05-15-24 Parker Gabriel with Broncos Country Tonight

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Just going to the kwait a commonsparrel hotline and bring on our guy from
the Different Post, Parker, GabrielMark, Are you doing many doing doing
pretty well? First things first,I gotta clear something up here because Nick
Ferguson revealed on the show last weekthat he had absolutely no idea what Only
Fans was, And I was like, you're here, buddy, amongst friends.
You not listening right now? He'sclaiming he doesn't know what it is?

(00:21):
Do you know what only Fans is? Yeah? I know, okay,
all right? Just making sure Iwas. I was like, okay,
I've been on the internet before,right, I was like, oh,
they made me feel like that.I don't think you know that I
was the degenerate. They made mefeel like I was the horrible person,
Like, well wait a minute,how am I? How do you guys
not know what this is? Butthey're both married, so I understand why
they have to pretend they don't knowwhat it is. Parker. The schedule

(00:44):
is out, and uh, thenational media certainly seems infatuated with a Week
two match up against the Steelers.But is there any game on this schedule
that's jumping out to you? Asone you really want to see. Yeah,
I mean there's a bunch of interestingones. I'm the Steelers, you
know that that's going to be abig one for for obvious reasons. I
think it's interesting that they put theSean Payton return to New Orleans in primetime,

(01:07):
even though it's a Thursday night.You know, if you're if you're
trying to dial up some travel,having the work element or the game attendance
element out of the way by Thursdaynight going into a weekend in New Orleans,
uh is interesting. And then youknow, I mean you've got just
you know, there's there's the backto back at Baltimore at Kansas City.

(01:32):
You know, we've known for awhile that the home slate is maybe lacking
a little bit in star power,but certainly, I mean you've got sort
of interesting storylines all the way through, including week six when we get you
know, Jim Harbaugh coming to EmpowerField for the first time back as an
NFL coach. Parker, when youlook at the schedule, is there like

(01:53):
the the intriguing game on the schedulethat you're like, you know, I'm
not looking forward to that one atall. Well, we've got ten days
after the Thursday night game against NewOrleans to get ready for the Carolina Panthers
to come to Denver, which youknow, if you're looking at like if
you want to rank the opponents,Okay, yeah, they're gonna be near

(02:14):
the bottom. But they've got Imean, there's there's all sorts of there's
interest there too, especially you know, someone who's covered the team, been
around a lot, you know,as you guys too, with a ziro
Vero as a defensive coordinator there.Obviously you've got you know, Josie Jewel,
Pete Hansen's the inside linebackers coach there, You've got some you've got some
Broncos connections there. But yeah,I mean that would that's probably the one

(02:38):
where it's like, Okay, youknow it's week eight, you're in the
slog, you're still several weeks fromfrom the bye week. Uh, and
you know the this weekend, whatis this the Panthers. Okay, great,
I think you're probably hoping to runthat one up pretty quickly. Panthers,
by the way, the only teamin the NFL is no primetime games
this year because the two games followingthat Panthers are at the Ravens and at

(03:00):
Kansas City, a brutal two gameroad stretch there, So I think you're
probably hoping to get up on thePanthers early and hit cruise control, am
I right, Yeah, definitely.And not only do you have those two,
I mean you've got you know,so you've kind of got You've got
Carolina and Atlanta at home sandwich aroundthat pair of road games that you talked
about, Baltimore and Kansas City.But then you know, you go to

(03:23):
Vegas week twelve after that, andthere's just like there's no everybody does it
at some point, right, Like, there's no great time to play three
out of four weeks on the road. But having those two big hitters as
the first two to back to backon the road and then having to play

(03:43):
a team and you know, maybeyou get them earlier in the year,
but as we're sitting here now,you know you've lost eight straight to the
Raiders, and not only that,but you're playing them third road game in
four weeks and twelve weeks into astretch where you don't have your buy week
until week fourteen. I mean thatthat Broncos fans have learned it's not easy
to go to Vegas and win.As it is for Denver, that's a

(04:04):
sort of a tough slot I thinkfor that game to be well, it's
impossible. The Denver Broncos have neverbeaten the Las Vegas Raiders, as it
were. And to add something tothe Francas, that will be that week.
It's f one week in Las Vegas. Yeah, yeah, that week,
one week in Las Vegas, andthen it's going into Thank Given.
It's just it's all that stuff,you know, So it's gonna be,

(04:27):
uh, it's gonna be quite ascene. Well, we were talking before
you join us about you know,week fourteen and that by being so late
in the season and for me beinga former player, to me, I
like that sitting right there in themiddle with the Broncos waiting on that bye
week at week fourteen, how problematiccould that be for the team having it

(04:47):
so late. Yeah, I'm definitely, like, you know, there's there's
always ways that's good and bad.Like you know, you know, you
probably don't want to buy week reallyearly, but then if you catch a
rash of injuries in camp that year, maybe it helps you navigate the first
six weeks of the season middles kindof you know, the ideal, and

(05:09):
I think I know, at leastthe last two years they've been right in
that sort of Week nine range,and so that's that's ideal. You figured
it probably wasn't going to land rightthere again for a third straight year,
and then late you know, likeyou really have to make use of those
days after the week seven game atNew Orleans the Thursday night, you have
to get a lot out of thatsort of mini bye week as it is,

(05:30):
you know, same thing with theextra day of rest theoretically going into
that Monday night game the week before. And so yeah, I mean you're
going to be you know, thedepth's going to be tested. You can
believe that they've made real progress intheir sort of you know, the health
and wellness and the physical conditioning andall of that under the new ownership group

(05:53):
and under Sean Payton, and stillbe skeptical of the fact that they're going
to be as healthy as they werelast year because they were just extremely last
year. And some of that isfortune in addition to some of it being
that you've got people are good whoare good at doing what they're supposed to
do. So uh yeah, fourteen, that's a long way into the season,
and then you know, if you'rea playoff team, hey, maybe

(06:14):
it helps you get fresh before astretch run. We'll see where they're at.
Thirteen weeks at Vegas doesn't have alot of respect for the Denver Broncos.
A five and a half win total. The opening lines of the Seattle
game is out and they are afour and a half point dogged at the
Seattle Seahawks to open the season.What do you think of those lines?
Yeah, I mean they feel aboutright for where we're at in the season.

(06:36):
I mean, remember, guys,there can be key moves to be
made still in the off season.Last year, at this time they hadn't
even signed Frank Clark yet, soto be fair, that impacted almost nothing.
Yeah, right, exactly. Yeah, so yeah, so, I
mean you've pretty much got what you'regonna have, you know, just a

(06:56):
big wild card for the Broncos.Obvious obviously his quarterback play, Like if
you get if you've got a leagueaverage quarterback play, like you can actually
sort of squint and see how,you know, you can get something out
of the way. They've revamped thedefensive line, and you know, maybe
they run the ball more efficiently ifthey get a similar offensive line performance,
better running back play, Like thereare these avenues that you can say,

(07:19):
like if they could surprise people,But given the level of unknowns at this
point, and you know, theamount of dead cap on the roster and
just kind of where they're at personnelwise, I think modest expectations are are
you know the expectation at this point. So yeah, those feel about right
from where we sit right now andnow, usually Parker and NFO is unlike

(07:43):
any other professional league at the tradedeadline, there are not too many moves.
Last year it was October thirty first. This year's November fifth, and
the Broncos play at the Ravens onNovember third. Now I'm asking you to
do a little forecasting here. Doyou think, based on how to schedule
sets up, that the Broncos couldmake some moves or might consider it at

(08:05):
that deadline? Yeah, I meandefinitely, like you're always I think.
I think the surprising thing to mewas that they they stood pat and obviously
part of that this past year wasthat they won the two games going into
the bye week, which is wherethe trade deadline fell, and so you
had people saying, now, youknow, we're not gonna We're not gonna

(08:26):
affect our long term strategy and ourtrade deadline strategy based on one or two
games. And then like you know, that's what happened basically, so you've
got you know, it always takesthrough to tango. You want to get
value if you're going to trade guysand shoot, like if if you get
off to a good start, Imean, you know, if you were
looking for a time to add aguy, going into those two games would

(08:48):
be a good time to do it. And so you know, obviously I
think more likely given the Vegas numbersand all of that, Like you're talking
more likely about being a seller,and I could see it. But at
the same time, like, man, you guys know how Sean Payton's wired.
And I can guarantee you that he'snot going to be sitting there getting
ready to go into that stretch ofgames at Baltimore, at Kansas City,

(09:11):
Atlanta, at home and then atVegas thinking like, oh well, it'll
be fine if you know, wewe get rid of a couple guys going
into that stretch. I mean,he wants to figure out a way to
go win those games. As biga task as that is. Some other
scheduling quirks. The Panthers no primetimegames. The New York Jets are on
the other end of that spec forhim, with six prime time games before

(09:33):
Week eleven Kansas City. Between Septemberfifteenth and November fourth, they span of
fifty days, play one game atArrowhead, a Monday night game against the
Saints. They will play four roadgames in there Falcons, Chargers, Niners,
and Raiders, with a bye weekin the middle. Fifty days one
home game. Yeah, that iswild. I mean that's you know,

(09:54):
you just you're trying to line upall the terrible weather Arrowhead, right,
Like that's that must be with thatabout like carve out the middle when it's
nice, loaded up with the badweather. Every team has some sort of
weird quirk, right, I meanthe Broncos play Indianapolis in the preseason,
then they play them again down thestretch at home, so uh yeah,

(10:15):
you know, double the Colts thisyear. So it's always it's always a
little bit strange, Like last yearthe Broncos had that three in a row
on the road, which doesn't usuallyhappen. There's always there's always something weird,
and that's you know, it's kindof funny, I felt the Jets.
That's six six in the first elevengames. It's sort of easy to
easy to lose track of just howmuch the NFL was primed to just blow

(10:39):
out Jets everything last year until AaronRodgers got hurt for snaps end of the
year, and so they'll be uhmaking up for lost time this year.
When it comes to the NFL schedule. There are the factors that I think
about and and I want to getyour your your standpoint on them because we've

(11:00):
I've seen so many games move tostreaming services. Last year it was Bill's
Kansas City on Peacock. So nowon NFL Plus on Thanksgiving there's three NFL
games. But more important when youlook at the slate of games on Christmas,
there are two games on Christmas onNetflix. When the league starts doing
this, do you feel as thoughthis is good for viewership? I know

(11:22):
it's great for their pockets, butthis is good for viewerships. I mean,
it's good for their pockets. Likethat's that's pretty much all there is
to it, I think, AndI don't know. I mean, they've
done such good numbers on streaming thatlike, is it good for fans.
No, Like I a lot ofpeople have Netflix, but like they're every

(11:43):
year it seems like there's something whereit's just another thing where it's like a
little bit tougher on fans. You'regonna flex games on shorter notice, and
you're gonna even though they don't doit very often, you know, you
can flex the game in or outof Thursday night, which completely you know
changes. That was what John Mara, the Giants president, and called,
you know, abusive to fans lastyear when they enacted that rule. So

(12:05):
there's all of these there's all ofthese rules and you sit there and you
scratch your head and you say,well, this is this good for is
this feasible? And all that Atthe end of the day, like it's
because there's more money to be madeand more deals to be cut, and
fans will find it, you know, I mean, they'll they'll pony up.
And the league knows that, andyou know, like we're at the

(12:26):
league meetings in Orlando and that itwas. It was amazing. It was
when they announced the two games onChristmas, even though Christmas on a Wednesday,
and somebody said, hey, didn'tyou say you weren't going to do
Wednesday, and literally the response was, did you see that the Christmas Day
games last year had thirty million viewers. It's just like, yeah, of
course they're going to do it becausepeople watch and people pay. And it's

(12:48):
interesting you talk about people paying ta part of Gabriels and different posts.
It's interesting because if somebody did themath on this, in order to be
able to watch every game via thestreaming, you have to spend about eight
hundred dollars for all the different productsthat it takes to get all this.
And that's not including paying for theInternet, which on average is going to
cost you additional form. So it'stwelve hundred dollars to be able to watch
every NFL game. Yeah. Yeah, it's crazy, and I mean I

(13:11):
think it's definitely like part of me, I feel like, I don't know,
I don't know the day to backthis up. A part of me,
it feels like some of this isrelated to the fantasy football and sports
gambling booms because people have sort ofa broader interest in games that aren't their
teams. I think like in theirlocal market. The NFL has kept through

(13:33):
all of this expansion, like ifyour team is on in your local market
and the games sold out, youcan watch it over the year. Like
it's been that way, it's goingto be that way. And so it's
really about the ability to watch everything, or the ability to watch a Monday
night game when you don't live youknow, or the Thursday night game on

(13:54):
Amazon Prime when when you're not inNew Orleans or Denver, but that's the
game and you want to watch it, or you've got uh Audrick Estimee on
your fantasy team or whatever. That'swhere the league just makes a killing on
people being willing to pony up tobe able to watch football, you know,
uh, three four nights a week. The starting the season is always

(14:16):
tough, and we watch when RussellWilson was here, he had to go
back to Seattle and I don't knowif you've ever been in that kind of
that stadium, but it is loud. It is loud all over the place.
But now, with both Nicks beingdrafted by the Broncos and some projecting
that he would possibly be the startingquarterback come week one, the difficulties for

(14:39):
any quarterback, let alone or youngquarterback in that particular environment. Let's just
say he is the starting quarterback.How do you anticipate he would handle that
atmosphere with a lot of silent countprobably, I mean it's uh, it's
gonna be it's gonna be crazy.I mean, it's a super it's a
super interesting matchup. Not only couldit be obviously bo Nix's debut if he

(15:03):
wins the starting job, but youknow, Mike McDonald is sort of the
new poster boy for defense in theNFL, and it's going to be his
first game as a head coach,and so you have this sort of like
there's gonna be a lot of newin that game, and so you just
you know, you're you're going backup to Obviously he didn't play, you

(15:24):
know, in that stadium. BoNix didn't in college, but he had
the great battles with the University ofWashington. He played in that part of
the country for two years. Like, there's a lot of interesting storylines in
that game, even though it's obviouslynot Russell Wilson going back there for his
first game in Denver after ten yearsin Seattle. But yeah, I mean
that's a big challenge, right,Like, even though Seattle's defense is going

(15:46):
to be figuring itself out new system, first game, first time out with
real live action and all that,so it would be would be pretty remarkable
if that's if that's bo Mix's firststart in the NFL. Yeah, I
mean you say Michael Donald and andand a lot new going on there you
and I hear Michael McDonald. Iusually think of a lot old in the
backing vocals for ID like to win, but I digress. Parker as good

(16:07):
as always to talk to you.We got to hit a break, buddy,
but good to hear from him.Yep, absolutely, park Gabriel never post