Dak it Up Dak it In: Previewing Every Week 1 Game

25:47This does not feel like the week for it.

25:49Ben Solak:I did a very un-me-like take on NFL Live yesterday. This game came up. We were talking about the Jets and when coaches were like, we got to carry the ball 40 times. I said, if Justin Fields doesn't carry the ball at least 10 times a game, what are we doing here? I don't even want to watch this team. I want to see that man tote the rock. Under Terrell Lawson, they're DC there. The Steelers have typically been good enough against mobile quarterbacks, right? Steelers fans right now are screaming out about a couple of Lamar Jackson games. He's Lamar Jackson. He does that. But like they played Jaden Daniels very well last season.

26:25Like they know what to do on the chalkboard. So again, there's going to be fields games. There's going to be fields games where he has like 80 yards on the ground. Just don't think the matchup is right for this one.

26:34Ben Solak:Panthers, Jaguars, NFC South, AFC South crossover game. This is you. Yes. I don't know where you're going to go with this one. Unironic. Sneaky, interesting game to me. I really mean it this time because all four of these units, potentially dramatic changes. Jaguars defense moving into Anthony Campagnoli. He's coming from the Packers defensive background, right? We know how creative that team was, all the sim pressures, all the drop in his own coverage. They were very aggressive in the preseason, running pressures from depth. They're going to do a lot of different stuff schematically in this Jaguars defense has seen before.

27:08Panthers defense reloaded everywhere, right? Get Trishon Wharton into the building, get Trevon Merrick into the building. We're drafting two rookie edge rushers. They need better snaps there. And then on the offensive side of the ball, how does Ted McMillan affect this Bryce Young resurgence? Is that a legitimate thing in 2025? And on the Jaguars offense, which is where my note is, I mean, like everyone's excited about the Liam Cohen edition and the Travis Hunter edition. Jags offensive line versus Panthers defensive line is this game for me because the Panthers are returning Derek Brown. They put the money in Tershawn Wharton's pocket.

27:36They have a DJ one and back from injury. They signed Pat Jones, Nick Scarrotin and Prince T1, Miel and a rookie edge rushers. they really, really, really need to be better in the defensive front. There was no team last year giving up more rush yards before contact than the Carolina Panthers were, right? They just were getting blown off the ball. So that retooled group against the Jaguars offensive line that brought in Robbie Hainsey and brought in Patrick McCurry, right? Drafted Wyatt Milam and has been trying to figure out all offseason, okay, what does our best five look like? And how do we want to be able to field these guys?

28:07The Buccaneers team last year only worked because the offensive line was so good. So that battle in the trenches is the key one to me.

28:12Ben Solak:You know that meme, they're having a mid-off? Yeah. That's the battle in the trenches that you're talking about. Absolutely. There's exciting things on both of these teams. That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about whether or not either of them can be competent enough. Yes, exactly. In the trenches, on the side of the ball, you're talking about the Panthers offensive line, pardon me, versus the Jacks offensive line, so that the other fun stuff can happen that we're actually interested in with these teams. because if the Jags offensive line isn't good enough against Carolina, you'll worry.

28:47Ben Solak:Chalk it. Chalk it. Meanwhile, if the Panthers defensive line can't win against Jacksonville on the ground, it feels like last year all over again. So this is like a good barometer game for both sides to sort of test whether or not they can approach competence. On the other side of the ball, Ikea Kwanu had an emergency appendectomy. It's not funny. It's awful. But that's definitely one of those out-of-nowhere injuries. I would argue probably the most important position against this Jaguars defense, given that the one thing we know that they have going for them is Edge, Josh Hines Allen, and opposite him is Trevon Walker.

29:30Ben Solak:So that's not great for Carolina. I'm picking Jacksonville. And they have to figure out the Adam Thielen role, which I think I I don't I think people like I don't think people realize how important Adam Thielen was to Bryce Young last season he had like 2.4 yards per out run after Young came back in for Dalton he was the primary target by a mile like yes you know Jalen Coker emerged and like Jadavian Sanders had nice games but Thielen was the passing game over the middle of the field and with Tyrone McMillan Xavier Leggett and Jalen Coker there's nobody who's like perfectly equipped for that big slot role like Coker does play in the slot but he goes vertical it doesn't break on routes tech can be a good route runner and break over the intermediate we think but we haven't seen in the nfl yet so the how the panthers fill the feeling shoes on late notice very very interesting to me feeling in the second half of the season when bryce young came back and was good led the team in target share led the team in yards per game had an 80 catch rate ridiculous cannot be overstated how important he was i understand that they like the young pass catch i like the young pass catchers i am a coke head aren't we all don't uh i love ted roa mcmillan i think he's awesome i'm really excited for him but i'm not gonna lie i did not love that trade for just the developmental reasons and he's just he's just so comfortable but yeah we'll see um but but to go back to what i was gonna say the kuano thing swung me to jacksonville i went back and forth on this one i just i i i I still think this Panthers defense is bad.

31:07Ben Solak:I know, understand that they've added some competent players. I think that this is going to be a soft start for this Jack's offense. I'm Panthers in this one. They're on the road. Jaguars are favored. I think the one thing that I'm positive I trust in this game is the Panthers running attack. And no icky, of course, but guard to guard, they're pretty good. Chubo's a great season last season. I think that I believe in that more than I believe in anything else. I like Panthers. McMillan against Tyson Campbell. We will be seated. We will have our popcorn out. We are ready. I'm very excited. cardinal saints all right this is not sneaky interesting i'm not even gonna pretend it's me though um you know for cardinals run the ball i wrote is pretty obviously something that they do well and the saints i'm very suspicious of their ability to do so i don't think the saints could stop tree mcbride yeah yeah the thing i wrote though is a key mostly just because i'm interested in it more like long term is whether or not this cardinals four-man rush makes the leap that they needed to, frankly, to be competitive.

32:07Ben Solak:Saints offensive line, you know, it is, I think, improved, encouraged by the early play of their young offensive tackles.

32:20Ben Solak:Cardinals really, you know, we've talked about this a lot, had a very, very wacky defense last year in terms of how they got pressure. But it does seem like this year with the additions, obviously Josh Sweat, but also Calais Campbell, Devin Thomason on the inside. They draft Walter Nolan. He's been hurt, but Darius Robinson, who was their first draft pick last year. I think they just want to be more normal this year and just win straight up so they can have bodies and coverage. I think this is a good litmus test for them. I'm also just kind of interested just to see if they do start going more in that direction generally now that they have real NFL players at all three levels.

32:58Yeah, the maturation of the Cardinals from we are a fun team, putting young players out there and figuring things out to we are going to compete in an NFC West that is gettable is like a big part of year three for Monty Ossiphor, year three for John Gannon. Like this is the year where the foundation grows. We actually build on this sucker. We win some games. We make some noise in the postseason. If you can't run over a bad Saints team by just saying our personnel is better than your personnel, we're going to be able to take advantage of, you know, Trevor Penning, the guard. We're going to be able to take advantage of Spencer Rattler, the mistake prone quarterback, other side of the ball.

33:29We're going to attack the corners. Isaac Eadom, McEntree is what we drafted Marvin Harrison Jr. for. Like if you can't just outgun the Saints and you're back at a spot where like we've got to be able to scheme around them and stuff. Now I think that just portends poorly for the season at large. Now, if they want to scheme around the Saints, I think they can, right? The way that they played defense last year, that structure was a bend, but don't break structure, right? We talked about what the Chargers were, the Eagles, right? Okay, we're going to put a lot of secondary bodies on the field and make you complete passes underneath.

33:56and that structure works really well against mercurial volatile quarterbacks like spencer rattler and that those are nice adjectives for what rattler can be in terms of some of the decision making and some of the the peak negative plays and so if the cardinals do come out and they say this isn't the four-man rush game we're just going to kind of sit back here in our blankets and we're going to let spencer rattler make the error that won't worry me too much uh the four-man rush especially because like nolan's on pop still that's something i think you'll see over time in this game if they just kind of sit back there and and and out fox rattler because he hasn't seen a

34:25Ben Solak:lot yet that won't bother me too much i assume we both have the cardinals yeah i think cardinal's big honestly i think that just the saints are not going to be good it's gonna be hard to pick a win this year um giants commanders is you uh weirdly good team against jane and daniels last year the new york giants were right two games they played this the the the commanders won both 21 to 18 was the first game this was the that was early right sorry pardon that was early in the season right yeah that was that was week two that was they had seven field goals in that game uh and then 27 to 22 uh giants excuse me the commanders win the second one as well uh if you go and you look at at success rate and epa per drawback for jane daniels both of these are below average games success rate they're both bottom five games that he had last season shane bowen did a good job with him and the reason why shane bowen did a good job dealing with jane daniels because shane bowen had a really good front last season right and so they had the ability to win at the point of attack uh just go ahead and dominate your gap they played gapped out football they didn't get too sucked in by the eye candy by all the motion and trying to do two things at once and then they had the athletes get janey daniels down in space the brian burns snaps against janey daniels last year like the unblocked edge rusher snaps his own read stuff like man it was just all right this is the value of having an athlete of this caliber at this position and then the giants went and got a second one right and they go they draft them to a carter at three overall and they really have the ability now to out athlete the giants in space at the line of scrimmage right we don't typically We're talking about in space at the line of scrimmage, but so much of this commander's offensive philosophy is let's get a linebacker or an edge in a spot where he has to be really lateral.

35:57He has to make quick decisions and he has to cover a lot of ground. And just with their front and with Bobby O 'Karrike in the second level, it's Drew Phillips there, their nickel comes down and tackles. The Giants actually have a nice fit defensively to give the commanders some trouble. And so this plus we're expecting a rusty Terry McLaurin coming back, you know, didn't practice a lot. How good is he going to be against Paulson Adebo, who he's coming off injury. He's a very important player for the Giants this year. I think more low scoring. I think a closer game. I don't think it's going to be a big win for the commanders.

36:24Ben Solak:I think that the commander's offense is going to really try to get the ball out of Jaden Daniels' hands very quickly in this one, if I know Cliff Kings very well. And so for New York, tackling is going to be paramount. I think we're going to see a lot of jet sweeps. We're going to see a lot of screens. They're going to try to get Debo in space. So for Washington, you got to be able to break some tackles. You got to be able to force some misses. And then for New York, it's just going to come down to whether or not you can keep everything in front of you and bring them down when the ball does come out fast.

37:00And yeah, like that does. I mean, I have to go back and watch the second game.

37:05Ben Solak:Obviously, that's what it looked like in week two. Now, that was early in the Jane Daniels season when that's kind of all they were doing. You remember he had like an average target of like three first part of the season before they unleashed it. but man, I mean, this giant's defensive line is going to force a lot of game plans like that. Um, and they're going to make things tighter. Uh, I, the other side of the ball is, it's kind of an interesting one for me too, though, Ben, because, um, Dan Quinn goes up against old friend, Russell Wilson. I mean, we know what you should do. Oh, wow. I didn't even think about that connection.

37:38Ben Solak:Well, we know what you shouldn't do against Russell Wilson is you shouldn't play a ton of single high. what's he gonna do right because if you if you force rust to actually throw over the middle of the field and um and don't leave guys i showed up on the outside he has struggled not just last year but several years right so this is gonna be interesting game plan one i don't think the washington defense is super talented um outside of league neighbors though i don't think the new York Giants offense is particularly talented. So, uh, you know, I think schematically they're going to have to take out and it's not just going to be asking one player to take out neighbors.

38:20Ben Solak:It's going to be a team effort and then force them to beat you with someone else. Yeah. And the, the commander's defensive line, right? The theory behind this group is listen, like we're Dan Quinn, we get pressure, we get penetration. Like, don't you worry about the name sweetheart? Like we're going to be fine. Okay. Well the Giants right side of the line, right greg van roe and jermaine illuminore uh andrew thomas is projected to go for this game he was he's been limited with a foot for pretty much all of training camp that he's gonna play it's not a great group and so if you want to make everybody's you know javon kinlock questions look stupid and everybody's like what's edge rusher gonna look like questions look ridiculous you know von millen dorn's armstrong's your starters here all right you know jazon new in the second round rookie like you need these guys to be disruptive players in the pocket against this giants front so they're not doing against this giants front it means they're they're a cutaway They're a step away and they might get better over the course of the season, but this, this is a, it should be a gettable group.

39:10And like you say, it's Russell Wilson back there who Russ can be with this, with Malik neighbors, with Darius Slayton, with Theo Johnson, with Tyrone Tracy, Russ can be like not an issue. And this offense will be not horrendous. There'll be the 22nd best offense, which is how they want to be run the football, be the 20th best offense, play really good defense. Unless you start to pressure him, right? And when you start to pressure him, then Russ goes ahead and makes his mistakes. And so, uh, commanders defense aligned falls into that Panthers defense aligned Jaguars opposite line category for me of like i want to see what you are are you 12th best are you 19th best where are you exactly and this is uh so you know they should be tyron tracy is i like

39:46Ben Solak:i like him in this one um i'm still not convinced of the commander's run defense either i have the commander's winning i think that the um as good as the defensive line is and as and i think this will be a little bit tighter maybe than it seems because of the quality of the quarterbacks and whatnot. I do think that Jane Daniels will be able to pull enough rabbits out of his hat to make it work. You know, like we're going to have, we talked about the athleticism and the patch wash. There's going to be moments in this game where it feels like they haven't done to rights and then they just don't.

40:17Ben Solak:And he outrun somebody. Um, and I do think that this commander's offensive line is going to be better. I think the investments that they've made in this one, you're going to, you're going to feel, um, it's just going to be like, okay, maybe it's not, you know, as, uh, the, the commander's offense isn't going to look as good as one would hope. And that's going to be more, I think what you and I are in agreement of actually a referendum on giants defense and particularly the defensive line than it is that they're taking a step back or anything like that. I went back and I checked the, uh, air yards per target.

40:47It was 4.6 air yards against the giants at the first matchup 5.7 in the second matchup. Both of them are bottom five numbers. Uh, it's, it's hard there. I don't think this is going to be an explosive Washington game, especially with Terry coming off the hold-in. So to me, yeah, it's a six and a half point line. I think the Giants cover it. Six and a half. Commanders are at home.

41:06Ben Solak:Yeah, I guess that's fair. Yeah, there'll be a little overreactions, perhaps. This might be one of the week one overreaction type games. We'll see. We gotta have them. You gotta overreact the week one. It's the best feeling in the world. I'm curious. I'm looking at these Jane Daniels numbers. Okay. You are, we've got two, three more before the break. Ooh, gotta pick it up. Okay. So I'm next. I've got bucks, Falcons. Um, great one. This is a good one. We could have done both sides of this one. Um, I mean, I, I feel like I'm taking the easy pickings here, but like Falcons pass rush, what you got?

41:45Ben Solak:Like I specifically I wrote, can the Falcons create negative place? Because I think on a down to down basis, the bucks offense is too good and they're going to be able to run on them and they're going to be in Mike Evans is going to eat and they're going to be able to move the ball but for all of the deserved enthusiasm about Baker Mayfield season last year he still had a lot of negative plays bad sacks he had he was 33rd in pressure to sack rate turnovers you know still an issue Falcons poured everything they could into their pass rush this offseason uh tristan worse is not playing in this game so you get a crack at this offensive line without him can you rattle baker i don't know if who it is i don't know if it's james pierce jace pierce has played more in the preseason than jalen walker right been healthy i don't know if it's him i don't know if it's eddie i don't know if it's lander floyd i don't know if it's sororo runyamana somebody on this falcons defensive line has to show me something something for me to even give this team the time of day how do you think it felt in atlanta watching michael parsons go for two firsts when you were sitting there with the 20 with with with your you spent a first round pick and jaylen walker on a on a edge and then you traded a future first to get back up into the first round obviously they got the second round pick back so i know the math wasn't actually math but functionally you spent two first round picks on an edge on two edge rushers and then michael goes for two firsts the freaking brams have Atlanta's pick.

43:17Yes.

43:18Ben Solak:And Dallas has green Bay's pick next year. I mean, it's less about Atlanta and more about this is the thing about the whole Michael Parsons trade because the way it turned out was so stupid. I don't blame anyone for not understanding or anticipate. You know what I mean? Like I can't even blame a team for not thinking that Dallas would actually pull the trigger. Right. It's just so dumb. Fowler reported that like there were like no, it was Breer. Breer reported there were like six teams that had offers in for Parsons. If you're one of the five other teams, you gotta have been like, we don't get the counter to first said Kenny Clark.

43:50We didn't get a shot. Oh my goodness.

43:52Ben Solak:You know, my, um, I think I've said this to you, but like the other team in this game is the one who I like, let me, would you have traded Vita Veya and two firsts for Micah Parsons? If you're a team, I don't think so. See, that's, this is my favorite test case. Cause it actually gets you into like, yeah and if dad was did that i think we're all like okay we get it you actually did want to improve the run defense in the world in which it's a very good run defender for a very good pass rusher and it's an edge versus defense tackle and there's picks involved like you can get me there i think it's just important to remember this is that would have been a very good run defender for an elite blue chip gold chip world ending top guy mount rushmore edge rusher like it's such a it feels like it's different going from like tier two to tier one but it's actually like hugely enormously different the difference between having like you know a Brian Burns versus Michael Parsons.

44:37It's tectonic. It's planetary scale.

44:40Ben Solak:But you're saying you wouldn't do it if you're tectonic. Yeah, so I'm saying, well, I'm saying, ugh. I just think that's the perfect test case because he's 30 and they don't desperately need edge and they drafted Klaja Kansi. But they are so good and so important. I would also have, out of scheme questions, I would say, how often are you blitzing now? Because obviously you want to be a blitzing team. If you want to be a blitzing team, then you should bargain bin at edge. that's just that's just the nature of of economics in football i don't know give me like a week and i'll come up with my answer on should the box have traded for michael parsons that i i just keep throwing that out because the clark thing is so stupid you had not you had not mentioned that one to me that's my like but i think it's the like on both sides like you really because it's probably not gonna be good picks you know that the bucks are gonna be good okay back to bucks falcons so yeah pass rush what you got show me something rattle baker if you don't if they can't rattle Baker, then he's going to move it on.

45:30Yeah. Uh, important to remember that last year, the Falcons took the bucks absolute lunch money in the passing game, both times that they played right. Kirk cousins had his 500 yard game against the bucks in primetime last season. The bucks were just really bad defending the middle of the field last season. Cause they had linebacker injuries. They had a rotating carousel of injuries at safety and nickel corner. Uh, and, and Kirk cousins was just dotting them on time, right? Just, just throwing great rhythm, great anticipation to a spot over and over and over again. So there's a bucks question mark here, which is Sarvasia Dennis is back in your lineup.

45:59Tykee Smith is moving to safety. Third round rookie Jacob Parrish is playing at corner. Are you going to be better defending between the hashes than you were? And then the Falcons question, which is, okay, Kirk made this offense work for 14 games. It's important to remember, Kirk held the starting job for a long, long, long time because he was willing to land on that back foot and just rifle a 15-yard dig, rifle that glance route. Michael Penix, who I would say showed encouraging signs of trust in the offense in year one, but was mostly just throwing outside the numbers. How do you feel throwing middle of the field?

46:26That's where the big boys make it in this offense. So heat check on both sides of the ball for what these matchups look like last year versus this year.

46:32Ben Solak:Yeah, this is the exact nature kind of defense that Kirk Cousins was capable of beating last year. The problem is he wasn't capable of beating every kind of game. Very specific. Yeah, if Penix comes out firing and if the Bucs pass rush isn't improved, I can see this being snug. I'm still going to go Tampa because I threw out the whole Falcons pass rush thing. but like, you know, I worse definitely complicates it a little bit. It's Charlie Heck, right? Playing left tackle, which is going to inspire some, some tweets and comments. What the heck? Um, I still think Tampa is just the better, deeper team, both sides of the ball, but I, you know, could be a little, could be a little snuggler.

47:15Maybe then I think Tampa is going to be very, very good this year. And I think that they're going to have a solid win against the Falcons. I'm just not sure Panics is ready for a Todd Bowles defense that actually has the horses this time around. bangles browns is you bangles browns we didn't oh yeah we didn't do bagels browns it was at the top of my list uh that right this game you have the bangles as uh they were six and a half point favorites on the road it is now moved down to five and a half there's been a game that a lot of sharp money's been coming in and saying listen if you go and you look at old uh joe burrow against the browns uh he's played jeff jeff schwartz three times he had a they had three points in the first Yeah, yeah, yeah.

47:53Jeff, who knows what's going on defense Jeff would call. Give him a headset. Jim Schwartz, three points the first go around, 21 and 24. The next couple that goes around, he has a success rate on dropbacks of 43%. He has an EPA per dropback of, I lost it. Where did it go? 0.07 % EPA per dropback, which is, for Joe Burrow, pretty substantially below average. Now, the Browns are going to be a rush four and man cover team until the Cows come home. at their best that can look good against this Bengals team, which is going to only keep five or six in protection. You can win your one-on-one matchups, but you got to be able to do the man coverage thing.

48:27The fact that they've got the injury there, right? Martin Emerson's gone. Now Greg Newsom is moving positions. They're going to have an inexperienced neck corner and Cam Mitchell. This feels like a spread and shred short of game for the Bengals where Joe holds it for exactly 2.1 seconds and gets 400 passing yards on a depth of target of three. Critically, the inclusion of Chase Brown in the passing game, I think it'd be a big differentiator in this game as opposed to in past games. He had himself a very nice day against Cleveland when he played as the unquestioned starter last season in the back half of last year.

48:55The Bengals are not yet ready, I think, for two tight end full deploy, what we've really liked from them, because Mike Gusecki's been banged up all training camp and Noah Fant was an August addition. So I think that you're going to see more like prime 22-23 Bengals in this one. You're going to see Andre Yosevas, right? You're going to see Charlie Jones. You're going to see three and four wide formations. And they're just going to try to pick apart the space. get double teams to miles garrett try not to turn the football over chase brown i was just reading

49:20Ben Solak:an article about him uh his kid's name he just had a kid named oceans with a z oceans nice sick would you name that was our second on our list our first we we locked in but oceans was a close to i was just about to test you would you name your kid oceans if i could guarantee more that the eagles win win more super bowls with jalen hurts than tom brady i mean like i would tomorrow it's just that the boss who's right there watching kid number one right now would have to stamp the approval i don't think we're getting that one past her um really quickly on the i agree with everything you said about the offense particularly that i think this is going to be a pew pew pew pew pew um i'm branding that that's a great way of describing all your your analysis and i'm just doing that by making finger noises um the defense to me this is a great either full code red panic moment for the bangles or people overrating the Bengals defensive improvement.

50:17Ben Solak:I know that's unfair because it sounds like I'm talking out of both sides of the mouth. But I think I read a very humorous – it's not on the writer, just the quotes. After the Bengals' disastrous primetime preseason performance with their starters against Washington, there was a great – Paul Daner, who does a great job covering them for the Bengals, had a piece where all the players were like, well, we didn't prepare for that offense. You know, they were describing like one of their counter runs and they were like, we didn't plan the one where Shamar Stewart, like over. Yeah. Yeah. Here is the backfield.

50:53Ben Solak:Um, so I bring that up not to make fun of them, but to say like, you know what the Browns are going to do. This is no mystery with Joe Flacco. I mean, they might mix it up a little bit, but it's going to be a lot like what it was when Joe Flacco in, in, you know, part 12 for Joe Flacco, but part one for Joe Flacco and the Browns, uh, during the playoff run. Um, I also think during the preseason game when Flacco actually had a couple of drives, he, that ball was coming out fast RPOs. They were trying to get the ball to the tight ends in space. Gonna see a lot of that. So for Cincinnati, this is a good early, it's a, it's a, it's a great way to start against what I think most people project to be one of the worst offenses in football.

51:37Ben Solak:They're going to get very heavy, which is going to be interesting to me. I think there's going to be a lot of tight ends on the field, how they match up with that. It's going to be very telling. Yeah. And it's a big heat check for them on playing in the preseason, right? Remember the Bengals have typically been very bad out the gates, lost to the Browns 24 to three to start the 2023 season, lost to the Patriots, whatever it was like 20 to 16, awful game. Week one last year that Burrow and the offense did a big, like, Hey, hey, we had no training camp holdouts this time, and we played in the preseason.

52:06We were going to be ready for September week one. All right, well, you have a Cleveland team that you are definitely better than, so let's not trip over ourselves when the gates open up, and let's win this game handily.

52:17Ben Solak:Before the break, one more game. Raiders-Patriots.

52:24Ben Solak:Christian Gonzalez probably isn't playing in this one. Yeah, big, big injury. Don't love that for New England. And I was already really interested in seeing how the Raiders offense looks week one and how New England matches up with them. That side of the ball is more interesting to me, quite frankly, because I think that this Raiders offense, I know I've talked about this a lot, I think they could be sneaky interesting and sneaky good. It's been interesting in the preseason, they came out super vanilla in the first outing. then in the second one chip kelly kind of opened it up a little bit more and you got a little bit better look at some of the stuff that they're planning on doing formationally motion things like that but they didn't use they didn't put the two tight ends on the field and i i think that's like a huge fake out i think we're going to see a lot of mayor and bowers on the field together both of our players i like a lot how does new england match that is so i thought if gonzalez was playing that they would put him on Bowers.

53:27Cool.

53:29Ben Solak:He's not. So, okay. You did the bit about which team was it? We were at the Miami DBs. I don't think most people outside of New England are aware that Craig Woodson and Jalen Hawkins are the starting safeties for New England. Yeah, they just like very quietly cut peppers after 53-man. Like weird, weird, weird. Like the Duggar downfall. You know, it was just... Yeah. So I just don't feel like this is the right offense to not have proven safeties. I guess I'm just going to throw that out there. So I wrote key to this game is just how the hell do the Patriots handle this two tight end combo? Yeah, I, I have no answer for you because the Patriots defensive approach, but they want to be scheme wise is pretty black boxy to me right now.

54:15Yeah. Tara Williams comes in from most recently being in Detroit as a defensive line coach, but he was brought in by Vrabel because he knew him back in Tennessee. So is he going to, as the defensive coordinator, be Aaron Glenn blitz heavy? I mean, like maybe, but I think a little bit more, it's going to be what we saw from Vrabel, Vrabel's defenses in Tennessee. But it's important to remember that we saw a couple of different Vrabel defenses in Tennessee, the Shane Bowen version, the Dean Pease version, which were related, but looked a little bit different. So I don't know what sliders they want to push just yet as a team.

54:42And you talked about the safeties, like Keyon White is like not listed as a starter for this defense. He's a player who like last year was like going on in New England. Yeah. And like, don't get me wrong. White was extremely mercurial last season. He had loafs. He had, you know, plays where he was not interested in fulfilling his assignments. He wanted to make splash plays. I get it. But like, I don't even fully understand. Like, I, there are a few units where I feel worse predicting the 11 who are going to play than I do right now for the New England Patriots, especially when they have to go base.

55:09Ben Solak:I was just saying, part of me thinks that they're going to play a lot of base. Yes. I would bet my 100 % my guess is, which is like, all right, like how, like, where does Anfernee Jennings play? Right. That's what, that was like a Bill Belichick guy. like you know big linebacker can play on the outside is he a stack player for them like what's the line to buy it's it's i would love i don't know what this defense is going to do no idea just come out slinging it right they come out there multiple tight ends multiple backs we drafted ashton genti top five and they just just go crazy attacking mismatches with the tight ends in the passing game i'm taking the raiders i the the gonzalez injury swung me i went back and forth because on the flip side i actually think the patriots offense will have some success and you know i'm not high in the ravens raiders defense at all but the patriots the offense is young i think they're gonna look a lot better later in the season than they do in the beginning and uh gino smith professional quarterback just telling you and i've heard of him yeah this is this is the actual sneaky game for like 35 31 would not surprise me like we this might be like the fireworks 1 p.m game where because then it's this raider secondary against drake may and a retooled wide receiver room and i don't think the patriots wide receiver room is like amazing but if stefan diggs is playing which is expected if demario diggs is playing uh demario duggs excuse me uh hunter henry was good for them last year travia and henderson's got the speed like this this is the sneaky like oh we just got touchdown drive after touchdown drive game it could be fun all right let's take a quick break come back and get to the best games of the week as you know managing maintenance repair and operations is never easy but for the ones who always rise to the challenge granger has your back from professional grade products you can count on to fast, dependable delivery, they're there to help you keep things running smoothly.

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57:45Ben Solak:As you know, managing maintenance, repair, and operations is never easy. But for the ones who always rise to the challenge, Grainger has your back. From professional-grade products you can count on to fast, dependable delivery, they're there to help you keep things running smoothly. Plus, their technical product specialists are here to help answer your toughest questions. And because Grainger knows safety is always a priority, they're committed to being your partner in protecting both your people and your facilities. call 1-800-GRANGER click granger.com or just stop by alright we're back I promise the best games of the week Titans-Broncos Ben there is one more how unfair is it that this is Cam Ward's first start right the big question is can the Titans successfully hand the football off 45 times right that's what you would love to be able to do this retooled offensive line you're going up against this Broncos pass rush Vance Joseph third down blitz packages This was just the best pressure team in football last season.

58:42Okay. You like Calvin Ridley. Do you like him against Pat Sertan? No, you don't like him against Pat Sertan. Who are your secondary options? Fourth round rookie, Alec Iamanor, wider veteran, Tyler Lockett going against Riley Moss and first round, Nicole Jody Baron. Like it, any drop back is not good. They have to live with a lot of Chico Conco and a lot of Tony Pollard out of the backfield when they have to throw. So this team's going to try to run and going to try to shorten this game and keep this thing close and play the turnover game on defense. And I think the Titans running game can be pretty good.

59:08The bad news is just that the Broncos were also first in EPA for play against design runs and also first success rate against design runs on defense last season. They add Greg Greenlaw to short linebacker position. They're going to get Talano Hufanga in the box. They had a Baron to play the nickel. Like, I think it's going to be a very challenging team to run against. And so if the Titans have any way of keeping this thing fun and funky, this is a too high defense. This is a light box keeping in front of us defense. They are a very good tackling secondary with Jarvis Brown, with Roger McCreary.

59:35the Jerry Sneed is expected to make his his well not debut because he did play a couple games last year but he was never really good for them last year he was hurt most of the season now he's got come back 2025 hopefully stronger so if you get the Broncos offensive last year and you're able to make the tackles out or near the line of scrimmage there's a way you can make this a field position in a low scoring game but yeah for Cam Ward it's just they cannot get into a drop back situation which means they cannot fall behind against what's probably gonna be a pretty good offense it feels like a non-starter I just realized you got out of picking like the last four games so i never pick i always forget and okay rapid fire bucks falcons bucks i picked that one okay bangles browns bangles okay this is the one you definitely didn't pick raiders patriots

1:00:17Ben Solak:patriots okay so you were on the opposite sides of that one okay i had a feeling we might be uh yeah i i just wrote can cams ward survive i think and then i wrote can you attack any of the non-sertans um i could see a little tyler lockett sneaky old man game against riley you always see a little tyler locket sneaky old man game you have a vision of that and that lives in your heart i do um you make a good point by the way which is the titans defense is not as bad as people think they are i and i think you know I just don't think like they have no pass rush against this. Don't ask me about edge rusher.

1:00:54Ben Solak:I love it. Just pretend there's edge rush. Doesn't matter. Yeah. The Broncos win this one easily in my mind. Okay. We're going to get to the ones where we're both hitting them, but there's one more Niner Seahawks. I just gave myself. This is a good game. I haven't looked up the lines. Actually, I like to give it a guess. Give it a guess. In Seattle. yeah niners by one niners by two and a half two and a half i am on the seattle seahawks in this game don't like two and a half yeah that is too big the niners had to activate marquez valde scantling today because they have no healthy receivers all right marquez valde scaling revenge game very fast revenge game very sudden um well to that point i actually um wrote can the seahawks replicate what they did in week 11 because um this niners offense looks kind of like it did that week i mean you know one would hope for them that christian mccaffrey is fully himself and and that is i think the biggest x factor all this uh but that was the game the seahawks won the diners did have mccaffrey in that game where and they didn't have iuk of course where it felt like the this is why you hired mike mcdonald game right like the defense and and i was looking back at my notes from that game to try to remember all the things that they did and mccaffrey actually ran the ball fine he had a 47 success rate but they limited him in the passing game with the approach.

1:02:18Ben Solak:They had spoon on him sometimes, which I love. They played a lot of man coverage, which again, I think is something that works well against this. If you could do it against this Niners team, everybody tackled really well. They also had 15 unblocked pressures. San Francisco only had three. It was a Mike McDonald special. It's a lot. It's a lot of unblocked pressures in terms of creating confusion at the line of scrimmage, getting Brock pretty to hold onto the ball because of that tackling well, and then shutting down CMC. It's not the formula, but I think going into this one on that side of the ball, that's my thought is like, you have to kind of pit, you know, put together a pretty similar game plan.

1:03:00I think again,

1:03:01Ben Solak:McCaffrey being peak McCaffrey does change that a little bit because some of those six yard catches become 14 yard catch and runs and whatnot. But yeah, I think that I'm, I'm interested in seeing if they can do it again. Yeah. You brought up the man coverage. This was, this is what they're really hoping to get from Ricky Pierce. So they got from him at the back end of last season, right? He had a 1.01 yards per hour running at zone coverage last year, 2.07 against man coverage. That's where they got him moving at first. And with Iuke on pup and probably not going to be very effective this year, just in general, because how bad that knee injury was and no Debo, Debo Samuel.

1:03:37Pierce is the guy you need to kind of be like the winner, right? You don't want to be in wide receiver one, Jawan Jennings wide receiver to Ricky Pearsall world. That means you're probably suffering for the passing game. And so big Pearsall one, because he's the healthy one, right? Quote unquote, no Jacob Cowling for this game. Obviously no IU. Jawan Jennings is coming back from calf slash I wanted more money, which, you know, to the degree which the calf hurts, I don't know, but he dealt with calf injuries all last year and he didn't play. And so I don't think the calf is like terrible, but I also don't think it's perfect.

1:04:01And so I don't, I expect him to be a little bit rough, a little bit rusty coming back off the bench as well. And then you have Dominic Pune coming back. He's been injured for the last few weeks. Ben Bartsch has been injured for the last few weeks. In the defensive backfield, right? CJ West missed, or excuse me, on the line, CJ West missed time. Alfred Collins missed time. Michael Williams missed time. Upton Stout, their nickel corner missed time. The Niners are playing more young players, a lot of whom missed a lot of training camp and spring practices than any other defense in football. And so there's a lot of excitement for the Niners season long.

1:04:32They have such an easy schedule this season. This game in Seattle, very young defense. going to be a Clint Kubiak offense, which is all eye candy, which is all misdirection. I like the way Seattle matches up early in the season. I don't think we're going to see a great Niners team in week one. I prefer Seattle in this game.

1:04:48Ben Solak:You listing all those injuries is making me... I was pretty close. And to be clear, a lot of those guys are expected to play. No, no, no. I know. They didn't play. They didn't go out of training camp. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I might end up taking Seattle. I'm going to take Seattle. because we get the Kubiak two-week grace period here. Yeah, I mentioned a couple weeks ago that this feels – I was already looking to this as a barometer for the – can the Seahawks run the ball? Did the Niners run defense improved litmus game? Right, yeah, yeah. But the Niners run defense might not be as good early on as they end up being later in the season as well.

1:05:29Ben Solak:Okay, Lions Packers. Yes! I have the Packers. This game is in Green Bay. I wrote, can you attack the inside of the Lions in offensive line? We know that the Lions have had a lot of change there. It's Christian Mahogany, Graham Glasgow, downgrade at center, Tate Rattledge, rookie guard. The Packers added the best pass rusher in football never heard of him uh or the second best depending on how you uh rank him in miles care i'm interested in seeing what jeff haffley does it's kind of like um in top chef when you get like a bonus and you get to go to like the fancy grocery store and add like truffles to your dish or something like it's like you just feel like i'm sure two weeks ago this man didn't know he was going to be given this to work with and now i mean he must be uh and that could mean deploying micah inside as we've seen him do in certain spots not at a great volume but devastatingly so in dallas it could mean lining up him and gary slash van ness on the same side and putting one of it could mean mugging him up at the line of scrimmage and dropping him out and sowing chaos with an inexperienced front it could mean sending edger and cooper through the middle there's just so many things you can do now with this group of path rushers uh so yeah i i think detroit's going to go very run heavy in this and i'm sure you will talk about that from the lions standpoint but from a pressure standpoint uh the world just opened up for green bay having michael parsons and having no film on what you're going to do with him yet against a team with three new interior offensive line starters is an extremely big deal.

1:07:22And I know there is, I think some understandable, some deserved consternation about, okay, how much is Parsons going to have his teeth into the playbook? You know, how many plays can be available to him, you know, on the early trade? Micah's a smart cookie. Micah's like football, very smart. And I think that they're gonna be able to get a lot of, you know, third down designer stuff ready for this game. I don't think that's gonna be too big of an issue too early.

1:07:43Ben Solak:Hey, Micah, you're faster and more powerful than everyone. See if you can figure out. And there's right. And there's, so there's like, you know, the play calling and the timing of the blitzes and the stunts and who picks who and how do we adjust like all that exists. But then there's also the fact that in 2023, when the Cowboys played the lions, Michael Parsons rushed against Penny Sewell 18 times, got five pressures. It's the worst game Penny Sewell has played since his rookie season. Was it five pressure games? The most anybody's gotten against them in the last three years is that Penny's whole shtick is okay.

1:08:12I'm just a better athlete than you. And there's legitimately one dude in football who says, well, well, that doesn't work today. And it's, it's the guy now lining up opposite him playing, wearing zero one. What's he wearing? Either way. I didn't like it. Yeah. Yeah. So last year when the Packers played the lions and this was true, they play the Vikings as well, but they just could not pressure these pocket passers. They could not consistently get after them on the first and 10, the second and 10 dropbacks. The fact that they have Mike in out of move golf off of his spot, right? My, my note for the lions was how do we protect golf?

1:08:42I brought Daniel Jones's difference between pressured and unpressured EPA Goff is almost as big, fourth biggest in football. You've got to be able to pressure Goff to beat the Lions. It's that simple. I know, okay, offensive coordinator change, defensive coordinator change, there's stuff going on. But the truth, the nut of it is still, can you pressure Jared Goff? And for the Packers last year, the answer was unequivocally no. For the answer this year, especially because they have no tendencies yet on Parsons. Oh, when they put him here, they do this. I really think they're going to get a lot of unblocked pressure, a lot of easy pressure, going to hassle Jared in a new-ish offense.

1:09:11I'm excited about it. I think Packers defense shines.

1:09:13Ben Solak:Nerdy Kind of diversion I wonder I don't know if this is going to be A season long thing or this game If we see Detroit Maybe go back to a little bit more Gap runs versus they were Primarily outside zoned I think In my mind when I think about the Constitution of this Packers defense I think that would work better against them I don't know if they can if they have the ability to push guys around on the inside the way that they have in the past. But I would like to, if I was thinking about just purely just Green Bay from a matchup perspective, that's something I would rather see more of. They got to run the ball in this, right?

1:09:59Ben Solak:Like, you know, we're talking about pressure and Jared Goff, like we're dancing around the dumb football guy basic thing here. Just got to run the damn ball. Yeah, and they got to run the ball. And then I also think you want to take your isolation shots, right? A big part of what this offense has been, has been, you know, the slot play and the tight end play, but Nate Hobbs has not practiced yet this week, right? That is Wednesday. He did not practice on Wednesday. He's been banged up for weeks. I don't think we're going to see Hobbs in this game, which means the corner room in green Bay is thin, thin.

1:10:26And so this is absolutely a run, run, run game, but I'm happy to run, run, run, and then get to the point where I get McKinney deep middle and I get, you know, a backup corner up against Jamison Williams. Then you gotta be able to connect on those passes, but that explosive element shouldn't be abandoned because these corners are eminently gettable on the outside for green Bay with no Hobbs.

1:10:43Ben Solak:So I think that's kind of like the paradox here for Detroit, not paradox, but like he's even if Nate Hobbs was playing, their receivers are better than the Packers corners. Like as much enthusiasm as I've had about the Packers this week. And I, you know, we were just talking about the pressure. This is not a good quarterback room. That is the glaring weakness. It's kind of an issue across the league and we're going to get to a couple other teams too. But Detroit, that's their single-base advantage in this game, right? Their pass catchers against the Green Bay secondary, the corners, actually not the secondary, the question is just how do you buy time for Jared?

1:11:23Ben Solak:And yeah, that's going to be an interesting challenge for the new play caller. I mean, finding ways to mitigate Parsons and the Parsons effect without knowing how he's going to be used, right? Because it's not like they're going to just let you – one thing, if you knew Micah Parsons was just going to rush on one side the entire game and that the Green Bay Packers were going to send for, okay, cool, we're going to boot Jared out, we're going to chip, we're going to do this, but you don't know. So there's a mystery element to all of this that is going to be really challenging from a matchup perspective.

1:11:57Ben Solak:Just quickly to hit the other side of the ball, I mean, I find it to be a very even matchup, frankly, between this Packers offense and the Lions defense. You know, I don't, you know, I mentioned like the, you know, the Lions having the single base advantage being their receivers against those corners. I don't see any true edges. I don't know. Do you feel that way when you look at the Lions defense and the Packers offense? I think they're pretty evenly matched. No, I don't. I think that if anything, the thinness of the Lions defensive line, we have to remember no Ali McNeil in this game. He's not going to be back early.

1:12:30They lost Levi and was a re-cated injury. they had not added an edge rusher opposite in hudgson so it's going to be marcus davenport i i would when you add aaron banks to me and the packers team is like a third highest in run rate over expectation last year that's a sign that we want to be able to out physical some teams in the box and the lions will put enough bodies in there to handle the business but you should be able to get movement off the line of scrimmage right run away from hudgson or honestly what i would prefer to do run at hudgson and slow down the pass rush right make him really feel the double teams feel the tucker craft feel the zach tom and the rashid walker and try to take the air out of his pass rush game that i think is is the packers edge you gotta protect love from love's self right because this is gonna this is a blitz and man coverage heavy team which means that love would like to average 39 air yards per attempt and you gotta hide him from his worst demons there a little bit which means to me you gotta establish the run yeah um

1:13:23Ben Solak:love has historically been pretty good against the blitz right um but week one. Yeah, it's because he rips off enormous gains, but there could be bad games in there. This feels like it's going to be such a crazy narrative game for both teams, right? A lot of things. You talked about the overreactions, whether or not... If the Lions run the ball really well, it's going to be Micah Parsons ruin the Packers run defense. If Micah Parsons goes crazy, it's going to be Packers. Just unstoppable force. I think both of these are really good football teams, and I think both have different matchup advantages i have been leaning green bay because of the surprise element even though i know there's some uncertainty about i i i think he's gonna play a fair amount and because it's in green bay i if it was in detroit i'd probably pick detroit i i that's how close this is for me it's green bay i agree with that if this was in detroit i think it would be detroit no need hobbs probably no jaden reed as well also do not practice on wednesday i will say that they're like, you know, there is a, the Packers wide receiver room is always more exciting in theory than it is in practice.

1:14:31And I think right now, if you pulled a hundred NFL fans, Hey, it's Matthew golden, Don Tavian wicks and Romeo Dobbs. How excited are we? They'd be like, we're thrilled fantasy football. Gold is a first round pick, dude. There's some worlds where like Dobbs drop wicks drop. Golden's not ready. And the Packers lose this because just the wide receiver room, isn't like, it's gotta be nine Tucker craft targets, which I wouldn't mind because craft is sick, but you know, Kirby Joseph and Brian branch, it's not where you want to be going after this Lions defense. And so I have my, as I always do, internal issue with the Packers, which is that until I see emphatically that a wide receiver one exists in this team on a week-to-week basis, I will continue to have some doubts against them in top defenses.

1:15:09Matthew Golden, Terry and Arnold,

1:15:12Ben Solak:AJ Reid, probably Terry and Arnold gets a fair amount. That's going to be massive. I wonder if they put them in the slot more in this game because... You think? Well, there's no Reid. Yeah. So Wicks, Dobbs, and him, obviously, like, you know, they're going to be too tight end quite a bit, I think, with Musgrave healthy this season. But I don't know. If you want to go against Amik, still, it's Amik Robertson. So it's not even like you're getting a matchup there. Yeah. I do. I like how they hypothetically match up against the perimeter of Green Bay. Yes. I would just like to see it and then believe it.

1:15:46Ben Solak:Yeah, I hear you. Okay. Texans-Rams. I sent this to you. it was a quote from D 'Amico Ryans I go to the Texans D 'Amico Ryans told reporters Sunday's game at the Rams should come down to which offensive line does the best job of blocking talented D-lines and I said we did all this work and he just tweeted out just roll the clip and we'll move on to Bill's Ravens I mean I'm on the Rams you're on the Texans but like it's the same it's the exact same story on both sides this did give me a chance to revisit a debate you and I have been having in the text which is can this Texans offensive line you have to I feel like I'm losing this debate a lot in the text I don't know if I need to put on the pod the premise of the debate is can the Texas offensive line improve by getting worse here is the current composition of the offensive line so you have a rookie Aaron Tayursery who they're very excited about at left tackle but he is a rookie uh okay Lakin Tomlinson who was not good enough for the Seahawks uh Jake Andrews Ed Ingram not good enough That's the one that hurts, man.

1:16:47That's because when they gave it for Ingram, I was like, you've got to be kidding me.

1:16:51Ben Solak:And then Titus Howard, who's proven to be a decent right tackle. This is one where, to be fair, I think because Arisari is a rookie, it could get better as the season gets along. The argument all offseason has been that Nick Cayley and the scheme and CJ Stroud and learning how to handle stunts will salvage what on paper looks like a pretty tough unit. And we can talk about Jared Verse against a rookie, but how about Kobe Turner against this interior, man? Like, I'm not loving it. Not loving it for CJ Stroud. Puna Ford, Braden Fisk against this interior. Like, they're a penetration front, right?

1:17:33That's what they want to be, is they want to be able to disrupt you. They'll have Puna on the early downs for some of the run defense stuff. But in general, it's just going to be a lot of quick pressure on Stroud. and I don't know the degree to which Nick Caley is capable of scheming up a quick passing game to move the ball down the field at like you know when he was with the Patriots obviously they were a quick passing team but they would do so down the field because they were so prolific certainly when he was at the Rams it's not a quick passing team are they gonna boot Stroud out a bunch and try to move make and make plays on the move I I wouldn't mind that to me that'd be my answer Stroud's a better mover and thrower in the move than people give him credit for last year yeah but you're exactly you're Baker Mayfielding it right like that is a band-aid that is not an offense that that functions for 18 weeks.

1:18:12They don't have a corner who should be able to handle Nico Collins. But the problem is Chris Shula showed us last year. He'll play zone. He'll get a safety on top. He'll make somebody else beat you. And then it becomes a Christian Kirk game and adult and Schultz game. And anytime you make the Texans play a Christian Kirk game and adult and Schultz game, I think you're winning. And so this is, yeah, it is for us. Texan stockholders, man, it's just not, they don't look great in this matchup or the season.

1:18:34Ben Solak:Well, I have good news. The Texans defensive line is also terrifying. um and they go against the Rams offensive line that I think on paper is better but you have Alaric Jackson who's at the moment he's gonna play who's our left tackle but um you know there's been question marks around him with the blood clots kind of crazy that he's playing with one by the way like when that injury came down I was like oh I don't know about that um Matthew Stafford who who is also playing which was a question mark at some points and gotta think he's not gonna enjoy feeling the pressure in this one um i'm interested in uh the davante adams of it all in this game texans defense we know loves to play man coverage last year the rams were much worse against man coverage because they didn't have anyone outside of uh puka who could beat it well now they have davante adams so you know but he's going up against best corner duo one of the best duos in football, right?

1:19:35Ben Solak:So I think that's an interesting like strength on strength matchup from both sides. Yeah, and they're not going to hide where Kamari Lassiter is. They'll play Stingley on the one side and Lassiter on the other, and so you can go get the matchup if you want. I'm just not sure you want the matchup. Like Kamari's good, legit good, no, oh, for a rookie, for a second corner, no, this was a great season last season. Now, Devontae, you know, Kamari's a very aggressive corner, and he's a grabby corner, and Devontae can make those guys pay with penalties, make those guys pay with releases, and so that matchup is a big one.

1:20:03I just like if you're D 'Amico first, he has been very good against big Bay. Like he was the defensive coordinator in San Francisco for two years. He played, he played the Matthew Stafford Rams four times. They, they gave up 24, 10, 14, and nine points over the course of those four games, right? Points per drive of only 1.43 EPA per drop back of negative 0.05. Like that D 'Amico plays the sort of defense that takes advantage of pocket passers and doesn't give you zone, like, you know, soft zone coverage to eat up. They're going to play close routes, physical. They're going to knock off your timing, right?

1:20:34They're going to hit you when you come off the line of scrimmage. You're going to motion. Okay. We're fast too. And we will hit you while you're on your route, Stan. Like they are, this is a tough, tough defense in terms of how McVay wants to play it. Then you have a quarterback McVay with a bad back. Like, you know, this uncomfortable reality of football, the Texans are just going to blitz in the first quarter until they hit them. Right. Like you, I would, you feel so comfortable giving up seven points on the first drive. If you're, even if you're sending six, do you just want to hit Stafford three times?

1:21:00Like, okay. The guy's back hurts and he's 34 years old. we're just going to hit him as early and as often as possible. We're going to make him feel the ground. We're going to make him feel with Anderson and Daniel Hunter. We're going to get Jalen Petrie to hit him with a, with a runway with a 10 yard runway. We're going to see how much he wants to play football in the fourth quarter. And so if you, if you look at this Texans defense, how they matched up historically against this sort of offense, and then with their ability to heat up the quarterback, like I am scared, like legitimately scared for Matthew Stafford and what this week one game might look like.

1:21:25Ben Solak:He's 37. Goodness gracious. Um, yeah, That's part of the reason why I actually ended up picking the Texans in this. Because the difference between the Texans and the Rams is one of the biggest differences is they both have really good pass rushes. The Rams secondary is still not great. It's still a problem. I feel like everyone just kind of memory-holded this last year, how bad the pass defense was for most of the year because they played well at the very end. I don't look at the depth chart and think it's fixed. I think that the Texans receivers can win most of those matchups, quite frankly. Question is just kind of whether or not CJ Stroud can survive and get the ball out quickly.

1:22:10Ben Solak:I don't, I think I don't love is I don't think the Texans are going to be good at running the ball at all. I guess it's a running game question to me is the, is the big one for this game because I think the Texans are not going to, it's Nick trail behind this line. I think that's just bad. If you're the Rams, Oh man, it would be so nice to run the football in this game. Oh, it'd be perfect for Stafford. Take advantage of an aggressive defense. Get to the play action pass. Like, it would be delightful. This was the second worst run game by the league last year by explosive run rate. This was a bottom 10 game by success rate.

1:22:40Like, they are just too incremental. They don't break enough tackles in the backfield. And it's Houston, man. Like, they are going to get TFLs. Like, I wish the Rams did more to improve the running game this year. I think it is the number one thing that McVay has overlooked in the Stafford era is he just got too tunneled on like, I can always create a six yard gain with Puka with cup and with the fast passing game. It's like, dude, sometimes you need to run the ball and they're just not there.

1:23:03Ben Solak:They run it and they draft backs. A lot of interesting things with the Rams offense. Curious to see whether or not they put two tight ends on the field. Terrence Ferguson. Yeah, he got some run during the preseason. It looked great. I think they're really excited about him. How he progresses as a blocker, I think, could go a long way towards determining, to your point, what the ceiling is for this Rams offense. Yeah, I don't know. The Texans offensive line, we started there, gives me a lot of pause. It's just that's like the team's only weakness. So it is a very bad weakness, potentially. I guess run game is also a weakness, and that kind of factors into that.

1:23:43Ben Solak:Are you Rams or Texans in this one before we move on? Rams are a three and a half point favorite at home. I'm on the Texans spread. I think I'm Texans straight up. It's a very, it's a, someone's going to have a sack fumble inside the 20. It's going to decide this game, right? It's going to come down to turnovers and field position and kind of who gets the key hit, the key spot. So I think I'm Texans, money line, I'm definitely Texans against the spread. I don't know if this is going to be like a game that I enjoy because of the defense and then the battle and the physicality are a game that I watched through fingers over my face because two of my dear, dear, dear, most beloved quarterbacks were getting obliterated for four quarters.

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1:26:23Ben Solak:All right. Well, speaking of beloved quarterbacks, Ravensbills, Ian Buffalo. what is the line on this one yeah i guess it's in buffalo

1:26:38ravens by one ravens by one and a half well done mina kine set the lines in vegas

1:26:43Ben Solak:watch out bill simmons um okay you're baltimore what's your key for baltimore i think baltimore should zag spread the field out pass and attack the corners yeah i'm glad i'm getting a nod from you because this was hard who are the bills corners right so uh theory christian benford and maxwell harrison the first round rookie harrison got injured in camp he's out he's not gonna be able to play okay second theory christian benford and tradavious white who he brought in in free agency tradavious white injured lower leg they're trying to get him to go this week we will see even if he does tradavious white benford hasn't practiced since august 21st sean mcdermott said wednesday availability on Benford week one quote, we'll see close quote, which to me means no, in which case we are dealing with an extremely thin and susceptible, uh, outside corner group for, for the Buffalo bills.

1:27:34Now the Ravens have been an issue for the bills defense in the past few seasons because the bills live in nickel, as we all well know. And the Ravens say, ha ha, we will put two tight ends on the field. We will put Patrick Ricard on the field. We will run it right. The, in the division round game last year, the bills played 19 defensive snaps in base. It It was the most base they played in legitimately three seasons, those 19 snaps. Second most was the regular season game against the Ravens, where they played 14 snaps. But Baltimore is not going to have Isaiah Leckie for this game. And Patrick Ricard is also not practicing, right?

1:28:06And so unless you want to make it a Charlie Kohler game, which they weirdly love Charlie Kohler there, they might want to make it a Charlie Kohler game. This is the DeAndre Hopkins game. This is the, we're going to actually put three receivers on the field, and we're going to win our coverage opportunities with Zay Flowers and Rashad Bateman, which feels left-handed for Baltimore, but also you made the Todd Monk in investment and Lamar's been so good passing it that you might as well. It was what you did it for.

1:28:28Ben Solak:I hear something about being the Baltimore Ravens. When you go into 11, you're also unbelievable running the football because you have the best rushing quarterback in the NFL. So it's not like going into 11 neutralizes their rushing attack or when they're like an empty gut, like Lamar is such a nightmare back there. they don't face a lot of the same issues as yeah look up those run numbers out of empty ben if that's what you're doing i know they're really good um come on now yeah i wrote um whoever's not benford just go crazy uh flowers bateman but even if benford you know maybe we'll see how he looks but yeah i wrote the receivers i would go absolutely ham in this one on attacking those and honestly the safeties too man this is not a good safety duo like the bill secondary last year I've talked about this they were incredibly dependent on turnovers and they invested a lot in the defensive line there's young players and there's Joey Bosa and they drafted a guy in the first round but he got hurt and I just worry about this Bill's secondary I think that it's very possible Bill's fans that your defense looks better at the end of the season than it does week one I think this is just a very difficult situation for them yeah When you hear them talk about Cole Bishop, second, your safety, he's got to be a starter for them.

1:29:48They're like, well, he's got to figure it out and we've got to get good with it. And it's just, they're back seven is at a point where they're going to play very passive and they're going to, you know, not necessarily let you rip it all off in two, three or four plays, but there's a lot of air in the past defense in, in, in Buffalo right now. And they're trying to solve that problem to a degree in the pass rush, right. With the additions of, of Joey Bosa, but also with the additions of Larry Ogunjobi, Michael Hoyt, both of them are not available for this game because of suspensions.

1:30:15Ben Solak:and then right your rookie yeah yeah second round pick rookie third round pick landon jackson who are rookies in this week one and you just don't think you're going to get a lot of impact from them and so i don't know like i i the running from 11 and the running from spread i agree with you baltimore is very good at it they prefer to go big against the the the bills excuse me because the bill is just so small and so light along the defensive line but you still should be able to get henry interior runs right from 11 something you're able to do it's not your favorite way to do it, but you can do it.

1:30:44The other guy who's very important to them against the Bills is Justice Hill because they'll get that fast throw out of the backfield against that cover two against those soft zones. They're so efficient on those plays. It's just keeping the train on the tracks. I think that they're going to continue to look great on offense. I just think stylistically, they have to choose to be a little bit different than they typically choose to be against Buffalo because who's hurt for them and who's hurt for the other guys.

1:31:08Ben Solak:I got the Bills side of this. I'm going completely opposite. pound the dang rock is what i wrote um this ravens defense the raven secondary is stacked right it's week one jerry lexander's playing by the way right like um and it's hard to find weaknesses and the ravens defense second linebacker maybe you know you're you're kind of picking nits um brandon stevens is gone he was the guy but one thing that you know i like i'm as high on the Ravens as anyone. I officially submitted them as my Super Bowl pick to ESPN.com. It's not a brave pick. Everyone, you know, whatever. I took the Ravens to make it to the Super Bowl.

1:31:53And when I sent it, I was like, I feel like this is so chalky. And they're like, no, no, no, it's fine. And I looked at the picks. I'm like, no, this is chalk. I'm very upset.

1:32:02Ben Solak:One thing that concerns me a bit is the loss of Michael Pierce. Throw this out here. that was there for those who don't know their run stuffing defensive tackle mountain of a man again last season is last season but I'm just remembering the bills just grounding them down grinding them down on the ground they had a 55 % success rate running the football on Baltimore in the AFC divisional round they're really able to run it on the Ravens sub packages when Pierce was on the field and he wasn't on, you know, he put Travis Jones and nickel looks, you take Pierce off. They had a 70 % success rate against the crowd.

1:32:48I brought this exact loss up when I was talking about who's going to be the best defensive football this year. And Ravens were mad at me because they were like, Pierce only played 254 snaps. Like, how's this a big loss? It's the fact that he's so good is why he only played 254 because they didn't need him on the second down because he was already second and pass. Yes.

1:33:03Ben Solak:When, when he was, they, they only allowed an 11 % first down rate on the ground. I mean, for those who don't, I know that sounds like nothing. If you don't, those are insane numbers, like for against the run. Now, when they took them off, they were still good against the run. So it's not like, whoa, Micah Parsons, he's the best. They go to the best of worst. I'm just saying, I don't, I, you know, if I'm looking at this defense and I'm picking knits and I'm thinking about like where I, what I would do. I might try to run the ball. They did add John Jenkins, veteran defensive tackle, but Buffalo is very good at running the ball.

1:33:39They're very good at running it between the tackle.

1:33:43Ben Solak:So that's, I would lean heavily into the ground game against this team. Yeah. And the linebacker two spot with Trenton Simpson is an important spot to test on this Ravens defense as well. Trenton was the starter last year, but eventually just lost the reps to depth players because he was struggling so much all the depth players are gone it's Simpson again as the starter and this is not a huge body and he doesn't particularly like physicality super much between the tackles that's how you want to go after him and and a big part of Buffalo's presumed post-season success right the Joe Brady change to the offense was we're going to be better running the ball we're going to be better short quick passing game so we can play incremental styles and we can eat up a little bit more clock we have a little bit more ball possession not turn the football over Obviously, you know, didn't get to a Super Bowl, but in the win against Baltimore, a big part of that win was they were able to minimize possessions in that game after they got the early lead, right?

1:34:32He said, okay, now that we have it, let's make this, let's not give Lamar Jackson one extra drive, two extra drives to kind of chip his way back. And that ends up being a huge deal because missed two point conversion and there's not enough time on the clock to get this thing back. So absolutely got to be a running game, running game, running game. The thing that Baltimore did to Buffalo last year is eventually they said, okay, Kyle Hamilton's in the box. Okay. You know, were gapped out. Buffalo said, all right, now it's time for our one-on-ones. And it was Brandon Stevens against Keon Coleman.

1:34:56And it was, you know, a growing young player versus a guy who got picked on a lot and so on and so forth. Now it's going to be Jerry Alexander and it's going to be your two Keon Coleman and those, okay. They're clearly giving us a one-on-one pre-snap. We got to throw the ball down the field. We got to punish them out of this look. Mathematically, we have to throw this one-on-one to the outside. That becomes really important now to see what Keon looks like in year two. Maybe that's a Josh Palmer snap now instead of a Keon snap, who knows? but that that matchup it's not brayden stevens anymore and buffalo got some good juice out of that last year this year we'll see what it looks like with jay here why didn't i football vikings bears you want to pick bill sorry i picked the ravens in this i think the bills win it i think the bills win really in week one i do i think that buffalo

1:35:38Ben Solak:i think there's just some dumb lamar like like some dumb ravens i think the secondary is extremely concerning but i also think their ability to to out to beat them in the offensive trenches is difficult to overstate. This offensive line has been together for two straight years. They've been so, so, so healthy. They're so good running the football. James Cook was back. He had practices. He was actually going to be up to speed. Josh Allen in a big game environment at home. Yeah, I think it's going to be the Bills. Close game, though. I think it'll be close. I think that... It's going to come down to a two-point conversion.

1:36:06Ben Solak:Well, I think when we talk about the advantages, which is the Ravens passing the ball and straying from their identity, and then you've got the Bills leading into their identity in some ways, grinding it. You can see that working in the Bills' favor. I I just think, unless Lamar turns over the football, as I was alluding to, I think the Ravens are just more talented than Buffalo. All right, Vikings-Bears. I'll go first. I'm on the home team, Chicago. We will be there for NFL Live. Oh, sick. Yeah. Come say hi. My neck of the woods. Are you going? No, but I'm just in the Midwest, generally. I'll wave at you across the lake.

1:36:40Midwest. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:36:43Ben Solak:Okay. So, I know last season is last season. but I my key for Chicago as I reorient my legs um I wrote Caleb Williams play like you did in week 12 because I thought that was the best game of his entire season oh I forgot that that bike that particular Vikings game was so good yeah and I think the way he played and the way they attacked them are things that Ben Johnson is going to lean into I think they're saying they're also just things you have to do against this Brian Flores Vikings defense so going back and looking at my notes. It was the third worst EPA per play game of the Vikings defensive season.

1:37:20Ben Solak:Caleb had a 2.42 second time to throw. He was outstanding against the blitz. He found the holes that open up with those zone blitzes that the Vikings like to throw at quarterbacks. He had six scrambles, which is another thing I think you need to do against this defense. They killed them with screens. They had a screen to Moore that popped off for nearly 40 yards. and then also got him with crossers again into those zone voids. Ben Johnson knows this Vikings defense. He knows them well, and I know they like to mix it. It's not going to be exactly the same as it's been in years past. They're betting that they're going to be improved on the interior of the defensive line, but I think we have seen offenses, quarterbacks attack this Vikings defense in specific ways with success, and I think Caleb has shown that he's capable of, And I think Ben Johnson knows how to do it.

1:38:11Yeah. To that point, Ben Johnson, four games coordinating against Flores and he's with the lions, 30 points, twice, 31 points, twice the average 0.12 EPA per play 0.27 EPA per drop back. The first question you have to ask whenever an offensive coach is going against Brian Flores is okay. Is this guy going to get his lunch money taken by Flores, right? Is the force can be able to out scheme this dude out blitz and knows the protection rule is going to be able to, to just beat him before the ball snapped with Ben. It's an emphatic. like Ben has had Flores, his number. Now that was with golf. and now it's Caleb, right?

1:38:39And so my big key for the Vikings is like disorient, pre-snap, chaos, right? You know, the Sherlock Holmes mean like, oh, discombobulate, right? Like it's that. You have a left tackle carousel and now you have a guy in Braxton Jones who's a little bit oriented on penalties. You have an entirely new interior offensive line, right? Doing with a lot of movement, guys changing gaps, pre-snap, post-snap or sending dudes from depth. And then you have Caleb who's going to be trying to make long play calls, a lot of reads, get the line of scrimmage. They're going to have to can calls like that Ben Johnson has the whole offense on Caleb's plate right now so if I'm Flores I am showing you everything pre-snap I'm I'm giving you complete and total chaos with matchups who's lined up where who's spinning where I'm gonna try to make you make a lot of procedural errors I'm gonna try to get the cheap interceptions the cheap sacks the unblocked pressures the bad penalties because I think that yeah Caleb has the talent to make throws in the windows that are afforded by this chaotic defense when you move guys around like this there's going to be space and you can get the ball out fast enough you're like left tackle is going to be an issue but like you said Caleb got the ball out quickly in week 12.

1:39:37And so you have to be able to make the bears make the young team errors, especially with critical loss. No camp on them anymore for the Minnesota Vikings. He was the deep middle safety, highly productive on the football because he had the range and he had the recognition. That's Theo Jackson. Now a very inexperienced player. They're excited about him. They love him, but an inexperienced player. And so you're not gonna be able to get the, the deep middle plays that you used to write some of the pass breakups, the interceptions. You got to have to find the cheaper wins by being really chaotic pre-snap.

1:40:04this is all about Caleb because I love the Vikings front seven.

1:40:10Ben Solak:The bears are more talented than to pardon me. The bear skill players are more talented than the Vikings corners. I really, yeah. It's Jeff Akuta corner too, which is, you know, we all love a Jeff Akuta, but it's concerning. Yeah. Just got to get them the ball, you know? So it's, it really, this is like such a great test early on for this young quarterback play call their marriage. um very interested in seeing if he can put them in both more manageable third down so vikings love to send pressure on early downs can you run on some of those that's what worries me is the swift and the running game i wish they improved but also the vikings were gettable in the interior last year and they swapped out and javon hargrave for harris and phillips and i'm not convinced that that's a net gain in that interior and if you're worried about guard center guard handling blitzes and stunts and twists and preset movement and you know what you call inside zone and you just run up between the tackles and hopefully hopefully deandre swift goes where he's supposed to go when he's supposed to go there but i wouldn't like you know it'd be great i really like the bears more if i felt confident they could run it between the tackles and i just don't know that for sure yet about this team what is your key for minnesota yeah so that like the discombobulate the disorient right i said like defensively offensively notes wise like you thinking about what Dennis Allen is going to be on defense.

1:41:31Ben Solak:Okay. Yeah. Yeah. My main thing is, all right, you made, you made your big investment in the running game this year, right? New left guard and Donovan Jackson, new center and Ryan Kelly, new right guard and Will fries. You had a Jordan Mason in the running game. This is JJ McCarthy's first start. It is on the road in Chicago, a loud place to play in prime time, right? Evening game. And listen, McCarthy, like, you know, when he was with Michigan, like he rose to the big games, he rose to the Cajuns. I understood he's a clutch guy. This is a big ask, right? You go over the last 10 years, quarterbacks in their first start have won their first game 30 % of the time.

1:42:05Even if you look at just first round quarterbacks, it's less than 30 % of the time. It's hard to get out there the first one and not make errors. You have got to be able to get to third and short and get some of the offense off of this guy's shoulders. No Jordan Addison in this game as well, right? Because of the suspensions, you're bringing Adam Thielen in. Justin Jefferson had the hamstring injury. I don't think this is going to be like, oh you know three heroic jefferson catches two heroic addison catches and all of a sudden we're up 17 to nothing because our receivers are just that good i don't think that's available to the vikings in this one so passing game ain't gonna solve you right christian darosal is probably gonna play in this game but he's coming off a major injury like you have to be able to run run run run run or dennis allen's gonna start putting coverages out there that jay jim mccarthy doesn't have a lot of comfort with they have an improved pass rush theoretically this can get gnarly quick

1:42:48Ben Solak:so you gotta run it this is where one of those like wait he might not play moments got me by surprise Jalen Johnson. Yes. Yeah. Also, I forgot about him. That's been very, very big deal. I don't love that for Chicago against Justin Jefferson. I know they don't have Jordan Addison. And it actually makes me wonder, like if Jalen Johnson doesn't play, does Dennis Allen play significantly less man? Are you comfortable manning up Justin Jefferson with? I'm not. No. And Allen's always been a bracket guy. And my guess is that they'll they'll bracket him kind of independent whether it's jalen or not just because if adam feeling bt adam feeling b2 but you want to be able to play some zone at least in some bracket some like match coverage at least because you want to test mccarthy's iq it tests the speed there in the pocket um so i think they're gonna throw a lot of stuff at jefferson just in general it's a silly stat that i was looking at before i saw the jalen johnson injury you know how many yards per catch justin jefferson average versus man coverage last year yards per catch for catch yeah like high teens like 17.3 24 that's stupid which was the most in the nfl it wasn't like a ton of targets um because he does not face a lot of man coverage and he doesn't get you know uh i just thought that was very funny um yeah i think that's what the jalen johnson kind of threw a wrench into like my expectations for what i think this defense is going to look like because i think under dennis allen it's going to be i'm going to see a lot more press you're going to see more cover to man you can see all that but i don't know if you're to see that against justice Everson week one, if Jalen Johnson doesn't play.

1:44:20Ben Solak:So that's an injury. It's Monday night. So that's one you got to really monitor very closely. The running thing is huge. I think from the bears perspective, it's kind of flowing off of your, what you're saying about the run. I'd like to see if they can get better at defending play action this year. Yeah. This is a bit, you brought this up last year. I remember it was a big split, huge issue for them last season. And I, I just think the Vikings are going to go spam it this season with just with JJ. So yeah, I, uh, and if they do play, yeah. Yeah. The Kevin O 'Connell game plan for JJ McCarthy is like, is without quite one of the most fascinating things to me.

1:44:57Ben Solak:He's had all summer to think about this game. And, and then like we, they've, they've said a lot of things out loud and then there's been a lot of training camp reports and then there's been preseason, yeah, whatever. It's all ephemeral. Now we have to talk about it in July and August. I get it, but now it's September. This is real football. And I saw what this offense looked like when you had an imperfect quarterback, but still a guy you trusted back there in Sam Donald. I saw what it looked like. I saw four second long dropbacks and big concepts, three guys going down the field. We're going to let you read this out.

1:45:25Like I know what it looked like when you said, okay, he's not great, but he's got an arm. He's got a trigger and we can go. So if we walk out there and it's screen swing, quick game, whatever, I will know what that tells me. And so I'm fascinated to see what, what, what, where O 'Connell decides McCarthy needs to be protected and what he can do well. I'm so

1:45:41Ben Solak:interested but also it's week one and it's you know brian flores so what we see from him this week yeah you might be like the best coaching matchup in the nfl counting both sides both coordinators this is big boy football right here um very excited for that four brilliant coaches two uh inexperienced quarterbacks sneaky good bears defense that might be missing their best player you know there's just lots of i've gone back and forth on this one i'm gonna go minnesota here i don't feel great about it because i do like this bears defense a lot but i think of all the four units on the field i probably feel the best about the bikers defense i am chicago and i felt better about it before the jaylen thing i really thought jaylen was going to practice this week um i think like uh home dogs in the division tend to be pretty good early in the season uh and chicago's in a spot where i think that johnson's familiarity with flores is a huge difference maker in this game i just think that it's not that he's got flores's numbers it's not that simple but he knows the pressure points to hit in terms of how to make the middle of the field windows open up how to negate some of the blitz stuff by getting the ball out quick uh i'm confident in johnson's ability to scheme it up and then i think caleb is going to be good enough that the bears get it done at home so i like chicago all right thursday night football cowboys i forgot we still have this game oh my god you might have already seen it by the time you're listening to it that's why we're doing it at the end um i have uh been doing an eagles show every other week all philly with beau wolf ej smith love though um so i'm like more locked into the eagles than usual this year i have been the eagles cb2 battle has been like i i am dialed in um so i suspect we're gonna talk about that when you talk about dallas so why don't you go first because it's it's so the obvious thing with i mean not to you know but like it is very much like i mean i have i have two notes i'm making this competitive yeah i have two notes which the first is let's see that improved run defense all right 30th and success rate last year against a side runs 30 second you pay for rest how jerry jones could not have timed it any worse to be like we had to trade Micah Parsons to improve the run.

1:48:02Ben Solak:Did he forget they were playing Philadelphia week one? Right. And also like, did you just discover run defense? Did you just hear about it? Like he said it 42 times in the presser, like what during week 14 last year, we couldn't figure this out. Anyway, Kenny Clark is there now in the first game against Saquon. They were actually pretty decent. He had 14 carries for 66 yards. Also, they lost that game 34 to six. They had turnovers and whatever. Second game, 31 carries for 167 yards. Not as good, but you are an improved interior defensive front with Kenny Clarkosa, Digizua, and you're getting an Eagles front that has Tyler Steen in for Mekhi Becton and Landon Dickerson, who's going to play in this game, has been banged up and meniscus issue is probably not going to be 100%.

1:48:42So there are some worlds where it's better on the interior than it's been previously. You can get the Eagles to a couple more third down dropbacks. Then you're in the world where Trevon Diggs is also playing in this game despite him having a big injury and it's aj brown it's like okay i don't know how much better run defense will help but it certainly will put more on jaylen hurts's plate more in the past directions plate that's where you want to be as a defense okay that's the plan on that side of the ball then offensively this is a very very big deal cd lamb has not had a good running mate in quite some time right the last three second leading receivers for cd lamb have been jake ferguson dalton schultz and then last season it was jalen tolbert i want to say.

1:49:20And so we just have not seen good secondary options to punish those teams who double or get safeties on top of CD lamb or who punish the corner too. And the Cowboys want to go the other direction. Enter George Pickens is unquestionably the best running mate lamb has had since 2021 Gallup before the injury that against the Eagles corner to Quinn and Mitchell is going to be playing on one side and they experimented with traveling Mitchell and camp. So he might move around a little bit, even if flame goes into the slots, Cooper to Jean, it's going to be one side of the formation on the other side it's going to be either a dory jackson the leading that right now yeah keely ringo jacorian bennett up against george pickens and you're gonna have to throw your way into this game if you're dallas you're not gonna be able to run it well against this eagles front like you just don't have a good rushing attack you don't have a good back it's got to be a george game it's got to be that five target 94 yard and a touchdown george game that we all know he's very capable of that's where that's where you're going to be able to stay in this if you're dallas yeah um i better not see brian schottenheimer punt

1:50:18Ben Solak:once you're past the 40. If you are a serious man, if you want any chance in this one, if you punt past your own 45, I am turning it off. I'm not turning it off. Is there some Brian Schnauthimer, a nascent rage? No? No, actually, I mean, it's just like the other, I mean, we can talk about the other side of the ball, but come on, we all know your best shot in this thing is making it a shootout. And we also know that the single biggest advantage, maybe the only advantage you have in this game, is what you just described, which is your top two receivers, your second receiver against the Eagles CB2.

1:50:58Ben Solak:It is the glaring issue with this Eagles team. And the Cowboys are uniquely built to attack it. One thing I think is going to be fascinating, Ben, is how Schottenheimer deploys the two receivers, right? Like CeeDee Lamb plays inside outside. You don't really want him in a slot against Cooper DeGene. I wonder if we're going to just see them on opposite sides. You talked about traveling Mitchell. They have to figure out how to avoid DeGene as much as possible. I would also play fast, making them communicate, putting them – this is all about George Fakins for me, as your point. So yeah, that's their best chance of, of making this competitive starts with that.

1:51:42Ben Solak:I mean, because, because that was the premise of the entire trade for Pickens, right? Like CD lamb and him are both like top five, seven receivers against band coverage, single high, like it's a math problem for most, very few defenses in the NFL have the secondaries to keep up with these guys. Yeah. And, and Dak in a Schottenheimer offense, which the Schottenheimer passing game is a very vertical passing game and we'll take advantage of your one-on-ones and certainly would like to establish the threat of the run first i'm not sure how much the cow is gonna be able to do that this year but the idea that sean heimer is gonna like run 60 of the time he was that when he was with pete with rust because that's what they were like he's gonna want to throw the football there's you know you put comanite turban on the field you put jaylen tolber on the field you start running those safeties off right it's gonna be reed blank is not the fastest dude deep middle sydney brown is a box player drew mcuba is the second round rookie.

1:52:33So I'll start running those safeties off with Tolbert and Terpins, put speed on him, speed on him, speed on him, and then we'll just take our pickings one-on-ones. Listen, like, there's enough worlds where that puts points up, you know, late, and it keeps the game close in the fourth quarter. Like, I don't think this is like, you know, Barnburner Eagles are so many weight classes above Dallas that, like, there's just no shot here. There's enough worlds.

1:52:58Ben Solak:I mean, on the other side of the ball, I know, you know, like... I think kind of lost in the defensive line talk. All the run defense talk is how many problems Dallas has in the back end. It's a very bad linebacker group right now, in my opinion. Yeah. Javon Diggs is back, but he hasn't played all summer. I guess Duran Bland maybe plays nickel more in this one. We'll see. But up the other corner, whether it's the nickel if he doesn't play or vice versa. Talk about the Eagles issue. I mean, huge glaring issues in this Dallas secondary. That's what kind of makes this a little bit interesting, I think, for Philadelphia, too, is like before the trade, I would have said, oh, obviously you do the best thing you can to neutralize Micah Parsons, which is to run the ball.

1:53:45Ben Solak:I actually think they might throw it more now because of the lack of pressure and also their ability. I mean, they just match up so well with the Cowboys secondary. It's not because the Cowboys suddenly have a dominant run defense. it's because, well, okay, we're not, our quarterback's probably going to have time back there now, right? So, and it's an Eberflus defense, which will be a lot of cover too. And it'd be soft zones. And they'll try to get the safety on top of AJ and not let you throw the nine ball. So Jalen does so well, right? So that nine ball. So I honestly think it's going to be a big Saquon catching the ball in the check down underneath game.

1:54:21And it's going to be the big Dallas Goddard catching the ball underneath in the check down game. And then just take that free yardage. And this is where Jalen improved so much last season, right? We forget. I was looking at these numbers for something else, but Jalen threw 15 picks in 2023. He was too willing to throw into coverage. He threw a pick in his first Cowboys game last year into Trayvon Diggs late into the end zone, right? Against an Aberfluous defense where you just have this level of talent, right? Your secondary, your third and fourth pass catchers are Dallas Goddard and Saquon Barkley.

1:54:47Jalen got so much better last year just taking it. Whatever the defense gives you, just take it. We'll stay ahead of schedule. We'll convert on our fourth ounce with the tush push, and we're just going to walk our way down the field on you. And so I think it's going to be a big receiving game for the underneath options, right? for the Goddard. We'll see if Metschie's involved as the third receiver, if it's Dotson, and then Barkley catching the ball when all that defensive gravity goes to Smith and AJ.

1:55:06Ben Solak:I think it's going to be the receiving game for everybody. Pick your poison, whoever you like. I mean, I just, I just, I, this, this Cowboys secondary, like, right, it's, I, Diggs said, oh, I think I'll be 75 % out there. Cool. Against AJ Brown? Right. Against whom would you've been 100 it has not been all roses um taking the eagles quite easily in this but i think if dallas can make it interesting if the passing game is what we think it's capable of being i think by the way for the young eagles defensive line obviously a lot of change there with sweat and uh milton liam's gone moro jomo jay licks hunt nolan smith you get to go up against terrence like you know let's see how this pass rush looks and i've been very like dismissive of the cowboys running game because just the backs don't scare me at all.

1:55:58But there are worlds where guard center guard, man, like Tyler Booker into Tyler Smith into Cooper Beebe. Like, you can move some people now. And so, you know, yeah. Like, let's see what Mauro Jumbo's got, right? Spell Jordan Davis. Let's see what he looks like in the interior. I think the Eagles control it, win it, lead it, and whatever. Eight and a half point line is... I was just about to ask.

1:56:18Ben Solak:I bet it's too much. Yeah, because I think people are forgetting that. I think Dallas is going to be down by 12 with three minutes left, to throw a touchdown with 13 seconds left and back door this thing. That's where I'm at in the Eagles game. It would be funny if Philadelphia does what I say and they run a little bit less and throw a lot and Jerry claims a victory. Which, which... Galaxy brain. Temples ahead. Alright, well that's it for week one. I cannot believe we did every single game unless I characteristically skipped one. No, I don't think I did. Ben Solek so excited for you and your family uh excited to have you back before too long everybody send good vibes and love to the so like family as they add a ben baby as uh bangles be reporter ben baby right um i was about to say working folks finds your work but nowhere because you got there will be a tuesday column after week one in the event that there is no baby before tuesday if there is a baby before tuesday there will be no tuesday call tune in on tuesday to see if a baby exists um i will be back on tuesday for the first time of the nfl season with dominique foxworth to recap monday night and then um nay tice is joining me to preview week two um you can check out my other podcast viewer discretion with david dennis jr where we are recapping alien uh we some real banger episodes of alien so i'm excited to talk about tv show now it's so good oh cool it's so good i don't know if you do like scary it's like scary but i've seen none of the movies and i don't even understand the premise but i'm thrilled for the television show that's about right um thank you as always to everybody at omaha productions kirsten sebecky anthony anthony himinez owen saylor jack foster tucker tashin uh and i will see you guys next week

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