with that because I think the Texans the Packers don't have to deal with the first

place schedule the Texans do. The Texans are in the AFC and as good as much as I like CJ and Demico, the Texans this year, while the schedule starts off relatively soft, the end of the year I think is brutal and I could see I could see this going sideways on them, but I'm not sure because I think CJ is awesome and I love their receiver core, and there's a lot to like about the team in.

going to be dangerous. That's an actual sleeper. The Packers and Texans are a couple standard deviations away from sleeper. They are trendy picks. All right, let's go to you want to say something I see. I don't think they're I don't think they're a sleeper super Bowl team. I think they're by the odds. I think they're a fringe super Bowl team. But maybe I'm wrong. All right, let's go hard. Let's go to the holdouts.

player on their team. He is the only guy you really trust on their offensive line, and he's old, and so him missing all of camp if that leads to another injury. He also wants upon a time in Washington held out for like half the season, so he has shown he's one of the only guys in the league who has shown I'm willing to miss games, and so that would that's that has not gotten enough coverage. The Hassan Reddick thing is the flashing red light siren for

multiple reasons. One, the Jets need him. As good as the Jets defense was last year, they had one guy with at least eight sacks, Bryce Huff. He's gone to the Eagles. The Eagles signed him because they were trading Hassan Reddick, so it's a position of need for the Jets. They lost Huff, they spent a first round pick on Will McDonald last year, who has not popped at least didn't last year, and Reddick doesn't want to play for them.

But the other reason it's a flashing red or it's a red flag is because it shows total organizational incompetence. Like Matthew Judon yesterday got traded to the Falcons. Why because he wanted a new contract the Patriots didn't want to give him. You know what, I am one hundred percent certain on the Falcons have worked out a contract with Matthew Judin to where he'll be happy, because that's

what organizations that know what they're doing do. They don't trade for a player who's unhappy about a contract without working out a new deal and then act shocked he's unhappy about a contract so they need him on the field and it shows organizational incompetence. Go ahead, Demantsey.

any chance he actually misses time. All right, let's go to our game, demands the coaching hotline.

I'm playing, and I am confident enough, and I'm justifying how often I'm playing by saying it's helping me learn about the college football rosters headed into the season because this new gun has the real ratings, the real names, all of it, which means every game I use a different team. So I've played forty games and I've used forty different teams. I started with all the Tier one teams. Now I've used all the Tier two teams. Now I'm

making my way through the Tier three teams. And I'm here to tell you if you're a starting quarterback on one of the teams I pick, and you're slow and there is an accurate, low awareness, but very fast freshman deep on the depth chart, you're getting benched, buddy, because I am out here running the speed option and the read option so option, like I'm Georgia Tech. I am out here just putting speed on the field, running the damn ball, running the damn ball, and then chucking it

deep and frustrating people. Yesterday I had this guy in the torture chamber because here's the thing. Yesterday I played a game before I went to work, so this usually I play when I get home from work, but yesterday I had all my stuff done early, and it was like ten to twenty and I was the only one at home. I'm like, I'm getting a game, in which

means now I'm playing. Either now I'm playing. If it's an adult, it probably means he doesn't have a job, because it's ten twenty in the afternoon and we're playing, or ten twenty the morning and we're playing in Cuba. And this guy was so mad at the defensive coverages and disguises I was throwing at him, and he kept saying into the mic, you just stay in that cover. You're just in cover two man. Get out of cover two man. But I was never in cover two man.

I am just in the absolute torture chamber. And listen, I only score like thirteen points a game. I'm out here kicking field goals demanday, I'm punning on fourth and media. I am, well, yeah, you got it, you gotta. I'm using third down as just to give up down to center the ball to make sure I'm in good field goal position for your I am playing the most conservative brand of video game football anyone's ever seen, and nobody

can deal with me. I mean, I just keep now again, the way it works, you have to win enough to get to the level of the actual great players. But I have rapidly ascended the ranks. I won the quote national championship in whatever the second easiest difficulty is. I in my ten games, I did so well. Yeah freshmen, right, So now I'm I'm currently undefeated in the sophomore division.

So I guess I haven't played. I've played almost thirty games, okay, and I'm just out here cooking, and so eventually I'm sure I'm going to I'm going to play people that are really, really good. But these these.

So I played with Syracuse a few times. Exit's my school, and I'm here to tell you man. They're like, oh yeah, like they're Ohio State, and then they see they're playing a Tier three Syracuse. They're all excited, and they've got a great tight end Aronde Gadson Junior and this quarterback. And I'm just out here running the option, running the option. You're ready for it, You're ready for it. And then boom Gadson over the middle, and then running the option,

running the option. Oh yeah, oh I'm out. Yeah. I love this game. I missed this game so much, and so all right, sorry coaches, so oh the reason you even brought this up is because I said to coach Mangini, I now have a newfound respect for running the ball on first and ten, for running the ball on second and seven, for making the defense respect the run to open up my passing options. And so Coach Manginie's been trying to convince me that for years. But now that I'm in it, now that i'm.

let's go to our coaching hotline. Sorry, that's probably longer than people wanted or needed on n C Double eight, but I'm here to tell you I love the game. I missed it so much, and I'm so glad it's back.

hired Greg Roman. You want to the ball, keep running the ball and Bill and don't do what the previous regime did there. And I think, by the way, he's gonna take all this advice and try to microwave it. Look at it as this year we're gonna get back to respectability. Next year we're gonna expect to be a playoff team, and the year after we're gonna try to compete with the Chiefs of the division. That's exactly what he's going to do, and that'd be my advice. I

don't think he really needs advice. I think he's doing it the smart way and that's what they're gonna do. Next.

The most important player on your team needs to be Bjean Robinson. He was my pick last year for Offensive Player of the Year. Before the year, if you remember, I still think he is a superstar. I think he might leave this season as the best running back in football and then get Kyle Pitts back re engaged via Kirk Cousins. But you don't want to get in shootouts with that defense. I think Raheem knows this.

you are running as a last resort. I watched him in college take some of the most brutal hits people talk about Lamar, him and Lamar. Lamar is much thicker previously was, but also Lamar is the best I've ever seen at not letting people square him up. Don't let Jaden get lit up early, even if it puts a ceiling on your offense early. This is a long term thing.

And so I like Jayden's talent. He is so thin and takes such big hits that until he bulks up and learns how to avoid those hits, that would be my biggest focus.

The while I didn't believe the over under for the Vikings could be set at two and a half. The Patriots it could have been. It's not. I think it's four and a half. And it's not a bad thing if Drake May doesn't play for a little bit till you get your offensive line figured out. Like the Patriots are, you know, really looking like for the second straight year they're going to be a bottom two team in the NFL. For Mike McDonald, it's a different story, Mike McDonald, man,

I saw you with listen. Rokwan Smith is a great player, Kyle Hamilton is a great player. The rest of those players on the Ravens defense last year are not blue chippers, and you turned them into one of the three best defenses in football. I wonder what you can do with that Seattle defense with Weatherspoon. It doesn't have as much you know, it doesn't have Kyle Hamilton Roqwan Smith duo, but you have Weatherspoon, you have Rik wooland so you

think your corners are taken care of. I think that division is a little more open than other people do. I think the Rams are good, I think the Niners are good. I don't think either one of them are great, and so I think if Gino can get back to the geno he was two years ago, and if you allow say, you know what, He's gonna throw some picks, but I'm okay with that. We have two good wide receivers, maybe three with jsn Lockett and Metcalf, chuck it deep.

Take chances on offense, and trust your own coaching acumen to raise the level of the defense. The Seahawks could be a sneaky team. So that's the advice I would give those guys, was that the least one.

the ball. By the way, Baker's not very tall. You got a great season out of Baker and see if at the end of the year, you believe Bryce can tap back into the player he was at Alabama. I am highly skeptical because of the size. But this year is about nothing other than getting an answer about Bryce Young by the end of the season. I think he knows that. And also just steer clear of the owner. Is the least contact you can have with that.

you know what I mean. Like right now, the Bills, for instance, are not in a rebuild, but they're in a retool, clean up the books, tweaking situation, so their window is a little more closed than it was two years ago, but it's still open the Ravens. The question for the Ravens is you know, going to be at some point if they keep coming close and falling short, are they going to say John Harbaugh's message is growing stale?

I don't think they're close to that point out of the year they had last year, but the that it can just be tough for a team, even if it's not even if the coach is great if well, yeah, I mean Dallas, but I mean McCarthy's not been there

nearly as long as Harball. But it can just when this is the only coach these guys have had with this team and you keep coming short, like that could happen to mc What I'm describing about a couple of years from now, potentially happening to Harball, could happen this

year with McDermott. Where if the Bill's losing Round one or two again this year, even if they don't think McDermott did a bad job, they might just be like, we need a new messenger, you know what I mean, Like it's just the that's kind of what happened to Pete Carroll. Pete Carroll's very old, but that's what happened to Pete Carroll last year.

here's where the pressure is amped up on Herbert. No one's going to blame coaching the way they have in years past with Anthony Lynn and with Brandon Staley. That's not going to be the case. So now it will fall on Herbert to a degree. But his talent is so eye popping that there's going to be a lot of people that just I mean, there are smart football

people that swear justin Herbert's better than Joe Burrow. I disagree with them, but those people that they talk about his ability to make all the throws, his size, his strength, all those things arm power. I disagree with them, but that's where the listener's talking about his quote elite status.

And also, pardon me, I haven't done really the requisite study yet to know which I fully one hundred percent believe and I know where I'm leaning, but I haven't done my full Warren Sharp preview, Football Outsiders preview all they're not football outsiders anymore, but Aaron Schatz's preview. All that stuff that'll dive into on vacation and when we get back.

a kind than a straight flush. So if you actually did that the math on how likely is a straight versus how likely is a flush? You are about twice as likely to get a straight than you are to get a flush, which is why a straight doesn't beat a flush, because they're easier to come by. So no, it shouldn't. That's the very very simple explanation. It's just a probabilities thing, and so the least probable is the most valuable. The most probable is the least value, and

it is inversely. The strength of hand is inverse first directly correlated to its probability. That's it. I hope that was a nice little math and poker lesson at the end of the pod. On that note, speaking of gambling, guess what I will be doing one week from today. Really, if I do the time zone change, it might be one week from this very moment. Yes, I will be demanse. Do you want to guess or do you want me to tell you?

be in Europe the whole time. So but we are in we're from We are at some point going from the south of France up to Milan, and en route you pass through a country that really shouldn't be a country. It's this tiny place that's just like a tax haven for the richest people in the world. That's some royal family set up called Monaco, and they have the maybe the greatest casino in the world there. You have to

wear black tie. I don't know what the steaks are, probably higher than I'm totally comfortable gambling, but I'm doing it, and so your mother and I for what, We're only gonna be there one day. It's we're just passing through so we can get dressed to the nines and go gamble at Casino Monte Carlo. I can't wait. It'll be one week Thursdays when I'm gonna be there. It'll be one week from right now. Oh my goodness, my heart's racing just thinking about it.

there as well. Don't forget. We're live every Tuesday and Thursday ten thirty am Eastern Ish ten thirty five, ten forty. It sometimes changes, but that's why you hit the bell. You hit the bell so you're no to find you subscribe so we can get to two hundred thousand followers. We're right around one hundred and fifty thousand. We'd love to get to two hundred thousand. Get demands another plaque, so like, subscribe rate, send a rating to do all that cool stuff. Thanks guys,