Send in the Browns: Preseason QB Battles and New Offenses
STACKED extracted the fantasy-relevant player signal from this podcast and kept the full transcript here for context.
1 hr 5 min
Duration
Estimated from transcript
Aug 18, 2026
Published
Tue, August 18, 2026
15
Player insights
14
Players mentioned
Topics
Michael Penix Jr.Brock BowersCam WardDeshaun WatsonFernando MendozaJack BechJalen HurtsJoe BurrowMalik NabersSaquon BarkleyTua TagovailoaTy SimpsonTyrone TracyWan'Dale Robinson
Player analysis
Player insights
Brock Bowers
PositiveRole27:53
Brock Bowers is expected to be the Raiders' wide receiver one and will be split out wide a significant amount of the time, according to the source.
Insight pageCam Ward
NegativeUsage36:48
Cam Ward struggled with timing and accuracy in his preseason debut, missing on easy throws and taking a disappointing 10-yard sack, though the source remains a defender and attributes some issues to a new offense.
Insight pageDeshaun Watson
NegativeProjection7:20
Deshaun Watson's performance remains concerning; while his operation appeared cleaner, he consistently passes up downfield opportunities and lacks the explosive playmaking ability he displayed in Houston. Mina Kimes notes that he is not the same player he was pre-injury, and Kevin Clark adds that he has real 'low lows' that make him an unreliable option.
Insight pageFernando Mendoza
NegativeBreakout23:04
Mina Kimes and the source are impressed by Fernando Mendoza's preseason debut, highlighting his ability to make NFL-level throws into tight windows, his physical size, and his willingness to avoid 'safe' check-downs in favor of aggressive, developmental passing.
Insight pageJack Bech
PositiveUsage24:33
Jack Besh is noted for making a couple of tough catches and looking good during the Raiders' preseason action, contributing to the positive outlook on the offense surrounding the rookie quarterback.
Insight pageJalen Hurts
PositiveUsage45:30
Mina Kimes notes the Eagles are shifting to a faster, more aggressive offensive tempo to counter defensive disguises, an approach she believes benefits Jalen Hurts and leverages the team's talent advantage.
Insight pageJoe Burrow
PositiveUsage52:00
Joe Burrow is operating under center significantly more in the preseason (7 of 13 snaps), signaling a deliberate evolution for the Bengals offense to become more explosive after ranking 20th in 20-yard completion rate last year.
Insight pageMalik Nabers
PositiveProjection60:30
Mina Kimes emphasizes that Malik Nabers' presence is critical for determining the ceiling of the Giants' offense this season.
Insight pageMichael Penix Jr.
PositiveRole19:52
Michael Penix Jr. has a massive opportunity to secure the starting role in Atlanta due to Tua Tagovailoa's poor performance and injury history. Mina Kimes suggests that Penix could benefit significantly from the direct comparison if he shows growth in playing from under center.
Insight pagePositiveBreakout22:23
Mina Kimes expresses excitement to see Michael Penix Jr. play, noting that he has a real chance to come in and improve the Falcons' offensive performance compared to the current situation with Tua Tagovailoa.
Insight pageSaquon Barkley
PositiveDepth Chart44:29
Mina Kimes highlights Saquon Barkley as a key talent on an Eagles roster she now considers the deepest in the NFL, potentially even deeper than the Rams.
Insight pageTua Tagovailoa
NegativeRole17:53
Tua Tagovailoa's preseason debut was described as 'straight bad' and a potential disaster, characterized by a sloppy operation, a terrible interception, and a fumble. Mina Kimes notes that he struggled under center and passed up open routes, suggesting the Falcons' decision to sign him may have been a mistake.
Insight pageTy Simpson
NegativeProjection31:19
Ty Simpson looked comfortable in a simplified 'easy mode' offense during his preseason debut, but the source wants to see him challenged more before forming a strong opinion on his potential or the draft pick.
Insight pageTyrone Tracy
NegativeRole57:25
Kevin Clark suggests Tyron Tracy is at risk of losing his job after a poor pass protection rep, emphasizing that the new coaching staff is prioritizing accountability and culture change over individual roster spots.
Insight pageWan'Dale Robinson
PositiveUsage41:57
Wandale Robinson is noted for executing a great block on a duo run, which caught the eye of the source during the Titans' preseason game.
Insight pageFull transcript
Episode Transcript
0:00This episode is brought to you by Facebook. So you were scrolling on Marketplace and there it was, the bike you'd been searching for.
0:07You sent a message and it turned out the seller was super chatty, kinda funny, and an avid cyclist.
0:13The next thing you know, you're in a cycling crew.
0:17Well, a community cycling group. The thing about Facebook, you might find more than what you're looking for.
0:22From a browse to a bike ride, this summer, find more on Facebook.
0:26Speaker 1 The Mina Kimes Show featuring Lenny. Football's happening.
0:29Real football. I don't care what Aaron Rodgers says.
0:32Preseason football matters to me. It matters to Kevin Clark, which is why you're here to help me talk about some of the takeaways of preseason week one.
0:41We got quarterback battles. We had some starting. I literally just finished washing Josh Allen a couple of drives.
0:47We had some looks at new offensive coordinators. There's much to discuss.
0:51Kevin, how are you feeling now that we have actual football to talk about?
0:55I feel good. I feel good. I feel good.
0:58I feel good. I, you mentioned the real football thing.
1:01What's with all these people, a lot of older media members who were like, Hey, pump the brakes.
1:06Let's not go putting this guy in Canton just yet.
1:10And it's like, well, who's putting, who's putting Carson back in Canton?
1:13Who to show me, show me the person who's like Carson Beck is going to be a 15 year NFL starter.
1:20And yet old Twitter guy is constantly railing against overreactions to Carson back.
1:24The like, it's fine guy. We're allowed to watch.
1:27Yeah. And say, Hey, this guy looked comfortable today.
1:30Comfortable. Comfortable. Yeah. There's that's what we did. That's 99.9% of reactions.
1:33And then there's this 1% that's like, can we slow down?
1:37We are slowing down. Nobody's speeding big dog. There.
1:40I saw a few speeders, but maybe the internet, but not, not, not media members.
1:44Who were we speeding on? Jeremiah love. I think the young quarterbacks there were there's them over.
1:50Well, yeah, a little bit of that. We're here to try to not pour cold water on it, but to appropriately evaluate some of the young.
1:58So yeah, I have, I sent you a list of things I want to talk about.
2:03I want to talk about Mendoza and Simpson who did play.
2:06I want to talk about the quarterback battles. I want to talk about the first look we got at a couple offenses that are changing.
2:14And then, um, Cam Ward to speaking of new offenses, but let's start with, um, the quarterback battle that has captured the nation.
2:21Greatest sentence in football right now. Deshaun Watson. Okay.
2:24There, by the way, there were two, two, you could have said that were funny.
2:29Cause the Falcons is obviously also a funny quarterback battle as well.
2:32Two of the funniest battles. Uh, Michael Penix jr.
2:35Preseason week one winner by not playing and ruin seeing what the office looks like without him.
2:40Let's start with the Browns. Um, okay. I'm going to start by saying something nice about the Browns here for Browns fans.
2:47They have great fans, great fans. These young skill players might be awesome.
2:51And, and so just, and that was not only a takeaway, I think going into the season.
2:57And by the way, we're doing the AFC North this week, final preview.
3:01So I'll, I'll get into it in more detail, but you know, last year they drafted really well.
3:06Quincy on Judkins and Harold fan and junior were excellent.
3:09And then this season off season in the draft, they added a Casey conception.
3:14My, one of my faves and Denzel Boston. And they look awesome.
3:18Also Dylan Sampson, who they drafted had that huge catch and run in this game.
3:22Uh, conception to me was kind of like the story of the game.
3:26He looked terrific. I thought he, um, they were using him on like some manufactured touches, but he also had a nice
3:33big boy catch, which, you know, they wrap on him.
3:36He looked tough. He looked fantastic with the ball in his hand.
3:40I bring all of this up to pose the question, which is, are the Browns wasting this season by not having a real quarterback?
3:48Because we can get to the actual quarterbacks in my assessment of them because everyone's saying it's cool.
3:53It's cool. This is all setting up for arch manning next year.
3:57That's great. Everything's in place. We're fixing the offensive line.
4:00We've got these young skill players, but can they afford to lose a season with these young guys or would they have
4:07been better off or maybe still better off trying to pursue a different quarterback to make it more tenable?
4:13So they've been a quarterback away for a lot of years in the Andrew Barry era.
4:18And even like, even when Baker Mayfield was hurt that, that one year, like they were a quarterback, they were a healthy quarterback away.
4:25I don't know what the option would be because I don't think there's a guy right now.
4:31By the way, the Tanner McKee hype has gone away.
4:34We're no longer pretending that he was going to get a hive draft pick and then go be a starter somewhere else.
4:41It appears to be just reading, reading the beats, but there's no one you can trade a draft pick for and get an immediate starter for.
4:49I don't think unless you wanted to play the Kirk cousins game, which I don't think the Raiders necessarily want to do
4:56unless you're, you're going to overpay, which I don't think you would even do for Kirk cousins right now.
5:02Um, right. So I don't know what the options are and I don't know what the options were a couple of months ago.
5:09There wasn't really a Daniel Jones, Sam Darnold, you know, Malik Willis maybe, but you're not going to commit that much money
5:16to him when you're trying to, to figure out what you got.
5:19We for, for next year. So I don't know what the options were to answer your question about how good this roster is.
5:27I think it's, I think it's pretty good. Um, Casey conception, I'm a big college football fan.
5:32He was a guy who, after his freshman year, was talked about as a portal guy after his second year, I believe
5:39he, he, he does go, um, to, to college station was a huge, huge, huge, huge portal pickup for the Aggies and
5:46was a catch and run guy who impressed it at every single level of season last year.
5:51So I, I, I, he was one of my favorite draft picks.
5:55Yeah. Jared verse was a good piece to get back on the other side.
5:59There's, there's talent everywhere, but I also kind of think that it's not easy, but when there's being a quarterback away is
6:06a is, is, is that's a lot of teams.
6:09And, and I think that, um, they still have to move heaven and earth to figure out what, how to, how to
6:16make this a good place to be a quarterback.
6:18Uh, but I don't know that you're asking if it's going to waste a year.
6:23Yeah. For like Jerry Judy. And it stinks to be Denzel Boston this year and all this stuff.
6:29But like, I just don't think they have, they have much of an option.
6:33So. Yeah. Yeah. It's always tricky too. Cause like, you have to balance that, like, okay, well you're not really trying to compete this year.
6:41Right. And so do you really want to waste draft pitch?
6:44So I'm like getting to nine and eight potentially or whatever, you know, how much do you write versus I think if
6:51sometimes as a team, you have to balance that organizationally with, okay, but we want these young players to develop.
6:57We need functional quarterback play to at least. You know, see what we're, you know, see what we have in them.
7:04And if we're, if this is all about setting up for 2027, there's like a, it, that to me sometimes is like
7:11a balance you have to strike when you're a rebuilding organization.
7:14And to actually go back to the quarterbacks, Kevin, cause I, I know I just kind of glossed over it.
7:20They don't have it. Like, I, I mean, sorry.
7:23Right. So Watson looked more. Or I mean, like, I think he looked more, he, he, the operation looked cleaner.
7:30The ball came out, but it's not, he, you can tell that he's not going to push it downfield.
7:35There were times, first of all, he had very low average depth of target.
7:40That's why you shouldn't look at box scores in the preseason.
7:43But also there were times where you could see him passing up guys over 15 plus yards, similarly to how he looked, frankly, before his last injury.
7:52He's just simply not anywhere even close to the player that he was before.
7:56And then Sanders, at least Sanders, there are a couple of like decent throws early on, but then he had the goofball interception.
8:03There was a bad set, you know, going backwards in the pocket.
8:07So I don't, I've seen some strong takes on the two of them.
8:11I cannot really fathom personally having a strong opinion about what's better for the Browns.
8:16I think the real debate is whether or not they should have gone outside the building where they should still try to do that.
8:23Do you have somebody in mind for, for like what that would, what that would look like?
8:29Tyson, imagine the bears back up looks better than both of them to me.
8:33I know Rattler played really poorly this, this week, but I think he's shown enough to where I would rather see him in this offense.
8:41I thought Anthony Richardson, you know, I know he had his own goofball fumble, but other than that, he looked pretty good
8:48and they've got too many quarterbacks there. I don't know, Kevin.
8:51I think I just. Like, we know how this is going to go if, if, you know, which is fine.
8:57But I think that the reason why I'm like even making this a thing is because my overwhelming reaction was like, God, these receivers are fun.
9:05God, Casey Concepcion is fun. You know? And I think that's, that's kind of why I'm even having this discussion with you.
9:12Yes. I, I completely understand what you're saying. I don't think any of those, those quarterbacks change much and they actually might hurt.
9:19Cause I think the priority is on getting Arch Manning, CJ Carr, Darian Mensah, John Mateer this, this time next year.
9:26Right. Right. And so I think that I, I w as far as the season goes, I actually think it's a pretty
9:33big waste of time to start to Sean Watson.
9:36I would rather just see what you have with Shudder Sanders.
9:39I'd rather, frankly, probably rather start Dylan Gabriel than to Sean Watson.
9:43He's in the last year of the worst contract and, and in NFL history, that is also a part of the worst trade in Superbowl history.
9:51Uh, and that was even, uh, it w it was a stupid move at the time.
9:56It was a reckless, stupid move. It looks even worse now, obviously that it didn't even, didn't even work out in the most cynical way possible.
10:04So I, I don't even, you know, I had talked to someone who, who was around that, that building a lot.
10:11And they said the thing with Watson, whether it was health or some other reason, there were this five to 10% of
10:18throws on the low end that never appeared in Houston that appeared in Cleveland.
10:22And they didn't know what to do about it.
10:25They didn't know if it was just all his injuries piling up, all the hits he took, whatever, uh, the way he
10:32operated in Cleveland versus the way he operated in Houston.
10:35I don't know what it is, but I don't think I, I, I just, even though, you know, we did TV with
10:42Olovsky this morning and he was talking about, we were going through it and the good and the bad of both quarterbacks.
10:48He was talking about that, that Deshaun was playing with more urgency, more on time, got the ball out quicker, all that stuff.
10:56But I don't think that Watson is the safe option.
10:59This is not like signing Joe Flacco and Andy Dalton to come in and run your operation.
11:04Watson has some, some real low lows. I was at practice and Sanders looked better than Watson on a play to play basis.
11:11Now, from what I understand, uh, that has flipped a couple of times in either direction where there are some beats who say, Oh, Sanders won the day.
11:20Oh, Watson had a pick six day, et cetera, et cetera.
11:23So I don't think it's going to be a blowout.
11:27And if it's not a blowout, you always default to the youth and you always default to towards building something.
11:33Totally agree with you. I'd rather see Sanders and Gabriel, and at least that also like from an order perspective, play them.
11:40If it flames out, you can, I guess, bring in Watson later in the season.
11:44Yeah. I just want to say we, we, we, we kind of being hard on the Browns here.
11:50I love Todd monkey. I love him. I've interviewed him twice.
11:53He's a absolute, he's a vibes Baron. Like I, I just, I want to be coached by him.
11:59I'm being hard on the Browns. By the way, if you're listening to this in a Browns fan, I, what we are
12:06saying is this team is ahead of schedule. Like, yeah.
12:09Um, I, I, you are, I, sorry. I, I, I'm saying that, I mean, the offensive line rebuild, we'll see how that goes.
12:16That's another really important thing to watch with Spencer Fano and company.
12:20And well, again, I'll get into this in detail.
12:23My division preview. I am saying right now that I look legitimately bummed that this group of seal players doesn't have better
12:30quarterback play because I think they have drafted extremely well.
12:33I'm not, it's too early to go there with conception, uh, Browns fans.
12:37He was my wide receiver two in the class.
12:40I really like him. I just like, that was, I was watching this game thinking, God, I wish they had a quarterback
12:46because right now this is a really fun situation.
12:49You mentioned Malik Willis. I mean, this is, I think an infinitely better, well, Miami, there's some fun stuff there too, for the preseason.
12:57But my point is just, it kind of feels wasted.
13:00And I understand they're waiting until next year. That's all.
13:03It's just, it was like a real bummer. But here's my question.
13:07So let's say they're the top of the quarterback market next year in the draft.
13:11And I would say you're five. Yeah. You're five, six deep now.
13:15And you don't even have their Fernando Mendoza cam Ward.
13:18Hey, this guy caught fire in the portal. And all of a sudden he's the top overall pick or a top five pick.
13:25We don't even know who that, who that is.
13:28I have some candidates in mind. But it still takes a year for most quarterbacks who are not Jaden Daniels.
13:34And so you're looking at two years from now to have, let's say even someone as good as Drake may, as someone as good as Caleb Williams.
13:43It took, it took a year. And so I don't, I think the one thing that I want to guard against is
13:50being like, Oh, they're a quarterback away. And it's going to be next year.
13:54If it's Mensa, Mateer, CJ Carr, March Manning, any of those guys could take a year to clock the speed of the game.
14:01And so I want to tape temper expectations for next year.
14:05Yeah. I don't think they're, I think they're a veteran quarterback away, but they're not going to get a veteran quarterback.
14:11Yeah. They're going to get a rookie. And so I don't, it's going to be, we're looking at 2027.
14:17I will say, I think just to kind of put a pin in this, my general take is like, this will be
14:24an appealing destination for a young quarterback. If the young players look as good as they seem to look.
14:30And Todd Munkin, you got Todd Munkin. Let's go.
14:33My coach, my head ball coach. You see, he put his clipboard in his shorts the other day and he just did
14:40a full press conference with the clipboard in the shorts in front.
14:43Just all ball. Okay. I alluded to the other quarterback competition.
14:47Let's get here. We obviously haven't seen Michael Panix Jr.
14:50We did see two drives from Tua Tunga Bailoa.
14:53So in Tua's defense, you got the Broncos starters.
14:56Holy smokes. The Broncos starters, that pass rush. I think it, when you want the funny thing about watching preseason football is
15:03like, you're constantly having to like change your baseline expectations based on who you're watching.
15:07And I watched this one after watching a lot of non-starters play.
15:11And then the Broncos defense got on the field again in my, and just seeing how fast Bonito and Cooper were flying off the ball.
15:19There was one point, I think it was a third and 10.
15:23They were into his lap so fast. I had to rewatch it like 20 times to figure out who got there first.
15:29But Tua, so, so that's important to note, right?
15:32Some of these guys got to go up, you know, when we talked about Tua.
15:37Some of the young players, but it didn't look great.
15:40Kevin, what was your general takeaway watching Tua and this new look Atlanta offense?
15:44These first, it was just two drives. Yeah. So you mentioned the Broncos.
15:48If you ever talk, and I'm sure you've talked to many of them, people who played with Aaron Donald, they used to
15:55say that he was a practice ruiner because he would literally just blow up the play before it started and have to blow the whistle.
16:03Some of those plays looked like someone should have blown the whistle.
16:07Like a coach should have been like, okay, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
16:12No, no, no, no, don't. Don't hit the quarterback.
16:14Don't hit the quarterback. He should have been, yeah, he was wearing a red jersey.
16:19it should have been a non-contact jersey because it was just so brutal and you're right like it's not the preseason isn't
16:26fair like the chiefs pressure schemes against ty simpson we're just like yeah we'll see you guys in september dude and yeah
16:33we'll get to that and um not that simpson was bad or anything but it was just like imagine two us seeing
16:40that and being like why couldn't i get in those guys it's so wildly disparate to get right because like um we're
16:46going to talk about um giants and uh the eagles like the ravens and the vikings defense meanwhile jesse minter and brian
16:53flores was like it ain't pre-season for me baby like like be compared yeah it's so hard you're having to compare these
17:00quarterbacks not just some of them are going against the starters and some of them aren't but some of them are going
17:07against coaches who are like trying and some are not and it's it's just all across the board so anyways very important
17:14to say about it the denver defense just yeah yeah no i i will say i saw i saw a note the
17:21other day that i guess in dom caper's debut with the packers he showed so much of his playbook in preseason they're
17:28like he had to apologize because they got the coaches like what are you doing why are you showing every single blitz
17:35on august 14th anyway all right but it's worth noting that the falcons mostly had their starters outside of yes out there
17:41so this was a starter on starter yeah but it's just the speed of the game is a little faster when the
17:48starters are in versus some of these other teams where it's it's load management so um uh what did i think i
17:55thought that the the benefits of signing a tua were basically non-existent here like the operation was sloppy the snap wasn't caught
18:02the interception was terrible right the fumble in us yeah every you're supposed to again it goes back to the veteran thing
18:09you're supposed to sign an andy dalton you're supposed to sign a you know trevor simeon um and used to be sean
18:16manion before he was no see he comes in he runs the offense here we go let's let's get this going yeah
18:23i didn't see any benefits of signing tua now that doesn't mean he can't get better that his make can't earn the
18:30offense or whatever i i think this this has the the possibility to be a real disaster and i do think that
18:36they're doing a little bit of tanking and i got the question this morning because i mentioned that to somebody and they
18:43were like well why would you sign bijon why would you you know you still have aj terrell you still have drake
18:50london you still have kyle pitts i don't think the i don't don't think it's the wrong way i think that the
18:57falcons are too good an organization to be shameless about tanking i you know what i'm saying i don't think that i
19:04think that arthur blank respects his team so much that he's not going to go full major league here and just try
19:11to tear the whole thing down but i do think that there is an expectation you don't sign two you don't have
19:18a quarterback i just went to and michael penix for any other reason other than you're punting on the season okay and
19:24um i think that matt ryan is too smart to not know what the situation is kevin stefanski is too smart to
19:31not know what the situation is and so i i i think that this is uh this is this is bleak bleak
19:38stuff and if you're in atlanta you know you just enjoy the the cheap chick-fil-a that's not open on sundays um i
19:45will say okay just to penix jr has not had a you know real off season um but this is a massive
19:52opportunity for him right because i two was going to start week one because of penix jr and and the fact that
19:59he's been hurt so he has a real chance here to come in and i think benefit from the comparison quite frankly
20:06um if he can return to help and if he can show some growth in terms of like a willingness to play
20:13from under center middle field all of that so i guess my spin here for falcons fans is um there might be
20:19some clarity with tua being like you're almost better off with tua being like bad straight bad than muddling along uh as
20:26far as what he did yeah in these two drives you alluded to this he fumbled checked down awkward off the boot
20:33they seem to want to put him under center more which is not something he did he was mostly in the like
20:40gun and pistol in miami um there was a second and long where you see him pass up the out because that's
20:47a tough throw for him for a check down and then a down that the pressure came so fast he had no
20:54chance um you know he it literally just i think you know it looks like it did last year in miami when
21:01it looked bad and it will make their decision easier one thing i think that's a little bit slept on with the
21:07falcons i talked about this in the nfc south preview too is for all as much as we love this top end
21:14stars this is not a deep team beside after drake linden they're not very deep at receiver um after pits it's question
21:21marks the offensive line has lost guys over the years i thought that showed up here again admittedly against a very good
21:28pass rush so it was pretty ugly uh so that i all i think the only positive takeaway is like all right
21:35let's let's see pennix so may i say something about tua yeah so a lot of times i've said this to you
21:42before that we should award retroactive uh plot it's based on what happens after right so mike tom one deserves a bunch
21:49of coach of the year awards for if you look at some of the guys he had in his roster that he
21:56kept in check right earl thomas deserves multiple defensive players of the year because you said every time he would like break
22:02his leg you'd look at the seahawks defense and they wouldn't even know how to line up so earl thomas dpoi for
22:09a couple years there we're going to do that mike mcdaniel is owed money and awards for making to a statistical best
22:16passer in football for like two years that was in it gets more incredible every snap and i just want to shout
22:23out mike mcdaniel for making that happen because before him and after him yeah it's looked like uh not an nfl quarterback
22:30and during him he was able to basically with limitations uh do anything against any defense kevin stefanski tough scene um good
22:37coach good ball coach yeah i i i i like like i'll just say i'm excited to see i'm looking forward to
22:44seeing michael pennix jr coming back this is your chance this might be it for him right so there's a real chance
22:51for him to come in here and make things look a lot better than it does with tua all right let's talk
22:57about one of the rookie quarterbacks then we'll take a break come back and talk about the other let's start with mendoza
23:04who debuted early in preseason week one we saw quite a bit of him um you know i think there was definitely
23:11some rookie moments in terms of holding on to the football a little bit too long at times uh and a little
23:18bit of nerves jitters early on with a couple throws but we also saw some really good stuff um i'm if you
23:25listen to this pod i'm sure you've seen by now the uh the dig he threw to it wasn't jack it was
23:32shoot i can't remember which player it was oh sorry uh but anyways it he uh they had him under center hard
23:39play action hits the digs tight window throw really nice the slant touchdown which was tevesh was really great ball placement um
23:45we saw a scramble versus pressure i thought um this is gonna sound dumb but just seeing him around nfl players was
23:52a reminder he is big as hell like he is a big dude and he it was so i thought um you
23:59know as far as like the eye test first start things looked good i thought perhaps kevin even more notably the offense
24:06around him looked good which is my concern with the raiders i thought the line there was like a moment early on
24:13where it was actually when kurt cousins was driving where it was um linderbaum was in the game and i think it
24:20was a jack paris johnson had a pancake but ashton genti got maybe better blocking on that run on the inside than
24:27he got the entire 2025 season that brought a little tear to my eye jack besh who i mentioned made a couple
24:34of tough catches i thought he looked really good and then mike mayer who's you know the second abana to brock bowers
24:40also had a really nice moment so overall i think for the raiders feeling pretty good about what you saw with all
24:47of the usual preseason so i want to address a couple things i'm in broad agreement with you i really like what
24:54mendoza looked like over the weekend one thing i liked about this raiders team and why i liked the offense looking good
25:01around him is they did the opposite of what tennessee do with cam work tennessee waited a year to professionalize the operation
25:08around cam work and it hurt cam war's development very very very badly there's other quarterbacks where that's happened drake may basically
25:15had a wasted rookie year i think back to trevor lawrence who had a wasted rookie year not for anything other than
25:22urban meyer was the head ball coach i i think this happens sometimes but what the raiders did is they went out
25:28and they signed as you mentioned tire linderbaum they went out and they signed jaylen naylor they they you know jack batch
25:35looks like a a second year leap guy uh offensive line is better deeper so i'm intrigued by that i thought the
25:42throws he was making one thing i liked about it is he wasn't taking the safe bootleg guys wide open by three
25:49yards type of throws he was ripping the ball into the middle of the field back shoulder trying back shoulder stuff that
25:56touchdown he had the first one he had he basically put it where only the receiver could get it and also the
26:03the color analyst made the point like he also when you throw over the middle and you throw it low you're protecting
26:10your receiver because the receiver is not going to get killed and especially at the goal line uh that's you're going to
26:17get the crap knocked out of you if you throw a throw high and so everything i knew he was going to
26:23be able to do some of that stuff because you can't throw back shoulders and rip the ball like he could at
26:30the at the clip he did in college without being able to put some spin on the ball but i was really
26:37impressed that he wasn't taking the easy stuff because there were a couple of people this weekend where the beats and the
26:44analysts basically said hey this blank team titans being one of them ran an offense to to look easy to just do
26:51a couple three yard outs or whatever and the rams being another but the raid either the raiders didn't do that or
26:58mendoza didn't want to do that he was making nfl throws in the preseason and trying i think the biggest thing with
27:05a young quarterback is is clocking the speed of the game and you only get that by throwing past linebackers heads you
27:11only get that path by throwing you know over safety's hands that's what you're going to have to do in the nfl
27:18in as soon as a month from now if you're fernando mendoza so i loved every single thing about it it checked
27:25all my boxes uh the deep sort of curl thing was malik benson by the way i was like there we go
27:32i was trying to remember then because i mean you know i i have been concerned about the raider skill players and
27:39whether they had enough receivers and um yeah i'm watching that was actually trey zune by the way i want to shout
27:46out trey zune third round pick out of texas and him he played really well uh yeah i still wish they had
27:53one more receiver but obviously bowers is gonna be their wide receiver one and will be split out wide a decent amount
28:00as well but yeah i just felt i think my biggest thing with mendoza is like will they be able to run
28:06the ball will the offensive line look good because we know this is going to be like a very run with kubiak
28:13they're going to run a lot on early downs um and then everything is going to flow off of that which is
28:20why i think they wanted to make sure he got started getting these under center reps in the preseason i think we're
28:27going to see more of that but overall i think promising start um you know i think they're still going to see
28:34kurt cousins week one but maintain that we're going to see frananda mendoza soon we have to we have to and the
28:41people i don't want to bring this up because it's kind of a loaded comparison but let's say kurt cousins doesn't have
28:48to keep his job the entire season then they go with frananda mendoza week one next year that's we live in a
28:55post jj mccarthy world and the problem with with that plan is that you you got to see what you have and
29:01so i would give fran you're not going to make the playoffs this year i would give fernando mendoza there's two reasons
29:08to do it mendoza is a lot better than jj mccarthy i'm not making the direct comparison right i'm saying that you
29:15need to a get by the way mccarthy was injured for his rookie year as well so let's let's point that out
29:22but you're if you don't get the game reps you don't know what you have and then the second part is you
29:29don't know what you need to do to build if you have eight games nine games of fran and mendoza you can
29:36clock and say hey we could really we need a man coverage guy who's really going to beat man coverage because he's
29:43so good at xyz we need a guard who can do this like there's so many things you can do for me
29:49that's why i think okay you want to do the kirk cousins thing till halloween fine but you got to play mendoza
29:56because it just helps with the team building which is the ultimate goal take a quick break come back and talk about
30:03the other first round rookie quarterback who made his debut rich eisen here running a small business means every hire matters a
30:10bad hire costs time and money but the right one helps your business grow the challenge finding that person without sorting through
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30:31started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash eisen terms and conditions apply chris canning here football season is back
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31:19back ty simpson gold jacket 21 for 25 under 90 yards two touchdowns canton baby um all right so this is really
31:26a good example of like you gotta really watch the game and understand what's being asked of the quarterback um because and
31:32you alluded to this for most of the game until the last drive it was boots layered boots screens it was very
31:39like um i'm trying to think of well anyways it was a really easy mode offense and to simpson's credit though you
31:46know he looked comfortable in it yes comfortable earlier delivering the ball on time uh and then in the final drive i
31:53thought he made a couple of really nice throws he had the uh soft fade to the tight end um the touchdown
32:00throw was quite nice i will say again though like he really was not under much pressure and they were most that
32:07for example the soft it was against pretty simple coverages to go back to our earlier point about i i say all
32:14of this to not say ty simpson isn't you know it's not time to apologize to daniel oski or whatever um but
32:21actually just to make an argument which is i think what i saw kevin was that i'd like to see more and
32:27i'd like to see him a bit more challenged because right now everything coming out of the rams suggests that stetson bennett
32:34who played a little one you know just a little bit is their quarterback too maybe but let's i like i think
32:41from what we saw from simpson week one for me i don't come away having a strong feeling about the pick or
32:48him i came away thinking let's let him compete a little more for this job so that was my big takeaway from
32:55ty simpson's first preseason outing can i do something real quick that um there's a little bit of a wind horse fingers
33:02fingers in the air thing yeah who was stetson bennett's college offensive coordinator who just swears by the guy and they had
33:09a rocky relationship but they ended up winning national championships over and now he speaks glowingly he is a current head ball
33:16coach do you know who it is which jennett bennett was georgia offensive coordinator georgia you know i forget college football all
33:22the time uh who is the office coordinator at georgia oh it was um munkin todd munkin yeah now our what was
33:29the opening conversation i don't know on this podcast should they go out and get another quarterback i'm just gonna throw it
33:36out there i'm just throwing it out there into the universe don't aggregate me i don't know aggregate me yeah can't do
33:43it can't aggregate me um i said it legally binding can't do it can't aggregate me um all right so uh with
33:50simpson that that's all you can do i make they did the exact right thing is is get him easy completions and
33:57get him comfortable he's playing a lot of big games that was a coach all the cliches they're cliches for a reason
34:04they're true and he's even played that many big games when he played one year but he still played sec ball um
34:10at alabama practice every day with against a lot of great players who have made it to the nfl and so i
34:17i i liked what the rams were doing um i think it's a must be very weird for ty simpson to be
34:24a rookie quarterback first round pick on a team that's going to win that's favored to win a super bowl without you
34:31i'm not sure i've ever seen a situation like this where a first round pick has to come in develop under a
34:38great offensive coach but by the way the expectations are going to win a super bowl with somebody else and you may
34:45you may be quarterback three i'm racking my brain for it i don't think it's happened in a long time i do
34:52well the um cowboys uh took steve walsh in the supplemental draft when they had troy aikman that is but but they
34:59but troy wasn't 38 years old it was he was much younger than that um so that's the only analogy i can
35:05think of um you know obviously like rg3 and kirk cousins were the same year that was a different thing i believe
35:12andrew luck and chandler harness were drafted in the same year don't know if harnish pushed andrew luck i believe so yeah
35:19i believe they took a quarterback with their first and first and last picks that year jordan love jordan yeah jordan love
35:26good good thought yeah uh you know i don't know he was 27 he was 27 right he was and and also
35:33and and aaron rogers aaron rogers by the way but i think the difference with those was that i don't think i
35:40don't think you would take those picks if you knew like that pick was during covid and it looked like aaron rogers
35:47was not going to win two straight mvps right so that that there's that part of it whereas matthew stafford he might
35:53win the mvp again this year so that's a great that's a great shout it's a great call this rams team is
36:00better than those packers right um so it's a weird it's a weird spot for him but he he again talking about
36:07the cliches he checked all the boxes he looked comfortable he looked fine there's nothing to get mad at nor is there
36:14much to apologize to with our friend dan orlovsky we are withholding apologies my take is just i want to see more
36:21i want to see the rams challenge him i want to see yes push that's it bennett i think that was kind
36:28of you know what i mean like because i was like okay you could you you you pass the test one let's
36:35keep escalating this because there's what like why hide him there's no point and you know what i mean he obviously is
36:42competent so that was kind of my overwhelming takeaway is like this looks good let's see more um okay so cam war
36:48let's talk about cam ward next talking about new offenses new offensive coordinators um this was tough tough tough outing for ward
36:55for carnell tate um there was a couple things i liked that have nothing to do with them but you know i
37:02think uh i'm looking at my notes from the game you had a few misses on rpos uh quick hitters screens and
37:09i think that my overwhelming takeaway from watching those misses and the kites often struggle a bit the passing attack was the
37:16timing just seemed to be off on everything right now kevin right like it felt like yeah ward the receivers the offense
37:23the timing was not there so i think you follow wards career very closely you know brian dable like what is your
37:30overarching like do you feel like this is just they're still figuring it out because everything's new or do yeah were you
37:36like discouraged by the offense overall i wasn't discouraged that's the wrong word so greg cassell i saw him i watched some
37:43of what he was talking about when he was broken on titans offense and his point was they weren't running any day
37:50bowl concepts they were being as vanilla as possible so if you want to cope you can start there the issue for
37:57me is that i can't cope as a cam ward defender because he was the stuff that was easily schemed the ty
38:04simpson stuff he was just missing on yeah he was just missing he was missing on the easy throws he went five
38:11of 12 which is bad in a preseason if you're not attempting weird stuff they weren't attempting weird stuff he was missing
38:18on those throws i i don't know my concern has always been cam ward is most confident person that anyone i know
38:25has ever been around with university miami um and in that titans building i've always and the pre-snap stuff is as good
38:31as anybody's ever seen from that staff last year they couldn't believe how smart he was pre-snap my concern has always been
38:38because of the way a he plays and beat the titans plays he was going to get hit at some point and
38:45lose the physical ability to do it that hasn't happened yet it hasn't happened yet i was worried at the end of
38:52the season last year with the shoulder he obviously had the shoulder injury that he had in week 18 um he seems
38:59to be fully rehabbed from that uh but hopefully there's no physical lingering infection from that that that week 18 injury but
39:06i i just something seemed off last weekend and i don't know if that's you know not as good an off season
39:13as he could have had as far as far as the injury goes um from week 18 i don't know if that's
39:20um just you know this figuring out a new offense trying to clock stuff trying to test his limits i mean like
39:26i don't get mad at preseason practice interceptions because a lot of the greats have those goals because they're testing their limits
39:33and saying hey i want to be able to you know throw in front of this linebacker's face and see if the
39:40receiver is going to get going to fight for over the middle that stuff happens all the time but straight up missing
39:47and just going in the dirt that gives me a little more pause i'm i've sold none of my cam ward stock
39:54um all the reports out of training camp itself the practices are unbelievable as far as brian dable and cam words chemistry
40:01uh somebody told me the other day that in practice cam ward doesn't stand with the quarterbacks he stands with the receivers
40:08because he wants instant feedback and that that really impresses dable and it's really cool and so i think there's still a
40:14lot going for cam ward uh i just you know as someone who will defend him at literally in every situation i
40:21hated to watch the game over the weekend and go oh this is gonna hurt my propaganda arm it's okay it's preseason
40:28big one it's fine i will say i just love propaganda i love agendas mina i can't even do like the the
40:35this wasn't the bracco's starting defense too that also hurt a little bit it's like this is okay it's the niners there's
40:42backup substation was it a substation maybe it was a subset substation transitive property i don't know but the whole thing had
40:49to look it needs to look better than this i really want to see more of tate you know i talked about
40:56conception being my wide receiver too like i i thought i was not particularly impressed by him in this first outing and
41:03you this is you know that that pick has to work um yeah just looking at my notes off the game the
41:09inaccurate on the short stuff a few plays where he held the ball too long took the sack oh yeah i was
41:16gonna mention the shot the sack that was really disappointing because that was the one where he backed up for 10 yards
41:23and then took the sack on like the first snap that you're trying to get that out of his system and he
41:30did it on the first one of the first steps so you know i think okay yeah so basically obviously we want
41:37to see more from him i think more from the receivers i will say i thought the offensive line looked pretty good
41:44um particularly run blocking there was a few moments that i thought were really nice so not all a bad review for
41:51the titans offense week one but um there was a also a great wandale block early on that caught my eye so
41:57i think i'm trying to come up with coat wanda robinson had a great block on a duo run um it's yes
42:04i this is this is one i'm going to be monitoring closely because if it doesn't look better and i think they're
42:11going to have to play it but but to me i think the overarching diagnosis aside from ward not taking bad sacks
42:18and hitting his check downs is just timing on the quick hitting stuff has to improve and i want to see more
42:25from tate um let's get to a couple of established offenses now because i think you know one of the big changes
42:32is there's a lot of new play callers from the shanahan tree new homes and we got to see some of them
42:39including the new look eagles offense so again this was not jalen hurts this was not you know the starting offense but
42:46it looked bad uh god this podcast has been so negative i want to talk about something no way i have a
42:52lot of positive on the eagles offense okay so i will say going back and looking at the notes um i actually
42:59this was one of the ones where i felt maybe they were not prepared for the raven's offense going so hard so
43:06we're talking about like defenses you and i got like defenses that went vanilla versus defenses like the flores one against new
43:13york this my actual takeaway was like oh my god jesse minter's like kind of throwing along with them right now and
43:20i was surprised by that in terms of blitzing and disguise um but they blew up a lot of plays a lot
43:27of the bad plays were actually i thought great plays by ravens defenders who were also a lot of backups you know
43:34but i i think i didn't watch this and think the eagles offense this is gonna be horrible it's a nightmare there
43:41was you know there was some penalties there was a blitz they didn't a couple blitzes that they didn't pick up there
43:47was an amazing play by keon martin to blow up a sweep so i i don't know i didn't i i was
43:54not in panic mode after this i'll just say that you couldn't even find a receiver duo block to to shout out
44:01you couldn't even do that like you could with wandell robinson all right so eli stowers had a hold on it yeah
44:08i saw the eli stowers thing um withholding judgment eli stowers uh i like him so one thing i like i went
44:15to practice two weeks ago and when i was there i mean i changed my nfc east pick from cowboys to the
44:22eagles now part of it is a roster thing because i think that we've glossed over how much talent the eagles actually
44:29have yeah and there's guys like jalen carter and quinnion metro and jordan my lot and lane johnson and saquon barkley and
44:35davante smith and um so many zach bond where they'd be the second best player on a lot of teams that we
44:42try to put in the super world conversation and i think it's the deepest roster that i mean it might even be
44:49a deeper roster than the ramps um i don't think that they have more gold jackets and i still think the ramps
44:56probably win for a few other reasons but it's it's number two with a roster and there's an argument who made it's
45:03number one and when i got there i realized there's so many things that the eagles just got away from and this
45:10this happens sometimes i think that you know when jalen hurts had a bad has had some success a lot of success
45:17saquon's there you're you're promoting from within all that stuff had sent had the same head ball coach stuff just happens stuff
45:24just astrophies a little bit and there wasn't enough motion and now you're seeing the uh the under center part right obviously
45:30very important and now you're seeing what i thought was interesting was the quotes coming out of the eagles so they're trying
45:37to get to the line really quickly and there's a couple of things going on there offensively i don't know if this
45:44is on your radar but number one is the offensive line is saying that it's a much more offensive line friendly offense
45:51than what was going on before because they're just lining up and going the previous regime was about the chess matches up
45:58front which is fine but you would get to the line and then you do 15 seconds and then the eagles their
46:05number of plays that that uh were snapped with one second left from the shot that had this playcock uh was astronomical
46:12last year and it was because they were waiting and part of it is that defenses are disguising what their coverage is
46:18until the last second so you're waiting for that chess match the eagles are going the other way and saying screw it
46:25we're gonna get to the line early we're gonna snap it right now and i thought that was there were some numbers
46:32in the athletic that were absolutely astounding about how how little that's happening where we're saying you know what spot the ball
46:39bang we're going and i kind of like it i kind of like it for jalen hurts and i also kind of
46:46like it when you have the talent advantage is they're going to have the talent advantage on about 15 of 18 weeks
46:53right to go out there and say we're the aggressor we're going to punch you in the face is a really good
47:00approach i think we're going to see more of that around the league generally teams playing faster more tempo as a counter
47:07to all the disguise you talked about like all right you you know you're not going to have the opportunity now to
47:13change the picture on us because we're going to be dictating to you by playing faster i mean that's the thing about
47:20the eagles offense right like all all of these trends that they're leaning into are the general trends around the league the
47:27question i think is not whether or not it's a good idea from a nfl trends or meta perspective but rather whether
47:34they can execute them and then and i think you know there's a chance it looks a little ugly early on and
47:41again these weren't the starters whatever but like there might be a lot of penalties at the beginning like there were in
47:48this game there might be some challenges overall and the offense might not look as good as the defense which i think
47:55is going to be incredible until halfway through the season and i don't know i i all of which is to say
48:01after going back i i saw a lot of panic i saw the numbers went back and watched yes it looked bad
48:08but my general takeaway was a lot of that first you obviously hurts didn't play yada a lot of that had to
48:15do with the ravens defense and jesse even just decided to i also to go i also just so yeah yes but
48:22i also just don't think it like they're just everybody's so established they're not going to show anything in the preseason nobody
48:29has much to prove i i just couldn't get that worked up about well i think this being slow it's actually maybe
48:36now that i think about it more generally it was sort of the um merging of two trends i've noticed in preseason
48:43football in general one which was as there have been more shannon tree play callers and more offenses are pivoting to that
48:50style there was a lot of under center we christy week one um pulled the numbers for nfl live today like joe
48:56burrow way yeah joe we're gonna get to the bangles way more than the nfl average way more than past preseasons so
49:03that necessarily lends itself to some awkwardness in terms of like the transition as these offenses are in transition and then on
49:10the flip side i noticed defenses being a little bit more exotic in the preseason um talked about two of them with
49:17uh flores and the ravens this the ravens honestly took me more by surprise because uh i just didn't think jesse minter
49:24would want to show this much i guess early on or experiment with it so i think maybe there with some of
49:31these offenses meeting some of these defenses there might be a mismatch in terms of like okay the defenses are a little
49:38bit ahead because the offenses are all sort of in the transition to a different version that we're going to see during
49:45the regular season did you see the stat that mendoza threw as many passes from under center this weekend as he had
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50:53today ipe mitsuhara ran up gambling debts to a southern california book making operation the inside story of the biggest scandal in
51:00modern baseball he was absolutely bananas the amount of bets he was making i've never seen anything like it from 30 for
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51:34about vivgardhytrulo brought to you by argenics uh well that's a great transition to the bangles because we saw two drives drives
51:41from joe burrow and they looked very different you know so there's been a lot of conversation about you know burrow taking
51:48the sacks and the bangles offensive line and and this and that and i'm not one of them was a tough look
51:55for the left tackle but um the other one was an under center rep where it was just like a two-man concept
52:02and the um they ran a great stunt it's fine whatever the bigger thing to take away from this bangles pre-season outing
52:09is what you just highlighted which is they had him under center i have seven of 13 snaps which is over obviously
52:1650 percent of time this is the bangles offense that last year was 19 under center the second lowest rate in football
52:22clearly there is going to be a sea change and unlike washington or philadelphia bangles don't have a new play caller they
52:29didn't bring in a shanahan guy this to me kevin seems like a very deliberate change in this offense that as efficient
52:36as it's been has not been explosive these last two years so this appears to be their way or there'll be other
52:43things but they they clearly have recognized or self-scouted and felt they need to evolve um what do you think about that
52:50generally and you know like like i said i'm not going to take away too much from pre-season two drives but i
52:57do think it's notable that in the pre-season they were like we are going to rep this because this is going to
53:04be our identity now well the pre-season rep part of it i think is just shows you how hard it is i
53:11mean that's the one thing to make that adjustment and to say we're going to do under center we don't do this
53:17very often we've done we've started the season doing it and then we've abandoned it a couple of times yeah um i
53:24i think that it just shows you the operation is hard to pin down so you might as well work on it
53:31in pre-season that's what it's for the explosion part of it is interesting because one thing when you talk to the staff
53:38down there in cincinnati is they've been impressed at joe burrow's ability to take what the defense gives him in all situations
53:45and so that meant understanding how to work outside the numbers and throwing deep uh the the during his breakout season then
53:52they do the two high looks and all of a sudden you're slicing and dicing your a dot drops and you're you're
53:59still getting that production just in a different way i wonder now if we're not talking about the eagles and the bangles
54:06and same way we're talking about the eagles and since that they've flipped it and said instead of getting is taking what
54:12the defense gives us let's be the aggressor again and that was the one thing you're you were hearing about like you
54:19know i talked to declin doyle last week in baltimore and all he talked about was pushing uh applying pressure on the
54:26defense over and over and over again and that means explosive place and we've gotten away from explosives there was a ted
54:33win article the other day uh that i thought was really interesting in the athletic it was basically like defensive coordinators say
54:40two eyes never going away yeah because we want to get dcs just matters we'll live we'll do whatever scoring are so
54:47much less yeah correct and so literally in the article a defense coach was like we will literally allow seven to eight
54:54yard runs yeah now maybe not in every snap but they're fine with that as long as you can do that and
55:00so yeah go ahead you know what i was going to say is that i think teams are now going to swing
55:07the pendulum back like hey these defenses aren't changing the chess matches and swinging back to us we got to find explosives
55:14on our own yeah and we do that by forcing the defenses to respect the ground game through formation and personnel the
55:21other thing we saw in addition to burrow under center more 12 i think that's something that the bagels really want to
55:28do is put an extra tight end on the field and try to get some one-on-ones for their wide receivers um that
55:35to me whether or not they are able to actually pull that off is going to go a long way towards determining
55:42like how whether they can get back to being as explosive as they want to be explosive you know i just i
55:49said they weren't but to put some numbers on it last year they were 27th not last year probably in 2024 they
55:55were 27th in 20 yard completion rate last year with joe burrow back it was 20th so that you shouldn't be that
56:02low with joe burrow jamar chase and t higgins and i think they're trying to find ways to do that so you
56:09know that that was my general takeaway from the bangles like oh this is going to be a a changed offense but
56:16of course like you said they've tried that before and kind of given up so i think the question is just will
56:23they actually stick with it um okay so those are the main things i wanted to talk about is there any like
56:30any other preseason notes you want to dump anyone who impressed you i just finished watching the bills and panthers uh spoiler
56:37josh allen's still awesome dj moore uh was doing some things for them i did take away i had the panthers and
56:43offense not great the defense though they really got what they paid for with jaylen phillips and devin lloyd holy mackerel they're
56:50really good football players i i love what the panthers been able to do that's a team don't know about the browns
56:57that's a team nobody get mad that's a team that's a great quarterback away from winning a lot of games um nobody
57:04get mad not allowed to get mad uh and what i but that's bryce young is not gonna win the super bowl
57:11uh thinking about it you know i i do want to talk about uh we're recording this on monday afternoon the giants
57:18are bringing in naji harris and well that was interesting so i said on tv this morning that tyron tracy might lose
57:25his job over this and i had all these giants fans were mad at me and that's just part of the business
57:32i didn't care they were like cut tyron tracy and maybe they won't i don't know but john harbaugh saying that he
57:38completely blew a bit blitz yes i'm sorry i'm sorry i'm going to give the context here yeah the he he completely
57:45whiffed on the the pass protection rep that got jackson dart driven into the turf okay yeah so all these giants can
57:52say tyron tracy's too good to cut the whole point of john bringing in john harbaugh is to cut guys like tyron
57:59tracy and i'm not saying he's bad or anything like that i'm just saying that if you're not we're they're going to
58:06keep the main thing the main thing which is changing the organization and it john harbaugh said it on sunday it was
58:13most basic protection you've got and you whiffed and one of the tyron tracy explanations was that he heard something his eyes
58:20went to the other side of the play and he didn't see the guy coming right at him we need a little
58:26more awareness from that so i just think that there's a misunderstanding of what john harbaugh was brought in to new jersey
58:33to do it's to change everything about the the giants have had success mina when bill parcells told everybody the organization what
58:40to do and george young and ernie accorsi and tom coughlin that's what it is and john harbaugh is the next in
58:47line there is not when pat churmer comes in and just kind of says we're classy organization we're gonna do the status
58:54quo or ben mcadoo or any of these guys right they need a guy like john harbaugh to change everything and so
59:01the one thing that we always talk don't these fans need to be excited for john harbaugh changing their organization to be
59:08oh you can't cut you can't cut this guy he can cut anybody except for about five guys who are blue chippers
59:15that roster is closer than people think but it needs a guy like john harbaugh yeah it was it was a pretty
59:21bad rep um dart took another sack that was more on him uh yeah i do well say like the same thing
59:28applies to the giants offense that it does to what i said about the eagles which is the vikings defense was like
59:35really trying um i thought you know i the the my big takeaway from kind of watching and then by the way
59:42jackson dart followed that with a sick out of structure play to like i feel looks like a dude giants fans very
59:49important um this is going to be a ground and pound offense yeah the thing that caught my eye and i know
59:56you know neighbors isn't in and all that but patrick card was on the field like half the time when dart was
60:03out there they the giants had probably a handful of snaps with multiple backs on the field last year they're going to
60:10use the fullback they're going to run the ball they're going to try to play action off of it uh so there's
60:16going to be an identity that's you know pretty different i think from what we saw last year and whether or not
60:23that works out uh you know i think neighbors presence is pretty important for determining what the ceiling is but i do
60:30think they're going to lean really hard into trying to be like a physical ground game with the fullback is a big
60:37part of that so uh i want to just quickly say this so every before you have kids everybody thinks that all
60:44of their conversations you hear from parents about what their toddler says are made up like it's like there's no way somebody
60:51said that there's no way a three-year-old said that didn't happen happens all the time on twitter was my three-year-old said this
60:58never be like no it didn't the other day my son walked into my room and said just completely earnestly daddy are
61:04the new york giants bad out of nowhere out of nowhere i have no idea who he talked to he is three
61:11years old i have we live in giants country so at some point somebody may have worn a giant shirt and then
61:18somebody said the giants are bad and then it came from there but he literally came to me and said are the
61:25giants bad and i didn't i said that's a complicated question son is it we're changing the culture mina uh yeah uh
61:32i i i really hope milling neighbors gets back but i do think oh cc malino by the way moving people first
61:39round pick let's go the other players look good arval reese looks sick yeah like they're they're they're definitely are talented young
61:46players and like i said i do think that there there is going to be an identity shift on offense that was
61:53signaled by some of the choices in this game and malachi fields listen if if he ends up he was getting in
61:59there as a blocker too uh if if they hit on a few of these players in this draft class i think
62:06at least the bones are in place for something i think uh maybe not this year but in the coming years but
62:13yeah the the that was a bad that was a tough one it wasn't darts fault so at least there's that uh
62:20all right well these quarterback competitions continue we'll be covering them hopefully we'll get to see michael panics jr at some point
62:27kevin clark where can folks find your preseason coverage this is football uh training camp stops everywhere uh across the midwest and
62:34the east coast on tv this week i believe it's the commanders and the ravens jaden daniel's before his latest news turn
62:41we talked uh declan doyle derrick henry dan quinn sunny styles as well uh really good interviews from the last episode of
62:47that and then we're doing what now that we're back not doing camp starts we're going to get a lot of journalists
62:54on all that stuff do some camp recap stuff it's going to be really fun and then i'm also on first take
63:01monday wednesday friday this week i was on with dan orlovsky this morning and uh i haven't looked at the schedule but
63:08i'm sure it'll be on a bunch of nfl live people the rest of the week nice i love it uh why
63:15don't you come all why don't you come all with me happily not that early happily happily all right come on come
63:22on down let's let's do some takes um later this week as i mentioned we'll be doing the afc north so that's
63:29our last division preview ultimately this was actually pretty afc north heavy podcast because the brows of the bangles but more to
63:36dive in there if you're still this fan you're listening you're like why did you talk about the drew aller master class
63:42we'll get to that when we talk about the steelers alluded to the ravens defense being kind of funky we'll get to
63:49that too so promise more coverage coming your way and i'll be back next week to talk about hopefully some more quarterbacks
63:56thank you as always to omaha productions here's sebecky owen sailor tucker tash and jack foster see you guys wednesday you know
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