August 19, 2024 • 25 mins
On today's episode, Jason discusses Caitlin Clark's scintillating start to the second half of the WNBA season, why Caleb Williams needs to learn to play within structure to reach his full potential, the likelihood that Williams can lead the Chicago Bears to the playoffs in his first NFL season and whether or not Gardner Minshew is the right man for the job with the Las Vegas Raiders.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
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 McIntire,
Straight Fire for Monday, August the nineteenth. I hope everybody
had a phenomenal weekend. Mine was kind of sort of
laid back. Did get to play hoops for the first
time in a month. Watched a little preseason, not too much, honestly,
I can't stomach too much preseason. Watch some soccer EPL
(00:33):
back in action, watch Caitlyn Clark and the Fever cook listen.
It's football time, obviously, but I did think it was
worth starting with Caitlyn Clark and the Fever winning Friday
against a good team, winning Sunday against a good team,
and folks, it's one of those situations where sometimes you
gotta deal with you gotta shovel a lot of shit
to get through it, and then you get to the
(00:55):
good stuff. You know. Maybe you gotta deal with a
lot of sour and then you get to the sweet,
you know. And Caitlin Clark being left off the Olympic team,
as much as that kind of hurd and was painful,
I'm sure for Clark and her fans and just anybody
who likes watching her play basketball. What a blessing that
she was able to have a month off come back rejuvenated.
And so far it's early two games back, but early
(01:18):
returns are she is motivated, rested, and she's destroying the league.
It's only two games, but the schedule, remember, works in
the Fevers way. And I'm just telling you, Caitlin Clark,
the league has a problem on their hands right now. Clark.
I got her at MVP of the league at plus
five eighty before the season, like an idiot MVP. Come on,
what rookie does that? Well, she did just set the
(01:41):
rookie assist record. She's gonna obliterate it because she's got
still tons of games left. And I did bet them
to win the title plus two thousand. Now I know
he was just saying, Jason pizza money flushing it down
the drain? What are you an idiot? Come on? Maybe
probably I've been called worst. That being said, this team
went through a bunch of garbage early with rotations coach,
obviously some backlash to Clark. They survived it, and now
(02:04):
they're starting to percolate, and you have to wonder, you know,
you come playoff time fever gonna be a bit of
a tough out. The bigs are starting to understand the
pace that Clark plays with. I mean, listen, folks, I'm
just gonna be fun and interesting, and you have to admit,
regardless if you're an Angel Rehes fan, Diana Tarassi fan,
(02:25):
a Caitlin Clark fan. Whatever. The idea that a rookie
from Iowa could come into this league and maybe, well
she's gonna win Rookie the year, that's obvious, but maybe
whin the MVP and maybe carry the fever to like
the finals, this would be starting. This would be some
kind of Hoosiers type shit that went down in the WNBA.
It's a little early for that, but just thought, I
(02:47):
get the Caitlin Clark out of the way early. I listen.
I don't want to say you never want to go
too overboard in the NFL preseason because a lot of
the storylines are kind of bunked. It's like, oh, Russell
Wilson's hurt, could just Fields come in and steal the job?
Probably not, but it's fun to talk about for, you know,
eight minutes until reality sets in. I did think, and
(03:08):
I'll just be very brief on the Steelers I did
think that Mike Tomlin opening his presser after another subpar
showing from his team in the preseason, talking about he
was very happy with the punting is a very very
direct shot. Now, again, the offense doesn't want to reveal anything,
but you want to see crispness. You want to see fluidity,
(03:29):
You want to see the offensive line gelling. Nobody's calling
any really awesome plays here. I mean you got Patrick
mahomestory behind the back passes. Literally. Okay, it's the preseason.
Let's not get too excited. You never want to get
too high. I never want to get too low. So
if you're the steel if you're a Steelers fan, and
every time I talk about them, for some reason, Steelers
(03:51):
fans are like, they're never under five hundred, They've never
had a losing season under Tomlin. Yeah, I get that.
And past perform is not an indicator of future results.
That's just a fact.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You can say, hey, Tomlin always finds a way as
an underdog. Yes, he certainly does. And also the Steelers
were like seventeen or oh not seventeen, but they were
incredible best in the league last year in one score games.
Is that going to happen again. You know what if
Russ can't play the whole, I'm just not going to
turn the football over. What if the defense takes a
(04:26):
little bit of a step back. There's a lot of
questions with the Steelers. I don't even think they're that
interesting of a team because Tomlin's coming back now, they don't.
I don't think either of those two guys, Russ or Fields,
will be the starting quarterback in twenty twenty five. And
so if you're a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, what are you
even looking for here? Just like to be competitive and
not roll over. You can only do that so many
(04:48):
years before eventually the bottom kicks in or the bottom
falls out, and you're there like, oh my gosh, we stink.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Five win team.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I don't know that they're a five win team, but
six or seven would not surprise me at all. I
do think the biggest story and yes, we'll talk about
the Vegas Raiders naming their QB one. And it's interesting
because I spent some of the weekend looking at the Raiders.
Maybe I've been too harsh on them this offseason. There's
some things there. But first we'll start with Kayleb Williams,
number one overall pick, comes to the Chicago Bears, a
(05:18):
franchise that's had plenty of highs obviously, but sadly none
of them will evolved around the quarterback. And Caleb Williams
is probably in short order going to be the best
quarterback the Chicago Bears have ever had. No disrespect to
Jim McMahon or Mike tom Zack Rex Grossman, who I
think they went to a Super Bowl with when Devin
(05:39):
Hester was in his prime. It was a rainy super Bowl. Yeah,
I think Rex Grossman was a quarterback. You guys can
check me on that. But it's like, this is a
franchise that has not been able to figure out quarterback
forever ever. I mean Jake Cutler. If Jake Cutler's one
of the best what four quarterbacks they've ever had, you
know you've got problems. So Kayleb Williams comes out and
(06:02):
in limited time makes a.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Couple a really fricking incredible place.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Now in the moment, it's like, oh my gosh, look
what he's doing. That is amazing. Rookie doing some of
the backyard football stuff. We'll get to that in a second.
The backyard football stuff that makes him and Mahomes so similar,
and then rushing for the touchdown and throwing what appeared
to be a touchdown with the receiver foot was out
(06:26):
of bounds.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Caleb Williams looked pretty damn impressive, making a few splash plays. Well, folks,
that's what he did at USC. He made the splash place.
I remember a game against Utah that he had. You
guys can call it up on YouTube in Utah and
Caleb Williams was bawling out to the point you're like,
oh my gosh, this really is Patrick Mahomes and they
(06:49):
were totally outmanned and Utah is a tough place to play,
and he took him down to the wire and they
ended up losing. But it wasn't because of Caleb Williams.
He was making every throw, scrambling his tail off the kids.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
AFO.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
We know that, Okay, we totally get all of this.
What we don't know if he's able to rein it
in because you can't play backyard football every down in
the NFL. You can't do it twenty snaps a game.
It's just not sustainable. It's just it's not gonna work.
He'll get destroyed by linebackers and defensive linemen and safeties
(07:22):
that I mean, he's they're gonna confuse him. He's not
seeing I don't really think anybody's showing Caleb Williams anything
that he'll be seeing in the regular season. That would
be my guess. It's all very vanilla at this point.
Let's be real. The Tennessee Titans are in Week one.
What are the Tennessee Titans doing in the preseason. We're
looking to see, if for who's gonna make the roster.
(07:42):
I mean, they're too deep, ain't great, And it's like,
you know, do are we gonna show anything that the
Bears can look at tape from our preseason and say
ooh ooh we can exploit this.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
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Speaker 2 (08:03):
I'm looking at the Tennessee Titans defense, and yes, they
added Steed. We like him a lot. Quandre Diggs is
ad an up and down career in the secondary. Harold
Landry solid pass rusher. AWUZI eateh like they've got some guys.
Kenneth Murray, the tackling machine from the Chargers. I'm actually,
I actually think he's a good football player. Defensive line
led by Simmons, you know, sweat is okay. Like they've
(08:25):
got some okay guys. But I mean, oh, they added
Jamal Adams. I forgot so former Jet, former Seahawks. So listen,
they've got talent. Can they put it together? I don't know.
Here's what the problem is. Well, it's not really a problem,
but in terms of handicapping the Bears, everybody says, rookie quarterback,
(08:45):
all that win seven eight nine games. Maybe they won
seven last year with Justin Fields. And remember last year
did not start well. I think they opened up two
and seven, they were going to fire eber Flues. Then
they make that trade for Sweat on the defensive line.
The defense turns it around. Some of it was turnover aided,
but all of a sudden they finished five and three,
and you start to dig into some of those games
(09:07):
and you're like, damn, they went two and six and
one score games with Justin Fields and Tyson Bagent and
they totally blue three leads in the fourth quarter. Like
if you let's just say, instead of going two and
six in one score games, they are I don't know,
four to four, which is average. All of a sudden,
now you're a nine win team. So if they had
(09:28):
any you know, if they were able to be smart
in the fourth quarter with the football, you know, some
of that's on fields. The coaching ebra flus. This was
a nine win team last year, so you could almost argue,
holy cow, Caleb Williams is going into a great freaking spot.
And oh, by the way, last year where wide receiver
(09:48):
number two was Darnell Mooney behind the great DJ Moore,
now it's oh, we've got Keenan Allen and Roma Dunze. Okay,
all right, let's let's talk. I liked they picked up
DeAndre Swift in the backfield. I like it. I thought
he was good, had to pop with the Eagles last year.
I think this is a really good Bears team. And folks, again,
(10:10):
there is zero evidence that says how you ended the
prior season, which is what I just said, the Bears
five and three. There's zero evidence that that translates to
the next season. And we'll talk about that with the
Raiders as well, because they finished pretty strong. But what
you can do is look at this schedule and say, oh,
how is it? Shit? Stack up?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Step up the stack up for a rookie quarterback.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And according to one metric from our guy Ta who's
been on the pod, if you missed it, go back
and search for it, he's got a ton of good shit,
the easiest schedule in the first twelve weeks of the
season belongs to the Chicago Bears. The easiest, folks, Chicago Bears.
Seven of the eleven games they have a buy in there.
(10:57):
Seven of their eleven games are at home or on
a neutral field. And you're like, oh, wait a minute,
Hold on a second. So you have massively upgraded skill
position players, you have the easiest schedule in the first
twelve weeks. And another nugget here is the Bears. The
line's not five anymore. It's come down a little bit.
(11:19):
But their opener at home against Tennessee is their favor
by five. That is the largest favorite any rookie quarterback
has been in Week one in over twenty five years.
Let that sink in. That's how much confidence the market
has in Caleb Williams and the Bears. They are upgraded. Now,
the big question for me is ebra Flus. I don't
(11:41):
know if he's a good coach. Can he be hands
off and let same Shane Waldron who was pretty good
in Seattle. Can he let him run the show and
let him cook? Or does eber flucenow? Hey man, they're
gonna run me out of town earlier than later. Let's
play a conservative I don't want to be taking risks's
let's you know, let's play it safe. That's what a
(12:01):
lot of coaches do. I've talked about this a lot guys,
as a as a minority owner of a basketball team
in New Zealand and a soccer team in Mexico. I've
seen it before, the coaches. They start to get tight
and conservative when they think their job is on the line.
Nobody wants to lose your job, So what do you do?
You play it conservative? The move is to be a
little risky and live on the edge. But it's tough.
(12:24):
It's easier to say that than it is to actually
do it in reality. So Caleb Williams steps into a
situation and if he's able to just make a couple
of those splash plays a game, but you know, again,
read defenses, make the smart play. There's a world where
this is a Bears team that starts out. I don't know,
(12:47):
are we looking at it like a six and two,
six and three start for the Bears, And well, let's
say they get through those first eleven games and they're
at I don't know, eight and three. Now the end
of the schedule late is difficult. You know, Lions, obviously, Packers,
Vikings will be fully formed at that point with Addison
and Hockinson back, and we know that they have a
(13:09):
great coach. But you know, I'm at the point where
I think I'm gonna have the Bears as a wildcard team.
I think you got to get him in there. I mean, yes,
part of it is just simply the excitement over the
new quarterback. But the talent that this team has is ridiculous.
Most number one picks that are quarterback come in and
(13:29):
it's like, oh, this team stung, so they don't have
any talent. Bryce Young gets to Carolina, they got nobody, nobody, right.
Look at Trevor Lawrence's first year in Jacksonville. They didn't
have Jack squat. I mean, go look at Andrew Luck
the weapons he had early. It's very difficult to win early.
The Bears plug in Caleb Williams and again DJ Moore
(13:52):
is top twelve receiver in the league. Keenan Allen went
healthy is a tremendous possession receiver. He could easily catch
any passes this year, maybe ninety. I don't know, he
assuming game can stay healthy. And Roma Dunza I love.
I mean, this is a guy you know he's gonna
come in now and be I don't know is he
gonna be in the slot, is he gonna return punts?
(14:12):
I have no idea what they're gonna do with him,
but they got options because they got dudes, and so
I know everybody was freaking out all weekend about Caleb
Williams highlights. My only thing is, let's pump the brakes
a little bit. Okay, you've seen Justin Fields make a
couple splash plays. You've seen a lot of quarterbacks, I mean,
hell Brock Perdy and I know you guys hate this,
(14:35):
but if you look at the Field's play where he scrambled, scrambled,
scrambled and then ran for the touchdown like Rock Purdy's
done that, Like a lot of guys can do that.
One offs, if Kayleb Williams is forced to make those
kind of plays, like, I don't know, he's scrambling for
his life ten twelve times a game. It's not gonna
go well. If he's only called upon to do a
(14:56):
few of those, I think he's got a great chance
to succeed. You don't want put your quarterback in harm's
way running around when people are like, Oh, I'm going
to hit the big I'm going to deck the next
MA homes. You know they're they're gonna he's gonna have
a target on his back. They're coming for him. I
think he's gonna do good. So I will officially pencil
the Bears in as a wildcard team. And it's weird
because they're priced like a playoff team. I mean the
(15:19):
win between the win total, the yes, no playoffs, like
every market's saying Chicago Bears are going places. Now. There's
also the world where ebra Flus is clueless, or should
I say remains clueless. Rookie quarterback is a rookie Keenan
Allen can't stay healthy, the defense doesn't duplicate their finish,
and they sput her to an eight or nine win
season and no playoffs, and then it's like, well, ebra
(15:40):
Flues was probably getting fired, and then your new coach
is probably gonna bring in a new oc right and
bringing his guy and now Caleb, he's gonna have to
learn a whole new system. So I'm almost rooting for
Caleb to do great. Remember we saw Trevor Lawrence, you know,
he went through the Urban Meyer situation and he I
upgraded to the Peterson and that's been good, not as
(16:03):
great as we thought. So listen, that's the problem. I
just don't know. Eberflus, to me is the biggest question.
I think Williams will be good. I just don't know
about Eberflus. But as for the calab william highlights over
the weekend, yes, he was phenomenal. It's super impressive. But
we know we could do that stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Guys, Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup
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to listen live.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Now, what we didn't totally know is this next story
is that Gardner Minshew was gonna be QB one in Vegas.
Rob G who is still enjoying just a lengthy vacation
here to end the summer. He has to be a
little perturbed that the guy at QB under center is
not Aidan O'Connell aka AOC, because listen, man, what are
(16:55):
we doing with Gardner Minshew? We know what he is.
We know he is a A He's an e elite
backup quarterback. If you need Gardner Minshew to come in
a pinch for a start two weeks worth of starts
for three weeks, I think Gardner Minshew's your guy.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
He could deliver.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
He's proven that he kept the Colts very competitive last
year after Anthony Richardson went down. Minshew's been around the block.
He was in Philly, had a couple of good starts.
This is a very, very capable guy as a backup quarterback.
But for the Raiders to put him in as the starter,
I was a little surprised. But again this goes back
(17:31):
to what I was saying about coaches or coaching for
their job. So Antonio Pierce last year was the DC
to Josh McDaniels. We all know Josh McDaniels is a
very smart offensive mind. When as quarterback is Tom Brady
everywhere else, he's just power hungry runs. Jay Cutler out
of Denver drafts, Tim Tebow gets run out of Denver,
(17:53):
takes the Colts job, backs out, Like listen, McDaniel's a
bit of a mess with some of these decisions he's made,
and he was a train wreck in Vegas. So then
they promote Antonio Peers, and it was very clear that
the players quit on McDaniels because as soon as Pierce
is installed, they're going hard. And they had some impressive
I mean, I think they hung sixty something on the Chargers. Now,
(18:16):
the Chargers players had quit on their coach, who eventually
got run out. But if you look down the stretch,
Raiders defense second half of the season was like, oh,
Antonio Piers is coaching them up. Remember that one of
my worst losses last year was the Case game on Christmas.
Just total disaster every which way. I mean, I had
(18:36):
Parlay Teaser in the contest everywhere Chiefs come on, it's
the Chiefs. The Raiders were not very good, and the
Chiefs did not wake up, and the Raiders defense was
tremendous and Raiders picked up one of the more impressive
wins of the season. Then they almost beat Miami in Miami.
A really good defensive showing from the Raiders against a
(18:58):
high octane offense and Pierce gets to keep the job.
But you guys know how it works. He's the interim guy.
They're really trying hard, and that you know, he's coaching
his butt off. Usually you're not supposed to hire the
interim guy. They end up hiring Pierce, and it's a
small sample size. We don't know, but we know he's
a defensive guy, and we know when the Raiders had
(19:20):
a chance this offseason make a splash move, they went
for a defensive tackle, spent on Wilkins, which you know,
Wilkins a really good player. He'll play alongside Max Crosby,
who is elite on the edge. But like they just
do weird things. Letting Josh Jacobs walk Now, Jacobs was
terrible last year two years ago is excellent, So they
(19:43):
let two offensive linemen walk. They drafted a tight end
in the first round after taking one in the second
round two years ago. It's like they're just weirdly built.
I don't really know what this team is or can be.
That being said, I almost wonder what this justin Herbert's
situation with his foot in the plantar, I don't know.
(20:04):
I mean, my guess is Herbert's not gonna be close
to one hundred percent at the start of the season.
And if he's not close to one hundred percent and
he's playing on it every week, that's not gonna go
great like it stinks for Harball. So I'm officially off
the Chargers now as a playoff team. I can't. There's
just no way unless we get word that justin Herbert
is one hundred percent and the plantar's gone and pet
(20:26):
worked in the boot and all this fine, But if not,
I can't ride with the Chargers season. And I like
the team, but they're building towards something I trust in Harball,
and you just you almost wonder well, I think the
Broncos have one of the lowest win totals in the league.
They're probably drafting top five Chargers if Herbert's not healthy.
Is there a world where the Raiders kind of sort
of sneak up on some people with a veteran quarterback
(20:49):
in Minshew, And you know, Pierce named the starter because
he trusts him. And meanwhile, be careful with Minshew. If
he's got to sling the ball like twenty five thirty times,
he's gotta get dicey. He can be a turnover machine
ass Colts fans in a larger than tiny sample size.
And oh, by the way, the Raiders are underdogs in
nine of their first ten games. Now, it's a little
(21:12):
tricky because some of these lines that I'm looking at
him here. So as of now, there are three point
dogs against the Chargers, a touchdown dogs to the Ravens,
favored by four against Carolina, and then small dogs against
the Browns at home in Denver and against Pittsburgh. But
I don't know Carolina, Brown's going to Vegas, Denver, Pittsburgh.
(21:36):
Like you're like, oh, what's going on here? Is there
a chance the Raiders are Okay, then they're dogs in
they have to go back to so far play at
the Rams. Now, I'm just gonna put this in here,
just quietly, but this Matthew Stafford hamstring thing Bears watching obviously, Okay.
If Stafford ain't healthy, the Rams are gonna be very
aggressively bad. And then it's Chiefs, Bengals, Dolphins, and those
(22:00):
are bigger spreads, more than more than four. So it's like, oh,
my gosh, how is this Raiders team going to do anything?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Well?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I don't know, I don't know. How they're going to
run the football. You lose Jacobs, You're starting running backs
are Zamir White and Alexander Madison. Madison was awful in
Minnesota last year behind a good line. White's got some pop.
I don't know if he's that good. But again, you
got DeVante Adams, who's an awesome number one. You got
Brock Bowers and mayor maybe they go with some two
tight end sets. I don't know. Bowers I like a lot.
(22:30):
It just didn't make a ton of sense to the Raiders.
And can Antonio Pierce get these guys to fight as
hard as they fought last season when they were fighting
for him to keep the job, so now he gets
a job? And can they duplicate that just a between
the questions on the offensive line and the coach and
(22:52):
the quarterback. It's tough for me to say, Oh, Raiders
are fighting for a wildcard spot, but I can see
them being one of these frisky teams that really he
hangs around in rounders, remember hanging around alligator blood hanging
around I think the Raiders probably. Now, let's see how
the secondary turns out, because the kid Jack Jones was
(23:12):
really really awesome last year, but if you read up
his background, you almost need he needs like someone like
not a babysitter, but he needs somebody with him. He's
had a bunch of out of pocket stuff that can't happen.
He's excellent. Morigg, the young kid from TCU, is very good.
They probably could use another piece in the secondary linebacker
(23:33):
solid listen. I don't want to say the Raiders are
a seven eight nine win team, but it does strike
me that Minshew could he get them to seven? I
don't know. Luke Getze is the OC. He didn't do
much for me in Chicago. We'll see what happens with
the Raiders. They are one of these weird teams because
(23:55):
I don't think much of the Broncos. I want to
think a lot of the Chargers with Herbert, but the
uncertainty there, I just don't know. And so maybe there's
a world where the Raiders finished second in the division
and win seven games. They won eight last year, and
you know they had quarterback issues last year with Garoppolo.
So this minshe news is not totally surprising. And I'm
(24:18):
not going to do a full team breakdown of the Raiders,
but I just they're one of these teams. I don't
really know what to do with them. I have a
feeling they're going to be a solid underdog bet here
early in the season when nobody thinks much of them,
but mostly because Minshew is as long as he hasn't
turned the ball over a million times, is capable enough
to keep them in games. And you know, maybe things
(24:41):
break your way and boom, all of a sudden, there's
six and two against the spread, even though they're three
and five team. You know that like that world does
certainly exist. So a little Bears, Little Raiders fun start
to the week back tomorrow with more NFL. We are
locking in two fantasy guests here. For the next two weeks,
(25:04):
we'll start to do a little more NFL reporter centric.
I know you guys are desperate for Jets reporters. It's
so important, So we'll get to those eventually. Talk to
you tomorrow.
This is straight Fire with Jason McIntyre.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
What is up Straight Fire? Fam, It's me Jason McIntire,
Straight Fire for Monday, August the nineteenth. I hope everybody
had a phenomenal weekend. Mine was kind of sort of
laid back. Did get to play hoops for the first
time in a month. Watched a little preseason, not too much, honestly,
I can't stomach too much preseason. Watch some soccer EPL
(00:33):
back in action, watch Caitlyn Clark and the Fever cook listen.
It's football time, obviously, but I did think it was
worth starting with Caitlyn Clark and the Fever winning Friday
against a good team, winning Sunday against a good team,
and folks, it's one of those situations where sometimes you
gotta deal with you gotta shovel a lot of shit
to get through it, and then you get to the
(00:55):
good stuff. You know. Maybe you gotta deal with a
lot of sour and then you get to the sweet,
you know. And Caitlin Clark being left off the Olympic team,
as much as that kind of hurd and was painful,
I'm sure for Clark and her fans and just anybody
who likes watching her play basketball. What a blessing that
she was able to have a month off come back rejuvenated.
And so far it's early two games back, but early
(01:18):
returns are she is motivated, rested, and she's destroying the league.
It's only two games, but the schedule, remember, works in
the Fevers way. And I'm just telling you, Caitlin Clark,
the league has a problem on their hands right now. Clark.
I got her at MVP of the league at plus
five eighty before the season, like an idiot MVP. Come on,
what rookie does that? Well, she did just set the
(01:41):
rookie assist record. She's gonna obliterate it because she's got
still tons of games left. And I did bet them
to win the title plus two thousand. Now I know
he was just saying, Jason pizza money flushing it down
the drain? What are you an idiot? Come on? Maybe
probably I've been called worst. That being said, this team
went through a bunch of garbage early with rotations coach,
obviously some backlash to Clark. They survived it, and now
(02:04):
they're starting to percolate, and you have to wonder, you know,
you come playoff time fever gonna be a bit of
a tough out. The bigs are starting to understand the
pace that Clark plays with. I mean, listen, folks, I'm
just gonna be fun and interesting, and you have to admit,
regardless if you're an Angel Rehes fan, Diana Tarassi fan,
(02:25):
a Caitlin Clark fan. Whatever. The idea that a rookie
from Iowa could come into this league and maybe, well
she's gonna win Rookie the year, that's obvious, but maybe
whin the MVP and maybe carry the fever to like
the finals, this would be starting. This would be some
kind of Hoosiers type shit that went down in the WNBA.
It's a little early for that, but just thought, I
(02:47):
get the Caitlin Clark out of the way early. I listen.
I don't want to say you never want to go
too overboard in the NFL preseason because a lot of
the storylines are kind of bunked. It's like, oh, Russell
Wilson's hurt, could just Fields come in and steal the job?
Probably not, but it's fun to talk about for, you know,
eight minutes until reality sets in. I did think, and
(03:08):
I'll just be very brief on the Steelers I did
think that Mike Tomlin opening his presser after another subpar
showing from his team in the preseason, talking about he
was very happy with the punting is a very very
direct shot. Now, again, the offense doesn't want to reveal anything,
but you want to see crispness. You want to see fluidity,
(03:29):
You want to see the offensive line gelling. Nobody's calling
any really awesome plays here. I mean you got Patrick
mahomestory behind the back passes. Literally. Okay, it's the preseason.
Let's not get too excited. You never want to get
too high. I never want to get too low. So
if you're the steel if you're a Steelers fan, and
every time I talk about them, for some reason, Steelers
(03:51):
fans are like, they're never under five hundred, They've never
had a losing season under Tomlin. Yeah, I get that.
And past perform is not an indicator of future results.
That's just a fact.
Speaker 1 (04:04):
Guys.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
You can say, hey, Tomlin always finds a way as
an underdog. Yes, he certainly does. And also the Steelers
were like seventeen or oh not seventeen, but they were
incredible best in the league last year in one score games.
Is that going to happen again. You know what if
Russ can't play the whole, I'm just not going to
turn the football over. What if the defense takes a
(04:26):
little bit of a step back. There's a lot of
questions with the Steelers. I don't even think they're that
interesting of a team because Tomlin's coming back now, they don't.
I don't think either of those two guys, Russ or Fields,
will be the starting quarterback in twenty twenty five. And
so if you're a Pittsburgh Steelers fan, what are you
even looking for here? Just like to be competitive and
not roll over. You can only do that so many
(04:48):
years before eventually the bottom kicks in or the bottom
falls out, and you're there like, oh my gosh, we stink.
Speaker 1 (04:54):
Five win team.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
I don't know that they're a five win team, but
six or seven would not surprise me at all. I
do think the biggest story and yes, we'll talk about
the Vegas Raiders naming their QB one. And it's interesting
because I spent some of the weekend looking at the Raiders.
Maybe I've been too harsh on them this offseason. There's
some things there. But first we'll start with Kayleb Williams,
number one overall pick, comes to the Chicago Bears, a
(05:18):
franchise that's had plenty of highs obviously, but sadly none
of them will evolved around the quarterback. And Caleb Williams
is probably in short order going to be the best
quarterback the Chicago Bears have ever had. No disrespect to
Jim McMahon or Mike tom Zack Rex Grossman, who I
think they went to a Super Bowl with when Devin
(05:39):
Hester was in his prime. It was a rainy super Bowl. Yeah,
I think Rex Grossman was a quarterback. You guys can
check me on that. But it's like, this is a
franchise that has not been able to figure out quarterback
forever ever. I mean Jake Cutler. If Jake Cutler's one
of the best what four quarterbacks they've ever had, you
know you've got problems. So Kayleb Williams comes out and
(06:02):
in limited time makes a.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Couple a really fricking incredible place.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Now in the moment, it's like, oh my gosh, look
what he's doing. That is amazing. Rookie doing some of
the backyard football stuff. We'll get to that in a second.
The backyard football stuff that makes him and Mahomes so similar,
and then rushing for the touchdown and throwing what appeared
to be a touchdown with the receiver foot was out
(06:26):
of bounds.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Blah blah blah.
Speaker 2 (06:27):
Caleb Williams looked pretty damn impressive, making a few splash plays. Well, folks,
that's what he did at USC. He made the splash place.
I remember a game against Utah that he had. You
guys can call it up on YouTube in Utah and
Caleb Williams was bawling out to the point you're like,
oh my gosh, this really is Patrick Mahomes and they
(06:49):
were totally outmanned and Utah is a tough place to play,
and he took him down to the wire and they
ended up losing. But it wasn't because of Caleb Williams.
He was making every throw, scrambling his tail off the kids.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
AFO.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
We know that, Okay, we totally get all of this.
What we don't know if he's able to rein it
in because you can't play backyard football every down in
the NFL. You can't do it twenty snaps a game.
It's just not sustainable. It's just it's not gonna work.
He'll get destroyed by linebackers and defensive linemen and safeties
(07:22):
that I mean, he's they're gonna confuse him. He's not
seeing I don't really think anybody's showing Caleb Williams anything
that he'll be seeing in the regular season. That would
be my guess. It's all very vanilla at this point.
Let's be real. The Tennessee Titans are in Week one.
What are the Tennessee Titans doing in the preseason. We're
looking to see, if for who's gonna make the roster.
(07:42):
I mean, they're too deep, ain't great, And it's like,
you know, do are we gonna show anything that the
Bears can look at tape from our preseason and say
ooh ooh we can exploit this.
Speaker 1 (07:52):
Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and then the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
I'm looking at the Tennessee Titans defense, and yes, they
added Steed. We like him a lot. Quandre Diggs is
ad an up and down career in the secondary. Harold
Landry solid pass rusher. AWUZI eateh like they've got some guys.
Kenneth Murray, the tackling machine from the Chargers. I'm actually,
I actually think he's a good football player. Defensive line
led by Simmons, you know, sweat is okay. Like they've
(08:25):
got some okay guys. But I mean, oh, they added
Jamal Adams. I forgot so former Jet, former Seahawks. So listen,
they've got talent. Can they put it together? I don't know.
Here's what the problem is. Well, it's not really a problem,
but in terms of handicapping the Bears, everybody says, rookie quarterback,
(08:45):
all that win seven eight nine games. Maybe they won
seven last year with Justin Fields. And remember last year
did not start well. I think they opened up two
and seven, they were going to fire eber Flues. Then
they make that trade for Sweat on the defensive line.
The defense turns it around. Some of it was turnover aided,
but all of a sudden they finished five and three,
and you start to dig into some of those games
(09:07):
and you're like, damn, they went two and six and
one score games with Justin Fields and Tyson Bagent and
they totally blue three leads in the fourth quarter. Like
if you let's just say, instead of going two and
six in one score games, they are I don't know,
four to four, which is average. All of a sudden,
now you're a nine win team. So if they had
(09:28):
any you know, if they were able to be smart
in the fourth quarter with the football, you know, some
of that's on fields. The coaching ebra flus. This was
a nine win team last year, so you could almost argue,
holy cow, Caleb Williams is going into a great freaking spot.
And oh, by the way, last year where wide receiver
(09:48):
number two was Darnell Mooney behind the great DJ Moore,
now it's oh, we've got Keenan Allen and Roma Dunze. Okay,
all right, let's let's talk. I liked they picked up
DeAndre Swift in the backfield. I like it. I thought
he was good, had to pop with the Eagles last year.
I think this is a really good Bears team. And folks, again,
(10:10):
there is zero evidence that says how you ended the
prior season, which is what I just said, the Bears
five and three. There's zero evidence that that translates to
the next season. And we'll talk about that with the
Raiders as well, because they finished pretty strong. But what
you can do is look at this schedule and say, oh,
how is it? Shit? Stack up?
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Step up the stack up for a rookie quarterback.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And according to one metric from our guy Ta who's
been on the pod, if you missed it, go back
and search for it, he's got a ton of good shit,
the easiest schedule in the first twelve weeks of the
season belongs to the Chicago Bears. The easiest, folks, Chicago Bears.
Seven of the eleven games they have a buy in there.
(10:57):
Seven of their eleven games are at home or on
a neutral field. And you're like, oh, wait a minute,
Hold on a second. So you have massively upgraded skill
position players, you have the easiest schedule in the first
twelve weeks. And another nugget here is the Bears. The
line's not five anymore. It's come down a little bit.
(11:19):
But their opener at home against Tennessee is their favor
by five. That is the largest favorite any rookie quarterback
has been in Week one in over twenty five years.
Let that sink in. That's how much confidence the market
has in Caleb Williams and the Bears. They are upgraded. Now,
the big question for me is ebra Flus. I don't
(11:41):
know if he's a good coach. Can he be hands
off and let same Shane Waldron who was pretty good
in Seattle. Can he let him run the show and
let him cook? Or does eber flucenow? Hey man, they're
gonna run me out of town earlier than later. Let's
play a conservative I don't want to be taking risks's
let's you know, let's play it safe. That's what a
(12:01):
lot of coaches do. I've talked about this a lot guys,
as a as a minority owner of a basketball team
in New Zealand and a soccer team in Mexico. I've
seen it before, the coaches. They start to get tight
and conservative when they think their job is on the line.
Nobody wants to lose your job, So what do you do?
You play it conservative? The move is to be a
little risky and live on the edge. But it's tough.
(12:24):
It's easier to say that than it is to actually
do it in reality. So Caleb Williams steps into a
situation and if he's able to just make a couple
of those splash plays a game, but you know, again,
read defenses, make the smart play. There's a world where
this is a Bears team that starts out. I don't know,
(12:47):
are we looking at it like a six and two,
six and three start for the Bears, And well, let's
say they get through those first eleven games and they're
at I don't know, eight and three. Now the end
of the schedule late is difficult. You know, Lions, obviously, Packers,
Vikings will be fully formed at that point with Addison
and Hockinson back, and we know that they have a
(13:09):
great coach. But you know, I'm at the point where
I think I'm gonna have the Bears as a wildcard team.
I think you got to get him in there. I mean, yes,
part of it is just simply the excitement over the
new quarterback. But the talent that this team has is ridiculous.
Most number one picks that are quarterback come in and
(13:29):
it's like, oh, this team stung, so they don't have
any talent. Bryce Young gets to Carolina, they got nobody, nobody, right.
Look at Trevor Lawrence's first year in Jacksonville. They didn't
have Jack squat. I mean, go look at Andrew Luck
the weapons he had early. It's very difficult to win early.
The Bears plug in Caleb Williams and again DJ Moore
(13:52):
is top twelve receiver in the league. Keenan Allen went
healthy is a tremendous possession receiver. He could easily catch
any passes this year, maybe ninety. I don't know, he
assuming game can stay healthy. And Roma Dunza I love.
I mean, this is a guy you know he's gonna
come in now and be I don't know is he
gonna be in the slot, is he gonna return punts?
(14:12):
I have no idea what they're gonna do with him,
but they got options because they got dudes, and so
I know everybody was freaking out all weekend about Caleb
Williams highlights. My only thing is, let's pump the brakes
a little bit. Okay, you've seen Justin Fields make a
couple splash plays. You've seen a lot of quarterbacks, I mean,
hell Brock Perdy and I know you guys hate this,
(14:35):
but if you look at the Field's play where he scrambled, scrambled,
scrambled and then ran for the touchdown like Rock Purdy's
done that, Like a lot of guys can do that.
One offs, if Kayleb Williams is forced to make those
kind of plays, like, I don't know, he's scrambling for
his life ten twelve times a game. It's not gonna
go well. If he's only called upon to do a
(14:56):
few of those, I think he's got a great chance
to succeed. You don't want put your quarterback in harm's
way running around when people are like, Oh, I'm going
to hit the big I'm going to deck the next
MA homes. You know they're they're gonna he's gonna have
a target on his back. They're coming for him. I
think he's gonna do good. So I will officially pencil
the Bears in as a wildcard team. And it's weird
because they're priced like a playoff team. I mean the
(15:19):
win between the win total, the yes, no playoffs, like
every market's saying Chicago Bears are going places. Now. There's
also the world where ebra Flus is clueless, or should
I say remains clueless. Rookie quarterback is a rookie Keenan
Allen can't stay healthy, the defense doesn't duplicate their finish,
and they sput her to an eight or nine win
season and no playoffs, and then it's like, well, ebra
(15:40):
Flues was probably getting fired, and then your new coach
is probably gonna bring in a new oc right and
bringing his guy and now Caleb, he's gonna have to
learn a whole new system. So I'm almost rooting for
Caleb to do great. Remember we saw Trevor Lawrence, you know,
he went through the Urban Meyer situation and he I
upgraded to the Peterson and that's been good, not as
(16:03):
great as we thought. So listen, that's the problem. I
just don't know. Eberflus, to me is the biggest question.
I think Williams will be good. I just don't know
about Eberflus. But as for the calab william highlights over
the weekend, yes, he was phenomenal. It's super impressive. But
we know we could do that stuff.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Guys, Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup
in the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports
Radio dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR
to listen live.
Speaker 2 (16:33):
Now, what we didn't totally know is this next story
is that Gardner Minshew was gonna be QB one in Vegas.
Rob G who is still enjoying just a lengthy vacation
here to end the summer. He has to be a
little perturbed that the guy at QB under center is
not Aidan O'Connell aka AOC, because listen, man, what are
(16:55):
we doing with Gardner Minshew? We know what he is.
We know he is a A He's an e elite
backup quarterback. If you need Gardner Minshew to come in
a pinch for a start two weeks worth of starts
for three weeks, I think Gardner Minshew's your guy.
Speaker 1 (17:10):
He could deliver.
Speaker 2 (17:11):
He's proven that he kept the Colts very competitive last
year after Anthony Richardson went down. Minshew's been around the block.
He was in Philly, had a couple of good starts.
This is a very, very capable guy as a backup quarterback.
But for the Raiders to put him in as the starter,
I was a little surprised. But again this goes back
(17:31):
to what I was saying about coaches or coaching for
their job. So Antonio Pierce last year was the DC
to Josh McDaniels. We all know Josh McDaniels is a
very smart offensive mind. When as quarterback is Tom Brady
everywhere else, he's just power hungry runs. Jay Cutler out
of Denver drafts, Tim Tebow gets run out of Denver,
(17:53):
takes the Colts job, backs out, Like listen, McDaniel's a
bit of a mess with some of these decisions he's made,
and he was a train wreck in Vegas. So then
they promote Antonio Peers, and it was very clear that
the players quit on McDaniels because as soon as Pierce
is installed, they're going hard. And they had some impressive
I mean, I think they hung sixty something on the Chargers. Now,
(18:16):
the Chargers players had quit on their coach, who eventually
got run out. But if you look down the stretch,
Raiders defense second half of the season was like, oh,
Antonio Piers is coaching them up. Remember that one of
my worst losses last year was the Case game on Christmas.
Just total disaster every which way. I mean, I had
(18:36):
Parlay Teaser in the contest everywhere Chiefs come on, it's
the Chiefs. The Raiders were not very good, and the
Chiefs did not wake up, and the Raiders defense was
tremendous and Raiders picked up one of the more impressive
wins of the season. Then they almost beat Miami in Miami.
A really good defensive showing from the Raiders against a
(18:58):
high octane offense and Pierce gets to keep the job.
But you guys know how it works. He's the interim guy.
They're really trying hard, and that you know, he's coaching
his butt off. Usually you're not supposed to hire the
interim guy. They end up hiring Pierce, and it's a
small sample size. We don't know, but we know he's
a defensive guy, and we know when the Raiders had
(19:20):
a chance this offseason make a splash move, they went
for a defensive tackle, spent on Wilkins, which you know,
Wilkins a really good player. He'll play alongside Max Crosby,
who is elite on the edge. But like they just
do weird things. Letting Josh Jacobs walk Now, Jacobs was
terrible last year two years ago is excellent, So they
(19:43):
let two offensive linemen walk. They drafted a tight end
in the first round after taking one in the second
round two years ago. It's like they're just weirdly built.
I don't really know what this team is or can be.
That being said, I almost wonder what this justin Herbert's
situation with his foot in the plantar, I don't know.
(20:04):
I mean, my guess is Herbert's not gonna be close
to one hundred percent at the start of the season.
And if he's not close to one hundred percent and
he's playing on it every week, that's not gonna go
great like it stinks for Harball. So I'm officially off
the Chargers now as a playoff team. I can't. There's
just no way unless we get word that justin Herbert
is one hundred percent and the plantar's gone and pet
(20:26):
worked in the boot and all this fine, But if not,
I can't ride with the Chargers season. And I like
the team, but they're building towards something I trust in Harball,
and you just you almost wonder well, I think the
Broncos have one of the lowest win totals in the league.
They're probably drafting top five Chargers if Herbert's not healthy.
Is there a world where the Raiders kind of sort
of sneak up on some people with a veteran quarterback
(20:49):
in Minshew, And you know, Pierce named the starter because
he trusts him. And meanwhile, be careful with Minshew. If
he's got to sling the ball like twenty five thirty times,
he's gotta get dicey. He can be a turnover machine
ass Colts fans in a larger than tiny sample size.
And oh, by the way, the Raiders are underdogs in
nine of their first ten games. Now, it's a little
(21:12):
tricky because some of these lines that I'm looking at
him here. So as of now, there are three point
dogs against the Chargers, a touchdown dogs to the Ravens,
favored by four against Carolina, and then small dogs against
the Browns at home in Denver and against Pittsburgh. But
I don't know Carolina, Brown's going to Vegas, Denver, Pittsburgh.
(21:36):
Like you're like, oh, what's going on here? Is there
a chance the Raiders are Okay, then they're dogs in
they have to go back to so far play at
the Rams. Now, I'm just gonna put this in here,
just quietly, but this Matthew Stafford hamstring thing Bears watching obviously, Okay.
If Stafford ain't healthy, the Rams are gonna be very
aggressively bad. And then it's Chiefs, Bengals, Dolphins, and those
(22:00):
are bigger spreads, more than more than four. So it's like, oh,
my gosh, how is this Raiders team going to do anything?
Speaker 1 (22:05):
Well?
Speaker 2 (22:06):
I don't know, I don't know. How they're going to
run the football. You lose Jacobs, You're starting running backs
are Zamir White and Alexander Madison. Madison was awful in
Minnesota last year behind a good line. White's got some pop.
I don't know if he's that good. But again, you
got DeVante Adams, who's an awesome number one. You got
Brock Bowers and mayor maybe they go with some two
tight end sets. I don't know. Bowers I like a lot.
(22:30):
It just didn't make a ton of sense to the Raiders.
And can Antonio Pierce get these guys to fight as
hard as they fought last season when they were fighting
for him to keep the job, so now he gets
a job? And can they duplicate that just a between
the questions on the offensive line and the coach and
(22:52):
the quarterback. It's tough for me to say, Oh, Raiders
are fighting for a wildcard spot, but I can see
them being one of these frisky teams that really he
hangs around in rounders, remember hanging around alligator blood hanging
around I think the Raiders probably. Now, let's see how
the secondary turns out, because the kid Jack Jones was
(23:12):
really really awesome last year, but if you read up
his background, you almost need he needs like someone like
not a babysitter, but he needs somebody with him. He's
had a bunch of out of pocket stuff that can't happen.
He's excellent. Morigg, the young kid from TCU, is very good.
They probably could use another piece in the secondary linebacker
(23:33):
solid listen. I don't want to say the Raiders are
a seven eight nine win team, but it does strike
me that Minshew could he get them to seven? I
don't know. Luke Getze is the OC. He didn't do
much for me in Chicago. We'll see what happens with
the Raiders. They are one of these weird teams because
(23:55):
I don't think much of the Broncos. I want to
think a lot of the Chargers with Herbert, but the
uncertainty there, I just don't know. And so maybe there's
a world where the Raiders finished second in the division
and win seven games. They won eight last year, and
you know they had quarterback issues last year with Garoppolo.
So this minshe news is not totally surprising. And I'm
(24:18):
not going to do a full team breakdown of the Raiders,
but I just they're one of these teams. I don't
really know what to do with them. I have a
feeling they're going to be a solid underdog bet here
early in the season when nobody thinks much of them,
but mostly because Minshew is as long as he hasn't
turned the ball over a million times, is capable enough
to keep them in games. And you know, maybe things
(24:41):
break your way and boom, all of a sudden, there's
six and two against the spread, even though they're three
and five team. You know that like that world does
certainly exist. So a little Bears, Little Raiders fun start
to the week back tomorrow with more NFL. We are
locking in two fantasy guests here. For the next two weeks,
(25:04):
we'll start to do a little more NFL reporter centric.
I know you guys are desperate for Jets reporters. It's
so important, So we'll get to those eventually. Talk to
you tomorrow.
Fox Sports Radio News
Host
Jonas Knox
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