Hour 1: Russ Benched for Dart, Lions’ Statement Game, plus Bills RB James Cook

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0:56Rich Eisen:This is the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody. Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere. Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. Hi, my name is Dan Campbell. Not surprised. He's got big onions. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Touchdown Detroit Lions! Demo to the house! Live from the Rich Eisen Show studio in Los Angeles. This is the type of game that was needed.

1:41Today's guests, Phil's running back, James Cook. Actor and host, Rob Lowe. Three-time Super Bowl champion, Mark Schlereth. And now, it's Rich Eisen.

1:56Rich Eisen:I can confirm that. It is me. Hey, welcome to this edition of the Rich Eisen Show live on Disney Plus, the ESPN app everywhere. ESPN Radio presented by Progressive Insurance. We say hello to everybody out there listening on Sirius XM Channel 80, our podcast version of the show. We say hello to you even though you're not listening to us live. We're cool with that. And all three hours are available through the Rich Eisen Podcast Network and the ESPN Pod Center. and youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show for anything that you may miss. Lots going on here in this neighborhood. James Cook first up. Rob Lowe stops by, one of our favorite guests in our soon-to-be 11-year history of the show.

2:36Rich Eisen:He's here in the middle of hour number two. Mark Schlereth brings his stinking truth back to the program in hour number three. There's you at 844-204-RICH being the number to dial. It's also a Tuesday, a football Tuesday, so it's our two staple segments on a Tuesday. overreaction Monday on a Tuesday. And Jerry Jones has spoken locally and said something that invariably will piss TJ Jefferson off. So I would stay tuned for all of that over the next three hours. Good to see you over there, Christopher. How are you? Chris Brockman. What's going on? I'm okay. I got it. Got it. Got chopped in the guillotine league.

3:11Rich Eisen:Yeah. There was no Monday miracle for the second straight week. I know. So Sarah got guillotined last week. You got guillotined this week. And so Cage is not in the league. Cage is not in the league. So good luck to you and TJ the rest of the way. I appreciate that. DJ Mikey Diaz and Dee's nuts. Rich, I got bad news for you. Oh, wow. What's happening over there? I need to replace your batteries at some point because I forgot to do it this morning. Okay, sir. I just want to inform you. I appreciate that. So at any point in time, you're saying during the segment, these things could go completely out.

3:37Rich Eisen:I'll be over there. Oh, that'll be great. Yeah, I'm sorry. Good morning, Rich. Excellent foresight. Yeah. Well done, sir. I forgot. Good looking out. I forgot. Good looking out. That's on me. TJ Jefferson, how are you, sir? Good to see you over there. I'm feeling better than I did yesterday, so that's a good thing. Why is that? I think I caught something in Indy, man. Uh-oh. Stay away. Stay away. Last night was rough, but I feel better today. Stay away. I appreciate that update. Last week I was in rough shape. This is great. This entire last minute of the show is filled with information I really didn't need to know.

4:07You don't care that I didn't feel good?

4:08Rich Eisen:Actually, that's not true. I really needed to know that my ears could go out. That's actually a question. That's exactly why I feel that rich. For somebody in my position, other than the lights going out, and everything just stopping to work. That's the top three things that I don't want to have happen. Look, we've had that happen and we powered through it. So it's all good. Listen, I'm, again, spending the first month of our relationship with Disney Plus and ESPN Radio and the ESPN app and just assuming that there's some new folks out there who haven't been with us over the last 10 plus years.

4:44Rich Eisen:So just to catch up to speed, um i i am not concerned at all about being wrong about things i i'm i will always raise my hand and say you know a mea culpa uh or admit that uh what i'm saying isn't yet right about that that's the case in that case for all of you out there uh new to us certainly in the last couple weeks see browning comma jake okay where i'm like hey bangles are the season's not over don't worry about this guy's going to be fine um and then dreadful it was positively awful and there may be some out there certainly in bristol um you know who utilized that take in many ways uh to create conversations on their programs um again something we we're not used to around these these parts um uh that that i might invariably be wrong we're marathoning we're not sprinting um and in that case, I always like proving out that something is proving out for me.

5:44Rich Eisen:And after week one, my take that the Detroit Lions were going to win the NFC didn't look good. Didn't look good. And it didn't look good when Green Bay also looked the way they looked on the following Thursday, five days later, before the Lions took the field again and looked as great as they looked against the Washington Commanders. a team that bounced them in last year's playoffs. And, you know, so. But we're marathoning. We're not sprinting. Yeah. Long season. And look who showed up and hit the Baltimore Ravens repeatedly in the mouth and the head, neck, and chest area and just body blowed and haymakered their way to a convincing W last night in Balmer against a Ravens team that after almost beating the Bills and having a shocking loss handed to them by the Buffalo Bills in the opening Sunday night of the season, and still to date in the clubhouse leader, best game of the year, 41-40 Bills over Ravens Sunday nighter, they started slow against the Browns and then looked as great as they looked in the second half, and now we're page turning, and now the Ravens are going to show up and look like they did last year.

7:03Rich Eisen:and look who looks like they did last year instead. That would be the Detroit Lions, who, if it's all going well for them, will run it down your throat, control the line of scrimmage on both sides of the football and have Jared Goff be efficient, not turn it over, make some plays with his arm, with his neck up ability, get it to Amon Ra, get it to Jamison Williams, get it to Laporta, get it to either one of his backs as well. And if those were all boxes to be checked last night, check them all. Check them all with such a force that the pen rips through the paper. That's why I liked the Lions coming in.

7:55Rich Eisen:That's the Lions that we're used to seeing with Dan Campbell being the head coach there. I guess since that season opening win in Kansas City, ruining their banner-raising night and shocking the world, it's been that way since that day. Chock full of fourth quarter decisions that make you scratch your head and in one case helped end a season in San Francisco in the NFC Championship game. Last year was a complete disappointment after a 15-win season, but they didn't have the guy on the screen and a whole bunch of other people either. And the guy on the screen, ESPN radio and Sirius X seven podcast listening audience is named Aiden Hutchinson.

8:43Rich Eisen:And if anybody knows about Aiden Hutchinson and what he can do and become a game wrecker and how he is a game wrecker and became one, it's the head coach of the Baltimore Ravens, whose brother helped birth this man. And that's such a way in college. by the way let me just say this too just as a quick aside you think jacksonville wants to redo that deal for the first overall pick of that draft with all due respect to mr walker i should have said all but do it with all due respect in advance but at any rate aiden hutchinson's healthy that defense came up with seven sacks of lamar jackson last night seven sacks of lamar Jackson and on the other side of the line of scrimmage, if you will.

9:30224 yards rushing.

9:35Rich Eisen:Sonic and Knuckles scored twice. Both of them, by the way. So I guess they scored four times. Jameer Gibbs twice. David Montgomery twice. They have now scored in the same game 11 times. that is the most in the history of the national football league they broke a record last night they were tied with paul hornung and jim taylor for one set of teammates and hugh mcelaney and joe perry for another set of teammates they're all in canton ohio and jared goff man now has 12 straight games with at least 200 passing yards that's double the number of the next quarterback and that's Justin Herbert, who, Chris, I think you made a solid case.

10:26A good case.

10:29Rich Eisen:Thank you. An excellent case. Thank you. Is your MVP quarterback through three weeks, or is a pole position guy. And if you're talking about a pole position guy through three weeks, I will give you one. Coach of the year, Dan Campbell. Put a pin in that. I'll get to that in a second. but for the Lions going on the road on a Monday night to follow up the 50-burger they handed to Chicago. With this performance, a 38-30 win, where a late touchdown to put a little bit of a scare, needing to get through one last onsides kick to win the game for the Lions. It wasn't even that close towards the end of the game because they came up with a big takeaway as well of Derrick Henry, who's now fumbled in each of his first three games this year.

11:21Rich Eisen:Yikes. And came out of his hands again in the fourth quarter like it did in week one in Buffalo to help the Bills get off the mat. And this time around, it was the Lions in the fourth quarter and the guy who came from the back end of the play to knock at Lewis is named Aiden Hutchinson. so when you come up with those performances and you're all over Lamar Jackson you keep Zay Flowers basically off the board you pop one free from Derek Henry you then also run for 224 yards you get Jared Goff winging it around and not one but two 96 plus yard drives a 98-yarder in the first half that had a, wait for it, 10-minute-plus time of possession, 10 minutes and 48 seconds, 18 plays, eight first downs, longest drive for the Lions in terms of time possessed since at least 1994.

12:33Rich Eisen:And again, when you get a statistic from anybody who's in charge of stats that says at least they're like, we're not going back any further. It's the longest drive for the Lions in the Dan Campbell era, and he did it in the same game. As a matter of fact, the last team to come up with two drives in the same game of that length

12:58Rich Eisen:was the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2014. It's been 11 years since we've seen a drive like that in the NFL, and the Lions do it in Baltimore on a Monday night. that's what you call a Dan Campbell signature Detroit Lions W. It's them going into Baltimore and saying, what up though, in their own way. And Dan Campbell was asked that in a very interesting manner in a post-game press conference with a reporter sort of mixing metaphors or sports by dropping a Tom Emansky reference. Hit it. You said that you wanted your guys to win different ways, but like the old Tom Emansky baseball tapes, I guess if there's a Dane Campbell, how to coach, how to win a football game, is that right there, the M.O.

13:49is that the DVD? Yeah, I know. I don't know, man. I guess it would be pretty close to that. But it was also, this is the type of game. this is the type of game that was needed for this opponent not everyone is going to always be the same you'd love to say you know it's always gonna uh it's going to be that type and you got to play this way but all of them are different and uh you know some some games it takes more explosives you know you got to get more explosives than it does just true groundwork you know the ground sets it up and defensively you got to play a little different but it was for it was what was needed against this team for this opponent.

14:27And I thought the guys handled it perfectly.

14:31Rich Eisen:Yeah. And he's handled it perfectly as well. If you made a list of teams through the first three weeks that look like the team from last year, right? And in a positive way. Okay. You'd go Bills, right? You'd go Eagles, right? You'd go Bucks. In a way, because they're playing winning football. They might be playing better than they did last year, actually. Rams, I think you'd say the Rams kind of look like the way they did last year. And you're not going to have a recency bias knock you off of that. Then you go Lions. You go Packers, too. The Packers look good. Chargers were a playoff team. The Chargers are better.

15:21Rich Eisen:They look better, but I'm sorry. I'm going that. Okay, you're going that. where they look like the team that did well last year. You go Lions now, and you wouldn't have said that after week one, and that's where I'm now returning to Dan Campbell as a coach of the year type candidate, right? And because this team, we thought last week against the Bears, at least I did, that the head coach and the Lions were making a point against Ben Johnson. Yeah, we don't need you around here anymore. it's not you're not the secret sauce the secret sauce is our locker room and the guys on the roster and we're going to beat you up we're going to put a 50 burger on you and the conversation lines are going to be less than this year because their coordinators are gone Aaron Glenn is in New York and Ben Johnson is in Chicago and Johnny Morton the offensive coordinator of the Lions now with this win.

16:19Rich Eisen:The 106 points that the Lions have scored through three games are the most that they have scored in the Super Bowl era through three games. Also, the Ben Johnson coordinated offense over the three-year period he was there had a total yards per game of 394.8. Through the first three games, the Lions have a yards per game total of 394.3. points per game for Ben Johnson through his three years. 28.9 through the first three games this year, 34.3. Okay? And then last night, Kelvin Shepard's defense, seven sacks. They were all over Lamar in a way that nobody ever is. Ever. Knock one lose from Derrick Henry.

17:05Rich Eisen:I know, again, other teams have done it this year. And it's crazy. When Dan Campbell first, we first met him as an HC and we're like, no head coach talks this like Hannibal Lecter. Like, what's he doing? Right. And. And then there was that rumor that started that I believe for a while that Dan Campbell legitimately wanted to know if they could have a real life lion on the sideline. I want that to be true. I don't see that as a bad thing. I'm just saying, but that's not stuff that a serious head coach in the NFL is going to be saying. Right. and this guy is a serious head coach in the NFL. Very much.

17:46Rich Eisen:And the thing we love about the NFL, okay, is it's a mixture of brains and brawn. We're going to beat you with our muscle and our gumption and our want to and our brutal physical nature. But when it comes down to it, we're also going to figure out the math on some analytics, and we're going to roll the dice, and we're going to go for it, We're going to come up with some smart plays like fourth quarter, just after the two-minute warning, fourth and short. We have some options here. You know what we're going to do? We're going to go for it, and then we're going to sneak Amon Ross St. Brown out to the point where Marlon Humphrey is going to hold him because he's going to beat you on this play design, and Jared Goff is just going to feather it in there, and it's going to be all she wrote.

18:39Beautiful pass.

18:41Rich Eisen:they are the right now a perfect mixture of brains and brawn and nobody ever thought that dan campbell could do that when he started talking about biting your kneecaps off that's what i'm talking about if this team wins their division again tall order packers are for real and the packers have already beaten them the only team to do so through three weeks three weeks uh right now we're in the part of an nfl season where we're like are you set up chargers are set up they're three and oh beat everyone in division they're two and a half up on everybody the bills are set up they are set up okay there are some other teams that we can make a case that are set up like the bucks are set up and sometimes you know the lions are set up to go on a nice run and they're set up with this coach if they do it again with two new coordinators and he's just like i got this we're gonna find two other guys who know our system and it's about what we do here and it's about our style of what we do here and our front office knows it.

19:42Rich Eisen:They know how to feed this system and we're going to coach them up and we're going to look the same, if not better, with two new guys and we're going to come beat you. How's that not coach of the year material? Got to give it up. Well, there's a team in Indy that no one thought would be this good. That's true too. And those are the other coaches of the year. It's just like, wow, you come out of nowhere. But that's typically what wins that award. I get it. Yeah. Or, I mean, Andy Reid and Bill Belichick, like, hardly ever won. But the fact that you're including Dan Campbell, even in that regard, I think speaks volumes as well.

20:15Rich Eisen:We'll talk about the Ravens side of things later on. Jerry Jones did speak to 105.3 The Fan. And I think we know who he spoke about. I think, oh, definitely. Macca. Oh, he did. Oh, he did. And if we hear him say that word, we need to pull it and put it side by side, if you will, audio wise. Macca, Macca. Right. Macca, Macca. Rob Lowe is stopping by at hour number two. So the Pop Curtis. It'll be amazing. It's always fun when he stops by here. Mark Schlereth, hour three. But we take a break. James Cook is coming back. And we made it through this first segment with the battery still working. Hey.

20:57Rich Eisen:It's like it's like it's it's it's as if the Hanukkah oil was in the form of a double A battery. We made it. It burned bright. It's a miracle. For 19 minutes. James Cook is next. Battery's rolling.

21:17Rich Eisen:The Rich Eisen Show podcast.

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23:42Rich Eisen:844-204-RICH is the number to dial. ESPN Radio is presented by Progressive insurance if you're a renter make sure you're protected renters insurance includes options that cover stolen property personal injury and living expenses if your place is damaged quote renters insurance at progressive.com uh james cook was uh supposed to be on a zoom now we're told he needs a few more minutes to uh get positioned um i guess that's the way the A James cookie crumbles.