2026 NFC Win Totals Draft with Dave Dameshek

26:10They play the NFC West, so that feels like three potential losses. and they play the underrated AFC South. I'm not going to say that's brutal, but I think they're worse than those teams. Two and a half good teams at least, yeah. Right, even their third place scheduled teams, two of them are tricky. Minnesota and Cincinnati are on their third place scheduled teams, and those are good third place teams. So you got two first time coordinators, Durante Jones and David Blau, and what are the odds they both hit? The better odds are that one of those two, and they don't have the most talented rosters in the world are going to be swimming and maybe a little in over their heads.

26:49And then it's a problem and you go down. I like everything you said. And somehow you managed to not just say as a position group, the offensive line, you know, it is pretty much that simple. In my opinion, I'm no O-line whiz, but from the people I know who are, they will tell you Laramie Tunsil was the one piece that they had on that O-line. he's now gone um in that division in particular that's bad yeah i mean look at the teams that they have to play a couple of times and what their particular strength is even the giants who their win total is the same as at seven and a half the giants if nothing else you anticipate are going to be able to heat up the qb so that doesn't uh that doesn't probably favor jayden Daniels and company going into that one.

27:39That's a savvy pick, I think. How do you turn 16 games, injury reports, team notes, betting lines, and matchup trends into one clear weekend preview? ChatGPT work can help. Give it the goal, plus real inputs like notes, files, data, and project plans. It can help turn them into an analysis, tracker, deck outline, or workflow you can keep shaping. You stay in control, reviewing the work, and choosing the final result. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode. Available on Plus and Pro plans. Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts.

28:21Why did I search the internet for answers to my cold sore problem? Now I'm stuck down a rabbit hole filled with images of alarmingly graphic sores in various stages of ooze. I can clear my search history, but I can never unsee that. Don't go down the rabbit hole. Amazon Health AI gets you the right care fast. Healthcare just got less painful. This is Matt Altmix from How to Money, and we are all about comparing prices to save money on so many things in life. So why wouldn't you compare prices for your next ride share? Taking a few seconds to check Lyft can save you real money on your next ride.

29:00And I did this last time I caught a ride home from the airport after some travel. And guess who came out on top? Lyft. So don't just price check with flights and phone plans and your groceries. Comparing ride share prices will help you to save money every time you ride. Save money. Check Lyft. I want to tell you about Keeper security because unlike built-in password managers, Keeper works across platforms, which allows you to securely share information with your family, with your colleagues, with your friends. and what I like about it is it goes beyond the walled gardens of Apple, Google and Samsung so that everything is accessible regardless of what device you're on.

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30:15I went under on the Commanders. What say you for your fourth pick? all right we're talking about this division why don't i take their arch rival although do you know if you ask people what's the best rivalry in the nfc east i think or my brain goes as an outsider i would go cowboys against blank and then you have to fill in is it washington or is it philly or is it the what they will tell you is the people in it it's the giants and eagles that's the that's the toughest rivalry there is. Either way, I am going to say that the one that we perceive to be the biggest rival of the commies, the Dallas Cowboys, a.k.a.

30:56America's alleged team, Michael Irvin may say they have 10 more years as America's team to win a championship, and then it moves. Too late. I already moved at Playmaker. It doesn't belong to you. I don't know what claim you have to being America's team at this point, but great news. You're going to win the NFC East this year. Wow. Ooh. That's right. I'm annoyed that But I agree so much. Yeah, I have agreed, other than the Lions, with literally all your picks. And most of them were ones I was going to take. The Cowboys were coming up. I'm with you on Cowboys over nine and a half. I can't get there on winning the division necessarily.

31:32Why are you so excited? And do they get America's team back? The answer, Sheck, is simple. They're the most popular team. I mean, it's still true. I don't know how you want to measure most popular. I don't think most people. If you said, what NFL team would you most like to see win the Super Bowl this year? I don't think that football-watching fans would come back with the Dallas Cowboys. I bet you they'd come back with the Bills or the Lions. It's hard to measure, but I think in just terms of who has the most nationwide fans, based on the TV numbers and the web traffic back in the day, not that I traffic in that, it feels like it is the Cowboys.

32:14There's still a lot of Cowboys fans here in L.A. And the Raiders are still somehow number two. I think the Raiders are the second most popular team. I mean, what it shows you is that a giant percentage of our society is a bunch of frontrunners, right? I mean, the popular teams are the Niners, the Packers, the Steelers. The Patriots have now worked their way into that conversation as well. I wonder how they did that when they weren't that 25 years ago. And we're an aging society. so you know we need we need the health care to be even worse you know to just start taking out all these Raiders and Cowboys fans oh I didn't know exactly what you were getting at I thought maybe you were saying in the NIL age that we need something to latch on to something familiar um either way I like the first of all Christian Parker talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul and I don't think I'm using that uh that uh colloquialism correctly I keep saying it but that's not what I mean to say you're taking something away from a division rival which is a defensive whiz away from Vic Fangio who's learned at the knee of Vic Fangio in the division now he goes to Dallas with all those lessons he learned and he understands and it depends who you're talking to and I wonder where you come down on this one Greg but a lot of people within the NFL will tell you oh that's a big thing to get somebody who is just in another team's building because they know all the secrets.

33:38And then other guys will say, oh, that's nothing. Nobody knows about that. I'm inclined to think that Christian Parker probably does know some tendencies of the pieces of the defense he just walked away from and probably the offense too, as it is. You know, it's wild to say, because when it happened, when the Micah Parsons deal went down, you thought, what are the Cowboys doing? I do think it's fair to say that they at least, at least it's a wash, that it was a pretty good deal that they made with the Packers. because look at what it's yielded at this point. And you can start with Quinn and Williams.

34:10I think that's a great centerpiece for the defense, but I like the back end of the D as well. And then the offense is mighty. We already know that. I think that if you want to sort of play a theme, you have the Cowboys on the NFC side, the Cincinnati Bengals on the AFC side, the thing you would say about them, and by the way, you would say in a hyper-specific way about the Texans. If they can just have an average run game, imagine how good they'll be. If the Bengals and Cowboys have even an average defenses, imagine how good those teams will be. Spoiler alert, both those defenses are going to be at least competent, if not a little bit better than that.

34:52Yeah, you have the Bengals high up on Mount Lombardi. I can't quite get there. I'm there with you on the Cowboys. Does addition by subtraction work better than robbing Peter to pay Paul. Don't you throw my stupid things that I've said and mean that I expect me to explain them or make any sense of them. I can't do that, Greg. The only thing that got in my way of the Cowboys, and I agree with you, I was going to draft them, is there are some really tough games on the schedule. The Ravens are their like extra 17th game. That was that was kind of a bad draw. They're facing the NFC West out of division.

35:33So those are three really tough games. You threw out the Cardinals game, obviously. And then you got the two games against the Eagles. I agree. It's going to help Christian Parker to know the Eagles offense. By then, by the time they play, it's a Monday night game, week seven. That's going to be a doozy. There'll be a lot of tape of like what this defense looks like. And Vic Fangio, I don't know if he's out scheming you. It's more about he does what he does. They do it well. They coach it up well. I just think that there's too many good players on this team. I like this team. I think 10-11 wins sounds about right.

36:07So I'm with you. I will go over, let's go back to the NFC South on the Bucs. I talked about how these numbers are inflated. The Bucs are at 8.5. Breast of the division are at 7.5 because they get to play each other. I haven't loved the preseason vibes from the Bucs in terms of Baker Mayfield. and there's been injuries at wide receiver. And you do wonder, do they have enough juice offensively? Just explosiveness. They have a lot of players that are like, okay, Emeka Buka and Godwin. And yeah, they bring in Kenny Gainwell. Like I like Bucky Irving, like K-Dot. It's like a lot of like solid. It's not a lot of guys you're worried about game planning for.

36:54That said, I'm very high on their defense and I'm very high on their schedule and their overall structure. And I was really wrong about being high on them a year ago. I think they get to nine freaking wins at the very least. I'm feeling good about them getting to 10. So I'm actually surprised I waited this long to take them because this is one of my favorite picks, Bucs over eight and a half. Well, if Ruben Bain takes off, I don't read anything into what you see in August, but I did buy him pre-draft. And so I anticipate him being good, especially when the focus is still going to be on Vita Vey.

37:30And I think people have forgotten about Kalijah. Can't see how good he was until he got hurt early last season. So that's a great start to the Bucs defense conversation. Yeah. You know, I, I'm not going to push back real hard on saying any of these teams is good. You know, their high end is nine and their low end is eight. Was that a Jordan Rodrigue wisecrack? If it was kudos to her. That was. See, this is where I disagree with her. I still think there's a world the Bucs win 12 games with this soft schedule, which is why I should have taken it earlier. Like, it's a legitimately good roster. Their edge group could be, like, one of the most improved groups in the league.

38:09They didn't just add Bain. They, you know, they get a kid back that was hurt last year, David Walker. That looks really good. They signed some free agents, Al-Kahin Maham. Like, they have a lot of players there. And the division stinks. Banks so I think they could kind of be the Bucks we thought they were going to be a year ago good line on the offense they win 11 games maybe not in the real deal contenders but with a home game as like a three seed I could see that I you know Bake has played well with a chip on his shoulder that's been there for the whole season his last year in Cleveland it it was clear to I think most people he was playing for his job and despite the shoulder injury he kind of toughed it out and had some moments there.

38:50I don't love the head coach and the starting quarterback both being in a sort of prove it year kind of a thing. That's an extra weight that you don't need on your shoulders if you're in either of those positions. And that's why I will stay in the South and tell you that the champion and therefore they will transcend the seven and a half will be the Carolina Panthers once again. Okay. It all comes down to or a lot of it comes down to do you think that Canales and company have Bryce Young looking closer to what we anticipated? Not that he was lights out last year, but he was a lot better than he had been in the preceding seasons.

39:30Love the pass catchers there. The big concern with them is that it looks like both of their tackles on the offensive line might start the season out. So that ain't great. but you know I there are a lot of pieces on the defensive side that I like jazzed up the pass rush a little bit with with Jalen Phillips we'll see if how long he can stay healthy if he does we know that he has stretches of dominance there in this bum division that's enough yeah there's a lot of moving parts on the offensive line ultimately you do have a you know first round pick at one spot and you have a guy Rashid Walker from the Packers who's all he's done starts every game basically for the Packers the last handful of years on a good offense.

40:15He has some injury concerns, but he's out there. This is the team I just wanted to stay away from. I can see that. I put them at the very bottom. I was just like, I don't want to deal with this. This is a stay away from me. My mind thinks they could take a step back, but there is something intangible there that I buy into that they are greater than the sum of their parts. I kind of buy what Dave Canales is selling. Like they have a good building. Like they get everyone like rowing in the right direction and all that. And that does matter in a bad division. So I could easily see them winning eight or nine games.

40:54And I just was like, I want to stay away from it. As much as it matters in every division, I said that about the NFC West, that when the heavyweights start playing each other in December, then and only then will we really start to say, okay it's pretty clear that's the team that's going to end up uh winning winning the thing these games are ironically or otherwise in bad divisions all that really matters you can look around and say oh look at the schedule they have out of the division do you handle your business against the bum teams if you do you're probably going to get the nine and take it um and so given the recent history that's why i will take the panthers um go ahead and already say saints over seven and a half because I know you're going to get to that eventually.

41:36You're not? I'm not. I am not. You know what spooks me about them? And this is a stupid reason to do it. But I do the same thing that apparently you do, which is at this point, I hate, I think one of the lamest exercises on the football calendar is the day or two after the schedule is released to go up to a board and start putting W's and L's next to them as though you know who's going to be on the team, who's going to get hurt, how good the other team's going to be. But I think we're close enough now where we can kind of sort of read into these things, at least the early portion of the season.

42:09And the Saints are going to be 0-2 right out of the gate. They go at Detroit and at Baltimore. So that's not a good place to start off your season, I don't think. You've just led me into going Saints under 7.5. I'm going to do it. I feel like I heal. I try not to pick things that I'm rooting for. Like, I want the Saints to be good. But I just, I think there's a bigger possibility that they're a bottom five team. I think they have among the most injury risk variants of any team in the NFL, just because of the history of the guys on their team that have been hurt. And they're already starting off the season so injured with Camara and Jordan and Jordan Tyson, rather, and Cam Jordan.

42:51and I mean, Jordan Tyson was, it was an injury risk and you drafted him and he didn't make it to the start of the regular season. Yes. That's a problem. Um, Chris Alave injury history. Um, Cam Jordan, do this to me. Cam Jordan is an older fella. Great, but he's older. Um, Chase Young. Wow. He finally looked pretty good. How deep into his career is that you're banking on that. he's the he's the linchpin I do like Chase Young I do like Chase Young but uh you're right he has to stay healthy prove he can do it Kool-Aid is your top DB I mean you know it's hard to get real excited about this the thing I do like just sort of I liked him from a distance was Tyler Shuck I think he didn't get drafted or he was he was under drafted a year ago because of his age as though people like well he's already mid-20s well so what what if you get 10 years out of him that won't be good enough.

43:46You need more than that. Well, no, he has to be 21. So he'll be our QB for the next 18 years. It'll be good. It'll work out just fine for the Saints if Shuck is their starting quarterback for the next decade, right? I've talked up Shuck all offseason. I'm impressed by him. I do think he's going to be a starting quarterback as long as he's healthy in the NFL for a long time. And if I get this wrong and I got some Saints fans in my life, they're going to be sticking it to me. I am annoyed to annoy them. It'll be because Kellen Moore and Shuck are a real deal pairing. Brandon Staley coached up that defense well last year.

44:23I just look at the overall talent and I think that defense is hoping to be average. It is just, you mentioned it. They have no pass rush juice. They don't have a lot of talent on defense at all. They're hoping to be average. It's the high variance of the offense. Shuck and Kellen, I actually liked what I saw out of Kellen Moore and Olave and some of the running, If everything works on offense, they could be a dangerous offense and make me look dumb for going under 7.5. That is my sixth pick. We're going to do seven, Shuck. I mean, I just called you Shuck. Sheck. Ooh. I could do it. He's a handsome guy.

44:56You have two picks left. So just keep in mind, you are now narrowing it down. You are only going to get to take two more. So make sure you make them count. All right. I mean, listen, I'm tempted to take those errors on the Cardinals. They're almost certainly going to wind up on the don't matter horn. Would you go over or under their three and a half? Three and a half. I'm not going to bother with them. That's the point. If you don't matter, why do I? And you basically structure your roster in a way that says to me that you don't think you matter or are not going to put your best foot forward this season in favor of what might be down the line.

45:37Then I don't have to regard you. I'm not going to take up my time talking about you. Can I say something about them, though? Like, they have a lot of talented players in terms of their skill position players. And it is borderline outrageous that there's no other NFC team, if I'm correct, that's under seven and a half other than them. The odds makers have them four games worse. They could double their win total, like the projected win total, three and a half to seven. And they'd still be the worst team in the NFC. I've never seen something like that. And that's, that's who we, I always start using check words when you're on, uh, who in applesauce and whatnot.

46:18Like that's insane that the odds makers have them four games worse than the entire rest of the league. I, I have never seen anything quite like, I think they have too many good players. They'll stumble into four or five wins. The bookmakers who are not too far away from where the Cardinals are playing have now given, um, given potential, um, um wager or something to look at right three and a half is intriguing with the cardinals yes and you really want to do it don't you because you look at that roster like you say again if you look at it as a fantasy roster oh i want a lot of those guys on my fantasy team that doesn't mean they're going to be actually good but at three and a half you want to talk yourself into any team that's playing but then you have to look at the other three teams that they have to play those are six games that that they're likely to be one and five in so it's hard to get excited but three and a half does it does get awfully tempting i'm gonna man all right the i want to feel i'm trying to in the moment here divine which is the riskier thing rams over 11 and a half or the niners under nine and a half you know what i don't i i don't i this isn't my way to do this but i'm going to take the Rams over the 11 and a half.

47:35That's just a, that's a lot of football games to win. But I was as recently as 48 hours ago, ready to go with the Seahawks and pouring through the, through the schedules. And the big concern with the Rams is, as I said earlier, the Jenga theory is in the 21st century. If you remove the wrong piece, the whole thing will implode. is there i mean the rams are built around puka nakua who had a who had a fraught offseason i think we can agree what if he gets hurt davante adams is not davante adams anymore he's definitely not somebody who you would ride as your number one for a few weeks right and then yet you're taking over 11 and a half because i think that they are going to be able to to bang you around running the ball and that defense the thing that a lot of people are pointing at rightly is that Aaron Donald is old and there's no guarantee he stays um in good health and Miles Garrett has you know had uh has tweaked something here there and he's on the wrong side of 30 the problem for everybody else is the depth that they have in pass rushing on the defensive front overall they're loaded they didn't need to have Aaron Donald he's a he's the all-time luxury item to plug in there plus Sean McVay.

48:56And I think what's fascinating is, um, that he sort of ushers in a mini era of going heavier, um, with, with his, uh, personnel on offense. And now in the copycat league, it feels like a lot of teams are going to start doing that putting, you know, more and more, um, uh, base offense is going to have two tight ends out there and everything else. I'm interested to see if he now Again is the rabbit and takes it In another direction again As it is I do Think that Sean McVay is going to figure out How to move the ball when he has The reigning MVP at 38 As he is that's the other thing Too is Matthew Stafford A year this isn't I'm not talking this year I'm talking A full year ago the conversation Was yeah the Rams are pretty good if Matthew Stafford's back holds up we're a year Deeper into his career his back isn't better now Than it was a year ago still I'm going to say 12 wins.

49:52Yeah, it's all on Stafford. I'm annoyed that I didn't take them earlier. I feel like you somehow led me down rabbit holes of taking teams earlier than I meant, like the Saints under and the Lions, because it's going to be very difficult, I believe, for this team to lose more than five games if Stafford's healthy. And you could say that with basically any starting quarterback, and I guess he's a little bit more of an injury risk than most. But this is the first time that you can expect them to have a top five defense with a Sean McVay. Like 12 and 5 gives you some wiggle room. Now, Sean McVay, if you wanted to go through his history, it's not like he's gone over this win total that often.

50:36In his nine seasons, he's done it four times. He's done it two out of five in the Stafford era. So on paper, they're the best team in the league. and yet, you know, things pop up often, but I'm really annoyed that you took them. That was going to be my last pick. I was rooting for you to go under 49ers so that the Rams could be my last pick. Don't you think, though, that it's funny the way it works because we have too much time to talk about these things in the offseason, and so then, you know, when they started talking about, when Les Snead and Sean McVay started talking about the possibility of Aaron Donald returning, you knew then a couple months ago, well, obviously, Aaron Donald's going to join the team.

51:15do the head coach and GM start ruminating. Wouldn't that be fun if that happened? They wouldn't do that if they didn't know that things were leaning in that direction. But we've now lived in this reality or potential reality for long enough that everybody swooned. And I don't love when people get fake boners about football things. Like, oh my God, it's the hard eyes. Like, imagine that pass rush. Like, all right, settle down. You're not that excited. Why does it have to be fake? Just because it's fake for you, It might be real for a lot of people. It's fun to think about Aaron Donald and Miles Garrett on the same team.

51:53It'll be fun. Listen, do as I say, not as I do. I'm allowed to act a fool. Everybody else should not act like a fool. Please, be professionals. But either way, yes, we now have to sprinkle in some cynicism into every conversation. So now it's like, meh, I don't know if super teams work out. They don't have much of a history with that. And I don't know. It's just not going to work based on what we think about the X's and O's of it. Miles Garrett and Aaron Donald are going to be out there together with a few other guys who are great. I mean, go, go through it with, with Braden Fiske and young. What did he have?

52:3012 sacks a year ago. Kobe Turner next to Aaron Donald had seven sacks last year. It's crazy. I mean, what are you going to do for real? How are you ever going to throw the ball against this team? Okay. Enough on the Rams. Okay. You're right. We get through an off season. We convince ourselves we know more than we think. And that's why it's so tempting to take them because we just know that if healthy, they're going to be good. How do you turn 16 games, injury reports, team notes, betting lines, and matchup trends into one clear weekend preview? Chat GPT work can help. Give it the goal plus real inputs like notes, files, data, and project plans.

53:08It can help turn them into an analysis tracker, deck outline, or workflow you can keep shaping. You stay in control, reviewing the work and choosing the final result. Put ChatGPT to work on your most ambitious ideas and projects. Get started at ChatGPT.com by selecting work mode. Available on Plus and Pro plans. Amazon Health AI presents Painful Thoughts. I can't stop scratching my downtown. Yeah, but I'm not itching to go downtown and tell a receptionist I'm here to talk about my downtown. Some things you'd rather type than say out loud. There's no question too embarrassing for Amazon Health AI.

53:52Chat your symptoms and get virtual care 24-7. Healthcare just got less painful. This is Matt Altmix from How to Money, and we are all about comparing prices to save money on so many things in life. So why wouldn't you compare prices for your next rideshare? Taking a few seconds to check Lyft can save you real money on your next ride. And I did this last time I caught a ride home from the airport after some travel. And guess who came out on top? Lyft. So don't just price check with flights and phone plans and your groceries. Comparing ride share prices will help you to save money every time you ride.

54:27Save money. Check Lyft. I want to tell you about Keeper security because unlike built-in password managers, Keeper works across platforms which allows you to securely share information with your family, with your colleagues, with your friends and I personally store things like passport and credit card details so I'm not scrambling every time I travel which makes my life more efficient and when you're busy but also focused on security like I am, that is absolutely critical Keeper is offering a 50 % discount on personal or family subscriptions using the promo code techstuff at keepersecurity.com at checkout it's my last pick we've talked you know what everybody says you know what everybody says about your team the patriots right it's like everybody ends up or 95 of people end up saying the exact same things about every about the teams and the patriots thing is like better roster but worse results everybody just says and they're like okay that must be true okay that yeah that's going to be the the reality here and there's a late push now seahawks are going to end up winning that division.

55:29I almost fell into that trap. It's going to be the rant. Go ahead. I tend to agree, although I haven't made my final decisions. Those will come on our final show of the week with the big return of Patrick Claiborne to the studio. I remember him. I'm thinking about Cardinals. Man, the Cardinals have a brutal schedule to start the season, but three wins when I believe at the end you have the Raiders. Who is it at the end of their schedule? In a row, they have the Jets, Saints, and Raiders at the end of the schedule. You're telling me they can't get to three and a half? But the rest of the schedule is absolutely brutal.

56:06Just to introduce another team to quickly talk about, I will go Giants under seven and a half. You know, John Harbaugh's speech, that was a downer. Like, oh, it's really going to connect with these players. The Malik Nabors idea that he's going to be fully back after multiple surgeries, I have doubts about. There's some real deal top level talent. This is one of those teams where I would say what they are saying about the Patriots. Check. I like the line play on both teams. Like this will be a better team. This could be a much improved team that goes six and 11. That goes seven and 10. And I still get my under.

56:48I just don't think they're going to have a competitive passing game, which you need in the year 2026. I don't I I'm on the fence I well I'm I'm gonna be interested to see Jackson Darton year two because to this point as flawed as he is I still say that my team the Steelers should have drafted him yeah I thought I did I speaking to the Steelers before we wrap it up I just have a question that I keep asking since John Harbaugh is the subject or just was John Harbaugh Mike Tomlin Sean McDermott. At the end of this year, will we point back and say, wow, turns out that guy was really holding his old team back.

57:30Will we say that about one, two or three of those guys? Well, if I'm going to be consistent with my over unders at some level, we'll be saying it about all, all three because I'm high on the Ravens. I think the Steelers are going to be better than people think. And I think defensively they could improve with some new ideas. I agree with that. Who was the third one? Yeah, the Bills one, I think, will just kind of be a wash. I mean, I took their over when we talked about it with Nick Wright. Yeah, I think they'll be more of the same. I don't know if it'll be a big McDermott thing. But the other two, yeah, I could see.

58:09I've been introducing, and this is not a popular take, but it's definitely a big one when I try to defend my guy, Bill Belichick, that a little bit of ageism is okay when evaluating professionals in highly paid jobs like head coach of football. You did that on Football America a year ago. It was a disgrace that you did it. He got old. He ran out of ideas. He's old. He ran out of ideas. So what? Why do we have to assume that John Harbaugh has as many fresh ideas and as much energy and as forward-thinking ways to run an organization as he had 15 years ago. I don't have to think that. I think it's silly.

58:55There is the Dick Vermeule thing, which I would not have expected to work on the level it did because people forget it wasn't just the Rams. Then he went to the Chiefs and did the same thing. I'm not saying they can't be good coaches. I'm just saying on average, they've probably had their best behind them like players do. There's a prime. I agree with you. but John Harbaugh is not Bill Belichick. Nobody says John Harbaugh is in the conversation or pounds the table. Obviously he's the greatest coach of all time. Bill Belichick was carried as it happens. We found out by the greatest quarterback of all time.

59:28That's what we've now learned here. Bill Belichick is 74 years old in a totally different ecosystem. Somehow you're trying to defend him by calling him a decrepit old man. All right, it's your last pick. Oh, I still have one more. Yeah, because I jumped you at one point. I doubled up. So you have one more to make it even. We got to have it even. All right. I will go with, you know, we could talk about the Niners. I'll go Bears up to 10 again because of my faith in Ben Johnson. It's longstanding. I am not Johnny come lately getting on that bandwagon. I've been talking about this for many years now about Ben Johnson as the rising star among play callers and he's made me look smart there.

1:00:12It doesn't mean that because he is Caleb Williams, um, head coach now, and because Josh Allen a number of years ago was inaccurate and then became accurate that there's any math that that means, well, Caleb Williams will do the same thing that said, and by the way, I don't love the defense either, but I do think that Ben Johnson is not shooting his mouth off about being the highest scoring offense in NFL history. If he doesn't think that he has some chance of having a gangbusters offense, I do think they're going to light a lot of teams up over the course of the season, enough to get into the playoffs, the back end as a wild card, and get the double digit wins.

1:00:52Doesn't mean that they're going to run to the Super Bowl or anything like that, but I do think that given the pieces they have on offense, that they're set to win more games than they lose. My strategy coming, I tend to agree with everything you just said. My strategy coming into this draft was actually just to avoid Bears, Packers, and Lions. For some reason, I got hooked into the team that has the higher window. Because that all just felt about right. You know, nine and a half, it all just feels about right. I like the out-of-division schedule against the NFC South. I'd have to be forcing myself to get negative about any of these teams.

1:01:28And yet, I just kind of look at it and logically I know, well, it can't all work out that way. I just wanted to stay away from all three of them. So I'm glad you brought them up because otherwise we would have avoided the Packers and Bears entirely. We did avoid the Packers because I just feel like nine and a half. Yep, that seems about right. You know, Cliff's notes it for me. The Niners, make the case for them in either direction here because I like them again. And if you told me right now, like if you put me into a coma and woke me up on Valentine's Day and say, guess what? The Niners made it to the big game.

1:02:00Let's head over to SoFi right now, Dave. and I'd be like, what are you doing in my bedroom? You'd be like, you're not in the bedroom. You're in a hospital. You're in a coma. Did you forget I put you into one in September? I'd be like, what the hell? What do we do? You actually did that? I just threw that out on a dumb podcast. And you're like, well, I thought you were serious. So I put you into a coma and the Niners made it to the Super Bowl. Anyhow. What's with the dumb podcast crack? I'm sorry. Intelligent. Yes. Thoughtful podcast. We're trying to really cater to the best of the best out there.

1:02:32I don't know what to think about them. Everything you, I agree with all that. That's it. They felt in a similar bucket to the Bears and the Packers. Logically, everyone can't be winners here. It's part of this weird NFC over under. If you actually look at all the totals and added them up, like Vegas sees the NFC as better. They don't have many losing teams. Even the losing teams they have are around seven. No, it sees them. It sees a sea of mediocrity with a couple of teams that rise above that. That's different than the AFC, which is you can rightly circle three or four teams that you know, aren't going to go to the playoffs and everyone else you can make a pretty good case for.

1:03:13A lot of these teams are like, I don't know, I guess if things break right, the Saints could wind up in there. Maybe, I don't know, maybe the commies pull a rabbit out of their hat and Jaden Daniels has another great year like he did two years ago and they wind up in the playoffs. I feel like that's the conversation around the NFC save, you know, the two teams in the same division in the Rams and Seahawks. Like, of course, the 49ers could finish second or win that division, but I just can't get there as a take before the season. And then suddenly you're immediately putting them into third place in the division with a very tough schedule.

1:03:50It's tough out of division too. And so then I just come away being like, all right, let's prove it to me. I believe, I believe in you Brock. You're not supposed to talk about because it's bad form to, to base anything off of injuries and like, well, I don't know if that guy's going to hold up, but the fact of the matter is the teams that make the deep playoff runs are the healthiest almost every single time. That's the case. And so you do kind of have to apply some history there, CMC and Nick Bosa and so on and so forth. That is, you're not crazy to ding the 49ers chances based on that. Like, well, I don't know, George Kittle, like, he's definitely going to be okay.

1:04:25He's still definitely going to be ready to roll there. All the guys who've gotten hurt, I don't know what happened, what voodoo is going on out there, what the man is doing with the stations out there in San Francisco. I'm not an intelligent guy. I don't have conspiracy theories about that. I'm just looking at the history of these guys. Yes, CMC gets hurt a lot. I'm not worried about the substation. I agree with you. I am worried that it's big news on this Wednesday as we tape and get ready to say goodbye here that Nick Bosa and George Kittle are getting on the plane. Oh. They're getting on the plane to Australia.

1:05:01So they got a chance to play week one. They keep saying Nick Bosa, they're ramping up. He hasn't done any practicing, but they're getting on the plane. Very interesting, the two strategies. The 49ers are leaving on Wednesday. the Rams are leaving almost an entire week later and only spending 24 hours before that game in Australia. I am bullish almost always. I am, generally speaking, I will say like, all right, first of all, I don't love divisional games in week one. We've been out in the desert without football for long enough. Just give me a cracker to keep me going now. I don't need filet mignon to get things going here.

1:05:38But usually as the Bills and the Bengals to some extent and other teams that are real good teams, they start out sluggishly and then they, then they have to make up the ground and they almost inevitably do. I got to say for two teams that do look good, I think it's a big game being played in Australia. Like remember the chiefs and chargers that did foretell something that played out over the course of the rest of the season last year. So don't just slough this one off. It's like, ah, well, you know, the Rams or the Niners beat them like, well, but you know, the Rams are going to be good. I don't know.

1:06:14Wouldn't be great if the Rams start their season with a loss here. And the 49ers get them at home because the Rams, they wanted this game. They, they agreed to give up a home game to travel over there, but not for long. Reportedly, I saw this written about in the athletic, the 49ers are the most popular team in Australia. So they might have a little bit of a home field advantage. Uh, this was a tree, uh, a thin slice of heaven, as Dave Damoshek likes to say. Check out his podcast, Football America. It's going to be going live on Mondays during the season, but you can catch it in your podcast feed and YouTube.

1:06:50Appreciate you, Shek. Appreciate everyone that has been tuning in. We see those numbers growing as the season gets closer. Everyone go ahead, like and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a comment. Why not? We haven't asked for that in a while on Apple. and yeah, we will be back for another show this week talking about some of our Making the Leap candidates with our new coworker, Brett Coleman. That's coming up next.

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