September 15, 2026 • 26 mins
On today’s episode, Jason discusses the Denver Broncos' miserable defensive performance in their Monday Night Football loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, whether it's fair to say that Kansas City won in spite of a clearly lesser-version of Patrick Mahomes, why scoring was up across the NFL in Week 1, and whether we should believe the story that Drew Brees almost came out of retirement to play for Denver in the 2026 AFC Championship Game.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up, Straight Fire fam? It's me, Jason McIntyre,
Straight Fire. For Tuesday, September the 15th.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It is a dismal morning. If you were a Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Broncos backer last night, holy hell, they got smashed. Broncos
looking extra fraudulent, as everybody kind of knew after last
year's luck box trip to the AFC title game. They
get smashed in Kansas City, 31-10. And I mean, this
was a beatdown of epic proportions. I didn't see it coming.
Bo Nix basically peed down his leg the entire game.
(00:46):
I could not believe how bad Bo Nix was. Three fumbles,
lost one, recovered another. Terrible interception. 131 yards passing. Sacked
four times. Bo Nix could not do anything against a
rebuilt Kansas City defense. I mean, honestly, if I asked you,
Rob G., name five guys on the Chiefs defense before
(01:08):
the game, you would have been like, okay, Nick Bolton.
I know they brought LeJarrius Snead back. Obviously, Chris Jones.
And then it's like, who do they have? I know
Spags is a genius. But let's just call it what
it is. Davis Webb was a disaster for the Broncos.
And here's the worst part. You know, I think we
called this when the schedule came out and they announced
(01:29):
Davis Webb is the new OC going to call plays
because they had to keep him or he would have
gone to, I don't know, freaking Carolina or whatever. So
essentially they have to now host Jacksonville. Then, and that's
by the way on a short week, then they host
the Rams on Sunday Night Football. Then they traveled to
San Fran at the Chargers, home against Seattle, who will
(01:52):
have Sam Darnold back. We know that six-game stretch is rough.
I was thinking, okay, if they could get to 500,
you know. But the defense was horrible. The defense carried
them last year. And then Bo Nix was able to
conjure up some touchdown drives. The defense was bad. The
tackling was horrific. I mean, if you are a Denver
Broncos fan, after going to the AFC title game, you
(02:13):
probably could have sold yourself. You know, if we had
Bo Nix... We probably beat the Patriots in the snow.
And then it's defense on defense in the Super Bowl.
And I like our chances.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
But no. Nix gets hurt. And now he comes back.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He looks, I mean, he looks shot. And it's not
like the Chiefs were great. They basically rode Kenneth Walker,
who was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
173 yards for Kenneth Walker on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
18 yards for Kenneth Walker through the air. Yes, math majors,
that is 191 yards of offense for Kenneth Walker. The
entire Broncos team had a buck 76. So we knew
what Kenneth Walker was going to do. You can now
line up Patrick Mahomes under center and sell the play
action because you got to respect Kenneth Walker, who's a
(03:01):
tackle breaking machine. And then Walker's just running up the
middle left, right? I mean, they basically just force fed him.
I thought it was a bit much 23 carries and
three receptions. So 26 touches for Kenneth Walker for a
team that's going to the playoffs and Again, you extrapolate
that over 10 games. That's 260 touches for Kenneth Walker.
(03:24):
That is way too many. And that's only like a
little more than half the season. And I know, oh, gee,
you're going overboard. You did this with Gibbs. I'm just saying,
you can't do this with running backs now. They break
down in this league. So yeah, Kenneth Walker's nice. They
lost the cornerback, Delane, to an injury. I think he
had a pick on that. Yeah, he had the pick
on Bo Nix. And then he left with an injury.
(03:46):
I just look at this KC team and I'm like,
I don't see the talent. You know, Rasheed Rice, Xavier Worthy, Thornton,
none of them were really doing anything. And if you
want a hot take, you know, Mahomes, again, first game
back from ACL, I'm not overreacting. He just doesn't, I
feel like he's gained weight. And I know that sounds harsh,
(04:06):
but he just doesn't look as fast and slender as
he used to. And I guess it's understandable recovering from
an ACL, but it's tough for me to bash them
when they win 31-10. But I'll just say this, Rob G.
The Broncos did not look ready for primetime. And we know, guys, historically,
we've had Aaron Schatz on plenty. Defense, year to year,
is not sticky. It's really tough for a defense to
(04:29):
duplicate awesomeness back-to-back years. That's what the numbers say. Offense,
it hums. You've got the OC, you're rocking and rolling. Defense,
not so much. And if we saw two teams, Rob,
whose defenses last year were epic, the Houston Texans, and
the Denver Broncos. And Denver got kind of gashed by
(04:50):
basically Patrick Mahomes and Kenneth Walker.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
They couldn't tackle.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
They missed the tackle on Travis Kelsey, who rumbles for
59 yards, and Tom Cruise is celebrating with Taylor Swift.
And then you saw the Texans just get housed by
Josh Allen. Now, again, Allen and Mahomes are two of
the best in the league, but if you're hanging your
hat on defense and you're getting smoked giving.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Up 30-plus, folks.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
you got some problems and you got to fix the offense.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I don't know, Rob.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Obviously, Kenneth Walker looked good, but to me, this says
a lot more about the Broncos than it does the Chiefs.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I mean, that's fair. I mean, if you just look
at one stat, we'll call it two. The missed tackle
rate there for Denver was obscene. According to NextGenStats, they
missed 28 tackles on Monday night. And according to NextGenStats,
Those 28 missed tackles led to 248 missed tackle yards,
(05:46):
the most in a single game in their database's history.
What's more, they missed tackles on almost just under 30%
of their plays. That is the third worst single game
score in the system's history since 2018. So the Denver Broncos,
(06:08):
who fancy themselves a defensive-minded unit, That's where their bread
is buttered. That's what they are best known for. They
get after the quarterback. They play great defense. They're opportunistic
on offense. And that defense did not show up at
all last night at Kansas City. Nick Bonito was invisible.
Pat Sertan never heard his name. Maybe that's because they
(06:30):
didn't have to pass very much. He never heard his
name at all. It was all bad for Denver. And
it's part of the reason why I told you this
before I said on my own podcast. This team is
primed for a big step back because everything that we
thought we liked about the Denver Broncos last season is
not repeatable. I hate to say it, folks, but they
(06:52):
won that division. They made the AFC championship by the
skin of their teeth. They were historically lucky last year
on multiple fronts. First, the big thing, of course, Patrick
Mahomes misses half the season with a knee injury. The
Chargers lose both their starting offensive tackles. So you're elevated
to first in the division almost by default. You can't
count on that. As much as injuries are part of football,
(07:14):
you cannot bank on your opposition being hurt for you
to be good and for you to win. Here's the
other thing. Denver tied an NFL record last season, going
11-2 in one-score games. Just ask the aforementioned Chiefs if
that kind of thing is repeatable. A couple years ago,
they made the Super Bowl. I think they won like
nine straight one-score games last season. I think they lost
(07:36):
six straight, right? Here's the other thing. Of their 14
wins last season in Denver, 12 of them were comeback wins.
At a minimum, you're cutting that number in half. You
cannot expect to fall behind every game and come back
and win. You cannot expect to be in a one-score
(07:56):
game and always find a way to win that one. Eventually,
you're going to run into a game like tonight, or
excuse me, last night rather, where your defense doesn't have it,
or in this case, your offense doesn't have it, and
both sides don't have it. You can't come back. You
can't slow him down on defense. What do you have?
You have a disgruntled head coach, a green offensive coordinator,
(08:17):
and a quarterback who looked just as hobbled as the
other guy who's coming off a torn ACL.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
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Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, when you put it that way, I had to
look at the Chiefs' schedule, Rob. So they host the
Colts Sunday night football. Colts basically got gashed left and
right by Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry. I'm guessing Kenny
Walker's going to be in line for another big game.
Then they're at Miami, which is, you know, a bad team.
Then they are at Vegas, which, you know, I don't
(08:59):
think we think is a good team.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And then the bye week.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So the Chiefs almost certainly will be 4-0 going into
the bye. coming out against the Chargers. I don't know
if the Chargers are good, Rob. We didn't get to
talk Sunday.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Are the Chargers good? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And then at Seattle, at Denver, you know, the Jets
look kind of plucky. But this is a favorable first
11 weeks, and we could be looking at an 8-3
Chiefs team. Just because they're not... Who are they going
to lose to?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I don't really know who's good.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But I do know that Indy, Miami, and Vegas are not. And,
you know, Atlanta... Maybe they'll get their act together by mid-November,
but Jets, you think Patrick Mahomes is scared of them?
You think Spags is losing sleep over the quarterback lineup
of Geno Smith, Michael Penix, and Jacoby Brissett? So I
don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I think, unfortunately... Well, let's hunker down on your first
part of that question. Is Patrick Mahomes scared of any
of those teams? Of course not, right? Given his pedigree,
he's not scared of anybody. He'll see... Josh Allen line
up in front of him, and he thinks, I beat
you every time in the playoffs. I'm not worried about you.
I see Lamar Jackson beat you every time, too. The
only one who gives me problems, apparently, is Joe Burrow
and Jalen Hurst. But does that Patrick Mahomes even still
(10:12):
exist anymore? Because the final numbers don't do it justice
how poorly he played. 15 of 27, 184, two touchdowns,
a pick, sack twice. The pick was one of the
worst interceptions you'll see all weekend. One of those touchdowns
was a glorified handoff to Kenneth Walker. And 59 of
those yards came on a busted coverage where Travis Kelsey
(10:34):
catches the six-yard crossing route and then rumbles 50 yards downfield.
Patrick Mahomes' arm, his deep ball has left him. It's
been gone for a couple of seasons now. Are you
going to use the W word with Mahomes? Again, I
don't like calling guys washed. You are not going there. Pre-soaked.
Pre-soaked is the word I like to use. Patrick Mahomes,
(10:56):
this has been a running conversation on this podcast, J-Mac,
for what, like two years now?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, but I'm mostly kidding around. I don't think there's
any world where Mahomes is washed.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
No, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I agree. I agree. I'm not going to say he's
too young to be washed. But he is not the
guy that people think he is. He has been living
off reputation for almost three seasons now, coming into Monday night.
The idea that he is still easily the best quarterback
in football or easily a tier one quarterback just doesn't
(11:32):
hold water if you actually watch the games. He turns
the ball over basically every other game he plays. He
can't hit the deep ball anymore. As soon as Tyreek
Hill left, that disappeared from his arsenal. because he's dealing
with the knee injury or coming back from the injury,
he's not pushing off on his throats to get any
kind of mustard or anything down the field. I want
(11:53):
to say that his, I got to look this up
again about recording. His deepest air yard completion was six yards. No, wait,
is that really? I, that's what I saw on Twitter.
I'm about to look it up again, but it's just like,
at what point do you say, yes, they won the game.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
The defense was awesome. Yes. Denver looked terrible. And yes,
Kenneth Walker was a revelation. You're actually right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I'm sorry. So he threw two deep passes. One was intercepted.
The other was out of bounds. No completions over 10 yards. Basically,
everything was a check down under 10 yards. It looks
like seven or eight yards was his longest completion. So
is he a check down Charlie now? Maybe that's just like, hey,
we're working in. coming off the injury we got to
(12:43):
shorten the offense given the rookie undrafted left tackle.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Maybe and and again that's totally fine because there you
can win a lot of games playing that style of
football if he does that 15 weeks a year and
then two three four times he has a vintage mahomes
performance you can win a super bowl like that but
there are so many this is not you this this
(13:09):
is social media accounts. This is, you know, guys trying
to promote the NFL. It's like, my homes is back.
Watch out. I was like, well, no, he's not. Absolutely.
And I hit 184 yards passing. 18 of them were
air yards, the lowest completed air yards of any quarterback
in week one, but nobody cares because they want, and
they dominated the football game.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And it's Patrick Mahomes. He's going to have that benefit
of the doubt that other quarterbacks just don't get. If
this was, Cam Ward or Shador Sanders, we're talking about, man,
that guy's terrible, but at least they had a good
running game. So at some point, we have to be
honest about what we're watching. If we're honest about Denver,
they won a lot of games last season that you
cannot duplicate coming to 2026. If we're being honest about
(13:53):
Kansas City, the running game was fantastic. The defense was unreal.
Pastor Mahomes was below average.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
That's hard. That's a hot take, Rob. I do like
that you're firing. I know, listen, I know they got
you working in the salt mines. Every Sunday on Fox
Sports Radio. But you got to tell Scotty, I like
this back and forth. I mean, I don't agree with it.
I do think it's a fun, hot take, though. We
could talk about a couple other topics. I did make
(14:21):
two bets so far. Tell me what you think. Lions-Bills
Thursday night football. I bet the Lions. I'm sorry. I
bet the Bills minus four. Bills minus four. Lions played
an overtime game on Sunday. Short week, the defense was
on the field for 87 snaps. Wow. 91 if you
(14:44):
count penalties. And now they got to go to play Buffalo.
They couldn't stop Tyler Shuck in the second half. Are
they going to stop Josh Allen? And they got three
offensive linemen maybe injured. Short week, they might all miss.
Two guys on the interior.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
We saw Buffalo.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
They actually did really well against Houston. So I think Buffalo...
This will be a high-scoring game probably, and I like
Buffalo here. The other one was Minnesota, Rob. The model,
first thing spit out. Give me Minnesota. Give me Carson
Wentz on the road in Chicago. Bears drop 59. Give
me Carson Wentz. Bears look like the best team in
(15:24):
the league. And so the line is inflated. It's up
by three points. It's moved three points in the span
of four days or whatever. Just because the Bears looked
incredible and nobody's touching Carson Wentz here. I'm assuming, right,
Kyler Murray, did you see the hit Kyler Murray took?
How's that not a suspension?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Well, did you see that Kevin O'Connell says, I don't
really fault those guys for doing that because he thought
it was just a bang-bang play.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Oh, wow. I'm sure his quarterback loves that.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, it was very, what was the, who was the
coach of the fever? She kept doing that for all
the Kalen Clark hard fouls. It's like, well, you know,
it's part of basketball. It's like at some point, you
just got to stand up for your guy or Kalen Clark,
your girl, and say, no, that was a terrible play.
They should be ashamed of themselves. We'll see them on
the rebound. But it's like, no, you know what? I
don't think he meant anything malicious by it. It was
(16:11):
just an unfortunate situation. And our guy's going to be
out for the next two weeks.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
He's going to be eating soup out of a straw.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Exactly. Even if you don't really believe that, you've got
to stand up for your guy, I think, KFC.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
By the way, how many of those hits do you
think before the CTE becomes definitely a thing? I mean,
because I'll just say this about Scataboo. I don't know
how much you watch Sunday Night Football. His brand of
football is I want to run at you with my
head down and just run you over. And he like
thrives off the contact. It's almost like it's a dopamine
hit for him or something. I'm just telling you, that
(16:47):
guy's brain is going to be scrambled. He is just
taking an unbelievable punishing.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You saw the videos of him in college walking out
to the stadium, headbutting a brick wall. I don't know, man.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
He doesn't seem like the brightest bulb Did you have
any other hot takes from week one since I didn't
catch up with you after Sunday Night Football? Obviously, Chargers stunk.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
The L.A.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Teams are 0-2. The New York teams are 2-0. That's
a bit of a surprise. The entire NFC South, the
crappiest division in football, all four teams lost. Obviously, they
have a negative point differential. I don't know. Anything jump
out at you?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I wouldn't say it's a hot take, so to speak.
because it is one week, and we learned this last season,
it's a week-to-week league. What you think you know from
the previous week, you have no idea. That's the expression
right from the True Life MTV show. But I was
always under the impression, and I think the numbers will
play this out, that early in the season, defense dominates,
(17:48):
just like we saw on Monday night. Because the offensive
units don't get any preseason reps. They don't play long
in practice. So there's always this buildup as they gain chemistry,
as they get cohesion, as they kind of build this
beautiful music together. And if week one is any indication,
that entire script has been flipped upside down.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Totally.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Because it was the defenses that couldn't tackle. It was
the defenses that couldn't stop anybody. And there was one
thing that Mike Tomlin said during the Sunday night football
broadcast where he mentioned, you know, we saw very early
when it came to us in Pittsburgh, he's talking about
last season, that our defense, because we weren't doing preseason,
because we weren't doing tackling drills, because we weren't doing
any of that stuff, we were so far behind where
(18:31):
we needed to be. And if you'll recall, week one
last season, Justin Fields looked like an all-pro quarterback there
against Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And it wasn't until later in the season that it
became the stage unit that we came to know and love.
I don't know if that's going to happen this season
to the extreme, but this idea that Chicago Bears are unstoppable,
Jacksonville is unstoppable. Like Lamar Jackson is going to win
another MVP. You know, Josh Allen is the greatest quarterback ever.
(19:01):
It might tilt that direction for all of those situations
where you're like, yeah, they are good units. They're all
above average. But this idea that they're all juggernauts is
just not accurate. And you're going to see these teams
kind of come back to the back as the defenses
get more in sync. And we're going to get back
to 24, 21 instead of 59, 37.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
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Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think I mostly agree with that.
It's weird because it wasn't consistent. I thought like a
great team like the Rams looked terrible. The Patriots, went
to the Super Bowl. They looked quite bad. The Buccaneers,
Baker Mayfield forgot to count in his internal clock when
(19:55):
he was in the pocket. Just a fumbling machine.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
You just go up and down the league, but what's
weird is.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Ben Johnson's team scored the most points. The guy that
left Ben Johnson goes to the Ravens. and the Ravens
score 41, the second most points. I think that Kyle
Shanahan and McVay, they've had this awesome thing going. I
just wonder if the Ben Johnson tree is going to
be incredible because whatever they are doing is unstoppable. Maybe
(20:27):
it was Lamar against a bad Colts team, but there
were some people picking the Colts to go to the playoffs,
and maybe the Panthers aren't going to be good again,
but I'm watching the Bears, and there's guys wide open
all over the place. Whatever schemes they're cooking up is crazy.
So I was super impressed with the Ben Johnson tree.
I can already call it. His OC is a guy
(20:47):
named Press Taylor. I will guarantee you he's getting head
coaching interviews. I don't know if he's going to go
to a head coaching job, but he will get head
coaching jobs or maybe OC jobs based off this season
if what just went down continues.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
As long as he doesn't pull a Sean Payton where
he says the only way I can keep him is
if he calls the plays for me in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
What's the over under? Like if they lose to Jacksonville,
I think Peyton probably has to call it back.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I thought he was going to take it back in
the second half. I mean, you saw the halftime interview.
He was like, how does it feel to not call plays? Like,
I'll tell you, we have a whole second half to play.
They looked even worse in the second half than they
did in the first half. Because if you go, what
is it?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
If you go 0-2, your chances of making the playoffs
shrink considerably, right?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yep. If you go 0-1 versus 1-0, I think it's
a 30% swing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, so this game against Jacksonville is big. And Jacksonville
offense was good. Now it was facing the Browns, which
isn't saying much.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Man, that Patrick Mahomes chart. Facing the Broncos defense doesn't
say much either based on the missed tackle percentage.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
By the way, if you cover the Patrick Mahomes name
and you just look at the chart, you'd be like, oh,
that's probably Geno Smith. No, no, that's Kirk Cousins.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
That's Kirk Cousins out there. I mean, maybe I'll do that.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Maybe I'll just put that on social media. Guess the
passing chart from week one. I mean, it just doesn't
look like anything like Mahomes. That's not the Patrick Mahomes
that we know. But it's game one back from the ACL. Rob,
real quick, I don't know how much you want to
do on this, but this Drew Brees story, I mean,
(22:23):
it sounds like total garbage.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Does it not?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So after Bo Nix went down and had to miss
the AFC Championship game, Sean Payton was desperate. They knew Stiddy,
Jared Stidham, Couldn't get the job done. And apparently Drew
Brees had turned 47 years old just before Knicks got
hurt on January 17th. And according to Pete Carmichael, who
(22:50):
was Pete Carmichael and Joe Lombardi, they both claim that
Drew Brees considered coming out of retirement to quarterback position.
the Broncos, in the AFC Championship against the Patriots.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Now, I don't know that I believe this story.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
According to Carmichael and Lombardi, Breeze wanted to see how
his body would respond, and he found discomfort in his
wrist and did not give it a go. So Breeze
retired in 2021. A little shade under six years later,
(23:37):
he would come out for one game just because he
knows Peyton's system. To me, that is total nonsense. There's
no way he would have done that. People are a
little surprised Aaron Donald's coming back to just rush the passer.
There's so much that goes on. You can't not be
a quarterback for six years and then come back.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Unless you believe it. Normally, I would say you are
spot on. The problem is we saw this exact thing
happen with Phillip Rivers. Phillip Rivers came out of retirement
to play for the Indianapolis Colts and was immediately the
best quarterback on their roster. Well, okay, hold on.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
So that was, was that early in the season?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
That was middle of it, almost at the end of
the season. Because they were trying to make the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
And he hadn't been retired for six years.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I think he'd been retired for like two.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Had to have been longer than that.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Coming back in a high leverage playoff game. And by
the way, remember how bad Rivers was in that Monday
night game?
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I do.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
He was, I mean, initially he was passable and then
he just deteriorated.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Do you remember how bad Jared Stidham was in the
AFC championship game?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
He was, he was bad.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
And so if you're Sean Payne. Would Breeze have been worse? Yeah.
And you know that Bo Nix is out. They, they,
they found out after the game fractured his ankle. Does,
do you think, Hey, if Drew Breeze can go 11
of 17 and, For 94 yards and a touchdown. We
can win this game. No picks.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I don't. That's probably not enough. There was snow. No,
I don't think that would have done it.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Well, even if they did would have won, he would
have got destroyed by Seattle. He would have got punished
by Seattle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But I think he could have won that game.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
It would have been an amazing story. I think he
could have won that game.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So if memory serves, Peyton screwed up by going for
it on a fourth down instead of just kicking a
field goal, right?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
And that's how Bo Nix got hurt? I'm almost positive,
something like that?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
No, no, Nix got hurt the week prior against the Bills.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Oh, in the AFC Championship game? In the AFC Championship game.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
I think it was 0-0, and he could have taken
a field goal Remember, then it started snowing and they.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Would have had the lead. It would have changed things. Correct.
And then it was closed out by Drake May faking
a handoff and running around to the first half.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It felt like a 10-3 game or something like that.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Something ridiculous. It wasn't a fun game. I remember that.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
So the Broncos lost 10-7.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
There you go. Steady. Not great. It just feels like
these are amazing stories, but better in like movie form,
you know, like it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Would have been a reality. Come on.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
It would have been an amazing plus. They want Disney
plus indeed.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Um, all right. So Bravo, how'd you do in fantasy again?
I went one and two, but the one I want
was my big money league. How about you?
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Uh, if we count my son, uh, three and two, uh, okay.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
It's not bad.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I like to ask Rob about fantasy because low-key, he
is a pretty good fantasy player.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
He gets pretty stacked teams. The two that I lost
were by a combined four points. That's what that'll do
to you.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Damn, you're close, man. You're close.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
All right, folks.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
We'll see you tomorrow.
This is Straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up, Straight Fire fam? It's me, Jason McIntyre,
Straight Fire. For Tuesday, September the 15th.
Speaker 3 (00:19):
It is a dismal morning. If you were a Denver.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Broncos backer last night, holy hell, they got smashed. Broncos
looking extra fraudulent, as everybody kind of knew after last
year's luck box trip to the AFC title game. They
get smashed in Kansas City, 31-10. And I mean, this
was a beatdown of epic proportions. I didn't see it coming.
Bo Nix basically peed down his leg the entire game.
(00:46):
I could not believe how bad Bo Nix was. Three fumbles,
lost one, recovered another. Terrible interception. 131 yards passing. Sacked
four times. Bo Nix could not do anything against a
rebuilt Kansas City defense. I mean, honestly, if I asked you,
Rob G., name five guys on the Chiefs defense before
(01:08):
the game, you would have been like, okay, Nick Bolton.
I know they brought LeJarrius Snead back. Obviously, Chris Jones.
And then it's like, who do they have? I know
Spags is a genius. But let's just call it what
it is. Davis Webb was a disaster for the Broncos.
And here's the worst part. You know, I think we
called this when the schedule came out and they announced
(01:29):
Davis Webb is the new OC going to call plays
because they had to keep him or he would have
gone to, I don't know, freaking Carolina or whatever. So
essentially they have to now host Jacksonville. Then, and that's
by the way on a short week, then they host
the Rams on Sunday Night Football. Then they traveled to
San Fran at the Chargers, home against Seattle, who will
(01:52):
have Sam Darnold back. We know that six-game stretch is rough.
I was thinking, okay, if they could get to 500,
you know. But the defense was horrible. The defense carried
them last year. And then Bo Nix was able to
conjure up some touchdown drives. The defense was bad. The
tackling was horrific. I mean, if you are a Denver
Broncos fan, after going to the AFC title game, you
(02:13):
probably could have sold yourself. You know, if we had
Bo Nix... We probably beat the Patriots in the snow.
And then it's defense on defense in the Super Bowl.
And I like our chances.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
Why not?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
But no. Nix gets hurt. And now he comes back.
Speaker 2 (02:29):
He looks, I mean, he looks shot. And it's not
like the Chiefs were great. They basically rode Kenneth Walker,
who was unbelievable.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
173 yards for Kenneth Walker on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
18 yards for Kenneth Walker through the air. Yes, math majors,
that is 191 yards of offense for Kenneth Walker. The
entire Broncos team had a buck 76. So we knew
what Kenneth Walker was going to do. You can now
line up Patrick Mahomes under center and sell the play
action because you got to respect Kenneth Walker, who's a
(03:01):
tackle breaking machine. And then Walker's just running up the
middle left, right? I mean, they basically just force fed him.
I thought it was a bit much 23 carries and
three receptions. So 26 touches for Kenneth Walker for a
team that's going to the playoffs and Again, you extrapolate
that over 10 games. That's 260 touches for Kenneth Walker.
(03:24):
That is way too many. And that's only like a
little more than half the season. And I know, oh, gee,
you're going overboard. You did this with Gibbs. I'm just saying,
you can't do this with running backs now. They break
down in this league. So yeah, Kenneth Walker's nice. They
lost the cornerback, Delane, to an injury. I think he
had a pick on that. Yeah, he had the pick
on Bo Nix. And then he left with an injury.
(03:46):
I just look at this KC team and I'm like,
I don't see the talent. You know, Rasheed Rice, Xavier Worthy, Thornton,
none of them were really doing anything. And if you
want a hot take, you know, Mahomes, again, first game
back from ACL, I'm not overreacting. He just doesn't, I
feel like he's gained weight. And I know that sounds harsh,
(04:06):
but he just doesn't look as fast and slender as
he used to. And I guess it's understandable recovering from
an ACL, but it's tough for me to bash them
when they win 31-10. But I'll just say this, Rob G.
The Broncos did not look ready for primetime. And we know, guys, historically,
we've had Aaron Schatz on plenty. Defense, year to year,
is not sticky. It's really tough for a defense to
(04:29):
duplicate awesomeness back-to-back years. That's what the numbers say. Offense,
it hums. You've got the OC, you're rocking and rolling. Defense,
not so much. And if we saw two teams, Rob,
whose defenses last year were epic, the Houston Texans, and
the Denver Broncos. And Denver got kind of gashed by
(04:50):
basically Patrick Mahomes and Kenneth Walker.
Speaker 3 (04:54):
They couldn't tackle.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
They missed the tackle on Travis Kelsey, who rumbles for
59 yards, and Tom Cruise is celebrating with Taylor Swift.
And then you saw the Texans just get housed by
Josh Allen. Now, again, Allen and Mahomes are two of
the best in the league, but if you're hanging your
hat on defense and you're getting smoked giving.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Up 30-plus, folks.
Speaker 2 (05:14):
you got some problems and you got to fix the offense.
Speaker 3 (05:16):
I don't know, Rob.
Speaker 2 (05:17):
Obviously, Kenneth Walker looked good, but to me, this says
a lot more about the Broncos than it does the Chiefs.
Speaker 3 (05:24):
I mean, that's fair. I mean, if you just look
at one stat, we'll call it two. The missed tackle
rate there for Denver was obscene. According to NextGenStats, they
missed 28 tackles on Monday night. And according to NextGenStats,
Those 28 missed tackles led to 248 missed tackle yards,
(05:46):
the most in a single game in their database's history.
What's more, they missed tackles on almost just under 30%
of their plays. That is the third worst single game
score in the system's history since 2018. So the Denver Broncos,
(06:08):
who fancy themselves a defensive-minded unit, That's where their bread
is buttered. That's what they are best known for. They
get after the quarterback. They play great defense. They're opportunistic
on offense. And that defense did not show up at
all last night at Kansas City. Nick Bonito was invisible.
Pat Sertan never heard his name. Maybe that's because they
(06:30):
didn't have to pass very much. He never heard his
name at all. It was all bad for Denver. And
it's part of the reason why I told you this
before I said on my own podcast. This team is
primed for a big step back because everything that we
thought we liked about the Denver Broncos last season is
not repeatable. I hate to say it, folks, but they
(06:52):
won that division. They made the AFC championship by the
skin of their teeth. They were historically lucky last year
on multiple fronts. First, the big thing, of course, Patrick
Mahomes misses half the season with a knee injury. The
Chargers lose both their starting offensive tackles. So you're elevated
to first in the division almost by default. You can't
count on that. As much as injuries are part of football,
(07:14):
you cannot bank on your opposition being hurt for you
to be good and for you to win. Here's the
other thing. Denver tied an NFL record last season, going
11-2 in one-score games. Just ask the aforementioned Chiefs if
that kind of thing is repeatable. A couple years ago,
they made the Super Bowl. I think they won like
nine straight one-score games last season. I think they lost
(07:36):
six straight, right? Here's the other thing. Of their 14
wins last season in Denver, 12 of them were comeback wins.
At a minimum, you're cutting that number in half. You
cannot expect to fall behind every game and come back
and win. You cannot expect to be in a one-score
(07:56):
game and always find a way to win that one. Eventually,
you're going to run into a game like tonight, or
excuse me, last night rather, where your defense doesn't have it,
or in this case, your offense doesn't have it, and
both sides don't have it. You can't come back. You
can't slow him down on defense. What do you have?
You have a disgruntled head coach, a green offensive coordinator,
(08:17):
and a quarterback who looked just as hobbled as the
other guy who's coming off a torn ACL.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsportsradio.com. And
within the iHeartRadio app, search FSR to listen live.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
Yeah, when you put it that way, I had to
look at the Chiefs' schedule, Rob. So they host the
Colts Sunday night football. Colts basically got gashed left and
right by Lamar Jackson and Derrick Henry. I'm guessing Kenny
Walker's going to be in line for another big game.
Then they're at Miami, which is, you know, a bad team.
Then they are at Vegas, which, you know, I don't
(08:59):
think we think is a good team.
Speaker 3 (09:00):
And then the bye week.
Speaker 2 (09:01):
So the Chiefs almost certainly will be 4-0 going into
the bye. coming out against the Chargers. I don't know
if the Chargers are good, Rob. We didn't get to
talk Sunday.
Speaker 3 (09:09):
Are the Chargers good? I don't know.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
And then at Seattle, at Denver, you know, the Jets
look kind of plucky. But this is a favorable first
11 weeks, and we could be looking at an 8-3
Chiefs team. Just because they're not... Who are they going
to lose to?
Speaker 3 (09:25):
I don't really know who's good.
Speaker 2 (09:28):
But I do know that Indy, Miami, and Vegas are not. And,
you know, Atlanta... Maybe they'll get their act together by mid-November,
but Jets, you think Patrick Mahomes is scared of them?
You think Spags is losing sleep over the quarterback lineup
of Geno Smith, Michael Penix, and Jacoby Brissett? So I
don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
I think, unfortunately... Well, let's hunker down on your first
part of that question. Is Patrick Mahomes scared of any
of those teams? Of course not, right? Given his pedigree,
he's not scared of anybody. He'll see... Josh Allen line
up in front of him, and he thinks, I beat
you every time in the playoffs. I'm not worried about you.
I see Lamar Jackson beat you every time, too. The
only one who gives me problems, apparently, is Joe Burrow
and Jalen Hurst. But does that Patrick Mahomes even still
(10:12):
exist anymore? Because the final numbers don't do it justice
how poorly he played. 15 of 27, 184, two touchdowns,
a pick, sack twice. The pick was one of the
worst interceptions you'll see all weekend. One of those touchdowns
was a glorified handoff to Kenneth Walker. And 59 of
those yards came on a busted coverage where Travis Kelsey
(10:34):
catches the six-yard crossing route and then rumbles 50 yards downfield.
Patrick Mahomes' arm, his deep ball has left him. It's
been gone for a couple of seasons now. Are you
going to use the W word with Mahomes? Again, I
don't like calling guys washed. You are not going there. Pre-soaked.
Pre-soaked is the word I like to use. Patrick Mahomes,
(10:56):
this has been a running conversation on this podcast, J-Mac,
for what, like two years now?
Speaker 2 (11:01):
Yeah, but I'm mostly kidding around. I don't think there's
any world where Mahomes is washed.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
No, yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I agree. I agree. I'm not going to say he's
too young to be washed. But he is not the
guy that people think he is. He has been living
off reputation for almost three seasons now, coming into Monday night.
The idea that he is still easily the best quarterback
in football or easily a tier one quarterback just doesn't
(11:32):
hold water if you actually watch the games. He turns
the ball over basically every other game he plays. He
can't hit the deep ball anymore. As soon as Tyreek
Hill left, that disappeared from his arsenal. because he's dealing
with the knee injury or coming back from the injury,
he's not pushing off on his throats to get any
kind of mustard or anything down the field. I want
(11:53):
to say that his, I got to look this up
again about recording. His deepest air yard completion was six yards. No, wait,
is that really? I, that's what I saw on Twitter.
I'm about to look it up again, but it's just like,
at what point do you say, yes, they won the game.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
Yes.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
The defense was awesome. Yes. Denver looked terrible. And yes,
Kenneth Walker was a revelation. You're actually right.
Speaker 2 (12:20):
I'm sorry. So he threw two deep passes. One was intercepted.
The other was out of bounds. No completions over 10 yards. Basically,
everything was a check down under 10 yards. It looks
like seven or eight yards was his longest completion. So
is he a check down Charlie now? Maybe that's just like, hey,
we're working in. coming off the injury we got to
(12:43):
shorten the offense given the rookie undrafted left tackle.
Speaker 3 (12:49):
Maybe and and again that's totally fine because there you
can win a lot of games playing that style of
football if he does that 15 weeks a year and
then two three four times he has a vintage mahomes
performance you can win a super bowl like that but
there are so many this is not you this this
(13:09):
is social media accounts. This is, you know, guys trying
to promote the NFL. It's like, my homes is back.
Watch out. I was like, well, no, he's not. Absolutely.
And I hit 184 yards passing. 18 of them were
air yards, the lowest completed air yards of any quarterback
in week one, but nobody cares because they want, and
they dominated the football game.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:32):
And it's Patrick Mahomes. He's going to have that benefit
of the doubt that other quarterbacks just don't get. If
this was, Cam Ward or Shador Sanders, we're talking about, man,
that guy's terrible, but at least they had a good
running game. So at some point, we have to be
honest about what we're watching. If we're honest about Denver,
they won a lot of games last season that you
cannot duplicate coming to 2026. If we're being honest about
(13:53):
Kansas City, the running game was fantastic. The defense was unreal.
Pastor Mahomes was below average.
Speaker 2 (14:01):
That's hard. That's a hot take, Rob. I do like
that you're firing. I know, listen, I know they got
you working in the salt mines. Every Sunday on Fox
Sports Radio. But you got to tell Scotty, I like
this back and forth. I mean, I don't agree with it.
I do think it's a fun, hot take, though. We
could talk about a couple other topics. I did make
(14:21):
two bets so far. Tell me what you think. Lions-Bills
Thursday night football. I bet the Lions. I'm sorry. I
bet the Bills minus four. Bills minus four. Lions played
an overtime game on Sunday. Short week, the defense was
on the field for 87 snaps. Wow. 91 if you
(14:44):
count penalties. And now they got to go to play Buffalo.
They couldn't stop Tyler Shuck in the second half. Are
they going to stop Josh Allen? And they got three
offensive linemen maybe injured. Short week, they might all miss.
Two guys on the interior.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
We saw Buffalo.
Speaker 2 (15:02):
They actually did really well against Houston. So I think Buffalo...
This will be a high-scoring game probably, and I like
Buffalo here. The other one was Minnesota, Rob. The model,
first thing spit out. Give me Minnesota. Give me Carson
Wentz on the road in Chicago. Bears drop 59. Give
me Carson Wentz. Bears look like the best team in
(15:24):
the league. And so the line is inflated. It's up
by three points. It's moved three points in the span
of four days or whatever. Just because the Bears looked
incredible and nobody's touching Carson Wentz here. I'm assuming, right,
Kyler Murray, did you see the hit Kyler Murray took?
How's that not a suspension?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Well, did you see that Kevin O'Connell says, I don't
really fault those guys for doing that because he thought
it was just a bang-bang play.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Oh, wow. I'm sure his quarterback loves that.
Speaker 3 (15:50):
Yeah, it was very, what was the, who was the
coach of the fever? She kept doing that for all
the Kalen Clark hard fouls. It's like, well, you know,
it's part of basketball. It's like at some point, you
just got to stand up for your guy or Kalen Clark,
your girl, and say, no, that was a terrible play.
They should be ashamed of themselves. We'll see them on
the rebound. But it's like, no, you know what? I
don't think he meant anything malicious by it. It was
(16:11):
just an unfortunate situation. And our guy's going to be
out for the next two weeks.
Speaker 2 (16:16):
He's going to be eating soup out of a straw.
Speaker 3 (16:19):
Exactly. Even if you don't really believe that, you've got
to stand up for your guy, I think, KFC.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
By the way, how many of those hits do you
think before the CTE becomes definitely a thing? I mean,
because I'll just say this about Scataboo. I don't know
how much you watch Sunday Night Football. His brand of
football is I want to run at you with my
head down and just run you over. And he like
thrives off the contact. It's almost like it's a dopamine
hit for him or something. I'm just telling you, that
(16:47):
guy's brain is going to be scrambled. He is just
taking an unbelievable punishing.
Speaker 3 (16:53):
You saw the videos of him in college walking out
to the stadium, headbutting a brick wall. I don't know, man.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
He doesn't seem like the brightest bulb Did you have
any other hot takes from week one since I didn't
catch up with you after Sunday Night Football? Obviously, Chargers stunk.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
The L.A.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
Teams are 0-2. The New York teams are 2-0. That's
a bit of a surprise. The entire NFC South, the
crappiest division in football, all four teams lost. Obviously, they
have a negative point differential. I don't know. Anything jump
out at you?
Speaker 3 (17:27):
I wouldn't say it's a hot take, so to speak.
because it is one week, and we learned this last season,
it's a week-to-week league. What you think you know from
the previous week, you have no idea. That's the expression
right from the True Life MTV show. But I was
always under the impression, and I think the numbers will
play this out, that early in the season, defense dominates,
(17:48):
just like we saw on Monday night. Because the offensive
units don't get any preseason reps. They don't play long
in practice. So there's always this buildup as they gain chemistry,
as they get cohesion, as they kind of build this
beautiful music together. And if week one is any indication,
that entire script has been flipped upside down.
Speaker 2 (18:10):
Totally.
Speaker 3 (18:10):
Because it was the defenses that couldn't tackle. It was
the defenses that couldn't stop anybody. And there was one
thing that Mike Tomlin said during the Sunday night football
broadcast where he mentioned, you know, we saw very early
when it came to us in Pittsburgh, he's talking about
last season, that our defense, because we weren't doing preseason,
because we weren't doing tackling drills, because we weren't doing
any of that stuff, we were so far behind where
(18:31):
we needed to be. And if you'll recall, week one
last season, Justin Fields looked like an all-pro quarterback there
against Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
That's a good point.
Speaker 3 (18:38):
And it wasn't until later in the season that it
became the stage unit that we came to know and love.
I don't know if that's going to happen this season
to the extreme, but this idea that Chicago Bears are unstoppable,
Jacksonville is unstoppable. Like Lamar Jackson is going to win
another MVP. You know, Josh Allen is the greatest quarterback ever.
(19:01):
It might tilt that direction for all of those situations
where you're like, yeah, they are good units. They're all
above average. But this idea that they're all juggernauts is
just not accurate. And you're going to see these teams
kind of come back to the back as the defenses
get more in sync. And we're going to get back
to 24, 21 instead of 59, 37.
Speaker 1 (19:22):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at FoxSportsRadio.com. And
within the iHeartRadio app, search FSR to listen live.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, I mean, I think I mostly agree with that.
It's weird because it wasn't consistent. I thought like a
great team like the Rams looked terrible. The Patriots, went
to the Super Bowl. They looked quite bad. The Buccaneers,
Baker Mayfield forgot to count in his internal clock when
(19:55):
he was in the pocket. Just a fumbling machine.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
You just go up and down the league, but what's
weird is.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Ben Johnson's team scored the most points. The guy that
left Ben Johnson goes to the Ravens. and the Ravens
score 41, the second most points. I think that Kyle
Shanahan and McVay, they've had this awesome thing going. I
just wonder if the Ben Johnson tree is going to
be incredible because whatever they are doing is unstoppable. Maybe
(20:27):
it was Lamar against a bad Colts team, but there
were some people picking the Colts to go to the playoffs,
and maybe the Panthers aren't going to be good again,
but I'm watching the Bears, and there's guys wide open
all over the place. Whatever schemes they're cooking up is crazy.
So I was super impressed with the Ben Johnson tree.
I can already call it. His OC is a guy
(20:47):
named Press Taylor. I will guarantee you he's getting head
coaching interviews. I don't know if he's going to go
to a head coaching job, but he will get head
coaching jobs or maybe OC jobs based off this season
if what just went down continues.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
As long as he doesn't pull a Sean Payton where
he says the only way I can keep him is
if he calls the plays for me in Chicago.
Speaker 2 (21:10):
What's the over under? Like if they lose to Jacksonville,
I think Peyton probably has to call it back.
Speaker 3 (21:15):
I thought he was going to take it back in
the second half. I mean, you saw the halftime interview.
He was like, how does it feel to not call plays? Like,
I'll tell you, we have a whole second half to play.
They looked even worse in the second half than they
did in the first half. Because if you go, what
is it?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
If you go 0-2, your chances of making the playoffs
shrink considerably, right?
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yep. If you go 0-1 versus 1-0, I think it's
a 30% swing.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
Yeah, so this game against Jacksonville is big. And Jacksonville
offense was good. Now it was facing the Browns, which
isn't saying much.
Speaker 3 (21:41):
Man, that Patrick Mahomes chart. Facing the Broncos defense doesn't
say much either based on the missed tackle percentage.
Speaker 2 (21:47):
By the way, if you cover the Patrick Mahomes name
and you just look at the chart, you'd be like, oh,
that's probably Geno Smith. No, no, that's Kirk Cousins.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
That's Kirk Cousins out there. I mean, maybe I'll do that.
Speaker 2 (21:59):
Maybe I'll just put that on social media. Guess the
passing chart from week one. I mean, it just doesn't
look like anything like Mahomes. That's not the Patrick Mahomes
that we know. But it's game one back from the ACL. Rob,
real quick, I don't know how much you want to
do on this, but this Drew Brees story, I mean,
(22:23):
it sounds like total garbage.
Speaker 3 (22:25):
Does it not?
Speaker 2 (22:27):
So after Bo Nix went down and had to miss
the AFC Championship game, Sean Payton was desperate. They knew Stiddy,
Jared Stidham, Couldn't get the job done. And apparently Drew
Brees had turned 47 years old just before Knicks got
hurt on January 17th. And according to Pete Carmichael, who
(22:50):
was Pete Carmichael and Joe Lombardi, they both claim that
Drew Brees considered coming out of retirement to quarterback position.
the Broncos, in the AFC Championship against the Patriots.
Speaker 3 (23:09):
Now, I don't know that I believe this story.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
According to Carmichael and Lombardi, Breeze wanted to see how
his body would respond, and he found discomfort in his
wrist and did not give it a go. So Breeze
retired in 2021. A little shade under six years later,
(23:37):
he would come out for one game just because he
knows Peyton's system. To me, that is total nonsense. There's
no way he would have done that. People are a
little surprised Aaron Donald's coming back to just rush the passer.
There's so much that goes on. You can't not be
a quarterback for six years and then come back.
Speaker 3 (23:57):
Unless you believe it. Normally, I would say you are
spot on. The problem is we saw this exact thing
happen with Phillip Rivers. Phillip Rivers came out of retirement
to play for the Indianapolis Colts and was immediately the
best quarterback on their roster. Well, okay, hold on.
Speaker 2 (24:13):
So that was, was that early in the season?
Speaker 3 (24:16):
That was middle of it, almost at the end of
the season. Because they were trying to make the playoffs.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
And he hadn't been retired for six years.
Speaker 1 (24:21):
No.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
I think he'd been retired for like two.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Had to have been longer than that.
Speaker 2 (24:27):
Coming back in a high leverage playoff game. And by
the way, remember how bad Rivers was in that Monday
night game?
Speaker 3 (24:32):
I do.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
He was, I mean, initially he was passable and then
he just deteriorated.
Speaker 3 (24:37):
Do you remember how bad Jared Stidham was in the
AFC championship game?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
He was, he was bad.
Speaker 1 (24:42):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
And so if you're Sean Payne. Would Breeze have been worse? Yeah.
And you know that Bo Nix is out. They, they,
they found out after the game fractured his ankle. Does,
do you think, Hey, if Drew Breeze can go 11
of 17 and, For 94 yards and a touchdown. We
can win this game. No picks.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
I don't. That's probably not enough. There was snow. No,
I don't think that would have done it.
Speaker 3 (25:13):
Well, even if they did would have won, he would
have got destroyed by Seattle. He would have got punished
by Seattle. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
But I think he could have won that game.
Speaker 3 (25:20):
It would have been an amazing story. I think he
could have won that game.
Speaker 2 (25:23):
So if memory serves, Peyton screwed up by going for
it on a fourth down instead of just kicking a
field goal, right?
Speaker 3 (25:29):
And that's how Bo Nix got hurt? I'm almost positive,
something like that?
Speaker 2 (25:33):
No, no, Nix got hurt the week prior against the Bills.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
Oh, in the AFC Championship game? In the AFC Championship game.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
I think it was 0-0, and he could have taken
a field goal Remember, then it started snowing and they.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Would have had the lead. It would have changed things. Correct.
And then it was closed out by Drake May faking
a handoff and running around to the first half.
Speaker 2 (25:49):
It felt like a 10-3 game or something like that.
Speaker 3 (25:52):
Something ridiculous. It wasn't a fun game. I remember that.
Speaker 1 (25:58):
What is that?
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Oh, yeah.
Speaker 3 (25:59):
So the Broncos lost 10-7.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
There you go. Steady. Not great. It just feels like
these are amazing stories, but better in like movie form,
you know, like it.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
Would have been a reality. Come on.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
It would have been an amazing plus. They want Disney
plus indeed.
Speaker 3 (26:18):
Um, all right. So Bravo, how'd you do in fantasy again?
I went one and two, but the one I want
was my big money league. How about you?
Speaker 2 (26:28):
Uh, if we count my son, uh, three and two, uh, okay.
Speaker 3 (26:33):
It's not bad.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
I like to ask Rob about fantasy because low-key, he
is a pretty good fantasy player.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
He gets pretty stacked teams. The two that I lost
were by a combined four points. That's what that'll do
to you.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
Damn, you're close, man. You're close.
Speaker 3 (26:49):
All right, folks.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
We'll see you tomorrow.
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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