Another Sports Podcast
Patriots Upset Bengals, First NFL Sunday, UFC Burns vs Brady
All right. So, big win for the Patriots this past weekend, or I should say yesterday, upset. They were the biggest underdogs of the Sunday slate. They upset the Cincinnati Bengals in what was a fun win. Unexpected win. I thought the Patriots would cover. I had the Patriots plus eight. I thought it was, you know, a little bit of a tough number for Cincinnati to cover there. With all their struggles that they've had in the past, with week one, and pretty much not having T Higgins and very limited use of Jamar Chase in practice. I don't even think he practiced at all, really, in the whole lead up. So, big win for the Patriots. Yeah, definitely did not see a W coming on opening day. I thought it was not outside the realm of possibility, but needless to say, definitely much needed, much needed good head start on the season at 1-0. You know, really would have been easy to feel down in the dumps about the team. If they were to lose yesterday, if they were to get, especially if they were to lose big, they needed a good performance. They needed to at least show something. That was going to show other teams that they were going to be respectable. I mean, they were the favorites to be the number one pick in the draft next year, and as I'm about to get into it, I don't see that being the case. Yeah, I mean, it was really good Patriot win. All three facets of the game, they played well. Special teams, especially. Special teams was definitely an A+ minus the off side that they took on the opening kickoff, but that's neither here nor there. Special teams has kind of been a little bit of a sore point the past few years, which really it shouldn't be because they've invested all this money into special teams over the past few years. You know, you look at that. So, that was an encouraging sign. They forced a fumble on a punt return. Defense played well, especially the pass rush. Didn't really miss Matthew Judon at all, and I think it was a good sign that they got key on white, was involved in all three of the sacks that they had on Joe Burrow. He had two and a half of them, so he was a factor in all three of them. Also forced a fumble as well. That was recovered by the offense on that one. But, you know, as much as it was about the Patriots, it was obviously a lot of it had to do with the Cincinnati Bengals, and just, you know, as good as they've been the past few years, they can't prevent themselves from being the Cincinnati Bengals. It's so funny. And that team seems like it's in trouble. That team felt like they were already entering in on a house of cards, and it felt like if they were going to cash in, it needed to be this year, but, I don't know, doesn't feel that way, doesn't feel that way. It feels like that team's going in the opposite direction. I know it was only one game, but with the contract situations with both Tijegans and Jamar Chase, you know, you combine that with the offensive line that they have still sucks, and they can't help themselves. They're still the Bengals at the end of the day. You know, their tight end is walking into the end zone, and so many fumbles the ball to go line. It's like just stuff that really only happens to them. They're just still, you know, hilarious excuse for an organization sometimes. And I just, I said the other day that I think if all things being healthy, they could be the biggest test for Cincinnati. I still think they still could, if they can figure it out, if they can put it all together, they seem to be the least intimidated by the Kansas City Chiefs anytime they go in there. But I just, I don't think they're going to be able to put it together. I think they're going to have a mediocre season, if I'm being honest with you, if you look at, if you want to base it off of what we saw on Sunday. And they've had bad starts before, but there's just something about this one in particular that feels different. That was a gimme. That was a gimme against the Patriots team that really was kind of limited. You know, Jacobi Brissette played a good game, and go into also him starting over Drake May, which I think the Patriots looked justified if you looked around the league. You know, Brissette had a good game. He didn't turn the ball over, but you know, didn't do much. The definitely was a little bit of a change in the offense this year. They were moving the ball down the field better than, I mean, they still couldn't get it into the end zone. That's going to persist, but at least they were able to move the ball forward unlike last year, so that was an encouraging sign. You know, Brissette kept the ball, didn't turn the ball over, and they handed off and relied on Ramandre Stevenson, which will be interesting to see how long that can last, given, you know, how much can you really rely on running back to get the ball 25 times a game, but he did his job. He ran right through that Cincinnati Bengals defense, which was sort of vulnerable all day. But yeah, no big win for the Patriots, fun win. If you looked around the league, definitely the Patriots were justified in starting Jacoby Brissette. A lot of people questioned that decision. I was of the mind to, you don't need to, but I think it's only beneficial if you have Drake Mayset, at least for a portion of the season. I did think it created a little bit of a weird dynamic, but if they're going to win games and Code Brissette's not going to be a problem, you know, it'll be interesting to see how it goes from here. This will be sort of best case scenario. It'll allow them a team to give more time to May to get acclimated as there won't be any pressure to put them in. It's no longer that they can put off the fans calling for Drake May to get into the game the better. But if you look around the league, you know, all three of the rookie quarterbacks that started Caleb Williams, his team wins. Didn't initially have a great day. Bonix struggled a lot at times in that game. We can see Hawks through two interceptions. Jayden Daniels probably looked the best out of the three, but again, nothing really to write home about. So I think that if Jacoby Brissette was wasn't playing yesterday, you know, you could have left, I mean, sure, there wasn't really anything that he did that May couldn't do, but you also got a factor in that Brissette's a veteran and May would probably be more likely to make a mistake in that situation. So I think all being told, I think the Patriots looked smart, not playing Drake May yesterday, even though they have admitted that he is the better of the two quarterbacks. So that's for that. At least we're not the New York Giants or the Carolina Panthers. Looks like Carolina is again on their way to getting the worst record in the NFL. So the third straight here, I believe that would be. And holy shit, do they look terrible. I saw a lot of people were in on them at plus four, and I regretted not taking the Saints. I didn't play the game because I was unsure of what the Saints are going to be this year. But man, that looked bad just right away. And they're going to be back, at least the good news for them that Quinn Ears look good against Michigan the other day on Saturday. So they're going to be back in the draft looking for another quarterback because Bryce Young has not looked good since he got in there. And yeah, entering year two, he looks just the same. Just the same. So yeah, at least the Patriots aren't that. Same thing with the Giants. I mean another one, Daniel Jones looks horrible against that Minnesota team, which is not very good anyway. And Sam Donald lights them up. So at least the Patriots aren't them. I can say that probably after just one week, it looks like it's pretty clear that the number one overall pick is going to be going to Carolina or the Giants. And that's going to be a giant suck off between the two of them. At least the Patriots are not that. And if you looked around the rest of the AFC, you know, the Bills and in the division, the Bills didn't look that great against Arizona Cardinals. And I'm a little bit bullish on the Arizona Cardinals this year, but again, home game, West Coast team coming across the country, playing a one o'clock game, not usually a good spot for them, and they struggled early on in the game. And it wasn't until the second half when Josh Allen turned it on that they were able to get a win, and they better hope that Josh Allen doesn't get hurt. Or else they're going to be in trouble with that Buffalo team. Same for Miami, struggled against a mediocre Jaguars team. Yeah, I came away looking at the Patriots. I didn't think the Patriots were going to get a win in the division this year, but now I'm looking at all three of them. I mean, I'll even include the Jets even though we haven't seen them. They'll play tonight as I'm recording this. The slide will be recorded. This slide will be posted tonight or tomorrow, depending on when I decide to do it. We haven't seen the Jets yet, so can't really speak too much for them with Aaron Rodgers, but I feel confident that the Patriots are going to get at least one division win I feel like this year. I feel like all three are vulnerable when the Patriots don't look to be as bad as I thought they could have been. I don't know, I feel like 6 and 10 is definitely on the table for the Patriots. Yeah, I mean, the rest of the AFC, no one really stood out to me as a threat to the Chiefs, and I feel like that's going to be the storyline going forward, who can really knock them off, and it's like Baltimore loses to them, blows it late in the Thursday night game. Bills don't look great. Dolphins don't look great. Houston has a so-so game with Indianapolis, who's kind of a dark horse team, didn't really know what to expect from them with Anthony Richardson coming back, so we'll see going forward how Houston looks. But yeah, I don't know, doesn't seem like we're going to get an answer on who can give the Chiefs the best test, and we'll see, I mean, this Sunday, the Bengals got a tough one coming up, they're going over there, so. But yeah, other than that, obviously we had the Gilbert Burns, Sean Brady fight just to switch over to the UFC for a little bit. It's a good fight. I wasn't watching totally 100% in it. I had a little bit of college football going on and I was flipping back and forth between the two, but I did watch pretty much all of the main event. Looked a little bit like what I feared for Gilbert Burns, I think he's just a little bit washed at this point in time. We never really get to see Sean Brady, so he gets a big win in a five round, his first five round main event. I will say though that I appreciate that there was some real grappling going on in that fight, you know, some of these wrestlers that show up, it's just, it's almost like, I'm sorry, I can't, I just can't do the, you know, let me post some cartwheels and some somersaults on Instagram and then I'm going to sit here and double like somebody and then just hold them in their clothes guard the entire time. There were some really good transitions in that fight. Yeah, it was a big win for Sean Brady and we'll see where he goes from there. Hopefully he'll fight more, but it looks like Gilbert is on the wrong end of his career at this point in time. Looks like he's in the swans on. So going forward, I think he was, he took his gloves off. I thought he was going to hang him up, but I guess not. He kind of scampered out of there right at the end of the fight. But, yeah, we got a big fight this weekend with UFC Noce, the O'Malley and Devolish Villy fight, so I'll do a preview on that later on in the week. Other than that, not much else to talk about, so I'm just going to leave it here just to do a short little episode. My thought on my lunch break here, so see you guys next time.