At long last, the Atlanta Falcons get a big-time pass rusher they have covered for, I would say more than a year, and now get Matthew Judon, the former Pro Bowl.

That's right. We're in the matrix, breaking news to start this NFL Daily. I am here for the first time ever with the man that broke the news, and that was a clip of him breaking the news earlier, but well after we tape the rest of our show. But we're putting this at the top, Ian Rapport, you had the news, Matthew Judon to the Falcons for a third-round pick. Why now?

First of all, I like that you do this. Give the people what they want. They want the news, they want it now. Hack it onto the top of the jam for this. This is a good trade, and I think it's a good trade for both sides. Let's start with the Patriots side of it first. They were not getting anywhere with Matthew Judon. I think for a while, they thought they were. They had extensive contract talks to try to get something done long term or maybe short term with Judon to make him happier. Remember, he was making less than $7 million this year because they took money last year from this year and moved it forward. You do that, you got to fix it, and they were unable to fix it based on his demands. He was unhappy. There was the spat with Gerard Mayo on the sideline. This was not going in a good direction. The Patriots, look, they could be good. Anything can happen. It's clearly a transition year. A 32-year-old pass rusher who wants a new contract. Makes sense on someone else's team, not their team. That's the Patriots side of it. For the Falcons, they have been looking for a pass rusher for a long time.

They were in on the Monte Sweat deal, did not end up getting him. They were in on the Hassan Redik deal, did not end up getting him for whatever reason. I'm not saying they lost out. They made decisions throughout, but I'm just saying those are two of the guys they're in on. Leatu Leatu, they tried to trade up for in the draft, didn't happen. So now they get chewed on. They can deal with it from a salary cap standpoint. They could deal with it from a pick standpoint. For the Atlanta The Falcons, this is their final thing, and I think it makes a lot of sense for them.

Oh, yeah, it makes a ton of sense. I just assume he's going to get paid by The Falcons, but the price, a third-round pick, that's fine for what has been He's not even a top-schelf pass rusher. I mean, Judon is coming off an injury that's not something you worry about long term. He's not an aging pass rusher that's coming off a torn Achilles or a torn ACL. It's a biceps injury, and so you would expect him to play well. Do you think he gets a new contract with Atlanta before the season? He must. Otherwise, this doesn't make any sense.

Right. I mean, I think there will be something. Will it be a new contract or will it be a reworked year this year? Will it be incentives if he has the SAC numbers he wants? There's different ways you can deal with it. But I think for him, going elsewhere probably makes sense, and that really opens up all the possibilities. I think for the Patriots, it probably would have only been a long-term extension for the Falcons who look like maybe they're a little further along, maybe they just rework this year. Then past rushers who were in their 30s get paid. I mean, I forget what Von Miller was. I think he was like 32 or '33 when the bills signed. I'm like, these guys can still make real money. So if he goes out and kills it, he can cash in for agency again. That makes a lot of sense to me.

Yeah, Clowny just got paid pretty good money from Carolina more than he had got in the previous year. But if Floyd also They needed him, but they better give them some money. Or as a quasi-Patriots fan here, I'd be annoyed. It's like, What are we doing here if we're just giving up their best edge rusher? A third-round pick, okay, great. It's okay return. But is there any concern from the Patriot side of things that this training camp, there's been displeasure among some of the players, Devon Godja, and then Matthew Judon, both expressing publicly. Judon gets in the public fight, then he's back, and he's sometimes practicing, sometimes not. Then they basically do what he wants, and he gets his way. Any worry about Gerard Mayo set you a bad precedent here?

No, because this is money. When players want money, I think there are different ways you can handle it. Got you. Got you. Got the new deal. He got the deal he wanted, got a two-year deal. Judon didn't, and he got traded. I don't think the Patriots did anything that would let people say, Oh, well, they set precedent. Look, there are players all over the league who want new contracts and don't get them, and sometimes those guys get traded. I think the Patriot tailed it fine. You can talk about the return. To me, it's fine. It's basically a fourth rounder this year, which is the same thing as a three next year. That's equal value. It's fine.

The Patriot is not- I feel like we got to rework that, by the way. You know how they've always said that is like, next year's third is is worth a second this year. I say no. I say a third is a third. No. It's like money, Ian. If you can just be patient and have a long term view, a third is worth a third. I'm just saying a third next year, it's one thing when If he was going to be on the team past this year, but he wasn't going to be. It was the final year of his contract. I think it's fine. It's not like Brandon Ayuk getting traded for Picks now where you're not getting anything back, and you should have just... That's not helping you. It's not the same thing.

Yeah, right. This is a transition team, and I think the Patriots did fine. I think for Matthew Judon, he did fine or maybe really well.

Oh, yeah. He gets to go live in Atlanta instead of, I don't know if he's making the drive from Boston or he's living in Foxborough. That'll be great. Meanwhile, he's the first pass rusher on Atlanta. That's a good edge rusher since John Abraham. I mean, it's outrageous. I don't want to put you in a bad spot, but I do, Ian. Okay.

Now, it won't be the first time.

Name another Falcon's pass Like an edge rusher. Like an edge rusher. I won't even give you Grady Jarrett. That doesn't count. I don't blame you. Not many people could do it. Arnold Ebaketty, Lorenzo Carter. It's maybe in terms of just pure talent at the bottom of the league.

They had a third round who they liked a lot who got hurt.

Yeah, Braille and Trice is on IR. We said that on the pot a couple of days ago, so that maybe was what inspired this.

Arnold Ebaketty, tip of my tongue.

I appreciate you, Ian. Adding to the top of our show, I was so excited because all week I've been trying to get these NFL Dailys shorter. And maybe our listeners, let me know. Just because it's daily, it's a lot. You want it to pack a punch and get it a little bit shorter so people can listen to it every day. Maybe I'm wrong. And the show this week had been a little longer, and I was excited because we got a banger coming up. Patrick Claibon is in the studio. Colleen Wolf is in the studio. We hear all about Colleen's travels. We get very angry and tell a lot of people to pipe down. We break down JJ McCarthy and all that, and it was a nice tight show. But now me and you, the two short kings of NFL media, just added to it, and now it's not going to be quite as short.

I like how you made us equivalent. Good move by you.

Yeah, we're not quite there. I'm glad you mentioned that. Before I do throw it to that, I just had to tell you, my son told me to tell you because I came right off the tennis court. I went from to the tennis court with Walker, and I told him how I'm going to do this, and he was like, Tell Ian, I'm a fan. He's got a cool job. I was like, What about my job? That's a pretty cool job. He's like, No, I want to break news like Ian. You have a fan in Walker. Yeah.

Well, tell him thank you, but tell him don't, because I would like all the news for myself.

Okay. By then, you'll be too old eventually. Thank you again, Ian. And yeah, let's get to the top of the show with Coleen and Patrick. Welcome to NFL Daily, where we can't do a lot of subtle movements right now. I'm Greg Rosenthal, and I'm beyond lucky today to be joined by my friends Patrick Claibon and Colleen Wolf. It is great to see you two. It is great, frankly, that both of you are still alive after the accidents that you've had while inside training camp.

Mine was exceedingly minor.

I'm just glad Colleen is here. Everything's fine. I can't really talk about the details of the accident. But yes, I'm here and I'm alive, and thank God, that's great.

You're feeling healthy. You're okay. You're with us.

I can't really talk about the accident is what I'm saying.

I could talk about mine. It's all my fault. I'm riding a scooter through Cincinnati in a rainstorm and hit a pothole because I can't see it. Everybody's watching.I can't believe that happened.It's very embarrassing.

I can't believe that happened.

Yeah.

But again, I'm glad Coleen's here. But then you did television immediately afterYeah, four hours. That's crazy.teeing on the pothole and you were bleeding.

Eventually, the bleeding stopped. I got enough scar tissue on my knee that Other stuff is not an issue.

You were scraped up as if you had been on the playground and tripped and fell. Was there an asphalt in your knee and everything? Did you get this cleaned out before the show?

There's still little pieces ofNo, I see them.of rock and glass because I was holding my phone in my hand, and I broke it in half and we're doing the show. Baldy and Bridget, we had a lot of fun talking about it.

It sounds like a ton of fun.

Yeah, it was great. It was good to be in Cincinnati. The groundskeeper tried to turn the sprinklers on on us. I love it.

I want to go back. Oh, my God. Well, that does sound like fun. More fun than Colleen's, an accident we cannot talk about. And will not. No matter what on this show.

Can't really talk about it. Although I will say I got an X-ray on Monday, and I had to go and get my earrings put back in because you have to take out all of the metal. The guy that put my earrings back in knows Randy and Eric.Oh, wow.Yeah. Tony. Tony from down at your cheating heart piercing in Hermosa. That's my boy.

That is part ofYeah. Dude, he's my guy. He made me custom slip-on vans. Really? Yeah, and he hooked Eric up with some piercings. Yeah, Tony's my guy, dude. No way. Shout out to Tony.

Yeah, so Tony saving the day.

I'm excited. I mean, Randy just lit up. Randy's great. I love Randy and Eric behind the glass here. Yeah, Coleen being back, this really gets us going. Coleen, we've missed her for a couple of weeks, but now she's going to be here weekly. I am. Patrick, obviously, as well. Any time, Greg. We got a lot to talk about. Yeah, let's do some news. But before we hit the news drop, I do want to say we're going to hear about Coleen's travels around training camp. We're also... Oh, we got a lot of sound for that. We're also going to just talk about issues around the NFL. Maybe we're going to direct this at certain fan bases, at least I am, where just people need to pipe down a little. Just pipe down. People need to just relax.

Before that- Fill out, everyone.

Let's do some news. The Vikings fans got the news that they did not I want to hear. On Wednesday, JJ McCarthy will miss the entire 2024 season. They did surgery on his torn MCL, and they realized they needed to do a full repair, and that will mean he is out for the season. Kevin O'Kunal was clearly disappointed when he spoke to the media, but he did try to see the positive in the situation.

He's confirmed everything that I hope to see, not only early on through training camp, through his performance last Saturday, but our fan base and everyone should just be excited about the fact that we've got our young franchise quarterback, I believe, in the building.

The way O'Kannell said it there, it almost feels like it's coach-speak, trying to find the good... But he's right. As season-ending injuries go, and it was a torn meniscus, it was not a torn MCL, I just wanted to correct that. He's a 21-year-old. Got his whole football future in front of him. This is not an ACL. It's not an Achilles. O'kannell talks about how he's going to be able to be back in the building and get some of the positives of going through an NFL season. He wasn't expected to start right away, and he did get the entire offseason until this point. Maybe I'm crazy trying to spin this positive, but it is a little different, and he showed a lot in that offseason. I think his training camp, just for the people that were there that I trust that were watching it day in, day out, was really impressive that he was ahead of schedule, and you saw that in the preseason opener. So on one hand, that is a huge tease for Viking fan. On the other hand, he did get some really good work in this offseason, and he's a really young quarterback, and I believe he's the heavy, heavy favorite to be their week one starter next year.

Well, yeah. And the fact that they were never actually... I mean, of course, they're going to say this, but they didn't have to play him because they had Sam Darnold, even though They would have played him because it would have been crazy to not as such a high draft pick. But there's no pressure, and it's not like they don't have a backup plan there. I mean, they have the backup quarterback in Sam Darnold. It absolutely is crushing for them, for him, all of it. But they're not in a terrible situation because the plan, and at least the plan that was being told and shopped around to all of us, was that Sam Darnold was going to start the season, and that is exactly what will happen now. And you know what? Maybe it is good because you get to see quarterbacks now. I mean, that's how it was in the olden days when quarterbacks would come in, they'd get drafted high, they would sit for a year. There is something to that. There is something beneficial in watching guys who have reps already run the huddle and see how everything works. And just watching and learning is good.

And I think we saw him pushing Sam Darnold. Yes. In the clip that Vikings fans will survive on for a year is him throwing that shutdown pass and Justin Jefferson being miced up on the sideline during the call and celebrating that. I think the big positive takeaway is because meniscus repairs can go so many different ways. We've seen teams, we've seen organizations try to take the fast route and rush somebody there. And if he started early, he would have been the second youngest quarterback to ever start, right? Right behind Sam Darnold in his time in the Jets. And so you could see the long term plan of having a healthy happy JJ. We're not rushing him back. We're not trying to massage the opinion of the surgeon or the player and say, Hey, you can be back this year. We need you back. Take it easy. Do the full repair and get him back as good as he can in 2025.

I do think the ceiling for this team is lower. Maybe I'm getting too worked up about one preseason game.

I think you are. You might need to calm down.

I know. Maybe I need to... I'm going to tell some people to pipe down in related to the Vikings very shortly. But he was really impressive in that game, and we've seen who Darnold was. The whole idea of this was the best situation for any rookie quarterback to walk into, I agree with that because not only does he have the weapons like Caleb Williams does, but he has a really good tackle combination, good offensive line, good offensive coach, which I think there's more questions about that with Chicago, and a frisky defense with Brian Flores. And their over-under was seven and a half. I know that division is tough, but I thought they were in the mix. If you told me that they made the playoffs and had a fun season where they win 10 games and McCarthy's good, that wouldn't have surprised me. Now, I think the ceiling is a little.

Okay, let me ask you this. How many wins do you take off now, projecting with Sam Darnold as the starter, just in your mind?I'll.

Say one and a half.That's it. I mean, that's a big projection for JJ McCarthy to be that good as a rookie, because I'm mostly saying the rest of the team was capable, and they had a chance McCarthy came out guns blazing. I'm a little lower on Darnold than consensus, I would say.

Yeah, it's tough to get late-season Darnold previous years out of our minds where it reaches a point where the wheels come off. We're thinking late in the season as McCarthy starts to come into his own, they pick up some wins there, and now it's just Sam the whole way.

It changes how I feel.Right. Okay, so here's who needs to pipe down. We're doing a segment later, pipe down, but it would have been-You can't wait. I'm not going to wait because it's about the Vikings. The Darnoldhive needs to pipe down. Really? The best day of every season for the Darnoldhive is the day the quarterback in front of him gets hurt. And it's like, All right, let's calm down. I remember you celebrating because Brock Purdy had an injury at practice last year, and they were like, Oh, it's now Darnold's time to shine. And I could see all these little gremlins crawling out of the woodwork yesterday celebrating this young man's injury. No one's celebrating. They were just like, It's Sam's time to shine. And We got a name in shame. It's everyone. What if? Tice is into him.

You know what's going to happen, Greg.

Meana Kimes, Jeremiah, Solak probably likes him.

Sam Darnold is going to be Gino Smith.

See, I don't buy that. There's a difference.What.

If that happens?I've heard that.Coleen trolling.

No, that's good. I like this. I think if because of the situation around him, and he could be better as a 28-year-old, I believe he is now than he's been before, that's possible. I think the ceiling is a little lower, but yeah, he could be a poor man. He could be a baker last year with-This is what I want to happen.

Yeah. I want you to be wrong about this. I want Sam Darnold to thrive. I want his vive to grow and be louder. That sounds bad.

He could be better. Okay, so the best stretch. Here's why he's not Gino Smith. Gino Smith wasn't playing all that time. Sam Darnold's played a ton. He's been playing this whole time. I'm going to read you. I came prepared.Let's get it. His PFF rankings throughout his career. 64, 63. This is with the Jets? That's just starting with the Jets. But the thing with PFF, and I don't think it's perfect, although I think their grades for quarterbacks are better than people give them credit for, it is trying to take out the situation around them. Sixties is actually okay. It's not as bad as his numbers were as a rookie. It's saying you're close to league average, you're a little below that. Seventy is decent, 80 is You're a good-So it's like a Dalton line around there.Pretty good starter. So it's like an adult in line around there? 64, 63, 58, 55, 63, 66. I look at that and I look at, well, there's a consistent quarterback. There's a guy who's shown us who he is throughout his career, which is like a high-level backup.

Is the '55 the Matt Rule Panthers era?

Yes.oh, man.

Because I feel like we may be able to throw that.No.

It's not. It's actually the... Yeah, it's a little combination, I think.Okay..

I am willing, as a person who shares maybe not as vehement and passionate as you are about it, I'm willing to get rid of that particular throw that one away because that was bad for everybody.

I agree with you. You're right. And the best stretch of his career was the next season. That's where I was getting confused with Rule, where he played for the Panthers and had about a five or six game stretch where he didn't make those darn oldianDarn oldian.decisions, which reminds me of when Kirk Cousins went bad early in his career, and he just does inexplicable things. He'll be a really solid, obviously talented quarterback for a while, and then he'll just do something, and you're like, Why did you do that? He had a nice stretch with the Panthers, I think, after Rule was gone until a week 18 game where he completely fell apart. That's why the final grade was probably at 6.

His best grade on there was when he was aware.

It was all about the same. The first couple of years in the Jets and then that season.

But we've never seen him in a that he will be in with the Vikings.

That's the Darnold Hive buzzing in our area.

That's it. I think it can be better. He needs help, though. Jordan Addison got carded out of practice. This is bad for my argument. On Wednesday, not long before we taped. It might not mean much. We've seen a lot of carded lately, and I'm always tracking it for this show, and I've learned not to even bring it up on the show until you find out a day or two later, because more times than not, it's a couple of days or it's half a week. Hopefully, that's the case with Jordan Addison, and it's not anything serious. We don't know.

I hope not because getting carded off with an apparent leg injury feels a bit serious. But again, it could be overblown because everything, I feel like every single little piece of news right now is because everyone is so starved.

Well, the cart's there. If you have a lower body injury, why not cart him off? Apparently, he was putting a little bit of weight on it. He was limping over to it. Itokay.

That's what we need. If you're there and watching a guy, tell us the full context. How did they get to the cart? Don't just say, Coleen carted off with lower leg injury. It's like, I'm worried now, but give us the full context. What happened in the play? You don't have to be Twitter doctor, but just give us more than that.

Paint us a picture a little bit.

I'm glad they're really careful. Tyrone Tracy, the Giants backup running back at an air cast put him, which is usually a kiss of death, and his injury didn't end up being as serious as they thought, and he's going to be back in a couple of weeks.

I just expect the worst case scenario with everything.

We got to turn this around, Connie, although I know it's been an off-season. You got to get that.

That's what I'm saying.

Get that back feeling better. Immediately After Addison left the practice, the reports were that Darnold threw an interception to Jefferson, that pressure was all over him, and that one of the Browns' cornerbacks, because it was a joint practice, were just screaming over to the Vikings sideline. You all You all can't catch a cold. You all can't catch a cold. Oh my God.

Maybe he's in the Darnold half. I think he is. He's like, You got to pick your guy up.

Now you're balling. All right, Randy is really coming in strong today, lets me know the over-under is six and a half at DraftKings. I don't know if it's gone down because I promise you at one point it was seven. So it might have gone down one for McCarthy. I doubt it, though. A couple other just smaller items in the news. Jeremiah Wussu, Kora Moa got a contract extension from the I think that was a good bit of business. I was assigned to do a top 50 free agents for 2025. He was in the top 25 or so of that. Got to take him off.Nice. He was good. Would have been the top off-ball linebacker. Those guys are hard to find. They're underpaid, too, by the way. He got 25 million guaranteed. Not that much money. Dante Jackson, the cornerback for the Panthers, was taken off in a card, so we'll keep an eye on him. Sorry, Dante Jackson, now on the Stealers. I made a mistake. He was traded for Deontay Johnson. But their cornerback situation actually is pretty thin after him. That's why they traded for him in the first place. Jamir Gibbs and Terry Arnold, who both had injuries with the lions, are expected back before the start of the season.

Those appear to be relatively minor. Matthew Stafford left practice with some ham string tightness. So we'll just keep an eye on that. Coleen.

Yeah.

You have been traveling around the world. Yeah. Really this country, but the world a little bit earlier in the offseason. Yeah. But that's not what we're talking about here. Right. We're talking about your travels around the country, and you're going to report back to us.

Okay, so I'll just give you the top line items here. I was in Oxnard for Cowboy Training Camp. Learned that Mike McCarthy had been boxing with Dan Quinn, so now he's going to need a new sparring partner. That feels like it's something that is important and pressing at this point.

Also feels like a one-sided matchup.

You think Dan was tuning him up?

I would love to know more about it, and I really wanted to dig in, but we needed to ask about the team.

Mike McCarthy, he could pack a punch. He's from Pittsburgh. He's a tough guy. He always talks about how he's a tough guy. I bet he might know how to fight and just knock you out quick. But as someone who tried to start boxing for We had a four or five month period. You did? At the gym? Yeah. You have to be in outstanding shape. I mean, it's got to be the most tiring thing that has ever been created. Mike McCarthy doesn't seem like he would last very long. I don't think so. I don't know.

I don't know, Greg. Let's put Mike McCarthy and you in a ring. See what happens.

Do we want to set the fight up?

I mean, I'm definitely better than it would have been before I did that.

You guys are going to do the way in.

Can we cut a promo? If I got in a fight now, I would feel more confident. All right, go on. Sorry.

I was in Canton for Hall of Fame. I have grown to absolutely love going to Hall of Fame so much. It is just an absolute blast. I was able to do this little thing with Dan Fouts and Ron De Barber. We were that set up in front of everyone next to the stage and just talked in between all of the inductees. And Dan Fautz is hilarious. I don't know if people know this, but he's one of the funniest people alive, and he's so dry about it. So if you're not paying attention, the jokes just go over everyone's heads. It's amazing.

Little Fautz bomb. Underrated as a quarterback, too. I think he gets forgotten when you think of all-time quarterbacks because he didn't get to that final game. Let's just say it, maybe the best or one of the best preseason crew is out there. Daniel Jeremiah, Matt Money Smith, and Dan Fouts.So good.You're cooking with gas.I love them. They almost make it worth watching Easton Stick for three quarters.

How many three and outs did we see from Easton Stick?

But seriously, they're great. Go on.

The universe somehow keeps pairing me up with Ron De Barber, and I've told him multiple times that he ruined my childhood when he shut down Veteran Stadium, the final game there, and broke every single Eagles fan's heart. So now I have to keep doing events with him, but also I feel as if I'm a turncoat because we get along now, like my relationship with Michael Irvin. So I don't know. I guess maybe it's growth, maybe it's maturity, but you grow, and that's what I'm doing. Also, I heard that my one friend went to Andre Johnson's Hall of Fame party, and he said that all he got was a bobblehead for throwing him all of his touch downs. That made me laugh. Let's go to Indianapolis, and it's happening again. Every time I go to Indianapolis for Colts camp, I immediately drink all the Kool-Aid, and I'm all in.Colts.Colts..

They're just one of those teams that you just fall for.

I do. Every time. Their cornerback situation is a problem. When I was there, I had to see the Colts team doctor because I convinced myself that I was getting cauliflower ear. Oh, God. That is not happening, so everyone can rest easy. But I did really get a nice behind-the-scenes look at the Colts team and the staff and the facility. Anthony Rachertsinn, I absolutely love him. I never had a chance to talk with him until this past trip there, and he's incredible. First of all, he has an amazing voice, but he just has this presence about him. I would love to be able to tell you detailed accounts of practice, but when we are hosting those shows inside Training our back is to practice. If I had eyes in the back of my head, it would be really, really helpful, but I don't because I'm sitting for four hours with my back to practice, so I can really only take away from the interviews that I do. But he's incredibly sweet. His little brother plays football at the high school right nearby, and he goes and watches his brother play football every day.

That's cool. So the whole family move there?

Yeah, they moved the entire operation. They were going to do that no where he was drafted. And so everyone now is set up in Indianapolis.

The only person with a deeper voice, maybe in the NFL, or not in the NFL anymore, is Andre Johnson. So that would be a good voice. Andre Johnson versus Anthony Richardson.

Anthony Richardson. He needs to be doing voiceover work as well. It's a great voice. Kenny Moore, one of the best nickel cornerbacks maybe in the league. I think that he's going to have a great season. He's like the elder statesman now in that room. So if the younger guys can realize some of their potential and some of those guys can really emerge, then they'll be able to bring it together. He was calling himself a pioneer at the position. I would like to maybe see if we're calling Kenny Moore the Pioneer this year, if he does start having some good plays.

Just that he's good at being a nickel corner, and nickel cornerbacks are more valuable than they were when he started. Yeah.

He's adding his own twist to it. He's forging a path for others to follow. He's a pioneer. He's the pioneer.

Okay. He's Kenny Moore. I mean, he wasn't the first ever slot cornerback.

No, that's not what he's saying.

Antoine Winterfield. I think of Antoine Winterfield senior, and I'm sure there were some before, but that guy was a pioneer.

Leatu Latu was flying off the edge. Everyone loves him.

He looked really good in the preseason opener. That was one thing that we did not get to in the nick took and myself wrap-up. I wish I had said something. I'm glad you brought him.

He looked great. He's been glowing reviews out of camp for him. Deforece Buckner talked to him. He loves Latu, and they also have a new defensive line coach there, which Defo just absolutely lit up when he was talking about him. Michael Pitman- You're close enough, you call him Deefo?

I know I've interrupted you seven times.

That's where we are now. That's where we are. We're friends. Michael Pitman. He He giving lots of leader vibes from him. He thinks that Jonathan Taylor is going to have a 2000-yard season. But obviously, when you look at their offense, all five starting offensive linemen are back together. That unit is cohesive and with Jonathan Taylor healthy and Anthony Richardson healthy. Now, Michael Pitman, they do have a nice shot at making some noisy. Look, this is what I'm doing.

I buy it. I don't know I don't know if this is a hot take or whatever, but I do think the cult ceiling is just as high as the Texans. That ceiling is like two or three seating the AFC. I think they're that talented. Their lines, their skill position, guys, everything.

Just one last thing on Michael He has a full-on farm that he works, and he has tons of animals on the farm. He's not from Indianapolis. I can't remember where he's from, but once he was drafted and once he got with the team, He moved there and bought the farm, and they have-Literally.alpaca. They have emu, which he said is pronounced emu, and people get that wrong all the time. Fresh eggs he brings into the facility for everyone. He was trying to Hawk a out to people because I guess that's a thing. The Colts have a real rooster problem at their training camp because I guess there is a farm next door. A lot of farm talk down there in Indy. That's awesome. Yeah.

He went to Oaks Christian in West Lake Village.In California.Yeah. That's surprising. But I love it. People contain multitudes. I love that. I love that set up for the Colts training camp, and I loved our trip around the country with Colleen Wolf. Yeah, it is weird when they're kicking field goals at Colts Training Camp, it just goes into...

The neighbor's yard?

The yard next door. That's old school. Although that's actually their facility. It's not like a random high school they're playing at. No, it's nice. That's their facility. It just goes into...

They bought the land from the farm people next door, the farmers.

All right, we are going to take a quick break. When we come back, we're going to tell some people, other than the Darnal Hyve, to pipe down. Oh, yeah. We're only three weeks away from kickoff, by the way.

That's it?

3 weeks. You feel like that's a lot or that's too little?

No, it's going to fly. I'm still trying to get a little bit of summer in, even though it's over.

We're in week 6 here at NFL Daily, Coleen, and I'm saying, I've been there. Five days a week, we've been there.We're going.I've.

Already lost my tan.

Come with me. We need you here.

You're done. All right, all right, all right. Fine, fine, fine.

Maybe that's why I'm a little ornery, a little agitated, and wanting to tell people to pipe down. We already started with the Darnold, so I don't want to go in first since I already did it. Why don't we start with our friend Patrick Claibon?

Yeah, it's a familiar set of guy. It's a set of guy who's always around in the preseason. He comes to remind you whenever you're celebrating somebody's performance, how they play, they say, Hey, it's the preseason. We know. We're sitting here waiting for the football season all the time. We're sharks. All we do is swim and eat. We try to accomplish some aspect of life, and then we experience the football season, and that's it. If it was that easy for people to go out and play well and have success in the preseason, more people would do it. We know that it's the preseason. All of those caveats are already applied. Go away. Let us enjoy football.

What are you doing? I will say, because I feel this whenever I'm hosting the preseason shows and we're doing the pre and the post and everything, and I'm going over numbers. If I don't say that it's the preseason, that caveat of it being the preseason, then people come after me and they're like, It's the preseason. Yeah, but that's fine. Yes. We're all just saying the same Same thing. We get it. We have to do this. It's a formality of the season, and we're all just trying to get through it together.

Let us enjoy it, too. Let us provide context where the context is appropriate or when we need. But also the The whole, it's the preseason thing is if a great throw happens, it's still a great throw. It doesn't matter who's out there. They're always saying, Oh, yeah, he did it on some FedEx employee. It's like, No, that guy is just going to be on a practice squad, and he'll be on another 90-man roster another year. These are professionals.

Yeah. Also, don't take shots at FedEx employees or UPS or DHL or anybody that works for our incredible Postal Service. There we go.

Or just any shots in general. I don't know if you guys watched the Eagles Ravens preseason game, but one of the members of the chain gang. I am still so upset about this. This poor man did nothing. He was just doing his job. Who was it? Was it Jerry Sandusky?

It was Jerry Sandusky. Not that Jerry Sandusky. The broadcaster. Yeah, not that Jerry Sandusky. The broadcaster for the Ravens. He got a little hot water.

I don't even know why it started, but he just went after this poor man and personally attacking him for his size, his glasses. I'm like, this man is just trying to see. Why is this a problem that he's wearing glasses? And what did he do to you? And he can't even defend himself.

And you're going after him on a broadcast? Okay, was he specifically targeting the dude because he was out of shape? Because when I saw it, actually, I happened to see it live. It was upsetting. It was talking about how they have the new technology where the lasers are going to measure fourth down or not instead of the Chain Gang. But in that game, they have the Chain Gang, and they're like, Can't we just get the lasers? You got these people out here that are in the best shape. I feel like it was also the cameraman. The cameraman is getting away with this because When Sandusky was just saying it, he was just saying generically like, Hey, some of these people, they're not in the best shape. They got glasses. What do they got to do? And then the cameraman finds this guy specifically, and it was like, Oh, this type of guy?

I don't know. Chicken or egg. I feel like they had him on the camera first, and then Jerry just went in. Look at this poor man. What? Come on.

He did nothing wrong. I think he looks great. I think the cameraman has some responsibility in this. The director as well. I think Jerry is making the point that I've been making for a long time. We've come a long way. We got satellites in our face. We got multiple robots on Mars. We can do better. Jerry's my guy.

Although we can't do better yet. I got to say, they've been trying this out, and I've been monitoring it, and week one didn't go too smoothly. All the lasers were taking 35 seconds, and the game was stopping. So they need to work on that process.

I called sabotage on pass interference replay. I may be calling sabotage here. I just hope that everybody's making a good faith effort to get this done because some people may be motivated to not.

I just want to check on that guy, though, and make sure that everything's okay. I hope he's gone. I still feel upset about it.

Okay, so my first pipe down is I'm going to go with this one first because it's what inspired me to want to do this segment. And also it's very similar to yours. And this is to the packers fans out there to pipe down about, Caleb Williams hasn't proven I put something out there that was like, it must be a little weird for Packers fans to finally recognize, Hey, after 100 years, the bears, they finally got one. We've been blessed with our quarterback after quarterback after quarterback, and we got another. I'm not saying anything about Jordan love, but hey, you got this other one. And yes, every single reaction was like, It was one pass, man, because I did it off a quote tweet. Let's see some of the the responses that I got that annoyed me. I will address them one by one. One was like, Ha ha, bro. They said the same thing about Trubisky and about field. There was a lot of that. Just wait. He'll learn his place soon.Oh, his place?He.

Learned his place.

What? There was a lot of weird packers.There's some codes in there.Red flag.Yes, packers paternalism. Hey, news flash, he's not Mitchell Trubisky. It's not one throw. I like Justin Fields. I always defended him. He's not Justin Fields. He's the best prospect that a lot of people, including myself, believe we've ever seen. All you got to do is see all those throws. He's incredibly talented. He's not going to be one of those guys. So get that out of your head.

Honestly, that dovetails very nicely into one of mine.

Wait, I got more tweets. I want to throw them up before-Let's shame them all. Let's shame them all. Let's see another one.

I don't want to shame anyone. I do.

I do. This was the point. Same tweet as the past 30 years. Okay, I got that, too. Then It's early days great. Just wait till he breaks a painted nail. I went and checked and made sure these were all They were all packers fans. It's just like, You need to do better than that. Also, it annoys me all the people. There was a million of them that was just like, We don't care. We don't care at all, bro. It's like, By responding and saying you don't care, that saying how much you care.

It's all on yourself.

If you didn't care, you wouldn't respond with exclamation points.

What is the implication there with the painted nail? Just so we're clear, is that we're making commentary on people's fashion choices?

I think that's it. That he's not...

How tough and strong you are.

He's not a tough guy.

You're on Twitter, dog. I have enjoyed him on Hard Knocks, Caleb Williams.

Yeah. Been a little light on substance against this Hard Knocks so far. They haven't had the best access or something, but I do enjoy just getting the vibe of Caleb Williams, of what he's like as a teammate and leader.It's.

A nice little window.All.

Right, let's go to yours.

Well, it's perfect because Everyone who gets so overhyped about the rookie quarterbacks, how they looked in the preseason, we see what? One drive, maybe two drives. And usually it's against maybe not even the first-team defense. And a lot of times, they don't even have all of their first-team offensive linemen. It's just such a mismash of all of the things that you're not going to see in the regular season. And they make the expectations people do so high off of such a small sample size that a lot of times it sets up, I think, players in general for failure instead of success because you're basing it off of the preseason, which is basically an NFL placebo. If you think about last year, C. J. Stroud, he threw a pick on his second pass of the preseason. His completion percentage, I looked it up, was 55% at a 62 passer rating. Then he went on to have the best rookie season, offensive Rookie of the Year. Just for comparison, wasn't a rookie last year, but Kenny Picket, he completed 13 of 15 passes in the preseason. They won every single game. He had a perfect passer rating.

He was anointed. And then look what happened. Now he's in Philadelphia.

Coleen, but that doesn't mean people shouldn't check out nick Shook and I's week 2 preseason recap, which is going to look through the mess and find out what actually matters.

Exactly. We don't get too high. We don't get too low.

In the depth chart stuff, that's what I learned the most. It's what NFL teams are watching in terms of watching other teams, they look to see, okay, who's playing with the starters, for their week one opponent, who is getting the most snaps with Josh Allen. Buffalo's first week opponent is looking, okay, those are the receivers we need to prepare for. That type of stuff you can learn.

It's an evaluation for everybody in the preseason. They're not just looking at the quarterbacks. You have to fully contextualize and get your expectations from fully contextualized sources.

I think it's just such a tease. I'm just I just need to get to the season.

But it's like sometimes the expectations-You need to warm up, though.

You've been in summer mode.

I don't like a warm up. That's why I get hurt all the time.

Patrick, give me something else. You want to pipe down.

Yeah, pipe down Boston Celtics fans.

Whoa, that's not even football.

Yeah, that's not even football. Just real quick. It was great. It was spectacular to watch a really special thing.

We got Sam behind the glass. We got a gold medal, Sam.

I love you guys.

Shaking his fist at you.

Every single game, I had to watch this incredible activities, especially in the medal rounds, and then I had to log on. I had to log on and see, Why is it Jason Tatum playing? Did you guys enjoy the game? I only say that to poke fun at you guys. Congratulations.

His parents getting involved on Twitter about it? That was the problem. They maybe needed to pipe down. They were just making it worse. I would never have done that. I was disappointed that he was not playing well and can't hit a shot, and that I think he's had a rough post-championship run here. You should be able to enjoy that, and that hasn't been great, but it was all made up for by my guy, Derek White, being out there on the biggest stage with the best players in the world and getting that gold medal. Derek White. But my actual one, sorry.

Thank you, guys, is people who are taking poorly contextualized camp one-on-ones where somebody's literally covering Half the field and then one player, and it's like, Xavier worthy. And Patrick Mahomes is throwing them the ball. And we're looking at it from an offensive point of view, and it's like, Oh, wow, I'm excited about this. And then it's like, Oh, that poor defensive back is getting toasted.

There's no chance.

There's no chance when you see just how much field people are working with, especially in these seven-on-sevens, and quarterbacks are out there. I sat there and watched Joe Burrow dice up the bangles defense. You would think these guys had no chance.

Except for at Raiders Camp. Yeah. That was the one camp where I was just like, Devante wasn't there that day. It was like, they weren't winning the one-on-ones and seven-on-sevens. I was like, Oh, this is a little different. But you're absolutely right that especially one-on-ones, but even the seven-on-sevens, It's just a different sport. Everyone at Patriots camp is like, If you just watch 7 & 7, Drake May is by far, maybe not by far, but he's the best quarterback because he can just go sling it, but that's not football.

Yeah. Guys, it's the preseason. I have a bunch of little ones, smaller ones. But honestly, the Cowboys, the fact that everyone is getting upset about them potentially blowing up the core after this season, I'm not sure that that is actually what is going to happen here. I just don't really see a world where Jerry Jones is going to just let Dak walk away after this season.

Much to do about nothing. That's good.

After this season. And Seedy Lamb, too. It just feels like the cowboys are the parents that take away your phone when you're in trouble, and then they just give it right back to you. At the end of all of this, they're probably both going to get exactly what they want because Jerry wants this team to succeed, and he knows that he has this talent here right now. I just don't think that he... I can't imagine him blowing this up right now with both of them here.

Yeah, you're hitting me in a sweet spot here as a too soft parent. You knowI am that parent that it's like, No, you can't do this.

And then they just look at you with those eyes.

Half an hour late. Never again. Okay, you're not going to do it for a half hour. Then you're going to get exactly what you wanted. But you wouldn't have had it in the first place if you hadn't win.

Look what happened with Dax last deal. He got the no trade clause He didn't get franchise tag.

After his leg broke into two pieces.

Here's my only pushback on that. Okay. Maybe it's because I'm rooting for it. Ceedee Lamb, I agree. It's going to happen the next week or two. Yeah.

Jamar Chase, same thing.

Micah Parsons, eventually, you would think that happens. That's not this year. What if Dak Prescott doesn't want to play for the Dallas Cowboys anymore after this year? I think that's a pretty realistic possibility that he would love to see what's available, see the biggest contract in the history of the sport, and quite possibly would like to play for a different team because this team has certain challenges being the quarterback for this team that other teams don't have. Because now he's already there. Why would he sign a contract now?

He already referenced Aaron and Tom and Payton going to second spots. But I feel like the difference is those guys picked the team that they thought could immediately contend that was better. I mean, Aaron's situation with Green Bay was There's a lot going on there. But I just wonder how many teams are going to be able to present the same talent around Dak.

Right, which is maybe why he just wants to go see. But let's see. He wants to get there. He'll get the biggest contract in the history of the NFL by by far if he does get there. I think he'll get the biggest contract ever right now, but not by far. It would be bigger if he goes, and he can see who's there. Maybe it turns out to be options he doesn't like, and then he feels better about staying.

Have you thought about where he might want to go next year? Yes. Where?

I think the Rams would be interesting. Okay. Now, I know Stafford just signed another contract, but I think that coaching tree, in general, would love to coach Dak Prescott, and I think the Rams would be an attractive one.

And it's Los Angeles.

The Raiders would certainly put their hat in the ring. Now, maybe that's not going to be as attractive, I think.

Colina's put this in my head now, and I can see it that Jerry Jones would rather be the tough man who doesn't want to do this and then ultimately do it. And then he still gets credit for being the tough man who doesn't give and isn't negotiated, but he also gets to pay the guys that he ultimately wants to pay anyway. But I do think it's not saving any money. You could just go ahead and pay them before.

No, there's also a cap hit. It's a problem.

But it's good for Jerry.

Yeah, but it's good for the find.

It's good for Jerry's brand.

The situations always open up. Pittsburgh could be a place. Cleveland could be a place looking for a quarterback next year, although the finances of that would be maybe impossible. I'm just throwing random ones at Denver. Who knows? You never know.

Pilot Flying J, brought to you by Doug Prescott.

Which actually, Denver, I'm going to bring up a mini one, which is like, Hey, let's pipe down Bo'Nicks' Truthers. 15 for 21. He was bailing out of clean pockets a little early. I'm not saying anything good or bad about it, but there is a certain... Denver feels to me as not paternalistic. What is the word? I don't know. They really overrate their... Their fans and their media always overrate their team more than most places. That's all.

You're right, though. It's like a parent and their kids really looking through.

Here's another pipe down. Pipe down the people that keep saying, Well, you should just... And this is basically Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk. But I've seen Kyle Shanehan talk about it, too, which is, Let's just kick it to the They're going to kick it into the end zone every time anyways. Let's just bring it out to the 30. Why are you against fun? And then why Kyle Shanahan are you like, Oh, I hadn't thought of that. That's a compelling idea. Why don't we just kick it into the... No wonder your team didn't know about the overtime rules. You hadn't thought about yet.

Kyle might occasionally spin out an accuracy or an untruth.

Okay, you're saying he had thought about that. I feel like Kyle has probably considered any number of things and just likes to give us something to think about. Okay, here's the thing with-He's being facetious, right? Here's the thing about kicking it out to the 30. Okay, we're preventing possibly giving up plays. First of all, it's lame. It's not competing.

You're lame.

But more than anything, people are acting like 5 to 6 yards of field position is nothing. Do you know how much scoring is going to go up? If the average field position goes from 23, 24, which it was doing on kick offs last year when they actually kicked it short, to the 30, it's going to skyrocket. It's a huge deal. I don't buy that coaches are just going to accept that L. No.

No. Because I think the first place we're going to see it, we're going to see special teams coaches out of here in an even more alarming way than we all are, because they're already He's the first to go in a whole bunch of situations and take a lot of blame, but I think it's going to be tough.

Any more pipe downs from you?

What about Jordan Love as the MVP contender after, yes, he had a great end to the season.

You're telling people that say that to pipe down.

Maybe just pump the brakes. Maybe not pipe down, but let's just maybe reel it in a little bit. He had a really good two-month stretch to end the season, but it's just such It's such a small sample size. I know that they went into Dallas, and they beat the Cowboys, and he looked really good, but let's just maybe, I don't know, pump the brakes a touch.

I have considered that he's going to be a streaky quarterback, and so I hope for him, the streaks happen after he has a strong start to the season. I'm very high on Jordan Love in general, but I do think just the way he plays football, he's a little Josh Maloney. There's going to be some ups and downs. So you're right. If he has a couple of bad games to start, I don't think people should panic.

But I'm not actively rooting against him or for this to happen. I'm just saying maybe we adjust expectations.

Packers fans are eating it today. Randy Chávez, a famous Packers fan, told me he's indifferent about Kyla Williams. What about her take here? But even you saying you're indifferent, I don't know if I buy it.

Is it so bad for me to want the rivalry to be competitive again? Exactly. That That's hubris.

No, you know what? I got some packers responses, very few, but a few that were like, Hey, this is cool. The rivalry is going to be great. Our team is great. They finally have a quarterback, like bringing on. I can't imagine being that spoiled, though.

No one likes to watch a movie that's good for the first 50% of it, and then the entire third act is just bad. You wanted something that's good the entire way through, so we want a good game, a competitive game. But if it's like fan service the whole movie and you're getting that you want, like, Yeah, give me D arth Vader in the hallway at the end of Rogue One. Give me three hours of that. I'm a fan. Serve me. I don't want it. We've had lots of years of fan service, and it hasn't really accumulated too much for us. It's like, Okay, cool. We won the division. And then we lose in San Francisco or something.

I'm with Patrick. I like blowouts as a fan. People are like, Oh, it's an easy path for the Celtics last year. It's like, Yeah, this is great. Let's get it. I can be less stressed out about it. My final thing to pipe down, and this is pretty niche, it's to Jag's Twitter, actually. It's like, Calvin really is gone. Just let it go. I've just been noticing that. It's a whole thing. Jag's and Titans fans, they don't like each other. It's a rivalry there. They're also two of the forgotten teams. I got on the Jaguars front office for botching this Calvin Ridley negotiation here. But you got Brian Thomas. He came back and made a nice deep catch. That was great. During the preseason, that was fun. Gabe Davis, I've heard, and you could see it, that they're using him a little differently than Buffalo did. Not just a deep guy. You saw him do something. They're going to be fine. And stop being so mad that Calvin Ridley left. Let it go. He's going to be good, too. Don't be mad at him either that he took more money to go. That was your Jaguar's fault.

Yeah.

Anybody would make the same choice unless you're Jackson DeVille himself, MJD or something. I I got a quick one. Please. Okay. Right now, it's fantasy-related. Keenan Allen is the wide receiver 31. I know that we love recency and we love youth and all that. We're punting on veterans a little too early in the fantasy world. He was the wide receiver 8 last year. I just think Keenan Allen still gets open.What.

About this?It's good value, though. Did you see... Because Patrick is hosting fantasy Live now, three days a week, Monday through Wednesday. Shout out to Greg. There he is. Everyone, check him out on NFL Network. He came straight up from taping that show, so doing double duty. Look at you. I'm sure because you're such a part of the fantasy community, you are aware of the Keenan Allen weight controversy that he's up to 230 pounds or something. And yet when you look at him, he looks good.

Yeah, the training camp weight thing, it's just like, What are we doing? I think Keenan Allen forgot how to prepare for an NFL season. You step on the scale and things go up and down, whatever. I still think he can get open. I think he can get open at 260. Put him at tight in.

Who cares? I was watching Hard Knocks, though, a little closer. Like, Does Keenan Allen look bigger? I was like, No, he doesn't look any different to me. I don't understand it.

Remember the Leonard Fournet thing where they tried to convince us that he was 600 pounds?

That was crazy. I was at training camp with him that year, and we had to interview him. I was like, What are you going to get for lunch?

Keenan Allen, he is older, and that is a crowded offense. That's all.

All right. Patrick is going to lunge across the table. We're going to watch it.

Is the ceiling that high for him this year? I think I get why he's a guy people aren't that excited to draft. Wide receiver, 31. That's pretty low.

31, Greg.

That's right around where Terry McLaren is.

He's going right before Tankdel right now in drafts.

He's going to prove everyone wrong.

We don't need the Tankdel slander.

No, I love Tankdel, but this is right there. Then Rashi Rice, we don't know how much he's going to play. He's right there, too. Anyway. That's fair.

Well, we know how much you all are going to play. Patrick's going to be with me every Sunday night on the recap show. Oh, we. Colleen will be on weekly during the regular season. We've still got a couple of weeks to go, though. Like I said, three weeks to kick off. A couple more weeks that we're going to be getting ready.

Three weeks of summer, Greg.

Every day on NFL Daily. The plan is we're going to have our friend Matt Harmon on the final show of the week on Friday. That's fun. To check that out. Also recap, the Patriots going to have a big appearance by Drake May, so that'll be fun. Until then. See you next time.