On the debut episode of FOX Football Sunday with Mike Harmon & Greg Cosell, Mike and Greg break down the first two games of Week 1 of the NFL Season. The guys then dive and dissect all the loaded matchups of the first official NFL Sunday of the year, which players & teams to really focus on, & MORE!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ah, yes, greetings, Welcome in and welcome to another beautiful campaign.
It's the National Football League. You know me, I celebrate
all two hundred seventy two regular season games. We've got
two hundred seventy more masterpieces to try to build. You know,
it's like a Hollywood thriller time and again. We got
the stars on the marquee, the long preamble of the preseason.
(00:24):
What are we gonna see? It's like the little trailers
you get that get longer and longer. Nowadays, sometimes they
give away the movie. No no, no, no, no. Not
in the NFL. Twisted turns unlike anything else. We got
great third acts in those first two NFL games that
we're gonna talk about here. So welcome to Week one.
I'm Mike Carmon. You hear me weeknights with Jason Smith
here seven to eleven Pacific Monday through Friday nights. You
(00:48):
come on in, and I got my guy Greg Cosell
joining us here today to make us all smarter, to
educate us in the world of football, to have a
great discussion time and time again about the game we love.
At Greg Cosel, it's where you find them. NFL films
a masterclass each and every time he steps to the mic. Greg,
(01:09):
good to be with you. Welcome in. It's Fox Football Sunday.
We finally made.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It, Mike. I am so excited about this. You know.
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I've been doing this a long time, Mike, and the
preseason just doesn't get me overly excited these days. So
now we've actually had two games under our belt, but
there's nothing like the first Sunday of the NFL season.
I'm pretty excited about it.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, the anticipation, so many changes that we saw this offseason.
When we talk about coordinators and coaches, some of the
veteran quarterbacks that are in new spots, all of that
that we get to see the band aid ripped up today.
I mean, so many big matchups. Sometimes I wonder how
much we really need to schedule, you know, like stunt
(01:51):
casting in TV shows. We're suddenly back in the day.
It's May first, Like who's gonna show up on my
favorite sitcom?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Here?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Get the game in Brazil? But it's the Chargers and
the Chiefs. Did we need to do that Week one?
I don't know, but certainly I enjoyed every last second
of it. Don't get me wrong. Like I say, I mean,
I'm the guy that'll be pushing later on in the
show for more Jaguars Panthers content. I mean, that's just
who I am. But it's just that kind of thing
(02:20):
with the scheduling. There's always these quirks trying to make
that algorithm work. Sometimes with the beneficiary of it. Sometimes
I'm sure teams file their letters of complaint to the league.
But tonight today is like New Year's Day, Christmas morning,
one of the days of Hanuka. However you celebrate, whatever
you celebrate. This is the grand unveiling of it all.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Well, what we know for sure, Mike, is that everybody's
going to make definitive statements about every team season after
week one. That's what we know for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, we've got a couple of teams where I know
in those cities. I mean, you want to talk about
the Bunsen burners all being on and flame on. I mean,
my hometown Chicago is certainly going to be one. We
talk about a bunch of this offseason. But you know,
tomorrow is the referendum on everybody. You know, week one
of a National Football League season. But You're absolutely right,
(03:12):
the over correction, the overreactions. But that's why we love it, right,
each game means so much.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Well, I know there's not that many of them, unlike
other sports. But you know, the crazy thing is, and
I'm not sure fans think about this, but coaches aren't
even really sure what they have until they start playing
real games. I mean, they have a sense of their team,
they've been with the players every day pretty much, but
they don't really know until you start playing the real games.
And guys that maybe played fifteen snaps in the preseason
(03:40):
are now playing sixty seventy snaps because it's a whole game. Plus,
the coaches coach it totally differently. They coach for four quarters.
They're not just coaching to see, oh let's try this,
let's run this place, see if it works. They're now
coaching four quarters. So it's different for coaches as well,
not just for the players.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, it becomes just that curiosity, right we always talked about.
I know, Lovey Smith and others have used to take
the quarter system. Then you added the seventeenth game, so
now you got to decide, you know, how you fractionalize
it there. But also Bill Belichick in the month of September,
and when you say his name now, people start chuckling
about everything going on in the petty verbal slap fights
(04:20):
going on with the way he's handling things at North Carolina.
But the same thing like September was, I don't care
how it looks. I've got to learn a bunch of
things about my team in September so that we tightened
the bolts and nuts and screws and everything for later
on in the season, the margin to victory and then
we impose our will later on. And the way it's
(04:43):
going back to McVeigh and some of the other coaches,
when we started pulling guys away from preseason games, we
got less of the sample size, right the teaser trailers
that refer to in the open. But we're circling back
a little bit now that we're only back to three
preseason games. We at least got a smattering of the
(05:03):
stars out, so we at least got the courtesy appearances,
you know, in the little Queen's wave, you know, like
Peyton Manning used to do before they'd lose in the
playoffs in weeks is you know sixteen, when they had
everything secured and he'd leave and the guys would go
and then they'd go into the playoffs. Like was that
really good? I don't know, but he gave us a
lot of great talking points.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right right.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Well, that's the thing about preseason is, you know, that's
another great example of where people want to take so
much from ten or twelve or fifteen snaps. And you know,
the one thing about preseason and I've been fortunate enough
in my career, Mike, I mean, I've been doing this
for a long time. You go to preseason training camps,
and you know, training camps, and even in games, they're
coaches are just trying to practice certain things. They're not
(05:46):
game planning against an opponent. They might be practicing one
specific thing they want to see how that works. And
this is what you know, people don't know unless you're
there in their meetings. So it's very difficult to get
any meaningful sense of anything from a preseason game other
than the fact that everybody would like to see better
execution as opposed to poor execution. But you don't know
(06:07):
what they're really looking to get accomplished.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well, my favorite was always I used to do camp
visits when I lived out on the East coast. I
used to do writing, and it was very easy to
do my day trips. My daughters were young, so I
could still be home to tuck them in at night.
Most of the places, one of my favorite visits was
always Pittsburgh, and we'll talk a lot about them. I
know over the course of the season, the Mike Tomlin regime,
along with Aaron Rodgers and all. But I just remember
(06:30):
he was the one guy that was going and stalking
section to section on those practice fields, and he would
stand there like the stern task master. And I remember
a couple of times I wandered into places. They didn't
stop me, but then I would get the hand on
the shoulder. I'd look and they'd be coach or one
of the other assistants and be like, none of this
shows up in print, right, It's like you're learning something.
(06:55):
It's kind of like those meetings they have production meetings
for the television, right right, this play or this formation
shows up in the game. You better not say a
word about it.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Well, you know, it's funny. There's coaches are so different
like that. There are some coaches who believe obviously that
you know someone like yourself. For myself, that we have
an impact on whether teams win or lose on Sunday.
And then there are other coaches that understand that we
have really no impact on that, and they'll be willing
to have pretty open and honest conversations with you. So
you know, that's a coach to coach thing. I've learned
(07:26):
that over the years i've been doing this.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, no, it is certainly a curious mix. I mean,
there's got to be the psychological books on psychology of coaching.
Plenty have been written, and I'm sure there's room for
several more on the shelf. So maybe that'll be part
two of what we operate and orchestrate here Fox Football
Sunday again. Welcome in at Swollen Dome where you find me.
My giant head once didn't fit in to a two shot.
(07:51):
It became a running joke and then became the era
of social media. So that's the genesis of that at
Greg Cosel, I mean, it's the man's name, that's what
he is. As we get ready for what is a
fantastic campaign, and we got two games in the book,
so let's rewind to Thursday night. We pulled out a
couple of key plays that will stand out as this
(08:13):
season goes. On forty seven, Prescott looking middle cover, coming
down field program, seeing on ricochet to Blankenship's hands in.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
What his throw by Dak Prescott and in this CD
right in the hands, that's two. That's two in the
second half that he has not been able to hold onto.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Fourth to three.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
We're bringing pressure, at least showing it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
They are bringing it, and Prescott's laughing it.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
CD couldn't bring that one other third time of the half.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Eagles take over on down definitely what he was doing.
So they got the TV booth on the call there
on the and NBC Peacock crew on the call there. Greg.
I mean those two players and the Miles Sanders fumble
will live in infamy.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Yeah, yeah, I mean very rare for cdee Lamb to
drop those balls. And he had another drop on a
dig route in the second half as well, which would
have been a first down or was third down, you know,
the long ball in particular, and it was funny because
there was another receiver right there with him on that
deep ball. I'm assuming that he was throwing to Ceedee
Lamb because it obviously went right in his hands, but
(09:39):
it was odd that there was a receiver right next
to him. But I thought, Dak Prescott. You know, it's funny.
Before that game that week, which was last week, I
guess I went through a ton of Dak Prescott from
last year, and I gotta tell you, I didn't come
away feeling really good about him watching his tape from
twenty twenty four, even before he got hurt, I thought
(10:00):
that he was really tight hipped, Mike. I thought that
he was really heavy footed. He just didn't look like
the quarterback we've seen through the years. Because people probably
forget at this point that in twenty twenty three he
was second in the MVP voting. He had a phenomenal season.
But I thought he played really well against the Eagles.
I thought he threw the ball really well. He made
(10:20):
some big time throws and quite frankly, they should have
won that game.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
No, that's just it. They leave it on the field.
Several times we saw the big play threat. I mean,
Javonte Williams fifteen carries fifty four yards, gets the glory
touches on the short yard.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
He ran well, so he ran hard, right, But.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That's just it. That was the one question mark I
think that we had defensively for the Cowboys in the
post Micah Parsons world, I don't think the run thing
really worked. Thirty eight for one fifty eight and the
three touchdowns by the Eagles. We'll get to the Jalen
Hurts part of the equation at a moment, but but yeah,
Dak Prescott was magnificent, laid the ball up brilliantly. Obviously,
(10:59):
Jalen Carr getting himself suspended. I mean, you want to
talk about you want to talk about opening a movie, right,
like one of the things you had now and a
lot of things. Greg is the all right, I really
gotta get you, so I'm gonna punch you in the
face really fast with some big action.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
We had the fullback for the Eagles lost on the
opening kickoff, and I know they cart it off right,
huge thing, run game all that and Saquon Barkley eighteen
for sixty efficient not overwhelming. A good job by that,
I guess Jerry Jones was celebrating same. We stopped him.
We stopped him. We didn't do any stop anything else,
(11:34):
but we got that. But you know, watching the offense
go to work and the number of open windows that
we have, I mean, because oftentimes we get into the
debates of all right, you know, catchable ball doesn't really
count as a drop. Now, all these CD lambs were drops,
like there's no there's no two ways about it, right,
(11:54):
and all monster plays that should have given the Cowboys
a win. Imagine Jerry on the victory lap of that.
If they take that game down, they might have put
and put on a parade in that stadium.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Well, you know, it's interesting because in some ways, the
Eagles played Eagles football because this is who they are.
You know, a lot of people might lose sight of
the fact that, you know, they look at Hurts and
he was obviously extremely efficient Mike he was nineteen for
twenty three but only one hundred and fifty two yards.
But you know, last year he played eighteen games. I'm
(12:27):
discounting a game against Washington when he got hurt early
and came out, and I think he came out early
in the in the first quarter or early in the
second quarter. But eight of the eighteen games in which
he started last year and played, he threw for less
than two hundred yards. The Eagles are not really a
passing team, so this is exactly who they are. What
normally happened last year is they played these games. A
(12:48):
lot of them would be close in the third and
even early in the fourth quarter, and then Saquon Barkley
would break off big runs. He had more rushing yards
in the second half last year. I mean, it was
a ridiculous number. Just think about this. Last year, in
the second half alone, Barkley gained over twelve hundred yards.
Think about that for a minute. That was just in
the second half. So this game played out exactly like
(13:12):
an Eagles game other than the fact that he didn't
have the big runs.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
In the second half.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
But other than that, it was basically Eagles football from
an offensive perspective.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah. Just think the curiosity though, right. Everybody wants to
get fed. Everybody needs to get their their their targets,
their touches and everything else. By the way, that twelve
hundred yards would have ranked him what seventh in the NFL. Yeah,
I believe the second half.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
If memory serves me correctly, because this is what I do,
so I remember these meaningful statistics. Mike, That's something I'm
good at remembering meaningful statistics.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Well, fortunately it's you. It's your job, Greg, right, that's
what I always say believe you remember this stuff for sport, like, hey,
you know, fortunately, that's what they pay me to remember, right.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
I think he had twelve hundred and forty five yards
in the second half last year and averaged almost seven
yards per Russia.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Memory serves me correctly. And think about that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
I mean almost seven yards of rush in games when
the defense knows you're going to run the ball, so
they're obviously putting eight in the box. They're defending the run.
And he still broke off long runs, so you know,
basically that didn't happen in this game. But let's say
he broke off a long run or two in the
second half, then the Eagles might have won, let's say
thirty four to twenty, and everybody would have said, oh,
(14:24):
that's Eagles football. They're playing. They're doing what they do,
because that is what they do now. The one thing
you could say Mike is obviously aj Brown not being
a factor in the game at all. Didn't have a target,
only one in the game and that one catch, which
came with under two minutes to go. But you know
that'll probably change because they'll work him on the perimeter.
That's where he's really good and that's where Hurtz throws
(14:45):
the ball really well outside the numbers. But other than that,
that's this is who the Eagles are. They played Eagles football.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Now.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
They have some questions on their defense and we can
talk about that, but from an offensive perspective, that's who
they are.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, the job done. Four targets and twenty four total
yards between Devonte Smith and A. J. Brown. But for
Jalen Hurts, I mean it was a, you know, a
classroom kind of feel of I think the first five runs,
I don't know that he was touched, no right getting
out of bounds or getting into the end zone.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, you know, I don't know. Mike.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Again, I'm always leary of talking about game plans and
things like that because you'd have to be there. But
I will say this, I will say that watching the tape,
and I went through that tape in detail on actually
on Friday, it too often seemed seemed again without knowing
how it was coached, as if Matt Eberflus, who's the
DC now in Dallas, didn't really have a viable plan
(15:45):
to contain hurt scrambling because he had Hurts is an
extremely smart quarterback. You know what he does is he
takes the throws that are there. Because they're really a
sustaining offense. He takes the throws that are there, which
he did in this game. He only had one ball
in the air more than eleven yards from the line
of scrimmage, and that was just a beautiful, beautiful throat
(16:06):
to Jehan Dotson who ran a great route on the
deep post. But Hurtz takes what's there, sustains offense runs
when he has to, and is a major factor. His
legs are a major part of this offense. And one
thing we really need to keep in mind is they're
really a four down offense when they get to the
fifty yard line. So when they get to let's say
(16:28):
third and seven, they're going to run the ball, and
that really impacts how defenses have to play. They're not
automatically a passing team on third and let's say four
to eight yards. They had far more runs last year
on third and four to eight yards than any team
in the league, and that changes the way defenses have
to play.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
One of the things Smith and I on Thursday night,
as we're watching this game unfold, we're just reminding folks,
yes that is the same Jehan Dotson that once upon
a time was going to be the it guy in Washington,
and there he is. He got awarded for an early
back in that game with that deep ball too. Yeah,
they came back to him pretty shortly thereafter.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
You know, it's funny because when he came out of
Penn State, and you probably remember this, he was, you know,
truly valued as a number one pick. I mean, Washington
took him. It was not a reach. You know, pretty
much everybody thought that that's who he was. I don't
know what happened in Washington. You know, sometimes there's personality things.
Obviously last year with the Eagles, he wasn't a big target,
but he's got a lot of ability.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
So we'll see.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
I mean, obviously they traded for John Mitchie last week,
so we'll see who ends up as the season progresses
getting the majority of the snaps as the third wide receiver.
But there's no question that AJ Brown will be a factor.
And as we know from experience, Mike, if he's not
a factor, he'll probably let you know about it.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
If not, if that's the curiosity, what becomes the next
selection in the AJ Brown book Club?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
That's a good one.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
There you go, You're probably right about that, but look
they won the game. You know, Week one, you you're
just trying to get a win. I mean, especially when
you're coming off a super Bowl and you have a
different kind of off season than most teams have. You're
just trying to get a win. And I mean, look,
look what happened with the Chiefs. I mean they were
in the super Bowl last year, obviously didn't play well,
and then they go to Brazil and they didn't get
(18:15):
a win. You know, so you're just trying to get
a win, and then you know you have extra time
to work on things that you clearly need to work on,
because even if you have a veteran team with a
great quarterback, you and how coaches talk, there's never a
coach who's going to come off a game, no matter
what happens and say, boy, we played a perfect game.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That's it coaching principal one oh one. We're always working
the perfect. We never get there. Yeah, Ron Fox Sports Radio,
sometimes we'll argue, I mean, that's perfect segment. I'm just
going to drop the pen and move on the tailor
two half CD Lamb still finished with this seven for
one ten for you fantasy folks out there. Johan Dotson
all three targets, three receptions, fifty nine yards. Jail at
(18:56):
Hurtz and company. They get the job done in that
divisional battle to get things started on Thursday twenty four
to twenty. Yes, the Cowboys moral victories. You can debate
that at the water cooler. Coming up next, says Greg,
alluded to Friday night. We got part two of this
fantastic double feature all the way in Brazil. We'll break
(19:16):
that one down, the good and the bad, the ugly
as we continue. It's Greg Cosel. I'm Mike Harmon in
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(19:38):
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Speaker 1 (19:49):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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listen live. Welcome back in Fox Football Sunday. Sounds so
great to say, I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Again Fox Football Sunday, Mike Carbon alongside Greg Cosel. Welcome in,
Grabbing a cup of coffee, walking the dog, getting ready
to go to or from services, whatever you've got going
on this Sunday morning. We're obviously very excited to be
with you, blessed to be able to do this and
talk some football. Get your get everybody worked into a
(20:28):
lather as we get ready for another great slate of games.
Two in the books, a Monday night affair that will
be scrutinized forever. Every play that is called, every down,
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(20:48):
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(21:09):
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Speaker 3 (21:27):
Well, Greg, you did a great job there.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I was riveted. I was riveted.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So yeah, grab your friends at brunch today and say
give me your phone and they're gonna say, what you
want to scroll through my photo's like, no, I'm gonna
give you a gift. Here's the iHeartRadio app. All right.
So we had one game on Thursday. We broke that
down every way till Sunday, and then well, which is
Sunday today, and then we get to Friday. We got
a double dose of greatness as we have the Chargers
(21:54):
and the Chiefs, great expectations, Chiefs with a lot of
the off season of what we're going to see coming
off the Super Bowl loss. Unfortunately for them, we saw
some of the same tendencies. We'll get to that in
a moment. But on the other side, you know, every
third billboard, you know we've got injury attorney, injury attorney
Jim Harbaugh, injury attorney, injury attorney Jim Harbaugh, and well
(22:18):
for one night and paid off. Here's Justin Herbert, who
he is champion time and again. Let's hear one of
the great plays from this one. Quinton with his second
touchdown grab of this contest. All right, Quentin Johnson, five catches,
seventy nine yards, two scores, the guy that after his
rookie year everybody wanted him banished, and now he's their
(22:38):
number one receiver. You bring back Keenan Allen, who was
fantastic the old rapport. Ten targets, seven catches at a
score for him as well. Johnston nearly had the hat trick,
had one go off his hands on a little scrape
in the back of the end zone. But Greg, Justin Herbert,
a guy that we've been waiting for this version of
him for a while. He's been one of the all right,
(23:00):
we had it for a year, when's it gonna happen?
And I gotta say it played a little bit against type,
because I would have expected more from the run game
off the jump. Nope, they came out throwing early and often.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Well, you know, it's funny other than the playoffs, which
is what everybody focuses on, and with validity, I'm not
suggesting that doesn't matter. Herbert's actually been terrific in his
career and there's no question in terms of physical talent,
he's top five in the league. You know, you mentioned
Keenan Allen, and it's the little plays that mattered.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
We'll mention the.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Johnston touchdown in a second, that second one, the twenty
three yarder in the fourth quarter, which basically sealed the game.
But on that drive, he had two throws consecutive throws
to Allen that beat Blitz and they were and they
got first downs on that drive. And it's those kinds
of plays that don't seem like they mean a lot, Mike,
but they mean an awful lot. But the Johnston touchdown,
(23:52):
the twenty three yarder, That was a classic chess match
play because what did Steve Spagnolo do, which he's known for,
is he went what we call zero blitz, meaning that
there was no deep safety that they matched up across
the board man to man, and the result of that
was that Johnston ran in the over rout versus a
safety Hicks, and Hicks is not a coverage player. He's
(24:14):
really much more of a closer to the line of
scrimmage box player. So they got the matchup. Herbert was protected,
they were able to pick up the pressure, and he
just made what was essential. I think he moved to
his right just a little bit, but he made an
easy throw to a wide open Johnston and it was
just the classic chess match at word at work.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
It was the.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Offense beating the defense. And if you know Spags, you
know he's going to amp up the pressure, increase the
pressure frequency once he gets to the second half.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Twenty five and thirty four three eighteen three scores on
the day for Herbert, also seven carries thirty two yards,
including that game clinching scramble that left the Chiefs defensive
line pointing at each other like the spierw meme with
a fewtives thrown in.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Well, here's what happened.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
They were playing what we call two man coverage, meaning
there's two deep safeties and man to man across the board.
So there's five eligible receivers, so there's five defenders covering
them two deep safeties, so it's a four man pass rush.
So what happened is Jones from the wide nine, his
wide nine alignment, he was to the boundary side. He
rushed inside of the right tackle and all Herbert did
(25:25):
was then go outside of him because there's no one
there because of the coverage. So Jones a great player, obviously,
but he made a mistake on that play. He went
inside on his pass rush and he gave up the
edge and Herbert had no one in front of him,
and he obviously he wanted to slide and stay in bounds,
but he probably could have gotten more than the nineteen
yards if the game situation was different.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Now, obviously we had a little bit of chaos early
in this one, just like we did on Thursday. Thursday
also gave us the long lightning delay that delayed that
games completion. So a little bit of chaos mixed therein
more vamping on television as you go through and then
Friday we get the tart blow to the head of
Travis Kelcey open hand. So he doesn't get disqualified from
(26:11):
the game, Greg, but his presence ends up becoming such
a huge part of how that game plays out. A
couple of balls that are batted down, including the two conversion,
and like Travis Kelcey looked a little bit more like
Travis kelce running routes, except on the play that could
have been a touchdown late where he scraped across the
(26:32):
middle kind of did that little walking start and then
the balls just a little bit too far out outside.
It was one of the few mistakes that you can make.
Patrick Mahomes form the game.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Well, it's funny they seemingly were not on the same
page because Kelsey slowed down just a bit on his
shallow crosser and Mahomes obviously did not expect him to
slow down. I don't know if Kelsey thought it was
zone and he needed to sort of settle or I
don't know. Again, only those guys could tell you. But
(27:04):
the bottom line is is you don't see that very often.
But once again, Kelsey not a big factor. I mean,
he did catch that touchdown which was a schemed play,
clearly a schemed play that beat the defense. But he
was not a big factor in this game. And you know,
the Chiefs offensively, and I've noticed this the last couple
of years as well. The last couple of years. Don't forget,
(27:27):
they've not scored a ton of points per game relative
to what they did prior. They don't really and it
continued in this game. They have not really had any
kind of consistent intermediate passing game. It's all quick rhythm throws.
Mahomes gets the ball out, and then it's Mahomes making
Mahomes plays. I mean the brown forty nine yard are
(27:48):
late the fourth quarter, which you know, at that point
you probably think they're gonna score a touchdown and they didn't.
But you know, that's one of those Mahomes special plays,
which obviously he can do anytime in any game. And
his running dimension, the scrambling dimension. They don't usually do
design runs with him unless it's very situational, but his
scrambling element, you know, including the touchdown that he had
(28:10):
that that has become kind of a significant part of
their third down and longer yard or off large offense.
But they don't really have a real consistent intermediate pass game.
It's it's been kind of strange to watch these last
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Well, and the thought I guess coming into the year Greg,
is maybe we'd see a little bit of a difference. Instead,
you've got Rashi Rice suspended for the first six weeks
of the season, and then you lose Xavier Worthy on that.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Crosser on the third play of the game as.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
He runs in and talk about again those those early
plays having so much meaning. You know, from the Thursday
game into Friday. Worthy goes down and we saw the
clips of the training staff, you know, and if you're
doing the lip reading, it sounded like he said, or
look like he said, it's really bad. So we'll see
(29:00):
exactly what that means for their long term. But I mean,
those are your two big weapons. Hollywood Brown comes out
and he becomes the de facto go to guy. Sixteen
targets in this game, Greg ten catches ninety nine, including
that that scrabble play. I mean Mahomes laying that ball
up back down.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
The keep that in mind, I mean he had ten
for ninety nine. Yeah, you'll lose that forty nine yarder.
I mean, he would he have nine for fifty. I
mean something you know along those lines.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
This is where you need those blocking wide receivers like
the Steelers have been known for all these years, or
guys like Brandon Marshall. Does he have any reps back
in there? He might be able to break him in.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
And just to make your point, Mike, I mean on
that third and goal late in the game when they
had to kick the field goal, what was the play
he throws a fade to Brownlee. I bet a lot
of people don't even know who Brownly is. You know,
you know, so, I mean it's your Point's a good one.
But still, you know, the pass game, you have to
scheme the pass game as well. I mentioned the Kelsey touchdown.
(29:54):
You know, if you feel you don't have great receivers
that can win one all one because obviously the end
NFL in the past game is about a lot of
different things. Matchup being one of them, clearly, But if
you don't have those guys, then you've got to scheme it.
And from an intermediate perspective, we'll get to the Lions.
I'm sure at some point, you know, after we go
off today. But you know, they do an amazing job
(30:16):
scheming their pass game, and you know, we're guys who
you don't think of as great receivers, like the Tim
Patricks of the world, who obviously they traded, but you know,
guys like that become factors because of how well schemed
and designed and put together.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
It is Jason Brownlee, the second year man out of
Southern Miss. Yeah, because we got to tell the tale
of the tape. I like, you know, closing those off,
and maybe folks now are gonna say, how we're watched
Southern Miss a little bit more of that guy got
some run, all right, So I'm trying to celebrate every
hey Northwestern one on Friday, Greg, I don't get to
say that very often on these shows. I come in
(30:50):
on Sunday normally like yeah, yeah, a little a little
down one.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I have to admit, Mike, I missed that. Who they beat?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
The Western Illinois Leathernecks.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Go, oh a great name, A great one of my
favorite names. And I forget which California school? Who are
the ant Eaters? Do you remember that's one of those?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Is it? Uc? I? Yes, there you go. The ant
Eaters always love that.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
There you go. Brianna, our executive producer, getting it done
marks on the ones and twos over our technical producer,
my team. It's good. It's good to like I get
up a little bit earlier, right, I've been working a
little latership, so I get to come back in and
see my people early in the morning. So it's a
good energy here. It's football season. And bring Rihanna to
for full disclosure, Greg, real quick, she's a Saints fan.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Okay, well there you go.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, I have a lot of faith in
Spencer Rattler.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Greg, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Well, you have to have faith. You know, he's historic quarterback.
Thank you. If you're a fan, you have to have faith, right.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Well, especially if it's the Saints, don't we have the
whole catch that kind of goes to that.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
I gotta tell you, Brianna, I actually thought in all
my study and you know, I don't know if you
know everything I do, but I'm a little nuts with
film study.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
You've been doing it for a long time.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
I thought Tyler Shuck had the best film of any
college quarterback after cam Ward this year. So we'll see.
My guess is he'll probably get some snaps this year. Okay,
of course, that's probably not what you want to hear,
because you want to hear that Spencer aratups having a
great season and they're doing really, really well.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Well, we'll get to that game next hole. We'll bring
you back in on that. Like, there's several that are interesting,
maybe again only to me, but we're going to try
to sell, sell, sell.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Well, hey, Mike, you're the host. If they're interesting to you,
we're good. I'll just follow your lead. You know, I
can talk about any game.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Well, that's the beauty of it. We've got a rich
tapestry we're weaving here. Isaac Low and Kron starting to
check in. He's doing his stretching. He'll be at the
news desk here in short order. This is Fox Football Sunday,
Fox Sports Radio. I want to make one last quick point.
We got like what maybe one minute here Greg on
this particular blue the tail of the tape from both defenses,
(33:03):
Spags looks like he's really gonna have to work to
surmount any kind of pressure. Because one of the big
questions coming into the year was that Chargers offensive line
with no Rashaan Slater, and they acquitted themselves quite nicely. Conversely,
the fact that Mahomes had to scramble as often as
he did. Is a really good sign for minter and
what was a top scoring defense last year.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
I thought John Auld played a phenomenal game at left tackle,
and Pippins who's now Pipkins who's now at right tackle.
He was not exposed at all. They could not rush
the quarterback particularly well with their front four, which normally
they do. So again, it's week one. We don't want
to make a judgment for the whole season.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Absolutely, just a curiosity coming up of what we know
in the Super Bowl, so one to put a pin in.
And we'll be here each and every week here on
Fox Football Sunday and watch this great movie unfold. Maybe
it's like a mini series. I don't know however you
want to do it. But we're here in the Fox
Sports Radio studios, blessed to have you with us as
part of our extended family. And as we continue, we
(33:59):
got a couple of games that I think are really
interesting because while we're always looking for who's next, we're
talking about the Saints job and the order of succession. Well,
we got a couple of other quarterbacks that might be
playing for their futures as well. Who are they we'll
tell you next year on Fox. Welcome back in Fox
Sports Radio. It's Fox Football Sunday Live from the Fox
(34:20):
Sports Radio studios. Mike Harmon, Greg cosall with you. We're
just getting warmed up, working into a lather as we
head towards the first glorious set of kickoffs. Here week
one the National Football League season. We broke down the
first two games of the year. That means we've got
two hundred and seventy left. I've got a giant wall calendar, Greg,
and I cross him off like like days of a
(34:41):
diet or something.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Well, good, I mean, now we got Sunday's matches. There's
a lot of good ones, by the way, I think.
I mean there were obviously two that already played, but
I think there are eight division matchups this whole first
week of the season, which is very rare.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Well, and that's the curiosity. Let's stay there for a second,
because I mentioned the schedule, and look, I do a
lot of hand and ringing over it and probably spend
more time because eventually, look, they're gonna play the games.
You know, it's the you know, shut up and watch,
but you know you hear the fun from the Chargers
side of things. Of you know, they traveled more miles
for this Brazil game than the Bengals will travel all year,
(35:16):
just based on circumstance and schedule. But the Chargers play
three Division games right out of the gate, and I
don't know if that's good bad now, you know what
I mean. Like they've got the Raiders on Monday Night
Football in week two, and then they get Denver that
following week, and it's like, yet, some other teams won't
have a Division game till week seven or eight. And
(35:37):
then we push at the end of the year how
important they are. And in the final weeks when teams
are shells of themselves because of injuries, fracturing of locker rooms, whatever.
Now we're gonna jam several division games down the stretch.
Maybe you get that home other opponent road kind of sequencing, right, Well,
(35:58):
you play to the the same division upon it twice
in the final three weeks. Like I know, there's no
perfect formula to it all, but some of this just
in saying the Bears last year they played three games
against the AFC South right off the jump.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And a lot of times too, it's the nature of
those games because think about it the Chargers just knowing
when the schedule came out, and obviously they're very familiar
with their division opponents. Although the Raiders become a different
team with a new coaching staff, but they obviously know
the Chiefs well. They prepared for them, and now they
do have the extra day or two. But they're playing
a team now in the Raiders next week that's totally
(36:34):
different in how their defense would go about playing. And
Jesse Minter's done a phenomenal job with that Chargers defense.
They are a very very good defense with a lot
of different things that they do well and a lot
of different personnel packages. Much of it dependent on Derwin
James and Henley. Henley is a linebacker not a lot
of people know about. He's a really good player. But anyway,
(36:56):
the point I'm making is they play a Chiefs team
that doesn't really run the ball. Chiefs did not run
the ball much at all on Friday night, and now
they're going to play a Raiders team that we assume.
Again we'll find out what happens today when the Raiders play,
but we assume the Raiders will be very much a
run first team. So you're you're you're sort of focused
and how you go about defending them becomes totally different.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Looking at an awful lot of Ashton genty if things
play to projections out yeap tease it as a the referendum,
the you know, step one of what we what are
we looking at here for a couple of guys that
have been in the crosshairs in our national media and
certainly in their local media sphere because we get can
Alison Cohen with the Young and Lawrence battle a Trevor Lawrence,
(37:41):
a guy got his contract. Now he's got Travis Hunter
as his number two curiosity. Brian Thomas proving that hey,
you can find stats regardless of the decal on the
side of your helmet for you fantasy guys out there.
Uh and in the daily Fantasy and all that stuff.
Bryce Young had a nice close to the finish. So
that's one matchup that's on my radar. The other Daniel
Jones and your Indian Heppel his colts, not yours, Greg,
(38:04):
but the collectors. I'm adopting them here going up against
you a tongue of Iloa. Mike McDaniel, who this offseason
deadpanned about, Hey, you know, we're one day closer to death,
like he was listening to Pink Floyd before a media session.
So we got four quarterbacks that you know, we've got
very big narratives already written, I think for most of them,
and now we're looking for that next chapter.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
I think Trevor Lawrence is probably the most fascinating because,
you know, he got that moniker, which personally, I believe
anybody that says that term generational about a quarterbacks and
probably not have a job the next day. But he
got that moniker, you know, early on, because he was
great right from eighth grade or whatever he was, and
he struggled, but he's had really good moments. There's a
(38:48):
lot of things to like about Trevor Lawrence. When I
watch his tape, I feel like there's a mental toughness
to him. I think he's physically tough. I think there's
an aggressiveness to him. He's willing to make tough throws.
The one thing that I really think he needs to
improve on is he needs to become better as what
we call a post snap operator. Once the ball snapped
and the picture changes, he needs to become better at
(39:12):
recognizing that within the timing and structure of the play.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Call.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
That's where I think the one area that he really
needs to improve to reach that next level.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Now on the other side of that game, Bryce Young
closed out strong Canalis. We saw what he worked when
he was at Tampa, and then last year we saw
growth expectations for him. Ted McMillan joins him and Hunter
Renfro assuming he can be that sit down guy on
third down with Chewba Hubbard in the backfield.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Young had some really interesting matchups back to back last
year against two heavy blitzing teams in the Bucks and
the Chiefs, I believe, and he handled himself really, really well.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
So we'll see how that portrays and builds going forward.
More on those matchups, and then we've got a Sunday
night affair. Well, we've got all the accolades. Is this
the road to Levi's we'll find out.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Our two of the program begins. If you're just tuning
in affiliate picking up our four hundred five hundred, I
mean it's a dark, gantuan network here Fox Sports Radio,
the iHeartRadio app serious XM channel eighty three. However you're listening,
Welcome in the family. Is back together. It is week
one of your National Football League season. This is Fox
(40:27):
Football sundaylt Mike Carbon alongside me forty six years NFL films,
x's and o's. That's what he does. I's the believe
Colin refers to his segment each and every week. That's
right as the meat, there's fluff, there's other things. You
got your appetizers. And then Greg comes on and lays
down the hammer of what he's seen on tape. We're
(40:48):
blessed to have him with us, looking forward to a
very exciting campaign. That first hour was pure poetry in motion,
Greg cosal.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Well, I guess that we set a standard, right, Mike,
Now we got a seed it. We have another hour.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
What's it we're gonna get even? Well, we got a
lot of big matchups and a lot lot more storylines because,
let me tell you, this offseason, only a couple of
teams really dominated. So starting today we actually talk about
what the other twenty seven ish man. There's a couple
that will reference every once in a while high Browns fans. No,
actually they ruled the off season anyway. Hey, look, Joe
(41:24):
Flacco may be a lead against this Cincinnati defense, though.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Hey, Joe Flacco. You know what, He's from South Jersey,
here near where I am. So I've gotten to know
Joe over the years, and you know, I think he's
one of those guys that when he's seventy five years old, Mike,
he'll probably throw the ball the same way he throws
it right now.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Still spinning it like no one Ryan when he comes
out for a first pitch, right an eighty five mile
an hour laser straight down the heart of the plate.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Well, Flacco, he taught me something years ago, which you know,
once he said it, I probably knew it. But you know,
we've done some stuff with him. You know, I got
to know him a little bit, and he always said
that when it comes to arm strength, arm strength is
not throwing a deep ball, because most guys can throw
a deep ball. He said, arm strength is being able
to drive the ball between the numbers at let's say
twenty two to twenty five yards, where you've got to
(42:09):
throw it between people and you've really got to put
tremendous velocity on it. He said, that's what arm strength
really is.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
In the NFL.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Co author the Games that changed the game, we try
to make everybody smarter, go find the book. He does
the NFL Matchup show. It's Darius Butler and South pal Antonio.
He's everywhere at Greg Cosell in the twitterverse. Find me
over at Swollendome. That's one of the fascinating games. We'll
get to the Marquee matchup of Sunday night here in
a second, Greg, But we had the five man. I mean,
(42:40):
it's usually a three three shell game, but a lot
of figures. They're in Cleveland for the quarterbacking position. But
Joe Flacco, the KG veteran, as you lay it out,
I mean, I love watching the guy play, and so
long as he's still on a football field, I don't
feel so old. So I hope he plays forever.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah, me too. I mean, Joe's look.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
The thing is, we know Joe He's going to force
some balls because that's just the way he plays. You know,
he's very confident in his arm, and you know, you
just hope he doesn't throw the two or three picks.
But he can make throws to this day that still
a lot of quarterbacks can't make.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
It's funny because that's one of the games. You know,
as people do their pick segments and everything else, it
becomes the and I know my partner Jason Smith during
the week at how about a fresco for those that
want to harass him during the Jets Steelers game. We'll
get to that one later. It's only a five point
spread at Cleveland. And we've seen the slow starts from
Cincinnati in the past, at least defensively. Yeah, they brought
(43:36):
back Hendrickson and your draft Sanders. I guess he's a
guy that showed he's willing to go to the wall
because he did hit Joe Burrow in a practice. But
beyond that, you've got a defense that suspect and a
guy like Joe Flacco can find Jerry Judy in some
of those deep threats to make this a game. How
does Cincinnati get away from what has been such as
(43:57):
troubled September year after year.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, I mean, obviously defense is the number one question here.
We know what Burrow in that offense is. I mean,
I think they lost games last year, four or five
of them where they scored thirty three or more points.
That's unheard of. So this is a different defense with
Al Golden is now there is the DC. You always
hear the term while he's going to simplify it. I
think that's a bad term in terms of people's minds
(44:21):
because it makes it seem like the players aren't smart.
But I think when coaches do that, what they're trying
to do is they're trying to get the players to
be able to play fast all the time, not to
give them too much on their plate in terms of
what they're looking at. So, in other words, you don't
want to get caught up in an offense. Well, if
they're in this formation, we do this. If they're in
(44:41):
this formation, we do this. If we see this motion,
then we do this. You know, all coaches can coach
that and do that, but the players have to be
able to execute all that. And sometimes it's not a
function of intelligence. There's just too much on their plate.
So every defensive coordinator has rules. These are our rules
when we face certain things. So just play our rules
(45:03):
and now play fast instead of trying to really try
to decipher everything in our offense is doing. And I
think that's one of the things Al Golden is trying
to get done.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
There.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
So from the Battle of Ohio to a battle Sunday
Night football ISO for the world, we get Baltimore and
Buffalo again. You know, just to help inform the conversation,
fifty and a half is the over underline that has
been set. So get your popcorn. Get those fantasy lineups
replete with players on the off. These squads Baltimore missing
(45:34):
Isaiah Likely and Ricard, so a little bit of a
wrinkle there. But we look at Alan, we look at
Lamar Jackson, the accolades, but it all comes down. It's
kind of like being here in Los Angeles and all
the conversations that you have about the Dodgers, Greg, like,
all right, wake me up when it's October and it's
winning time. Yeah, it's kind of the same thing with
both of these quarterbacks at this point.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
You know, this is an intriguing game. There's two things
I would point to for this game. Number One, in
the divisional playoff game last year, something happened that probably
surprised everybody. The Bills dominated the game, running the football
against the number one run defense in the league in Baltimore,
and Baltimore's defense is still really really good. In fact,
that was not a Josh Allen game. Josh Allen only
(46:20):
threw for one hundred and twenty seven yards. They had
thirty six called runs in that game, Mike, and only
twenty three called passes, and they dominated the game on
the ground. My guess is that won't happen again. The
other factor is the secondary, the corner position for the Bills.
Due to injury, They're likely to start Dorian Strong, a
sixth round pick out of Virginia Tech, who, by the way,
(46:42):
I did his tape in detail coming out of VA Tech.
I really like this kid a lot, but he's a
rookie in this game. And don't forget Zay Flowers did
not play in that divisional playoff game a year ago.
So it'll be interesting to see the offensive approach by
the Ravens because Lamar Jackson has become so much better
throwing the football from the pocket. He's really good now
(47:04):
and Todd Monkin does an outstanding job with his concept.
So those two things stand out to me.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
In that game.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
We go back to last year and the questions. We
keep waiting for that cliff for Derrick Henry that never
seems to come. But you know, I'm a big believer
in giving proper credit to the offensive line line play.
We did it last hour talking about the Chargers. What
Joe Alt was able to do in place of the
inward Rashawn Slater and sliding over. Last year was the
(47:30):
first time that the Ravens had the luxury of a
healthy Ronnie Stanley. He's the anchor of what they've got
going again. So for Lamar Jackson, when you're looking at
that wide receiving corps, I don't think Mark Andrews is
going to drop a ball like that.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Again, No, no, And obviously, look, the Bills got ahead
in that game big with their run game, and then
of course the Ravens came back, and the Bills tried
to address their pass rush because it was not very
good last year with their four man d line, so
they tried to address that obviously in the offseason, bringing
in Joey Bosa, drafting in the second and fourth round,
two defensive tackles, so we'll see. Obviously, when you play Lamar,
(48:06):
your pass rush is totally totally different than it is
against other quarterbacks.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
So it's just a different animal.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Going back to that lane contain that we talked about
with Chris Jones though as well, right, because he will
get out and make you pay with great regularity. But
one of the more intriguing matchups I mean, we just
got to like, right out of the gate, we just
got so many heavyweights on the slate here, Greg, be
remiss if we didn't give a couple of minutes, we
got Detroit and green Bay. Detroit new coordinators on both sides.
(48:36):
So Ben Johnson, we'll talk about him in a couple
of minutes after the commercials and what he's got going
on with Caleb Williams. Obviously Aaron Glenn gets his shot
with the Steelers. So a little bit of a question
as to, you know, a formulaically at least you know,
from a theory in us outside looking in, what we're
gonna see Green Bay makes the big splash from Micah Parsons.
(48:57):
You know, me being I love the business of all
of this, Greg, so like the nerd and me goes,
is that because Mark Murphy's not in charge anymore that
they went and made the Giants class. So philosophically, we're
going to go and make a trade and bring in
a guy with big money like that.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Well, you know, as many games, Mike, this is one
of those games where we could spend an hour just
on this game.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
But let's look it. Let's look at Lions.
Speaker 4 (49:19):
Oh, Packers d You'd have to believe the Lions conceptually
will not be any different. The new coordinator, Johnny Morton
was there now and then it gets down to play
calling in a game. None of us know that, so
let's leave that alone.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
No offensive lineman plays, do you think, No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
But let's think of it this way.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
What the Lions have done exceptionally well, and this has
been a staple of Ben Johnson. He's trying to do
this in Chicago is under center play action, which is
kind of not something a lot of teams do in
this league. Jared Goff last year had the most under
center play action dropbacks of any quarterback in the league.
He's really good at it. There's no quarterback in this
(49:59):
league that throws the ball better between the numbers at
the intermediate levels. I'm talking, let's say, sixteen to twenty
five yards than Jared Goff. That's the foundation of their
passing game. Jeff Hafley is the coordinator for the Packers.
He was there last year. He's basically a four down guy,
and they stunt an awful lot. That's what they do
on defense, particularly on third down. We don't know how
(50:22):
many snaps. Micah Parsons will play today because of the
back injury, but I think that that's what you'll see.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
A lot of.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
You'll see a lot of stunting. And one name to
keep in mind on their defense as this season progresses
is the second year linebacker Eddrian Cooper. He was a
great pass rusher at Texas A and M and last
year as a rookie had to get his feet wet.
But it would not surprise me if he becomes a
really important piece of their pass rush.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
It's going to be the curiosity, right. A lot of
injury and attrition there for Detroit a year ago, so
back and fully formed Hutchinson and everybody ready loaded for bear.
The other part that the Packers did maybe a little
out and maybe it gets over exaggerated because they used
to draft guys in the second round, but they draft
golden in the first for Jordan Love. I know last
(51:08):
year the graphic they needed like a second screen with
the number of guys, like look at all these guys
from the Packers that have four hundred yards right, Like
that's great, but do you have a guy when the
game is on the line that you trust. It looks
like they may have, at least on paper, found their guy.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
I loved his tape coming out. But the other interesting thing,
which we never know with the draft is I think
they drafted him in the twenties, right, That's where yeah,
I drafted Yeah. But for all we know, he might
have been a top ten player on their board and
then you get to the twenties and they just have
to draft the best player. So we don't know if
they drafted him because they felt like they had to
get better at receiver, or they just said to each
(51:42):
other when it came to their pick, Hey, this guy's
the ninth best player on our board. We got to
draft them. We don't know that that's the thing. But
I really like Golden. I thought he was an ascending
player in the second half of the season at Texas,
and I'm anxious to see him because Jordan Love is
another one of those guys that he's just in terms
of pure talent at the cour quarterback position. He's probably
top five or six in the league.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
One of the most intriguing matchups that one in the
late window for US replete with great matchups eight divisional matchups.
As you mentioned in hour one, Greg Let's get one
more matchup, Ben while we're here. We've got Tampa in Atlanta,
Michael Penis Junior, while Kirk Cousins waiting stews and waiting
for an injury or something new before or for a
(52:25):
team to just get fed up with their quarterbacking position
and obviously figuring out buyouts and all that fun business
out of it. But Tampa four straight years they've won
this division, looking to make it five with Baker Mayfield.
Speaker 4 (52:36):
Yeah, I think that's part of this matchup that intrigues
me the most is Todd Bowles and all his blitzing.
Always one of the highest percentage blitzing defenses in the league,
and he does it in so many different ways versus
Michael Pennix. But it's not only Michael Pennix. Remember, the
right tackle for the Falcons is out for the year,
so it's essentially a backup playing right tackle. But I
(52:57):
love Michael Penix and the way he plays. I've always
been partial based on film study for years and years
and studying the NFL to quarterbacks that are aggressive throwing
the ball at the intermediate and deeper levels, because I
believe that at some point you have to do that.
Now again, there's many variables that go with that. So
I don't want people to think that if a quarterback
doesn't do that, it means he can't be any good.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
But Pennix is very aggressive.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
He was like that at Washington, and it'll be interesting
in this game with all the pressure schemes that he
is likely to face, how that plays out. But he
throws a beautiful ball. They've got a solid, not great
receiving core, but solid. And you know, it's funny, Mike.
You know me, I'm sure I don't really make bold
controversial statements because I watched tape and this will probably
(53:42):
come across as a bold controversial statement, but to me, it's.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 4 (53:46):
I think the most complete complete running back in the
league is Bjhon Robinson.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
He's a monster. Yeah. I always questioned a couple of
years ago, his rookie year. I just felt like he
was put in a box.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Yeah, he's so good.
Speaker 4 (53:58):
He's great in past protection and that's something, of course,
that is part of a running backs responsibility. And he's
a really terrific receiver who is much more than just
a screen guy or a checkdown guy.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
You know what's funny The rookie premiere, right, So it's
a thing that they do out here in Los Angeles.
It's mutated over time, but once upon a time I
was one of the few guys that would go there
to cover it, right, because I bring him in for
all the trading guard shoots and everything, and guys would
just be hanging around, you know, signing cards and waiting
for their turn in front of the camera. And you
get a chance to sit down with them. And I'd
(54:30):
always ask the rookie running backs how much time they
were spending in front of the mirrors with their footwork.
And some guys got it immediately, was like, you kidding me.
Coach sent me the book and he's like, if I
can't do that, I'm not getting on the field. Right,
It's all about pass protection. The other some other guys,
you'd have to walk them all the way through and
really get through it. But some of them like, yeah,
(54:51):
I can run the football. I didn't have to do
much of that in college. So this is a different world.
Speaker 4 (54:55):
So you've seen Bejon in person. I saw him at
Radio Row with the Super Bowl this year in person,
and you know, just obviously in street clothes, not in
ut sure, and he freaking look like a linebacker.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
No, that's right, he is a big, big man.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Yeah, it's uh the difference in me being you know,
I've got short guy, you know, fire plug body type.
So I cheer for guys like uh, you know, Kyler
Murray and all those guys because I need the little
guy to succeed sometimes Greg in its league of such bohemos.
Speaker 4 (55:25):
Well, then we'd probably be we'd probably be Mutt and
Jeff than Mike, because I'm I'm you know, I used
to be six four, but I think, you know, getting older.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
I think now I'm only six three.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
That's okay. We could probably we can get you that
inch back. There's plenty of plenty of things. And look,
we could just be making an NBA player and you
want to be six seven, we can do that.
Speaker 4 (55:42):
Hey, you know what my claim to fame is. In
high school, you know who? I went head to head again.
Now this is for the older people you'll probably remember.
Now I'm not saying you're old, but in high school
I went head to head against Ernie Grunfeld.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
Oh wow, now now we're talking that need needless.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
To needless to say he got the better of it.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Fantastic run see, we'll let folks go in Wikipedia that
one the other back to just again trying to educate
and bring everybody in the level of acumen. Maybe folks
aren't aware Michael Penis Junior being a left handed quarterback,
which is why Greg called out the fact that they're
with a backup right tackle for the season on one
of the interesting plays. A guy with great expectations Tampa,
(56:23):
the Mike Evans. I think I was down there visiting
my folks a couple weeks ago. They were talking about
how much he was extolling the virtues of the TV
twelve diet. So maybe he'll play forever too.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
Right, Well, you know, it's funny. One of the things
they were great at last year and it's so critical
was red zone. Baker Mayfield through the third most touchdown
passes in the red zone. And obviously, now that you
mentioned Evans, they can score in the red zone in
multiple ways. There's usually two ways teams can score matchups,
which Evans gives you because of his size and schematics,
(56:54):
and they are really good with their schematics in the
red zone. Now, obviously they've got a new offensive coordinator
this year, so we'll see how that all plays out.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
You add a Buka to the receiving core. He picks
up while they work for God when they love back. Yeah, yeah,
potential for some great things for him. And then you
got Bucky Irving in the Backfield's also on one of
my other lists of guys that I love because he
holds grudges for all the teams passing on him. Like
I'm on Ross Saint Brown. Here's all the backs that
were taking ahead of me. Yeah, here's all the wide receivers.
(57:25):
I like guys that play with that chip and motivator.
Speaker 4 (57:28):
Yeah, and Rashad White's a really good receiver the other backs,
so they've got a really nice, complimentary backfield. They even
get Sean Tucker out there once in a while. But
Buka is fascinating. I listened to him speak at the
podium at the Combine. That kid sounds like a ten
year pro. He's just one of those guys you knew
walking away from hearing him speak.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
This guy's gonna make it, without a question.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Fantastic stuff. We're ready for Week one of your National
Football League season two hundred and seventy more glorious games
to keep us rolling, be sure to subscribe to the
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(58:07):
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extended family as we roll through. Coming up next, I've
filibustered long enough. It's time to break down the Bears.
Great Cosel, Mike Harmon. This is Fox Football Sunday on
(58:29):
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Welcome back in Fox Football Sunday. Fox Sports
Radio working into a lather.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
Couple more hours, Yeah, that countdown clock towards the beginning
of another arduous campaign. We got you covered here Fox
Sports Radio, no question about it. Coming up in a
half hour, you got Countdown to Kick, presented by Bet
MGM with Brian Jeff and Bill as they get you
set through some of the different angles and a different
lens of different prism with me, I'm Mike Rman alongside
(59:11):
Greg Cosell, NFL Films forty six years, the godfather of
x's and o's. There you go. I'm putting you in
a suit and I'm gonna I'm gonna have a string
quartet playing in the background with some of the takes.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
What do you think, just as long as you don't
kiss my hand, No that's right.
Speaker 2 (59:25):
No, no, no, that's you know, pay tribute other way,
say I'll send you some Chicago pizzas or something. As
we get things going, you got the YouTube channel, you
got everything going on on Twitter at Greg Cosell. Check
out some of his latest breakdowns and obviously evangelize what
we do here. We've got two hours each and every
Sunday to break down games and I fill abustered long enough. Greg.
(59:47):
Over the course of the summer, you know, we talk
about the good, the bad, the ugly of games and
coverage in this league and what gets overblown, over hyped
and overcooked. And my beloved Chicago Bears have certainly fit
all of those criterion for this year. As Ben Johnson
takes over and Caleb Williams a guy that you know
(01:00:08):
based on who he is, the college resume, a little
bit of I guess, the flamboyancy when you talk about
painting your nails that you know, blue collar town Chicago.
You got some division over that before he even takes
a snap. And then coming off of last year, which
there were some highs, right you look at if you
(01:00:28):
just take the line score of his stats other than
a little bit of a low completion percentage to say, well,
it looks pretty good, right touchdown to interception ratio, I
say he didn't take enough chances, which he absorbed too
many sacks. So while that offensive line wasn't good, he
also didn't get rid of the ball. Here's here's a
clip Greg before we get into the what you've seen
on tape from Ben Johnson of his expectations.
Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
He's so young, you know, and there's there's a lot
he's learning, but he's a sponge right now. I mean,
he was up in my office a couple of days
ago and we watched a couple games together and he's
just the entire time anything I would say, I see
him jotting it down in his notebook, and so that's
an encouraging thing right now.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
With where we're at, We're going to grow together.
Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
This offense is going to grow together with him, and
you know, there would be some bumpy steps along the way,
but that's okay.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
That's that's the nature of doing it.
Speaker 6 (01:01:15):
But I feel really good about where he's at right now,
and there's no reason why we can't win this year.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
A lot of big time players. They bring in Luther Burden,
they had Roma Dunza and Dj Moore, you add Lovelin
from Michigan the backfield. You've got three running backs that
look like they can fit the bill if they need to.
A ton of attention to the offensive line, and then
you bring in Ben Johnson to help him unlearn things
from a year ago and add concepts including that under
(01:01:45):
snap under center kind of play that really has not
been part of his arsenal to date. So yeah, really
trying to relearn the quarterback position on the fly would
seem to me, Greg.
Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
And that's correct.
Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
And you know, I don't know if you saw this,
I'm sure a lot of people listening. Did the quarterback
series that we do at NFL Films this past show
that had Jared Goff, Joe Burrow, and Kirk Cousins. But
at the beginning of episode three, there was about a
five to seven minute opening where all they did, all
three guys, going back and forth, back and forth, back
and forth. All they did was talk about what happened
(01:02:19):
before the ball was even snapped. Okay, think about that
for a minute. That's called the operational part of playing quarterback.
That is the number one key thing that Caleb Williams
must master in a Ben Johnson offense because very often
there are multiple play calls in the huddle, then there
are alerts, and then in the Ben Johnson offense, there's
(01:02:39):
a lot of shifts and motions. So Williams has to
master all that mike so he can get to the
line of scrimmage when there's still ten eleven to twelve
seconds on the play clock, so that the shifts and
the motions can happen, so that he can investigate and
research the defense and understand what he's looking at. All
this has to happen before the ball's even snapped, and
(01:03:02):
that is a really critical off and overlooked part of
quarterbacking that is absolutely essential in a Ben Johnson offense.
That Caleb Williams has to master and that's why one
of the things, one of the reasons why Ben Johnson
says they'll be bumpy parts because as you get into
a game and the coach starts calling different plays and
whatever based on the game and how it's progressing. That's
(01:03:25):
where Caleb Williams has to be able to assimilate that
in a heartbeat well.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
And you also don't get any favors right off the jump.
You get a divisional matchup Monday night football, primetime television
with all of the chaos and noise around this change
and what Caleb Williams had as a rookie, and you
get Brian Flores.
Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
When you get Brian Flores, and you're right, and Brian
Flores is a master at showing all these front looks
with five, six, seven on the ball on the line
of scrimmage and sometimes five rush, sometimes six rush, sometimes
three rush. So there's a lot that goes from the
pre snap to the post snap where the picture totally changes.
(01:04:06):
Now we're getting to the post snap phase of playing quarterbacking.
So you have the pre snap phase. Now we're getting
to the post snap phase. And when you open the
season with Brian Flores. That's a difficult thing. Although in
the first matchup last year against Brian Flores, and I
know it wasn't Ben Johnson. I thought Caleb Williams handel
himself very very well in that first matchup, not quite
as well in the second matchup.
Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Yeah, a lot of it to me watching him and
going back and really probably spending way too much time
watching it for my own mental health. Off it, Greg
was the just decision that the plays guys make as
collegiate athletes. And we've seen it with so many We
watched it just the other day. You know, Mahomes scrambling.
(01:04:48):
Most of the time it worked. Sometimes you take that
fifteen yard sack that Caleb would find himself doing that right,
that spin back that always called the video game move
because they used to have the glitch in the the
early games where if you ran back twenty yards and
then you let it go, it was like firing a cannon.
So Caleb was doing a lot of that, hoping, wishing
(01:05:08):
that containment would be broken and he'd stay up long enough,
and instead it became deep sacks, putting them behind the marker.
Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
Well, it's funny because I think most people think that
sacks are on the old line, and listening to Tom
Brady last year do games and he knows a little
bit more about this than I do. I would say,
and he said that basically ninety nine percent of quarterback
sacks are on the quarterback and teams have done studies
over the years, Mike that quarterbacks that get sacked a
(01:05:35):
lot in college, that trend tends to continue in the NFL. Now,
obviously Ben Johnson is acutely aware of that, so he's
going to really work on that to make sure that
Caleb Williams plays within timing and structure. Even if you
throw the check down, whatever it is, get the ball out.
This is the NFL. You're not going to run around
and you're certainly not going to retreat backwards. You can't
(01:05:57):
do that in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
What I can't wait to say he is a shot
chart at the end of a game that doesn't look
like it did most of last year Greg, which was
five yards behind the line of scrimmage and five yards
in front of it. That maybe there are some shots
downfield odd time and accuracy a little more frequently than
what we watched.
Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
And the other parts you mentioned is playing under center,
because that's an important piece of Ben Johnson offense because
the play action pass game under center, where you turn
your back to the defense MIC, that's a learned trait
because in the NFL, the defense is not in the
same position before you turn your back as it is
after your you know, when you come back and look
(01:06:38):
at them after you've turned your back, so you know
this is These are all things that Caleb Williams has
to learn.
Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
The bottom line is, though he is a beautiful throw
over the football, I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
It is as pretty to watch as any quarterback in
the league, the way he throws a football.
Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Well, let's go on the other side of the matchup
because the first look, we're going to get at JJ
McCarthy in a big way against this Bears defense. No
Addison he suspended the first couple of weeks. You got
justin Jefferson, you got Howkinson, you got Jones in the
backfield with Mason, so you've got your weaponry around him.
What are you expecting to see out of McCarthy and
(01:07:14):
what the Minnesota offense sets up.
Speaker 4 (01:07:16):
It's hard to know, though. Kevin O'Connell's really good, and
i'll tell you one thing that stood out to me.
I watched McCarthy in college, you know, when he came out,
and there were some concerns I had with his footwork,
with his drops in the first preseason game, and that
was the only game he played, which was last year. Obviously,
Kevin O'Connell fixed that all summer. Everything was smoother. And
(01:07:37):
Kevin is so good with quarterbacks and the mechanics of
the position, something that's often overlooked as well. So I
don't know what to expect from McCarthy, Mike, Honestly, I
don't know. I can't yet. I just don't know the
answer to that. But I guarantee that in a lot
of the mechanics and fundamentals of the position, he will
have improved.
Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Well, it's the beauty of the curiosity of it, right
because at Michigan it wasn't put on his shoulder. He
made the throws he needed to, but because he didn't
have gaundy numbers and statistics, there's just a lot of well,
we don't know. It's like, well, he's still threw more
passes than a lot of these other guys that have
been drafted his first round picks. So now coming off
(01:08:15):
an injury, and certainly a fourteen win season, you know,
the expectations are there. We would expect a bit of
a regression in that win total to reflect it in
the marketplace, right, all those one score victories and narrow escapes.
But Sam Darnold that I think got short shrift for
his run last year. I mean, it didn't end well,
But I also don't know At times going back and
(01:08:38):
watching it, I haven't you know, checked back on that,
you know, as we get ready for this year. But
in the moment, I thought maybe he got a little
bit of a bad play. Not that he was great,
but I don't think that the play calling and situationally
they did him a lot of favors. And now he
goes to Seattle to try to restart there.
Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
Well, it's interesting you mentioned that just as a quick segue.
One reason they wanted Sam Donald is because, just like
in a Ben Johnson offense, Kevin O'Connell's offense had a
ton of under center play action and Donald was phenomenal
at it last year in Minnesota. And Clint Kubiak is
now the OC in Seattle, and he comes from that
kind of Shanahan school where the quarterbacks under center quite
(01:09:20):
a bit, and so they wanted Donald as opposed to
Gino Smith because Donald was so good at it last
year in Minnesota, and it fit Kubiak's whole offensive philosophy,
which is kind of his own run game and the
play action pass game off of that.
Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
So we got a couple more quarterbacks we want to
break down and games as we're here in week one,
and we'll do that in a few minutes, But first
we go over to the newsdask first time today, working
up a big lather. He's got an angel City FC
game later on this afternoon. It's the Legend, the Man,
the Myth. It's Isaac Low and Gron.
Speaker 7 (01:09:54):
Thank you, Mike, Good morning to you and Greg. We
have some fresh NFL quarterbacking news. The Arizona Cardinals have
just added quarterback Kyler Murray to their injury report for
their game today at New Orleans due to illness. However,
Murray does not have a game status and the Cardinals
said he will play. Murray in fact, arrived at the
Superno moments ago wearing what can best be described as
(01:10:15):
oversized georts, So even though his game status is not questionable,
his fashion sense apparently.
Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Is anyway, given his size, aren't those just pants?
Speaker 7 (01:10:25):
It could be borrowed from Gardner Minshew, well, you got
to get some style. We will be doing a deep
dive into that elsewhere. Detroit Lives receiver Jamison Williams has
agreed to a three year extension worth up to eighty
three million dollars. In college football, on Saturday night, Mississippi
State knocked off twelfth ranked Arizona State twenty four to twenty.
Blake Shape at the game, but fifty eight yard touchdown
(01:10:48):
pass to Brennan Thompson with thirty seconds to go. Eighteenth ranks,
Oklahoma defeated number fifteen Michigan twenty four to thirteen, despite
Michigan running back Justice Haynes running for one to twenty five.
In Major League Baseball, on Saturday night, Los Angeles Dodgers
pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto was one out away from a no
hitter at Baltimore when the Oriols Jackson Holiday broke it
(01:11:11):
up with a home run. The Oriols would then go
on to score three more times at the bottom of
the ninth inning to stun the Dodgers four to three.
Padres one in Colorado ten to eight, so they trailed
the Dodgers by one in the NL West and cal
Rawleigh his major league leading fifty second home run in
the Seattle Mariners eleven to two triumph at Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Mike and Greg all yours at Isaac Low and cron
where you find him in the Twitter verse. Look, it's
an NFL show, But I got to editorialize that play
with the holiday home run for a second. I don't
know if you saw this. Greg. Ball goes up and
it's barely clearing the wall. Right fielder made no effort.
You got two outs in a no hitter in the ninth,
you're up three to nothing, and you're gonna look to
(01:11:53):
play the karm instead of trying to go after a
ball that they had to argue for a minute that
it actually cleared the wall. You're running last, You be
running laps like fran Brown had Syracuse after the win
against Yukon.
Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
Yeah, I did not see that. I did not see
the highlight.
Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Unbelievable. We got guys diving into the stands, fighting fans whatever,
and to try to preserve a no hitter for a dude,
and then you go on to lose the game. Dodgers,
losers of five straight in a division nobody wants to win,
the NL West. Will continue with that later on in
the day. Maybe there'll be some baseball that finds its
way back into the show. But we've got more football
(01:12:32):
to talk about. Kyler Murray now on the injury list
with the illness, he's a curiosity. Bo Nicks and then
two quarterbacks making their last stand. Let's talk about all
of those quarterbacks in the particulars. Next, he's Greg Cosel
on Mike Harbin. It's Fox Football Sunday on Fox Sports Radio.
Welcome back in final a couple minutes of us here
(01:12:54):
for our run Fox Football Sunday. Blessed to be with you,
Thanks for being with us. In this inaugural episode, Mike
Harmen alongside Greg co Cell NFL films forty six years.
He's got the NFL Matchup Show. Check him out at
Greg co Cell in the Twitter verse. Anything else you
want to plug, any meet and greets, any sandwich places
(01:13:14):
you like or anything.
Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
And Mike, it's that time of year. I just go
home and I come to work. You know, it's that
time of year.
Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Did they just put a tray out in front of
your door for your office.
Speaker 4 (01:13:25):
No, I've got a little mini refrigerator, so I don't
leave my office very often.
Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
You know, I understand that the hydration. Like folks always say,
don't you really love football season? I'm like, I love it,
but I recognize what it does to me mentally and
physically over the course of the next twenty weeks.
Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
Well, i'd always say yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
People always say to me, i'd love your job, and
then I tell them I work seventy seventy five hours
a week and they say, I'm not really sure I
want to do that.
Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Well, that's what it takes, and that's longevity in the
business comes on the heels of a lot of hard
work put in. So we appreciate it making us smarter.
One of the things is we're talking with the crew.
We've got Chris and Brionna making us sound so pretty,
with Isaac at the news desk, and we'll get their
opinions as we get and build the show, you know,
(01:14:09):
their respective teams and info. But as we're talking like terminology,
I think we're going to end up building the Greg
Cosell Dictionary is what we're kind of planning here.
Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
Well, I want to make sure, we're clear, you know,
we're just talking ball, so but we want to get
in you know, I always feel like we want to
get into the x's and o somewhat instead of just talking,
you know, around the surface, because that's what I do.
Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
I say every day.
Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
I think I watched Tate probably three hundred and fifty
days out of the year, Mike, So.
Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
That's I mean, I do that with Law and Order episodes.
So like we're kindred spirits.
Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
Just is that the Special Victim Unit or the first
Law and Order.
Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
I'm usually a Jerry Orbach original Law and Order kind
of guy.
Speaker 3 (01:14:47):
Okay, Yeah, I liked him.
Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
I liked him, yeah, you know, and as I'm older,
I'm now understanding his character and dirty dancing even more
so all of it. See, it all comes together, right,
it's all perspective. You want to continue, all right? We
got a couple last things we want to get to here, Greg,
before we get out, we mentioned Kyler Murray, a guy
that you know, a lot of expectations. We talked with
(01:15:09):
Trevor Lawrence and others. Before You've got a rededication to
the defense where they drafted a ton you have Marvin
Harrison Junior who inconsistent rookie year, I guess would be
the way to tag it. Trey McBride with the statistical
anomalies of the fear of the painted grass, all right,
it schematically and height and all that come in in
(01:15:30):
terms of throwing windows, James Connor, how much mileage is
left on the tread? Can Trey bents and be the
guy to work alongside him. But Arizona team that really
intrigues me this year.
Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:15:42):
They obviously because Jonathan Gannon being the head coach and
a defensive guy, they've really tried to do a lot
with that defense. They do a couple of things on
defense too. This I won't get into the weeds on
because you almost have to see it, but they do
some really cool things on the back end, which is
really has an impact more on the run game, believe
it or not, than the pass game. But he is
one of the most fascinating guys I've watched over these
(01:16:02):
last couple of years. I've always come away feeling that
I was uncertain as to what he is. You know,
obviously he has two or three unbelievable games Mike every season,
and usually those games result from him making improvisational second
reaction plays. He's not consistently decisive in his reads, and
that's a problem for a shorter quarterback because the result
(01:16:25):
of that is that he'll create his own pressure by
holding the ball too long, and then that brings his
lack of size into play, because then the bodies get
too close to him, and because of his size, that
becomes a big issue.
Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
So he needs to.
Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
Become quicker with his reads, get rid of the football.
He can't just rely on the fact that he can
make special plays with his legs.
Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
If you missed any of today's show, check out the podcast.
Search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcast. Look
for Fox Sports Weekends, Fox Football Sunday. Look for Cosell
and Harmon. Right after the show, today's podcast gets posted.
Brianna working on that as as we speak. Be sure
to follow it, rate, give it five stars, give some commentary,
and then of course evangelize. We're trying to make this
(01:17:06):
a global enterprise even bigger. Send it to friends and family.
I'll thank you, I'll do a walking tour and give
you a big fat hug. Search Fox Sports Radio wherever
you get your podcast. You'll find today's show posted right
after we get off the air. Also a reminder coming
up in about ten minutes from now, you've got Countdown
to Kickoff, presented by Bett MGM. You've got Brian no,
Bill Krackenberger and Jeff Schwartz again taking you to a
(01:17:30):
different lens to make you smarter as you're making your
plays and talking about the betting lines for today's events
and tomorrow's big Monday Night finale. A couple last guys
to get to here, Greg, we got Kyler Murrow, we
check him. We've got one guy in year two and
boon Nix with Sean Banton and what we've seen brilliant
(01:17:51):
year one. What's the encore?
Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:17:54):
Well, what I really loved about bon Nixon, it probably
surprised a lot of people, maybe even including myself based
on his college tape, was his his arm strength. His
ability to make those between the numbers throws that's sort
of the eighteen to twenty five intermediate level was really
really good. And I got a chance to speak to
(01:18:14):
bow Knicks before the draft last year, and I'm sure
this is one reason why Sean Payton drafted him. Bow Knicks,
unlike almost every college quarterback, Mike he called his own
protections and that's very, very rare for college quarterback, so
he was probably pretty advanced in his view of how
to play the quarterback position.
Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
I got a guess to some degree, you would have
the chess match then between Sean Payton and Sean McVay
of who wanted to fight for him in that regard.
Mcvay's got a quarterback on the other end of that
spectrum in Matthew Stafford. Jimmy Garoppolo also in the building.
But they've got a big week one with Houston coming
to town in a pass rush that may make that
back tighten up really fast.
Speaker 4 (01:18:54):
Let me tell you something, both teams have pass rushes.
Let's go with the Rams for a secon because that
really intrigues me. Their four man d line pass rush.
They stunt a ton. They're all really good athletes.
Speaker 3 (01:19:06):
And keep this in mind.
Speaker 4 (01:19:07):
The reason that they changed the Texans did their entire
old line pretty much is they gave up the most
third down sacks a year ago. Stroud was sacked the
most on third down and they could not handle stunts
at all. And they're going to get a heavy dose today.
Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
Last one really quick for you. We'll leave Russell Wilson
and Jackson Dart for another time. We'll do that next week.
Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Sure we've got to play a little Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
We've exactly. We've got Aaron Rodgers against the Jets, his
old team. This one's a fun one for a lot
of the headlines. How does it play well?
Speaker 4 (01:19:38):
The big issue for me? The big issue is Rogers
and the coordinator, Author Smith, because Rogers is so smart
before the snap. What's the balance between Smith calling the
game and Rogers controlling the game.
Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
Oh, maybe they'll fight on the sidelines. This will be great.
It's Greg Cosell making us smarter, all right. He's going
to go off to his lab at Greg Cosell find
me at Swollen Dome. Countdown to kick OFFF next on
Fox m
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ah, yes, greetings, Welcome in and welcome to another beautiful campaign.
It's the National Football League. You know me, I celebrate
all two hundred seventy two regular season games. We've got
two hundred seventy more masterpieces to try to build. You know,
it's like a Hollywood thriller time and again. We got
the stars on the marquee, the long preamble of the preseason.
(00:24):
What are we gonna see? It's like the little trailers
you get that get longer and longer. Nowadays, sometimes they
give away the movie. No no, no, no, no. Not
in the NFL. Twisted turns unlike anything else. We got
great third acts in those first two NFL games that
we're gonna talk about here. So welcome to Week one.
I'm Mike Carmon. You hear me weeknights with Jason Smith
here seven to eleven Pacific Monday through Friday nights. You
(00:48):
come on in, and I got my guy Greg Cosell
joining us here today to make us all smarter, to
educate us in the world of football, to have a
great discussion time and time again about the game we love.
At Greg Cosel, it's where you find them. NFL films
a masterclass each and every time he steps to the mic. Greg,
(01:09):
good to be with you. Welcome in. It's Fox Football Sunday.
We finally made.
Speaker 3 (01:13):
It, Mike. I am so excited about this. You know.
It's funny.
Speaker 4 (01:16):
I've been doing this a long time, Mike, and the
preseason just doesn't get me overly excited these days. So
now we've actually had two games under our belt, but
there's nothing like the first Sunday of the NFL season.
I'm pretty excited about it.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Well, the anticipation, so many changes that we saw this offseason.
When we talk about coordinators and coaches, some of the
veteran quarterbacks that are in new spots, all of that
that we get to see the band aid ripped up today.
I mean, so many big matchups. Sometimes I wonder how
much we really need to schedule, you know, like stunt
(01:51):
casting in TV shows. We're suddenly back in the day.
It's May first, Like who's gonna show up on my
favorite sitcom?
Speaker 1 (01:59):
Here?
Speaker 2 (02:00):
Get the game in Brazil? But it's the Chargers and
the Chiefs. Did we need to do that Week one?
I don't know, but certainly I enjoyed every last second
of it. Don't get me wrong. Like I say, I mean,
I'm the guy that'll be pushing later on in the
show for more Jaguars Panthers content. I mean, that's just
who I am. But it's just that kind of thing
(02:20):
with the scheduling. There's always these quirks trying to make
that algorithm work. Sometimes with the beneficiary of it. Sometimes
I'm sure teams file their letters of complaint to the league.
But tonight today is like New Year's Day, Christmas morning,
one of the days of Hanuka. However you celebrate, whatever
you celebrate. This is the grand unveiling of it all.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Well, what we know for sure, Mike, is that everybody's
going to make definitive statements about every team season after
week one. That's what we know for sure.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
Well, we've got a couple of teams where I know
in those cities. I mean, you want to talk about
the Bunsen burners all being on and flame on. I mean,
my hometown Chicago is certainly going to be one. We
talk about a bunch of this offseason. But you know,
tomorrow is the referendum on everybody. You know, week one
of a National Football League season. But You're absolutely right,
(03:12):
the over correction, the overreactions. But that's why we love it, right,
each game means so much.
Speaker 4 (03:18):
Well, I know there's not that many of them, unlike
other sports. But you know, the crazy thing is, and
I'm not sure fans think about this, but coaches aren't
even really sure what they have until they start playing
real games. I mean, they have a sense of their team,
they've been with the players every day pretty much, but
they don't really know until you start playing the real games.
And guys that maybe played fifteen snaps in the preseason
(03:40):
are now playing sixty seventy snaps because it's a whole game. Plus,
the coaches coach it totally differently. They coach for four quarters.
They're not just coaching to see, oh let's try this,
let's run this place, see if it works. They're now
coaching four quarters. So it's different for coaches as well,
not just for the players.
Speaker 2 (03:58):
Yeah, it becomes just that curiosity, right we always talked about.
I know, Lovey Smith and others have used to take
the quarter system. Then you added the seventeenth game, so
now you got to decide, you know, how you fractionalize
it there. But also Bill Belichick in the month of September,
and when you say his name now, people start chuckling
about everything going on in the petty verbal slap fights
(04:20):
going on with the way he's handling things at North Carolina.
But the same thing like September was, I don't care
how it looks. I've got to learn a bunch of
things about my team in September so that we tightened
the bolts and nuts and screws and everything for later
on in the season, the margin to victory and then
we impose our will later on. And the way it's
(04:43):
going back to McVeigh and some of the other coaches,
when we started pulling guys away from preseason games, we
got less of the sample size, right the teaser trailers
that refer to in the open. But we're circling back
a little bit now that we're only back to three
preseason games. We at least got a smattering of the
(05:03):
stars out, so we at least got the courtesy appearances,
you know, in the little Queen's wave, you know, like
Peyton Manning used to do before they'd lose in the
playoffs in weeks is you know sixteen, when they had
everything secured and he'd leave and the guys would go
and then they'd go into the playoffs. Like was that
really good? I don't know, but he gave us a
lot of great talking points.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Right right.
Speaker 4 (05:24):
Well, that's the thing about preseason is, you know, that's
another great example of where people want to take so
much from ten or twelve or fifteen snaps. And you know,
the one thing about preseason and I've been fortunate enough
in my career, Mike, I mean, I've been doing this
for a long time. You go to preseason training camps,
and you know, training camps, and even in games, they're
coaches are just trying to practice certain things. They're not
(05:46):
game planning against an opponent. They might be practicing one
specific thing they want to see how that works. And
this is what you know, people don't know unless you're
there in their meetings. So it's very difficult to get
any meaningful sense of anything from a preseason game other
than the fact that everybody would like to see better
execution as opposed to poor execution. But you don't know
(06:07):
what they're really looking to get accomplished.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Well, my favorite was always I used to do camp
visits when I lived out on the East coast. I
used to do writing, and it was very easy to
do my day trips. My daughters were young, so I
could still be home to tuck them in at night.
Most of the places, one of my favorite visits was
always Pittsburgh, and we'll talk a lot about them. I
know over the course of the season, the Mike Tomlin regime,
along with Aaron Rodgers and all. But I just remember
(06:30):
he was the one guy that was going and stalking
section to section on those practice fields, and he would
stand there like the stern task master. And I remember
a couple of times I wandered into places. They didn't
stop me, but then I would get the hand on
the shoulder. I'd look and they'd be coach or one
of the other assistants and be like, none of this
shows up in print, right, It's like you're learning something.
(06:55):
It's kind of like those meetings they have production meetings
for the television, right right, this play or this formation
shows up in the game. You better not say a
word about it.
Speaker 4 (07:04):
Well, you know, it's funny. There's coaches are so different
like that. There are some coaches who believe obviously that
you know someone like yourself. For myself, that we have
an impact on whether teams win or lose on Sunday.
And then there are other coaches that understand that we
have really no impact on that, and they'll be willing
to have pretty open and honest conversations with you. So
you know, that's a coach to coach thing. I've learned
(07:26):
that over the years i've been doing this.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
Yeah, no, it is certainly a curious mix. I mean,
there's got to be the psychological books on psychology of coaching.
Plenty have been written, and I'm sure there's room for
several more on the shelf. So maybe that'll be part
two of what we operate and orchestrate here Fox Football
Sunday again. Welcome in at Swollen Dome where you find me.
My giant head once didn't fit in to a two shot.
(07:51):
It became a running joke and then became the era
of social media. So that's the genesis of that at
Greg Cosel, I mean, it's the man's name, that's what
he is. As we get ready for what is a
fantastic campaign, and we got two games in the book,
so let's rewind to Thursday night. We pulled out a
couple of key plays that will stand out as this
(08:13):
season goes. On forty seven, Prescott looking middle cover, coming
down field program, seeing on ricochet to Blankenship's hands in.
Speaker 5 (08:28):
What his throw by Dak Prescott and in this CD
right in the hands, that's two. That's two in the
second half that he has not been able to hold onto.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Fourth to three.
Speaker 5 (08:44):
We're bringing pressure, at least showing it.
Speaker 2 (08:47):
They are bringing it, and Prescott's laughing it.
Speaker 3 (08:51):
CD couldn't bring that one other third time of the half.
Speaker 2 (08:57):
Eagles take over on down definitely what he was doing.
So they got the TV booth on the call there
on the and NBC Peacock crew on the call there. Greg.
I mean those two players and the Miles Sanders fumble
will live in infamy.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
Yeah, yeah, I mean very rare for cdee Lamb to
drop those balls. And he had another drop on a
dig route in the second half as well, which would
have been a first down or was third down, you know,
the long ball in particular, and it was funny because
there was another receiver right there with him on that
deep ball. I'm assuming that he was throwing to Ceedee
Lamb because it obviously went right in his hands, but
(09:39):
it was odd that there was a receiver right next
to him. But I thought, Dak Prescott. You know, it's funny.
Before that game that week, which was last week, I
guess I went through a ton of Dak Prescott from
last year, and I gotta tell you, I didn't come
away feeling really good about him watching his tape from
twenty twenty four, even before he got hurt, I thought
(10:00):
that he was really tight hipped, Mike. I thought that
he was really heavy footed. He just didn't look like
the quarterback we've seen through the years. Because people probably
forget at this point that in twenty twenty three he
was second in the MVP voting. He had a phenomenal season.
But I thought he played really well against the Eagles.
I thought he threw the ball really well. He made
(10:20):
some big time throws and quite frankly, they should have
won that game.
Speaker 2 (10:24):
No, that's just it. They leave it on the field.
Several times we saw the big play threat. I mean,
Javonte Williams fifteen carries fifty four yards, gets the glory
touches on the short yard.
Speaker 3 (10:34):
He ran well, so he ran hard, right, But.
Speaker 2 (10:37):
That's just it. That was the one question mark I
think that we had defensively for the Cowboys in the
post Micah Parsons world, I don't think the run thing
really worked. Thirty eight for one fifty eight and the
three touchdowns by the Eagles. We'll get to the Jalen
Hurts part of the equation at a moment, but but yeah,
Dak Prescott was magnificent, laid the ball up brilliantly. Obviously,
(10:59):
Jalen Carr getting himself suspended. I mean, you want to
talk about you want to talk about opening a movie, right,
like one of the things you had now and a
lot of things. Greg is the all right, I really
gotta get you, so I'm gonna punch you in the
face really fast with some big action.
Speaker 3 (11:12):
Right.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
We had the fullback for the Eagles lost on the
opening kickoff, and I know they cart it off right,
huge thing, run game all that and Saquon Barkley eighteen
for sixty efficient not overwhelming. A good job by that,
I guess Jerry Jones was celebrating same. We stopped him.
We stopped him. We didn't do any stop anything else,
(11:34):
but we got that. But you know, watching the offense
go to work and the number of open windows that
we have, I mean, because oftentimes we get into the
debates of all right, you know, catchable ball doesn't really
count as a drop. Now, all these CD lambs were drops,
like there's no there's no two ways about it, right,
(11:54):
and all monster plays that should have given the Cowboys
a win. Imagine Jerry on the victory lap of that.
If they take that game down, they might have put
and put on a parade in that stadium.
Speaker 4 (12:05):
Well, you know, it's interesting because in some ways, the
Eagles played Eagles football because this is who they are.
You know, a lot of people might lose sight of
the fact that, you know, they look at Hurts and
he was obviously extremely efficient Mike he was nineteen for
twenty three but only one hundred and fifty two yards.
But you know, last year he played eighteen games. I'm
(12:27):
discounting a game against Washington when he got hurt early
and came out, and I think he came out early
in the in the first quarter or early in the
second quarter. But eight of the eighteen games in which
he started last year and played, he threw for less
than two hundred yards. The Eagles are not really a
passing team, so this is exactly who they are. What
normally happened last year is they played these games. A
(12:48):
lot of them would be close in the third and
even early in the fourth quarter, and then Saquon Barkley
would break off big runs. He had more rushing yards
in the second half last year. I mean, it was
a ridiculous number. Just think about this. Last year, in
the second half alone, Barkley gained over twelve hundred yards.
Think about that for a minute. That was just in
the second half. So this game played out exactly like
(13:12):
an Eagles game other than the fact that he didn't
have the big runs.
Speaker 3 (13:15):
In the second half.
Speaker 4 (13:16):
But other than that, it was basically Eagles football from
an offensive perspective.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
Yeah. Just think the curiosity though, right. Everybody wants to
get fed. Everybody needs to get their their their targets,
their touches and everything else. By the way, that twelve
hundred yards would have ranked him what seventh in the NFL. Yeah,
I believe the second half.
Speaker 4 (13:36):
If memory serves me correctly, because this is what I do,
so I remember these meaningful statistics. Mike, That's something I'm
good at remembering meaningful statistics.
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Well, fortunately it's you. It's your job, Greg, right, that's
what I always say believe you remember this stuff for sport, like, hey,
you know, fortunately, that's what they pay me to remember, right.
Speaker 4 (13:54):
I think he had twelve hundred and forty five yards
in the second half last year and averaged almost seven
yards per Russia.
Speaker 3 (14:00):
Memory serves me correctly. And think about that for a minute.
Speaker 4 (14:02):
I mean almost seven yards of rush in games when
the defense knows you're going to run the ball, so
they're obviously putting eight in the box. They're defending the run.
And he still broke off long runs, so you know,
basically that didn't happen in this game. But let's say
he broke off a long run or two in the
second half, then the Eagles might have won, let's say
thirty four to twenty, and everybody would have said, oh,
(14:24):
that's Eagles football. They're playing. They're doing what they do,
because that is what they do now. The one thing
you could say Mike is obviously aj Brown not being
a factor in the game at all. Didn't have a target,
only one in the game and that one catch, which
came with under two minutes to go. But you know
that'll probably change because they'll work him on the perimeter.
That's where he's really good and that's where Hurtz throws
(14:45):
the ball really well outside the numbers. But other than that,
that's this is who the Eagles are. They played Eagles football.
Speaker 3 (14:52):
Now.
Speaker 4 (14:52):
They have some questions on their defense and we can
talk about that, but from an offensive perspective, that's who
they are.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, the job done. Four targets and twenty four total
yards between Devonte Smith and A. J. Brown. But for
Jalen Hurts, I mean it was a, you know, a
classroom kind of feel of I think the first five runs,
I don't know that he was touched, no right getting
out of bounds or getting into the end zone.
Speaker 3 (15:20):
Yeah, you know, I don't know. Mike.
Speaker 4 (15:21):
Again, I'm always leary of talking about game plans and
things like that because you'd have to be there. But
I will say this, I will say that watching the tape,
and I went through that tape in detail on actually
on Friday, it too often seemed seemed again without knowing
how it was coached, as if Matt Eberflus, who's the
DC now in Dallas, didn't really have a viable plan
(15:45):
to contain hurt scrambling because he had Hurts is an
extremely smart quarterback. You know what he does is he
takes the throws that are there. Because they're really a
sustaining offense. He takes the throws that are there, which
he did in this game. He only had one ball
in the air more than eleven yards from the line
of scrimmage, and that was just a beautiful, beautiful throat
(16:06):
to Jehan Dotson who ran a great route on the
deep post. But Hurtz takes what's there, sustains offense runs
when he has to, and is a major factor. His
legs are a major part of this offense. And one
thing we really need to keep in mind is they're
really a four down offense when they get to the
fifty yard line. So when they get to let's say
(16:28):
third and seven, they're going to run the ball, and
that really impacts how defenses have to play. They're not
automatically a passing team on third and let's say four
to eight yards. They had far more runs last year
on third and four to eight yards than any team
in the league, and that changes the way defenses have
to play.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
One of the things Smith and I on Thursday night,
as we're watching this game unfold, we're just reminding folks,
yes that is the same Jehan Dotson that once upon
a time was going to be the it guy in Washington,
and there he is. He got awarded for an early
back in that game with that deep ball too. Yeah,
they came back to him pretty shortly thereafter.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
You know, it's funny because when he came out of
Penn State, and you probably remember this, he was, you know,
truly valued as a number one pick. I mean, Washington
took him. It was not a reach. You know, pretty
much everybody thought that that's who he was. I don't
know what happened in Washington. You know, sometimes there's personality things.
Obviously last year with the Eagles, he wasn't a big target,
but he's got a lot of ability.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
So we'll see.
Speaker 4 (17:29):
I mean, obviously they traded for John Mitchie last week,
so we'll see who ends up as the season progresses
getting the majority of the snaps as the third wide receiver.
But there's no question that AJ Brown will be a factor.
And as we know from experience, Mike, if he's not
a factor, he'll probably let you know about it.
Speaker 3 (17:46):
Well.
Speaker 2 (17:46):
If not, if that's the curiosity, what becomes the next
selection in the AJ Brown book Club?
Speaker 3 (17:52):
That's a good one.
Speaker 4 (17:53):
There you go, You're probably right about that, but look
they won the game. You know, Week one, you you're
just trying to get a win. I mean, especially when
you're coming off a super Bowl and you have a
different kind of off season than most teams have. You're
just trying to get a win. And I mean, look,
look what happened with the Chiefs. I mean they were
in the super Bowl last year, obviously didn't play well,
and then they go to Brazil and they didn't get
(18:15):
a win. You know, so you're just trying to get
a win, and then you know you have extra time
to work on things that you clearly need to work on,
because even if you have a veteran team with a
great quarterback, you and how coaches talk, there's never a
coach who's going to come off a game, no matter
what happens and say, boy, we played a perfect game.
Speaker 2 (18:34):
That's it coaching principal one oh one. We're always working
the perfect. We never get there. Yeah, Ron Fox Sports Radio,
sometimes we'll argue, I mean, that's perfect segment. I'm just
going to drop the pen and move on the tailor
two half CD Lamb still finished with this seven for
one ten for you fantasy folks out there. Johan Dotson
all three targets, three receptions, fifty nine yards. Jail at
(18:56):
Hurtz and company. They get the job done in that
divisional battle to get things started on Thursday twenty four
to twenty. Yes, the Cowboys moral victories. You can debate
that at the water cooler. Coming up next, says Greg,
alluded to Friday night. We got part two of this
fantastic double feature all the way in Brazil. We'll break
(19:16):
that one down, the good and the bad, the ugly
as we continue. It's Greg Cosel. I'm Mike Harmon in
This is Fox Football Sunday. Hey reminder, Hey, Football's back.
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(19:38):
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Speaker 1 (19:49):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Welcome back in Fox Football Sunday. Sounds so
great to say, I'm gonna do it.
Speaker 2 (20:07):
Again Fox Football Sunday, Mike Carbon alongside Greg Cosel. Welcome in,
Grabbing a cup of coffee, walking the dog, getting ready
to go to or from services, whatever you've got going
on this Sunday morning. We're obviously very excited to be
with you, blessed to be able to do this and
talk some football. Get your get everybody worked into a
(20:28):
lather as we get ready for another great slate of games.
Two in the books, a Monday night affair that will
be scrutinized forever. Every play that is called, every down,
every decision, and we've got you covered here on Fox
Sports Radio. Take us with you on the iHeartRadio app,
of course, wherever you go, stream us where you happen
to be, catch you all. Catch this show, all of
(20:48):
our Fox Sports Radio shows. It's live twenty four to
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of the screen to say, you know what, you should
check in with your Fox Sports Radio friends. And like
(21:09):
I always say when we do this, read it's the
best free gift you can give anybody. You got a
birthday coming up? iHeartRadio App, You got holidays coming up?
iHeartRadio App, a wedding. It's the best gift twenty four
to seven of oral brilliance each and every day. How's
that did I sell that?
Speaker 3 (21:27):
Well, Greg, you did a great job there.
Speaker 2 (21:30):
Yeah, I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (21:31):
I was riveted. I was riveted.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So yeah, grab your friends at brunch today and say
give me your phone and they're gonna say, what you
want to scroll through my photo's like, no, I'm gonna
give you a gift. Here's the iHeartRadio app. All right.
So we had one game on Thursday. We broke that
down every way till Sunday, and then well, which is
Sunday today, and then we get to Friday. We got
a double dose of greatness as we have the Chargers
(21:54):
and the Chiefs, great expectations, Chiefs with a lot of
the off season of what we're going to see coming
off the Super Bowl loss. Unfortunately for them, we saw
some of the same tendencies. We'll get to that in
a moment. But on the other side, you know, every
third billboard, you know we've got injury attorney, injury attorney
Jim Harbaugh, injury attorney, injury attorney Jim Harbaugh, and well
(22:18):
for one night and paid off. Here's Justin Herbert, who
he is champion time and again. Let's hear one of
the great plays from this one. Quinton with his second
touchdown grab of this contest. All right, Quentin Johnson, five catches,
seventy nine yards, two scores, the guy that after his
rookie year everybody wanted him banished, and now he's their
(22:38):
number one receiver. You bring back Keenan Allen, who was
fantastic the old rapport. Ten targets, seven catches at a
score for him as well. Johnston nearly had the hat trick,
had one go off his hands on a little scrape
in the back of the end zone. But Greg, Justin Herbert,
a guy that we've been waiting for this version of
him for a while. He's been one of the all right,
(23:00):
we had it for a year, when's it gonna happen?
And I gotta say it played a little bit against type,
because I would have expected more from the run game
off the jump. Nope, they came out throwing early and often.
Speaker 4 (23:11):
Well, you know, it's funny other than the playoffs, which
is what everybody focuses on, and with validity, I'm not
suggesting that doesn't matter. Herbert's actually been terrific in his
career and there's no question in terms of physical talent,
he's top five in the league. You know, you mentioned
Keenan Allen, and it's the little plays that mattered.
Speaker 3 (23:29):
We'll mention the.
Speaker 4 (23:30):
Johnston touchdown in a second, that second one, the twenty
three yarder in the fourth quarter, which basically sealed the game.
But on that drive, he had two throws consecutive throws
to Allen that beat Blitz and they were and they
got first downs on that drive. And it's those kinds
of plays that don't seem like they mean a lot, Mike,
but they mean an awful lot. But the Johnston touchdown,
(23:52):
the twenty three yarder, That was a classic chess match
play because what did Steve Spagnolo do, which he's known for,
is he went what we call zero blitz, meaning that
there was no deep safety that they matched up across
the board man to man, and the result of that
was that Johnston ran in the over rout versus a
safety Hicks, and Hicks is not a coverage player. He's
(24:14):
really much more of a closer to the line of
scrimmage box player. So they got the matchup. Herbert was protected,
they were able to pick up the pressure, and he
just made what was essential. I think he moved to
his right just a little bit, but he made an
easy throw to a wide open Johnston and it was
just the classic chess match at word at work.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
It was the.
Speaker 4 (24:34):
Offense beating the defense. And if you know Spags, you
know he's going to amp up the pressure, increase the
pressure frequency once he gets to the second half.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
Twenty five and thirty four three eighteen three scores on
the day for Herbert, also seven carries thirty two yards,
including that game clinching scramble that left the Chiefs defensive
line pointing at each other like the spierw meme with
a fewtives thrown in.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Well, here's what happened.
Speaker 4 (25:01):
They were playing what we call two man coverage, meaning
there's two deep safeties and man to man across the board.
So there's five eligible receivers, so there's five defenders covering
them two deep safeties, so it's a four man pass rush.
So what happened is Jones from the wide nine, his
wide nine alignment, he was to the boundary side. He
rushed inside of the right tackle and all Herbert did
(25:25):
was then go outside of him because there's no one
there because of the coverage. So Jones a great player, obviously,
but he made a mistake on that play. He went
inside on his pass rush and he gave up the
edge and Herbert had no one in front of him,
and he obviously he wanted to slide and stay in bounds,
but he probably could have gotten more than the nineteen
yards if the game situation was different.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
Now, obviously we had a little bit of chaos early
in this one, just like we did on Thursday. Thursday
also gave us the long lightning delay that delayed that
games completion. So a little bit of chaos mixed therein
more vamping on television as you go through and then
Friday we get the tart blow to the head of
Travis Kelcey open hand. So he doesn't get disqualified from
(26:11):
the game, Greg, but his presence ends up becoming such
a huge part of how that game plays out. A
couple of balls that are batted down, including the two conversion,
and like Travis Kelcey looked a little bit more like
Travis kelce running routes, except on the play that could
have been a touchdown late where he scraped across the
(26:32):
middle kind of did that little walking start and then
the balls just a little bit too far out outside.
It was one of the few mistakes that you can make.
Patrick Mahomes form the game.
Speaker 4 (26:43):
Well, it's funny they seemingly were not on the same
page because Kelsey slowed down just a bit on his
shallow crosser and Mahomes obviously did not expect him to
slow down. I don't know if Kelsey thought it was
zone and he needed to sort of settle or I
don't know. Again, only those guys could tell you. But
(27:04):
the bottom line is is you don't see that very often.
But once again, Kelsey not a big factor. I mean,
he did catch that touchdown which was a schemed play,
clearly a schemed play that beat the defense. But he
was not a big factor in this game. And you know,
the Chiefs offensively, and I've noticed this the last couple
of years as well. The last couple of years. Don't forget,
(27:27):
they've not scored a ton of points per game relative
to what they did prior. They don't really and it
continued in this game. They have not really had any
kind of consistent intermediate passing game. It's all quick rhythm throws.
Mahomes gets the ball out, and then it's Mahomes making
Mahomes plays. I mean the brown forty nine yard are
(27:48):
late the fourth quarter, which you know, at that point
you probably think they're gonna score a touchdown and they didn't.
But you know, that's one of those Mahomes special plays,
which obviously he can do anytime in any game. And
his running dimension, the scrambling dimension. They don't usually do
design runs with him unless it's very situational, but his
scrambling element, you know, including the touchdown that he had
(28:10):
that that has become kind of a significant part of
their third down and longer yard or off large offense.
But they don't really have a real consistent intermediate pass game.
It's it's been kind of strange to watch these last
couple of years.
Speaker 2 (28:24):
Well, and the thought I guess coming into the year Greg,
is maybe we'd see a little bit of a difference. Instead,
you've got Rashi Rice suspended for the first six weeks
of the season, and then you lose Xavier Worthy on that.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
Crosser on the third play of the game as.
Speaker 2 (28:39):
He runs in and talk about again those those early
plays having so much meaning. You know, from the Thursday
game into Friday. Worthy goes down and we saw the
clips of the training staff, you know, and if you're
doing the lip reading, it sounded like he said, or
look like he said, it's really bad. So we'll see
(29:00):
exactly what that means for their long term. But I mean,
those are your two big weapons. Hollywood Brown comes out
and he becomes the de facto go to guy. Sixteen
targets in this game, Greg ten catches ninety nine, including
that that scrabble play. I mean Mahomes laying that ball
up back down.
Speaker 4 (29:15):
The keep that in mind, I mean he had ten
for ninety nine. Yeah, you'll lose that forty nine yarder.
I mean, he would he have nine for fifty. I
mean something you know along those lines.
Speaker 2 (29:24):
This is where you need those blocking wide receivers like
the Steelers have been known for all these years, or
guys like Brandon Marshall. Does he have any reps back
in there? He might be able to break him in.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (29:33):
And just to make your point, Mike, I mean on
that third and goal late in the game when they
had to kick the field goal, what was the play
he throws a fade to Brownlee. I bet a lot
of people don't even know who Brownly is. You know,
you know, so, I mean it's your Point's a good one.
But still, you know, the pass game, you have to
scheme the pass game as well. I mentioned the Kelsey touchdown.
(29:54):
You know, if you feel you don't have great receivers
that can win one all one because obviously the end
NFL in the past game is about a lot of
different things. Matchup being one of them, clearly, But if
you don't have those guys, then you've got to scheme it.
And from an intermediate perspective, we'll get to the Lions.
I'm sure at some point, you know, after we go
off today. But you know, they do an amazing job
(30:16):
scheming their pass game, and you know, we're guys who
you don't think of as great receivers, like the Tim
Patricks of the world, who obviously they traded, but you know,
guys like that become factors because of how well schemed
and designed and put together.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
It is Jason Brownlee, the second year man out of
Southern Miss. Yeah, because we got to tell the tale
of the tape. I like, you know, closing those off,
and maybe folks now are gonna say, how we're watched
Southern Miss a little bit more of that guy got
some run, all right, So I'm trying to celebrate every
hey Northwestern one on Friday, Greg, I don't get to
say that very often on these shows. I come in
(30:50):
on Sunday normally like yeah, yeah, a little a little
down one.
Speaker 1 (30:53):
You.
Speaker 3 (30:54):
I have to admit, Mike, I missed that. Who they beat?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
The Western Illinois Leathernecks.
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Go, oh a great name, A great one of my
favorite names. And I forget which California school? Who are
the ant Eaters? Do you remember that's one of those?
Speaker 3 (31:10):
Is it? Uc? I? Yes, there you go. The ant
Eaters always love that.
Speaker 2 (31:15):
There you go. Brianna, our executive producer, getting it done
marks on the ones and twos over our technical producer,
my team. It's good. It's good to like I get
up a little bit earlier, right, I've been working a
little latership, so I get to come back in and
see my people early in the morning. So it's a
good energy here. It's football season. And bring Rihanna to
for full disclosure, Greg, real quick, she's a Saints fan.
Speaker 3 (31:37):
Okay, well there you go.
Speaker 1 (31:41):
Oh yeah, yeah, I have a lot of faith in
Spencer Rattler.
Speaker 2 (31:46):
Greg, I'm not gonna lie.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Well, you have to have faith. You know, he's historic quarterback.
Thank you. If you're a fan, you have to have faith, right.
Speaker 2 (31:54):
Well, especially if it's the Saints, don't we have the
whole catch that kind of goes to that.
Speaker 4 (31:59):
I gotta tell you, Brianna, I actually thought in all
my study and you know, I don't know if you
know everything I do, but I'm a little nuts with
film study.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
You've been doing it for a long time.
Speaker 4 (32:08):
I thought Tyler Shuck had the best film of any
college quarterback after cam Ward this year. So we'll see.
My guess is he'll probably get some snaps this year. Okay,
of course, that's probably not what you want to hear,
because you want to hear that Spencer aratups having a
great season and they're doing really, really well.
Speaker 2 (32:25):
Well, we'll get to that game next hole. We'll bring
you back in on that. Like, there's several that are interesting,
maybe again only to me, but we're going to try
to sell, sell, sell.
Speaker 4 (32:36):
Well, hey, Mike, you're the host. If they're interesting to you,
we're good. I'll just follow your lead. You know, I
can talk about any game.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
Well, that's the beauty of it. We've got a rich
tapestry we're weaving here. Isaac Low and Kron starting to
check in. He's doing his stretching. He'll be at the
news desk here in short order. This is Fox Football Sunday,
Fox Sports Radio. I want to make one last quick point.
We got like what maybe one minute here Greg on
this particular blue the tail of the tape from both defenses,
(33:03):
Spags looks like he's really gonna have to work to
surmount any kind of pressure. Because one of the big
questions coming into the year was that Chargers offensive line
with no Rashaan Slater, and they acquitted themselves quite nicely. Conversely,
the fact that Mahomes had to scramble as often as
he did. Is a really good sign for minter and
what was a top scoring defense last year.
Speaker 4 (33:22):
I thought John Auld played a phenomenal game at left tackle,
and Pippins who's now Pipkins who's now at right tackle.
He was not exposed at all. They could not rush
the quarterback particularly well with their front four, which normally
they do. So again, it's week one. We don't want
to make a judgment for the whole season.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Absolutely, just a curiosity coming up of what we know
in the Super Bowl, so one to put a pin in.
And we'll be here each and every week here on
Fox Football Sunday and watch this great movie unfold. Maybe
it's like a mini series. I don't know however you
want to do it. But we're here in the Fox
Sports Radio studios, blessed to have you with us as
part of our extended family. And as we continue, we
(33:59):
got a couple of games that I think are really
interesting because while we're always looking for who's next, we're
talking about the Saints job and the order of succession. Well,
we got a couple of other quarterbacks that might be
playing for their futures as well. Who are they we'll
tell you next year on Fox. Welcome back in Fox
Sports Radio. It's Fox Football Sunday Live from the Fox
(34:20):
Sports Radio studios. Mike Harmon, Greg cosall with you. We're
just getting warmed up, working into a lather as we
head towards the first glorious set of kickoffs. Here week
one the National Football League season. We broke down the
first two games of the year. That means we've got
two hundred and seventy left. I've got a giant wall calendar, Greg,
and I cross him off like like days of a
(34:41):
diet or something.
Speaker 4 (34:42):
Well, good, I mean, now we got Sunday's matches. There's
a lot of good ones, by the way, I think.
I mean there were obviously two that already played, but
I think there are eight division matchups this whole first
week of the season, which is very rare.
Speaker 2 (34:54):
Well, and that's the curiosity. Let's stay there for a second,
because I mentioned the schedule, and look, I do a
lot of hand and ringing over it and probably spend
more time because eventually, look, they're gonna play the games.
You know, it's the you know, shut up and watch,
but you know you hear the fun from the Chargers
side of things. Of you know, they traveled more miles
for this Brazil game than the Bengals will travel all year,
(35:16):
just based on circumstance and schedule. But the Chargers play
three Division games right out of the gate, and I
don't know if that's good bad now, you know what
I mean. Like they've got the Raiders on Monday Night
Football in week two, and then they get Denver that
following week, and it's like, yet, some other teams won't
have a Division game till week seven or eight. And
(35:37):
then we push at the end of the year how
important they are. And in the final weeks when teams
are shells of themselves because of injuries, fracturing of locker rooms, whatever.
Now we're gonna jam several division games down the stretch.
Maybe you get that home other opponent road kind of sequencing, right, Well,
(35:58):
you play to the the same division upon it twice
in the final three weeks. Like I know, there's no
perfect formula to it all, but some of this just
in saying the Bears last year they played three games
against the AFC South right off the jump.
Speaker 4 (36:11):
And a lot of times too, it's the nature of
those games because think about it the Chargers just knowing
when the schedule came out, and obviously they're very familiar
with their division opponents. Although the Raiders become a different
team with a new coaching staff, but they obviously know
the Chiefs well. They prepared for them, and now they
do have the extra day or two. But they're playing
a team now in the Raiders next week that's totally
(36:34):
different in how their defense would go about playing. And
Jesse Minter's done a phenomenal job with that Chargers defense.
They are a very very good defense with a lot
of different things that they do well and a lot
of different personnel packages. Much of it dependent on Derwin
James and Henley. Henley is a linebacker not a lot
of people know about. He's a really good player. But anyway,
(36:56):
the point I'm making is they play a Chiefs team
that doesn't really run the ball. Chiefs did not run
the ball much at all on Friday night, and now
they're going to play a Raiders team that we assume.
Again we'll find out what happens today when the Raiders play,
but we assume the Raiders will be very much a
run first team. So you're you're you're sort of focused
and how you go about defending them becomes totally different.
Speaker 2 (37:17):
Looking at an awful lot of Ashton genty if things
play to projections out yeap tease it as a the referendum,
the you know, step one of what we what are
we looking at here for a couple of guys that
have been in the crosshairs in our national media and
certainly in their local media sphere because we get can
Alison Cohen with the Young and Lawrence battle a Trevor Lawrence,
(37:41):
a guy got his contract. Now he's got Travis Hunter
as his number two curiosity. Brian Thomas proving that hey,
you can find stats regardless of the decal on the
side of your helmet for you fantasy guys out there.
Uh and in the daily Fantasy and all that stuff.
Bryce Young had a nice close to the finish. So
that's one matchup that's on my radar. The other Daniel
Jones and your Indian Heppel his colts, not yours, Greg,
(38:04):
but the collectors. I'm adopting them here going up against
you a tongue of Iloa. Mike McDaniel, who this offseason
deadpanned about, Hey, you know, we're one day closer to death,
like he was listening to Pink Floyd before a media session.
So we got four quarterbacks that you know, we've got
very big narratives already written, I think for most of them,
and now we're looking for that next chapter.
Speaker 3 (38:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (38:26):
I think Trevor Lawrence is probably the most fascinating because,
you know, he got that moniker, which personally, I believe
anybody that says that term generational about a quarterbacks and
probably not have a job the next day. But he
got that moniker, you know, early on, because he was
great right from eighth grade or whatever he was, and
he struggled, but he's had really good moments. There's a
(38:48):
lot of things to like about Trevor Lawrence. When I
watch his tape, I feel like there's a mental toughness
to him. I think he's physically tough. I think there's
an aggressiveness to him. He's willing to make tough throws.
The one thing that I really think he needs to
improve on is he needs to become better as what
we call a post snap operator. Once the ball snapped
and the picture changes, he needs to become better at
(39:12):
recognizing that within the timing and structure of the play.
Speaker 3 (39:15):
Call.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
That's where I think the one area that he really
needs to improve to reach that next level.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Now on the other side of that game, Bryce Young
closed out strong Canalis. We saw what he worked when
he was at Tampa, and then last year we saw
growth expectations for him. Ted McMillan joins him and Hunter
Renfro assuming he can be that sit down guy on
third down with Chewba Hubbard in the backfield.
Speaker 3 (39:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (39:40):
Young had some really interesting matchups back to back last
year against two heavy blitzing teams in the Bucks and
the Chiefs, I believe, and he handled himself really, really well.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
So we'll see how that portrays and builds going forward.
More on those matchups, and then we've got a Sunday
night affair. Well, we've got all the accolades. Is this
the road to Levi's we'll find out.
Speaker 1 (40:02):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.
Speaker 2 (40:05):
Our two of the program begins. If you're just tuning
in affiliate picking up our four hundred five hundred, I
mean it's a dark, gantuan network here Fox Sports Radio,
the iHeartRadio app serious XM channel eighty three. However you're listening,
Welcome in the family. Is back together. It is week
one of your National Football League season. This is Fox
(40:27):
Football sundaylt Mike Carbon alongside me forty six years NFL films,
x's and o's. That's what he does. I's the believe
Colin refers to his segment each and every week. That's
right as the meat, there's fluff, there's other things. You
got your appetizers. And then Greg comes on and lays
down the hammer of what he's seen on tape. We're
(40:48):
blessed to have him with us, looking forward to a
very exciting campaign. That first hour was pure poetry in motion,
Greg cosal.
Speaker 4 (40:56):
Well, I guess that we set a standard, right, Mike,
Now we got a seed it. We have another hour.
Speaker 2 (41:02):
What's it we're gonna get even? Well, we got a
lot of big matchups and a lot lot more storylines because,
let me tell you, this offseason, only a couple of
teams really dominated. So starting today we actually talk about
what the other twenty seven ish man. There's a couple
that will reference every once in a while high Browns fans. No,
actually they ruled the off season anyway. Hey, look, Joe
(41:24):
Flacco may be a lead against this Cincinnati defense, though.
Speaker 4 (41:27):
Hey, Joe Flacco. You know what, He's from South Jersey,
here near where I am. So I've gotten to know
Joe over the years, and you know, I think he's
one of those guys that when he's seventy five years old, Mike,
he'll probably throw the ball the same way he throws
it right now.
Speaker 2 (41:39):
Still spinning it like no one Ryan when he comes
out for a first pitch, right an eighty five mile
an hour laser straight down the heart of the plate.
Speaker 4 (41:48):
Well, Flacco, he taught me something years ago, which you know,
once he said it, I probably knew it. But you know,
we've done some stuff with him. You know, I got
to know him a little bit, and he always said
that when it comes to arm strength, arm strength is
not throwing a deep ball, because most guys can throw
a deep ball. He said, arm strength is being able
to drive the ball between the numbers at let's say
twenty two to twenty five yards, where you've got to
(42:09):
throw it between people and you've really got to put
tremendous velocity on it. He said, that's what arm strength
really is.
Speaker 3 (42:15):
In the NFL.
Speaker 2 (42:16):
Co author the Games that changed the game, we try
to make everybody smarter, go find the book. He does
the NFL Matchup show. It's Darius Butler and South pal Antonio.
He's everywhere at Greg Cosell in the twitterverse. Find me
over at Swollendome. That's one of the fascinating games. We'll
get to the Marquee matchup of Sunday night here in
a second, Greg, But we had the five man. I mean,
(42:40):
it's usually a three three shell game, but a lot
of figures. They're in Cleveland for the quarterbacking position. But
Joe Flacco, the KG veteran, as you lay it out,
I mean, I love watching the guy play, and so
long as he's still on a football field, I don't
feel so old. So I hope he plays forever.
Speaker 3 (42:57):
Yeah, me too. I mean, Joe's look.
Speaker 4 (43:00):
The thing is, we know Joe He's going to force
some balls because that's just the way he plays. You know,
he's very confident in his arm, and you know, you
just hope he doesn't throw the two or three picks.
But he can make throws to this day that still
a lot of quarterbacks can't make.
Speaker 2 (43:13):
It's funny because that's one of the games. You know,
as people do their pick segments and everything else, it
becomes the and I know my partner Jason Smith during
the week at how about a fresco for those that
want to harass him during the Jets Steelers game. We'll
get to that one later. It's only a five point
spread at Cleveland. And we've seen the slow starts from
Cincinnati in the past, at least defensively. Yeah, they brought
(43:36):
back Hendrickson and your draft Sanders. I guess he's a
guy that showed he's willing to go to the wall
because he did hit Joe Burrow in a practice. But
beyond that, you've got a defense that suspect and a
guy like Joe Flacco can find Jerry Judy in some
of those deep threats to make this a game. How
does Cincinnati get away from what has been such as
(43:57):
troubled September year after year.
Speaker 4 (44:00):
Yeah, I mean, obviously defense is the number one question here.
We know what Burrow in that offense is. I mean,
I think they lost games last year, four or five
of them where they scored thirty three or more points.
That's unheard of. So this is a different defense with
Al Golden is now there is the DC. You always
hear the term while he's going to simplify it. I
think that's a bad term in terms of people's minds
(44:21):
because it makes it seem like the players aren't smart.
But I think when coaches do that, what they're trying
to do is they're trying to get the players to
be able to play fast all the time, not to
give them too much on their plate in terms of
what they're looking at. So, in other words, you don't
want to get caught up in an offense. Well, if
they're in this formation, we do this. If they're in
(44:41):
this formation, we do this. If we see this motion,
then we do this. You know, all coaches can coach
that and do that, but the players have to be
able to execute all that. And sometimes it's not a
function of intelligence. There's just too much on their plate.
So every defensive coordinator has rules. These are our rules
when we face certain things. So just play our rules
(45:03):
and now play fast instead of trying to really try
to decipher everything in our offense is doing. And I
think that's one of the things Al Golden is trying
to get done.
Speaker 3 (45:12):
There.
Speaker 2 (45:12):
So from the Battle of Ohio to a battle Sunday
Night football ISO for the world, we get Baltimore and
Buffalo again. You know, just to help inform the conversation,
fifty and a half is the over underline that has
been set. So get your popcorn. Get those fantasy lineups
replete with players on the off. These squads Baltimore missing
(45:34):
Isaiah Likely and Ricard, so a little bit of a
wrinkle there. But we look at Alan, we look at
Lamar Jackson, the accolades, but it all comes down. It's
kind of like being here in Los Angeles and all
the conversations that you have about the Dodgers, Greg, like,
all right, wake me up when it's October and it's
winning time. Yeah, it's kind of the same thing with
both of these quarterbacks at this point.
Speaker 4 (45:57):
You know, this is an intriguing game. There's two things
I would point to for this game. Number One, in
the divisional playoff game last year, something happened that probably
surprised everybody. The Bills dominated the game, running the football
against the number one run defense in the league in Baltimore,
and Baltimore's defense is still really really good. In fact,
that was not a Josh Allen game. Josh Allen only
(46:20):
threw for one hundred and twenty seven yards. They had
thirty six called runs in that game, Mike, and only
twenty three called passes, and they dominated the game on
the ground. My guess is that won't happen again. The
other factor is the secondary, the corner position for the Bills.
Due to injury, They're likely to start Dorian Strong, a
sixth round pick out of Virginia Tech, who, by the way,
(46:42):
I did his tape in detail coming out of VA Tech.
I really like this kid a lot, but he's a
rookie in this game. And don't forget Zay Flowers did
not play in that divisional playoff game a year ago.
So it'll be interesting to see the offensive approach by
the Ravens because Lamar Jackson has become so much better
throwing the football from the pocket. He's really good now
(47:04):
and Todd Monkin does an outstanding job with his concept.
So those two things stand out to me.
Speaker 3 (47:09):
In that game.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
We go back to last year and the questions. We
keep waiting for that cliff for Derrick Henry that never
seems to come. But you know, I'm a big believer
in giving proper credit to the offensive line line play.
We did it last hour talking about the Chargers. What
Joe Alt was able to do in place of the
inward Rashawn Slater and sliding over. Last year was the
(47:30):
first time that the Ravens had the luxury of a
healthy Ronnie Stanley. He's the anchor of what they've got
going again. So for Lamar Jackson, when you're looking at
that wide receiving corps, I don't think Mark Andrews is
going to drop a ball like that.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Again, No, no, And obviously, look, the Bills got ahead
in that game big with their run game, and then
of course the Ravens came back, and the Bills tried
to address their pass rush because it was not very
good last year with their four man d line, so
they tried to address that obviously in the offseason, bringing
in Joey Bosa, drafting in the second and fourth round,
two defensive tackles, so we'll see. Obviously, when you play Lamar,
(48:06):
your pass rush is totally totally different than it is
against other quarterbacks.
Speaker 3 (48:11):
So it's just a different animal.
Speaker 2 (48:13):
Going back to that lane contain that we talked about
with Chris Jones though as well, right, because he will
get out and make you pay with great regularity. But
one of the more intriguing matchups I mean, we just
got to like, right out of the gate, we just
got so many heavyweights on the slate here, Greg, be
remiss if we didn't give a couple of minutes, we
got Detroit and green Bay. Detroit new coordinators on both sides.
(48:36):
So Ben Johnson, we'll talk about him in a couple
of minutes after the commercials and what he's got going
on with Caleb Williams. Obviously Aaron Glenn gets his shot
with the Steelers. So a little bit of a question
as to, you know, a formulaically at least you know,
from a theory in us outside looking in, what we're
gonna see Green Bay makes the big splash from Micah Parsons.
(48:57):
You know, me being I love the business of all
of this, Greg, so like the nerd and me goes,
is that because Mark Murphy's not in charge anymore that
they went and made the Giants class. So philosophically, we're
going to go and make a trade and bring in
a guy with big money like that.
Speaker 4 (49:13):
Well, you know, as many games, Mike, this is one
of those games where we could spend an hour just
on this game.
Speaker 3 (49:17):
But let's look it. Let's look at Lions.
Speaker 4 (49:19):
Oh, Packers d You'd have to believe the Lions conceptually
will not be any different. The new coordinator, Johnny Morton
was there now and then it gets down to play
calling in a game. None of us know that, so
let's leave that alone.
Speaker 2 (49:31):
No offensive lineman plays, do you think, No, I'm just kidding.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
But let's think of it this way.
Speaker 4 (49:38):
What the Lions have done exceptionally well, and this has
been a staple of Ben Johnson. He's trying to do
this in Chicago is under center play action, which is
kind of not something a lot of teams do in
this league. Jared Goff last year had the most under
center play action dropbacks of any quarterback in the league.
He's really good at it. There's no quarterback in this
(49:59):
league that throws the ball better between the numbers at
the intermediate levels. I'm talking, let's say, sixteen to twenty
five yards than Jared Goff. That's the foundation of their
passing game. Jeff Hafley is the coordinator for the Packers.
He was there last year. He's basically a four down guy,
and they stunt an awful lot. That's what they do
on defense, particularly on third down. We don't know how
(50:22):
many snaps. Micah Parsons will play today because of the
back injury, but I think that that's what you'll see.
Speaker 3 (50:28):
A lot of.
Speaker 4 (50:29):
You'll see a lot of stunting. And one name to
keep in mind on their defense as this season progresses
is the second year linebacker Eddrian Cooper. He was a
great pass rusher at Texas A and M and last
year as a rookie had to get his feet wet.
But it would not surprise me if he becomes a
really important piece of their pass rush.
Speaker 2 (50:45):
It's going to be the curiosity, right. A lot of
injury and attrition there for Detroit a year ago, so
back and fully formed Hutchinson and everybody ready loaded for bear.
The other part that the Packers did maybe a little
out and maybe it gets over exaggerated because they used
to draft guys in the second round, but they draft
golden in the first for Jordan Love. I know last
(51:08):
year the graphic they needed like a second screen with
the number of guys, like look at all these guys
from the Packers that have four hundred yards right, Like
that's great, but do you have a guy when the
game is on the line that you trust. It looks
like they may have, at least on paper, found their guy.
Speaker 3 (51:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (51:22):
I loved his tape coming out. But the other interesting thing,
which we never know with the draft is I think
they drafted him in the twenties, right, That's where yeah,
I drafted Yeah. But for all we know, he might
have been a top ten player on their board and
then you get to the twenties and they just have
to draft the best player. So we don't know if
they drafted him because they felt like they had to
get better at receiver, or they just said to each
(51:42):
other when it came to their pick, Hey, this guy's
the ninth best player on our board. We got to
draft them. We don't know that that's the thing. But
I really like Golden. I thought he was an ascending
player in the second half of the season at Texas,
and I'm anxious to see him because Jordan Love is
another one of those guys that he's just in terms
of pure talent at the cour quarterback position. He's probably
top five or six in the league.
Speaker 2 (52:03):
One of the most intriguing matchups that one in the
late window for US replete with great matchups eight divisional matchups.
As you mentioned in hour one, Greg Let's get one
more matchup, Ben while we're here. We've got Tampa in Atlanta,
Michael Penis Junior, while Kirk Cousins waiting stews and waiting
for an injury or something new before or for a
(52:25):
team to just get fed up with their quarterbacking position
and obviously figuring out buyouts and all that fun business
out of it. But Tampa four straight years they've won
this division, looking to make it five with Baker Mayfield.
Speaker 4 (52:36):
Yeah, I think that's part of this matchup that intrigues
me the most is Todd Bowles and all his blitzing.
Always one of the highest percentage blitzing defenses in the league,
and he does it in so many different ways versus
Michael Pennix. But it's not only Michael Pennix. Remember, the
right tackle for the Falcons is out for the year,
so it's essentially a backup playing right tackle. But I
(52:57):
love Michael Penix and the way he plays. I've always
been partial based on film study for years and years
and studying the NFL to quarterbacks that are aggressive throwing
the ball at the intermediate and deeper levels, because I
believe that at some point you have to do that.
Now again, there's many variables that go with that. So
I don't want people to think that if a quarterback
doesn't do that, it means he can't be any good.
Speaker 3 (53:18):
But Pennix is very aggressive.
Speaker 4 (53:20):
He was like that at Washington, and it'll be interesting
in this game with all the pressure schemes that he
is likely to face, how that plays out. But he
throws a beautiful ball. They've got a solid, not great
receiving core, but solid. And you know, it's funny, Mike.
You know me, I'm sure I don't really make bold
controversial statements because I watched tape and this will probably
(53:42):
come across as a bold controversial statement, but to me, it's.
Speaker 3 (53:45):
Not at all.
Speaker 4 (53:46):
I think the most complete complete running back in the
league is Bjhon Robinson.
Speaker 2 (53:51):
He's a monster. Yeah. I always questioned a couple of
years ago, his rookie year. I just felt like he
was put in a box.
Speaker 3 (53:57):
Yeah, he's so good.
Speaker 4 (53:58):
He's great in past protection and that's something, of course,
that is part of a running backs responsibility. And he's
a really terrific receiver who is much more than just
a screen guy or a checkdown guy.
Speaker 2 (54:10):
You know what's funny The rookie premiere, right, So it's
a thing that they do out here in Los Angeles.
It's mutated over time, but once upon a time I
was one of the few guys that would go there
to cover it, right, because I bring him in for
all the trading guard shoots and everything, and guys would
just be hanging around, you know, signing cards and waiting
for their turn in front of the camera. And you
get a chance to sit down with them. And I'd
(54:30):
always ask the rookie running backs how much time they
were spending in front of the mirrors with their footwork.
And some guys got it immediately, was like, you kidding me.
Coach sent me the book and he's like, if I
can't do that, I'm not getting on the field. Right,
It's all about pass protection. The other some other guys,
you'd have to walk them all the way through and
really get through it. But some of them like, yeah,
(54:51):
I can run the football. I didn't have to do
much of that in college. So this is a different world.
Speaker 4 (54:55):
So you've seen Bejon in person. I saw him at
Radio Row with the Super Bowl this year in person,
and you know, just obviously in street clothes, not in
ut sure, and he freaking look like a linebacker.
Speaker 3 (55:05):
No, that's right, he is a big, big man.
Speaker 2 (55:09):
Yeah, it's uh the difference in me being you know,
I've got short guy, you know, fire plug body type.
So I cheer for guys like uh, you know, Kyler
Murray and all those guys because I need the little
guy to succeed sometimes Greg in its league of such bohemos.
Speaker 4 (55:25):
Well, then we'd probably be we'd probably be Mutt and
Jeff than Mike, because I'm I'm you know, I used
to be six four, but I think, you know, getting older.
Speaker 3 (55:32):
I think now I'm only six three.
Speaker 2 (55:33):
That's okay. We could probably we can get you that
inch back. There's plenty of plenty of things. And look,
we could just be making an NBA player and you
want to be six seven, we can do that.
Speaker 4 (55:42):
Hey, you know what my claim to fame is. In
high school, you know who? I went head to head again.
Now this is for the older people you'll probably remember.
Now I'm not saying you're old, but in high school
I went head to head against Ernie Grunfeld.
Speaker 2 (55:54):
Oh wow, now now we're talking that need needless.
Speaker 3 (55:57):
To needless to say he got the better of it.
Speaker 2 (56:01):
Fantastic run see, we'll let folks go in Wikipedia that
one the other back to just again trying to educate
and bring everybody in the level of acumen. Maybe folks
aren't aware Michael Penis Junior being a left handed quarterback,
which is why Greg called out the fact that they're
with a backup right tackle for the season on one
of the interesting plays. A guy with great expectations Tampa,
(56:23):
the Mike Evans. I think I was down there visiting
my folks a couple weeks ago. They were talking about
how much he was extolling the virtues of the TV
twelve diet. So maybe he'll play forever too.
Speaker 4 (56:34):
Right, Well, you know, it's funny. One of the things
they were great at last year and it's so critical
was red zone. Baker Mayfield through the third most touchdown
passes in the red zone. And obviously, now that you
mentioned Evans, they can score in the red zone in
multiple ways. There's usually two ways teams can score matchups,
which Evans gives you because of his size and schematics,
(56:54):
and they are really good with their schematics in the
red zone. Now, obviously they've got a new offensive coordinator
this year, so we'll see how that all plays out.
Speaker 2 (57:03):
You add a Buka to the receiving core. He picks
up while they work for God when they love back. Yeah, yeah,
potential for some great things for him. And then you
got Bucky Irving in the Backfield's also on one of
my other lists of guys that I love because he
holds grudges for all the teams passing on him. Like
I'm on Ross Saint Brown. Here's all the backs that
were taking ahead of me. Yeah, here's all the wide receivers.
(57:25):
I like guys that play with that chip and motivator.
Speaker 4 (57:28):
Yeah, and Rashad White's a really good receiver the other backs,
so they've got a really nice, complimentary backfield. They even
get Sean Tucker out there once in a while. But
Buka is fascinating. I listened to him speak at the
podium at the Combine. That kid sounds like a ten
year pro. He's just one of those guys you knew
walking away from hearing him speak.
Speaker 3 (57:45):
This guy's gonna make it, without a question.
Speaker 2 (57:47):
Fantastic stuff. We're ready for Week one of your National
Football League season two hundred and seventy more glorious games
to keep us rolling, be sure to subscribe to the
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(58:07):
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extended family as we roll through. Coming up next, I've
filibustered long enough. It's time to break down the Bears.
Great Cosel, Mike Harmon. This is Fox Football Sunday on
(58:29):
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 1 (58:30):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live. Welcome back in Fox Football Sunday. Fox Sports
Radio working into a lather.
Speaker 2 (58:48):
Couple more hours, Yeah, that countdown clock towards the beginning
of another arduous campaign. We got you covered here Fox
Sports Radio, no question about it. Coming up in a
half hour, you got Countdown to Kick, presented by Bet
MGM with Brian Jeff and Bill as they get you
set through some of the different angles and a different
lens of different prism with me, I'm Mike Rman alongside
(59:11):
Greg Cosell, NFL Films forty six years, the godfather of
x's and o's. There you go. I'm putting you in
a suit and I'm gonna I'm gonna have a string
quartet playing in the background with some of the takes.
Speaker 3 (59:22):
What do you think, just as long as you don't
kiss my hand, No that's right.
Speaker 2 (59:25):
No, no, no, that's you know, pay tribute other way,
say I'll send you some Chicago pizzas or something. As
we get things going, you got the YouTube channel, you
got everything going on on Twitter at Greg Cosell. Check
out some of his latest breakdowns and obviously evangelize what
we do here. We've got two hours each and every
Sunday to break down games and I fill abustered long enough. Greg.
(59:47):
Over the course of the summer, you know, we talk
about the good, the bad, the ugly of games and
coverage in this league and what gets overblown, over hyped
and overcooked. And my beloved Chicago Bears have certainly fit
all of those criterion for this year. As Ben Johnson
takes over and Caleb Williams a guy that you know
(01:00:08):
based on who he is, the college resume, a little
bit of I guess, the flamboyancy when you talk about
painting your nails that you know, blue collar town Chicago.
You got some division over that before he even takes
a snap. And then coming off of last year, which
there were some highs, right you look at if you
(01:00:28):
just take the line score of his stats other than
a little bit of a low completion percentage to say, well,
it looks pretty good, right touchdown to interception ratio, I
say he didn't take enough chances, which he absorbed too
many sacks. So while that offensive line wasn't good, he
also didn't get rid of the ball. Here's here's a
clip Greg before we get into the what you've seen
on tape from Ben Johnson of his expectations.
Speaker 6 (01:00:50):
He's so young, you know, and there's there's a lot
he's learning, but he's a sponge right now. I mean,
he was up in my office a couple of days
ago and we watched a couple games together and he's
just the entire time anything I would say, I see
him jotting it down in his notebook, and so that's
an encouraging thing right now.
Speaker 3 (01:01:06):
With where we're at, We're going to grow together.
Speaker 6 (01:01:07):
This offense is going to grow together with him, and
you know, there would be some bumpy steps along the way,
but that's okay.
Speaker 3 (01:01:13):
That's that's the nature of doing it.
Speaker 6 (01:01:15):
But I feel really good about where he's at right now,
and there's no reason why we can't win this year.
Speaker 2 (01:01:21):
A lot of big time players. They bring in Luther Burden,
they had Roma Dunza and Dj Moore, you add Lovelin
from Michigan the backfield. You've got three running backs that
look like they can fit the bill if they need to.
A ton of attention to the offensive line, and then
you bring in Ben Johnson to help him unlearn things
from a year ago and add concepts including that under
(01:01:45):
snap under center kind of play that really has not
been part of his arsenal to date. So yeah, really
trying to relearn the quarterback position on the fly would
seem to me, Greg.
Speaker 3 (01:01:56):
And that's correct.
Speaker 4 (01:01:57):
And you know, I don't know if you saw this,
I'm sure a lot of people listening. Did the quarterback
series that we do at NFL Films this past show
that had Jared Goff, Joe Burrow, and Kirk Cousins. But
at the beginning of episode three, there was about a
five to seven minute opening where all they did, all
three guys, going back and forth, back and forth, back
and forth. All they did was talk about what happened
(01:02:19):
before the ball was even snapped. Okay, think about that
for a minute. That's called the operational part of playing quarterback.
That is the number one key thing that Caleb Williams
must master in a Ben Johnson offense because very often
there are multiple play calls in the huddle, then there
are alerts, and then in the Ben Johnson offense, there's
(01:02:39):
a lot of shifts and motions. So Williams has to
master all that mike so he can get to the
line of scrimmage when there's still ten eleven to twelve
seconds on the play clock, so that the shifts and
the motions can happen, so that he can investigate and
research the defense and understand what he's looking at. All
this has to happen before the ball's even snapped, and
(01:03:02):
that is a really critical off and overlooked part of
quarterbacking that is absolutely essential in a Ben Johnson offense.
That Caleb Williams has to master and that's why one
of the things, one of the reasons why Ben Johnson
says they'll be bumpy parts because as you get into
a game and the coach starts calling different plays and
whatever based on the game and how it's progressing. That's
(01:03:25):
where Caleb Williams has to be able to assimilate that
in a heartbeat well.
Speaker 2 (01:03:28):
And you also don't get any favors right off the jump.
You get a divisional matchup Monday night football, primetime television
with all of the chaos and noise around this change
and what Caleb Williams had as a rookie, and you
get Brian Flores.
Speaker 4 (01:03:44):
When you get Brian Flores, and you're right, and Brian
Flores is a master at showing all these front looks
with five, six, seven on the ball on the line
of scrimmage and sometimes five rush, sometimes six rush, sometimes
three rush. So there's a lot that goes from the
pre snap to the post snap where the picture totally changes.
(01:04:06):
Now we're getting to the post snap phase of playing quarterbacking.
So you have the pre snap phase. Now we're getting
to the post snap phase. And when you open the
season with Brian Flores. That's a difficult thing. Although in
the first matchup last year against Brian Flores, and I
know it wasn't Ben Johnson. I thought Caleb Williams handel
himself very very well in that first matchup, not quite
as well in the second matchup.
Speaker 2 (01:04:27):
Yeah, a lot of it to me watching him and
going back and really probably spending way too much time
watching it for my own mental health. Off it, Greg
was the just decision that the plays guys make as
collegiate athletes. And we've seen it with so many We
watched it just the other day. You know, Mahomes scrambling.
(01:04:48):
Most of the time it worked. Sometimes you take that
fifteen yard sack that Caleb would find himself doing that right,
that spin back that always called the video game move
because they used to have the glitch in the the
early games where if you ran back twenty yards and
then you let it go, it was like firing a cannon.
So Caleb was doing a lot of that, hoping, wishing
(01:05:08):
that containment would be broken and he'd stay up long enough,
and instead it became deep sacks, putting them behind the marker.
Speaker 4 (01:05:15):
Well, it's funny because I think most people think that
sacks are on the old line, and listening to Tom
Brady last year do games and he knows a little
bit more about this than I do. I would say,
and he said that basically ninety nine percent of quarterback
sacks are on the quarterback and teams have done studies
over the years, Mike that quarterbacks that get sacked a
(01:05:35):
lot in college, that trend tends to continue in the NFL. Now,
obviously Ben Johnson is acutely aware of that, so he's
going to really work on that to make sure that
Caleb Williams plays within timing and structure. Even if you
throw the check down, whatever it is, get the ball out.
This is the NFL. You're not going to run around
and you're certainly not going to retreat backwards. You can't
(01:05:57):
do that in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (01:05:59):
What I can't wait to say he is a shot
chart at the end of a game that doesn't look
like it did most of last year Greg, which was
five yards behind the line of scrimmage and five yards
in front of it. That maybe there are some shots
downfield odd time and accuracy a little more frequently than
what we watched.
Speaker 4 (01:06:16):
And the other parts you mentioned is playing under center,
because that's an important piece of Ben Johnson offense because
the play action pass game under center, where you turn
your back to the defense MIC, that's a learned trait
because in the NFL, the defense is not in the
same position before you turn your back as it is
after your you know, when you come back and look
(01:06:38):
at them after you've turned your back, so you know
this is These are all things that Caleb Williams has
to learn.
Speaker 2 (01:06:43):
Now.
Speaker 3 (01:06:43):
The bottom line is, though he is a beautiful throw
over the football, I mean it is.
Speaker 4 (01:06:48):
It is as pretty to watch as any quarterback in
the league, the way he throws a football.
Speaker 2 (01:06:52):
Well, let's go on the other side of the matchup
because the first look, we're going to get at JJ
McCarthy in a big way against this Bears defense. No
Addison he suspended the first couple of weeks. You got
justin Jefferson, you got Howkinson, you got Jones in the
backfield with Mason, so you've got your weaponry around him.
What are you expecting to see out of McCarthy and
(01:07:14):
what the Minnesota offense sets up.
Speaker 4 (01:07:16):
It's hard to know, though. Kevin O'Connell's really good, and
i'll tell you one thing that stood out to me.
I watched McCarthy in college, you know, when he came out,
and there were some concerns I had with his footwork,
with his drops in the first preseason game, and that
was the only game he played, which was last year. Obviously,
Kevin O'Connell fixed that all summer. Everything was smoother. And
(01:07:37):
Kevin is so good with quarterbacks and the mechanics of
the position, something that's often overlooked as well. So I
don't know what to expect from McCarthy, Mike, Honestly, I
don't know. I can't yet. I just don't know the
answer to that. But I guarantee that in a lot
of the mechanics and fundamentals of the position, he will
have improved.
Speaker 2 (01:07:55):
Well, it's the beauty of the curiosity of it, right
because at Michigan it wasn't put on his shoulder. He
made the throws he needed to, but because he didn't
have gaundy numbers and statistics, there's just a lot of well,
we don't know. It's like, well, he's still threw more
passes than a lot of these other guys that have
been drafted his first round picks. So now coming off
(01:08:15):
an injury, and certainly a fourteen win season, you know,
the expectations are there. We would expect a bit of
a regression in that win total to reflect it in
the marketplace, right, all those one score victories and narrow escapes.
But Sam Darnold that I think got short shrift for
his run last year. I mean, it didn't end well,
But I also don't know At times going back and
(01:08:38):
watching it, I haven't you know, checked back on that,
you know, as we get ready for this year. But
in the moment, I thought maybe he got a little
bit of a bad play. Not that he was great,
but I don't think that the play calling and situationally
they did him a lot of favors. And now he
goes to Seattle to try to restart there.
Speaker 4 (01:08:58):
Well, it's interesting you mentioned that just as a quick segue.
One reason they wanted Sam Donald is because, just like
in a Ben Johnson offense, Kevin O'Connell's offense had a
ton of under center play action and Donald was phenomenal
at it last year in Minnesota. And Clint Kubiak is
now the OC in Seattle, and he comes from that
kind of Shanahan school where the quarterbacks under center quite
(01:09:20):
a bit, and so they wanted Donald as opposed to
Gino Smith because Donald was so good at it last
year in Minnesota, and it fit Kubiak's whole offensive philosophy,
which is kind of his own run game and the
play action pass game off of that.
Speaker 2 (01:09:34):
So we got a couple more quarterbacks we want to
break down and games as we're here in week one,
and we'll do that in a few minutes, But first
we go over to the newsdask first time today, working
up a big lather. He's got an angel City FC
game later on this afternoon. It's the Legend, the Man,
the Myth. It's Isaac Low and Gron.
Speaker 7 (01:09:54):
Thank you, Mike, Good morning to you and Greg. We
have some fresh NFL quarterbacking news. The Arizona Cardinals have
just added quarterback Kyler Murray to their injury report for
their game today at New Orleans due to illness. However,
Murray does not have a game status and the Cardinals
said he will play. Murray in fact, arrived at the
Superno moments ago wearing what can best be described as
(01:10:15):
oversized georts, So even though his game status is not questionable,
his fashion sense apparently.
Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
Is anyway, given his size, aren't those just pants?
Speaker 7 (01:10:25):
It could be borrowed from Gardner Minshew, well, you got
to get some style. We will be doing a deep
dive into that elsewhere. Detroit Lives receiver Jamison Williams has
agreed to a three year extension worth up to eighty
three million dollars. In college football, on Saturday night, Mississippi
State knocked off twelfth ranked Arizona State twenty four to twenty.
Blake Shape at the game, but fifty eight yard touchdown
(01:10:48):
pass to Brennan Thompson with thirty seconds to go. Eighteenth ranks,
Oklahoma defeated number fifteen Michigan twenty four to thirteen, despite
Michigan running back Justice Haynes running for one to twenty five.
In Major League Baseball, on Saturday night, Los Angeles Dodgers
pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto was one out away from a no
hitter at Baltimore when the Oriols Jackson Holiday broke it
(01:11:11):
up with a home run. The Oriols would then go
on to score three more times at the bottom of
the ninth inning to stun the Dodgers four to three.
Padres one in Colorado ten to eight, so they trailed
the Dodgers by one in the NL West and cal
Rawleigh his major league leading fifty second home run in
the Seattle Mariners eleven to two triumph at Atlanta.
Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Mike and Greg all yours at Isaac Low and cron
where you find him in the Twitter verse. Look, it's
an NFL show, But I got to editorialize that play
with the holiday home run for a second. I don't
know if you saw this. Greg. Ball goes up and
it's barely clearing the wall. Right fielder made no effort.
You got two outs in a no hitter in the ninth,
you're up three to nothing, and you're gonna look to
(01:11:53):
play the karm instead of trying to go after a
ball that they had to argue for a minute that
it actually cleared the wall. You're running last, You be
running laps like fran Brown had Syracuse after the win
against Yukon.
Speaker 3 (01:12:06):
Yeah, I did not see that. I did not see
the highlight.
Speaker 2 (01:12:09):
Unbelievable. We got guys diving into the stands, fighting fans whatever,
and to try to preserve a no hitter for a dude,
and then you go on to lose the game. Dodgers,
losers of five straight in a division nobody wants to win,
the NL West. Will continue with that later on in
the day. Maybe there'll be some baseball that finds its
way back into the show. But we've got more football
(01:12:32):
to talk about. Kyler Murray now on the injury list
with the illness, he's a curiosity. Bo Nicks and then
two quarterbacks making their last stand. Let's talk about all
of those quarterbacks in the particulars. Next, he's Greg Cosel
on Mike Harbin. It's Fox Football Sunday on Fox Sports Radio.
Welcome back in final a couple minutes of us here
(01:12:54):
for our run Fox Football Sunday. Blessed to be with you,
Thanks for being with us. In this inaugural episode, Mike
Harmen alongside Greg co Cell NFL films forty six years.
He's got the NFL Matchup Show. Check him out at
Greg co Cell in the Twitter verse. Anything else you
want to plug, any meet and greets, any sandwich places
(01:13:14):
you like or anything.
Speaker 4 (01:13:15):
And Mike, it's that time of year. I just go
home and I come to work. You know, it's that
time of year.
Speaker 2 (01:13:21):
Did they just put a tray out in front of
your door for your office.
Speaker 4 (01:13:25):
No, I've got a little mini refrigerator, so I don't
leave my office very often.
Speaker 2 (01:13:29):
You know, I understand that the hydration. Like folks always say,
don't you really love football season? I'm like, I love it,
but I recognize what it does to me mentally and
physically over the course of the next twenty weeks.
Speaker 3 (01:13:40):
Well, i'd always say yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:13:42):
People always say to me, i'd love your job, and
then I tell them I work seventy seventy five hours
a week and they say, I'm not really sure I
want to do that.
Speaker 2 (01:13:48):
Well, that's what it takes, and that's longevity in the
business comes on the heels of a lot of hard
work put in. So we appreciate it making us smarter.
One of the things is we're talking with the crew.
We've got Chris and Brionna making us sound so pretty,
with Isaac at the news desk, and we'll get their
opinions as we get and build the show, you know,
(01:14:09):
their respective teams and info. But as we're talking like terminology,
I think we're going to end up building the Greg
Cosell Dictionary is what we're kind of planning here.
Speaker 4 (01:14:19):
Well, I want to make sure, we're clear, you know,
we're just talking ball, so but we want to get
in you know, I always feel like we want to
get into the x's and o somewhat instead of just talking,
you know, around the surface, because that's what I do.
Speaker 3 (01:14:28):
I say every day.
Speaker 4 (01:14:29):
I think I watched Tate probably three hundred and fifty
days out of the year, Mike, So.
Speaker 2 (01:14:33):
That's I mean, I do that with Law and Order episodes.
So like we're kindred spirits.
Speaker 3 (01:14:39):
Just is that the Special Victim Unit or the first
Law and Order.
Speaker 2 (01:14:43):
I'm usually a Jerry Orbach original Law and Order kind
of guy.
Speaker 3 (01:14:47):
Okay, Yeah, I liked him.
Speaker 2 (01:14:48):
I liked him, yeah, you know, and as I'm older,
I'm now understanding his character and dirty dancing even more
so all of it. See, it all comes together, right,
it's all perspective. You want to continue, all right? We
got a couple last things we want to get to here, Greg,
before we get out, we mentioned Kyler Murray, a guy
that you know, a lot of expectations. We talked with
(01:15:09):
Trevor Lawrence and others. Before You've got a rededication to
the defense where they drafted a ton you have Marvin
Harrison Junior who inconsistent rookie year, I guess would be
the way to tag it. Trey McBride with the statistical
anomalies of the fear of the painted grass, all right,
it schematically and height and all that come in in
(01:15:30):
terms of throwing windows, James Connor, how much mileage is
left on the tread? Can Trey bents and be the
guy to work alongside him. But Arizona team that really
intrigues me this year.
Speaker 3 (01:15:41):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (01:15:42):
They obviously because Jonathan Gannon being the head coach and
a defensive guy, they've really tried to do a lot
with that defense. They do a couple of things on
defense too. This I won't get into the weeds on
because you almost have to see it, but they do
some really cool things on the back end, which is
really has an impact more on the run game, believe
it or not, than the pass game. But he is
one of the most fascinating guys I've watched over these
(01:16:02):
last couple of years. I've always come away feeling that
I was uncertain as to what he is. You know,
obviously he has two or three unbelievable games Mike every season,
and usually those games result from him making improvisational second
reaction plays. He's not consistently decisive in his reads, and
that's a problem for a shorter quarterback because the result
(01:16:25):
of that is that he'll create his own pressure by
holding the ball too long, and then that brings his
lack of size into play, because then the bodies get
too close to him, and because of his size, that
becomes a big issue.
Speaker 3 (01:16:37):
So he needs to.
Speaker 4 (01:16:38):
Become quicker with his reads, get rid of the football.
He can't just rely on the fact that he can
make special plays with his legs.
Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
If you missed any of today's show, check out the podcast.
Search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your podcast. Look
for Fox Sports Weekends, Fox Football Sunday. Look for Cosell
and Harmon. Right after the show, today's podcast gets posted.
Brianna working on that as as we speak. Be sure
to follow it, rate, give it five stars, give some commentary,
and then of course evangelize. We're trying to make this
(01:17:06):
a global enterprise even bigger. Send it to friends and family.
I'll thank you, I'll do a walking tour and give
you a big fat hug. Search Fox Sports Radio wherever
you get your podcast. You'll find today's show posted right
after we get off the air. Also a reminder coming
up in about ten minutes from now, you've got Countdown
to Kickoff, presented by Bett MGM. You've got Brian no,
Bill Krackenberger and Jeff Schwartz again taking you to a
(01:17:30):
different lens to make you smarter as you're making your
plays and talking about the betting lines for today's events
and tomorrow's big Monday Night finale. A couple last guys
to get to here, Greg, we got Kyler Murrow, we
check him. We've got one guy in year two and
boon Nix with Sean Banton and what we've seen brilliant
(01:17:51):
year one. What's the encore?
Speaker 3 (01:17:53):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (01:17:54):
Well, what I really loved about bon Nixon, it probably
surprised a lot of people, maybe even including myself based
on his college tape, was his his arm strength. His
ability to make those between the numbers throws that's sort
of the eighteen to twenty five intermediate level was really
really good. And I got a chance to speak to
(01:18:14):
bow Knicks before the draft last year, and I'm sure
this is one reason why Sean Payton drafted him. Bow Knicks,
unlike almost every college quarterback, Mike he called his own
protections and that's very, very rare for college quarterback, so
he was probably pretty advanced in his view of how
to play the quarterback position.
Speaker 2 (01:18:32):
I got a guess to some degree, you would have
the chess match then between Sean Payton and Sean McVay
of who wanted to fight for him in that regard.
Mcvay's got a quarterback on the other end of that
spectrum in Matthew Stafford. Jimmy Garoppolo also in the building.
But they've got a big week one with Houston coming
to town in a pass rush that may make that
back tighten up really fast.
Speaker 4 (01:18:54):
Let me tell you something, both teams have pass rushes.
Let's go with the Rams for a secon because that
really intrigues me. Their four man d line pass rush.
They stunt a ton. They're all really good athletes.
Speaker 3 (01:19:06):
And keep this in mind.
Speaker 4 (01:19:07):
The reason that they changed the Texans did their entire
old line pretty much is they gave up the most
third down sacks a year ago. Stroud was sacked the
most on third down and they could not handle stunts
at all. And they're going to get a heavy dose today.
Speaker 2 (01:19:23):
Last one really quick for you. We'll leave Russell Wilson
and Jackson Dart for another time. We'll do that next week.
Speaker 3 (01:19:29):
Sure we've got to play a little Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:19:30):
We've exactly. We've got Aaron Rodgers against the Jets, his
old team. This one's a fun one for a lot
of the headlines. How does it play well?
Speaker 4 (01:19:38):
The big issue for me? The big issue is Rogers
and the coordinator, Author Smith, because Rogers is so smart
before the snap. What's the balance between Smith calling the
game and Rogers controlling the game.
Speaker 2 (01:19:50):
Oh, maybe they'll fight on the sidelines. This will be great.
It's Greg Cosell making us smarter, all right. He's going
to go off to his lab at Greg Cosell find
me at Swollen Dome. Countdown to kick OFFF next on
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