Tom Pelissero: Everyone is going to have an opinion about Tua Tagovailoa

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Otherwise I get a lot of texts if I don't do it, so just keeping them at bay. I get very upset with him, Rich. What is your reporting on Tua Tungovailoa as we come on the air one Eastern time and hour number two of this Friday, Tom? Tua Tungovailoa in the Dolphins facility today undergoing the normal battery of tests that you do as part of the early stages of the concussion protocol.

I would say I probably had the same reaction as a lot of people seeing that play last night. You get used to injuries happening in NFL games, you hate to see it, but when it's Tua and when it's a hit to his head and he goes down in the fencing posture, immediately you're taken back to two years ago and the scenes that we watched unfold. Having said that, I think it's important to remember here what the protocols are and who's going to be involved. This is going to be, as part of the NFL protocols obviously, it's Tua, it's the Dolphins doctors, it ultimately is an independent neurologist who would have to give the final clearance to return to play. In the bigger picture, there are going to be many more people involved because, as I was going back through notes from a couple of years ago, Tua has a file with some of the leading specialists in the country. Back in 2022, he flew to both Pittsburgh and Detroit to visit specialists.

He had multiple other doctors looking at it as well. Had he not been told that he was, in essence, at the same risk level as everybody else for further concussion outcome on his life, he would not have come back and been playing football again. And so, I know that everyone has an opinion, but it's not going to be us in the media, it's not going to be the fans, it's not going to be Twitter doctors, it's not going to be former players trying to go viral with a tweet about how a guy should retire. As Antonio Pierce, the Raiders coach, said it earlier today that he would advise Tua to retire here.

But this is very personal when it comes to the decisions. There's a protocol and, honestly, Tua probably will eventually pass the NFL protocol here. The question is going to be, based on the totality of information, how do they proceed with Tua? What does he want to do?

What does his family want to do here? The uncomfortable reality, Rich, of covering the NFL is there's about a dozen concussions a week on average. You know, 231, I think, was the total last season here. There are players in the NFL that have had more concussions than Tua Tonga-Bailoa. We don't sit here and talk about the fact that Denzel Ward has had five diagnosed concussions and continues to play. He's not a quarterback, and unlike Tua, he didn't have two of the scariest-looking concussions both occur on national TV. For people who don't know the fencing posture, the arms being up in the air, that's a relatively common type of concussion symptom. It is really difficult to see. And you saw it in Cincinnati when he hit the back of his head.

You saw it again last night when he lowers his head into Damar Hamlin after picking up first down in that game. We're very, very early in this process. Again, I understand the leap that people want to make of should he or shouldn't he retire. There's so many people who know way more than any of us about this who are going to be advising Tua. It's about the health of his brain.

Concussion is a brain injury. Anyone involved is going to take that seriously. And certainly the Dolphins are going to take that seriously, an organization that less than two months ago gave Tua around $167 million in injury guarantees. That's certainly not something you would anticipate an organization would do if they believed the next blow to Tua's head would be career-ending.

But this is all going to come down to what the doctors advise and ultimately what Tua is comfortable with moving forward. But he is in the building today. He's back in the building today.

He's back in the building today. We all learned a lot about the concussion protocol last year, and there were changes, of course, made to the concussion protocol based on what was ultimately found to not be a concussion that Tua suffered early in the year before the one in Cincinnati when he hit his head on the turf, which remains one of the scariest, besides DeMar Hamlin, one of the scariest scenes that I can ever remember on a football field here. So it's all based, to put it in really lay terms, Rich, which is where I think I'm most comfortable with this here, every player has a baseline neurological function, and there's record of it.

You are not allowed to return to play until your neurological function comes back to that baseline. With Tua, there's, again, way more data than there is on an average player because he's had four documented concussions. He had the one in the same play where he dislocated his hip. He broke his nose and suffered a concussion all in that same play back in 2019 at Alabama. Then he had the two in 2022.

He had another one now that's a year and a half that he went without this happening here. But again, he's gone through these procedures because it's his brain, and he's going to have to make decisions that are best for him. Let's also remember, Rich, back in 2022, there were a lot of the same people who were saying Tua should never play again. He should never be allowed on the field. The NFL should never allow him to walk on the field. Tua made the decision with his family, with his representation, with the doctors, that he felt comfortable getting back onto the field. That's not to say that he will or should make the same decision this time around, but the NFL is not in the business of saying players can't step foot on the field if they've been medically cleared.

These are decisions that come down to the organization and the individual, and that's going to be the same case with Tua, albeit under a way bigger spotlight. My NFL Network colleague and one of the NFL Network insiders right here on the Rich Eisen Show, Tom Pelissero. So, let's turn the page here. Last national televised game we saw was the 49ers without Christian McCaffrey putting the bang thing on the Jets. Is McCaffrey going to sit out another week, do you think?

He certainly is talking, Rich, like a guy who, if it were up to him, would be on the field. I think it's fair to say that if Christian McCaffrey gets cut loose, or whenever they put him on the field, he's not going to be the load-carrying, 25-touch guy that he might normally be. And that was evidenced by his backup, who initially stepped into a little something when he said he'd been told on Friday that he was going to start. Kyle Shanahan cleaned that up by saying, no, I told him he was going to play a lot. In other words, they know that Christian McCaffrey is managing both a calf injury and Achilles tendinitis. That's not something that's just going to disappear. It's not like it's an MCL sprain three weeks and brace it up and he'll be back out there.

It's something that he's going to have to manage. If you look at the schedule, they're on the road the next two weeks, both games on turf in Minnesota and then against the Rams at SoFi Stadium. I know McCaffrey kind of pushed back against that saying, it's not like I can run on grass and not on turf. If I can go, I can go. He's putting himself and he's approaching the week as if he's going to play, but it's a long season.

They won last week without him. I would anticipate that they take the same cautious approach. And if he's turned loose here, Rich, to play on Sunday, I would imagine that it's in a timeshare in which he's not even getting the heaviest workload.

So that'll be something to keep an eye on early window. So, you and I at, I guess, 1130 in the morning Eastern time on NFL Game Day morning, we'll be keeping an eye on that active-inactive report coming out of Minnesota. Who's going to be the Steelers starter at quarterback this week in Denver, Tom? It's interesting here, Rich, because Mike Tomlin flat out said it on Tuesday. Russ is hurt.

He's not available to us. So we are preparing Justin Fields to be the starter. Usually when you follow just kind of the history of Tomlin speak, that's a pretty good indication that the guy who's been healthy through the week is going to get the start.

Remember, we kind of went through this last year with Kenny Pickett, where one of the Tomlinisms is always the participation will be our guide. Well, Russell Wilson still hasn't gone through a full practice since he re-aggravated that calf injury during the early stages of last week. Now, I also can tell you they legitimately took it up to game day last Sunday. And sometimes teams say game time decision and really they've made that decision Friday or Saturday. Last week, Russ went through a pregame workout. He told them, I can do this.

I can go out there and play. But looking at a Russ Wilson who's not 100 percent with an injury that easily could be aggravated and get a lot worse, relative to Justin Fields, who now we've seen play in this new offense. He protected the football. He didn't have any of those hellacious Justin Fields razzle dazzle run around the field types of plays. But he was the main source of the run game against Atlanta. He showed that he can play mistake free football.

And that's the way that they're built, which is run the football, play really good defense and make enough plays in the passing game. All of which is to say, I don't know that Justin Fields is going to take over the job. Last year, Kenny Pickett never was restored and Mason Rudolph ended up starting a playoff game.

But at minimum here, again, we'll see what the participation report says today. But the fact that Russ hasn't gone through a full practice would indicate to me that we are not going to get the revenge game. We were all circling on the calendar in week two against the Broncos. It more than likely will be Justin Fields who, Rich, let's remember a little bit of a revenge game, right? They took Patrick Sertan over Justin Fields.

A lot of people were saying you should take Fields. Broncos just extended Patrick Sertan. Justin Fields now going back in there on his second NFL team.

I like you trying to stir something up to put a little bit of juice on it. No, no, I'm sure Justin Fields is thinking about that. And Sertan's no slouch. But Russ definitely circled this thing. I mean, there's no question he wants to play in it. So what happened? Like he pushed a sled in training camp and this is still lingering?

Is that what this is from, Tom? It was the day the players reported or the day after, whatever the conditioning test was. They have a new strength coach, who by and large, by the way, has been great for them. But in this case, part of the new conditioning test they did was have the players push a blocking sled, which is normally not something that the quarterback is going to do. Well, Russ, who has been doing everything the same way as everybody else, I know a lot has been talked about, how things were set up in Seattle, how things were set up in Denver.

He has approached this as, hey, I'm doing everything that everybody else is doing. In hindsight, maybe don't have the 34-year-old quarterback pushing a blocking sled in the conditioning drill there. But yeah, he tweaked the calf.

It didn't feel right. He didn't take full reps for a couple of weeks there and then kind of reintegrated. And then last week, I want to say it was on Wednesday, maybe it was Thursday, but early on in the week he started to feel a little something in the calf again. He didn't think it was a big deal, but whenever you have a calf injury that then you're a month or so, six weeks removed from, then you say, hey, it's feeling tight. That's a red flag, particularly to a team that's as medically conservative as the Steelers are. And so they're continuing to bring him back.

They don't want this to be something that lingers throughout the entire season. There have been plenty of quarterbacks who have tried to play through calf injuries. Aaron Rodgers, right at the top of the list, he played through one back in 2014, I believe it was. And by the time they got to the AFC Championship game, he couldn't even stand up on his tiptoes. That's how bad the calf had gotten.

His calf still looks kind of mutilated to this day. That's not to say that Russell Wilson, it's nothing that significant. It doesn't sound like they've considered putting him on injured reserve to this point. But given the fact that you're 1-0, you're going into Denver, do you really want to take any type of a chance here, especially because Justin Fields gave you what you needed last week?

Tom Pelissero here on the Rich Eisen Show. We know Malik Willis is starting this week against the Indianapolis Colts. And the fact that Jordan Love has not been IR'd, what do we take out of that, Tom? The initial timeline for Jordan Love, based on everything I've been told, was three to six weeks. And there was optimism even the day after the injury that he was going to be back sooner than later here. Now, Matt LeFlur has not, to this point, unless I've missed it in the last ten minutes on Twitter, has not actually acknowledged that Jordan Love will not play this week. All he'll say is he's engaged, he knows all the plays, he's out there at practice. It would take some type of a minor miracle for Jordan Love to be out there.

There are other players who have played with MCL injuries. Russell Wilson is one of them here, but when you're talking about the young franchise quarterback and it's week two, it probably doesn't make a lot of sense to push him out there. And so it's going to be Malik Willis, again, barring a total shock leading up to game day here. I got to know Malik Willis back at the Reese's Senior Bowl several years ago. He is a really just a guy who his enthusiasm and his energy fills the room instantly.

He is an instantly likable type of guy. But he came from an offense at Liberty where they didn't really teach you a whole lot about football. His highlight reel at Liberty, if you go back and see it, is crazy.

Some of his highlight plays are unbelievable, but in terms of just reading and playing in rhythm and calling a play and being under center, he wasn't really trained in that. And then he goes into a place in Tennessee where it never really seemed like he was the primary option to potentially step in for Tannehill. You remember at the end of the 2022 season, Rich, Tannehill's hurt. They signed Josh Dobbs off the Cleveland practice squad and started him like six days later instead of starting Malik Willis, who they just drafted in the third round. Then through last year, they drafted Levis. It's just never really panned out so far for Malik Willis. But the Packers obviously had a high enough grade on him, and they thought the potential was there. Hey, let's develop him.

They weren't anticipating Jordan Love would suffer an MCL sprain in week one. We'd be talking about Malik Willis playing in week two. What I would anticipate here, Rich, is you're going to have a drastically scaled down game plan for Malik Willis.

You're going to isolate the things that he knows, isolate the things he does well. You might have to win a little bit ugly for a week or two or three or four. Play better defense than they did last week against the Eagles because that wasn't good enough. Run the heck out of the football, and then just get Malik Willis some easy throws to get the ball into his playmaker's hands.

If they can come out of, let's call it four games, Rich, for Jordan Love, and quite possibly he'll be back sooner, but if it's four games, if they can come out of the stretch two and two, that's a massive victory, especially when you consider that the guy that they are, again, barring a surprise, can be rolling out there for the home opener on Sunday, wasn't even on the roster three weeks ago. And so Tannehill is just chilling ATC and seeing what develops. I know Miami Dolphin fans were banding his name about it. I understand we still need to see what the severity of Tua is, and it does sound maudlin to even have a conversation about it, but what's your sense of what Tannehill's up to, Tom? I know there were rumors that the Packers had reached out to Ryan Tannehill.

My understanding is they did not reach out to him. They were not considering bringing in a veteran. Ryan Tannehill has had opportunities through the course of the offseason here, but it's a guy who's made a lot of money in the NFL. He doesn't need to just roll out and show up for the minimum and play for three weeks.

If he were willing to do that, maybe he is headed to Green Bay, but you're not going to pay $20 million to fill in the next three, four weeks for Jordan Love's absence here. You know, for Tannehill, could it be Miami? That's sort of hard to imagine just because it's a different style of offense than Mike McDaniel is running there now. There's probably other quarterbacks out there who know it better than a Ryan Tannehill would. But for Tannehill, the situation that would get him off the couch, I would anticipate at this point would be something like somebody tears an ACL.

And there were a run of those last year, Rich. You remember all the quarterbacks who suffered, whether it was Anthony Richardson with the shoulder, it was Cousins with the Achilles, it was Rodgers with the Achilles. For a bunch of long-term backup situations, Deshaun Watson being another one, that got Joe Flacco off the couch. And Flacco initially signed with the Browns' practice squad.

They elevated him I think a couple of times and then worked out a new deal that had incentives that allowed him to make more money. I don't know, it's possible that something like that would make sense for Ryan Tannehill here, but to this point, he's not looking for just an opportunity to get on a roster and play a couple of games on the practice squad or for the minimum here. He would want to come into a situation, if he's going to play again, where it really makes sense for him. To this point, that situation hasn't popped up yet.

Last one for you, Tom Pellicero, before I send you on to your Friday and the rest of the weekend. Jermar Chase's contract, is it not even going to be discussed now until the offseason? Are we in the we're just playing now? Or is there any conversation happening with him? And is he going to be on another pitch count in Kansas City on Sunday?

What can you tell me about with him? Well, in terms of the pitch count, that was driven in large part by the fact that he hadn't practiced a whole lot and you didn't want to run the guy out there and play him 70 snaps and have him pull a hamstring or something where all of a sudden he's down for a month or two. In terms of the contract here, it really seemed, throughout that week leading up to the opener, that something was going to get done and kept hearing things that, hey, they're to the number, the average per year and all that, but they're structural things that they haven't worked through. Part of the issue here, whenever you're dealing with Bengals contracts, other than the quarterback, other than like Joe Burrow, he gets a different structure. But the Bengals, their history and their contract structure is they pay a lump sum, large signing bonus up front that's then prorated for cap purposes throughout the life of the deal. And then year two, there's a roster bonus in March that's not guaranteed and a low base salary.

So you get a lot of money up front, but then the year two cash flow dips down. And you're not even guaranteed in year two, even though realistically, A, you're Jamar Chase and B, you've got a massive signing bonus that makes it prohibitive for them to cut you. And C, this is the Bengals, who almost never cut anybody. But they still have that structure. Pittsburgh still has that structure.

Seattle most of the time has that structure as well. Again, outside of the quarterbacks, which have to be the exception here, Jamar Chase and his representative were not willing to take that type of a deal. The Bengals, there's really no reason to think in doing this a year early, which they don't have to do, there's no reason to think that they were going to bend their structure. So could something still get done?

Absolutely. It's going to come down to somebody's got to move here. And I really don't see it being Mike Brown at this point. And so if Jamar Chase wants the deal right now, he may have to accept it on the Bengals terms. If not, he may have to play out the season as his buddy from LSU, Justin Jefferson, did. And as you get a little bit deeper into the contract, he's only going into year four, not year five like C.D.

and Jefferson here. Going into year five, you stay relatively healthy. Jefferson didn't even stay healthy last year. But if you do what you've done throughout the course of your career, the market's going to continue to shift in a positive direction.

You might make a little bit more in 2025. You're missing out on some money this year, and those are decisions that the player and his agent have to make. But Burrow did get an exception, right? That's not the structure.

Joe Burrow did get correct. And like the Steelers did it for years with Ben Roethlisberger, he would get future guarantees. But by and large, those three teams have done lump sum signing bonus, not guarantees out into, not full guarantees out into the future years here, which sometimes can create little rifts, Rich, at times. Because every player, they know what their paychecks are this year. Some guys get it that, hey, you made all that money last year.

This year you're making less. But then they're like, hey, I'm only making this, and these guys are making this. That's where sometimes you get consternation going into the second years of deals. Most teams, though, are not going to go ahead and rip up a long-term extension into year two. I'm not familiar with any that have. But every team does their deals a little bit differently.

It's like one of the undersold things in all of this. The NFLPA makes all these contracts available to agents. They can advise the agents on, hey, here's what the team has done in the past. Here's their language, because the language varies from team to team. But if you're looking for, hey, I want $100 million fully guaranteed right now, the Bengals, if they stick with their structure, it's not going to happen on a wide receiver contract.

Tom Pelissero, greatly appreciated. Excellent use of consternation. Guys, are you looking that up, or you know what that means, consternation? I think I know what it means. Okay, anything over three syllables, Tom.

It confuses. We'll chat over the weekend. Thanks, Tom. Appreciate it. Thank you. That's my NFL Network compadre in NFL Insider. Tom Pelissero here on The Rich Eisen Show, everybody.

Feelings of anxiety or dismay. Let's take a break. What's more likely? We already played What's More Likely. I knew it would be more likely you guys didn't know consternation. We knew that. Okay, very good. So I'm wrong.

My bad. We're not complete idiots. So remember to dial What's More Likely and Saquon Barkley on the immediate horizon. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Is that true or false?

I have no idea. It is true. I didn't know that one. All right, that's number one.

Play-Doh was invented in Cincinnati. True or false? I'm going to go out on a limb and say all these that you're saying are true. Okay. It is true. Now, just hold on a second. Just because you can read a defense doesn't mean that you can read me right now, okay?

This pre-snap. Cincinnati is the site of the United States' biggest celebration of Oktoberfest. That's true. Okay, you see, you knew that right then and there. I'm not about the parties yet. You know better? Yeah. Are you going to go out to an Oktoberfest?

I have not, no. Okay. Are you going to have to talk about it with your team first? We'll have to talk about it.

Okay, talk about it with your team. And the number one radio station in Cincinnati is WKRP. That one, I have no idea.

Before his time, Rich. It's false. There's a famous TV show called WKRP in Cincinnati that is way before your time.

Have you never heard of it at all? Gosh, darn it. I am an idiot. I'm older than most college football players, but I'm not that old. I mean, we've heard you're older than Lamar Jackson.

Yeah, he was in my recruiting class. Yeah. Okay.

A couple months, I think. And if you had one choice of a meal, would you pick crawfish or spaghetti with chili? Crawfish. Really? I don't like all the Cincinnati cuisine as far as all that stuff. Not yet. Grater's ice cream. I might learn to like it, but we'll see.

Okay, very good. He looks like a baby. You know, it's 2020. He's a grown-ass man now back here on the Rich Eisen Show radio network. I'm sitting at the Rich Eisen Show desk, furnished by Grainger with supplies and solutions for every industry. Grainger has the right product for you.

Call clickgrainger.com or just stop by. Let's take Derek in Missouri's call. What's up, Derek? How you been, sir? Hey, Rick. Can you hear me, sir?

We can. Good. I was going to say, I'm on my way. I'm in the car right now, on my way to Colorado, taking in the Steelers-Bronxers game.

Look at you, Derek. Nice. Nice.

What's on your mind? Sir, what's more likely for you? Oh, okay. Who's more likely to start the season 0-2, the Jets or the Bengals? Oh, gosh. All right.

I would go Bengals. I mean, they're playing the three-peters, potentially. You know what I mean?

So that's where I'll go with that one. Why, you don't think so, Derek? I don't know.

I think both teams could easily go 0-2, just because... Well, as you know, Derek, Derek, you're a fan of this show. You know that's not an appropriate answer. It's got to be one or the other, right, Chris? Am I right? Yes. You can flip-flop or straddle the fence.

There's no fence straddling. You've got to choose one or the other. I would say Cincinnati, just because going into Arrowhead, you really don't know what Del Burrow's going to look like and the rest of Cincinnati. So it's going to be a test run, I'm sure. Enjoy the game in Denver, Derek. Thanks for the call. Hopefully you enjoy listening to our show for the rest of the ride. Nice drive. You ever been to a game in Mile High?

I have not. Oh my gosh. It is loud there, too, pal. You can hear whenever there's an incomplete pass. They're like, for instance, Justin Field's throw to whatever, throw to George Pickens is, and then they go in, come, please. Yeah, they kind of started that first down thing.

They do a lot of good. They do a lot of stuff there. I remember I went there. I was there for the AFC championship game for the Jets and the Broncos wearing my Wesley Kerr jersey from still with my name stitched into the back. My name tag stitched in the back so they knew what bunk to return it to in Camp Locanda. Still fit.

Was very proud of that. Sitting from like second to the last row of the stadium. I got a lot of looks saying, what is the sports center dude doing here? And the Jets were up at halftime in that AFC championship game and it was dead quiet.

When the opening kickoff, I believe it was Dave Meggett, who, you know, one of the Parcells guys, let the ball hit right in front of him. Live ball Broncos hopped on it and then the place just got so loud again. And when when they're going, your ears are ringing.

It's like a rock concert. So hopefully they will enjoy seeing Bo Nix. And I'm rooting for Bo Nix because I said there's lots to like about him. Got a lot of pushback on that. Well, he didn't get off to a great start. I'm aware of that now.

OK. But I was there were that at the time, too. I just think he took it in the chops and he didn't have any bad body language and disposition, right? You hear that from Matt Everploose this week saying that he liked Caleb Williams body language and disposition.

That's what you need to see out of rookie quarterbacks that are having a struggling day. So I'm going to stand on that language and disposition as a album. It is.

No, I think it was a yeah, I think it was a fifth dimension song. As a matter of fact, I made I'm dating myself. One less bell to answer. Anyway, game time is what you should go ahead and get on a mobile device near you and start buying tickets. Maybe that's what Derek in Missouri is using to get his ticket.

Hopefully is great because you get to see your view from the seat in, let's just say in Denver, and then you get to see how much the entire ticket costs before you buy it. And hopefully Derek is using game time tickets and using my promo code, because when you take the guesswork out of buying football tickets with game time and download the game time app and create an account, you can use my code rich and you get twenty dollars off your first purchase. Terms apply. Visit gametime.co for restrictions again. Create an account and redeem my code rich and you get twenty dollars off. Download game time today. What time is it? Game time. Game time. That's what's up.

Chris Brockman, are you ready, sir? Rich. Yeah. What's more likely? Hit it. Hit it. What? What's more likely? Never say never, but never.

All right, Christopher, what do you have over there, sir? I would say Walker had a really good career. He did? Yeah. Right. So Walker's a great yet. Seventy-one touchdowns. That's great.

It felt like. Great to see him. Hey, love you, man. Oh, wait. The more likely unlikely week one star running back to do it again.

Jordan Mason or J.K. Dobbins. Oh, I'll go. Come on, man.

I'm going to go with Jordan Mason is the unlikely to do it again. You're talking about it. Do it again this week. Oh, let me see here. I got to assume. I'm going to go. I'm going to go J.K. I'm going to go J.K. Dobbins. J.K. Dobbins, pal. Just because it's a delicious theme that Jim Harbaugh is going to ride the Ohio State Buckeye who tortured him personally at the collegiate level to wins. And Dobbins has been looking for this moment, not like Jordan Mason has not.

But I'll tell you what. The Chargers are in Carolina and I think we're going to see a lot of Dobbins and we'll see some Gus Edwards and we're going to see the Chargers go to 2-0. This just in. So I'll go J.K. Dobbins is likely to do it again. Feels like Chargers will be a very sexy survivor pick.

And listen, and I know that Jordan Mason, it's been a long wait for him, too, right? 28 carries short week next week. Let's see. Let's see how much of it he can carry it. Yeah. What else?

All right. Both these quarterbacks had the same number of carries in week one. It was a lot. Running quarterback to have more temps this week, Lamar Jackson or Jayden Daniels? I'll go Jayden Daniels. Each rushed it 16 times in week one. Dude, Lamar Jackson is remarkable and he needed an extra day even with the mini-buy, right? Yeah, he was sore.

Yeah, he was sore. So I have a feeling, what's more Isaiah likely? Hmm, for Derrick Henry. Right.

And instead of him taking off and running against the Raiders, although running away from Max Crosby is a good idea. Just in general. You know what I mean? Max is a lovely fellow. But I think Jayden Daniels has taken off because he's new to the league and I'm sure everybody's playing faster than he's expecting and he's just taken off. He's in flight mode right now. So I'll say he's going to be in flight mode against Brian Burns and Kayvon Thibodeau and the rest of the Big Blue.

That's a sneaky, interesting game. I'm going to go with Jayden Daniels there. More temps. Okay. What else? How about this one? More likely to be the higher number. Anthony Richardson, 50 plus yard completions.

Okay. Or Malik Willis touchdown passes. I'll go Malik Willis touchdown passes. Oh, really? Yeah, buddy. I'm going to go glass half full for my Packers friends here. Plus, I mean, dude, 50 yard touchdowns. No, 50 yard just passes.

He had three last week. I know. I'm just going to say what's more likely is less than there. Okay. Right?

Throws bombs. And I think the Packers will get after him a little bit. I hope for the Colts sake, I'm wrong, but I'll just, I know you're saying Richardson's more likely to throw more bombs again and Malik Willis is going to be less than to the point where he doesn't even have a touchdown pass. I'll say the likeliest thing is the both numbers are zero. How does that sound? How about that? Hmm. I know you like when I take your, you know, no gray and add a gray, you know what I mean?

I twist it a little bit. I'll say what's more likely is it's both zero. What else, Chris? I'm worried about the Packers. More likely Cooper cup balled out week one. That's 14 catches. More catches for Cooper cup or more Kaitlin Clark assists on Sunday against the wings. So you're saying, which one's higher, which one's a higher number Cooper cup catches Kaitlin Clark assists Kaitlin Clark in the last five games has 12, 10, eight, 12, and six.

I'll go Kaitlin Clark, Kaitlin Clark, just to give everybody another reason to watch her play a basketball game. So I'll do that. Interesting.

There must be a certain spot in a certain town that there was no plaque or a signpost for Mo Green or some other application similar to what goes down in a town like that, where you can potentially actually make a wager on that. Sure. Right? Did you see that Kaitlin Clark has the most 25 and 10 games in WNBA history already? And she's a rookie.

Somebody needs to just body this young lady, right? Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. They do every week.

I'm being told hold on a minute. What else, Chris? AFC North team guys to get a much needed road win Browns or Bengals.

Say that one more time. Which AFC North team gets a much needed road win Browns or Bengals. Dude, I just don't see the Bengals with no T Higgins and Jamar Chase still getting up to speed. I don't see them going into Arrowhead right now and winning that game.

I just don't. And as poorly as Deshaun Watson played in everything that's circling that team right now, I think Cleveland going into Jacksonville and coming up with a win is a likelier scenario. I think both lose though.

The likeliest thing is they come away with a zero. Right? I know that's not the concept.

Not exactly. So if forced to choose, I will take the Browns. But man, did the Cowboys just leave a mark there, man. They really did. Boy. I saw some stat. Deshaun Watson got sacked six times and they were all his fault last week. Is that right? Yeah. Normally it's like, oh, wine play or coverage. They're literally all his fault.

And the one time he let it fly and got hit in the chops, he dropped a perfect dime into the hands of Amari Cooper and he dropped it. Yeah. Not great, Bob. Okay.

All right. Two more. Here we go. Let's talk Sunday Night Football. Caleb Williams. More likely, Caleb Williams doubles his week one passing yards, so that would be 186, or Bo Nix completes a 30 yard pass.

His long last week was 25. I'll go with Caleb doubling his passing yards. The Bears. Dude, the Steelers. Dance is not what you want to see after you've struggled in Seattle.

A lot of dink and dunk from both. Guys, number 90. Here he comes. Here he comes. Here he comes. I see.

Not a lot of time for Nix to complete. So hold on a second. Hold on a second. Are we talking air yards? Air yards. Just a completion. Just one that goes for 30 yards. I mean, yards after the catch, you could just throw one and then they block it.

It's a bubble screen. It goes for 30 yards and that counts? Yeah. Last week it was 25 was his long, including all of that. I'll go Caleb doubles of his passing yards.

I think Caleb's going to have a better game. Okay. I do.

The bar is low. I can't wait to see it. Should be fun.

All right, last one. Yes, sir. More likely to be the surprise 2-0 team on Monday, Bucks or Patriots? You just want the Patriots to be 2-0 visiting the 0-2 Jets on Thursday Night Football. In the worst way. Like you would- Like in the worst way. What would you prefer?

In the worst way. What would you prefer? What would you prefer?

What would you prefer? Okay. Absorbing a Yankee. Like if you had to- Oh, that socks get slapped. If you had to, in order to make this happen- The socks get slapped. By the way, I'm going Buccaneers here. Okay.

So just- Wrong. I'm going Buccaneers here. But just to finish this, if the sports gods came down from high atop Mount Sports Olympus and said to you, you can get the Thursday night 2-0 Patriots versus 0-2 Jets, but in order for you to get that, you have to get swept four games by the Yankees this weekend for the Sox. Would you do that?

Because you know that essentially daggers their fading wild card hopes. Yeah, we had like a 10% wild card chance right now, so- You can take the music down. Yeah. I'll take it.

You would take it. Yeah. See, we're not winning the World Series. Right. So let's just put us out of our misery. So you'd give the Yankees a four game sweep, which means pinstripe at Palooza. Fine. You know?

It's fine. You saw Juan Soto with his first, by the way, how about that, was his first walk-off hit since he was a national. He had that one as a Yankee. You didn't have one as a padre. Two teams ago?

Correct. You'd see a couple more celebrations. I do not want to get swept. Shmey Shmomes is throwing darts. By the way, he came in last night and I'm just like, please blow it. By the way, the most frightening words of any Yankee fan is, Klay Holmes with a ghost runner.

Those are the most frightening words. And yet he got the win. I know.

So you're fine with that. Well, Devers, I think is injured. By the way, so injured, he made some great plays at third base last night.

So- Well, he can't hit in the last month. I'll take the sweep. How about that? Now, I would not have guaranteed that's more likely. When the season started, it was obvious it was going to be maybe two and oh jets, but we were definitely going to be 0-2. TJ Jefferson, Mets can make the playoffs.

Okay. Well, they're going to, but okay. It would be a very unlike Met thing to have the Braves take over in the next 10 games. I mean, Acuna's out, so I like our chances. Mets make the playoffs. Hold on a second. And advance. Ooh.

Went around. But the Cowboys have to lose the next three games. Next three games? Next three games? Yes, sir. The Mets.

Wow. They're losing to the Saints. Me? Because Don Bowie just said they're losing to the Saints. No, we ain't losing to the Saints.

Stop. You have to lose to the Saints? The Ravens wait for it. And on Thursday night at the Giants, you got to lose that one.

Ooh. That's not fun. That's not- Mets advance. No, you don't want that. Mets advance.

You don't want that. Mets advance. Mets advance.

One in three Cowboys? So when I predicted- They make it in advance. Their schedule, I had them losing. Like I said, to the Steelers, the Lions, and the Niners, so that was three losses in a row. So at some point, I expected three losses in a row. So if the Mets are good, the Metropals are going to advance.

Mets go to the divisional round, if you will, in baseball playoffs. Yeah, when the Cowboys make this up, we'll make it up. Sure. Let's go. Sold. Yeah, I do. I do. I do.

I almost did too. Grimace didn't go out there with a glove on the wrong hand, throwing strikes for no reason, bro. Get out of here. Like, come on. Let's go Mets. I like this game. Get out of here. Let's sort of break before you turn the tables on me.

Would you rather? Back with more here on the Rich Eisen Show, Saquon Barkley, top of the next hour. Let's talk about game time tickets, people.

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FX's The Old Man, all new Thursdays on FX, stream on Hulu. So um, Yanks might just go for the next three games anyway, you know? It's very possible. They're playing better. Yeah.

Very possible. They're playing better. They were circling the drain a little bit.

And you're metropolitans, huh? You fired up? I'm confused, to be honest with you. Because they were dead. They were dead. Their first month of the season was so bad. So bad. They were using bad news Bears type ways. Yeah, and like I said, we thought this was a throwaway season.

I've said that multiple times. They've been great. I expected nothing out of that team this year.

And man, we're holding on right now. At Philly though, this weekend. Coop was showing me Juan Soto's post-game soundbite about how he loves playing with his teammates. He wants to win a championship in New York. He will win a championship in New York, but it'll be in Queens. And so he thinks that that means that he's so he goes, you know, they got to win a championship for him to stay. And I'm like, he could easily win the championship Coop and walk like my work is done and take bigger money elsewhere.

If the Yankees don't pony up, that'd be a shame. And here's my 13 year old son. It clanks around his beautiful brain. And he's just like, but they got to pay for him, dad. I felt like saying to him, son, I just thought like one was the first time in my life that I was like, the Steinbrenners have to pay for this player. And I think it was when I was his age, when they were going to let Reggie walk and I cried myself to sleep. And then after they lost the 81 world series, the Dodgers, I knew Reggie was going to walk. So right around the same, and I just want to say, you know, Reggie, they, you know, how's dad let Reggie walk kid. So the fact that you became friends with Reggie Jackson, you know that every single time he's here. That's crazy.

Yeah. And then he criticized the way that I was throwing Reggie bars around here. That really left a mark back here on the rich eyes and show radio network.

I want to take a moment here. I'm going to get a little emotional here because as you know, I'm a, I'm a Michigan man and the Michigan community, the Michigan sports community as well, lost an absolute Titan. And in the times that I met Greg Harden, he would not want to be referred to as that. But Greg Harden died today after complications from a procedure earlier this week. And we're all stunned because he was larger than life and he's had the biggest heart. And the fact that that heart's not beating anymore is stunning for those who may not know, Greg Harden, uh, was back in the eighties, a clinical therapist in a, in a hospital in Ypsilanti, Michigan, which is just down the road in Washtenaw County from Ann Arbor, Michigan. And somebody from the Michigan football program reached out to him to say, would you mind talking to the team and talked about, you know, like the scourge of alcohol and drugs. And he said, no, because I'm not just going to do a, uh, a just say no speech for 20 minutes and walk out the door.

I want to make a more lasting impact. And somebody went back to Bo Schembechler and said, the guy that we asked to help said no. And he's like, I want to meet this guy. And Greg Harden met Bo Schembechler and told him exactly what he was looking for. If he wanted Bo to have him help and, and Bo acquiesced and thank goodness for that, because Greg Harden turned out to be somebody, the mental Sherpa for all the all-time great Michigan athletes that have since been there. From Michael Phelps swears by him, asked Tom Brady about him. Um, Desmond Howard said he wouldn't have won the Heisman trophy if it wasn't for Greg Harden pulling him into his office or offering an ear for all of the Michigan athletes for all those decades and, and teaching them how to be mentally tough and believe in themselves and and have self-sufficiency.

Greg came on this program last year in promotion of his book about how to be sane and in an insane world. And I just wanted to bring up this soundbite when the subject of how he helped Tom Brady, who, as we all know, famously was the 199th overall pick in an NFL draft because he was sharing time at the time when he was at Michigan with one of the hot phenoms and Drew Henson at quarterback. The work that we had to do, why was Tom Brady drafted a 199th pick? Well, if he's that good, was he sharing the limelight with a freshman?

Correct. If I'm a scout, if I'm the general manager, I'm saying, yeah, okay, he's nice. But he had to share his senior year with another guy and he must not be that good. But the mindset of a Tom Brady is the only thing that got him through all of that.

He was heartbroken, overwhelmed by all of this. And you'll hear me say it and you've heard me say it before. When Tom Brady was in my office, I shared with anyone I worked with, you come in my office, you can cry, you can complain, you can do whatever you need to do, you can vent.

When you walk out this office, nobody's to see you sweating. You walk in and you take charge and be in control of what you can control. You can't control how these coaches are making decisions.

That's not your role. Your role is to be consistent, single most important word in sports, consistency. If I asked you the single most important word in sports to anyone in this room, they would say A, B, C, or D. But if they don't understand consistency everywhere they come up with, we can put consistently win, consistently boom, boom, boom. Brady is the king of consistency. It's just that he was consistent at the most insanely high level that we've maybe seen on a football field. And I know I'm talking about Jerry Rice and Jim Brown here too, okay? I know, I know, he's in that pantheon, he's placed himself in that pantheon. But once upon a time he was a kid coming into your office saying, why do I gotta share time? So when you said the best thing to happen to Tom Brady is Drew Henson, why do you say that?

Because it triggered and took it to the whole nother level. His mental game is the game. The mental game is the game for anyone that's listening, anyone that wants to read this book.

Yes. Self-mastery is what I teach. I can't teach Tom Brady how to do anything on the football field except master his own mind be that guy who is committed to leading as best he can other men, you understand? And so he trained himself to be so disciplined that no matter what happened, no matter what the decision the coaches made, he was going to be steadfast in his quest to be the best. We lost a real one. We lost a real one in anybody that's come across him, Charles Woodson. And I know I'm naming famous athletes here, but anybody, any human would come across him.

That's the guy right there that he would be in. What a shame. What an absolute shame, a stunner, a stunner for everybody in the Michigan community. Sixty Minutes did a feature on him a decade ago called a Michigan secret weapon. Best to Greg Harden and his family may you rest in peace and go blue, sir.

Yeah, that's rough. He was great, right? I mean, he was great. He was great.

It was really fun. An interesting conversation, man. People were posting some of the quotes from his book, you know, talking about talking with Brady today. Yeah. Today I saw a few, you know, and these guys wouldn't have been who they ended up becoming if it wasn't for Greg Cardin.

I posted his, uh, that entire interview just now on Twitter so people can go and check that out. Yeah. Jim Harbaugh, our neighbor across the way.

I mean, that was the first quarterback he brought into his office. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

I just love this. Again, part of the story I was telling before is in that interview as well. Bo Schembecker is told by somebody, don't worry, coach, I'll get somebody for you to speak to the team on the subject matter that you consider is so important. Well, I got the perfect guy and come back and they're like, he said, no, and that's how Greg Harden got in by standing for what he thought was best and he wasn't just going to be a mouthpiece. He had to do something significant. Boy did he ever, boy did he ever. And, uh, everybody in the Michigan community today is just gutted, just sending texts to each other and sending wishes again, rest in peace. Greg Harden.

Yeah. Saquar Barkley's coming up. The Rolling Stone Music Now podcast gets inside the biggest stories with Rolling Stone, senior writer, Brian Hyatt, movie director, James Mangold. I'd want to turn Bob Dylan into a simple character with a simple thing to unlock that then makes you go, ah, now I get him, first time I sat down with him and he said, what's this movie about, Jim? It's about a guy who's joking to death in Minnesota and reinvents himself in a branded place, becomes phenomenally successful, starts to joke to death again and runs away. And you smile. It's like, I like that. Join music now, wherever you listen.