Breaking Down the Big Week 1 Games

Daniel Jeremiah, Bucky Brooks, and Brian Baldinger break down all the action from a loaded Week 1 on Move the Sticks. The guys start with the instant-classic between the Ravens and Bills (01:43), then dive into Steelers-Jets (11:25), Giants-Commanders (18:25), Lions-Packers (27:55), Buccaneers-Falcons (37:32), Dolphins-Colts (41:29), Titans-Broncos (45:45), and Panthers-Jaguars (48:42). DJ also shares his insights from calling Chiefs-Chargers in São Paulo, Brazil (53:37). To close, DJ and Bucky react to the season opener between the Cowboys and Eagles (56:49).

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And now move the sticks with Daniel Jeremiah and Bucky Brooks.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
What's up, everybody? Welcome to move the sticks, DJ, Buck
and as it's going to be on Monday, I could
not be more fired up about this. Our buddy Baldi's
in the house, Baldy. What's going on?

Speaker 3 (00:15):
Man, I'm just sitting up here, like in my own
little bubble here, DJ. You know, third floor NFL film.
Nobody bothers me. I don't have any windows. I don't
know what's going on outside. I'm just in my little
bubble here, just watching these games and taking my little
notes and making some videos. Man, I'm having a good time.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
This is sneakily my favorite day of the year, Buck,
because we always talk about, like the summer, we get
so tired and sick of Oh this might happen. This
could happen. Hey, they might be this, they might be that.
It's like, hey, actually we've got some games. We can
actually hop on here and talk about what we saw.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
I mean that that is a lot of fun. And
I feel a little weird, DJ, because you kind of
made me make a deal with the devil. So here
I am, I mean over here dealing with a blue
deal like that.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
You know, I don't know. I don't even want to
go watch Illinois do game Bucky like that was so
we're leading.

Speaker 4 (01:08):
Yeah, we're leaning into this stuff or whatever. But that's
good man, My man, Baldy gonna break it down, has
all this stuff. It's gonna be fun to have these
conversations every Mondy.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
And by the way, top on Baldi's breakdowns too, because
if you want to see some video, it's going to
company a lot of the conversations we're gonna have on here.
Baldi's got it on, He's got it on Twitter, He's
got on Instagram. Baldie, I'm I'm not a TikTok guy?

Speaker 3 (01:27):
Are you?

Speaker 2 (01:27):
Are you rocking this stuff on TikTok too?

Speaker 3 (01:30):
Forgot on TikTok You're not, like you know, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, no I'm not. Then I'm not. So you've got
me there. So check out all Baldi stuff. It's fantastic
Baldis breakdowns. Let's let's get wrong. I want to get
into this stuff here. First game game of that it
might shoot. I don't know. We're gonna see a better
game all year long than the Sunday night game we
saw with Baltimore h in Buffalo, Balbi, I'll give you
the floor, go wherever you want to go on that one.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
So I mean, look, I'll take the losing end of
it in Baltimore because I'm not sure what anybody's supposed
to do to stop this Baltimore offense. And so, like
I just went and I just watched the wide angle,
and all they do is look at the safeties, two
safeties back. Here comes Derrick Henry right once, say like,
everybody up, try to stop Derrick Henry. You got single high.

(02:12):
Here comes a Flowers like they couldn't they couldn't figure
it out. And then if they try to bounce it up,
then here comes this prestaft motion and misdirection and there
goes Lamar ten yards for a touchdown. And I felt
like Buffalo was damned if they did and damned if
they didn't, you know, I mean like they didn't know
what to do. And I feel like that's going to

(02:33):
be most defenses this year. Now forty points one enough
to win the game, all right, but still, I mean
it came down, you know, obviously Derek feels bad about
you know, at Oliver gets the ball out of the
ground and on the ground. It was a difference in
the game. But just from that standpoint, you go, how
does anybody And then if DeAndre Hopkins thows his hand
up and he's just you know, he's just got the

(02:54):
golden sticky glove there, like you got that to deal
with as well.

Speaker 4 (02:58):
You know, it's funny you talk about Baltimore and I
think DJ and I've had this conversation about Baltimore. A
lot of what we want to know about Baltimore we
won't know until the postseason, presuming that they get there.
And I've said on here my biggest question with Baltimore
is do they have the emotional maturity to be a
championship team in a game like that when you're up
forty to twenty five. Championship teams close that out regardless

(03:22):
of the Derrick Henry fumble or whatever. But there is that,
hey man, we need to finish this game out when
you have this kind of championship pedigree. And for me,
I am just wondering, because we've seen this iteration of
Baltimore four or five years, when do they finally learn
from all of these heartbreaking lessons to put it together
and in a game in which they you can say

(03:44):
they dominated for greater parts of the game in terms
of their offense and being able to be ahead to
walk away with a loss. To me, it just brings
that question up when we see this team play for
real and all the stakes are on the line, do
they have the wherewithal to finish out the game like
a championship squad?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
Shit, Yeah, I want to hit a little bit on
what both of you guys said. Then we can kind
of spin it and get towards Buffalo. But on the
Baldy point, Zay Flowers to me, look, I know Derek
Henry rush for a million yards in this game. I
know Lamar had some crazy plays. You see some of
the scrambles where he's retreating poor guy. Feel bad for
Joey Bosey. He couldn't get the guy on the ground.
I mean he had had him dead to rights a
couple of times, couldn't get him on the ground. But
you think Dereck Henry take Lamar. They're their own thing,

(04:23):
and I don't want it to be just because it's
gotten stale because we've seen so much of them. But man,
I watched Jay Flowers and I went back through and
just looked what he was doing, and that was the
thing that stood out to me more than anything else
on that on that Baltimore offense, you go through and
look at just the balls and the targets, the opportunities
he got, the different ways that he can impact you.
You'll see deep ends. You'll see they use him on

(04:45):
speed shovel. Let's get the ball in his hands, they
hit a tunnel screen for a touchdown. You get him,
You get him run on some of those mesh concepts
underneath where you just pick a guy off by a millimeter.
He's gone. I'm watching him going, like I it's sacrilegious
to compare some of these guys to all time great players,
but it's hard for me to watch a guy in
a Baltimore uniform do that and not think of Steve
Smith with the way with the way he can stop
and start, and how explosive and dynamic he was. But

(05:07):
I wanted to give Zay Flowers his love because I
think he's gonna have a monster, monster year this year.
I thought they to Bucky's point, I thought they got
vanilla at the end. You know, I want that ball
in Lamar's hands. I mean, they just kind of ran
the ball into the line of scrimmage and ran into
a mush of bodies, which was kind of the opposite
of what they've done all day long of making Buffalo
have to think and react. They kind of dumbed it

(05:29):
down at the end of the game, and we talk
about whether they should have gone forward on fourth down
or not. I'm okay with it. I mean to shoot,
you don't get that the game's over. You already are
near field goal range. But I just thought I got
a little bit stale there and then on the other
side getting the Buffalo Baldi. We were talking before we
came on, like, I like Justin Herbert's unbelievable. Justin Herbert
can make a mazillion throws and he's got the size

(05:51):
and the arms, strength and the talent. Like for Justin
Herbert to go to the next level for the Chargers,
he needs to adopt some of the borderline cockiness arrogance
that Josh has for some of the throw's body. These
are throws that people don't attempt, and he makes it
with conviction.

Speaker 3 (06:06):
Well, the first the first touchdown of the season is
the Dalton Kincave and this the safeties are sitting it's
ten ten toes in the goal line. You know, Malachi
Starks and Kyle Hamilton are sitting there and they split
the safeties and he just rifles it like a lot
of most quarterbacks aren't attempting that throw in the middle
of the field, and he put it right where Dalton
could Cave could body. He did it again later in

(06:28):
the game down to the goal line, like he's just fearless.
And you know, I was saying, like, uh, you know,
he every single big throw he makes is off a
movement until it's not off a movement and he just
hits his third step and he just rifles it to
the sideline. The throw to Josh Palmer at the end

(06:49):
of the game like over the top, like to get
him down there, like it was an incredible throw on
the move, but it was just it's just like it
felt like it was already a highlight film of the
throws that he made yesterday. I must have counted at
least at least ten or twelve throws of fifteen yards
more where he's just like it's just a rifle shot.

Speaker 4 (07:10):
You know, what's unbelievable about Josh Allen is not only
the maturity and the evolution of kind of watching him
go from being the wild gun slinger coming out Wyoming
to being an MVP who has been able to elevate
the players around him, because remember he started on his
ascension when Stefan Diggs were there and they were to
rely heavily on him being kind of the centerpiece of

(07:33):
the offense. He gets to the point where you remove
Stefan Diggs and his game has gone through the roof.
Like He's always been special in terms of the athleticism
and running and throwing on and off platform, but the
last year and some change, he has been next level
when it comes to his ability to put the cape
on and use it when needed and then sometimes just

(07:56):
be Clark Kent. And I think what we want to
see from all of our superstars is they don't necessarily
have to play at that level all the time, but
when needed, they can jump in the phone booth. And
I am more amazed at Josh Allen's ability to do
it in a calm, cool composed manner. I would say,
probably than anybody else I've seen in terms of evolving

(08:19):
from this wild playmaker to being a guy that can
kind of play on and off the script and use
his superpowers when needed. He's amazing and his growth has
kind of changed the way and DJ we've talked about this.
Josh Allen, Lamark Jackson changed the way that we looked
at quarterbacks.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
It went from being through.

Speaker 4 (08:38):
Fromme tou they what they can't do too well they
could and it's just amazing to do that. So look
all the credit in the world to Josh Allen because
this dude consistently puts the Bill's opposite.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Well, Josh, Josh said it at the end of the
game Buck, he said, like, you never count us out.
We're playing sixteen minutes now, like you know, they're down fifteen,
like it's late fourth quarter, and here they come.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
I mean they needed a gift though, Baldi, they needed
and they got one.

Speaker 3 (09:05):
They got the gift, they got the ball you know
that's twenty and they capitalized on it too now, but yeah,
they got what they needed for the defense. But that's
all they needed and that was enough now.

Speaker 2 (09:16):
So coming into this game, one of the topics we
had talked about for the whole offseason was comparing Buffalo
with the other, you know, premier teams, and really I
think we focused in on Baltimore and it's like, Okay,
we get the great quarterbacks, MVP quarterbacks, but man, the
weaponry uh that Baltimore has just seems far superior to
what they're playing with in Buffalo. And I come out
of this game going, Okay, Kink looks like he's got

(09:36):
his legs back underneath him. He looks like he's the
player I got super excited about when he was coming
into the draft process. I'll get to him, Shakir. You know,
they've got like a nice connection and the toughness that
he brings. He's got Aman Ross Saint Brown light up there,
so that's a nice piece. But Keon Coleman's the one
that I wanted to dig in on because he had
the big game. So when I went back and just
looked at his stuff, Baldy, this is the guy with

(09:56):
the basketball player background and that's the way he plays.
He's not the most refined guy, but you can throw
a whole shot. He climbs the ladder and goes up
and gets it and gets you know, drilled holds onto
the ball. You get the skinny posts at the end
of the game, which was really kind of the game winner.
He makes a big play there. He just kind of
finds space. He kind of works in space. You're not
looking at somebody who's elite getting out of breaks and

(10:18):
all that stuff. But you want to you want to
play soft Kevin Dodd just running out on you and
we'll go pluck the ball real naturally and smooth. But
he's a key piece for them. I mean, he played
really really well, and they figured out how to use
him and not ask him to do stuff he's not
good at.

Speaker 3 (10:30):
Well, he's excellent low post basketball now, you know, I
mean you just feed him. You know. He knows how
to use his body, knows how to shield people, he
knows how to catch the ball with his hands, and
so he's got like I don't think he's ever going
to be a router, you know, and he's not really
going to run by people, but everything else like, and
he's becoming dependable and they're going to him. And in

(10:51):
a number of those big spots yesterday he came up
with a big catch.

Speaker 2 (10:56):
It's funny to go ahead, go ahead book.

Speaker 4 (10:57):
No last thing, I think every we've talked about like
wide receiver corps being like a basketball team. Every wide
receiver cord needs one player that's like a Kian Koman,
a big body ball catching someone that you just throw
it up and they go get it. It's not always
pretty and refined, but his superior size and athleticism and
just terrific ball skills makes him a threat wherever he is,

(11:19):
So even when he's covered, he's wide open.

Speaker 2 (11:23):
Let's let's that's a great point. Let's get to the
next one here. This was the theme of this next game. Buck.
Literally one man's trash is another man's treasure was literally
on display in Pittsburgh. They take the two quarterbacks that
neither of them really liked all that much. They switched teams,
and they literally played as good as we've seen either
one of those guys play fields maybe ever. That might
have been the best game I've ever seen him play.
He was awesome. And then and then Aaron the best

(11:45):
we've seen of him since he left the Green Bay Packers.

Speaker 4 (11:49):
And look, there's something there's a saying that that that
people will throw out there go whey to celebrate it,
not tolerateed. And in both instances, both guys being acquired,
they were celebrated by those organizations, and in celebrating them,
they're willing to build around them and their talents. First,
you talk about Justin Fields and how Aaron Glenn had
first in knowledge about the difficulty and the challenge that

(12:12):
Justin Fields can bring as a dual threat quarterback, and
he wanted him to lean into those abilities and pairing
him with an old college teammate and Garrett Wilson where
he was comfortable and doing those things. We saw that
playout through our training camp and all of that, but
then allowing him to be the athlete that he is.
That was terrific. And for Aaron Rodgers, the conversations that

(12:32):
I had with some of the people in the Steelers
were they wanted someone who had that edginess in the
quarterback room, and they talked about this openly. It's a
difference having a Hall of Famer in the quarterback room
and what he brings and the swag and the confidence
that they get from him being there, even though he's
a lesser version of the four time MVP. It's working
for Pittsburgh now, just like it's working for the Jets.

(12:55):
Think about Pittsburgh is how do you preserve Aaron Rodgers
so that he is still playing great down the end
of the season. That's the medi other question.

Speaker 3 (13:03):
You know, it's interesting Bucket. I stopped the film at
least three different times where he got absolutely due. I mean,
Coldon Williams hit him one time and I just saw
it was like crash test, dummy stuff. I just saw
his head stap and I'm going, that's forty one year
old Aaron Rockets. That's not like not many guys survived

(13:23):
some of the hits he took in that pocket. And
so you know, people, can you know, put labels on
Aaron quirky whatever you want to do, like that guy
is as tough as they come out. Can he survive
you know, the season getting hit like that.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
You know, Roderick Jones to that point, by the way, Yeah.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Well, I mean Will McDonald had his way over there.
You know, it's an issue. It's an issue, DJ. I mean,
they drafted roder Jones high and they wanted him to
be the left tackle, and he's there. Dan Moore was
not good. They let him fly, but they got to
get better at that position, no question. The Justin Fields
thing was amazing. I saw him in a scrimmage against

(14:04):
the Jets two weeks ago and I thought, oh my gosh,
poor Garrett Wilson like he's never going to get the ball.
And you know they designed some offense. The first touchdown
deep cross with Josh Reynolds. I mean they gave him
good time, good protection, and he laid. I mean that
was a perfect throw to Garrett Wilson. A lot of
guys missed that shot. He's almost too open, but he

(14:25):
threw him open. Garrett really Justin Well, he had a
great day. But I thought Justin Field's played it as
well as he was under control, he was athletic, he
saw the field surprisingly well, breaking the pocket. It was
very encouraging for any Jet fan to watch Justin Field's play.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
Yes, I'd be fired up. Farre a Jets fan. And
the word this is the word that I really honed
in on here the last couple of years with quarterbacks,
and I think there's really something to it. I mentioned
a little bit earlier. He played with conviction. No, it's
not only enough to see something. You've got to trust
and there's no hesitation or no pause. He was there
was There were some first raid throws in there where

(15:05):
he said, hey, this is the look I got. I
like what I get. Boom, Ball's gone on time. Mind you,
first part of the game with gloves, second part of
the game without gloves. I don't know why he switched
it up, but it was nice it went from the
gloves and the no gloves. But then there are other
times Man he was getting front side to backside and
then again once he saw it trusted at Boom working
in the middle of the field. He wasn't just working
on the edges in the perimeter like you get in

(15:25):
the mud. In the middle of the field a little bit.
You got to trust your eyes and trust what you're seeing.
And he threw the ball. It was firm, it was accurate,
like it was as good as I've seen him play,
and it reminded me of kind of the Ohio State
version of him where he played with confidence, and that
was if he plays like that. And Baldy, you had
talked talked about this a little bit when we were
chatting this morning, and I thought it held up in

(15:46):
the tape too. Like Membo played well, Tipman played well.
Like they've accumulated a lot of good pieces. Fashanu was
outstanding at left tackle in the run game, in the
pass game, like they've invested a lot in this offensive
line and it looks like they might actually have one. Now.

Speaker 3 (16:00):
Well, the question honestly this week was okay, Olivia Tucker
goes down. Everybody's like, there, here goes the Jets. But
I thought I saw Tipman play guard in preseason games
with Josh Myers at center, and I thought at that
time when I watched Tipman, I think he's a better
guard than center. And after watching him yesterday, especially the
movement he got at the point of attack, and that's

(16:21):
up against you know, Benton and against Hayward and some
of those guys inside, Like, I thought Tipman might be
a better guard than he is a center, and Josh
Myers is fine, So I don't feel like it's obviously
there's a depth concern there. You lose a great player
and you know, trickles down. But I thought Tipman and
Myers played really well in their spots yesterday.

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Buck real quick. I want to get to DK because
again watching that DK, not only did he make some
explosive plays, there were seven. I think we're seven explosive plays.
DK had three, Calvin Austin had three, but you get
DK through Calvin Austin's three. Two of them are because
of DK, where DK's running off coverage and taking bodies
and Calvin Austin gets loose. The other one was they

(17:02):
lined him up, which is awesome play design, in between
the tight end and the tackle and they kind of
almost like an elevator screen in basketball. They kind of
fan out. He gets up in between them and they
kind of hit him on a little almost many wheel
there for a touchdown. But I think DK's presence was
felt in that game, not only when he was getting
the ball, but just just having him out there opens
things up for everybody else.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
You know.

Speaker 4 (17:20):
It's funny and talking to those guys during the preseason,
like Mike Tomlin has openly talked about how they needed
some guys with a little edginess. They wanted to get
back to being the Steelers. DJU obviously are familiar with
the Steelers, haven't been with the Ravens for so long,
and we know that they're at their best when they
have a handful of guys that I would say are
wired a little differently than everybody else. And when I

(17:40):
look at this team with Dk Metcalf and the way
that he is feisty and feroches on the perimeter, I
think about Aaron Rodgers and what he brings in terms
of his temperament and personality, Jalen Ramsey coming over making
a big hit at the end, and some of the
other guys that they've added to the thing. Darius Slay
has a little bit of that to me. Even though
they would say deep abstlee, they didn't play to the

(18:01):
brand the person Kneil. They look and feel like Steelers
and that makes them a dangerous team provided they're able
to stay healthy at some of those key spots.

Speaker 2 (18:12):
Let's uh, let's take a quick break here when jump
back in, I want to hit to uh Washington Giants, Ballda,
I know you're cooking with gas on that and we'll
get to that right after this, all right, Baldy, Uh yeah,
feel free. You want to go good Washington, You want
to go bad Giants? Your your call.

Speaker 3 (18:29):
Let's go good Washington because well, Giants kept in the
game for a long time, and you know that the
offense is dreadful. I thought Washington consistently moved the football,
and you know it's just good to go, you know,
to Northwest Stadium and just see that place jumping because
it's been a while. But I mean Jadon Daniels. You

(18:51):
can't we when we well never, I don't think we're
gonna run out of superlatives. You can't like the guy
is just so calm. He he seized the field amazingly. Well,
they dropped a lot of his passes yesterday. I mean
zach Ertz dropped one and McLaurin dropped him. You know,
they all dropped passes. But I thought he played spectacular.

(19:13):
And then you look at the run game and this
guy Bill Okay, like this kid, I mean he popped
and he didn't start Austin Hechler starter. But this kid
came in and you know, you talked to some of
the guys there, Adam George whatever, they all said that

(19:33):
he was the best back, and he showed it yesterday.
His pop and his vision and his cutting was just elite.
And so they got they got a good thing from
the run game. And then on the other side, they
were the thirtieth ranks rush defense football and it was
a big weakness and they went out and they got
you know, they got a bunch of different guys that
come in and you look at what they did yesterday.

(19:57):
Javon came in and you look at you know, wis
Dietrich wise, Like, they added some bodies and they played
great run defense. Yesterday the Giants they couldn't score from
first and goal with the one they couldn't score like,
they won the line of scrimmage up front, and it
was pretty impressive for what they did.

Speaker 4 (20:17):
When I think about what the commanders are and what
they could be with Jayden Daniels, I think about the
weapons that they added, being able to have more firepower
on the perimeter. You think about Debo, you have Terry
coming back, but also you talk about Bill Little Bill
as they talk about him being able to have that
explosive element in the backfield and then putting it together,
and I would say, by no means was just like

(20:38):
a classic vintage Washington performance. But you can already see
the potential in terms of what they could be. And
I just think and I firmly believe this division between
Philly and Washington, like the arms race that is being
created in the offseason and how they continue to play out.
I just can't wait to continue to see the evolution
of this offense and the maturation of Jayden Daniels. You

(20:59):
always worried that second year when they come back to
the back after the league spends the year kind of
picking apart the game. I just kind of want to
continue to see how does he count the counters that
are going to be used at him, and how does
Cliff Kingsbury get him to continue to play at the
high level that he's playing at right now.

Speaker 2 (21:16):
Yeah, I mean, you guys are on it. I mean,
Bill crossky merit. It's It's one thing when you're like, Okay,
this guy accumulated some stuff. It's another thing when you
pop on the video and you're like, oh that looks different,
like that stop, start and then just burst like he
had big time burst. And I don't think it's it
might already be here. He's their most talent running back.

(21:38):
I don't think that's even a debate. And I think
he's going to be their feature guy, you know, going
forward for the rest of the year. I'm excited to
watch him. He's got a real he's got a legit
shot to be the rookie of the year, like he
could in this offense. With the weapons that they have
and the quarterback they have and the offensive line that's upgraded,
He's going to have an absolute monster year. Baldi, we
were talking about it. I was watching eighty five with

(21:59):
Noah Brown on watching him block his butt off, and
you go all peak baits and I'm like, oh, I
didn't know Bates's number off top of my head, but
I think is he eighty Yeah, he's eighty seven. Yeah,
he's blocking his butt off too. Like it tells you
the culture of a place when you look at how
the receivers and the tight end block.

Speaker 3 (22:13):
Yeah. No, I mean John Bates at number eighty seven
for Washington. He is a he's a great he's a
great blocker. And he's and Cliff. It's interesting, you know,
so Cliff comes out of the Big twelve and Texas
Tech and never saw a tight end in his entire life.
Now he knows how to use these tight ends. Amazing,
how he's evolved and how he'll have you know, zach

(22:37):
Ertz out there, he's still doing his thing somehow, and
his thirteenth year, zach Ertz is still winning one on
ones and scoring touchdowns and you know he's gonna fall
down as soon as he catches it, but it's just
gonna be in the end zone. But John, Yeah, this
John Bates is a great blocker at the point of attack.
They ask him to do a lot of different things.
He's in motion, he's ceiling, you know, the split zones.

(22:58):
He's really good at what he does, and they really
take advantage of it. And so they got a strong
side attack, whether it's Jade Daniels or Crosskey Merritt, whoever's running,
and they ran a countertrait like Joe Gibbs to be
really proud of, you know, to thinking it's Russ Grimm
and Joe Jacobe pulling on the backside, and you know,
Bates got the key block on the linebacker buried him

(23:20):
and Crosskey Merritt scored on the play, and I just thought, like,
where's the hogs when you when you do that's what?

Speaker 4 (23:27):
Hey?

Speaker 2 (23:27):
Buck, who's starting a quarterback for the Giants next week?
As we record this?

Speaker 4 (23:31):
Look, man, I think Russell gets one more than eventually
to go aheaded to Jackson Dart.

Speaker 2 (23:36):
You'll take the under on that.

Speaker 4 (23:38):
Oh okay, well, inside information.

Speaker 2 (23:41):
No, no, there's no inside information.

Speaker 4 (23:43):
I'm just it's interesting.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
But before he answered, like yesterday, Ian reported before the
game that Jackson Dart was going to have a package
of place for him, and I saw him down the
field and he didn't say no.

Speaker 3 (23:56):
When I asked him about it, he didn't say yes,
but he did shut it down by any stretch. And
then he didn't get on the field, And I kept
looking on the sideline going how much longer you're going
to watch this.

Speaker 2 (24:07):
Wilson as an offensive head coach?

Speaker 3 (24:10):
You're an offensive coach walking.

Speaker 4 (24:12):
It's brutal. Look, man, it's been like that. But they
knew that when they signed it. And so it's one
of those things like if you are da've all like, like,
how long are we going to go with this? Because
he was brought in and hired as head coach where
his offensive widgery wizardry, but we're not seeing any of that.
And the more that I see elite neighbors on the
sideline getting mad and fed up and frustrated, Like it's

(24:34):
a lot to manage and I don't know if Jackson
darts could be the answer to managing that, but it's
an issue and they got to figure out what's going
to happen.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
Well, it's interesting. So you know, Milik and Jake Daniels
are literally best friends, so like they can't before the game,
after the game, like they're hugging. But I'm sure Malik
is watching Jaye Daniels get the ball till his whole
fleet of receivers, and he's like, that's all I want.
That's all I want is a guy that could get
me the ball. And the only thing they can really

(25:03):
do to Malik right now in this offense is throw
jump balls to him, which he's great at. And he
caught a couple, and they probably should have flagged a
couple of interference penalties on Marshall Lattimore or you know,
Trey Angs on some plays. It looks like it to me,
but I'm sure Malik is just watching this like a
lot of these guys just give me a quarterback and
get me a ball, like we're down in a goal line,

(25:24):
like I should be scoring here, and they can't rEFInd
him right now.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
All right, Calvin just put in the chat as we're
talking here that Ian had tweeted the day Ball announced
Russell Wilson will start Sunday versus the Cowboys. I have
not seen a tweet that said if he will finish
versus the Cowboys. Yea, so we'll see. I know he's
not as an offensive head coach who's in a gotta
have it year to maintain employment. I cannot imagine he

(25:49):
watches four more quarters of what he watched, but there's
no way you start rest. But if that Jay he
finishes that game, do.

Speaker 3 (25:56):
You think that the conversation is being had with Kafka
and Marya, the whole group over there, and they're saying, boy,
if we make to switch now this is a panic move,
or you say the hell with the panic move. This
gives ourselves the best chance to win.

Speaker 2 (26:09):
We got to be we gotta be playing, and more importantly,
this rookie quarterback needs to be getting better and playing
well at the end of the year. So to me,
if you look at their schedule, it is murderer's row.
You can say, oh, we're going to what where you
gonna slide him in? It's one freaking a head knocker
after another after another after another. So my thing is, okay,
there's two things that you have to be buck to

(26:29):
get on the field as a rookie quarterback, and that
is mentally and physically tough, because you're gonna they're gonna
get hit because they're going to come after him, and
then you're gonna have failure. So to me, from what
we know and we spent time around him. I did
all my homework on Jackson Dart. I know for a
fact he passes the physically tough part of it, and
everything that I've heard about him in my interactions with him,
I think he's mentally strong enough to be able to

(26:51):
handle a little failure that's going to come his way.
But get him out there, get him up and running,
so that by the end of the year he's playing
some good ball and we can all run this thing back.

Speaker 4 (26:58):
You know, here's the thing. I think it all depends
on how the conversation is shaped between head, coach, front office,
and ownership. Like, if you have I don't want to see
assurances that you're going to be back and this is
part of a long term plan and process, then I
probably feel better about putting the young guy out there
to work through it. But if it's a mix of, hey,
we want to work the young guy out, but we

(27:19):
still are holding you to a standard where you need
to win some games that can be hard to pull
off at one time, particularly against the murderers road that
you talk about on the schedule. This has to be
an organizational decision when you decide that Jackson Dart is
going to be the quarterback, and once he goes in,
it can't be oh, we're gonna pull him out once
he goes in. It has to be a full commitment
that we're all in on the Jackson Dart Show and

(27:41):
our job, offensively is to get him going and we're
going try and win as many games as we can
while we're working through some of those growing pains.

Speaker 2 (27:49):
God, it's just so ugly what they're watching. I don't
know how much longer they're going to want to watch that.
So we'll see it. Hey, let's get to let's get
to Michcah parsons first game there with Green Bay. I mean, look,
we're talking about what we saw personnel wise, and that's
kind of what we do on this show. But Paul
I got to give the stadium operations folks some love.
Pretty cool when they had him introduced as the last

(28:10):
guy coming out of the tunnel. Saw that little clip
that was floating around, pretty epic scene there in Lambeau.

Speaker 3 (28:16):
You know, first of all, I mean he played thirty snaps,
so you know, probably about half half the action. A
lot of them were pass rushers, and he looked like
Michael Parsons in a Green Bay uniform. The guy was
elite off I mean, there's Penney Sewel over there and
he's beating him inside and you know he's getting into
Goth's face and he's thrown an interception. Evan Williams GoF

(28:36):
gets off the spot and here he comes like it's
just you know, nobody's getting away from Michael Parsons. No
quarterback is getting away from when he's on the chase.
So you saw a lot of that. But then you know,
you saw you saw in the game where they Detroit
was already game planning for They're already chipping him, They're
already taking the guard and sliding there. And so here

(28:57):
comes Rashaun and Lucas nests and they're eating a little
they they want to rob the middle of the field.
But you know, Jared Goff that was offense looked awful.
But I thought Micah looked excited to be there, like
he's jumping on. I haven't seen him that excited in
a while, but I think he was pumped to get
out there and do this thing. I don't know how
bad the back is, I'm not really because it didn't

(29:18):
look like it affected him at all. He looked like
the same guy, instant takeoff, beating some good players out there.
They moved him around quite a bit. They played, they
rushed them over the guard, they rushed them right side,
left side, so they had a play in form and
I thought he had about four or five rushers that
were outstanding.

Speaker 4 (29:35):
I'm gonna say this because we all have been tied
to great organizations. Organizations that I say are first class
or they have championship standards have been played in Green Bay.
What I get from Michael Parsons is there's a clear
understanding of what is expected of him, and that might
have been different than what it was in Dallas. Baudy,
you played in Dallas. I'm sure Dallas now is different

(29:56):
in Dallas back then. But what I do know about
Green Bay when you walk in those hallowed halls, everything
goes back to those days of Ben's Lambarden, even Curly Lambau,
about how you expected to conduct yourself in that building.
Michael Parsons talked early in the week about Hey, on
the day off, I came in and there were so
many guys here I've never seen that I can tell
you in Green Bay. That is the expectation, like They

(30:19):
don't call that place title town for nothing, so I'm
not surprised that when they did the intro and they
called him last. Part of that is to ingratiate him
to the franchise, the community, or whatever, but it's also
to let him know what the expectations are for him
on the field. Look, man, Jeff Affley, I knew he

(30:40):
was gonna have a thing because when you are a
vision and break seaball getball defense like they want to be.
When you get a pass rusher, the turnovers come in droves,
and moving him around and being able to take advantage
of his pass rushing prowess not only sets up those
other pass rushers to get busy, as you talked about
Rashan Gary and Devin Wyatt and those guys, but in

(31:02):
the back end, man, you talk about being able to
squat and include a quarterback knowing that, hey, thousand and one,
one thousand and two, the balls coming out. The Green
Bay Packers became a title contender when they acquired Michael
Parson's because I felt like they're going to be one
of the few organizations that could get the best out

(31:22):
of him. Because he has to comply to the standards
because they've been greater players that are played there before him,
and he'll understand what is expected of him.

Speaker 2 (31:32):
To me, it's about what it does for all the
other guys on that defense. It's literally like I think
about baseball. You acquired a three hole hitter at the
trade deadline, is what you did. And now all of
a sudden, your three hitter gets to move down a
little bit. All of a sudden, now your five hitters
now hitting this set. Everybody's getting better pitches. And you
saw Rashan Gary in one on ones with Taylor Decker,

(31:52):
and I'm not you know, Baldly, you own nicknames for players.
We go to the condor with Max Crosby, go you
know Highway seventy seven. You're the nickname guy. I'm gonna
give you one free of charge. Rashan Gary, it should
be his nickname should be Amco because he is testing
your breaks as an offensive tackle and and Decker's breaks
were not working well against the power that he was facing.

(32:14):
That was roller skates straight back to the quarterback. But
there is a lot of power there that if we
just put that video on Baldy's breakdowns and let's get
the amco thing double a. So that that was one thing,
and the other thing was if you haven't I loved
him coming out and I haven't just watched a ton
of him since he's been in the league. Eddrin Cooper

(32:35):
is going to be a major problem for people, no doubt, dynamic.
He's explosive. Guards trying to get up to him that
he just dips and dodgs. You can't get your hands
on him. He's too sudden, too twitchy, and too explosive.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
So that game, uh, you know when he was at
A and M against Alabama when it was just like
about him drafted like he did everything that day. But
he took over the second half of the season last
year and he's on a he's on a good course
to a bunch of tackles that make a lot of plays.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
All right, let's go to the negative side of this thing,
because a lot was discussed about Detroit. You lose both coordinators.
What's that going to look like? What's the plan? So
I'm just gonna start this is the area I focused on,
Buck and then I'll see what you think and Baldy
pick it up. But red Zone. Look, they lost the
game by a couple scores, but you're one of four
in the red zone. That's the that's the story of

(33:25):
the game. Green Bays three of five, Like, just do
the math on that one. That that tells you the
whole story of the game. So they had thirteen plays.
They ran in the red zone, ten passes, three runs
for Detroit. Let's go with the first time they're in there.
They go gun, no play action, throw a flat route
for five yards to Gibbs. They come back, they're under center.
It's a run, no game. That's where Drian Cooper just

(33:46):
beats the tight end on the backside cut off. Then,
so now we're in third down, we're in Gun's there's
absolutely nothing there. There's no play action, there's no mesh.
There's just just swarmed and covered in smooth there's nothing
for golf incomplete. So that's their first one. They go
to the second time they're down there, gun, no play action,
pass throwaway, gun run Pina sewell he gets beat, Mahogan,

(34:11):
he gets beat. So you get nothing on a second
down run the third down, gun, no play action, no mesh,
golf just locks on. There's nothing there, gets picked. So
now we've got one failure, one turnover we get to
the third possession under center, they go under center play action,
but there's no mesh. There's nothing in that restricted space
to create any separation. So they're just absolutely smothered under center,

(34:35):
run tackle for loss, third and sixteen. They just dump
one off to the flat. The only time they did
anything in the red zone is the fourth quarter, minute
thirty four. You're down by twenty one points. They run
four verticals, they dumped the ball down and then they
hit Tesla in the back of the end zone makes
an unbelievable catching, but the game's over at that point
in time. So I go back and watch last year.
I'm like, what was the difference. I watched all the

(34:56):
red zone snaps against Green Bay last year. I saw
more shifts, motion movement, I saw a tight end screen.
I saw Mom and Ross Saint Brown on an inside
reverse pop one the I'm just it looked stale and static.
It did not look creative. And it's one week buck.
I don't want to overreact on the coaching side of things,
but that was alarming what you saw from Detroit's offense.

Speaker 4 (35:18):
Look, I'm not surprised. That's one of the things that
was the biggest question is why you couldn't pencil the
Detroit lines in as a prohibitive favorite in that division.
When you lose both coordinators you talk about Ben Johnson
and Aaron Glnn respectively, it changes the way this team's
going to be, regardless of the personnel carry over. When
you have John Morton coming in, who is a John

(35:38):
Gruden West Coast disciple, and he's replacing Ben Johnson, who
is a creative, artistic wizard. When it came to that offense,
it was going to be different, and I wondered how
much pressure John mort would have to match the creativity
that Ben Johnson left, because that offense was fun, it
was physical, and they had a bill needed more between

(36:01):
Finesse and Forrest. I don't know if you can match that,
and we have to get used to seeing a very generic,
very static Lions offense and I just don't know. Personnel wise,
that's cool, but you have to have superior personnel everywhere
to play vanilla ice cream type offense and win consistently
in this league.

Speaker 3 (36:21):
I've always I've always maintained since I was in Dallas
and we lost a lot of great assistant coaches, Jeene
Stallings and Dickens some really good coaches that it's more
difficult to replace great coaches than it is great players.
Now that being said, losing Frank rag Now and Kevin
Zeitler and just seeing Graham Glasgow will go over to

(36:43):
center and then two new guards in there, like, they're
just not as good upfront right now. Now maybe they
get better. And Decker, you know, they thought about replacing
him a year ago, so they're not as good upfront
where you might have the confidence to try some of
these things and work some of these gimmick not gimmicks,
but some of these things that Ben Johnson liked to do.

(37:06):
It all started with the ability to win the line
of scrimmage, and I don't know that they weren't close
to doing that yesterday, And so I think that that's
another thing to watch, is the guard, the interior offensive
line play and how that affects this offense.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
It's gonna be hard in that division too, with who
you're gonna see defensively. So look, it's one game. Let's
I'm not gonna try and way overreact to it. But
I would just use the word alarming. It wasn't great
there for Detroit. Baldi Tampa Atlanta great game. Did what
did you see in that one?

Speaker 4 (37:37):
Uh?

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Well, you know, they lost Tristan Waris in the offseason
and so in the preseason they had different guys playing
left tackle. Well, for this game, they adjusted the whole
offensive line. They took Graham Barton and played him at
left tackle. They took Ben Britis in their left guard,
they put him at center, and then they put Michael
Jordan in at left guard. And they played great. They

(37:59):
played great. I mean, all those all the emphasis that
Atlanta had on getting these pass rushers James Pearce and
Jalen Walker and you know, Leonard Floyd, like all of
the whole emphasis was We're going to get to the quarterback,
except they didn't. And Baker was like, the two touchdown
throws to Abuca are just dying absolute dimes. But he

(38:22):
also had trusted his protection and he did it from
the pocket and they were beautiful throws, including the game winner,
uh to a Buka.

Speaker 4 (38:30):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (38:31):
That was that was really encouraging that you could manage
the offensive line, make the switches they did, and the
players and not playing at all in any games together
in preseason and then putting that out there on the
road in Atlanta in a packed house that was encouraging.
On the other side of Michael Pennis, I thought he
played great. You know, it really came down to a

(38:54):
turnover at the end of the game, but I thought
he had him in the game all the way to
the very end. Fact, he throws a ball to Casey
Washington with sixteen seconds ago, He's got it at the five.
It's in hands that Antoine Winfield came and just blew
him up and it became an incompletion. Buddy. He gave
him a chance to the very very end. And the
talent they lost Drake Drake London is a huge loss.

(39:15):
But you know, the throws to Bijon what he did,
Kyle Pitch looked like he was involved in the offense
for the first time in a long time. Casey Washington,
I didn't know who he was until this game. Like
it was, it was a good It was a good
NFC South game, I'll say.

Speaker 4 (39:31):
You that, yeah, a good NFC South game. And I
think we have to come to the realization that Tempay
Buccaneers have kind of cracked the code when it comes
to dominating that division. They won four straight division titles.
They always kind of have a sense of how to
win those games. But Todd Bowles and the job that
Jason Light has done and kind of building up that talent,
this is a team that's gonna be very dangerous down

(39:52):
the stretch. And when I think about offensively, what they
were able to do a Mecca Buca. You have Mike Evans,
you don't have Chris Gottwin yet, but when they get
those guys back and then they're able to continue to
run the ball, this is gonna be a tough team
because officously they're gonna be able to control it via
the run or pass. But defensively, what Todd Bowles does
with all those exotic zone pressures, man, he gives you

(40:14):
a headache physically and mentally with all the stuff that
they do. This is a really good team and they're
gonna fly out the radar, but they're gonna be one
of those teams that you're gonna have to deal with
when we talk about who's gonna be in the final
four when it comes down to Super Super Bowl contendent.

Speaker 2 (40:27):
I'm not I'm not click bait, I'm not a power
statement guy, but I know you've got a first bout
Hall of Famer and receiver at Mecca Book is the
best player, their best skilled player on offense. Just just
watching what right now today, and to me, it's not
only the you know, the trust Baker has in him,
his ability to go get the ball, his ability to
set guys up. To me, it was like Temple when
you get guys that know how to temple routes in

(40:49):
their first NFL game, I understand how to let things
open up and then you see different. I was like,
this is some different polish like that, and that's why
they center Ohio State. This guy's a pros pro like
he's he takes in and information. He's going to learn everything.
He knows all the coverages to your point, Baldy, So
uh that was uh, that was what blew me away
from that watching the Mecca Book. Baldi, We've got you

(41:10):
for about five more minutes. So I want to jam
through a couple more games and then if you're listening
to this for the first time, catching us on a Monday,
whatever game, we don't hit here today, Bucky and I
we're going to clean up from more because if we don't,
if we don't talk about it today, we'll get it tomorrow.
I don't want to. I don't want to just short
change stuff because I love the discussions that we're getting
ready to have here, Baldy, let's get to uh, let's
get to Indy. And what they did, I mean maybe

(41:31):
that was the biggest surprise of the week.

Speaker 3 (41:32):
That was starting to nothing at one point and it
was just it was complete domination. But I mean, you know, look,
Inianapolis Colts first pick was Tyler Warren, and you can't
watch that game and go, this is Tyler Warren's offense. Like,
first of all, they I thought Chane did a great
psych and did a great job of just making things
like I call it paint by numbers, but Daniel Jones

(41:55):
had very few reads to actually really make you just
had to drop back his back foot and throw it
and there was a guy open. Whether it was the
first touchdown to Pittman where Tyler Warren takes the safety
with him and it opens up the wheel behind it
and there's a great throw. But I just thought that
Tyler Warren in the blocking from the opening drive, catching
three balls and the opening drive right down the field,

(42:17):
like he's so he's so fiery, and how he lays
the game guys bounce off him like he is an
unbelievable target. He runs really well. He is a difference
maker for that team. Third and one, here comes Tyler
Warren on you know, the sneak up the middle. There's
they used them to seal, to pass protect, so many

(42:39):
different ways that they used them. And he was really effective.
And you know by anybody that you know, if you
guys have had a chance to talk to him, like
he says two words, you know that's a lot. Like
he just lets his play do the talking. Like he's
just and you can see it. He's having a great
time out there whatever it is that he's doing. And
he it opened up the whole offense to me.

Speaker 4 (43:00):
You know, it's funny you talk about opening another the offense.
Daniel Jones gave us a little preview of what this
was going to look like during the week when he
talked about how Shane Stykeen has a unique ability to
make things very very simple for the quarterback, very.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Black or white.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
He gave him credit for not being egotistical enough to
have this huge playbook, but he does the simple things
better than anybody else, and he'll find a million different
ways to run simple concepts that are easy for the quarterback.
And what we saw was the best version of Daniel
Jones in terms of being able to take this thing
and get hot and get going.

Speaker 3 (43:33):
And never in a.

Speaker 4 (43:34):
Million years did people envision Daniel Jones having this kind
of game, not only in a debut, but where he's
a dominant player and performer. And so if I'm the
Indianapolis Ghost and I'm Shane stycken Man, I feel great
about what this is and what this could be because
Lou and Aroumo and that defense is going to be
much better than people think. And if they can get

(43:55):
consistent production, I'm not saying thirty three points a game
from the offense. Do they get consistent for production where
they're twenty four to twenty six, they're gonna win a
lot of games because defensively, Lou and Aroma is whereas
he knows how to how to unlock the defensive person
in the talent, and we saw that against Miami.

Speaker 2 (44:12):
You got me to the defense is where I wanted
to go. I don't want to no name defense has
been used. I don't want to say that, but I
would say when you're putting a scouting report together and
you're going to play the Indianapolis Colts defense. I don't
think there's that one guy where we're like, Okay, we
got to give all our attention to this player. What
they do is they have a lot of really really
good players. So you know, in terms of how many
true blue players they have, I don't know that there's
a lot of those, but there are not a lot

(44:33):
of weaknesses. And when you go through that tape and
you watch Kenny Moore blitzing, you know, playing with timing
and instincts. You watch Grover Grover Stewart putting the centers
and guards on roller skates all day long. Is just
a big, powerful, physical guy. Nick Cross, you know, was
active and physical in the back end. Lat Too is
starting to come along and starting to see some of
what they love so much about him come out of
UCLA Ebukam, who, by the way, I don't know if

(44:54):
he's played for fifty teams, but I feel like every
year I watch Ebukam making plays for somebody. But they
we all can run their athletic and they play really
really hard, And I mean that was that was.

Speaker 3 (45:05):
Tua look absolutely flummixed in that game.

Speaker 2 (45:08):
Well, their offensive line stinks so let's start.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
Okay, but like you know, for Tua not to feel
those two backside blitzers that they talked about anymore and
hit cross coming clean and hitting them and getting the
ball out on one of the occasions, like to not
feel that or know that, like credit lou on a
Room was gonna hit. He's gonna he's gonna blitz the
backside of Tua, but not to feel see it like

(45:31):
that just doesn't feel like to it to me. And
then once he gets hit, now he's starting to read
the rush after that, and that's what Then he really
got himself in the truble.

Speaker 2 (45:40):
It was not pretty from Miami. Will we'll spare Miami
the our heat today. I want to get to two
last things, Baldi. Then we'll let you scoot two. Number
one overall quarterbacks. I'll start lead us off on the
first one. Cam Ward making his first start. That's I mean, look,
you're on the road against Denver and that defense. That's
a tough assignment, man, But I'm watching that. He's twelve
to twenty eight for a twelve. He got sacked six times.

(46:02):
He did not run the football one time. So those
are kind of the numbers as they stand out when
you watch the sacks, there's a couple of them of
him just holding the ball. That's the speed at this
adjustment of the speed of the game. You think about
how many times at Miami he would be a statue
like he would just sit there feet in the ground
with that great Miami offensive line. Yeah, that ain't happening here.

(46:22):
So he's got to speed up his process a little bit.
They got beat I mean, gosh, I don't Kushion Barry
got killed in this game. Latham I think was hurt.
I haven't seen the update on that, but he would
laid off the ball the time he struggled, but he
had three drops down the field. I thought that the
biggest takeaway watching him throw the ball was he made

(46:43):
he made two plays on scrambles. But that's not who
he's going to be or how he's going to be
with this team. He's got to play on time. When
he played on time back football gone, he was Okay,
that's baldy. I think that's just kind of the speed
of the game thing for Cam He's just got to
get adjusted.

Speaker 3 (46:57):
Well. They probably couldn't have been a worse defensive start
then against Denver. I mean Denver had as many five
man rushes as anybody in this business because they know
they can hold up on the back end. And so
it all takes is Dan Moore, Jay you know, or Kushenbarry,
somebody to get beat by Zach Allen or Benito whoever
you know, was winning the one on ones and now
he's under pressure. Now he's now it's speeding him up.

(47:20):
And so they they are relentless. Van Joseph does a
great job, but he's got great personnelity. Olfango really showed
up in that game, you know, immediately, and so I
just feel like, man, try to find a weakness in
that Denver defense and then have the offensive line to
be able to hold up so a guy can at
least have two and a half seconds to go find
a receiver. He didn't get many of those opportunities.

Speaker 4 (47:43):
No, he didn't get many of those. You knew advance
Joseph was gonna doallod up. He's gonna at him up
because that's all he knows. Like this is a team
that was at the top of the league in sack
last year. They believe in bringing pressure. They're relentless when
it comes to it, and having a young guy, they
were setting them up. I'll say this offensively, just got
to see better ball security from bow Knicks and this offense.
Like this is a game that the score was much

(48:05):
closer than it should have been, and that's because they
turned the ball over. They take care of the football
and they kind of get the running the ball and
vo Nicks is efficient. This Broncos team is built and
it just makes me think, Man, the AFC West is
gonna be a head knock because you talk about the Kansay,
the Chiefs being at the bottom, Pete Carroll working his magic,
the Broncos winning, and then the Charge is winning. It's

(48:26):
gonna be tough and I can see it game down
the stretch.

Speaker 2 (48:29):
I cant see them all here. So you got to
see the Chiefs Week one. For the Chargers, we'll go
play the uh the Raiders. I'll see that game Monday night,
and then the following week Denver comes to LA, so
the Charger will get a taste of the entire division here.
To start us off, last one Buck game, you were
at Bryce young again, hoping that was going to be
a step forward for him after last year. The Jags
team that you you work for and call games for

(48:50):
they kind of they kind of bottled up this offense.

Speaker 4 (48:53):
Yeah, they bought up the offense. But here here's the
funny thing like it, the score is not truly indicative
of what it looked like him watching it up close.
The Panthers want to run the football, and Trouepa Hubbard
had it going. He was averaging like five years of
clip the first half, and then there was a turnover
that kind of flipped the script a little bit, gave
the Jaguars life and they were able to separate, and
then you had the long weather delay and all that

(49:15):
other stuff, and so it just didn't fall in their favor.
When this offense is at his best, Chebra Huver's running
the ball, they finding creative ways to get Bryce Young
out of the pocket on play action, boot action in
those things. Well, let me tell you something. All those
opinions that we had on tedor Roy McMillan about oh,
I don't know, tell me wrong on that this dude
is amazing when it comes to his hand out coordination,

(49:38):
his ability to play big, looking like a natural number
one receiver. If they're able to dictate the terms, meaning
they can run on early downs and get to the
play action where they can find tedyor Roy McMillan, and
he might have to say his whole name, because his
mom chastised me in the elevator about he's not Ted.
He's not going to make sure I call him by
his entire name or t mac whatever it is he's

(50:00):
If they can get that going, they have a chance.
But right now it was piecemeal. It wasn't clean. You
just hope the operation gets better for that offense with
Dave cannot.

Speaker 3 (50:10):
Well just just a biggie back here. I mean, Liam
Cohen did an unbelievable job last year in Tampa to
unleash the running game. Now, Bucky every helped. But I
thought the way that he runs it, the way that
he attacks the I thought the way that that offensive
line played together up front, like Traves e. Tan ran

(50:32):
the ball as well as I've seen him running now
in a couple of years, maybe since his rookie year.
And I thought they were really really tight in their
combo blocks when they came off to the linebackers, how
they executed just running inside zones with them. I thought
that was encouraging. It's just it just started. It's not
the greatest I thought it was a good start for
a team that desperately wants some toughness coming out of

(50:55):
the run game, something that they had nothing going for
it the last two years. So I thought that was
a good start for the Jacks.

Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah, I'll wrap us up here on that one. The
you know, that division all of a sudden, which he
thought might be the worst division in the NFL. All
of a sudden, you look up and Indy does what
they did, and then you look at Jacksonville who looked
like they've they've got it going now with a new
coaching staff and some fun pieces that they've added to
the mix. Yeah, Houston, don't know less of the Rams
on the road. That's a really, really good football team.
Houston is going to be good going throughout the season.

(51:24):
So it looks like that division might end up being
a little bit better than we initially thought. And then, uh,
last thing on on Bryce and the in the Panthers. Yeah, no,
I saw some good things from McMillan.

Speaker 4 (51:34):
Buck.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
I agree with you on that. My man, look gets
got to freaking get his feet down.

Speaker 3 (51:37):
Man.

Speaker 2 (51:37):
There's there's two big plays in that game where he
catches the ball. He's got plenty of time, get your
back foot down. He doesn't get it down. Those cost
him a couple They had a couple other drops. I
didn't think the box score wasn't pretty when I watched
the tape. I didn't think Bryce was as bad as
the box score made it look. It could have been.
It could have been a little bit better there. So
that was just bad.

Speaker 4 (51:57):
Yeah, not as bad as is it made out be
like it wasn't great, but like it certainly it wasn't
a terrible performance. Like you can build off of some
of the things that he displayed.

Speaker 2 (52:07):
Yeah, so anyway that look, there's a lot there's a
lot more games we will we'll get to those tomorrow
on the show as well as so we'll recap our
rookie draft from last week. We'll have our rookie draft
for the upcoming week. And I did just find out
we've got an old friend, Mike Max going to join
us on Thursday, so we'll have him on the show
ball the Maiden Voyage. Man, I kept you seven minutes
longer than I was supposed to, but I love you.

Speaker 3 (52:28):
All right, man. I will just put the fine in
the jar.

Speaker 2 (52:32):
Yeah, yeah, no, that's right. Two Starbucks, two Starbucks you
next Monday, man, take care of.

Speaker 4 (52:43):
All right, buck.

Speaker 2 (52:44):
As we kind of wrap this thing up here, Uh
other other big picture takeaway you've got here from week one.
As we close this thing down, don't overreact to anything
that we saw in week one. You really don't know
what a team really looks like. And after we see
about four games.

Speaker 4 (52:59):
I use our scouting take where we take three or
four games before make evaluations on players. Same thing about teams,
some guy, Some teams are going to start out slow
out the box. Other teams are gonna get out fast,
but we won't know what team really is until we
get to the quarter point. So fans don't freak out.
But do know, if you start owing two dods or long,
you're making the playoffs. So I'm saying, don't freak out,

(53:21):
but you don't want to be in the in the
winless column for too long because it will into your
ability to make it to the postseason.

Speaker 2 (53:28):
Yeah, I want to. I want to just do. We'll
knock out two more things here as we close up shop.
And again thanks to Baldy for joining us. I didn't
get a chance to talk to you about the Charger
game from Friday, so just one point on that. I
mentioned Justin Herbert a little bit earlier talking about how
like I think he can get to where Josh Allen is.
I think he can and if he plays like he
did in that game, he's there just because that was

(53:49):
some big boy throws man against that defense, and they've
all of a sudden. You look up and Chargers team
last year that you know, was a little bit void
of weapons to the point where Will Disley was their
number two option in the playoff game. You look up
and Keenan Allen's back, picking up right where he left
off with Justin Herbert. You look at Quentin Johnson now
as the three, who's getting some advantageous matchups because of

(54:09):
McConkie and Keenan Allen. And then all of a sudden,
Trey Harris, this rookie second round pick, makes a play.
Conklin's an upgrade form at tight end. He makes them play.
I mean, they got some firepower. Not to mention, you
got a new backfield with two big, big dudes back there,
including Hampton, who can go.

Speaker 4 (54:24):
You know, it's funny because it is an upgrade in personnel,
and a lot of times DJ we talked about players
and pieces and roles and how important it is to
be cast in a role that suits your talent. Quentin
Johnson man put in a role that suits his talent
as a guy who is Urkele Thread can do some
of the things you talk about, Like this guy is
an accomplished track and field athlete in high school. They

(54:45):
have him in the right role. Keenan Allen coming back
being able to be the third down playmaker, the possession
receiver that just finds a way to consistently pick up
first thousand. Then McConkie kind of be in the underrated
number one receiver. But it's so crafty. They have so
many different things, but at the end of the day,
the Charges ability to be able to be a physical
football team because they have upgraded the back through and

(55:06):
they will be committed to the running game with a
quarterback that look man Harvard taosseim at every turn, he's
specially he's a franchise, he's a beast, all the a
few some of adjectives that he's used to describe. Justin Herbert,
they have one of those now with what you're saying,
Herbert just owning those superhero powers and letting them shot

(55:28):
being okay with being a little more as you say,
like Josh Allen, like, wait, man, I'll take over the
game when I need to. He has all the tools.
He just refused to kind of crack open the thing
every now and didn't do it. But hey, man, break
the piggy bank. Let's let some of that come out,
because if he does that, the Charge become a bit
very dangerous team.

Speaker 2 (55:47):
Yeah, no question, including the run there to seal the
game with a sweet little baseball slider to wrap that
game up.

Speaker 4 (55:53):
Mahomes.

Speaker 2 (55:54):
By the way, seeing him down there in person on
the field before the game, he looks leaner. That's as
well as a we're seeing him move. He played really
really well. I mean they got a little Greek early
in the game that cost him in terms of just
not taking what was there worth. He goes out, they
don't you know, have or she rice, so they're shorthanded
their offensively. But I thought in terms of some of
the plays he made, but more so just how he moved,
Homes is gonna have a very big year for the

(56:16):
Kansas City Chiefs. Now quickly, buck go ahead one more
on that one.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
No, no, no, I was gonna say this It's funny that
we're seeing that right because I felt like, have mahomes
look good and there's been a lot of attention on
what he's done in terms of conditioning, but Dak Prescott too,
as that's where I was going next, getting lean, getting fit,
That's being a big part of it. We rarely talk
about quarterbacks and fitness and conditioning, but it matters, and
we're seeing some of the best in the business really

(56:39):
double down on making sure that their bodies are right
as they hit into the season.

Speaker 2 (56:44):
That's why I was going to go with the last
one because that was the other game we didn't get
a chance to visit on and that was the opener
with Dallas and Philly. Jalen Hurts, you know, making the
plays that need to be made, using his legs, whatever
it takes. That defense up front is young, fast and physical.
Jalen Carter doesn't play. I thought that that impacted them
for the first half and then they kind of settled

(57:04):
in defensively. I did think he was interesting when you
look at an issue that popped up at corner and
they were getting attacked there with a Dori Jackson and
then all of a sudden, Uh, you know we're recording
this on a Monday morning. There's reports they were looking
at bringing in a Nickel, I think was it Hilton
with Mike Hilton it was, but bringing in someone that
would then Cook kick Cooper Dejene outside. But I mean, look,

(57:24):
the Eagles aren't. They're not, you know, labeled the smartest
organization in the NFL for no reason. They know that
was a problem and they're going to have to try
and address that.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
Yeah, I mean, look, here's the thing. I don't think
anybody had them the beingo card that the Dory Jackson
would be a starting quarterback for the defending champions. Like
when you bring him in, you're thinking about veteran depths,
ub packages, nickel, dime quarter situations where he comes in
as part of a five, six, seven defensive back package.
And what they found out quickly is, hey, we can't
have him on the island as a one or two

(57:52):
kicking Cooper Degene back outside where we've seen him have
some success. He can to have success inside. But it
makes sense to me, those young athletic corners, did they've
invest in it, man, Put them on the field. Let
them do it, because they're good enough. Vig FANJOI figure
out a way to make sure that they're playing to
their stress. This team has it all and even when
they didn't have their a game during our coronation night,

(58:13):
there's still plenty good enough to be able to win
and that is scared for the rest of the league.

Speaker 2 (58:17):
Yeah, we'll get to it later in the week. I
think Mayock, We're gonna have mayok on to talk a
lot about that Chiefs Eagles game that's coming up. But
that's gonna be a lot of fun to watch that
contest coming up this next weekend. But what a great
weekend of football. One more game tonight. We will discuss
that on tomorrow show as well as RHTT rejoins us.
We'll do the rookie draft. We'll hit on these games
we did not hit on today. But man, what a

(58:38):
treat having Baldi with us on Mondays. It's just it's
next level.

Speaker 3 (58:43):
Man.

Speaker 2 (58:43):
It's fun to be able to dive into these games.

Speaker 4 (58:45):
I mean, it was a lot of fun.

Speaker 3 (58:46):
Baldy's great.

Speaker 4 (58:47):
He's terrific when it comes to like taking what he's
able to see on film and explain it. I just
love that conversation, I think, and that only makes us smart.
I think it makes everyone who listens in smarter because
that's a real ball conversation.

Speaker 2 (58:58):
If you've made it all the way to the end
the episode today, than than you enjoyed it. And if
you did enjoy it, I would encourage you to leave
us a rating, leave us a review. We don't ask
you to do that very often. We've been doing this
show for over a decade, but every now and then,
liket hermind. Folks, Hey little let's help get the word
out there. This is a it's a fun show to
be a part of. It's a it's a fun show
to do. Hopefully it's a fun show to listen to
as well. We will see it tomorrow right here on

(59:19):
Move the sticks.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
H