Grant and Danny
Will Brinson Spins Us Around The NFL Ahead Of Week 2
Find our pal Will Brinson of CBS Sports to go around the NFL. Will, how was your week one? It was good, guys, and good. Feel a rejuvenated sense of excitement for football this year. Feels like it's going to be a really, really good season. Very quickly, two things. One a plug and one thing to get off my chest. If you like to win money, check out the early edge pre-game show leading up to all prime time games on our Sportsline YouTube channel. I'm hosting that every Monday, Thursday, and Sunday, and then two, I'm matched up against my godson, Teddy Honeycutt, who's in the listening area for you guys in fantasy football this week. And I just want to let Teddy go publicly. And he's going down. I'm going to destroy him. And I'm going to break him and send him to O2 in the basement. See you, Teddy. Teddy, it's curtains. So I thought the shadow was going to be for your buddy, Zeke. So I'll do that for number three. Shout out to your friend Zeke. There you go. It's Zeke's son. Yeah, there you go. Oh, Zeke's son, Teddy. Yeah, Teddy's going to get worked this weekend. Teddy's going to get put the, Teddy's going to get put the body bag. Wolfback, NWA, NWA Wolfback style. He's going to get these hands. All right, a couple of things you've been tweeting about that I am curious about. Starting with, I saw you had tweeted a little about the usage for the Falcons for Kirk Cousins. I just saw a video of Kirk who was here in DC for many years, like dropping back from under center. And you just can't convince me he's OK. I mean, he does not. He said today, like the Achilles is fine. And we know this, this health versus actually healthy thing. Like, yes, he's not injured anymore. But he also isn't moving like he used to. What's your take after they had him in the pistol and the gun the entire game, which is obviously not his forte? He's a dropback, you know, play action assassin. They didn't do that one time. Oh, yeah. I think it's a major, major concern for this offense. And you look at, I mean, just the whole game. He was, I think he was under center one time. So they're running out of pistol. You know, you don't get the usage in the throws and the targets that you want for the Falcons. He sort of touched down, but you know, sort of a busted coverage. You don't get much straight from London. It's all Ray Ray McCloud and Cousins operating in the pistol, which is just, it's not going to fly for this offense. Ironically, of course, it came against Arthur Smith, the old OC who was so bad there in Atlanta for a few years in the old head coach there. You know, I think it's pretty obvious too. If you go back and watch the Falcons in the Steelers game, there's the carcass throwing of his arm. And you can get away with that a little bit if you're Josh Allen or Patrick Ball, you know, but if you can't plant on your back leg because you're worried about your Achilles, that you're coming back from, as an elder quarterback, and you can't, you know, you're worried about dropping back from under center and running this play action. It's severely limited to your playbook. It's severely limited to your offense. And it does beg the question, if you want to be put a temporal hat on, you know, is this why the Falcons didn't play Michael Pinnock to their final preseason game? Because if Cousins isn't healthy and you paid them all that money, I realize that he's the starter and he's the incumbent. But if your offense is potentially better with Michael Pinnock's, you should absolutely roll Pinnock's out there and let Kirk Cousins get healthy. I know the dynamics don't work like that in the NFL, but you're right. I mean, like, they're out here four sheeting us videos of Cousins doing dropbacks and it doesn't look natural. The whole thing is very concerning if you're a Falcons fan or have the Falcons over win total this year. - Both the Colts and the Packers lost in week one, but different things are going on there. Obviously, right, Green Bay, maybe without Jordan Lawville, there's this weird gamesmanship that maybe plays, maybe doesn't, I don't know. The Colts, I thought were fairly impressive going wire, you know, toe to toe with Houston. Give me your thoughts on that match up and where each team goes from here. - Yeah, very quick. What sports book are we sponsoring here? Are we working with here? I don't want to-- - Fadil guy. - Okay, Fadil doesn't have this odds up yet. I like Fadil as well, but they don't have the odds up for Malik Willis passing yard yet. I've seen it in some other places. - Understand. - That's a hug. - Yeah, it's like one, it's like Fadil guy. - No, I'm still-- - Is it a whole number? Is it an integer? - It's 178 and a half. I saw, I got a 177 and a half and I got that in and the juicer from 120 to 135 thought was betting it. So those are gonna come crashing down. I don't think there's any chance to order to love plays this week. That would be irresponsible by the Packers and for the long term to just pay this guy. So Malik Willis is out there. I think it's a little crazy to suggest spraying the NCL. He's gonna come back in one or two weeks, but I think that timeline will be adjusted based on the outcome against the Colts. They're three point dogs at home. They have, you know, you have Matt LaFloor who's a really good coach. And I think there's a chance you can, you know, work some stuff up where they're running the clock down to absolute zero every time. You see Josh Jacobs. You do a lot of Jaden Reed out of the backfield stuff and you just minimize the number of times that the Colts are on the field. The Colts like to play fast by the way. And then, you know, also minimize the number of times Malik Willis throws to hope your defense steals one for you. So I think that's probably the timeline there for the Colts. It'll be interesting to see the evolution of Anthony Richardson. You know, Gus Bradley said they sold out to stop the pass. And so Joe Nixon just obliterated them in the run game. And Anthony Richardson was like the number two fantasy quarterback but completed nine passes. One of the best throws you'll ever see in your entire life down 60 yards on a rope falling backwards to Alec Pierce. I think you just, his evolution as a passer is what intrigues me about them. I think they can win without that. But yeah, I mean, this is, you know, this game probably determines how quickly Jordan Love comes back. - Will Brinson on Grant and Danny? I'm gonna start this question with the craziest status I've seen so far this season. From NFL on CBS that you retweeted, Aaron Rodgers has not thrown for 300 pass yards in a game since week 14, 2021. To put in that in the context, Andy Dalton has done it three times since with three different teams. He's done it with the Bears, Saints and Panthers. - Weird. - Since Rodgers last did it. What did you make of the Jets? It's really early. It was one game. They're playing against a potential Super Bowl team. So I'm sure too much is being made out of them, struggling. But I don't even mean to lead you in that way as much as like what were some of your takeaways from our first look at Rodgers and Hackett and Wilson together in New York? - Yeah, I think on Rodgers specifically, there was that one drive where he was, you know, the camera caught him like turning and smirking. He was like, yeah. What do you like ripped one into Garrett Wilson? Breeze Hall's usage is just through the roof. He looks like he's gonna have a monster season as long as he stays healthy. Catch it. I think he'll catch a ton of passes from Rodgers this year and run the ball well. They should beat up on bad teams. My biggest concern and with Rodgers, you know, I think if you take the cousins thing and sort of extrapolate it by a couple of, I think it was like eight weeks or something like that between their Achilles chairs. You know, Rodgers looks like he's about eight weeks, you know, front of the ball and Kirk Cousins or at least had more time to regroup and to get healthy. You can sort of tell that. I think the bigger concern sneakily is that defense for the Jets. They, you know, for some relics not in there, you know, they lose Bryce off. You don't have as good a pass rush as you did. They got gassed by Jordan Mason, who's I think is a really good player. But, you know, if you, Chris, you know, Chris McCaffrey, you feel like you're gonna stop the run. I think a lot of teams can really just eat with their running backs against, and that's why I think you can win this week too, 'cause they don't, you know, they have Hopkins and Ridley. But you can just like let these running backs and let these tight ends operate over the middle of the field, pound the football. And I'm just not sure the Jets are gonna slow people down the way that they want, unless you can force people into a situation where you're throwing at those corners. So, Rogers probably will work in progress. Jets defense, a bit of a red flag to me. - I'm buddy Will Brinson with this here on G&D. So, we always offer all the caveats, right? Well, it's week one, flooky stuff happens. You know, this isn't a gavel slam just 'cause I have the preseason has gone over the last few years, et cetera, blah, blah, blah, usual caveats apply. That said, is there any team that you've changed your opinion on after their week one showing? 'Cause I got one in mind. - Yeah, I mean, Falcons kind of come to mind. Who are you? - Cleveland is mine. - Who do you have in mind? - I thought Cleveland would be frisky and competitive and tough and they were none of those things. - No, I was down on Cleveland. I actually Pittsburgh by the team, I changed my mind on. I was down on them. I think they're just gonna be Mike Tomlinesque and find a way to nine wins once again. Now, Cleveland I was down on, I didn't believe in Watson and thought, if you look at Jim Schwartz's defense is for whatever reason, and I liked Jim Schwartz a lot, but if you look at his defense is typically speaking, he was just like first year spike where they play really well. And then the second year they can kind of fall off a little bit. They're also not very good on the road and great at home. They had a good score or a good record in one score games, point differential, screen, you know, fall back to Earth. You win, you make the playoffs and win 11 games with five different quarterbacks starting. I mean, there's just a lot of luck involved there. And I think this Watson thing off field and on the field is casting a shatter over that whole organization. I mean, it's like, you make the, Baker maybe it was lighting up the commanders down at Tampa. Oh, sorry guys, but you know, and then like Watson, you just had all this guaranteed money and you can't get out from under it unless you get some sort of, you know, like a deuce ex machina flying down from Roger Goodell that nullifies his contract, right? It's a, it just feels like just bad visor on the entire organization. - All right. So rapid fire here. These are the toughest games for me to pick. I just want to get your thoughts on just straight up, right? And I'm not worried about the spread necessarily this week. I have a sneaky feeling the dolphins beat the bills at home tonight. What do you think of that? - I like the bills. I like the over better. I think it really, really fun game tonight. - All right. How about this one? Again, I think this is really hard to pick. We were just talking about the Browns. Cleveland at Jacksonville. - Jack, Jacksonville is just a better team right now, I think. And like, lots of things good against the settlers, but I'm not buying his arm, his shoulders test man. - Is there any chance New England at home can get to two and O and just shove it on Seattle defensively? - Yes. Good article in the Boston Herald today about how the Patriots have incorporated Mike McDonald's stuff into their defense. Sort of a thing that Bill Belichick wouldn't do. I think that defense is going to be a problem. Seattle's offensive line, a big problem. - All right. So you kind of like that upset a little bit. And then the last one would be, you were just talking about the Steelers in Pittsburgh. I would take them to beat the Broncos going away, but Steelers Broncos in Denver running with fields again. So there's not going to be a whole lot in the passing game there. Botanix is at home, not on the road. I kind of think Denver gets to one and one maybe. What do you think there? - Yeah, I got Denver. Sean Payton is not losing to a team with Russell Wilson on the roster. And Russ might put on shoulder pads and like an extra fair shoulder pads and a helmet and do wind sprints the entire time. Warming up to the game. I think you see a much better version of Botanix. They'll move around a bunch. And Denver gets a close one, and that one particularly, if you get in three points of Denver, I think you have to go with it. The total's like 36 and a half. - Been on the spot here, Will, but is there an O and one team where you kind of have circled where you're going? They are under a lot of pressure this week. Otherwise, dot, dot, dot, take it wherever you want. - I mean, I think it's not, I mean, maybe a little more micro into the roster of it, but I think you could say the New York Giants, you know, this is a team, Malik Davis popped up on the injury report today. They look just abysmal against Sam Darnell in the Viking. Darnell was great, don't get me wrong. But, you know, Sigmund Barca is incredible, like the Eagles, Danny Dimes, Stinks, you know, it's probably all ownership's fault for ordering him to go in a certain direction. But now, I believe that it's the game's in New York, right? It's not in Washington, right? - No, it's in the States, it's here. - No, it's in the States, okay, okay. It's in the States, you're not gonna get the booze, but sorry, I'm kind of confused on that one. Yeah, it's, I mean, like Washington's defense doesn't look good. I think we agree with that. The offensive line is a problem. Jay Daniels is gonna be falling as hell and probably run all over the place. But if you're in New York, I mean, you gotta own two and the Cowboys look good in other week, the Eagles look good in other week, and, you know, you lose in commanders, you're, I think the pressure gets real turned up on Daniel Jones. I mean, this might be a figure job game and real, real turned up on Brian Dable and Joe Shane too. - Yeah, for sure. What do we know about T. Hagen's status for week two? Not a great start to him trying to get a contract. - Okay, so I'm not, I don't wanna like, I'm not saying this isn't like live, I don't wanna be like conspiratorial here and like say something I shouldn't, but I honestly don't recall the exact moment when he got hurt in practice, which is like all of a sudden he had a hamstring, but nobody, there's like he showed up in the injury report with the hamstring. I mean, I'm not saying he's not hurt. It's just Adam Schrefter tweeted something about this or said something about this on ESPN or NFL Live earlier in the off season, like way earlier in the off season, like April. I was like, if T. Hagen's isn't close to play, if he isn't completely healthy watch, he won't go out there for a game. - Oh, that's a good point. And there was like, he got into like a fight with an analyst. And now that I think about it, I don't remember which one the player it was, but they were like yelling at each other a little bit. - Yeah, they're like, oh, we were lost to you, maybe. - Yeah. - There was just no way. There's no way he's gonna sit and look, like the bagels, so you have Jamart Chasing T. Hagen. T. Hagen's is like the first taking the second round, Jamart Chasing, top five pick or top 10 pick, whatever it was, you paid for all this money and you don't wanna pay his weapons. They franchise tag T. Hagen's, it's clear they're doing the Jesse Bates thing where they draft his replacement and Jermaine Burton and you let him go after making the player franchise tag year. It seems to me like T. Hagen is sort of doing a, nah, I don't think so guys. And so if he's on the injury report at all, on Wednesday or Thursday, I don't think you're gonna see him on Sunday. And, you know, it sounds like there's been rumblings, like week three might already be off the table. - Wow. - Are the Rams good? - Yes, but they just put three offensive linemen in Puke and the crew on IR, which is a big problem. You know, they went out and revamped the offensive line to be a really good run team. I still think that they'll be fine defensively, you know, they lose their dial. They're not gonna be as good. Could see a shoot out with Arizona. I, that's one where, to me, the Rams are an easy pick. Sean McPhee's, I think 12 and one and 11, two and one. The 12 and one straight up, 11, two and one against the spread against Arizona since he got to L.A., which is just wild. And like Mattie Stafford with Cooper Cup, they still have some underrated guy. I think Colby Parkinson's really good. I think Wittington, the rookie's good. They have Ty Johnson. They have guys that can fill in Demarkis Robinson. They can make it work on the other pieces with Stafford. The offensive line is better concerned for me because Stafford needs time back there. They need to go to run block for Kyron Williams. It's not gonna be an issue this week. Arizona has nothing up front in terms of the pass rush. But moving forward, that offensive line, if it deteriorates any further, you do worry about Stafford taking too many shots. - What'd you think of Jaden Daniels in week one? - I think, I thought that he was as advertised in the cliff kings very often. - So you're not as, I mean, we're very skeptical Kingsbury guys ourselves, but you're not necessarily a pilot. - That was very, that was very, that was very skeptical. Like, I mean, you see, I feel like I see 40 cliff Kingsbury tweets a day and it's, you know, they're turning the car and spending 90% of his time on one side. There's not a bunch of pre snap motion. They're not running fast. They're trying to pound the ball. You don't have a great offensive line. And it really deteriorates into Jaden Daniels kind of running first. Like it, I mean, you know, it's sort of like kind, you know, when Cliff was running Arizona with Tyler, you know, like where it's like, all right, look, look, let's run. And I just don't know, I think if you're, I think to really win games, there needs to be maybe a little more systematic approach, right, where you sort of have a structure of an offense versus simply the playground. Like the playground stuff is fun. And look, I've got to be famous. Can you play them all over the place? I think it's a great talent. I think it's going to be fun to watch. But you know, you do worry about that a little bit, especially in, you know, a city where the last time you had a number two overall pick that ran too much, things didn't end up well. Well, thank you as always, buddy. Enjoy the game tonight and this weekend. All right, guys. Have a great weekend, too, pal. Love talking to our guy at Will Brinson on Grant and Danny. Does his work over at CBS?