2026 NFL Week 1 Preview: Return of the Draft

0:00We sit here at the beginning of it all, dreams of the National Football League. It feels fresh right now, everyone shaved their privates in a hot shower with the concept of, my team is about to thrive. The NFL exists to tell you, you're gonna get f**ked. The team that wins it all won't be yours. It'll be your ex-girlfriends. She bagly roots for an enemy squad with her new 6'9 boyfriend. Or some born-on-third-base boy toy at your office always carried on a cloud. Here's how a little baby talks to his mother about the Steelers. I'm just a little baby. Why are we parents, Addy and A-Rod like they'll Steve, Martin and Martin Schoetz, look at 87. Come on fat and momma, tell me a bedtime story. Put my fat baby body into bed. Other option. You're one of these people playing with your parts every night over the idea of Jesse Mentor, Connor O'R and a pack of nerds. Down in Hotlana, the Falcons appear more like a theatrical high school spring bizarre than

1:03a football team. So what does football mean? It means you volunteer for bloodshed. You root for a team, maybe your dad did too, nobody evolves. You get your ass kicked verbally at the bar by Kigley and Burnett's who don't respect you because you support a shitty team getting its butthole kicked in as you waltz around in NFL adjacent gear that makes you look like an elf made love with a shave and emo named Barley Girl the 9th. Here at Heat the Call, we love you. We're not emo, just into an extent, but we're okay with your assy football team. Are you assy? We accept you. Our teams blow chunks. I'd rather have served in Iraq one or two, even if the second was simply a Dick Cheney Oil Manoeuvre. This is your Dick Cheney Oil Manoeuvre. As one hero said, high above the Pennsylvania landscape, let's roll. You're going to find out who you are. Football is here.

2:06Let's roll indeed. Football is here. Week one of the NFL season. I'm going to hand this Mark Cessler, Connor or Justin Graver on the ones and twos. As you heard, you heard from a baby that grew up in deep and caged in country. Yes, you may not have any right to be hopeful this time of year, Mark Cessler. You might be deranged to think that your team can be the team that is standing on the riser on February 14th at Super Bowl 61. But as we talked about last week, Cessie, the odds of the Seahawks doing that at this moment last year exactly were almost insurmountable in terms of the desert and that happened. The Patriots making the Super Bowl last year. Nobody said that. That happened. This year, the only thing that could be promised.

3:06So, both the favorites and the underdogs alike is that we cannot predict how any of this will go. So, I guess you just got to buckle up and enjoy the ride. It's, I mean, I went a little cynical in the video there, but- As is your way, but never changed, Cessie. I won't change, but from a hopeful angle, because I can see it too, is like you are taking that hot shower right now. You are thinking, look at it. The hurt has not occurred yet. Anything could happen. You got your special little razor. You got a different razor and you're in the hot shower. Yes, it's a difference. Well, you know, this kind of razor didn't exist 15, 20 years ago. Now it does. It's wonderful. It's painless. You know, listen, you like, I don't want to take away from the people that feel like we're a fringe team and we could surprise people. That can happen. That's happened. That's what's great about pro football, even better than other sports where it's like teams come out of nowhere. So, you're going to have those highs and those lows, but you're probably going to get your ass kicked in the end. And someone that you dislike will be rooting for a team that thrives.

4:08And that's, to me, one of the more annoying factors about sports is when someone you dislike is enjoying it more than you are. Right. And that's going to say that. So that's, yes, that is the take of a Browns fans that suffered a lot as a Jets fan counter. Like, I've suffered a great deal as well. And yet I do enter a new season again with hope of a better tomorrow. And I think that it's, that's the great thing about the start of a season. It's like that again, that whole anything is possible. And we're going to go through all the games today. But just a reminder, we've been doing this since 2013. We cover every single game. In fact, we've all, it's Thursday of week one. And somehow, almost impossibly, we've already covered a game. That being Patriot Seahawks played on hump day of all days. But we're going to cover every game the season preview, every game, 272 of them, the regular

5:10season, all the playoff games leading to Super Bowl Sunday on, yes, Valentine's Day this year. I, I've spent the last couple of weeks really trying to get in touch with my own inner fandom. And I know that then you fail to recognize my own suffering as a lifelong Notre Dame fan. You don't feel like that's valid, even though the team hasn't won a national championships since the year I've been born. The irony is that that's, you're in like the Yankee fan, Packer fan bucket. Like nobody's going to feel bad for a powerhouse. Good luck with that. Good luck with that. But as you were, but I don't remember Johnny Lujack and the rest of the four horsemen, you know, when Grantland Rice was writing about them, unfortunately, I wasn't alive back then. And the, the, the beautiful feelings, I think, are the discomforting ones where it's like, okay, well, we're national championship contenders. I feel protective of that team. I feel nervous every game. And I like tapping into that. And I think also the disappointment, the sour feelings, there is something beautiful

6:11to that too. And I, I really liked exploring that part of my headspace as I lead into the season. And I think I, I need to be more in touch with that and the way that everybody else is going through it. And we need to grow up a little bit. I feel like you and I are not adults compared to what we just heard from, from Connor there. Well, that's, you know, after maybe a little backsliding at times in the summer. I think post TNC Connors back. Yes. I think there, there's a maturity and a understanding of not just the national football league, but the world around him that we, we all aspire to. Yes. It's both said. That backsliding was when you were trying to get to an episode and through your phone out the window of your car. Summer. Summer. Just to be specific. Hey, by the way, Cecilor had some insane predictions earlier this week. Some of them clashed against others. It was a car crash. But two Cecilor is either credit or to the do further dooming of the teams that he picked to make the Super Bowl. The NFL put out that graphic of the animation of all of the many stars of the league walking

7:16toward the site of Super Bowl 61, that being so far stadium. And this is always a matter of perspective, a Rorschach test, if you will. We know that Mark picked the Cowboys to trounce the Jaguars and the Super Bowl. And I do believe, Cecil, we got, I believe that stack press got near the front of the line as his Trevor Lawrence. And if, if I must, because I know this is all marketing scheme by the league, no, it's not skip. Bayless can say, look at the Cowboys. Any of the front that we're going to talk about this in the A blog. You know, Steven A Smith and everybody else can get their chuckles at this animation because this has all been market tested over months and months. But Mark, I digress. Good for you. The curse or destiny is aligned with this photo. You know, to be fair, Dak and Trevor Lawrence are sandwiching, I believe, Sequon Barkley. But I do have the Cowboys beating the Eagles in the NFC championship in my predictions.

8:20So I like what's happening here. My one comment would be none of these people would walk this distance. They definitely would have like Uber, Black or like giant expensive cars driving them. We've been to that stadium. It's a pain in the ass to walk around from a distance. They're getting cars to drive them. They're saying, I'm going to group these guys. We get a little bit on this one, Cecil. But overall, you're right. And while we're here coming off the season over, Sam Darnold is in the immediate foreground. He damn near had his hip broken yesterday. And Drake may absolutely exploded into the atmosphere. And he is the next closest. So if last year's image, the two guys teams that were closest did make the Super Bowl, then that must mean the teams that are furthest are the furthest from the Super Bowl. I don't know. Enough is enough. Not great news for Lamar Jackson based on that illustration. Yes. All right. So we mentioned it on our over on Patreon when we did our free mailbag episode last week.

9:21A little bit of a format change here on Thursday. I like to say that this tank has no reverse gears. Okay. That's what I often say about our program and our indomitable spirit, Mark Cessler, during our long journey in pro football media and this program and entity, he'd the call. In this case, we did reverse it a little bit. Sure. We are bringing back effective today and all through the 2026 season, the draft. Yes. And what does it mean? What does it mean? What does the draft mean on He the Call on Thursday's preview show? Mark's teleprompter went out. It did go out. I just asked you what the draft means on Thursday. I thought you were throwing it out to the audience, even the listeners. That was after Chris Rock got slapped by Will Smith, just the whole audience is staring,

10:26waiting for something. That was our equivalent. What does the draft mean? I'll tell you what it means. And I will go back to something that kind of echoed what Connor was just talking about. What the hell happened there? Well, I am attempting to smooth out the surface here. But like the draft to me means I get to pick. We cover every game. We're not beat writers for just the Raiders and we're sitting around all watching the same thing. We cover every team, every game. In Sundays, the complexion of Sundays comes down to how you organize your watching responsibilities, the teams, the storylines, the one o'clock starts on the East Coast, the four 25 starts on the East Coast. It all matters so much because what you do today, if you get a little bit over your skis, Sunday could be a disaster. So I pick out of passion and especially in week one, it's information time. I want new information. So what do I, what attracts my heart, my spirit, my soul? That's how I draft. And it may surprise people what I pick and I don't really care what anyone else thinks.

11:30The games we draft on Thursday are the games we are assigned to internally on Sunday. And then we come back in the flagship show at night and we lead those discussions for the games with the rest of us catching up. However, we can with the games we were assigned to. It's a beautiful and complicated and chaotic dance, but we've been doing it for almost 15 years now. So I think we got it down and I don't know why Raiders beat scribes like Vincent Bond Signore took a shrapnel there, Connor from Mark, but at the same time, sometimes that happens on our show. Yeah. I mean, Mark tends to punch down. We all know that. I think the beauty of this, I read the draft really gets my rocks off. And this is a reason why I don't read the run down. This is why another reason why I don't read the run down because I was totally surprised by this news like four minutes ago. We love that you're not prepared at all for the show, but just to let you. I am fired up. I'm ready to go. And I love battling against Dan's uber suppressive scoring system. I love the honor system, the hands,

12:32this annotation of record or whatever it is. Every system, basically every system, right? The hands of suppressive voters. I think it's HSVPS, whatever it is. But I love battling against that. I love trying to give the little masses the cheese that they want by picking the perfect team, the perfect draft that everyone will love. I live for this. And so it's something that I look forward to every week. So there you go. So we're going to start the draft now. We're also going to do our blind lock competition at the bottom of the show. And I figured a lot has happened since we had our last blind lock competition. I don't even remember who won. I figured a good way to do the draft order is whoever won last year gets the first round pick this year, first overall pick. Justin, what do we got? Who won last year? You don't remember. I'm sure. Oh, I won last year. Would you look at that? The old Zouser, HT lock champion, 14 and eight last year, Cessi, choke down the stretch,

13:3411 and 11, gravy, just a non-competitor, 10 and 12, and Conner's reputation just going through the floor, ending on a eight game losing streak, which is almost impossible. So just remember, Conner, that losing streak in terms of our historic books will carry into week one here. So let's get off the Schneid here. That's the only thing. We'll get to that later. Yeah. Like the Jets got to get a pick in week one, got to get an intercept. How do you lose eight in a row, Dan? I don't know. If you tried, you couldn't do it. And yet he pulled it off. All right. So that means first overall pick. And just again, if you don't know the rules of the draft going back to ATN and now HTC, we will take turns picking games. And when it comes to the windows, that matters as well. You want to get your time zone, right? You don't want to overload. I have the first overall pick. Only draftable games are non-prime time island games.

14:36So those are out. We'll get to the Sunday night and Monday night game at some point in this episode. Right now, this is the draftable games. These are the draftable games. If you're watching on YouTube, you see them all right now. Push that subscribe. What do they do, Sessie? Oh, you got a punch it. You got a punch it with your nards if necessary. With any body part. And it's good to have the first overall pick because there's one game that jumps out to me. I believe it will be the AFC championship game. Very good chance of that anyway. And I will select with the first overall pick and the return of the draft to heed the call Buffalo Bills at Houston, Texans. CBS, one o'clock. That is Ion Eagle and who? Ross Tucker, baby. Ross Tucker. Thanks for for Tucker. Thanks for for Tucker. Big spot for RT, a friend of the show. Good guy. So that will be my first pick and now we'll get into the conversation of the game. That's just a gorgeous game. It's the only thing I would say Connor in terms of a negative is I don't love the major

15:40showdowns this early in the season. This game being a little later when the teams were more defined in the under and the stakes are more clear because it has massive ramifications. I say this every year when you're talking about two conference titans and they only face each other once because they're not in the same division. This could decide if they end up with the same record and they're both division winners who hosts a major playoff game. And I think these teams are destined for a second match up this year, but it starts right here. Josh Allen is as a horrendous record in Houston on the road against the Texans. And what last year taught us was that Houston can match up in a very specific way against Buffalo that makes Allen uncomfortable. And it's two things. They're dissuading him from running because they have such talented ends and then they have a Ziz al-Shayir who's going to knock your block off if you get into the second level as defense. But they're really doing that frustrates Josh Allen is to preventing him from getting

16:43five receivers out in the route concept every time. Houston shut that down. They eliminated Allen's options in the last meeting. And you can tell, I mean his completion percentage plummets against the Texans. His yards per pass plummets against the Texans. His interceptions go up. This team is his internal bugaboo and I love it. It's like Ben Rothisberger against the old Ravens teams and everyone you should talk about how much he used to hate playing Baltimore back then. And I think the same thing is true for the best quarterback in league against the best defense in the league. Let's go. Yeah, then right away it's an acid test for Joe Brady because this is why you did all this because of the bugaboo's for Josh Allen and the teams he can't thrive again. So here comes Joe Brady with no easy grease skids here. You come right out of the gate against the Texans who last year allowed opponents to score on 27% of drives the lowest in the league. Their defense. I mean, I think we talk about the fact that defenses for certain teams do they carry from

17:44year to year unpredictable, right? We don't know. But I do feel like with the Texans, all these pieces still in place. Absolutely. It's their offense, I wonder about. Can they can they change that because then to me, they're a super bowl team in the making if they are. But I totally trust the defense. I think it's a rough spot for Josh Allen out of the gate. But I mean, if the bills are the team that most people think they are, I think they think each of us have them in the AFC title game. If not more, then you got to come in and take care of business here. And you got to be Josh Allen. Whoa. Don't take care of business. I think our business insinuates, they should win the game. I think they don't know what the spreads are here. But like I would imagine the Texans would be a slight favorite at home here. You know, I Josh Allen, I never worry about Josh Allen because whoever he's facing, I always feel like he can come out on top because he's the best quarterback alive or if he's not, he's in the top three. But he, the Texans present a unique challenge to any quarterback.

18:45And it's that, that's the pass rush, right? That starts there with Will Anderson who, who Conner's ticketed as the league MVP this year. So you can guess what kind of statistics that would garner. Daniel Hunter. And they have what they can do. And obviously a gifted mastermind on the defensive game call and planning with Tameek or Ryan's had coach like they have the ability to mess up your game plan without taking big risks in blitzing. They do not blitz. Often they were the league's lowest blitz rate last year. And yet they get to the quarterback all the time. And that gives you so many more options on your defense when you could just depend on your front four to raise havoc. And to that point, last year when these two teams played the Texans pressure Josh Allen on 43.5% of dropbacks with eight sacks. And if they do that again, barring Conner, a CJ Stroud meltdown like we saw in the playoffs last year, the Texans will win this game. And I kind of think that they will win this game, despite my love of the bills.

19:45So I picked to win the Super Bowl. Everybody that I've talked to this off season basically said the same thing when it comes to Stroud. It's accepting your reality. You had an incredible rookie season. You got to throw the ball a lot. You got to be the quarterback that I think you always envision yourself to be in you were in the right system. This is a completely different reality. It's a different NFL than CJ Stroud's rookie season. And all you need to do is take care of the football, get the ball out on time. And you have to be great in two minute and four minute situations when the game is tight. Stroud was one of the worst quarterbacks in the NFL in those two and four minute situations last year. If he can just do that. And I think when I met him with him this off season, I felt the relief. I felt like he was kind of taking a lot of that pressure off of his plate. I think he's going to be fine and he's going to be the Texans quarterback for a long time. Even in a bad season last year, he was a top 12 quarterback, which is why my optimism of this team is still so white hot. What is he like, Connor, you met with him?

20:46That's an unusual situation. What is he like in person? Did it raise all boats for you in terms of how you feel about CJ Stroud? It's like your unassuming friend who kind of blooms over the course of the conversation, you know, quiet at first. And then after a little while, he makes you laugh. He's got something funny. And then just really warm and inviting person. I think there's two different kinds of quarterbacks. There's a quarterbacks that are like, I'm going to lead by example. And basically it feels very textbook. And then there's the quarterbacks that are like, once you get to know me, you'll love me in a way that you want to play for me. And I think Stroud is that way. And I think he's done a lot to move the needle in that direction and get guys to want to play for him. Dan, one last thing before we move, like it reminds me of the Patriots conversation. After this Texans match up, the bills have the lions, the chargers, the Patriots and the Rams. Right. We talked about that with Ty Dunn. The bills just have to gather these first like six games around 500 and then they could

21:47really lock in. This is going to be really tough. But I think they have a chance. That said, let's pick it real quick and then we'll take our first break. I think it's a close game. I think Stroud, there's probably been a lot of conversations and strategically how they want to play football and the understanding of what this team is around ball protection and not being careless with the football and making the type of throws that sunk Drake May and the Patriots yesterday. I think we see a ball control conservative Texans attack that on this day wins 20 to 17. I'm with you. I think that the Texans defense is one of the greatest groups in the entire league and they show up at home week after week 23, 21 last second field goal Texans take it. 21, 10 Houston Texans. Let's go. Go injuries. Let's keep this defense together. I'm telling you through the first eight weeks of the season, last year, they were outpacing the 1986 Chicago Bears in terms of scoring defense.

22:50Like this team is capable of being historically great. I want to see them stay together for the season. I want to see historical greatness. Let's go. All right. Let's take a break and we'll get to the second pick of the draft. Guys, I got to tell you what happened to me the other day. I was trying to change my flight reservation and ended up trapped in an endless loop of phone trees, holds in a robotic voice asking me to repeat my confirmation code three separate times. The system feels completely broken, not just for us as callers, but for the support reps stuck answering the exact same basic queries all day and the company's desperate to offer better service. Well, Dan, that's why 11 agents from 11 labs is a total game changer. 11 agents provides AI voice and chat agents that actually listen, understand and resolve issues in over 70 languages powered by 11 labs, ultra realistic, expressive voice models. These agents do far more than read scripts. They can look up accounts, process requests, and smoothly hand off complex cases to human

23:52reps. Handling over 10 million weekly conversations for enterprise clients. It's SOC2, HIPPA and PCI certified with full regional data residency. If you run a business or handle customer operations across support, sales or marketing, you can start with a demo at 11 labs.io slash HTC. See how 11 agents can fit into your workflows and help build experiences that your customers will actually love. 11 labs.io slash HTC ELEVN LABS.io slash HTC. Every great entrepreneur knows that you don't wait for the perfect time to start a business you create it. Whether you're looking to turn a lifelong hobby into a full-time career or launch that wild product idea you came up with years ago, Shopify makes taking the leap easier than ever. It is the all-in-one platform engineer to help you launch, manage, and grow your brand without the usual set-up headaches. Forget about trying to stitch together 10 different software tools for inventory, payment processing, and website design.

24:53Shopify brings everything under one roof with intuitive templates that let you build a gorgeous online storefront without writing a single line of code. That's right. Plus, their industry-leading Shopify checkout ensures your visitors actually complete their purchases, offering seamless single-click buying for returning customers. That means less time troubleshooting technical issues and more time focusing on what really matters, building your brand and reaching new customers. If you're ready to hear the… Of your first sale today, head over to Shopify.com slash HTC to start your free trial today. That's right. Start your free trial at Shopify.com slash HTC that's Shopify.com slash HTC. All right. We are back. All right. I grabbed the marquee game of the week. Big victory for the old Zuzer. Cessie left to pick up the scraps with the second pick. No, that's how we see it. We're on… We just turned our break. We were applauding you and essentially just your tactics. I'm going to go… I don't think I do this too often.

25:54Starting late game out of the gate here, Washington at Philadelphia. Like I said, I think week one is information gathering. There's a lot of questions. I love teams and it's two teams with major coordinator shifts. David Blow, taking over Jaden Daniels, the career Jaden Daniels for the commanders who I have predicted will flatline. We'll start there. Sean Manion in Philadelphia, what will this offense look like? How will it be different? How will we know right now if it's better or worse than it was before? Who are the Eagles? Can we trust them to go and win this division? They were a team last year that basically trailed in a league low nine games. They led almost every game they were in. I think they're still absolutely a playoff team. I don't see why we're going to predict them to fall off a map here. But I do think that if your Jalen Hertz, if you're the rest of this offense, it's your 18th coordinator in a row.

26:55What does it mean? I just want to watch and observe this game between, I think you guys are obviously much higher on the commanders and see them even as fringe playoff material. This to me is easily the second best game of the week. Right away, it's going to tell me what happens in one of the most exciting divisions in football. Can Sean Manion be the guy to lift the Eagles to where they were two seasons ago versus last year? I feel like you answered your own question and you're set up to the game though. Why would people think that the Eagles would flatline? Because the Eagles offense came down considerably last year. Sequan Barkley wasn't half the player he was in terms of production last year and now he's another year older. You have an offensive coordinator that's unproven in this offense. Jalen Hertz now coming off a year where you're asking a lot of him to change his style of play and whether or not he's completely on board with it remains to be seen and no AJ Brown who for all his warts and the issues that he caused was a gifted playmaker as

27:56their number one wide receiver. I don't think it's just a slam dunk to think that they will figure it out. But it's also why I think it's a good pick Connor number two because I think both these NFC East teams have a pretty high ceiling but maybe a lower floor than people realize. Yeah. I think we forget just generally how unstoppable Jalen Daniels was for a large part of that rookie season and we fall into that trap where we try to recapture Strauss a perfect example of something that was and it made just a bit of flash in the pan during that particular time. But he was unflappable and teams are trying everything over the course of a long season to really try to throw him and they couldn't and I'm excited to get back to that moment. And I hope that you know the David Blau experience you're from the Ben Johnson school of this is supposed to be fun. We're going to run a lot of trick plays. We're going to hunt for explosive plays. We're going to put Vic Fangio on his heels and I think this is going to be a really fun matchup between Vic Fangio who was I think breaking down like done more high school football

29:02when David Blau was born or even before David Blau was born. And so I love the contrast in the coordinator match up here. A lot of fun. Now one and one thing Mark in the Eagles favor in Nick Cireoni. One of the more gifted tacticians to ever grace a sideline to the point where he's not even going to tell you his backup quarterback is he's playing mind games out there. Play it. We don't have to make that decision quite yet or announce that decision I think for competitive reasons again. A competitive reason. I don't want them to be able to study one guy or over the other. I'm not saying we don't have an answer of who that is yet. But I just don't have to share that quite yet publicly. 3D chess. Well, that feels like morning drinking. Who's the bet? Who are we talking about? We're talking about 400 year old Andy Dalton and who? Tanner McKee. Tanner McKee. Tanner McKee. That's great. It's for cat. For competition reasons, we're not going to let the cat out of the bag on who's not going to play on Sunday. So super quickly on this because we had the we had the whole Harbour thing to with this

30:05same thing flipping out about a reporter asking about game specific stuff. I feel like the more you put on your back in terms of attention and like I want to keep a secret, the more of a doofus you look if you get your ass kicked. And so I think sometimes it's just like, yeah, I'm so confident in my preparation that I can definitely tell you that Andy Dalton, the guy that we paid for is going to be the backup. I mean, why else? What other world is there, possibly? I don't know. Yeah. And we don't have time to dig into it too much right now, but just know Dan's tracking the big DOM investigation. What are the least surprising sports stories? And he's sort of like that. I think I kind of predicted this offhandedly about two weeks ago that it is it possible that big DOM is involved in some type of criminal enterprise in Philadelphia and potentially owning the police force there. I don't know. It's not my reporting, but I'm tracking the story. Don't worry.

31:06Unlarge DOM. One more thing on the commanders because I don't want to sleep on it, Sassy. We talked about Jayden Daniels. I'm really happy to see Jayden Daniels starting over last year because he was so electrifying Zeruki and year two was just snake bitten in all sorts of ways. And it's very easy to just write off the commanders as you have number 31 in your power rankings, I believe. But at the same time, it, it, to me, it doesn't give enough respect to how dynamic he was in year one as Connor said. And I just think him being fully healthy and getting another crack at this, I hope it works out because the commanders like the cowboys and this goes back to, you know, Poppy on his big brown chair, coming home from church on Sunday morning in the, in the den at Granby's house, like I like when the commanders are, are relevant. And last year was a lot more like the Daniel Snyder run. Let's see if the commanders can get their juice back with a very special quarterback.

32:08Well, I'm sure Poppy would love the fact that they're now named the commanders, like he would probably bump on that to start with. I have the feeling my grandfather passed away in 2007. Korean war veteran would not be on board with the red skin's name change. Just a guess. And by the way, if my slight of the commanders, you know, a lot of commanders in Washington, DC and the Pentagon and there we go. Thank you. And by the way, if I, maybe I infuse some baby mama later into J Daniels and then why, why would I attempt to complete ascension on this show? I don't know, but we got to get to the third pick. Sure. All right. Up next, Justin Graver. All right. I am kind of like Mark in the sense that like I want, I want to see what the new version of some of these teams look like. And that's why I will make a pick that maybe the game preview will be shorter.

33:09Okay. Guys will be weird about why I'm doing this. Give me cardinals at chargers in the afternoon window. I have the over on the cardinals win total this season. I'm not saying they're going to beat the chargers in week one, but be very curious to see what Michael Floor's offense looks like in a game where nobody has any film on him. And what that chargers new defense looks like without Jesse Menter. So I'm taking that game. I don't care. You don't think that comes back to you in the second round or third round? Well, I already have my eye on a different second round game that is sort of a must-draft for me, but I felt it would be even more ridiculous. It's coming back around in the second round. You could have seen it, but if you love, you love what you love. It is week one, and the NFL is truly a sport where every team, it's not regional like other sports. If you're a big fan of Prof. Ball, there's something interesting about all these games this early. Maybe this won't be the case on December 10th, but on September 10th, yeah, I want to see what Milf, Michael Floor looks like running this team after the previous coach ran

34:13it into the ground. And the chargers, I mean, for me, the chargers, I mean, the chargers are going to win this game. The chargers should win this game comfortably. It's to the point with the chargers kind of, it's like, can we get at it without a catastrophic injury to the left to right tackle? Can Justin Herbert not suffer a high ankle sprain? Can we just be a normal team dealing with normal things on a week-to-week basis? Be the Mike McDaniel that you promised to be, create explosives in the running game, get the ball out of Justin Herbert's hands faster than ever before. And at halftime, be cracking open an alcoholic beverage because everything's okay. Although I will say this, I will say this, Justin, there's always a, this makes no sense game in a week one. Yeah. The Cardinals do have the firepower as Jeremiah Love active in this game. It looks like he's trending that way, right? Yeah, we'll find out on Friday, I think, but yeah. We'll see. Now that's the, Cereani did it obviously in a ham-fisted way because that's the only way he knows how.

35:14But you're, you know, dynamic rookie running back, that's the one you slow play. You don't want the opponent to know exactly where things are. Hopefully he's out there. Could the, with Jesse Mentor out the door in LA and Jake Brisket just slinging it around, could they surprise the chargers and punch him in the mouth in a building of, I guess, chargers fans? I don't know. Maybe this is the game that doesn't make any sense in week one. It will be chargers fans because the only other fan base that gives up more of their home advantage than the chargers are the Cardinals. They don't travel to see the Cardinals. They don't even go to their own site. But I will say this, like, I do think Arizona is, everyone's just ticketing them to go two and 15. I don't think so. I think they win like five or six games and this is the kind of game they could win. And Justin, I don't think it's a terrible pick from the angle of like, if you're a fantasy person, you want to see how both of these backfields are used. How, who's being employed?

36:15Because Mike McDaniels made it very clear that like he's going to use everyone. But like, what does this offense look like? And it's a harboh move to move away from his own system to Mike McDaniels. And like, I find it to be a curious game. I did write in my notes. I said, um, this feels like a sports contest lost to the wind. But you've changed my mind. Justin, I asked Justin just, I had to check because Mark just said he sees the Cardinals is ticketed for five to six wins. Hey, Justin, what did Mark have in his record exercise on our previous episode? I thought John's green air he predicted the Cardinals would go two and 15, which is well under five. And that's pretty, what changed this time? It's no, it's pretty chalky, but it's like, I'm just saying that the Cardinals, if you go back to the last couple of years, you understand our confusion with how you do these exercises, right? Because I think it's hard to even, it's hard to come out of an NFL season with just two wins. Like I someone I'm not to know. And I did that in a little bit. That's why we do it.

37:16That's when we put it on record, what we think they'll do. I don't not think that I just think it's like, I think that people don't know what the Cardinals might be. My head is spinning. Am I, is that crazy? I think people don't know what the Cardinals might be this evening. And I've been saying for weeks, I think they're going to be better than people think. And one other point in their favor that points to this being a more competitive game than people expect. Now, we don't know the lines on this game, but I think with this one, we can probably guess the chargers are a heavy favorite. In week one, historically, underdogs of more than six and a half points have a 64 and a half percent against the spread rate, which means the Cardinals historically have a pretty good chance to at least keep this thing competitive. All right. Let's see if they do. It could be the makes no sense game. And we'll figure out which one that is on Sunday night. And let's throw out if we can as we go through this week of games. If there's another one that stands out as that possibility. All right. Now, Connor, I guess this will be your gift slash punishment for going on a historic, unthinkable

38:20losing streak last year. You get two consecutive picks now, the fourth overall and fifth pick in the week one draft. Very excited. A lot of games here to look at. Dan, I just want to ask you. And I'm just, you know, there be a combination of a game I could select with Jets Titans that would entice you to move off Bill's Texas. There is no scenario because of my level of professionalism and understanding that is, I will find a way to watch Jets Titans either way. So you can't really leverage that against me. And I know how important it is that tugboat is pulling Bill's Texans to port during the flight. Well, this trade scenario business, what was it eight months ago? We lasted. It feels like eight minutes ago. We're back here. Well, that's part of the game. Yeah, this is like, I respect it. He's looking to move up the board. And in this case, I'm going to politely decline. Okay.

39:21Thanks to Justin for leaving this puppy wide open. I'm going to take a great. I'm going to take a great, a great, a great Jesus. I know. I'm going to take Baltimore at Indianapolis to start. Let's see how healthy Daniel Jones is. Let's see what Jesse Miner looks like. Let's see Lamar Jackson in a Ben Johnson offense. Hello. That's kind of interesting, right? I'm into this. Let's, let's, let's have it. Yeah. The Ravens, it ended terribly with the Tyler loop miss against the Steelers, costing them a playoff spot. But in general, just like, it kind of reminded me of that, that tiresome, I think, for all of us, um, Cessie, Bengals narrative of their seasons where they fall behind. They're one in five and then they're waiting for the quarterback to get right. And then they win four in a row. Then they're five in five and then, and then they're, you know, eight and seven. And then they somehow blow it in the end or, and they ended up missing the playoffs. Like, the, that rollercoaster version of the Ravens, if we

40:22have another season like that, next year we're going to be talking about a mentors for a season was very disappointing and B, who is Lamar Jackson at this stage of his career? Does Lamar Jackson have high level prime years remaining? He should. And I, I think this is a team, I think all the teams that got off their head coach, long time head coaches are going to see bumps. Uh, and I believe the Ravens will be one of them. I like them a lot in this game. And I think the Ravens are going to be back. I would agree. I think Indianapolis is a bit of a mystery. The whole Alec Pierce thing, the whole off season, you're hoping your quarterback is healthy. Um, Jesse Mentor is for a first time head coach, taking over as powerful a team as you could ever wish for. And so I understand like Conner's, I wouldn't call it a fascination, but you're attraction to the mentor concept. Um, it really comes down to the offensive coaching staff and Lamar Jackson. Because I think there's, there've been little whispers. There is a world where if things go kind of south, um, maybe Lamar Jackson's not on this

41:26team a year from now, maybe something major happens next off season. Um, you'd like to see that not be the case if you're a Ravens fan, but, um, I don't know, either a lot of changes ahead or not, but the Ravens need to find a way to not shoot themselves in the foot. I feel it gets mostly the Ravens beating the Ravens in these seasons. You go back to that like game against the Steelers at the end of last year that like, ended their season. Come on, guys. Like, um, I, I don't know. I, I feel like the Ravens to me, I expect disappointment. Am I being too negative? I just expect something disappointing to occur at some point. They are not a team. I didn't even have them in the playoffs. Um, that's me. That's not you guys. Looking at the Colts. There's been a lot of talk about which version of the Colts shows up. Um, I do want to see Daniel Jones. How is he moving? Well, all the reports around Jones have been good. And, uh, and we see to his credit, Connor, how that team just cratered as soon as he

42:26exited the lineup. Was it a, was it as simple as that in your mind or was there more to the collapse of the Colts, uh, than the quarterback, uh, play because if it was all Jones, it's like, whoa, he really was a special, um, as people were saying in September and October. And if he's back and back to the same version of him, Indian apples are going to surprise a lot of people. I mean, again, I think we've said this at Nazim. It was a lot of it was scheduled related last year, right? I mean, I think nine of the 10 teams or something like that fired their head coach that they rattled off those first, uh, that great eight, nine, 10 game streak at the beginning of the season. And it, it all comes down to the focal point, which is a running game. They had Jonathan Taylor on a crazy pace last year. It allowed Daniel Jones to set things up via play action. Um, but we'll see what happens. I mean, when that craters, when injuries mount, you know, it's, it's really difficult to be able to run with eight or nine guys in the box. And Indian apples found that out the hard way. Uh, Alec Pierce is going to play in this game.

43:26And I'm very curious to see or at least he's trending that way at the moment. What that looks like, we haven't seen any of him in the preseason. I mean, it looked like, you know, there were those videos and training camp that looked like they had completely two different sized legs. And I know that was probably, you know, like an Eddie Lacey camera trick kind of thing. But at the same time, it was a deep call back to NFL blog culture of the 2010s. And I'm here for it. Yeah. Poor Eddie Lacey fat picture. We've all gotten the fat picture. I, it sucks, right? Many. We don't love it. Yeah. Um, but the, uh, I'm dying to see what they look like because again, during that 10 game stretch, they were among the best offenses for any 10 game stretch over like the last 25 years of football. So can you conjure some of that? And I sneaky love that cold, defensive line. I think that's a top top five, maybe top six defensive line in the NFL. They can cause some damage to you under the right. So, and I will say quickly, like they, the Ravens and Colts were the two best EPA rushing teams in the league a year ago and to the Colts, even though the Colts swoon at the end

44:30of the year, they still average more points per possession at home than any team in the league. And so you're right. Is that, was that a mirage? Can you get back to that? You got the right coach. It's the coach that did it a year ago. You got the same quarterback. Like, I just find there another team like, I don't know what to expect from the Colts. They're the highest ceiling floor team for me. And I'm not sure I believe. And remember another important injury update on the Colts, the sauce gardeners back and sauce gardeners healthy and they mortgage their future, looking at sauce as a guy that would lock down the back end of the secondary. And we'll see if he can be that player for them. He had a calf injury last year that helped contribute to their demise. So we'll see. I think it's a field goal game and would not be surprised if the Colts pull it out at home, but the Ravens would be my pick. All right. Sorry, Captain. I know. I know. Boy, he thinks it's a squirrel. Well, he's looking to protect you if it's a snake.

45:34He's a hunter. No, he thinks that's the sound effect for squirrel in this house. So which is his number one enemy? Sure. OK. Con, man. A lot of good games left here on the board. I feel good about it. There's a couple different directions I could go. But I'm not going to talk too much about that because there's one game in particular that I hope slips back to me at the end, which I know might be a little bit of a tall task. But I'm going nance and what. I want to see Packers at Vikings, the debut of Kyler Murray. I think this Vikings team is going to be secretly good. And I don't know. There's something about the grand curiosity of it all, like Kyler Murray and a more structured Kevin O'Connell offense. Brian Flora is getting to let it rip again. Harrison Smith is back. And then this Packers team trying to recover from the mounting injuries, the Josh Jacob situation. There's a real texture to this game. There's some teeth to it. Kevin O'Connell, because again, he's not afraid to announce his backup quarterback is for

46:37competitive reasons. He came out and said Carson Wentz beat out JJ McCarthy to be the second string quarterback, which just think about that. What kind of summer McCarthy must have had to not be able to beat out present day Wentz. But this is if that, if you needed any other assurance, this is Kyler Murray's team. This is going to be Kyler Murray's season. If he stays on the field, he is their quarterback. I think you talk about mysterious teams. It's kind of hard for me to make sense of the Packers. The talk of the Packers having a different offense, maybe a little bit more of an explosive offense. And Jordan loves stepping more center stage. That is interesting to me. And with Josh Jacobs in parts unknown, he just pled no contest to Mr. Mena Chargers on Thursday and is on the commissioner's exemplest. So we don't know when or if we'll see Jacobs at all. A more air it out Packers offense would be something that I think could take them to the next level, especially with Mike Parsons out right now. You're going to need the offense to ball out.

47:38This is a great pick, Connor. Seagrally one of the wildest matchups of week one to have these two divisional opponents go against each other. Like just from a football angle, I mean, Josh Jacobs to me made the Packers a violent, dangerous team when it mattered in Green Bay. And now you're, you know, with very little warning or planning, you're having to redo your entire running back and running scheme scenario. And so I think it's a huge loss. And we don't know when you went from four promising wide outs down to shave it down to basically two and a good tight end. What that's going to look like. I think it's a, it's a, and with Kyler Murray too, it's two mysterious teams. And one of these teams, if it goes very south, I think I could see things being blown up at the end of the year, but right out of the gate, they face each other. Uh, quickly Josh Jacobs was an active for both of the Vikings games last year. But one of the things that football people have been talking about this off season, the,

48:39the rise of Flores like defenses, Vance Joseph like defenses, Matt Burke like defenses, D'Mico Ryan's was to shut down that, that lateral, that outside zone running game. Josh Jacobs is a between the tackles gap runner. And we're going to see a lot more of that because that is believed to be kind of the antidote to what we're seeing in the rise of some of these defenses. And so to not have him a true between the tackles violent runner sucks. I mean, it's, it's a tough blow for them right now. Yeah. Uh, last year in their two meetings, uh, 23 six Packers over Vikings, uh, in late November and then with green Bay resting their starters ahead of the playoff 16 three Vikings, uh, which got Minnesota to a winning record. Uh, good game, great division game. Love it. And again, Minnesota very tough place to play. Um, it might be for me a deciding factor. I think it's another field goal game. All right. It now goes back to Justin. All right.

49:41Here's something that might surprise you. Probably won't surprise. I love the Justin buying time commentary. I just, I always enjoy it. It always has, it's got a similar cadence and flow to it. You know it's coming in the, but it always kind of hits you by surprise at the same time. Mr. Philobuster. The game with the lowest total per the desert on the, on the entire slate this week is Jetset Titans 39 and a half points. The only game with a total under 40. I feel like that is wrong. And I'm going to pick Jetset Titans for primarily because it's the game of the week for our shows purposes. And if you want to hear a real in depth break down of this game, Dan was on the Titans Titans Titans podcast earlier this week. Go check it out, music city audible. Um, but here's the thing. The Jets, we know famously just to pause there. I, on that program, I did throw out a, a wager that if the Jets defeat the Titans,

50:42uh, Justin for one week will be forced to rename his podcast. This just in and the other one too. Oh, you have to do that no matter what I'm not worried about having to rename my podcast. Bang. All right. Go ahead. Cash talk. Um, no, the Jets famously didn't get an interception last year. We know they've remade a lot of their defense. The Titans in the preseason, there are ones struggled to stop most teams. On defense, I feel like this is going to be a game of blown coverages, misdessignments, broken tackles, big plays, exciting offense, what maybe not 38, 35, but higher than 39 and a half in a game where I think could be way more exciting than like, oh, it's the dumb Jets. Oh, it's the shitty Titans. Like then you might expect like I feel like this could be an explosive matchup. I'm excited. What's week one, right? And so it doesn't become that until week six. And so I think that to your credit, I think this is the time to get them.

51:47And I would add, um, as I said on, um, my weekly Nashville radio spot. Oh, yeah. By the way, Justin, uh, we're all talking Titans. All season long. It might not be a more prominent national voice that uniquely despises the Tennessee Titans. Carter, only thing that the only thing that Connor seems to revel in more than, uh, hatred of international NFL football is the Tennessee Titans. And yet you were hired to be the voice of Titans coverage, a contributor. I mean, national, uh, guest on a weekly program that is centered around. Do they, do they have any, are they been clued into your animosity towards the, uh, the, sounds like they're not listeners of he the call or maybe they are. And they just appreciate your hard hitting honest look at the Titans struggles. Possibly, um, but one of the things that we talked about that I found interesting was, this is not a must win game. No week one game is a must win game.

52:47However, camwards, stumbles out of the gate and all of a sudden Titans fans are looking at a top five pick and Robert Salah and Brian Dable are looking at a quarterback that they don't need to pacify anymore because they didn't draft. That gets interesting. The jets similarly, right? They win that game or they lose that game. I think we already start to have those big picture draft conversations after a week. I'm just saying that's the nature of the NFL. And then how does someone like Ward respond to that if he throws up an absolute stinker? I don't disagree. I think both fan bases are viewing this as like, we should beat that f***ing team. Give me a break. Um, the only counter to what you just said, Brian Dable with New York, really wanted to trade forward, tried to trade up for him. So he did, he was, he was in job saving mode though at that point. Ward was the only other quarterback. I think cam Ward's performance, like starting right now is a top 10 fascination in the NFL season because you're right. They could go in a completely different direction in a lot of ways. So here you go.

53:48I love this matchup for my team. I love this matchup for my team. I'm very confident. I'm very confident in the jets they can get a business. You know why? Because this Titans team where they are right now reminds me so much of so many bad jets teams of recent memory and why? Because they got the same bad head coach and a lot of the same bad players and the young quarterback who hasn't put it together yet. And some off off season, summer drama and mellow drama and some media percolation is some dysfunction and Tennessee. The, the guy that wears the green dot in the middle of the defense just got a UTV accident as an is in the concussion protocol. This is a team, the type of team that I know and this type of team is not ready when the bell rings is it fair to ask if an Aaron Glade led team will be ready? Yes. However, however, calm down, Justin, I'm talking. However, get your finger off the button. Off the button. However, I think the jets off season strategy to bring in veterans on both sides of

54:54the ball is going to help Aaron Glenn a measurably. DiMario Davis on the defensive side. Gina, Gina Smith at the quarterback position. I think the jets are going to be prepared and they're going to win this game. Perhaps convincingly. And if they don't, first of all, terrible look for Aaron Glenn, who won't be able to beat a Titans team that is out of sorts right now. And yes, it's a near must win for Aaron Glenn because with a very unforgiving schedule ahead, he could be heading towards a guillotine game with the Cleveland Browns in week five. If they can't take care of business here. I feel good though. I feel great. If you haven't got no haters, you ain't popular. It would be irresponsible of the three of us to take anything that you say about the jets on September 10th with the grain of salt. Well, I mean, Mr. I picked the jets to win a play. Sure. I also, I also predicted while we're here, Shesler, when I was talking about the Geno Souts all summer, Sessler's not saying a word. He's getting his little barbs in. And now he's got Frank Reich as coach of the year.

55:55That's right. You know, Smith went into playoff game because I guess Gino Smith is going to be pretty good this year. No, we'll get, guess what? Because I have a getting very, very dark before it turns into a Cinderella type story. Three tests. So you just haven't never getting dark. Here we go. We're going to roll against the Titans. Look at us. We're in green uniforms. Mark, when I make record predictions, I actually stand by them. I have the jets at seven. So please. Okay. I don't think they're a playoff team. I don't think there is, this is a roller coaster. I just think this sets up well for them. And I will be and you'll get that. If everybody wants blood, you're going to get a very disappointed Dan if they flat line against this Titans. It is an interesting because whoever loses this cannot basically speak for about a month. Which would be a problem for a podcast. You better be ready for me to play that clip that you, of, well, I clipped of what you just had. There you go. Yeah. That's what you get. Yeah. I get to rename your show. You could play this clip of me. Seven. How do you get to rename another man's show? I don't know. That's how that works. Yeah.

56:56It was the other Justin's idea that we have a bet. So there you go. He the call. This just in and the other one too. Pretty good. It's very good. All right. Let's see, Justin. It's going to be fun. It's going to be fun. And I do agree. It's one of those funny games where it's like the two least popular kids at the playground arguing over who's the bigger nerd. Right. And I'm definitely cooler than you. Well, I'm definitely cooler than you. And everybody's like, are these fucking guys serious? I've got Hot Wheels, Cars, and my pocket. There's John Candy from JFK. All right. That brings Mark back onto the board with his second pick. Okay. Let's see. Oh, well, this is clear. This is so easy. I'm attracted to this game from a distance Tampa Bay at Cincinnati, one PM Eastern, dial it up. The bucks have won five straight openers in a row. Longest streak in the league tied with the Eagles.

57:58Look, it's another, it's just two more teams where it's like, I want to see, you know, I think that first of all Baker Mayfield signs that contract. I love that. I know that Connor, you were sort of saying that light does things the GM on his own time. But I think this was the right time. There was a positive press conference with Baker Mayfield. His child is speaking to him, calling him daddy from a distance in the minute. Oh, good. Well, no, I'm just saying it was like, you got this thing done. He's got one of those like little brats that are calling the father by his actual name. Hey, Baker, bring me a bottle. Well, I think it's a bit more of a baby. But like, like, I would just say this, like, I guess you could ask, was it better to keep Baker Mayfield in the world of pissed offness because he's that special quarterback where maybe that translates? I think that's BS on some level. Like, you made him feel secure. You made him feel wanted. This team wants him. I like the fact that they got it done. And so now with this offense, minus Mike Evans, what are you against this Bengals, rebuild

59:01defense? Because if we believe in the Bengals, it's this that you go and get Dexter Lawrence. You make a major trade very on Bengals. Like, you add a ton of players all over the place. You focus your draft around it. If the defense can be even like 12, 14 spots better than they've been, which was terrible in the past, like, I mean, I totally trust the offense. And the Bengals to me are like an AFC title type contender if you're more balanced. They've just been so unbalanced. And like, how about if you're Cincinnati, it's in Cincinnati, by the way, Tampa haven't going up to Ohio. Like, get out of the gate 1 and 0, get out of the gate 3 and 1, 5 and 2, 6 and 2. Like, how about we for once don't start at the bottom of the well? Yeah. And, and burrow doesn't limp to the locker room in the same quarter. Can we just have a normal season? And then goes, I disagree, Mark. I think the Buccaneers for multiple reasons, including just the overall path of the organization moving forward, stood to benefit a lot from letting the Baker thing play out. I think Baker's a psychopath in the best way. And I really thought him playing, I'm not even necessarily playing for you anymore.

1:00:05I'm playing for me, Ivan Drago style, was a really fun subplot to watch. And what we got it, what the press conference is and all of it would have been a cool from a narrative standpoint. But also, I think I really think he's that type of competitor. Now, you're also not going to get on the Buccaneers necessarily because it wasn't an absurd contract that they gave him. And Baker is a very good quarterback, even if maybe there's a ceiling involved. But yeah, I do think that would have been a fun thing that went by the board. And I agree with you about the Bengals also. Like, kind of like, win this game. Like this is, this might be the best team in the NFC South, but that's the NFC South. You're at home, you're Cincinnati. This is supposed to be a fresh start. Do not fall on your face at home against a weaker team. You can argue that it's a tough spot for Cincinnati because you're facing a new offensive coordinator. But Zach Robinson was a very tendency, heavy coordinator when he was in Atlanta. Something like an 80 some percent passing rate, for example, on second and long. You know, he didn't, he didn't change up a lot of the habits that he developed.

1:01:09But one thing that he did I thought was interesting was he's basically putting everybody in different spots as a receiver. Everybody's going to play in the slot. They're going to mix it up a little bit. But if you're the Bengals, a lot of this doesn't matter if you can just get to third down. You invested in the past rush this off season. You invested in Dexter Lawrence to soak up double teams and to stop the run. Just get to third down, turn the ball over to Joe Barrow and make this a more sensible Bengals team than we've seen since the Super Bowl version. Okay. Let's see. Let's take a break. And when we get back, the draft continues. Football is finally back and prize picks is the absolute best way to make every game day even more exciting. I've been building my daily fantasy lineups on prize picks recently and I have honestly have no idea why I waited so long. It's just so simple, skill-based and ridiculously fun to use. Yeah, it is. You just pick anywhere from two to six players across whatever sports you're watching.

1:02:09Football, baseball, soccer, whatever and choose more or less on their player projections like passing yards, rushing yards or fantasy score. Yeah, I'm super excited to play all throughout this football season, tracking my favorite stars and grabbing more on their projected stats to test my ball-knowing prowess. Plus, prize picks is stacked with features. They invented the injury reboot, so a first half injury won't ruin your day. They have live box scores built right into the app and there's a social feed where you can copy top trending lineups with a single tap. Yep. Stack September is packed with daily discounts, profit boosts and special promos making now the perfect time to play. Download the prize picks app today and use code HEAD to get $150 instantly in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup. That's the prize picks app code HEAD, H-E-E-D to get $150 instantly in lineups if you win your first $5 lineup prize picks. Run your game. Alright, we're back. Let's dive back in.

1:03:09Let's see. I am on the clock. The way things set up, it's not clean for me because I think I have two more games coming my way. Either way, because I don't have Jets Titans, I'm going to have three games in the early window. None of this matters. Nothing matters. Let me make my picks then. Let's get this one out of the way. That's taking us through the process though. Well, that's how it works Mark. Welcome to the draft. I'm here. You may be rusty. Let's go hell. Let's go. Where do we want to go? I might just take the browns now. Just a stick at you. But I won't. If you do, you are starting the season on the wrong foot with myself. No, let me go Saints at Lions. There it is. We got Kenny Albert, Jonathan Vilma. You know me, not a big Vilma fan. This is going to be the third game in terms of where my eyes is. This is on the third TV. This is on the third TV. So we've got the three TV set up on Sunday. But it is an interesting game because I'm invested in these Lions.

1:04:13I love these Lions. I want this Lions team to, we talked about it. We're all kind of high on the Lions. They're number six in the power rankings for he, the call. So at home against the Saints team that, yeah, you could see this frisky. But there's a reason they're 23 in our power rankings. Also another NFC South team that you got to talk yourself into. I guess what I'm looking for. I know what we're going to see from the Lions offense. Fireworks. You're going to get a 30 point game. I think barring something strange to me. Your Gibbs is going to make plays. I've been on record that I think James and Williams can even level up this year in that offensive on Ross St. Brown is uncoverable. The question is, will the Detroit Lions defense show up this season? And here is a nice way to get their feet wet, Mark, against the Saints team with Tyler Schuck entering year two. Chris Alave in their Travis HN is there. There are guys that can hurt them. But it's a nice way to kind of get started. You're not getting thrown into the deep end against the Saints. If the Lions do give up a 30 burger, it's not a great sign.

1:05:14I like it that it's in Detroit for the Lions. I think the Saints are a little spicy. I don't know what to make of them entirely. But you said it. To me, the optimism that we feel around Detroit, it has a lot to do with the offense. They produced 80, 20 plus yard plays last year, third in the league. They're explosive. James and Williams, I think this is the year we're suddenly, along with Amon Ross St. Brown just becomes the absolute man. But on defense, they were 26 in the league and giving up 20 plus yard plays. Like they allow explosive plays. And so who are the Saints and what can Kellen Moore and Ellen Moore do for this team? And could they puncture the hopes of Detroit here? I think Detroit's got to cut out strong. It's like I keep propping them up. And then sometimes I ask myself, are they better than they were last year or the year before? I think their offensive line is short up. I'm not sure that they're better though, but I trust them. But sometimes I question like, why?

1:06:17I mean, is it just because there are feel good stories? We're trying to make the lines a thing or get them back to two, three years ago when they were genuinely a really great story and an NFL titan. And maybe they still are, Connor. And that's what this early part of the season is like, do the lines come out of the gate four and one? Or are they dealing with issues and injuries and inconsistencies? Like they are a curious team. They are a curious team. And I'm curious about Tyler's shucking this one because if you're Kellen Moore, former quarterback yourself, you know that the lines are capable of putting up 40 points a game. What do you do with Shuck? Do you try to, you know, do you try to slow the game down? Do you try to lean on that offensive line? Do you try to take the ball out of his hands? Or do you like him enough to let him air it out? So I'm dying to see it. It's another game with like Drew Petsing. It's another, there's like 15 coordinator switches. Like it's another one of those games. I wish Jordan Tyson was in this game. The number eight overall pick. Jacked up his hamstring again. We might not see him until, you know, late October.

1:07:20Or but we'll see if this Saints offense can play the guitar. All right. Sorry, cap. All right. And this is just now this is the way the draft works. Sometimes you just got to grab a game and it's got a, this is housekeeping. So I will take dolphins at Raiders 425. We got stink and Chris Myers on the call. That all checks out. I wish I could say I'm watching Fernando Mendoza's debut. I'm not. This is Kirk Cousins's team for now. The Raiders are looking to start a new era. Obviously with Kubiak as the coach. And Tom Brady's fingerprints all over this roster. And you could not get a better week one game. It is the Miami dolphins by everyone's estimation, even dolphins fans. The team that is in the worst possession opening the season. Number 32 in our power rankings. And across the power rankings galaxy.

1:08:21This would be the other pick I would say, Connor, of the makes no sense game. Just because we've been down this road before where we say, oh, yeah, the Raiders should be better this year. And then maybe they just suck ass. And we have a rock fight and the dolphins win 1512. So maybe it wouldn't even make sense as a make no sense game. But within the context of how we've all been collectively talking about the dolphins for six months, it would make no sense for them to go on the road and win a week one. It would make no sense, but it would, right? Because even though it's not an interim head coach bump, it sort of is in the fact that halfly is so stylistically different from Mike McDaniel. And you have all these holdover players who've been told that they suck all off season. And then you have this kind of hard ass general type come in. And before the reality of the talent gap hits them, might just have that one game where they come out a little bit fired up and take it to an older Kirk Hussins. I mean, I want to see Malik Willis. Like, I mean, what does it look like here? I mean, there's a lot, sure. There's a lot of it. Every team you can get excited about.

1:09:22Yeah, right. And I think even these dolphins. And like, I also think that like part of this journey with the dolphins for Jeff Halfley, who is clearly a talented, he was a great coordinator. And a good college coach. And it's like, I don't know what's going on behind the scenes or what he's being told. But like, if they're about to go two in 15, how do you survive that? And how do you, how does the team survive? And like, this is the beginning of that journey. I mean, for the Raiders, one thing I want to see, like, they were one of the worst rushing teams in the league. They had, they had a league low 31 runs over 10 yards last year. And you thought that would be different with the teams, with the running backs they have. And like, who are they? What are they? How did they look different? It was a disaster a year ago. If you're a Raiders fan, you want to see organization, you want to see growth. Maybe that's still six wins. But I think this game matters for both these teams about what are we this season? And like, it's an intriguing game. I know it's probably the two of the worst teams. But for some reason, it stands out as like, I kind of want to find out what this looks like. One thing the Raiders did pretty well last year was stop the run.

1:10:25This rendered 77.5 rushing yards per game, 3.6 yards rushing per attempt. And yet, if this is going to be an upset special, maybe Malik Willis, who's going to run for a lot of yards this year because I think he's going to be running for his life a lot. Yeah, hopefully he could stay healthy. Maybe, maybe he runs for, you know, a buck 15 and a, a tuddy. And this is a low scoring win for the dolphins or, you know, what would make no sense as a shootout? Maybe Kirk Cousins is selling at no Brock Bowers. We should get that out there. Yes. The Maniscus trim, which is annoying because I drafted Brock Bowers. I think everyone who was excited to see Brock Bowers healthy in 2026 after struggling with that knee injury all last year. Now he's dealing with another lower body injury. And let's just hope this is the Raiders downplayed. Oh, it's just a week or two. I don't love it. I don't love knee surgery four days before the worst game of the season. But he's a key for everything on their offense because when he's healthy, as we saw in his or rookies, one of the best players in the league. All right.

1:11:25Now, let's go. Two more, a couple more picks in the strap. We have a few more games out there. Mark, back to you. Okay. I'm going to go Cleveland at Jacksonville, right out of just a disdain for myself. I like following the browns at this point is kind of like spying on an ex-girlfriend on Instagram to find out like how hot her new girlfriend is. Now you're very much still together in a very unhealthy relationship. Let's not use the analogy that it's an ex. That's fair. Very ugly chaotic relationship. And all your friends around you are in text threads or at the bar talking about how like why are they still together? This is so unhealthy for both sides. You're the ones that keep telling me to follow this team. So you're the one who can't. You know, this is a Romeo and Juliet thing. Like you're in too deep. There was never any getting out. So good luck until you drink the potion. I feel it's heightened right now in the sense that I would say this. If it were Shadour Sanders, I'd be like, I'm all in.

1:12:27Let's go see what the young guy can do and the young team. They've got good young players on this team. But what they've done is provide an non-eromatic stink to the entire scenario by putting the Shawn Watson there. I don't need to go down that road 400 more times, but it is a disgraceful time period. It is a heightened period of anxiety and disdain for browns fans. And so what happens? Because I like the coach. I like Todd Monkin. I like a lot of the roster. I don't like the quarterback situation. I don't like what the hell is happening on this team at all. And I had picked the Jacksonville Jaguars to go to the Super Bowl. So we're going to find out real fast what the Cleveland Browns think they are, who they are, and what I think they are. Here's one thing that works out for Deshaun Watson, who by the way just got a speed and take it a couple days ago. I'm not going to go crazy about that. Or just like you. That's the only thing he can do well. Yeah, I was going to say like the one thing in Watson's to his benefit right now is this game is in Jacksonville, which makes it a tougher game to win.

1:13:29But being in Cleveland, knowing that that crowd can't wait to get all over his ass the first time he sells the ball over receivers head on third and long, at least he can just get away from that toxic stew. But I think it's only a matter of time on the Jaguar side. What are you looking for? Why are the Browns fans the toxic stew? I mean, I know what you're saying, but like the toxic stew is not the Browns family. Okay. Just their reaction is warranted. The creation right by the front office of a toxic stew and a fan base that does not want to show on Watson's or quite a record about the Jags, Connor. Well, I'm saying I'm keeping a particular eye on this one because I picked Cleveland to be my weak one unexpected victory that makes no sense. No, the makes no sense game is going to be Cleveland of the victory. I had Cleveland being the makes no sense game, but obviously it drove through the ear of the that dull pencil down in Jacksonville who hosts like 1010, the dog food or whatever he does. And the car or on there as I the dog food.

1:14:30So I got a lot of a channel. I got a lot riding on this one. Okay. And so I've I've been keeping my eye on it. I like the Jaguars. I have them as a playoff team. I just think that there's there's going to be an adjustment period. Anytime you lose a middle linebacker like Devon Lloyd, who is so talented, so rangel and so perfect for that defense that they were running, I just think that front seven has not been replenished. And it's impossible to replenish it when the year before, you know, you go out and you get the cornerback slash wide receiver instead of the defensive tackle, which is fine. But then the year after that, you don't have a first round pick to invest in the trenches. And so that's where I think Cleveland can get that kind of interesting, unique edge. And I'm wondering if they just kind of grind it out and take the ball out to Sean Tants. Yeah. Cleveland does have some even with Miles Garrett gone. This is the first game of the post Miles Garrett era. They have playmakers and Lawrence who took big strides in year one with Lee and Cohen. Still, he's a streaky player and a, but man, if you let Cleveland come into your building

1:15:31in Florida, hot sticky Florida and lose that game, I cannot take you with a bunch of babies up in that pool. Um, that's so cool. I mean, I say one thing. Nobody's getting out of the pool there, by the way. Just once you get in the pool, once you get out, you get replaced. So what do you think's happening to the people drinking the mucaloval tris there for two hours? When it's time to go. I don't know. And where do you go? Once you come out of a, you're soaking wet in the pool and you're in an effect. Where are you going? Right. I don't know. Can I say one thing? This is my hot take. Jared verse, better season than Miles Garrett. Love it. Okay. Pencil it in. Pencil it in. Better to use pencil than pen on that one. Pen it in. Just then back to you. Okay. My final pick will be. I can't believe this is still here. The look of panic. Maybe this was the one Connor had his fingers crossed for. Maybe not. Bears at Panthers. I mean, is that crazy?

1:16:31Ben Johnson's bears are going to be exciting. And I think the Panthers have a better chance than the average fan public person would give them to come away with a home win in this game. No, you've, you've, you got bailed out by the draft there because you had that horrendous carnal's pick early on. This should have been the pick in that spot, but you ended up getting it anyway. So even Steven for you. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. To act like you unearthed this as some sort of a market inefficiency when it literally slapped you in the face like a flying piece of paper in the wind. Just, I don't know. Rubbed you me the wrong way a little bit. Ten and the dog food. Yeah. Connor, what do you think about the game though? Who cares about me? I don't know. Nice. Nice. I saw, you know, I saw Justin in the hosting chair on this Justin and the other Justin too. And, and the way he controlled the segment was. It got me a little bit hot and bothered. So he just did it again, Connor. So very safe. So authority, very into it. Yeah.

1:17:31I am, I'm so excited about seeing Ben Johnson, Ripon and Roran after an off season where he was told by everyone that he's a gigantic regression candidate and basically taking the summation of his masterwork and shocking it up to luck. And I truly enjoy when stuff like this happens. But the Caleb Williams evolution has to take place, right? The, the historical ability to avoid sacks. We saw that with Russell Wilson and that eventually just becomes a historical sack taking. But, you know, and so Caleb Williams got to get rid of the ball faster. You've got to become more goffy and even though one of your superpowers is backfield mobility. And so this is a Panther's team that's going to finally pose a challenge defensively. They've upgraded the pass rush. They have guys back healthy from last year that I think might be able to help and just through and through. This is a top 10 caliber defense. And so right away we test the theory how lucky was Chicago, how talented really is this

1:18:32roster. Let's see it. Well, they were 22 plus 22 and turnover differential. I mean, I don't think the regression thing is anti-Ben Johnson. I think he's one of the most celebrated newer coaches I've ever experienced. I mean, there's nothing bad to say about Ben Johnson. But there are elements to last year's bears where you could point to and say, I could knock two wins off of that win total. And they could be the same team or even a better team on offense. But their defense, and we had Aaron Schatzon, like was, I think he put them at 31st. They're, they're, they're all men. I put them at 31st on defense. So they're kind of tilted to one side of the ball. And that always sort of concerns me a little bit. They lost a lot of guys on defense. I would add something here about the bears. But I'm afraid I'm terrified of the head coach. So I'm not going to say anything. He's the only figure in all these years covering the sport. I'm legitimately afraid of Ben Johnson. He might have a body count. By the way, you know who came out of the, the mist, the, the ooze to speak to the media

1:19:34for the first time and seemingly forever. Our old buddy, David Tepper, what was our, what are my, my proudest achievements at NFL media was we created a segment outwardly mocking an owner who was bankrolling NFL media. What was it? Talking with Tepper. Talking with Tepper. I just, it, well, it, that was one of the versions of it. Yeah. Yeah. Tepper me talking. I think it's. Tepper be talking. Tepper be talking. Very spicy content by the, the league funded owner funded arm of NFL media. Tepper be talking again. So here's a little bit of that. So I just tell him to keep on it. You know, we're making progress. We're going to make progress. I, yeah. You know, I believe in a winning season this year. It's, listen, nothing's easy in this NFL seriously. It's not this. I believe we have everything here to win this year. I believe we'll have everything to win in the future. And I do think we're on the right track and I do think we have very good people here in the Dan and Dave and Brandt.

1:20:36I don't trust. I think we have a good, you know, good head team, good management team over in that side of building. Okay. I trust them. I don't feel the need to be around this much here because I trust them so much. And like I said, I'm optimistic. Yep. Everything's better now. Yes, Connor. I just want to say that we're going to miss when every team is eventually owned by a consortium of black. I know we're going to the equity firms. This is one of the most beautiful moments societally at a time when like wealth disparity is it in all time high where like Johnny Mouth breather from 61 WHTZ, the ABC affiliate gets to be like, why do you suck ass building air and gets to ask him right to his face? And you can tell that the guy goes back into his black air conditioned, you know, limousine SUV and just like punches like a baby that he has in there for anger. And it's just so rich and amazing that we get to do this.

1:21:37And right once these guys are taken away as the face of the organization, we're seeing it happen in the NBA. We're going to miss this. And so I think we just need to take a moment to appreciate this. This is the most I love it. I enjoy it. The last opportunity we ever get to get after the oligarchs before they're completely cloaked societally from the common man. And like another example, Woody Johnson, who is like a real life succession, um, nepo baby. The fact that it drives him nuts that all these slabs can tell him that he's an asshole who sucks at his job. And there's nothing he could do about it. We it's good to have this outlet, not just the sports fans, but as society. Yes. During this specific time in our country's history. Dude. Yes. Great. That's a great take. Tepper definitely has one of those like large pouches filled with, I would say a dark

1:22:38liquor with the straw that comes up through the shirt. And he has just talked under the collar during that Q&A with the local media. It's not liquor. It's baby blood. It's the key pin. So he'll live forever for the punching baby. You say maybe. These are just theories. None of this is anything that we can cooperate, but just theories right about how he stays as he is. Good, good app. Good app. I'm talking with Tepper. All right. We have what two more picks. One more tick where we have one more. Last one. Who's got it? Me. I have no choice. But this is not a bad game. Not at all. It's not a bad game. We get to see the debut of Tua, which I think is going to turn into immediately an emergency situation for the Falcons that they have to remedy. We're going to see. That was a mistake on that. Oh, I'm just a broken. I don't know if this is breaking. I caught a developing practice today.

1:23:41Falcons quarterback Tua, Tonga Vileva, appeared to experience back discomfort. For Beat reporter Mark Ramondi, he briefly sat on the grass. He was not seen throwing again before the media viewing window ended. Oh, geez. He dealt with a back issue at the start of training camp. We don't know his status as of this recording, but certainly worth monitoring. And thankfully, Nick Cereon is not the head coach so we can find out who the backup quarterback is. Is Pentex active? No, right? Is he going to be available? Like who, if Tua doesn't play, who's? They've got other guys. Like who is? Michael Pentex. He has already been ruled inactive, which makes their backup quarterback. Didn't they have like a spicy Cooper rush, a drafted free agent. Cooper. Cooper rush. They have Cooper rush and Jack Strand. But yeah, Cooper rush, starting a game in week one is in play as we record this in Pittsburgh. Yeah, quite frankly, well, which doesn't necessarily mean what it used to mean.

1:24:43But at the same time, it's not ideally rather have this guy in a dome. And this comes on the heels, Mark, of reporting from, I believe, Mike Floreo ahead of the Wednesday night opener that Tua is a cut candidate by the Falcons just months after the dolphins cut him. So he's got to be on shaky ground regardless of this latest potential setback physically. I think of all the teams that people are quote, unquote worried about. And, you know, if you're a fantasy owner of a Falcons playmaker, yeah, the Falcons are near the top of the list. And it's not going to, I don't imagine you're going to see a lot of points in this game. I think Rico Dattles going to rush for like a buck 50 in this one. I mean, Ed Land has got no presence on that defensive line. And as good of a coordinator as Jeff Olbrick, what is you can't overcome? I think what they have up front at this point, it's just a, you know, it's a mystery team. And the Steelers offensive line is good enough that they're trading, you know, extra parts. And so I think this is going to be a, this is going to be a mo down. Well, it should be.

1:25:43I mean, if you, if you do get Cooper rush, even if you get to, I mean, the Falcons are weird to me because I can look at their roster on offense, especially in say, I like a lot of this. I like their offensive line to some degree. They've got talented wideouts. They've got a great running back. Maybe the best running back in football. And yet you're in a Kevin Stofansky dead zone at quarterback all over again. I mean, if you're, I feel like this is like a 15, 15 to 10 Steelers type of win. And on a flip side, though, it's like, I, you know, I said it in the intro, but it's like, I don't get what we're doing here with Mike McCarthy and Aaron Rogers, but prove me wrong. Prove me wrong. If the two, I don't know if it would prove, would approve anybody. I guess Rogers, and he, and he's thought he had games last year. I mean, he could certainly at home in this setting against the Falcons team that's missing some of their more impactful pass rushers. Like, can he go 22 of 29 for 270 with three touches? It's like me going on a date when the call came into in shoe 75. Like, this would have been cool 52 years ago.

1:26:45Right. But in the, yes, like the, we talked about that ad nauseam in the summer, like the, the Rogers McCarthy marriage, hopefully is short term for Steelers fans, say, but in the here and now, it seems like a good setup for getting to one to know for Pittsburgh. All right. Let's take one more break. Come back hit the prime time games and then say goodbye. All right. We are back. I should also mention, I don't know if we were going to hit the prime time games. We're also going to do our blind locks before we sign off. So Thursday show a baby. All right. Here we go. Sunday night football at the metal lands, Dallas Cowboys at New York Giants, John Harboss. First game is Giants coach and what a, what a setup. Prime time against the division rival. I think we could have, I think we could have predicted this was going to be the Sunday night game. The moment that Harbog agreed to be the coach. And here we go. This is about historically, it doesn't really matter, but Dallas is 11 and one all

1:27:47time against New York and week one. But yeah, this is going to be Dak Prescott, CD Lam, George Pickens against R.V.L. Reese and a Giants defense that is going to try to slow down. Dallas is outrageously talented offense. I can't wait for this. And I think the reason why is because I get to come across Giants fans on a daily basis, on an hourly basis. And what's so fascinating about adding Harbaw and what's so fascinating about adding Harbaw is that it instills this immediate belief that there's a turnaround and there's a turnaround coming. And I guess in their defense, the Giants led for more snaps than like 10 other really good NFL teams last year. Like they were leading for large portions of games. So you could argue that there's talent there. But every time I ask another coach about this team, the refrain is the same.

1:28:51How are they going to get teams to third down where they can actually use all of these past rushers that they have by trading away Dexter Lawrence, who putting everything on the back of DJ reader. And then you flip to the other side of the ball and Clayton Adams. I'm confident in saying has the run game to defeat these modern versatile Raven style and me big defenses, right? He comes from the place where in college and then in Arizona, where the way that he designs this thing, they're going to get after people. They're going to rush through the middle, you know, those guards in the center gaps. And I think they're going to pose a ton of problems for this Giants team. I just, I see a talent disparity. Jackson Dart would have to take the game over. And I think he's capable of doing that. But I think you'd have to take the game over in a way that would make him truly special, right? And that's the only way I don't see the Giants getting rolled here. No, I very much agree with you. I think Dallas, I believe in them, obviously, I think they can rest on their talent. They are quietly.

1:29:51The question would come on defense, you know, Christian Parker, high marks out of the gate from players and other coaches about the performance he's done as their new defensive coordinator. They, I looked up this number last year, a opponent scored on 51.4% of the drives against Dallas. The league high by a lot. So let's say that ticks down to 38% from 51. You're talking about a totally different team. And I think it will. They put a lot of stock into their defense. There's new bodies there. If Christian Parker can do the job, you've got a much more balanced team. And there's really no excuse to lose to a Giants team. And I think he's in development at this point. Like if I believe Dallas is on the fringe of being not a good, but a great team. But it does, we do need to see something now that we didn't see a year ago on defense. A reminder, Cecil, you have the Giants in the playoffs. I don't just, I think the Giants are just going to be spicy. But I think this Dallas, it's a bad look for Dallas to lose this game.

1:30:53It would be. Yes, this is, this is obviously a game you should take care of business. There was a report this week that the Cowboys, because the Cowboys, whenever they have financial flexibility, the thing they need to do as soon as possible is to remove that financial flexibility. So someone I'm guessing was Gerrard mentioned that we have the flexibility for a trade. I've, I've been thinking about this Max Crosby Cowboys thing for a long time now. Keep an eye on that as we get closer to the trade deadline. The Cowboys need somebody to get consistently to the quarterback. The other aspect of the offense for Dallas, I want to keep an eye on this year. I think everybody was surprised by how well Javante Williams ran the ball last year for them. 1200 yards, double digit touchdowns. Is that a repeatable setup? Are they going to be able to run the football like they did? And one other thing, like Pickens was the big story of the offense. CD Lamb is one of my favorite players. I just think he's a tremendous talent. And he was never himself last year. He was never healthy. And then he, he dealt with some uncharacteristic drops.

1:31:53And you could see Dacquot Times really trying to force it into a CD Lamb who wasn't himself. CD Lamb healthy, ostensibly makes them that much better. But is there going to be some drama? Cause now you have essentially two number one wide receivers in this market with that media, with the national talking points just to keep an eye on that. Pickens is going to want the ball just as much as last year when he went 93 for 1429 and nine. Okay. The other prime time game is the other prime time game. Justin, what's the other prime time game? We haven't talked about patching my homes yet. Have we? Nope. Broncos at chiefs. Broncos at chiefs Monday night football mile or an arrowhead or a G. Ha field at arrowhead presented by a unique low. What a disgrace here in LA. One of the great confedrals of baseball is Dodger Stadium. And they sold out to this Japanese clothing company. And the whole place is just covered in logos.

1:32:53It's not even called Dodger Stadium anymore. It's like unique low field at the unique low field. Something like that. Is it does that have to do with why meant to go there in a couple of days? Have to do with Otoni. The Japanese does. Right. It does have to do something with the Japanese player show. Hey, Otoni. But anyway, arrowhead, patching my homes is return. And the Denver Broncos unfinished business. They're all I think we've slept on it. We haven't slept on it. But like all the talk about all these other quarterbacks coming back from serious injuries. James Palmer pointed it out on our show this summer. Connor that the the ankle injury suffered by. Nick's was a gnarly one. And he has a huge scar to show for it. This is his first game back. I want to see how both these quarterbacks look physically. I can't wait for this game. I, you know, there's the Mahomes Health angle of it. There's the Nick's Health angle of it. And then there's how Nick's is mingling with Davis Web in this. And I think this is as clear cut of an opening quarter as we're ever going to see on an opening Sunday.

1:34:01The chiefs are starting a GD undrafted free agent at left tackle. Davis Web is going to come out and try to establish the kill shot. He wants to be up 10 to 14 points at half time and then allow Vance Joseph to pin their ears back and absolutely demolish Patrick Mahomes in the second half and turn that game over to that stable. Very exciting running backs that they have. I don't think there's any doubt about it. We're going to see deep jail and water early. We're going to see uncut, unleashed bone X early because allowing this chiefs team to hang around with a UDFA tackle is a gigantic mistake. I mean, how how do we even get to this point and can this is this is Patrick Mahomes and it's Patrick Mahomes coming off reconstructive knee surgery. It could be absolutely catastrophic if it doesn't go well. I mean, if you had chiefs exhaustion, which would be understandable for any human, like this feels interesting again and different to me because it feels to me like a major pivot point

1:35:04in the idea of is the chiefs dynasty over? Is it floating away off into the sea or are we still here? And that starts with Patrick Mahomes, you know, 25% plus of his fantasy points last year came from him running. What does he look like on the ground? That's become a much bigger part of his game in the last couple of seasons. I think one little moment for the chiefs or one little aspect that Eric Biennemy being back. I didn't know if that'd be a big deal or not. It's like he's not recycled. He went out. He came back, but it went from the Kelsey Kelsey. Travis Kelsey on down saying that Eric Biennemy has brought some fire back to this team and that there's something about the offense and the operation in general that is better with Eric Biennemy. Does it matter? I don't know. I know. I know. I know like I know what he would say. Who cares that? But like I don't say who cares, but it's like Biennemy. There's a reason why he's never been the play caller. He's never been able to get a job, but he's also very respected. He went through just a horrific circumstances in his personal life. I don't see Biennemy as the guy that's going to secretly get the chiefs back to where they were.

1:36:08In fact, I just wonder like what what what is to be expected from the chiefs at this point? Because Tyree Kills not walking in and through that door. Kenneth Walker is in here. I'm not sold that he's going to instantly reinvigorate their running game. I'm not even sure if her sheet rice is good at this point. Travis Kelsey is what he is at this point. I was we talked about the offensive line and my homes perhaps not being as mobels who once was come off this knee surgery. I just think for me, I'm looking at it's a post chiefs like landscape where I just don't expect them to be great anymore. Did any of us have them in the play? I did not in our predictions. I think I had them in nine and eight but out on a type rate. So I think that's our answer. We're not expecting too much. Right. And for the Broncos, yes, coming off the AFC conference championship loss. I really, yeah, the Jalen Waddle, that's a classic hype narrative around Waddle. But it all checks out, right? Connor, like Waddle is an explosive talent coming from Miami to join a Sean Peyton offense

1:37:13where he's never quite had this guy since he's got to Denver. Does he turn into one of the more explosive wider severs in the league? If you drafted him in fantasy, you're buying into the hype. But we're going to see right away if he can do it. And even if he doesn't, he creates a forum where I think R.J. Harvey can be used more to his skill set where you're just taking guys out of the box and then you're getting R.J. Harvey open in the flat and the NACI can use this. I mean, he's spectacular with a ball in his hands and that's an even better throw for Bonyx. Right? It's just a check down that leads to a bunch of yaks. And so I think if not, maybe he's not going to get the seven catches, 80 yards in a touchdown kind of thing. But he sets the stage for a little bit more of an efficient Broncos offense too. Okay, there you go. That is the preview of week one. Before we sign off, blind locks time. Now if you don't remember blind locks from last year, we each take a turn. We could lock up together as lock bros. We can get into a lock off in the same game with opposing viewpoints.

1:38:13The only rule is we don't know what the spreads are. And with that's an honor system situation. It's very hard in modern society to avoid these things. When I when they have flashed up for me, I always do my best to just make it go away. And it's important. The reason is if you lock a team that is favored by more than four and a half points, if it's minus five or above, you have to double that number. So let's say just let's not that this would be the case, but I'll just say let's say the Broncos were favored by five over the chiefs. Mark picks the Broncos. The reveal comes in that it's five now marked to make this lock. They have to win by 10. So and to be clear to something that seemed to confuse almost everyone last year, this is not a lock against the spread. This is a lock to win. The only time the spread comes into play is when you are outside that number. Very. Thank you. From a man wearing a commitment to the psych ward t-shirt,

1:39:14that is a high level of clarity. Thank you. All right, let's see. Let's see it. Mark, why don't you get us going? Man, and I will say because I feel like this whole first week one has just come rushing at us so quickly. I genuinely have not looked at the spreads. Well, good because that would be cheating. Well, no, but I mean, I write, I don't need to, I need to, I need to, I'm going to go, well, I'm going to start where I think it's all going to end with the Cowboys. I'm going to go Cowboys over Giants because I don't think any NFC East spread is going to be, I think it's going to be a tight spread. I think it'll be okay. I think that could be three and a half to four and a half, but shit, it could be six and a half. It's in New York, though. Yeah, but, you know, Giants were like four and 13 last year. Well, maybe they beat the Giants. No, but the Harbob Bum 2 and the Desert, I think the money might push it. I think you're going to be good there.

1:40:14I think that's a good pick, buddy. Okay. Connor. Do we have the rule where we can disallow lock boroughs again this year? Yes. That you can, if you take it first, you can prevent someone from being your lock bro. Yes. Okay. I just wanted to make sure. What do you have to, Connor? I mean, what is going on? I'm not going to do that to you if you're asking that. I'm going to go, like Mark said, he's taking it from the end of the season and wish casting it to the beginning of the season. I'm taking the Texans over the bills at home. I think this spread should be, I mean, I would hope it's under 5 and a half. I think that would be enough. Same if it wasn't. But yeah, I think this team just has Josh Allen's number. Wow. Yeah. We talked about it. That was Alan Struggle mightily last year. You're going to be fine there in terms of, I would think, what's up? Did you see something you like better? Yeah. Sorry, bud. Too bad. Next week. Too late.

1:41:15Go ahead, Justin. All right. I need you to see his face. He's so torn up with everything. Whatever. I'm going to bank on this two-a-thing, whether he plays or not. Cheers. Yeah. He kind of sucks. Ask, regardless, right? Doesn't he kind of suck? I'm going to take the Steelers defense in the start of the Mike McCarthy era to win this game. Like that. Yeah. And I'm going to respectfully request to lockbro with you on that one, Justin. Request granted. Since we're such heinous enemies on the gridiron on Sunday, we can be bros in this pick. Also, if we both feel our teams will win, we should almost do a lockoff to the National. I don't want to jinx my own team. I mean, they scare me. I love them, but they scare me. And just so we know, like, whatever the line is at the start of this show is what it locks for us. So that line could move for the Falcons by Sunday, based on what happens with two of here. But for all intents and purpose, whatever this is, I think that line could put us in trouble, though,

1:42:19Justin, honestly, because I think people are very down on the Falcons. We might have to double-digit cover that, but I still feel okay about it, too. All right, without further ado, let's see. That will be the only one where we have to worry about it. Oh, we're good. Everybody's good. Oh, three and a half. Oh, three and a half. It only getting three and a half. Buffalo favored by one and a half in Houston. That's surprising to me. And Dallas is laying three points to get us. That's what I kind of thought that's where they'd go with that, right? I mean, yeah. Mark, you did a nice job with that one. You did. We'll see. I mean, I've got, you know, for me to come out of week one, highly annoyed with myself would not be an unusual circumstance. You're also, this is very uncessy, like, because I know you like to get that lock out of the way. You're going to be living with it during Sunday Night Football, when we're doing our live recap, or a recap immediately after the game. And I got Chris Collins worth. It's super annoying. Like, I don't know.

1:43:21All right, everybody. Let's get out of here. Reminder Friday Fun Show. It's back in perpetuity. So go on over to Patreon. Also, this is not even our last episode taping of the day, because tonight we will, we will be recapping the Australia game between the Rams and the 49ers. So tune in for that live stream on YouTube. Jump into the comments section. We'll have a gale time together. Anything else to say, Mark, before we sign off? Have a gale time, smash and the like button. But you're not. All right, till next time. See you tonight. He the call.